02/25/2022
As the daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant, Putin's attack on Ukraine strikes a deep personal chord. When my father was 11, the Russians rolled into his hometown of Lviv and took over; watching footage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine today, it's hard to believe Ukrainian citizens are reliving the same form of Russian imperialistic aggression more than 80 years later and after 30 years of democracy. My father's story is that of many Ukrainians and it tells the tale of why we, as world citizens, cannot stand by without speaking out--loudly--and standing in unity against Russia.
A few months after Russian troops rolled into Lviv in 1940 and just before Christmas 1940, my father's father (Josef, my paternal grandfather) was abducted in the middle of the night by 10 NKVD (Russian) agents and imprisoned in the Lontska Street Prison; six months later, he was killed before a Russian firing squad. My father's mother, Anna Kurylko, spent those six months pleading for her husband's release. And, when she got word that he had been executed just before Russian troops fled Lviv, she and my then 11-year-old father searched through the hundreds of bodies in the prison where Josef had been executed but never found his body. We still have family in Ukraine; this morning, a cousin who visited five years ago sent us pictures of her hometown of Ivano frankivsk being bombed by the Russians.
As the daughter of a Ukrainian who prayed Ukraine would never suffer this kind of Russian aggression again, I am sad. As a democrat who believes in national sovereignty, Russia's unprovoked aggression angers me. As a world citizen, it frightens me. Please sign this petition and then share it with all those you know so that all the brave Ukrainian and Russian citizens marching in opposition to Putin's invasion feel our solidarity and so that all our world leaders know they have our support in putting an end to Putin's reign of terror.
Russia's acts of aggression will be devastating to the Ukrainian people, the Russian people & the world. Add your name: The U.S. must work with international allies to hold Putin accountable, bring this conflict to an end, & support the Ukrainian people.
