'It's just devastating': Suburbanites with ties to Ukraine are saddened, angered by Russia's attack
Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine has shocked, saddened and angered suburbanites with familial ties to the embattled nation.
“It's just devastating,” said John Jaresko, parish president at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Bloomingdale. “I feel like this is a bad dream, a nightmare I can't wake up from.”
Jaresko said he spoke by phone Thursday with the head of the orthodox church in Ukraine, and the situation is dire.
“He's in hiding,” said Jaresko, of Bloomingdale. “He's got a target on his back and he can't get out because everything is blocked. We feel helpless.”
Jaresko said the attack is an assault on democracy.
“This is all part of the (former) Soviet playbook,” he said. “They've bombed power plants and airports. They're going to try and block people from getting out and make them all pay with their lives. It's just unconscionable.”
Jaresko's mother, Mary Jaresko, is flying a U.S. flag and a blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag outside her Wood Dale home to show support for the people of her homeland.
“I feel great fear for my country,” said Mary Jaresko, who came to the U.S. from Ukraine as a 10-year-old refugee after World War II. “They don't deserve this. They just want freedom.”
Schaumburg resident Serghei Iaseniuk and his wife, Anna Kasminska, are worried about family in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.
The couple's 4-year-old son, Nicholas, is there with Anna's parents, who are Ukrainian, so he can receive speech therapy at a center for children with disabilities.
Iaseniuk, who is from neighboring Moldova, said his in-laws called after the attack started and they heard explosions.
“They got scared. They started panicking,” Iaseniuk said.
Iaseniuk's in-laws had emergency bags already packed in case Russia attacked. They were trying to drive hundreds of miles to Poland to escape the violence, but Iaseniuk didn't know if they've reached safety.
“It's hard for me to keep in touch with them,” he said. “They're having problems with the internet.”
Iaseniuk was puzzled by Russia's military assault on the Kyiv area.
“It's unacceptable,” he said. “It's 2022 - no one does it like this anymore.”
Both of Schaumburg resident Lesia Kuropas' parents were Ukrainians who immigrated to the U.S. after World War II. Kuropas' father has passed on, but she said her 90-year-old mother is “inconsolable” about what's happening in her native country.
“My mother called me sobbing late last night,” Kuropas said. “I turned the TV on ... and immediately fell apart.”
Kuropas said she grew up hearing stories from her parents “about how they suffered under the Soviet Union.”
“I was so hopeful that it would never go back to the way it was,” she said.
As news of the invasion broke, Helen Horbenko of Fox River Grove heard from her niece, who spent the night hiding in an underground parking lot as bombs went off nearby. Her niece lives in Lutsk, about 80 miles south of the Belarus border and about 230 miles west of Kyiv.
“This is horrifying news,” said Horbenko, whose parents are Ukrainian. “I'm devastated, as many Ukrainians around the world must be now. How can this invasion be allowed to happen now?”
Kuropas, who visited Ukraine in 2015, has spoken to relatives and a friend in Ukraine since the invasion began. As of Thursday all were safe but “petrified,” Kuropas said.
“What's going to happen to them?” she said. “What's it going to be like in a day, or a week?”
Aaron Dorman of Shaw Media contributed to this story.