Ukrainian law student to deliver program on third anniversary of Russian invasion

A Ukrainian law student attending Central Methodist University this semester will deliver a powerful program on Monday evening, a day that marks the third anniversary of the Russian invasion into her country. Khrystyna Borshchuk, 19, will begin the program at 6 p.m. in Linn Memorial United Methodist Church in Fayette. The presentation is free, and the public is invited to attend.

Borshchuk is from Ternopil, a city of approximately a quarter-million people in western Ukraine on the banks of the Seret River. She studies law at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine. She is spending the Spring semester at Central as a part of the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD) program, a U.S. Department of State-funded initiative that sponsors undergraduate students from developing countries to study in the U.S. for a semester.

During an interview with the Advertiser on Thursday, Borshchuk described her life growing up during the invasion and wishes to spread her generation’s vision of a free Ukraine.

“Our goal is to spread our culture, to talk about our country,” Borshchuk explained about the UGRAD program. “I’m here to help spread awareness about my country and our situation. I’m here to show facts so people decide by themselves what is happening in my country and how it is important to at least know about us.”

While most of Russia’s invasion is focused on the eastern side of Ukraine, Borshchuk said that pretty much all of Ukraine is under attack by Russian rockets and drones, particularly Lviv, where she attends her university. Many nights, she is awakened by air alarms. She grabs a go-bag with a sleeping bag, clothes, a coat, and other provisions and waits in the corridor of her apartment with other tenants until it is safe to go to an underground shelter. There, she often works on homework throughout the night while getting only a few hours of sleep before returning to the rigors of law school the next day. She and others in the shelter keep track of rocket trajectories through the social media app Telegram.

“The whole country suffers from airstrikes. We have air alarms, which is something that every Ukrainian experiences every day,” Borshchuk explained.

She said that in the early days of the war, life was chaotic as the people there did not know what was happening. Three years later, knowledge is quickly disseminated over the internet about what is headed their way, be it a rocket or a drone, and where it is likely to strike.

“Usually, it is a lucky day when you have an air alarm for only an hour or 30 minutes,” she said. “It can get to three, four, or five hours, and you just sit in the basement. You just want to sleep.”

She describes images of the metro stations packed with people seeking the safety of below ground, with children playing around the subways.

Although Monday is the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion, she stressed how the war has been raging for far longer, citing Russia’s forced annexation of Crimea in early 2014. “That’s when Russia took part of our country,” she said. “But if we delve into history, it’s been more than three decades since Russia tries to capture our country.”

Borshchuk hopes Monday’s presentation will interest those in attendance to seek further information about the conflict. “I’m not even talking about choosing sides. You have to know what is happening in the middle of Europe in the 21st century,” she said.

The war has taken a toll not only on the infrastructure of the country, as Russia has sent rockets into apartment buildings and hospitals, but on the way her generation of Ukrainians live their lives. Guilt has become a regular sentiment attached to what should be joyous, carefree moments in the life of a teenage university student. But parties and celebrations are tinged with regret for those who cannot be there, other teenagers who have taken up arms in defense of their country. She and her fellow law students even provide free legal consultations for Ukrainian veterans.

“This is the way we try and thank them for saving our lives,” Borshchuk said. “For giving us the opportunity to study. I’m thankful to the soldiers for their defense and for giving me the opportunity to be here. Because if it were not for them, I would be dead.”

Girls and boys her age, she said, are living half of their lives because of the war. “When we should have those primary student lives, we don’t know what to do. The war completely changed me.”

The Ukrainian soldiers encourage their fellow citizens to enjoy their lives as much as they can, with the attitude that doing so is an act of defiance against their aggressors. Events often double as fundraisers for soldiers and the military. Those living in eastern portions under attack keep working and studying, focusing on what will someday come after the war.

“They say, ‘if we stop working, what is going to be after? If we stop studying, what is going to be after.’ So we cannot stop. We just live under rockets, under booming all the time,” Borshchuk said.

She described how the city of Lviv, where she studies law, is often propagandized by Russian media as “a city full of Nazis.”

“They believe we are so pro-Ukrainian there. We talk in Ukrainian. That’s why they’re afraid of this city.”

Borshchuk said she plans to pursue international humanitarian law to ultimately represent her country globally. “I want to be the voice of Ukraine in the international field. At the end of the day, we are looking at those politicians who do something without our consent. So, it is better to become that politician.”

She said that sentiment is shared by most Ukrainians her age, many of whom are on the front lines of the war. Those not in battle spend extra time fundraising and volunteering.

In the end, Borshchuk said the goal of her and her peers is to keep Ukraine an independent country and to preserve its original borders from 1991 when the nation declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

“We want to have those boundaries and live in peace.”