MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – On a Thursday night in early March, Wesleyan University students Julia Kulchytska, Kiryl Beliauski, Kseniia Guliaeva and Lera Svirydzenka gathered in the living room of Russian House, an on-campus residential building. They were making posters and solidifying last-minute details for a rally in support of Ukraine; Putin had invaded just a week prior. For these four students, supporting Ukraine was personal. Ms. Kulchytska is an international student from Ukraine. Mr. Beliauski and Ms. Svirydzenka are originally from Minsk, Belarus, and Ms. Guliaeva is from St. Petersburg, Russia.
“This full-scale war is a logical consequence of the world ignoring that this war has been going on since 2014 and not taking enough actions to stop it,” Ms. Kulchytska said in an interview with Wesleyan’s newspaper, The Argus, on February 28.
For her and her co-organizers, doing nothing in the face of the invasion was not an option. Ms. Kulchytska is a sophomore from Sambir, a small town in western Ukraine. She is attending Wesleyan University through a program called Ukraine Global Scholars. Although she’s thousands of miles from the war, she has found ways to take action while at college.
Apart from co-organizing a rally at Wesleyan University, she’s spoken with Connecticut senators and legislators, translated American documents for the Ukrainian government and fundraised for Ukraine’s humanitarian and military causes. She’s also worked alongside Katja Kolcio, a professor of dance at the university and director of the school’s Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, to translate and facilitate weekly live stream panels with Ukrainian activists and civic leaders.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, Wesleyan students, faculty and the greater community have come together in support of Ukraine, uniting across disciplines, nationalities and politics.
Live streams
Over the past two months, Wesleyan hosted eight live stream panels with Ukrainian activists, journalists and civic leaders in a series called “Standing With Ukraine.”
Ms. Kolcio, who is a Ukrainian American, co-organized the events with Barry Chernoff, the director of the school’s College of the Environment. Ms. Kolcio has been running resilience and psycho-social wellness programs in Ukraine since 2014. In the past eight years, she and Mr. Chernoff developed a joint environmental studies program with colleagues at Taras Shevchenko National University in Ukraine.
Ms. Kolcio and Mr. Chernoff sought to build on these international connections through the panel series, and to invite the Wesleyan community to hear Ukrainian perspectives.
Ms. Guliaeva, Ms. Kulchytska, Mr. Beliauski and Ms. Svirydzenka all stressed the importance of these panels.
“[The live streams] were very important in terms of providing people with information, mostly [Americans] and how they can help, what they should do, and how they should react and understand this war,” Ms. Guliaeva said. “A lot of people from Middletown, [Conn.], not just members of Wesleyan, came to those streams and I think that our message was that everyone can help.”
People tuned into the streams from across the United States. Recordings are available online for anyone to watch, and they can be found at https://www.wesleyan.edu/cgs/ukraine/Videos.html.
U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut joined the streams to speak with panelists. Mr. Blumenthal, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, attended a special stream on April 29 to speak with civic leaders in Dnipro, Ukraine.
“We need to provide this military aid, whatever Ukrainians need, whatever [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelens-kyy asks us to do,” Mr. Blumenthal said during the panel. “We need to be with Ukraine, not just in words and in promise, but in action.”
Another panelist, Dr. Pavlo Khazan, a Ukrainian environmentalist, scientist and now an unexpectedly-turned officer in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, spoke to Mr. Blumenthal about the military’s needs.
“We need [more]equipment, not only artillery and guns and anti-missile weapons, but we also need engineering equipment and radio and reconnaissance equipment,” Mr. Khazan said. “We also need basic collaboration with your officers who are experts.”
Panelist Nataliya Chernyshova, a member of the Dnipro City Council, urged Mr. Blumenthal and panel viewers to speak up about Ukraine. Dnipro is a Ukrainian city that is 60 miles from the front lines of the war.
“[We want] people all over the world to know that this is a real war. This is not just an operation or endeavor,” Ms. Chernysho-va said. “Please don’t forget it and please send this message to other people.”
Although the live streams focused on Ukraine, Ms. Svirydzenka helped coordinate a special panel with university students in Belarus and Russia. One panelist (a friend of Ms. Svirydzenka’s) attended the stream right after she was on trial for protesting in Russia. The panelists offered ways to aid the free flow of information to Belarus and Russia and to support activists who risk their lives by opposing the war.
“It was important that those streams achieved [an understanding of]what kinds of circumstances Belarusian and Russian people are in, and just try to understand what it costs for them to protest,” Mr. Beliauski said. He and Ms. Svirydzenka both fled Belarus because of their political activism.
Drives and donations
In addition to on-campus events, the Wesleyan community collaborated with the greater Middletown, Conn., community to aid Ukraine.
On April 9-10, Wesleyan University, Middletown’s South Fire District Fire Department, the local Community Health Center and the Community Foundation of Middlesex County cosponsored an equipment drive for Ukrainian firefighters.
Ms. Kolcio and other organizers of the drive partnered with the Lviv Community Self Help organization and the Lviv Oblast Fire Department in Ukraine. In the event’s press release, South Fire District Chief James Trzaski noted the role played by Ukrainian firefighters and other first responders in the war.
“Emergency responders risk their own lives to save others by being on the front lines of providing critical assistance to those in need,” Mr. Trzaski said in the press release. “We seek to provide the highest level of support to these brave men and women.”
Fire Departments from across the state drove to Middletown to contribute fire equipment, while Middletown residents dropped off medical aid. Mr. Blumenthal and Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim joined in on the drive, working alongside Ms. Kulchytska, Mr. Beliauski, Ms. Sviry-dzenka, Ms. Guliaeva and Ms. Kolcio as they packaged up supplies. By the end of the weekend, volunteers and sponsors of the drive sent seven tons of specialized fire equipment to Lviv.
Pushing for legislative action
On March 11, Mr. Murphy hosted a press conference at the Connecticut State House in Hartford, Conn., to speak on the war in Ukraine. Ms. Kolcio attended the conference with Ms. Kulchytska to speak with Mr. Murphy about what the United States can do to further support Ukraine.
Mr. Murphy called on U.S. President Joe Biden to send more military supplies to Ukraine, and for the United States to support Ukrainian refugees as they flee the violence in their country.
“Here in Connecticut, we have one of the biggest, most vibrant Ukrainian American communities in the entire country,” Mr. Murphy said. “We have the capacity to welcome refugees that are fleeing the violence in Ukraine.”
Ms. Kolcio spoke as well, saying that, “Many people ask, ‘what can we do? We’re so far away.’ And of course we can donate, and so many Americans are generously doing that, but I also want to say that what we can do is pay attention.”
She discussed the activism on campus, led by Ms. Kulchytska and her peers, and encouraged the public to take advantage of the rights and freedoms in the U.S. by taking action.
“Speak with your congressional representatives because they’re listening,” Ms. Kolcio said. “Organize, because we won’t be beaten for doing that. Your attention, awareness and standing up speaks volumes.”
Responsibility of academic institutions
Ms. Kulchytska said that the Wesleyan community can pressure government officials to act by raising awareness on an institutional level.
“A lot of faculty can be government advisors, a lot of alumni are in the government,” Ms. Kulchytska told The Argus. “When attention is directed at this, especially in an academic institution, there is more of a chance that they would feel a nudge to take action and offer more support.”
When Ms. Kulchytska, Mr. Beliauski, Ms. Svirydzenka and Ms. Guliaeva first organized to support Ukraine on campus, they hoped it would be a short-term job. But months later, Ms. Kulchytska and her peers, Ms. Kolcio and other local leaders have continued to organize as the war persists.
Wesleyan University recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University in Ukraine, and arranged to bring a Ukrainian counterpart and her family to the U.S. as a Wesleyan Visiting Scholar.
Ms. Kolcio and Ms. Kulchytska are currently collaborating with the Yale School of Medicine Child Trauma Center to plan in-person instruction for working with trauma-afflicted children from the Ukrainian towns of Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka.
In the fall semester, Ms. Kolcio will co-teach a course on the war in Ukraine with Peter Rutland, a Wesleyan professor of government. The course will also feature lectures by scholars in Ukraine.
Through the summer and beyond, Ms. Kulchytska will continue to organize students on campus to bring attention to Ukraine.
At present, a blue and yellow flag flies over City Hall in Middletown, which serves as both a symbol of solidarity and as a call to action.
On June 9, Yuriy Fedynsky, a modern-day kobzar, played his bandura on Main Street for the Middletown community to hear kobzar news from Ukraine.
Mr. Fedynsky, a Ukrainian American composer and musician, is touring the U.S. during a brief break from his work in Ukraine, where he spent the last months playing in bomb shelters for patients wounded in the war.
Mr. Fedynsky said he seeks to “kobzar the world.” Each note he plays is an effort to ensure that Russian attempts to erase the kobzar tradition fail, he said.
As Ms. Kulchytska said, ignoring the war or being silent about it only makes matters worse; people must spread the news, take action and speak up. Each effort is a small step, but together the programs in Middletown informed many, garnered life-saving supplies and brought together a whole and diverse community around a common cause.