The Ukrainian-Russian war rages on, and for people like Olena Nekrasova, a native Ukrainian living here in Reno, it’s a nerve wracking time for the present and what the future holds.
“The Russians are not keeping their words, so the talks that they had the day before, means nothing I think,” Nekrasova said of current peace talks and battlefield strategies. “Everybody in Ukraine thinks they just want to move the army to different places and make harder attacks from different places. So I don’t know, and I really don’t think it will stop very fast,” she said.
Nekrasova came to the United States two years ago from Kharkiv and has described the war in her native country as horrible. After feeling helpless being so far from the situation, she was the driving force in putting a rally together in Reno in support of Ukraine on Feb. 27th.
“I was sure a lot of people here from Ukraine had the same feeling so I decided maybe if we combine and say ‘Support Ukraine’ it would be better for everybody. So, I just decided it, and I made a post in Russian groups [on Facebook] and everybody said yes, let's do it. So it was just one and a half days to organize everything and I didn’t realize so many people would follow us, not just Ukrainians and Russians but Polish people and Americans, there were over 100 people there at the rally,” she said.
Nekrasova also put together a donation drive to help get food and clothing to the citizens in Ukraine. While it was incredibly warming to see the outpouring of support from the community, she explains that the logistics of getting donations to the country right now are extremely difficult.
“We helped a lot of people, and people ask me to do it again but there are so many obstacles for now and I’m not sure if I can do it,” she said.
She explained that the company that ships the donations over to specific cities and places within those cities, is expensive. Without the help of a non-profit organization, the cost to pack, move and ship the items falls to her. Once the donations are received by the country, because she is an individual and not a non-profit the taxes are around 30 percent of the whole amount to get them across the border.
“It's not free to send to Ukraine to ship it… [people] can just donate money and we have a lot of fundraisers in Ukraine. The government made some, so [people] can just donate money and I think that's the best way for now,” she said.
The most difficult part of the conflict is worrying about her family back home. She described her daily life as continually checking in with them, making sure they’re okay and have food to eat.
“All day I just wait for any information from Ukraine, what is going on. And you think about it all the time… Like the first two weeks when it just started it was the most hard I think, and now it is better because you understand that you can do nothing, you cannot control this situation. I just want my family alive and nothing to happen to them. You can make more money, you can buy everything, you just cannot buy life and that is the one thing I care about right now,” she said.
The city where she is from, Kharkiv, has been one of the hardest hit during the war.
“My mama she had to move in Ukraine, she is in the middle of Ukraine because right now there are no bombs there yet and she cannot leave Ukraine because her parents are there and they are pretty old so they cannot leave them… The most horrible thing is that my mom she has no place to live right now because a missile destroyed her apartment. It burned it down so there is nothing there. So if it’s done, if the war is over, she has no place to go back to,” she said.
Nekrasova said it’s difficult to think about the future because everything can change in just two minutes. However, she is grateful for the positive response from the community and feels Ukraine will succeed in its opposition to Russia.
“I just want to say thank you so much to all the Americans who really support Ukraine… I see very clear[ly] that everybody really wants to help somehow and there is support. We need it really really really,” she said.