Chicago-Born Wife of Ukraine's Former President Urges World Not to Look Away From the War

Kateryna Yushchenko, the Chicago-born wife of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, has a message for the world as the war with Russia continues: "Please, don't forget us!" She said the greatest hope Ukrainians have is that people abroad do not grow weary of the conflict and move on, which she described as exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin is counting on.

She made the appeal last Thursday, after spending three months living "out of suitcases in 10 different countries," where she spoke, wrote and met with world leaders and refugees. Back in Ukraine, she said, being home is "wonderful" and "less frightening than I expected."

Yushchenko is the child of war refugees who fled Soviet aggression and grew up in Chicago's Ukrainian community. She and her immediate family are now on Putin's list of enemy targets. She said she has been rereading her childhood diaries, which recall attending St. Volodymyr Orthodox Church, Ukrainian dances and a mother who made her read Ukrainian literature. "I wish my children could also live in a time of peace," she said.

Since returning, she has been inspired by the "gratitude and determination" Ukrainians feel about the help their country is receiving, though she said that is mixed with "anger and hate" over what the war has done. People she meets sound like the refugees she met across Europe, she said: they describe the horrors they witnessed but end by thanking God it was not worse, or by voicing confidence the war will end soon. She said she does not know where the optimism comes from, but suspects years of repression and war have built resilience and a sense of community.

Air raid alerts sound twice a day on Ukrainian mobile apps, she said, and people have grown used to them. "No one panics," she said, though a fatalistic feeling accompanies them. She said she was more frightened when Russian troops and tanks were only 20 kilometers away. Russian forces have now gathered again at the Belarusian border, and some Kyiv residents whisper of another invasion, but she said, "we trust our army." Her father's home village in the Kharkiv region is occupied, and she fears she will not be able to visit her relatives' graves.

She also shared stories from people around her. One friend's elderly parents are stuck behind enemy lines in a hospital in Kherson. The friend's wife is trying to buy them a Russian mobile phone card and pay the nurses in rubles, because Ukrainian cards and currency no longer work there. Her husband volunteered for the army, while his mother, the mayor of an occupied town, is cooperating with the enemy.

A co-worker's village north of Kyiv is flooded, and he lives in fear that a weakened dam on the Kyiv Sea will break and wash away his family home; his wife and child are in Spain. Another friend now lives in Italy with her child. The brother-in-law of Yushchenko's doctor was killed defending Azovstal, and his sister fled Mariupol through Russia, traveling several days to reach St. Petersburg and cross into Estonia.

A close friend was held captive in her home in Bucha by Russian soldiers for 10 days before escaping to central Ukraine. She returned home only to find she was still traumatized and scared, Yushchenko said, yet she is organizing new cultural and educational projects. Bucha is now part of a war crimes investigation. "People are returning, rebuilding, determined to overcome and live normal lives," Yushchenko said.

She hopes one day to bring to Chicago an exhibit of war posters by artists "making statements to the world through art." In the meantime she listens in her car to a new station, Radio Bayraktar: Music of our Victory, which plays new songs every day. "We are sad, but we are also more determined than ever," she said. "Please, don't forget us."