Diana Mytrofanova (left) and Kalyna Rondiak (right) are some of the students on Ohio State’s campus who constantly fear for their families in Ukraine. Credit: Courtesy of Diana Mytrofanova and Kalyna Rondiak

This story was originally published March 7 and updated April 20 for the commencement edition.

Diana Mytrofanova spends her mornings calling her family in Ukraine to make sure they are still there.

Mytrofanova, a first-year in psychology, said she was born in Rivne, Ukraine, and not many Ohio State community members understand the pain she’s felt as her country is under attack.

“It changed my entire routine, the way I do things, my focus in school,” Mytrofanova said. “For the first couple days, all I could do was scroll on my phone because it was everywhere, like the news and social media. I could not do anything but scroll on my phone, sleep and cry.”

Russia invaded and declared war on Ukraine Feb. 23. The Russian military has since attacked major Ukrainian cities, including the capital city, Kyiv. The initial invasion has slowed, though Russian troops began a large-scale attack on eastern Ukraine Tuesday. 

Kalyna Rondiak, a third-year in marketing and psychology, said she was born in the U.S. and moved back to Ukraine when she was 1 year old. She spent 15 years in Kyiv before returning to the U.S. 

Rondiak said her father, who runs a company and lives in Ukraine, drove to Romania at the end of February to escape the invasion, but she still has family and friends near Kyiv, where multiple missile strikes have occurred.

“It took a couple hours to get ahold of them and it’s just, like, a couple hours is, like, torture — you see that there’s explosions going on, and you can’t make contact with them,” Rondiak said. “I literally wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Mytrofanova, whose family lives throughout Ukraine, said her entire life is still in the country, and she has found it difficult to separate her everyday life from the war.

“There’s nothing but guilt, I guess, like even spending time with my friends or wanting to go out and kind of take my mind off stuff — like, I feel so guilty,” Mytrofanova said. “My grandma has to go down to the bunker a couple times a day because the sirens will go off. My uncle will spend nights in his bathroom with six other people because there’s bombs everywhere.”

Mytrofanova said she thinks it is difficult for people without a direct connection to Ukraine to understand the war and the feelings she experiences on a daily basis. As a result, she said she has not felt as much support from the Ohio State community.

Some professors have been understanding of her situation and granted extensions on assignments, while others have acted as if nothing has changed, Mytrofanova said.

“It just shows how people are and how people can be, so I’ve been using every social media platform I can think of to spread word, to show people what is going on,” Mytrofanova said. “It’s so abstract to them that I don’t think they’re exactly understanding what war is and how it affects people.”

Rondiak said when the Russian invasion began, some of her closest friends were making jokes in their group chat about the situation. She said she told them to stop and was hurt that they made those jokes, especially since she was in the group chat.

While Ukrainians are giving their lives to protect their country, Rondiak said people around the globe are living in ignorance. She said it is important for people to speak up.

“We read about Hitler in our history books and everyone is like, ‘How could everyone just go along with it?’ Like, this is how, this is what happens when people are silent,” Rondiak said. “Dictators get control and they can just keep going.”

Rondiak said when she was growing up, her grandmother told stories of fleeing from World War II on foot at age 11 and never seeing her mother again.

“I can imagine now there’s a million Ukrainians in this generation that are going to have the same story,” Rondiak said.