Nobody wins but everybody can lose: Ukrainian-Americans locally worry about loved ones in war-torn Ukraine

Yakov Lyublinskiy and his daughter, Angelica Lyublinskiy, have trouble sleeping at night.

The Ukrainian-Americans are worried about their friends and family in Ukraine, some even hiding in basements. in their home country of Ukraine in the midst of an ongoing Russian invasion.

Some of their friends and family have been able to flee to Poland and Germany, Yakov said, but others, like his wife’s father, grandmother and cousins, are forced to stay in Ukraine.

“Victoria’s father has to stay because her grandmother had a stroke a couple of months ago and also has a broken hip so she can not be moved,” said Yakov, a personal trainer and Birmingham resident.

“Overall, it’s just heartbreaking,” Angelica said, “It’s heartbreaking to see my family so distraught and worried, especially my mom because it’s her sister that had to flee Kyiv. There are countless nights where she doesn’t get any sleep and because of that, I don’t get any sleep. It’s just a constant worry.”

She said even though she’s lived in the U.S. most of her life, she still grew up in Ukrainian culture and feels connected to it.

“It really hits home seeing my people being basically slaughtered and I feel hopeless,” she said. “I feel like I’m not doing enough and I just want to do more. It's a very hopeless feeling.”

Their family created a GoFundMe campaign to help Victoria’s sister, Julia, flee Ukraine with her two sons. She was separated from them when fleeing Ukraine but reunited when they all reached Germany, Yakov said.

“The thing that’s bothering me about this situation is uncertainty,” he said. “We don’t know what the fate of Ukraine is going to be, what the fate of millions of people will be or the fate of refugees. Are they going to live indefinitely in refugee camps, are they going to be able to come back? When will the conflict be over?”

Father and daughter said they are seeing their country’s history repeating itself.

Ukraine is no stranger to struggling for independence and its own identity. In the mid-1800s, for instance, with the majority of Ukrainian territory under Russian rule, the Russian government interrupted the distribution of Ukrainian literature and made it illegal to speak Ukrainian, with citizens being shot if they were caught speaking the language.

“It’s a humanitarian crisis and if we don’t do anything about it, history’s just going to repeat itself,” said Angelica, a studio manager and junior producer in Birmingham. “The whole point of learning history is to not make the same mistakes, and I think the more we talk about it and raise awareness, the more people will actually want to do something.”

Yakov and Angelica have been raising money for Ukraine and awareness of the conflict. Yakov has been featured on media outlets and donated to humanitarian groups.

Angelica held an art show at Dave’s Pub in March that raised about $600 for Ukraine.

“I got a lot of artists involved, they donated their art and I donated mine,” she said.

It’s important to talk about the current crisis, she said, to fight misinformation so people have the facts and are inspired to help.

“That’s how evil prevails, by not doing anything,” Angelica said.

Yakov worries about the future of both Ukraine and Russia. He grew up loving Russian movies, music and literature.

He said because Russia and Ukraine are so close, Russians and Ukrainians have friends and family in both countries.

He said Vladimir Putin is destroying people’s love of Russia “indefinitely” and committing crimes against Ukraine and his own people.

“Putin is sending those kids to die for what?” Yakov said. “There is no winning for him in this conflict. Even if he were to take all of Ukraine tomorrow, it would take just over a million soldiers and only in the big city centers to control the city centers.”

He said there is no positive outcome for Russia in the war, which is what worries him.

“There is no winning end for Putin and Russia in this conflict but he can make sure that everybody loses,” Yakov said. “He can use tactical, chemical and nuclear weapons. Russia could be a pariah indefinitely.”

He was born and raised in a small town called Podilskyi in western Ukraine in the former Soviet Union and came to the U.S. when he was 27 years-old with his mother and other relatives to escape anti-Semitism.

He had just started dating Victoria and they had to decide their next steps.

“She was 18, I was 26 and I knew I was going to be leaving and we had to decide what we were going to do,” Yakov said.

He was told they would have to get married and Victoria would have to apply for citizenship in order to live with Yakov in America. They got married and Yakov soon immigrated to the U.S. with his family.

When Yakov was about to move with his family, Victoria was pregnant with Angelica, he said. He left for America right before she was born in 1997. It would be two years before he saw his wife and child again.

Yakov began his current job as a personal trainer at Levite Jewish Community Center in 2004. He’s also a massage therapist, physical therapist and martial arts instructor at Birmingham Country Club and Lakeview Fitness.