Refugees check their luggage after fleeing the war from neighbouring Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland, Friday, April 1, 2022. Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed Friday, as another attempt to rescue civilians from the shattered and encircled city of Mariupol broke down and Russia accused the Ukrainians of a cross-border helicopter attack on an oil depot.
Sergei Grits / AP Photo
Sergei Grits / AP Photo
Refugees check their luggage after fleeing the war from neighbouring Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland, Friday, April 1, 2022. Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed Friday, as another attempt to rescue civilians from the shattered and encircled city of Mariupol broke down and Russia accused the Ukrainians of a cross-border helicopter attack on an oil depot.
Airdate: August 7th, 2023
The war in Ukraine is in the news every day in this country. Today’s stories usually focus on what destruction has been caused by the latest Russian missile attacks in Ukraine or when and where a Ukrainian counteroffensive might be launched.
It’s different than when Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Then, it was common to hear stories of millions of Ukrainians fleeing the country to safety. Today, we don’t hear much about the refugees, even though some six million are spread throughout Europe. The most are in Poland with about a million at this point.
Agata Czopek is a native of Poland and currently works as the Interim Executive Director of the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art. She’s been raising money and traveled to Poland to help the Ukrainian refugees since the war started.
Spark host Scott LaMar with Agata Czopek.
On The Spark Monday, Czopek told heartbreaking stories of women and children losing their husbands and fathers who are required to stay in Ukraine,”Just last week we had one of our mothers, her husband stepped on the mine and was killed. So, a mother with a two-year- old needs to go an 18 hour train ride. We needed to put her on to go to her husband’s funeral. She’s now back about her mother in law. We have a college student in one of the universities in Lublin. Her father was hit by a rocket. He’s gone. It’s constant. The elderly population of Ukraine doesn’t want to go anywhere. They would rather die on their soil. They won’t be immigrants at this point.”
Czopek started a gofundme page initially to help one family she knew escape from Ukraine. It morphed into helping hundreds of refugees with essentials like food, but she told the story of a need that surprised her,”I went to the village that I was born in first. And at that point, those 76 refugees, mothers and kids, and they were put in a little dormitory school that has not been functioning for some time. But they had a good facilities in there. They didn’t need food. But when I went over there and said, what is your needs? Well, it was a big school building with open huge windows of moms and kids needing some privacy. So they said to me, we could use some blinds in the windows. I said, okay, well, let’s get blinds. So, another person in the village make blinds. And they said, okay, let’s get blinds.”
When asked why the refugees aren’t getting much attention, Czopek talked about what went through her mind,”I had to forget about Putin. I had to forget about planes and everything else. And I need to concentrate on what was positive for me to function and be able to help. I need to think of a human aspect of this war, and I certainly hope that everybody can close their eyes for a minute and just picture themselves in the Ukrainian mothers and kids shoes and be reminded that they all need help.”
The Associated Press and WITF’s democracy reporter Jordan Wilkie are partnering to tell stories about how Pennsylvania elections work, and to debunk misinformation surrounding elections.
