UKRAINE: Recognizing the anniversary of Russia’s invasion

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Dudiak said. “In a pretty average-sized car, she managed to drive 11 people out of the city.”

Another organizer, Oleksandr Horban CM ’24, was also away from home and learned of his family’s traumatic experience.

“[My dad] said ‘If we ever meet again,’ and that was something I never expected to hear,” Horban said. “The Russian troops were positioned maybe around 20 minutes away from our house [in Kyiv] … you never know what’s going to happen to you. If Russian troops are in your city, you can be killed, raped [and] tortured just for being Ukrainian.”

Toward the end of the vigil, the organizers directed the audience to sing Ukraine’s national anthem and a popular Ukrainian folk song to express solidarity with Ukrainian victims.

Afterward, Alina Saratova HM ’23 and Alexej Latimer PO ’24 joined the students to discuss more steps they believe the 5C administrations and student body could take, some of which were specific to Russian students.

“There are entire portions of the country that have been, in some cases, physically, socially and culturally decimated,” Latimer said, referring to Russia’s 2014 invasion of the Crimean Peninsula, where his family lives.

He advised people not to believe any rhetoric that deems Russia’s invasion a “positive effort” or “effort of unification” — a stance, he believes, that reflects Russian neo-imperialism. Many dissenters in Russia fear persecution—over 15,000 protesters have been arrested since Feb. 24, 2022, but some students commented that Russian dissenters do not face the same