Westporter Marshall Mayer is executive director of Ukraine Aid International. The non-profit organization delivers humanitarian aid directly to war-torn locations in the eastern part of the nation.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 5th year, Westport’s sister city of Lyman continues to suffer, just miles from the Russian front. The connection between our towns was facilitated in the early days of the war by UAI’s founders, Mayer and his brother Brian. Marshall sends this report, from Kyiv.
Four years. That is the headline everywhere this week. Four years since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But Ukraine has not been at war for 4 years. The world has noticed it for 4 years, but Ukraine has been at war for 12.
On February 20, 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and began its assault on Donetsk and Luhansk. Long before the cameras arrived in Kyiv in 2022, Ukrainians were already fighting and dying for their sovereignty. The invasion did not begin when the world paid attention. It began when Russia decided Ukraine did not have the right to exist as a free nation.
For me, this war became personal in July 2014. A friend was aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 when it was shot down over Donetsk by a Russian-provided missile. Two hundred ninety-eight people were killed. He was one of them. That was not geopolitics. It was personal.
Marshall Mayer in Lyman, Ukraine — Westport’s sister city.
In 2022, as the world finally woke up, we founded Ukraine Aid International. Our mission was straightforward: focus resources on the communities most devastated by war, particularly those near the front line. In the 4 years since we have worked in towns that rarely make headlines, but endure shelling, blackouts, floods, and rebuilding in constant cycles.
We have lost friends. Volunteer friends. Soldier friends. Civilian friends. Far more than anyone should lose at my age.
And yet what stays with me most is not only loss, but resilience.
In Ukraine, life insists on continuing. A couple on a first date in an underground bar. Office workers eating lunch by the river in summer. A husband waiting at a train station with flowers. Even on the edge of war, people choose love, culture, family and future.
Hope amid devastation, in Lyman, Ukraine.
There is endless talk about negotiations and concessions. But what concession is owed to an army bent on destruction? In years of fighting, Russia has measured gains in feet, not miles. “Three days to Kyiv” failed. Ukraine’s integration with Europe continues. Every day Ukraine survives is a victory.
When this ends, however it ends, Ukraine will emerge stronger than anyone expects. Russia will emerge weakened. Because Russia fights for land. Ukraine fights for love. Love of its children, its language, its history, its dignity.
For Ukraine, there is no plan B.
That energy is why we are still here. We support Ukraine because the moral line is clear. This is a fight between destruction and self-determination. Between domination and dignity.
On Thursday, March 5 at 7:00pm, we invite you to stand with Ukraine in a different way. Join us at the Westport Country Playhouse for “Keys for Resilience,” a benefit concert supporting Connecticut’s sister cities in Ukraine, featuring Ukrainian pianist Ruslan Ramazanov and Ukrainian-American soprano and bandurist Teryn Kuzma.
Ruslan rebuilt his life in the United States after the full-scale invasion, and now performs and teaches in Boston. Teryn, a Connecticut native, brings both her radiant soprano voice and the 55-string Ukrainian bandura to the stage. Together they will perform works by Chopin, Prokofiev, Brahms, Debussy, Gershwin, and Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk.
Click here for tickets to this important evening. Thank you for enabling us to continue our important work on the front lines in Ukraine.
Addressing 2 of the greatest challenges — fundraising, then ensuring that goods and materials reached their intended targets — the Mayers formed Ukraine Aid International.
