‘We dream of peace': Three years into war, Ukrainians in Mass. find refuge but worry about future

Boston Globe

24-02-2025

Popova has settled into a life in Quincy, where she works for the city's school system. She and her children start every morning by speaking on the phone with her husband, who is barred from leaving Ukraine because of a strict
Natalia Popova and her two sons. (Natalia Popova)
Natalia Popova
She is one of the some
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Still, the effects and realities of the war follow them. Most immigrants have loved ones still in the country, and their days are filled with constant worries about their family and friends, some of whom must seek shelter in bomb shelters while immigrants here go about their daily lives.
Many said they can't escape the constant, devastating news about the grinding conflict, the biggest on the continent since World War II. It has
'It was the most difficult in the first years — to accept the situation and realize that it happened,' Popova said. 'Like, how could it happen in the 21st century?'
'Of course we want peace, but of course we also want justice for all the crimes done by Russian people,' Popova said. 'We dream of peace, but we don't trust our neighbor.'
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For 26-year-old Marina Zharkovska, who lives in Boston, the immediate fear is about maintaining a legal status in the United States.
Zharkovska arrived in the United States in 2024
under a federal program, Uniting for Ukraine, that allowed Ukrainian immigrants to move here temporarily. But since Trump
It's important for Ukraine to fight for its independence, she said, given that it has been recognized as sovereign and has 'deep historical roots.'
'We have lost too many lives and our friends to just give Russia what it demanded at the beginning,' she said.
In addition to working at a Brookline hotel, she founded a social theater program that helps Ukrainian adults and children traumatized by the war.
'Even here in America, after arriving, I have seen that people are deeply traumatized and do not know how to cope,' she said.
Zharkovska, too, said she experiences anxiety from exposure to the war, and wants 'to use her experience to make people healthier and happier here.'
Still, every day away from the country is difficult. Like many other Ukrainian expats, Zharkovska has loved ones in the country, including her mother and numerous relatives and friends, some who are on the front lines. She said she prays daily for them, along with those who have died in the war.
For Maryna Vernyhora, a 32-year-old Boston resident, reminders of war are present in day-to-day life.
After moving to Boston through the Uniting for Ukraine program in July 2022, Vernyhora said she has experienced flashbacks from Russian attacks.
She owned her own company in Kyiv that helped people start their own businesses. On the day of the Russian invasion, the company was supposed to hold a grand opening for a business in one of the largest shopping centers in Europe.
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Instead, the single mother woke up at 4 a.m. to what she thought were fireworks outside her window. After her neighbors started calling her, she realized they were missiles, and that she and her 6-month-old daughter needed to evacuate from
'It was like a horror movie, but you don't want to watch this movie because you want to live your normal life like it was before,' she said.
Vernyhora stayed with friends in the city of Drohobych for six months.
Now, she works as a marketing manager for a pharmaceutical company and is not certain she would want to return to Ukraine. The forest where she used to walk her dog every morning is now filled with land mines, and she said life would not be 'the life that it was before.'
'You ask your friends how they are, and they're sitting for eight or 10 hours in the shelter,' she said. 'It's a part of life now for Ukrainians, and I don't want my friends and relatives to live this life. We want to live our life like it was before — without war, we had a really good life.'
Even for Ukrainians who have been in the United States for decades, the drawn-out conflict hits close to home. Marianna Epstein, 68, who moved from Kyiv to Massachusetts
more than three decades ago, still has relatives, classmates, and friends in the country.
'Almost everybody has lost somebody,' she said.
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Marianna Epstein, who immigrated from Ukraine more than 30 years ago, at her Newton home. Epstein has family and friends there.
Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Epstein, who lives in Needham, said she retired from her career as a software engineer earlier than she planned because she wanted to dedicate all of her time to helping Ukrainians. She founded
The project is on pause for now, she said, because the 'needs have changed of what we communicate to our politicians.'
Almost three years after evacuating Kyiv in March 2022, Popova is now in her second semester of studying health science at Bunker Hill Community College. Each week, her children attend the
Even as they go about day-to-day life, Popova and her children still experience anxiety and post-traumatic stress from having to 'live in the basement' due to constant bombing when the war started. Any kind of peace that may be in the future won't bring back the thousands of lives lost and impacted by the war, she said.
'Seeing the consequences of war, seeing broken lives, injured people, killed children, broken dreams and plans of people,' she said. 'Ukrainian voices should be heard, because behind every family's story, every man's life, there are many stories.'
Emily Spatz can be reached at