Advocacy for Ukraine

Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Today is day 19 of Russia's assault on Ukraine. One piece of breaking news from since we've gone on the air this morning is that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address members of Congress on Wednesday morning. I'm sure that will be virtual. We'll talk about that in a minute. So far, more than 2.8 million people are estimated to have fled Ukraine into neighboring countries. That's according the United Nations Refugee Agency. 2.8 million people in just this short amount of time.

The fourth round of talks, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine has taken a technical pause for today we're told, and they are expected to meet again tomorrow, this according to the New York Times. The two countries have agreed on 10 humanitarian corridors for civilians to be able to free Ukraine. That's according to remarks by Ukraine's deputy prime minister as reported by Reuters just a short time ago.

Residents from towns near Kyiv and the Eastern of Luhansk will be able to use these corridors. According to DW News this morning, the deputy prime minister has also said the government would "Try again to move a humanitarian convoy carrying food and medicine into the surrounded port city of Mariupol. Of course, the Russians have been carrying out anything but humanitarian policies there.

While the US and NATO are not directly on the ground to help the efforts in Ukraine, Ukrainians are receiving aid from abroad and, in some cases, from right here in New York. Joining me now to talk about what her group is doing to help Ukraine and what policies they're advocating for the US to implement, we'll ask what she thinks President Zelenskyy is going to say to Congress on Wednesday, is Dora Chomiak, president of Razom for Ukraine. Razom meaning together in Ukrainian.

Razom for Ukraine is an American nonprofit that has been supporting the Ukrainian people since 2014. Dora, I'm sure you're stretched in a million different directions right now. Thank you for giving us some time here on WNYC. Welcome.

Dora Chomiak: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we'll open up the phones again to anyone with ties to Ukraine like we've done on recent days. What are you hearing from people on the ground? What do people need? Are you hearing from people who are considering using these humanitarian corridors or have successfully used them already to escape? Anything else you want to share, either tweet @BrianLehrer or give us a call now with your anecdotes or your questions for our guests from Razom. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692.

You want to introduce people to your group a little more, Dora, for people who aren't familiar with Razom for Ukraine? What does it stand for and what work do you actually do on the ground?

Dora Chomiak: Absolutely. Razom is one of the newer Ukrainian American Organizations. We came together during the revolution of dignity the Euro Maidan in 2013, 2014. We're comprised of volunteers in the United States and in Ukraine. We've been working side by side with individuals and with nonprofits to build a prosperous Ukraine.

We've all come together with a realization of the immense potential and creativity and innovation that exists in Ukraine. We've been a rapid response accelerator over these past eight or so years to bring together people who can implement specific projects, not just around emergency response, which is what we're doing right now but around culture and education and civic engagement.

Because we have a network of individual volunteers and organizations that we partner with, we oftentimes move in and spin something up super quickly, get something going. Then as it develops and as more established partners come in, we partner with them and then move on to the next thing. Our mission stays the same, which is to see a prosperous sovereign Ukraine that respects human rights, that really gives people the cool--

There's so many cool things about Ukraine. One of them is the diversity of voices and approaches. It's been a real thrill for me to be able to work alongside people in Ukraine, people born and educated in Ukraine to unlock those voices and give them space. I myself am a native New Yorker, long-time WNYC member too and your show, got to put that in. I worked in Ukraine in the early 90s and I have family there. What we're doing--

Brian Lehrer: Why don't you talk-- Go ahead. Finish your thought. I'm sorry.

Dora Chomiak: In a nutshell, what Razom volunteers are focused on right now is raising funds and turning those funds as quickly as possible into medical supplies for tactical medicine which is first aid on steroids and some hospital supplies and getting that into the hands of people who need it to literally stop the bleeding and then also help people who have been displaced by the assault.

Brian Lehrer: We'll talk more about how our listeners hearing you and watching the situation unfold can help themselves. I wonder if you would talk more about the Ukrainian community in New York since, as you say, you are part of that. There was a old little Ukraine on the lower east side that was from an earlier generation of Ukrainian immigrants. Now, I think there are people who come from different parts of Ukraine to different parts of New York and from different backgrounds maybe, from within various Ukrainian populations than the earlier immigrants. Talk about Ukrainian New York today. Who are they? Where are they?

Dora Chomiak: It's such a great question because they are a diverse mix that tend to stick to our knitting a lot and not really do a lot of marketing. Often, the story of Ukraine is being told through the prism of Moscow or through the prism of somewhere else. What's changed in the past 10 or so years is you're hearing more stories direct from Ukraine and seeing that. Specifically downtown, second avenue in Ukraenglish, Ukrainian English, it's known as downtown.

I went to nursery school in downtown where it still exists, St. Georgia School, has a Saturday nursery school. That was predominantly populated by people like my parents. After World War II, my parents were kids. Essentially, they were kicked out of Ukraine by Hitler and then shut out of Ukraine by Stalin. They wound up in labor camps and then displaced persons camps and then wound up in North America. They came to the United States where there already was a Ukrainian American community.

There are Ukrainian American Organizations that have been around for over 125 years. Continually operating for over a century Ukrainian American Organizations and then living by being replenished through wave after wave of immigration.

My parents came over after World War II. There was subsequent waves as the Soviet Union was dissolving. People immigrated from the Soviet Union centered more around Brighton Beach, Coney Island. Then in the '90s, there were people coming for work, for economic reasons. In the past 10 years, there have been people who have been coming to New York from Ukraine and becoming part of a community not because they were fleeing anything but just because they were going somewhere. They were taking jobs at Google, at Facebook, Twitter, stuff like that. That's the community that really was the fuel. That was the co-founders of Razom for Ukraine. It was mostly young professionals.

Brian Lehrer: Educated tech sector workers?

Dora Chomiak: Yes, educated tech and other sector workers who were living in New York because that's where the job was. They could be living in Paris, they could be living in Hong Kong, they could be living in KU. They were just making individual professional decision to be like, "Hey, I got a good job offer here so I'm going to work here." Those were the people who, when the revolution of dignity started and people came out onto the street to kick out Yanukovich who was the pro-Moscow president. It was their classmates that were standing out there. They were like, "Hey wait a minute. We got to support them." That's very much the Genesis of Razom, it was people working side by side  because you've got your high school classmate standing for something, you're going to stand for something over here too.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Really interesting. My own maternal grandmother came before World War II from the area now known as the Ivano-Frankivsk, which I thought was the most obscure place in the world until it was the headline place in the world on Friday morning when Russia was bombing it.

To the total population size, locally, from the New York Times on February 24th, I have a stat, New York City is home to more than 150,000 Ukrainians, the largest such community in the country, with pockets in Manhattan's East Village, and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, and scattered populations throughout the five boroughs.

I also became aware recently that there's a Ukrainian American newly elected city council member from South Brooklyn. She's one of the very few Republicans in the New York City Council. I think there's a reputation or maybe a reality that many East European immigrants, especially from the Soviet era, tend to be more conservative than many other immigrants, 10 more likely to be Republicans than a lot of other people in New York City, than a lot of other people who are immigrants to this country from elsewhere, largely because of the experience under communism.

Is that your impression of the Ukrainian community? Is that changing with the generations?

Dora Chomiak: Yes. In broad strokes, certainly, the most vocal communities, the most vocal part of the community that you would hear would be more aligned with the Republican Party, and that comes straight out of Reagan's evil empire '80s days. That's by no means the entire population. It is exactly as you say, shifting generationally. Now, like these young professionals that co-founded their Amazon, you'll find are incredibly diverse and tolerant of different voices, and different cultural choices than you would have seen 40 years ago.

That's rolled up into the fact that they became politically active. They grew up in a sovereign Ukraine. Ukraine always existed. Whereas when I was growing up, it was hard to find on a map where my grandparents were born, where my parents were born. Now, for over 30 years, you can find Ukraine on a map pretty easily. That wasn't the case when I was growing up in the '80s.

I think that wrapped up into people political alignments. Overall, I find it curious that the Ukrainian American community even though it's been around for over a century, Ukrainian Americans haven't been super involved in American politics, in terms of, running for office, and in representing Ukrainian Americans.

I write it off, at least for my parents generation, as saying that, well, they came after World War II, they didn't intend to come here, there was a lot of energy focused on preserving what they had lost, and I'm grateful for that. Because of that, my first language was Ukrainian. I learned English on Sesame Street.

That kind of preserving thing was more important than integrating into that city civic life, city politics, national politics. That's changing now as more people are coming, people are coming here by choice. People are saying, "Oh, hey, I can be an American citizen and be engaged using the levers available to me as a citizen." That wasn't the case in the '70s.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we could take a few phone calls, if any other Ukrainian Americans want to call in or anyone has a story or a question for Dora Chomiak, president of Razom for Ukraine. Razom, meaning together in Ukrainian. If you haven't been with us since the beginning of the segment, a Ukrainian American organization founded after Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014.

There's a lot of younger Ukrainian Americans in this and many of you heard Dora talking about the different eras of Ukrainian immigration to this country. Let's get into some of the tough stuff, the politics. I saw, on your site, that you have template letters that people can add their names to, to send to their members of Congress, to send to the President of the United States, to send to European leaders, NATO leaders, UN leaders, calling for the warplanes to be given from Poland, maybe through the US airbase in Germany, to Ukraine, and also for that no-fly zone.

The US has staunchly refused to take those steps that would bring it into conflict with Russia. Why are you continuing on that track? Is that what you expect President Zelenskyy to be emphasizing when he addresses Congress on Wednesday?

Dora Chomiak: I think the broad message is to close the sky. I'm not a policy person so I'm not going to have an opinion on which is the precise thing. What I can tell you is when I talk with my family members in Ukraine, when I talk with our volunteers in Ukraine, and we've been at this 24/7 for 19, 20 plus days, basically, the immediate problem is the shells falling on people in Ukraine, and the government in Moscow doing things that are turning cities into rubble.

Cities, really, if you just look out your window right now, if you have your window in your studio, imagine the building across the street, half of it gone. That's what people in Ukraine are contending with right now. The message is, what can be done to close the sky, to stop the bombs from falling so then organizations like mine don't have to do so much to stop the bleeding and also contend with the displaced persons whose lives are shattered?

Brian Lehrer: Let me push back on that idea from a State Department official who was on this show on Friday. We had Under Secretary of State, Derek Chollet. I asked him why refuse a no-fly zone, and he said it sounds like a peaceful easy thing to enforce no flying or close the skies as you say, sounds like "Okay, we're going to close the door and it's going to be peaceful," but it would actually mean attacking inside Russia. Here's 30 seconds of Under Secretary of State Derek Chollet.

Derek Chollet: I know fly zone, which we have experience doing whether it's in Libya in particular or in the Balkans back 20 some years ago, that is war. That is US planes enforcing a no-fly zone prepared to take out enemy planes and also to take out enemy air defense, wherever that air defense may be. In Ukraine's case, Russian air defense is over Ukraine exist in Russia. No-fly zone is a euphemism for something that is direct combat.

Brian Lehrer: The thinking here, Dora, is the United States got through 40 years of the Cold War not getting into a shooting war with our nuclear weapons enemy Russia. So far, very few Americans, and not in the Biden administration, either think it's a good idea to be bombing Russian territory to enforce a no-fly zone now. Is the Ukrainian military attacking inside Russia?

Dora Chomiak: No. What I think Zelenskyy is calling for is not pilots, but equipment, and Ukrainians can fly the equipment. They just need the equipment. They're doing the fighting now, and they would continue to do the fighting, and that's why I think no-fly zone is just one possible solution. There are many ways to close the sky and delivering equipment. I'm not a military person so I don't know which equipment, but some kind of equipment that Ukrainians can use to protect the civilians. The reason it's important is because, right now, this immensely diverse vibrant country is getting shelled, but it's not about Putin getting a land grab, it's really an assault on us here in New York City too. It's an assault on the ability for representative democracy to function. It brings it down to something as simple as the ability for you to do your show, frankly, with your 30 Issues in 30 days or Meet Your Representative, or the segment you just had where you're talking about the mayor, or even your Ask The Mayor segment. All of that is what Ukrainians are fighting to keep.

We've seen this movie before, where people from Moscow move into Ukraine. In my own family, my parents experienced it. My grandfather experienced it. You can go back decade by decade, back to the 1800s, when there was a law that you couldn't use the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire. This need to obliterate has come over and over again. Now, the manifestation of that aggression is shells falling from the sky onto civilians, who up until 20 days ago, were peacefully living their lives.

That is an assault, yes, on those individual people who are my family and friends and colleagues right now. Also, that is an assault on the idea of sovereignty, or you can call your own shots where you can have your own condo board, and you can argue about whether you renovate the lobby or not, or whether you wait another year to improve your roof. All those things are what Ukraine has now. All of those things are what is being decimated by the shelling. There's a real urgency to stop the shelling somehow.

There, I leave it to various professionals to figure out how do you stop the shelling, so that these people who live in this country that has been obliterated generation after generation, people keep trying to erase it, and yet it continues to exist. They just want to live and just make their own decisions on their own turf.

Brian Lehrer: It's a lift to convince people that life as we know it in the West, in New York City, people's condo boards, whatever is at risk.

Dora Chomiak: It is a lift.

Brian Lehrer: Zelenskyy said, "If you do not close our skies, it is only a matter of time before Russian missiles fall on your territory or the territory of NATO and on the homes of citizens of NATO countries." Meaning in Europe, although the US and NATO position at the moment is Russia is more likely to attack the NATO countries if we do close Ukraine's skies. That's where you're caught at the moment.

Dora Chomiak: Exactly, and I recognize that it's a lift and someone's going to say, "Who's this crazy lady you have on your show?" It is inconceivable. It's inconceivable for me to think that my lovely old neighborhood here in Manhattan will be obliterated. It is inconceivable for me to imagine the city where I've been traveling every year, at least once a year, since 1989, to visit my aunts and uncles and cousins, and where I worked, and where we have an apartment in KU, where my mom worked for a dozen years, where I worked for a handful of years.

I talk to my friends and we have our daily check-ins with volunteers on video calls, and I see and hear people. It's hard for me to make it even fit into my head what's going on.

Brian Lehrer: That's why it's so important for people like you to keep getting a voice publicly to make it seem not remote, but imagine this was you in your home and your neighborhood being destroyed in this aggressive way. We're almost out of time.

I want to touch two things with you. One, there was another round of peace talks today, and apparently, they're going to resume tomorrow. One, do you see any negotiated settlement as possible? We had a guest the other day who was laying out some compromises that maybe Ukraine could make in the east. Maybe UN-supervised referendum for if they want to secede or something like that, and whether that could stop the war and stop the killing of innocent civilians in Ukraine.

Last question, just tell people how they can help Razom or your related efforts.

Dora Chomiak: Putin is not rational and he's straight out for destruction. I don't have a lot of reason to hope that he'll get bye-bye by any agreement on anything based on his behavior of the past couple of weeks, and based on his two decades of running Russia and going back generations after generations. I don't hold a lot of hope there.

People can do something. Having this opportunity to speak with you today is immensely important because this is what makes Ukraine different from the last three-plus generations where people from Moscow have tried to obliterate Ukraine. That is that you found me and were able to have this conversation.

People have traveled to Ukraine. More people speak English. I remember before they were blocked from traveling there in the '70s and '80s. This is a big change. I would encourage everyone to look at our site razomforukraine.org, that's R-A-Z-O-M, for, F-O-R, ukraine.org. We have a list of things you can do there, please do them. Some of it is giving money. Some of it's writing your representative. Some of it is going to listen to music of Ukrainian composers.

We had helped organize a festival that's now in its third year. It's going to be three performances this weekend, called ucmfnyc.com. You can buy tickets here in the upper website. We have a link tree with activities. I would also encourage you to watch films from Ukraine, see what Ukraine looks like without the shelling. It's got amazing [unintelligible 00:26:44] coffee bars and cocktail bars and fantastic restaurants.

There's just such talent there. There's a great film, you can get it on Amazon, Stop-Zemlia, Z-E-M-L-I-A. There's great books you can read. The orphanage is available in the New York Public Library. [unintelligible 00:27:03] You can see all these on our website. I would just encourage people to get to know Ukraine, to talk to people who have been there and to see it in its complexity and vibrancy, and to not look away. Because Putin's counting on people getting tired of this and looking away and letting it go.

He's not going to stop because he's never stopped. He's been at this. He plays the long game, he's a retrained KGB agent. Go to razomforukraine.org. Ask questions.

Brian Lehrer: Razom fo Ukraine. Dora Chomiak is president of Razom for Ukraine. Thank you so much for coming on with us. Good luck.

Dora Chomiak: Thank you.

 

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