‘I’m calling family all the time’: Russian attack leaves Ukrainians in SC ‘helpless’
When Elizabeth Melnichuk woke up Wednesday morning, she thanked a friend for a kind text sending prayers.
The prayers were appreciated.
When she went to bed the night before, she knew tensions between Russia and her family’s native Ukraine were escalating.
The next day, when she checked social media, she saw the thing she had dreaded most had happened.
Russia had invaded while she slept.
“I realized there was a full blown attack on Ukraine,” she said. “It was terrifying. I was in shock.”
Melnichuk’s parents and sisters grew up in Ukraine. They moved to the U.S. more than 30 years ago at a time when life in Eastern Europe grew complicated under the Soviet Union.
Melnichuk, now a first grade teacher at Myrtle Beach Primary School, grew up in Philadelphia speaking Ukrainian and taking Ukrainian dance classes.
“It’s a beautiful country,” her mother Larisa said. “I still love the country because I grew up there.”
Its beauty is part of what makes it hard to see the country under attack, Larisa said.
“I couldn’t comprehend that this was happening,” she said Friday. “I’m calling family all the time. Thank God they have internet and they have communication with me.”
The Melnichuks have many family members in the village of Korets.
They’re hiding in cellars, trying to get food from nearly empty grocery stores and plotting their escape from the place they call home.
In Myrtle Beach, the Melnichuks can only watch and wait anxiously.
“You feel helpless, in a sense,” Elizabeth said.
“Right now, there’s nowhere you can go that’s safe in Ukraine.”
While they’ve been able to keep in touch with family, uncertainty is mounting.
“That’s the most terrifying part,” Elizabeth said, “that you don’t know what tomorrow brings.”
While Elizabeth is focused on the future, Larisa remains tied to parts of the past.
Growing up, she remembers hearing stories from her grandparents about World War II.
Her grandfather had been in the military, and still carried a bullet lodged in his back.
As the current war spreads, it forces Larisa to recall her grandfather’s stories about that earlier war.
“Now for me, it’s like a flashback,” she said. “I couldn’t understand, couldn’t believe what’s happening.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
