Two days after the Feb. 24, 2022, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Myhailo Yavorskyi of Chicago returned to defend the country of his birth as a volunteer soldier with the Ukrainian army.
“At that time, everyone was fleeing from Kyiv — and he was going toward Kyiv,” recalled his mother Maria Yavorska, who lives on the Northwest Side.
At the age of 43, her son was killed in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine in May 2023, leaving behind a wife and young daughter back home.
Now the grieving mother hopes his sacrifice wasn’t in vain as the fate and sovereignty of war-torn Ukraine hang in the balance.
“I miss him in everything,” she said. “Ukraine needs help and everyone understands that. Because Russia is always trying to get Ukraine. Long history.”
On Sunday, Yavorska was among a crowd of about 200 who took part in a prayer service at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in west suburban Bloomingdale to mark the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion.
The event also commemorated roughly 100 protesters who were killed in February 2014 during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, a pro-Western uprising to thwart Russian influence on the fledgling democratic nation.
During the final days of the revolution, Russia illegally occupied and seized Crimea from Ukraine, a precursor to the full war that is ongoing today.
Parishioners at St. Andrew noted that Ukraine has been fending off Russian advances throughout history.
“As ancestors of Ukraine and with family members there, we’re all very worried,” said John Jaresko, church board president at St. Andrew. “There is a breaking point both in manpower, money and support.”
The U.S. has engaged in talks with Moscow and Kyiv as part of the Trump administration’s more than year-long attempt at negotiating peace.
Yet conflict remains over the future of Russian-occupied Ukrainian land, as well as post-war security guarantees for Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly has stipulated that Ukraine must cede its eastern territory, including the Luhansk and Donetsk areas.
Many parishioners at St. Andrew said they believe Ukraine will persevere but must remain intact, with no territorial concessions to Moscow.
“No one’s giving up here on helping Ukraine. And the people of Ukraine are not giving up,” Jaresko said. “It’s not three days. It’s not three weeks. It’s not three years. It’s already been four years. The Ukrainians are not going to let their country be taken away.”
The Rev. Victor Poliarny, pastor at St. Andrew, likened Putin’s land demands to the United States giving up one of its states to an invader.
“What would happen if someone asked, let’s give Alaska back? That’s my answer,” said Poliarny, 90, who was born in Ukraine and came to the United States decades ago as a refugee. “You cannot separate the body. All of a sudden you’re going to cut off your arm and say I don’t need this?”
As for Yavorska, she noted that her son was killed while fighting in Luhansk, one part of Ukraine that Putin has demanded.
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The mother said every Ukrainian must be liberated, with all of the nation’s internationally-recognized borders protected and preserved.
“It’s part of Ukraine. How can you give part of your house, one corner, just to give?” she said. “There are people living there.”
In December 2024, then-Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova presented Ukraine’s highest award, the Hero of Ukraine, to the family of Myhailo Yavorskyi.
“A Ukrainian-born Chicagoan and loving father, he courageously stood up to defend freedom after Russia’s invasion, reflecting the best of both Ukraine and America,” the Embassy of Ukraine said in a written statement. “Eternal glory to his memory!”
After the prayer service at St. Andrew, Yavorska said she “was never dreaming of my son to become a hero.”
“I just want my son to be alive,” she added.
Fear for loved ones overseas
As Russian bombs rained down on Ukraine four years ago, parishioners gathered at St. Andrew to pray for their ancestral homeland.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the church,” recalled Nadia Tyshenko. “We were devastated. We couldn’t believe what was happening.”
Moscow’s invasion of its much smaller neighbor unleashed Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.
Many experts internationally feared Ukraine would fall within days to the Kremlin, which boasts one of the largest armies on the globe.
Yet the fighting now stretches into its fifth year, with no signs of abatement.
As many as 1.8 million soldiers are estimated to have been killed, wounded or missing on both sides, according to a report released last month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The report estimated that Ukraine has seen 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.
More than 19% of Ukrainian land is occupied by Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War. But in the past year, Russia has gained just 0.79% of Ukraine’s territory, indicating slow progress despite large losses in troops and supplies.
“My country’s people are warriors. They will withstand this,” said Nataliya Prokipchuk, who was born in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of western Ukraine and came to the United States in 2006. “This is going to be completed and we will win this war. It’s just a matter of time. Ukraine will never give up.”
Yet Ukrainian civilians have been pummeled by Russian air strikes over the years, spurring power outages and cuts to their water supply.
A World Health Organization report earlier this month tracked more than 2,000 strikes on Ukrainian health care facilities, as well as others that have damaged medical supply storage areas.
“They’re shelling everyday. Kids are living in fear,” Prokipchuk said. “If one of us is killed, we all feel the pain. It’s traumatizing for all of us. So we’re trying to make sure the world knows – we advocate on behalf of those people who cannot speak for themselves.”
Prokipchuk added that she’s constantly on the phone with family and friends in Ukraine to ensure they’re safe.
“Checking in on them. Seeing what they need. Sending supplies. Sending necessities,” she said. “Because you have to be on the call with them. They can’t be left in the dark.”
Dreams of a post-war Ukraine
Foreign aid to Ukraine has decreased 13% in the last year compared to the annual average from 2022 to 2024, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which is based in Germany.
President Donald Trump has paused sending American weapons paid for by the U.S. to Ukraine. To try and make up the difference, European nations increased their military aid to Ukraine last year by 67% compared to the 2022 to 2024 period, according to a Kiel Institute report this month.
Parishioners at St. Andrew said they’re grateful for American aid to Ukraine in the past; the Biden administration had sent billions of dollars in funding and weaponry to aid the war effort there.
But they believe the United States should do more to help the beleaguered nation, in part to prevent further Russian aggression and conserve the existing world order.
Jaresko said taking over any part of Ukraine will only whet Putin’s imperialist appetite.
“Erasing the nation (of Ukraine). That’s what this is about. It’s about erasing a whole nation,” he said.
And if Ukraine were to fall, other nearby nations — like Poland and former Soviet Union republics — would be under threat of Moscow’s aggression, Jaresko added.
Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki last month said that only Trump could stop Putin from threatening Europe, adding that “we are living in dangerous times,” according to an interview with BBC Radio.
In September, Moldovan President Maia Sandu warned that her country’s democracy faced attempts by Russia to influence parliamentary elections that month, through alleged disinformation campaigns, vote-buying and illicit party funding; Sandu, however, ended up winning a second term.
Tyshenko yearns to one day take her 12-year-old daughter to Ukraine to see their ancestral homeland for the first time.
The mom was born in the United States but studied abroad and received her master’s degree in Ukraine, making new friends and reconnecting with relatives during that time.
She longs to introduce her daughter to the people and places that connect them to their Ukrainian roots, but the bloodshed has impeded that dream.
“She’s like, ‘I’m never going to (get to) go.’ And I’m like, don’t say that. You’ll go. We will go,” Tyshenko recounted.
Tyshenko tells her daughter that a reconstructed post-war Ukraine “is going to be beautiful.”
“Everybody is going to want to go and rebuild it. And it is going to be better than it was before,” she added. “This is history. This is where we…came from. This is our footprint.”
The Associated Press contributed.