SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – A recent prayer service to support people in Ukraine was held at the St. Mary Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Southfield.
Metro Detroiters with ties to Ukraine are watching, waiting, and preparing to help.
“We know what they want,” said a priest to his congregation. “Remember our past and our history.”
Congressman Andy Levin and Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter attended the event. It shows the lighting speed in which local Ukrainian Americans have moved to gain notice, influence, and support in an organized and efficient manner.
“I want to be honest with you, if we want to achieve peace with somebody like Vladimir Putin, we have to act and unite and be very strong,” said Michigan Representative Andy Levin.
As Russian troops continue to gather along the Ukraine border, 100,000 strong, and Monday (Feb. 14), six Russian assault ships have been spotted in the black sea off the shores of Ukraine. The slow drumbeat of invasion continues its concerning thuds as a threat to a fledgling democracy.
In Michigan, 50,000 people identify as Ukrainian American, with strong family ties and deep friendships with people who may be in harm’s way. So in the last 14 days, a yeoman’s efforts to build a different kind of army is being built with lightning speed with the Ukrainian-American crisis response committee of Michigan.
“Ukrainian Americans in Metro Detroit had an emergency meeting to see if we could figure out a way for us to coordinate our response to the threat of what Ukraine was facing,” said Mykola Murskyj of Ukrainian-American-Crisis Response Comm. of Michigan.
Murskyj is the newly installed chair of the organization preparing to mount a physical and financial response to Ukrainians who may have to flee the nation if invaded.
“So we formed committees that would help collect humanitarian aid in a subsequent refugee crisis,” Murskyj said. “We formed committees to help engage our public officials, to make sure that they knew it would be 50,000 Ukrainian Americans in Detroit who cared about this issue. We created this creation that would help ensure that we spoke with the united front, and we were able to help in a united way to alleviate the pain that Ukrainians would feel if Russia should invade.”
It means getting ducks in a row, preparing the infrastructure to collect money quickly, putting the logistics in place to curate blankets and winter clothing rapidly, and getting those critical items beyond the Ukrainian border.
Working with other organizations across the nation to work with European allies to make sure Ukrainians have an actual place of safety to go should they become fleeing refugees. The time to get ready is now before the infrastructure of humanitarianism is needed.
“We’re expecting that there will be one to five million refugees that flee from eastern Ukraine to the west and into the European Union,” Murskyj said. “That’s a lot of people, and that means that they’ll need clothes, blankets, food. That means we as Ukrainian Americans help them the best way that we can.”
