Ukrainians in the U.S. try to help their country. But getting aid there is difficult

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/09/ [login to see] /ukraine-u-s-help-struggle
Ianina Piontkovska, like many Ukrainians living in the U.S., is following the news of the Russian invasion of her country in shock and anguish. "I never could have foreseen this massacre," she says.

"It's difficult to see the images of destroyed buildings in Kyiv,"Piontkovska says, with tears welling up in her eyes. "I used to walk those streets and I cannot accept the reality."

Her 80-year-old Russian-born mother, a brother and his family, her father-in-law, many friends and her husband, Sergiy Piontkovskyi, live in Ukraine. Her husband travels back and forth between Kyiv and the U.S. – and luckily, she says, he was in the U.S. when the invasion began.

"I'm very afraid," says the 55-year old mother of three sitting in her living room in a Washington, D.C., suburb one recent morning. She says Putin won't back down, referring to Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

Piontkovska speaks with her mother and friends throughout the day, several times a day, she says. "I need to hear their voices." But she says she struggles with her emotions, "I have to be brave and optimistic to keep them calm and give them hope." She says it's agonizing to hear the bombings through the line.