‘The whole world supports ending the war’: Ukrainian UMass student speaks at vigil

“Everywhere I’ve been — every memory I have — they’re trying to destroy it,” said Valerii Zhurylo, an international student at UMass Dartmouth from the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy.

He spoke in front of a crowd of students, professors and religious ministers, gathered outside the university’s campus center on Wednesday, March 2 to show their solidarity with the people of Ukraine who have already endured a week of full-scale military invasion by Russia.

Zhurylo told the attendees how his mother had called him recently, sobbing because she thought his sister had been injured in an attack.

Though she ended up being safe and sound, the incident demonstrated the stakes of the conflict for Ukrainians living abroad and the tension they face as they watch from afar.

Zhurylo said he has been overwhelmed by conflicting emotions since the war began: his family has urged him to stay and finish his education in the U.S. where he is safe, but he feels a responsibility to do everything he can to help his country and his family.

“You feel hopeless,” he said. “I’ve just been scrolling the news and trying to communicate with family.”

The candle-light vigil was organized by the university’s Center for Religious and Spiritual Life to give students a place to show their support for those affected by the war.

“We know people are suffering and we wanted to have people out here to support each other,” said Deacon Frank Lucca, who spoke at and helped organize the event.

Zhurylo said that while he wishes he could do more for the war effort, he is very proud of the resolve that his people have shown in resisting Russia’s massive military force and has felt a sense of unity with people from around the world who have shown their solidarity with his country’s plight.

“I’m not only proud of the people in Ukraine but people around the world — the whole world supports ending the war,” he said. “Putin’s idea was to unite people and partially, that’s what he did.”

Zhurylo said that one important way for people to show their support for Ukraine, is to stay informed about the situation there and to understand that Russian aggression against the country is not new, but an ongoing problem.

Kuro Andengattil, a sophomore international student from India who said he has many friends and cousins in Ukraine, also spoke at the event to encourage people to read up on the situation.

“I’ve been feeling helpless for a long time,” he said. “But the least we can do is keep ourselves informed.”

Andengattil said that since the beginning of the invasion, he has been doing his best to document and recirculate information he finds about the war, transitioning his personal Instagram account, @gattillynx, from an artist page to a conflict blog.

“I felt a responsibility to document the war,” he said, explaining that as the child of two journalists, he has an innate understanding of the power of information. “There is a lot of disinformation on the ground, especially on the Russian side — warfare in the information age is like that.”

Lucca said that he would like to continue getting more students involved in supporting victims of the war including with more events like Wednesday’s vigil. He added that while the events may continue to be organized by the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, they are not religious.

“It’s not based on faith, it’s based on people,” he said.