Photo credit: CTV News
A vigil was held Monday night in Edmonton to mark the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine which triggered a full-fledged war after years of escalating tensions between the two countries.
Global News reports that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in a major escalation of a conflict that began in 2014. The invasion is the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. It caused hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Since the invasion, an estimated 300,000 Ukrainians have fled to Canada as refugees. About 65,000 of them have settled in Alberta. The Edmonton area is home to a lot of Ukrainian refugees.
Janice Krissa and her daughter are the founders of DON’YA Ukraine’s Kitchen in north Edmonton where all the workers share a common bond.
“All of our employees left the war in Ukraine, all of our employees are women. All of them have very close personal ties to people who are serving in the war,” Krissa said on Monday.
“We might be the only donation centre-turned-to-a-restaurant, turned-to-a-retail-perogy-supply-company ever,” explained Kriss who never intended to start a restaurant that has since evolved into a community hub for newcomers and Canadians alike.
When the war started, she banded with friends to collect donations for those they knew. It grew into a full-on donation centre. donors kept asking if there was food they could buy to show their support. Two of her volunteers from Ukraine asked if they could give it a go.
“We were supposed to cook for one day and that was over two years ago. We moved from church kitchens into Butchers and Packers (Supplies Ltd.) just down the road, and now we have our own space, our own kitchen,” she said.
The kitchen is filled with women who have fled the horror and violence in Ukraine. One of them is Svitlana Sukhovych who held out for two years after the war started, praying it would be resolved as their lives were turned upside down.
She said the war was very stressful on the family as her youngest child is on the Autism spectrum, non-verbal and requires a lot of support. Changes to routine were challenging, and they were not able to hide in basements and bomb shelters, she said.
“After some point, I realized it was not getting better. I decided I have to do something because I won’t forgive myself in case something happens to my kids,” she said.
Around a year ago, Sukhovych and her two sons fled to Canada.
On Monday, Firefighter Aid Ukraine took part in a special event at the restaurant, setting up artwork from its “Unbreakable Ukraine” exhibit that features gripping photos taken by a Ukrainian journalist.
