Ukrainians with London, Ont., ties are fretful and afraid for friends and family back home

If Volodymyr Tretyak is afraid, his voice isn't giving anything away. He said if Russian troops enter his city as part of an ongoing invasion of Ukraine, there is only one option. 

"We will fight them. We will do much as possible to kill them," he said. 

Tretyak lives in Liviv, about a four-hour drive east of the Polish border. As of Thursday morning, the city was untouched by the fighting and bombardment that has wrought destruction in other parts of the country. 

After living and working for 15 years in London, Ont., Tretyak and his wife moved back to their native country as part of their retirement plan. Their children still live in Canada, in London and Brantford, Ont. 

"They're afraid about us. They're calling us every couple of hours," Tretyak said. "The situation is really nervous, especially for them because we're older people." 

That same fear and anxiety is palpable within the wider Ukrainian community in London. A number of people CBC News spoke to Thursday as the Russian invasion began declined to do an interview because, they said, the subject was too emotional. 

The whole night I stayed with the radio and TV. It's a very bad situation.- Daria Hryckiw, Ukrainian-Canadian Congress

"I'm so tired," said Daria Hryckiw, president of the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress (UCC), a cultural centre in London. 

"The whole night I stayed with the radio and TV. It's a very bad situation.

"I have friends, I have relatives in Ukraine," she said. "A lot of people in London are calling me to ask 'How we can help the people of Ukraine?' I can't sleep." 

Since the conflict began, Hryckiw has been helping co-ordinate donations for food and relief for Ukrainians still trapped in their native country through the UCC. 

London is home to more than 12,000 people who reported their ethnic origin as Ukrainian to Statistics Canada in the 2016 census. There are Ukrainian churches and cultural centres, and many of of the city's Ukrainians frequent the delis and bakeries throughout town that cater to London's European diaspora. 

Many came to London in the 1970s or '80s when Ukraine was still under the yoke of the Soviet empire, while others arrived after the country gained independence. With modern technology, all of them are connected to friends and family back home like never before, and yet are unable to do anything about the situation. 

Ukrainian workers staying home

"It's terrifying," said Alicia Sikorski, owner of Alicia's Fine Foods on Trafalgar Street. She was born in Poland, but has many friends, customers and employees who are Ukrainian and Russian. 

"They're the same people. It's like Canadian people fighting Canadian people to kill them, not just to get their point across."

She said she has five employees who are Ukrainian, and all but one didn't come in to work because it was simply too emotional to keep focused on the job. 

"They're devastated," she said. "They feel for the well-being of their family members who are back home. They still have families, emotional attachments, the places they grew up.

"All of them are staying home except for one," Sikorski said. "She said she's not going to go home because she would be crying too much. At least here, she can do her work. She doesn't have to talk to anybody. She can survive emotionally."