Yukoners with family in Ukraine rally to offer support

Yukoners who have family ties to Ukraine are working together to help people in that country by raising funds and collecting donated goods to ship over.

They've been doing that since the early days of the war that began last winter, and next week they'll team up with Whitehorse firefighters on another fundraising effort.

"I have an enormous amount of family members who are fighting, who are suffering, and who are over there as we speak. So it's a very personal matter for me," said Jeff Sloychuk of Whitehorse.

"And not only simply the injustice of it, and the idea of what is essentially cultural and actual genocide, but just that sense of, if we can do something on a very personal level then, you know, I should."

Sloychuk went to Ukraine last spring to deliver some donated goods. Soon after returning home, he connected with Anastasiya Matlashevska and some other Yukoners who have direct ties to Ukraine, to start working together.

"We've just built a really strong little contingent of of very, very cool and committed people," Sloychuk said.

Matlashevska says there has also been a lot of support from the larger community, and the Yukon government. She remembers being struck by how many people in Whitehorse showed up last February for a demonstration in support of Ukraine.

"We didn't expect such a big crowd to show up, and it was amazing to see so many people coming," she said.

'They're just trying to live their day-to-day life'

Matlashevska says things have gotten harder for her family members in Ukraine, as Russia steps up attacks on the country's infrastructure.

"Very often, there is no power, there is no connection, there is no Internet, there is no heat and there is no water. It's been pretty challenging," she said.

She people are coping, but many are considering leaving the country, at least for the winter, if things get worse. 

"They're just trying to live their day-to-day life and their reality they have right now," she said.

Some Ukrainians have been fleeing the war by coming to Yukon.

Sloychuk and Matlashevska, along with others who are part of the group Yukon Supports Ukraine, have been helping to welcome those people and settle them in the territory. They say about 30 to 40 people have come to Yukon from Ukraine since last winter.

"Those who came here and stayed in Whitehorse, we try to keep in touch with them and if they need something, we try to help as a community as much as we can," Matlashevska said.

They've been collecting donated goods for the new arrivals — things such as beds, cookware, duvets and parkas.

"I don't think a lot of them, and especially the young man who is living with me, expected the cold to be as severe as it is," Sloychuk said.

Sloychuk says the group also wants to get more needed goods to Ukraine.

"The latest requests are for thermal imaging devices and power storage batteries," he said.

"But even things that people may have lying around their homes — old cell phones, sleeping rolls for soldiers who are basically sleeping in the mud of a wet Ukrainian winter."

Another shipment of goods was sent from Yukon in August and it took months to get to its destination.  

"I just finally got pictures back now of our items, these Yukon items, being used on the front lines," Sloychuk said this week.

"So I mean obviously that's exciting, but that's way too long of a timeline. So for the next shipment we are planning on personally delivering them."