It was icy cold, dark and deathly quiet.

At 4 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2022 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 15-year-old Amaliia Ripko stumbled into the living room and found her father huddled in front of the TV. He was watching a U.N. conference discussing a possible Russian attack on her country.

Suddenly, the sound of loud explosions shook the apartment.

“We had big-ass panoramic windows,” Ripko said. “I saw something weird. I thought, That’s probably not fireworks.’ There was a fire behind the building next to our house. ‘I guess that’s serious.’ And, we began seeing all of our neighbors in the street in their pajamas.”

Ripko’s mother and little brother woke up terrified and ran to the front room. The whole family watched from the window as more and more of their neighbors poured onto the street, climbed into their cars and sped away.

“I saw people leave with their kids, half naked. They had nothing but their emergency suitcases,” Ripko said.

Three years later, Ripko is sitting outside the Behavioral & Social Science Building at El Camino College on April 14, 2025 where she studies political science.

She is quick to smile and has an infectious laugh. Her English is fluent, but surprisingly, she has a southern drawl, and regularly says “y’all,” although she has never visited the southeast.

She wasn’t aware of the accent. When asked if she listens to country music, she said no. “Shout out to TikTok,” she said, assuming she picked it up from social media.

The rumors of a Russian invasion had been circulating for months. “Romania was 100% sure that war was gonna start. They were predicting a serious escalation involving a lot of weapons.”

The U.S. issued a warning about an attack on Feb 19.

“But, on the 19th nothing happened,” Ripko said. They all joked, “The Americans – they always make everything so dramatic.”

Then, on Feb. 24, the first air strikes started.

Ripko looks off into the distance and, for a brief moment, a seriousness clouds her face. But she quickly returns to her sunny side.

“They were probably right. We should have been more prepared to evacuate.” Ripko laughs. “We were so delusional.”

Humor and optimism are skills she frequently uses to deal with the displacement, death and unpredictability of war.

According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ripko is one of 122.6 million people worldwide who have been “forcibly displaced from their home countries due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, or events seriously disturbing public order.”

Ripko’s happy exterior hides the overwhelming anxiety she shares with other refugees throughout the world and at El Camino.

Their futures are uncertain.

Forced to flee

UNHCR was established 70 years ago to “safeguard the rights and well-being of people forced to flee” – 43.7 million of those displaced are refugees under the protection of UNHCR or UNRWA. Another 72.1 million are internally displaced people within their own countries. An additional 8 million are seeking asylum in other countries.

In addition to nearly 125 million people worldwide that the U.N. labels as “forcibly displaced,” the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration published its most recent World Migration Report in 2024 indicating “the current global estimate is that there were around 281 million international migrants in the world in 2020, which equates to 3.6 percent of the global population.”

Many – like El Camino psychology student Gissel Paniagua, 19 – are fleeing violence or conflict, and also consider themselves to be forced to seek refuge in other nations, although they aren’t counted as part of the refugee population protected by UNHCR.

Paniagua was born in El Salvador and lived in San Vicente. She came to the U.S. without documents at the age of 4.

“My childhood was happy with a large family, close community, the music and dancing at parties, even the dolls and toys made of sticks,” she said. “I remember my mom buying my first ice cream. The rush of sugar was amazing.”

Her father was in the military and she didn’t see him much. When he did come home, she said he was very strict with her and her eight brothers.

Her great-grandmother lost her job as a candy maker.

“The cartels told her to give up her spot or she would die. The gangs knew everyone, including our family members,” Paniagua said. “She had to leave work to protect us. She had many pictures of us at her job, so they knew our faces.”

Her older brothers and her mother left for the United States.

“My mom felt it was important to bring my brothers first, since cartels target the young boys,” she said.

When Paniagua was left behind with her grandparents, she missed her brothers.

“I was emotional, not eating, always depressed,” she said. “Even as a toddler I wanted to fight the cartel members when I saw them. I identified them by their tattoos.”

Leaving for the U.S. at the age of four brought her a mix of sadness and joy – happy to be with her brothers but sad to leave home.

A long and dangerous journey to the U.S.

Ripko and her family stayed in Kharkiv for three or four days after the first airstrikes on Feb. 24, 2022.

The store shelves were empty.

“People cleared out everything,” Ripko said. She added that the Ukrainian people were making a statement: “We’re not dying today.”

The family moved first to her grandmother’s house in a nearby neighborhood.

“But, we lived in eastern Ukraine just 30 miles from the Russian border and had to flee to the west,” Ripko said.

Ripko, her 10-year-old brother, her parents and her grandmother piled into an old Mercedes with the few belongings they were able to pack.

On Feb. 28, Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine. That day, Russian Armed Forces’ rocket strikes on Kharkiv killed nine civilians and wounded 37.

Because of the Russian Army’s use of widely banned cluster munitions in the attack, along with the targeting of civilians, Human Rights Watch called the strikes a possible war crime.

“We made frequent stops to get gas, but there was none,” Ripko said.

On the highway, traffic would stop, often without moving for hours.

In Central Ukraine, they pulled up to a hospital that had been repurposed as a shelter for those escaping from the east.

By then, there were frequent warnings of bombings.

“Hospital patients were in the middle of treatment, and the staff had to move them every time the sirens went off,” Ripko said. “We were so desperate and tired. We were like, ‘If we get bombed we’re not waking up.’”

The next night they stayed in a school.

“Everyone was in the gym with 5 people on each gymnastics mat. The whole gym was packed with everyone laying right next to each other,” Ripko said.

The school was freezing with no heating in the middle of a harsh Ukrainian winter. Ripko slept in her jacket.

“My grandmother slept on the bleachers. I was so anxious about her rolling off and falling all the way to the ground,” Ripko said.

That night, Ripko cried for the first time since the start of the Russian attacks. “The realization of the war hit me,” she said.

It took them four days to get to western Ukraine. They eventually crossed the border into Romania.

“People in Romania welcomed us with food and housing,” Ripko said. That was shocking to her. “Ukrainians have trust issues. It hasn’t been too long since we were free from the USSR. Our nation is only 30 years old. We lost Crimea in 2014 through a Russian invasion. “Now with a second war, we will need even more time to develop,” she said.

Ripko, her grandmother and her little brother stayed in Romania for a year. Her parents returned to Ukraine, and her father enlisted in the army. Their thoughts were consumed by one terrifying fear: “Hopefully he’s not dead,” Ripko said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enabled more than 117,000 Ukrainians to come to the U.S. under the Biden Administration’s “Uniting for Ukraine” program. Americans were able to “sponsor” refugees, making a commitment to support them in accessing housing and employment.

Ripko’s family knew friends and family in Redondo Beach who sponsored them. Her parents reunited with them in Romania and the family of five relocated to Southern California.

UNHCR reports the total number of forcibly displaced people has been growing, with a 5% increase between the end of 2023 and June 2024.

Living in fear

Actions by the Trump administration have everyone in Paniagua’s family – many of whom remain undocumented – scared, she said.

When ICE deported people, the gang identities, the drug trafficking and the violence were exported with them to Central America and Mexico.

Paniagua is angry that President Donald Trump never mentions that the largest gangs running the cartels in El Salvador – including Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street – are originally from LA.

“People don’t come to the U.S. by choice,” Paniagua said. “They run to stay alive.”

“I wish Trump wouldn’t send people back. I have a friend who is like a sister to me. When she sees the police, she panics. ‘Oh s—, they’re gonna take us,’” she said.

In El Salvador, Paniagua said her education didn’t prepare her for schools in the U.S. “Kids a little older than us were often the teachers,” she said.

When she came to the South Bay, she was behind in school and didn’t speak English.

The bullying started in elementary school. By middle school, other students called her “the gang girl” because she was from El Salvador.

Students asked, “Are the cartels gonna come kill you?”

The label stayed with her for years and she still worries about her and her family’s safety.

Paniagua started getting into fights.

Eventually, she was homeschooled for much of middle school and failed a lot of classes. To avoid people she knew, Paniagua didn’t go to Leuzinger High School, but chose Hawthorne High School instead.

“I considered homeschooling for the first year of high school also,” Paniagua said. “But what’s the message that I’m trying to send? Am I gonna be in fear for the rest of my life or just show my face and deal with it?”

Even at Hawthorne High School, she heard variations of the same taunts. “The chubby — [referencing a gang name] is here.”

One student asked, “You gonna call your dad, Chapo Guzman?”

Paniagua tried to argue back. “Guzman’s a cartel boss from Mexico. I’m from El Salvador.”

But, the other student was quick to respond. “Oh who cares, it’s the same thing. You’re gonna kill people,” she said.

Now, Paniagua is studying psychology at El Camino and plans to pursue a graduate degree in social work.

“I want to be the first female, the youngest after seven brothers, to go to college and be someone that my younger family members can look up to,” Paniagua said.

During the fall semester of 2024, 378 El Camino students were refugees or asylum applicants, 341 attended as international students on an F-1 or M-1 student visa, 27 were temporary residents, 161 were permanent residents, and 29 had unknown status according to enrollment data collected by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

Abiya Hasan, 17, an El Camino student and the college’s Anti-War Club president said that many of their members have been directly impacted by war or have close family members impacted.

ECC’s immigrant student success counselors educate the campus community on the rights for immigrant students both with and without status, and support students to enroll, register for classes and access resources.

ECC’s UndocuWarriors Club (@undocuwarriors on Instagram) “serves as a safe space for undocumented students and allies at ECC,” including those escaping war, violence and conflict.

The college’s International Student Program supports people with student visas to enroll, register for classes and connect to tutoring and other campus services.

A Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau data commissioned by Presidents Biden’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration found that, “in 2022, immigrant students made up for 5.8 million or 32% of all students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, up from 20 percent in 2000.”

U.S. no longer a place of refuge

On March 22, 2025, Mark Masaoka – long-time leader with United Auto Workers and now retired-but-still-fighting member of Nikkei Progressives in LA’s Little Tokyo climbed onto the flatbed truck parked west of Pico Blvd. and took the mic.

He was there to address the crowd that gathered for the March for Humanity, uniting the cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Venice and Santa Monica to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

President Trump, he said to the crowd, “has been having trouble. He promised during the election to deport 13 million undocumented people. But, because of the rapid response networks that people have built across the country, ICE access to schools, workplaces and communities is being blocked. A lot of people now know their rights. Trump doesn’t have enough resources to deport people through the courts.”

In response, Masaoka said that the Trump administration resurrected the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to engage in mass deportations without complying with constitutional rights to due process.

In March, the Trump administration deported 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans that DHS claimed, without evidence and without due process, were gang members. On May 19, the Supreme Court released its ruling, 7-2, that the administration can immediately end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans, stripping them of their ability to get work permits or to temporarily avoid deportation.

They were sent to the maximum security CECOT “mega-prison” in El Salvador, the largest prison in the world.

Some – maybe many – sent to CECOT have legal status, and the administration has ignored court orders to return them.

In April, Trump threatened to send U.S. citizens there also.

“We in the Japanese community know the Alien Enemy Act all too well,” Masaoka said.

Paniagua fears that the Central and South Americans who are being sent to CECOT will be killed.

“I have a family member who works in the new prison,” Paniagua said. “That jail is for cartels.

She added that many people left their countries because of fear of the cartels and are now being incarcerated with people who threatened them in the past. “I hate what he [Trump] is doing.”

Despite the increasing desperation of migrants around the world to escape war and violence, opportunities for them to work and live in the U.S. are being quickly dismantled by Trump, members of his administration, some Congressional and local officials and numerous anti-immigrant organizations and media personalities.

In the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Trump’s rhetoric regarding refugees and other U.S. immigrants alerted communities to the potential for mass detention and deportation.

In a Sept. 10 debate with candidate Kamala Harris, Trump claimed that Haitians were eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. While campaigning later that month, he added that they were also committing sexual violence against “young American girls.”

On Oct. 21, Trump called Venezuelans criminals and called for their immediate deportation – a threat he has since followed up on since taking office, violating due process and ignoring court orders.

Trump also accused immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” and that “a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote.” He was repeating an unfounded and racist theory that non-white immigrants are being recruited into the country to replace white voters, including perpetuating a lie that they are committing widespread voter fraud.

On Jan. 20, the Trump administration suspended the entire U.S. asylum system claiming that he was stopping an “invasion” of the United States.

In January, the administration also pressured Ukrainian officials to accept deportation flights, including both people from Ukraine but also people from other countries.

On May 20, a Trump administration report outlined a proposal to “spend about $250 million of foreign aid funds to repatriate people from active conflict zones, including about 200,000 Ukrainians and 500,000 Haitians.”

“To say we are coming here to take advantage, as if we have a choice is crazy,” Ripko said.

She added that having no money, no clothes, living in the gyms of old schools or in churches wasn’t her “dream life” as a teenager.

“I would love to go back to my country. The problem is the whole neighborhood is gone,” Ripko said. “The house is gone. My schools have been damaged several times. It’s not our fault that someone occupied half of the eastern part of Ukraine and continues bombing people.”

The Uniting for Ukraine program was modeled on TPS and other DHS programs and offered Ukrainians temporary status.

The Ripkos’ parole was renewed just before Biden left office, extending their time limit from 2025 to 2027. The program is now listed on the DHS website as archived with the message, “In an effort to keep DHS.gov current, the archive contains outdated information that may not reflect current policy or programs.”

TPS currently enables about 800,000 Ukrainians to live and work in the U.S. The program serves people from 16 countries impacted by catastrophic events including war, famine, natural disasters and epidemics. Under U.S. law, it is a temporary, humanitarian form of relief designated for six, 12 or 18 months.

But TPS – created by a bipartisan act of Congress in 1990 – is being dismantled by the Trump administration.

On Feb. 20, DHS announced that TPS is eliminated for Haiti, putting hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants fleeing widespread violence, disease and starvation at risk of losing their work permits and deportation.

On May 13, 2025, DHS published a news release announcing termination of TPS for Afghanistan, and ordered people to leave the country despite the fact that many Afghans granted served the U.S. military during the war and are at grave risk of detention, torture and assassination if they return to Afghanistan.

Cameroon has also been eliminated from the list of nations designated for TPS.

The Trump administration has also detained for deportation student visa holders who participated – even in small ways – in questioning U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

On May 22, 2025, DHS blocked Harvard University from enrolling international students based in part on Harvard’s refusal to censor student protests in support of Palestine. On March 23, a court temporarily halted the DHS directive pending a hearing.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, “Invoking the specter of ‘invasion,’ the Trump administration has set out to build a fundamentally new, all-of-government machinery to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations. The administration has enlisted federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that have previously never played significant roles—or any, in the case of the IRS—in immigration enforcement.”

Simultaneously, the Trump administration also fired federal workers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). By April 16, up to 20,000 additional USCIS employees were asked to retire early or face layoffs.

The cuts have “raised alarms about potential delays in processing immigration applications, threatening to exacerbate backlogs and impact families, businesses and asylum seekers,” according to monitoring by Migrant Insider sponsored by San Diego Immigration Law Office.

While Trump and federal agencies have stripped protections and engaged in mass deportations of mostly people of color, the administration has extended protections and opportunities to white nationalists.

On May 12, 59 white South Africans granted refugee status by the U.S. landed in Dulles Airport near Washington DC. Trump said without evidence that the Afrikaners – descendants of the architects and enforcers of racial apartheid in South Africa – are fleeing a genocide in their home country. According the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, there is no genocide against Afrikaners.

Ironically, the “white rights” campaign in South Africa never asked Trump for refugee status in the U.S. Afrikaners say that their identity is tied to South Africa.

On May 15, the Trump administration argued before the U.S. Supreme Court for the elimination of birthright citizenship, the first presidential administration to ever attack this Constitutional right since it was established by the enactment of the 14th Amendment to ensure citizenship for formerly enslaved people.

The right was further codified by the 1898 Supreme Court case U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that “children born within the United States or its possessions—even to noncitizens—are U.S. citizens.”

El Camino Political Science Professor David Reed said that the U.S. is not yet a fascist state, but that could change.

It’s hard to enforce constitutional order “on a president that’s hell-bent on violating it,” Reed said. “The power of an executive order is determined by the willingness of those other branches [of government] to push back.”

He added that theories on global stability speak of the importance of maintaining alliances and managing conflict around the world. “Ragging on our NATO partners, hitting on all of our closest trading partners, it really seems like they [the Trump administration] are trying to retreat from that role,” Reed said.

According to Reed, the challenge is that no one else in the world is strong enough militarily or diplomatically to take the place of the U.S. He added that eliminating our alliances is likely to increase violence and economic chaos.

“My mom is monitoring all the news, all the articles,” Ripko said. “We are so lost. My work permit ends in two weeks. I don’t know if it will be renewed.”

Ripko works at ECC as a statistics coach, is a host at a large restaurant chain and mentors students at Lawndale High School. Her father worked for the national government in Ukraine. Her mom worked for the City Council in Kharkiv. Now they work as program aides in an assisted living facility.

“We depend on work permits. We would literally become homeless. We feel so anxious,” she said.

War’s lasting impact

In the months leading up to the election, Trump said that he would reach out to Putin and end the war against Ukraine in 24 hours. As of May 23, 2025 he had failed to deliver on that promise.

“He [Trump] is saying a lot of things that aren’t true,” Ripko said. “Y’all can not be that delusional. It’s so obvious that he doesn’t care about Ukraine with all his little chit chats with Putin.”

The prioritization of Putin’s agenda, Ripko said, is one of her greatest concerns.

“He probably could stop the war, but at what cost,” she said. “And who is gonna be the ones recovering from that for the next 30 years?”

Hasan’s family migrated to the U.S. from Pakistan. She said that the partition of India in 1947, at the end of 200 years of British colonization and rule had a devastating and lasting impact on her family.

The partition created Pakistan, India and eventually Bangladesh. Kashmir remains as an area that has neither been integrated or gained independence.

“The partition was very bloody,” Hasan said. “Families were ripped apart. It led to displacement, rape, massacres.”

Nearly eight decades later, brutal conflict continues. On April 26 Indian tourists were killed in Indian-controlled Kashmir by separatists demanding independence. Claiming retaliation, on May 7, India launched air strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir killing at least 31 people.

“War and genocide are continuous,” Hasan said. “Even the family structure in Pakistan where there are a lot of child marriages and a very patriarchal society – that is also a war – a war on women and children, but also a war on men. If you are an oppressor you are still oppressed by the structure.”

The trauma continues to impact her. “There’s a lot of fear within my family and my culture,” Hasan said.

“You always exist under a stereotype. It’s dehumanizing,” Hasan said.

In addition, Hasan said she has experienced the fact that Muslims – whether from Pakistan like her family, or Palestine or other nations – cannot challenge their own suffering without also defending politics, even when they might not agree with their own leaders.

“The West refuses to look us in the eye,” Hasan said. “To commit genocide, or to witness it and do nothing to stop it, requires that you dehumanize the victims.”

And that dehumanization she said impacts individuals, their families and communities forever.

“Violence is social death,” Hasan said. “War on immigrants and refugees is a continuation of that.”

Fighting back

Ripko remains steadfast in her optimism but also angry about the way people are being treated.

“I felt so disrespected when they [Trump and Vice-President JD Vance] disrespected my president,” Ripko said. “A really big population of Ukrainians moved here to seek safety, not to get bombed. Trump said, ‘Y’all are not thankful enough.’ That ticked me off. I pay taxes too. I’m not taking your benefits Donald Trump. You have enough money.”

Oscar de la Torre established the Pico Youth and Family Center, served four years on the Santa Monica City Council and 18 years on the school board.

On March 22, de la Torre and residents from other beach cities including Venice, Redondo and Manhattan Beach led the March for Humanity attended by more than 500 people.

“We are demonstrating our first amendment right to protest what the government is doing,” de La Torre said. He said his parents immigrated to Santa Monica from Mexico in the 1960s, worked hard and raised eight children that all ended up in public service.

“We’ve given back to make this country what it is,” de la Torre said. “We want to make sure that immigrants and refugees are not dehumanized, are not criminalized. The statements and policies that are coming out of the White House are very disturbing. We want to celebrate the cultural diversity that makes us an amazing nation.”

The goals of the march also included holding local cities accountable. Millions of people have participated in similar actions across the country.

“For all the liberal and progressive talk of some of our leaders, we haven’t done very much to declare that we are in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters,” de la Torre said.

He challenged beach cities to invest in free legal services for people facing deportation, as well as changes in hiring practices, and protection of Latino voting rights.

“If you profess to be progressive or liberal, you need to make sure that you walk the talk and that your budgets reflect those progressive values,” de la Torre said.

Message to El Camino

In the spring of 2024, Hasan worked as a writer for The Union – El Camino’s student-run newspaper.

She gained inspiration to create the Anti-War Club while interviewing students for a story she wrote titled “We’re not helpless while witnessing genocide.”

Hasan found that the genocide in Palestine, including the fact that it was documented and students were witnessing it on their phones, had a huge impact on students.

“For a lot of people on campus who are refugees or from families impacted by war, especially Palestinians, it’s very visible that they are struggling,” Hasan said. “They are triggered and traumatized.”

She urged ECC’s administration and faculty to provide greater understanding, support and recognition of students. Hasan said it might not be expected that the college would condemn Israel, but that “condemning the atrocities and the violence that is happening would make students feel that there is something getting done.”

Hasan also noticed that many students lack political agency and education.

“They are collectively disheartened by the fact that the government is not listening to the masses, and they are very pessimistic about the world. I really want to change that,” she said.

Hasan is studying political science, hopes to study at UCLA as a global studies major and to eventually work to challenge women’s rights violations in South Asia.

She said the college hasn’t discouraged the formation of the Anti-War Club. However, she added that “ECC hasn’t done anything positive to support students who are speaking out about the genocide in Gaza or wars more generally.”

She hopes the Anti-War Club and other efforts on campus will encourage political education.

“We’re advocating against these domestic and global atrocities, but also giving students their voice and autonomy,” Hasan said.

She also said that the U.S. is experiencing greater authoritarianism and it’s eroding both discussion and action on college campuses.

“Their (ECC administration’s) neutrality is reflective of the greater society and the U.S. government,” Hasan said. “The community college is scared of their funding getting taken away and of losing donors. They’re scared of being in any negative spotlight. They want good PR.”

Ripko hopes that refugee and immigrant stories inspire U.S students to access the educational opportunities that are available to them.

When they fled Kharkiv, Ripko said she “became an adult overnight.” Living in Romania with her little brother and grandmother, she was the only English speaker and did all the translation. She also quickly learned Romanian. At the age of 15, she was the main person caring for her family.

At the same time, she was still expected to attend school, connecting online with her teachers who were still in Ukraine.

“We [students] zoned out online, crying and depressed. We were all over the world. It felt terrible. Every lecture would stop five minutes in because sirens would go off and people still living in Ukraine would have to flee to the basements,” Ripko said.

The last two years of high school Ripko fell far behind.

“Y’all don’t realize how good you have it here [in the U.S.],” she said. “Take advantage of every counselor appointment, every project you can possibly work on, every research project, every paper you can write, every random class you took because you needed credits.”

Paniagua urged ECC staff, students and faculty to seek understanding of each person’s history and to show extra kindness toward refugees and immigrants who have overcome a lot to be at El Camino.

“Don’t judge us just because of where we come from,” Paniagua said. “Have an open heart and welcome us in. Show us that the world isn’t such a dark place, that there’s people who are loving and caring.”

When Ripko woke up on April 13, her first thought was “Today is my birthday. It’s gonna be so great. I have so much planned.”

But she checked the news and saw that Russia had killed 35 people, including children, in an airstrike during Palm Sunday services. It was the deadliest attack on Ukraine since the start of 2025.

According to data from the Institute for the Study of War, by January of 2025, at least 12,500 Ukrainian civilians had been killed in Russian attacks. In addition, at least 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 700,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or injured in the war.

“People keep asking me ‘Is it okay in Ukraine? Is it fine?,’” Ripko said. “No it’s not. It’s hell on Earth and it’s getting worse.”

She took a deep breath.

“We are all humans. We all deserve a good life,” Ripko said.

Editor’s note: 

• Added two photos at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 29.