Desperate call
TCU student from Kyiv drops everything to help people in her homeland
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Last year seems so far away.
Then, there was peace in Ukraine. Raya Shelashska, 39, remembers being with her family in the botanical garden in Kyiv enjoying the music and the food.
“The way you feel in Kyiv is very special,” said Shelashska, a TCU student pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology who was born and raised in the city.
Shelashska was born in the Soviet Union in 1982. By the time she was 10 years old the Iron Curtain had fallen, and Ukraine was established as a sovereign nation. Shelashska never knew a Ukraine that wasn’t free.
Photo: The view of Kyiv from the botanical garden. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
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On the morning of Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine. Air sirens wailed in Kyiv as missiles struck at least 25 cities, including Kyiv. One month later, Russia has only heightened its aggression against Ukraine.
“The first couple of days it was just a shock,” Shelashska said. “I did not believe it was happening for real in the 21st century.”
While she’s 6,000 miles away from the fighting, the horrors of war are present everyday for her as she tries to reach family members and tailor her research to easing the trauma facing Ukrainians.
Credit: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project
Photo: Firefighters extinguish an apartment house after a Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, Ukraine, Monday, March 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy)
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“Only air ride sirens break the silence. You won’t hear kids laughing or the noise of busy streets. It looks like a ghost city."
'My last home'
During the first week, Shelashska spent 10 hours a day on the phone with family, friends, colleagues and the families she had worked with when she ran nonprofits in Kyiv.
Shelashska has begged her parents to leave Kyiv for a safer part of Europe, but they refuse.
“My dad, he says, ‘This is my last home. I'm not going anywhere.’”
“And I understand that,” Shelashska said. “When you get older you have your roots deep.”
Her parents live in a village where the roads lead to Kyiv.
“This is something that concerns me,” she said. “If they will have Russian tanks, they will take one of those streets, maybe both of those streets to get to Kyiv.”
Entire neighborhoods 15 miles northwest of her parents’ village have been wiped out from heavy fighting. There is also combat 15 miles south.
Her parents can hear the fighting and the explosions.
They do not have a basement, so they shelter with friends. They rely on church volunteers to bring food and necessities. The military curfew requires them to stay inside in the morning, evening and night.
Ukraine is seven hours ahead of Fort Worth. Shelashska stays up late anticipating the sunrise in Ukraine and the text from her mom:
“We’re fine.”
“We’re alive.”
“We’re OK.”
Her mother has left for a safer place. But even after watching nearby houses turn to rubble and ash, her father won't budge. On day 34, her parent's house still stands in Sviatopetrivske, a Kyiv suburb.
Shelashska’s mother-in-law and her aunt live 300 miles east of Kyiv in Kharkiv.
They also refuse to leave.
“I am just really scared that those who are staying there that the chances of surviving are going really smaller every day,” Shelashska said. “But on the other side, I try to be optimistic, and I try to respect their decision.”
Her mother-in-law tells the horrors of seeing fires with flames that reach the sky and explosions that keep getting louder.
“We lost electricity and heating for one day,” her mother-in-law told her.
“Ok guys it’s time to leave,” Shelashska responded.
They didn't.
Urban warfare
Neighborhoods in Kharkiv and Kyiv in the north to Mariupol have become battlegrounds. These key cities were once home to about two-thirds of Ukraine’s pre-invasion population of 44 million people.
Credit: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine leaders are trying to organize stable humanitarian corridors for Mariupol residents to escape, but almost all attempts have been unsuccessful. Mariupol has come under naval attack after weeks of air and land strikes. Earlier this week, Ukraine rejected Russia’s demand to surrender Mariupol in exchange for safe passage.
Credit: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project
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Shelashska has family in Mariupol. Her parents grew up there. Each summer her family would visit, and Shelashska would stay with her grandma and her cousin Julia.
“We basically grew up together during the summer,” Shelashska said. She hasn’t heard from Julia or from many of her relatives in Mariupol since March 1.
Mariupol has no electricity, heating, cellular connection, water or food.
Melting snow to drink water and cooking on fires outside, people are just trying to survive.
“A lot of people just live in the basements, and it's just really hard,” Shelashska said. "I can't even imagine what they go through, and I just have no idea if my family is alive there."
After over two weeks of silence, Shelashska heard from a cousin who has been hiding in a basement with her two young kids. They want to leave, but bombs or missiles hit Mariupol every 15 minutes.
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A Ukrainian serviceman guards his position in Mariupol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)
A Ukrainian serviceman guards his position in Mariupol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)
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A residential building destroyed by missiles in Mariupol. (Photo by Oleksii Samsonnov)
A residential building destroyed by missiles in Mariupol. (Photo by Oleksii Samsonnov)
Some did leave in time to escape.
Shelashska’s twin sister, her husband and their five kids left Ukraine for safety in central Europe.
In the first week of the invasion, more than a million Ukrainian refugees crossed borders into neighboring countries. As the war continues, an estimated 4 million people may flee Ukraine, according to The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A total of 3,626,546 refugees have left Ukraine since Feb. 24. Resources are stretched thin.
Refugees fleeing Ukraine (since Feb. 24, 2022)
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Two children are evacuated from Kyiv suburbs with their mother. Shelashska knows this family personally and was helping them get to a safer place. Trains are overcrowded. They spent three days in four different trains and most of the time were in the train halls standing or sitting on the floor. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
Two children are evacuated from Kyiv suburbs with their mother. Shelashska knows this family personally and was helping them get to a safer place. Trains are overcrowded. They spent three days in four different trains and most of the time were in the train halls standing or sitting on the floor. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
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A mother embraces her son who escaped the besieged city of Mariupol and arrived at the train station in Lviv, western Ukraine on Sunday, March 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A mother embraces her son who escaped the besieged city of Mariupol and arrived at the train station in Lviv, western Ukraine on Sunday, March 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
At least half of the capital’s population fled by March 10, according to Kyiv’s mayor; however, about two million people stayed in Kyiv to stand in solidarity and defiance against Russian forces.
Shelashska convinced her adopted daughter, Karina, who has two young children, to flee Kyiv to western Ukraine. It was “a miracle” they agreed to go, she said.
They left just two weeks before the devastation.
The only thing left of their home was a beige couch. Toys and a crib smoldered amid the ashes from a missile strike.
“It's hard to see that the war just getting closer and closer to people you love,” said Shelashska. “That it's not somewhere, but it's right there.”
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Shelashska's adopted daughter and her two kids (one and nine years old) stand in the kitchen of their apartment before it was destroyed by a missile early in the morning of March 15, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
Shelashska's adopted daughter and her two kids (one and nine years old) stand in the kitchen of their apartment before it was destroyed by a missile early in the morning of March 15, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
Karina's apartment after being hit by a missile
Karina's one-bedroom apartment was on the first floor. A beige couch was all that was left after the explosion.
Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska
Life's work: Put to the test
Kyiv is the place Shelashska fell in love. Started her family. Found her passion for psychology and fostering children.
In 2017, Shelashska came to TCU to pursue her master’s in child developmental trauma. Three years later, she brought her family to Fort Worth and settled in to pursue a doctorate in psychology.
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Raya Shelashska remembers kayaking on the Dnipro River, looking at Kyiv from the water in the summer of 2021. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
Raya Shelashska remembers kayaking on the Dnipro River, looking at Kyiv from the water in the summer of 2021. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
Her twin sons are first-year students at TCU. Her husband works remotely with people in Ukraine. Her nine-year-old son is in third grade at a Fort Worth ISD elementary school.
They planned to move back to Kyiv after Shelashska earned her degree. Now, she wonders if there will be anything to return to.
“I had this survival guilt that I am here safe with my family,” Shelashska said.
Shelashska and her husband sent money to their family in Ukraine and started to figure out other needs to meet.
As a clinician, Shelashska realized she could help send protocols to psychologists for trauma intervention.
At TCU’s Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development, Shelashaska conducts research to understand how Trust-Based Relational Intervention, an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention for caregivers of children who have experienced trauma, strengthens relationships and helps children learn to regulate themselves more effectively.
Shelashska's life work has been and continues to be to help children heal from complex developmental trauma, said her research advisor and TCU associate professor of psychology Danica Knight.
“I’m using all the skills and knowledge I have right now to help people."
Shelashska has experience as a practitioner and expert in her field of child welfare, working as a director of three different foster care-related international NGOs since 2006.
After earning her master's in developmental trauma from TCU in 2017, Shelashska received advanced training in a method called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is designed to resolve unprocessed traumatic memories in the brain in fewer sessions than other psychotherapies.
In recent weeks, Shelashska has been using her experience to help people in her home country overcome trauma and prevent PTSD.
For most of the day, Shelashska lives virtually in Ukraine, connecting with people in Ukraine to provide counseling and support.
“I can’t wait to go to bed in the evening and forget about this nightmare, at least while I’m sleeping,” Shelashska said. “It’s hard to hear what they went through [...] all of the stories, they are just unimaginable.”
Some of her professors have brought meal trains to her and her family.
“Her compassion for children who’ve experienced trauma and her many years of experience working with vulnerable children in Ukraine gives her a unique perspective on her studies,” said Knight.
Shelashska has begun to shift her focus toward developing tools and resources that can help people in Ukraine.
Shelashska’s research is changing course.
“While her primary motivation for staying connected to people in Ukraine is to help them cope today in this moment, she’s gaining profound insights into what caregivers and children are experiencing, what their needs are and what the effects might be long-term,” Knight said. “These insights will be immensely helpful as she begins to develop companion tools to TBRI to address acute trauma and support healthy attachment as part of her doctoral work.”
As Shelashska takes action, she hopes others will too.
“It's really important for people across the globe to use their voice and to stand up and say, ‘It’s not OK,’ and if you can donate please do, if you can pray please do, if you can use any of your skills and talents to help us please do, but please don't stay away, and please don't turn away from us. That’s [...] that’s the biggest fear,” she said.
Photo: Candles and lights form a giant peace sign during the Avaaz peace vigil action in front of the European Council and Commission buildings on Tuesday, March 22, 2022 in Brussels, Belgium. Avaaz calls on Europe to get off Russian oil to stop the Ukraine war ahead of the European Council summit with US President Biden. (Olivier Matthys/AP Images for Avaaz Foundation)
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More than one way to fight
One of her sons, Vladyslav (Vlad) Shelashskyi, a psychology major, worked with friends to set up an information and donation desk for Ukrainians in the Brown-Lupton University Union.
“I wanted to contribute to Ukraine's fight for its future and help save innocent lives, so I decided to start by raising awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and the ways members of the TCU community can make a difference,” Shelashskyi said. “I decided to do this because I was deeply hurt by witnessing innocent Ukrainian civilians die by the thousands as the result of Russian aggression and seeing the country I love being razed to the ground by Russian bombs and rockets.”
TCU’s international community is organizing an on-campus Humanitarian Crisis in Ukraine Awareness Event, which will take place in the Intercultural Center Monday, April 11, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The event will feature Ukrainian TCU students speaking about their experiences with the people in crisis and the perspectives of their friends and families in Ukraine.
Like Shelashska and her sons, thousands of Ukranians living in the United States are helping their homeland, refusing to give up.
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(Photo courtesy of Vlad Shelashskyi)
(Photo courtesy of Vlad Shelashskyi)
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Raya Shelashska's twin sons Vlad and Ross hand out flyers and Ukrainian flags outside the BLUU to raise awareness and encourage people to donate and support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
Raya Shelashska's twin sons Vlad and Ross hand out flyers and Ukrainian flags outside the BLUU to raise awareness and encourage people to donate and support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of Raya Shelashska)
“Ukraine doesn't have an army, Ukraine is an army."
But Shelashska said Ukraine can’t fight this fight alone.
“My biggest fear is that the world will get used to the idea that we have a war and they will turn away and it's going to be just us left there, and without the support we will not last long,” Shelashska said.
It is more than a fight over land; it is a fight for democracy and the right to choose their direction, Shelashska said.
“We don't want to give up everything and say, ‘OK, you can call us Russia now,' because it's our land. We love our country, we love our culture, we love our language, we love our food, we love our houses, we love our Ukraine,” Shelashska said.
**This story was updated on March 29.
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