Pittsburgh's Ukrainian community keeps nervous watch as Russia threatens invasion of homeland

Jan. 22—The Rev. Timothy Tomson, whose grandparents are from Ukraine, is among those in the Pittsburgh area with Ukrainian roots watching warily as fears of a Russian invasion continue.

Tomson is vice president of the Ukrainian Community of Western Pennsylvania, which he helped found in 2009, and pastor of St. Mary Ukrainian Orthodox Church in McKees Rocks. He grew up in Brackenridge and lives in South Bend in Armstrong County with his wife, Svitlana, who came to the U.S. from Ukraine in 1989.

Proud to be an American, his grandfather changed the family's name from Chajkowsky.

"It's very disheartening and it's scary," Tomson said of the current situation. "Old men make wars, and young men die fighting them."

Pointing to Ukraine being rich in natural resources, there's an old saying Tomson is fond of: "Without Ukraine, Russia is just a country. With Ukraine, Russia is an empire."

"If they invade, this will be another Afghanistan for them," he said. "They may look like they're winning, but in the long run they won't."

Over recent months, Russia has massed 100,000 troops and military equipment on Ukraine's eastern border. Ongoing negotiations between Russia and the United States have failed to calm tensions.

The Pittsburgh area has a sizeable population with Ukrainian bonds, whether immigrants themselves or descendants of immigrants who came to the region to work in its mines and steel mills. According to the census, just over 1 million people in the U.S. report Ukrainian ancestry.

Helen Guzensky of Monessen said her father, Aleck Fall, came to America from Ukraine to be free and work in a steel mill. He met Guzensky's mother here. Guzensky's father learned English and taught her and her brother Ukrainian.

"If he was still alive today, he would be in terrible despair," said Guzensky, secretary at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Monessen. "I feel for the people there."

Although she has never visited Ukraine, Guzensky has communicated with her cousins there and feels a bond from the traditions her father brought with him.

What Russia is doing is "terrible," she said.

"They can't let the Ukrainian people alone. They've been doing that many, many years," she said. "The Russians won't let the Ukrainians go."

Paul Gerlach of Ross is president of the Ukrainian Community of Western Pennsylvania and a music lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University. His grandparents and mother were born in Ukraine.

"The people I've met from Ukraine, the immigrants who have come here, are very hardworking people who are very passionate about their country," Gerlach said. "They have suffered many adversities under the Nazis, under the yoke of the Soviet Union, yet they're fiercely proud of their heritage and want it to continue."

There is a long history with deep tension between Ukraine and Russia, said John Sawicki, an assistant professor of political science in the McAnulty College of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University, where he teaches courses on international relations and is director of its Center for International Relations.

That history includes the Holodomor, a forced famine in the early 1930s when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. About 8 million Ukrainians died, Sawicki said.

"It was brutal," he said. "For obvious reasons, the Ukrainians have never forgotten that."

Ukraine gained independence in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sawicki said Russian President Vladimir Putin calls Ukraine and other former Soviet states the "near abroad" and argues they are within an exclusive Russian sphere of influence.

In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which Sawicki said Putin accomplished without a serious response from the West, the United States in particular. Warfare that started the same year in separatist regions of eastern Ukraine has led to more than 15,000 deaths.

"There is a serious perception in Moscow that the West is riven by division. Its chief champion, the United States, has an unprecedented level of collapse of political discourse," he said. "Absent a united front, it's hard to believe the United States could mount a serious response.

"The irony here is the Russians are not strong militarily or economically," Sawicki said.

Because of the internal tensions Russia is contending with, including what Sawicki called "a basket case of an economy," Putin is looking for an external enemy to divert attention from domestic woes.

"He wants concessions from the West," Sawicki said. "He thinks he can bluff his way into getting NATO to back down and he can intimidate his near abroad neighbors to stay away from their Western contacts. Putin is fundamentally saying, 'Be my friend or else.' "

Although Sawicki said Russia does not have the means to carry out a war of any duration, almost all of the weapons Ukraine has to defend itself are left over from its days as part of the USSR. Still, Ukrainians have been fighting Russian encroachments in eastern Ukraine for eight years.

"Large numbers of Ukrainian citizens have served in combat situations in the military," he said. "There is a strong sense of Ukrainian nationalism built on the horrors they've experienced with Russia since the 1920s that will make them fight fiercely for their country."

The Rev. Yaroslav Koval is pastor of St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church in Arnold. He came to the United States a decade ago; his mother and other family and friends are in western Ukraine. His church of about 50 members is working to rebuild after a devastating fire Dec. 4.

Koval said there is a young generation in Ukraine who never lived under the Soviet Union and have a different mentality.

"They have a great desire to live in an independent Ukraine, not in Russia," he said. "If they start the war, the consequences will be very drastic for the Russian Federation. We are ready to defend ourselves because we have the right to keep our independence, to preserve our freedom and independence. The young generation is ready to die for that independence and that freedom."

While praying for peace, Koval said what Ukraine needs from the United States is weapons.

"That's it. We will fight for ourselves," he said. "We have a young generation who are ready to defend our homes. We just need a lot of weapons."

The Rev. Mark Swindle is pastor of another Ukrainian church in Arnold, Holy Virgin Ukrainian Orthodox Church. A native of Chicago, his grandparents are from Ukraine and he has relatives there.

Swindle's congregation numbers around 20.

"We continually pray for our beloved mother Ukraine that they will not be invaded. We ask God to please protect Ukraine against all of its enemies and all of her adversaries," he said. "It's nothing new that the Russians won't keep their hands off Ukraine. Ukraine has been a land that for thousands of years that Russians have tried to gain a stronghold on.

"Time will only tell what the Biden administration will do," he said. "We try to remain hopeful as we can this administration will stick to its word and help out Ukraine."

Tomson said Putin has not honored the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, a 1994 agreement between Russia, Britain and the United States that recognized the independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in exchange for the nations giving up their nuclear weapons.

"We need to pray for peace," he said. "We need to pray that it doesn't escalate any further and that Russia respects the Budapest Memorandum and withdraws all their forces from the borders of Ukraine and respects the sovereignty of Ukraine and its borders like they promised to do when they signed the Budapest Memorandum."

Brian C. Rittmeyer is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Brian at 724-226-4701, brittmeyer@triblive.com or via Twitter .