Americans with Ukranian families looking for ways to help

The news coming from Ukraine is disturbing enough for Americans who see what is happening with the ongoing Russian invasion. It hits closer to home for a Fort Worth resident who works in Willow Park.

Yana Begma is a teller at First Bank Texas. The 20-year-old young woman moved with her parents to the United States before she turned four, so she doesn’t have many first-hand memories of the country.

But she still has a lot of family in Ukraine — uncles, aunts, grandmothers — and close friends there as well.

“I was supposed to go back and visit and COVID happened,” she said. Her parents ended up being able to go while Yana stayed home to work.

“It was really sad. I wanted to see everybody. Hopefully I’ll get to go when things settle down,” she said.

When asked how she felt about what was happening there, Yana said “it was really scary at first. It was like at night. My sister was blowing up my phone and she was saying that they got bombed and it was like 12 in the morning for us. They were expecting it — at the same time they were preparing that something bad was gonna happen. They just didn’t know when.”

Yana said her family here called the family in Ukraine when they heard what happened.

“They told us they were scared — I mean, in that situation, you just don’t know what to do —  feel like frozen,” Yana said. “A lot of our family lives in the countryside, so it’s far from the capital, maybe an eight-hour drive. So they’re not in as much danger. But we do have some friends and family that live in cities. And that’s the ones we were really concerned about — not that anybody in the country was completely safe, but a little bit safer”

Yana understood the stakes in the conflict when asked how she thought the situation would end.

“I have no idea,” she replied. “I don’t think Putin is going to stop because he was once a really big leader in the USSR. And I feel like his ultimate goal is to gain all that back. And he wants to be the most powerful man that there is and I don’t think he’s going to stop.”

At the same time, she recognized the difficult position the United States and the rest of the world faces. When we asked her if the thought the United States and the rest of the world were doing enough, she provided a thoughtful answer.

“Do I feel like should they get involved?” she said. “In a way, yes, but not to the point where you’re putting the American people in danger too, because it’s not our fight. You know, it’s nice to help people, but the last thing we need is this huge world war. We don’t need that.”

Yana said her family has tried to send money to the family in Ukraine, but the Ukrainian banks are taking 20% off the top.

“Even if we send money they’re not getting all the money that we send, and it’s pointless. You don’t know if they’re giving them all that we’ve sent — they could be taking more than 20% and pocketing it,” Yana said. “Right now we’re trying to put a thing together — they have a food bank there. So my mom’s going to put together a donation flyer —that’s the only way you can really help them is through that food bank so that they at least have food.”

Yana said her aunt in one of the cities is trying to help other families who don’t have a place to go.