Crowd rallies on the Green Sunday in support of Ukraine's resistance to the Russian invasion.
Three hundred Ukrainian-Americans and their allies rallied on the New Haven Green Sunday, linking the values of freedom and liberty that have often been celebrated in that historic space, to the life and death battle now raging in the second week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Organized by Upper Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen and members of the St. Mary’s Ukrainian Eastern Orthodox Church in the northeastern corner of his ward, the gathering featured dozens of yellow and blue Ukrainian flags fluttering against the New Haven skyline.
The gathering by the flag pole drew anxious, passionate Ukrainians and their civic and religious leaders from New Britain and Hartford to Orange and Bridgeport. The event included delivery of local proclamations and speeches by headliner U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the local community’s most prominent political ally, and other local leaders..
Many of the speeches were rousing and some electrifying in their simplicity of metaphor. For example, since 1991, declared Liubomyr (Louis) Mykytyn, a young organizer from Hartford, “Ukraine has been a bullet-proof vest for the rest of Europe.”
Blumenthal: "Putin is a butcher."
Among waves of call-and-response cries of “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to its Heroes,” Blumenthal made the first connection between the rallying place of historic American freedoms and Ukraine.
“On this Green American freedoms were established hundreds of years ago,” he declared. Colonial patriots “took a stand for freedom and democracy, as we take one for Ukraine today.”
“Putin is a butcher,” Blumenthal continued, referring to the Russian president who launched the invasion of Ukraine. “He will slaughter people as he did in Chechnya and Georgia. He is a war criminal. There should be a prosecution …
“No one can tell you how this will end but the people of the United States, all of us, are behind you. We are all Ukrainians at this moment in our history.”
Mayor Justin Elicker, at center, with Alders Anna Festa and Rosa Santana to his left.
There were graphic, angry anti-Putin signs (pictured over a toilet, “Flush Him Out”), and spontaneous passionate chants of “No Fly Zone, No Fly Zone” and “No Russian oil” that punctuated people’s urgent individual conversations with each other and the speeches.
Echoing Blumenthal, St. Mary’s Church member Iryna Kokovskyy said, “We are here exercising our democratic rights while our brothers and sisters are hiding from bullets.”
Alder Brackeen with Father Oleksandr Yatskiv of St. Mary's on Fowler Street.
Brackeen said the aim was to send a message statewide not only of solidarity but also of joy, in the values represented by the gathering.
“There are so many Jews with ancestors from Ukraine,” noted Rabbi Eric Woodward of Beth El-Keser Israel in Westville. “We’re here to stand for that history and also against Russian imperialism.”
One of the quietly moving stem-winders was offered not by a senator or a mayor or an alder, but a young Ukrainian named Liubomyr (Louis) Mykytyn.
“We need to close the sky above Ukraine. And don’t be afraid Putin will start bombing Europe and America. Putin’s daughter lives in Europe. And Lasarov [the Russian foreign minister] has kids in America. [They] will not kill their children,” Mykytyn stated.
Ukrainian national anthem sung Sunday on the Green.
Jaraoslw Palylyk, president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, pushed that theme: “Is there a fixed body count of Ukrainians before NATO changes its mind? For those who say this would start World War III, we are already there!”
Oleksandr Ruslanovych, the priest at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Bridgeport, put it most plainly. “My city Sumy has 300,000 people and is surrounded. No heat, no water, no medicine. Street fighting every day. The Russians come in and then go out. Below zero. … I am angry. [The West is] doing a lot, but it’s not enough.
“It is going on now because eight years ago we did nothing when they took Donbas and Crimea. Most of all now we need war planes and bullets. In the future we will ask you to help with our wounded soldiers. Now we need weapons.”
Local Ukrainian-American organizer Myron Melnyk addresses the rally.
Speakers recommended vetted nonprofit organizations for people interested in donating money. The organizations include the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (ucca.org); Revived Soldiers Ukraine (rsukraine.org); and the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee (uuarc.org)
Collections of food, clothing, medical supplies as well as financial donations are also being gathered at St. Michael Church, 569 George St., on Monday, from 4 to 7 p.m.
A separate rally held before the Green rally, on the steps of the federal courthouse on Church Street.
Alder Brackeen, who represents one of the city's two Ukrainian churches.