Over two years have passed since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine. More than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have died since the onslaught of the war, with multiple reports of human rights abuses in the areas of Bucha and Mariupol.
Danylo Shudrenko, a Haverford Sophomore and Ukrainian student, spoke to the Bi-Co News regarding his experiences as a student fleeing war. The interview, which can be found below, has been edited for brevity and clarity.
In the past few weeks, Russian troops have begun to invade Kharkiv, Ukraine, where Shudrenko is from. While Russian president Vladimir Putin publicly claims that the purpose of these advancements are not to take control of the city but rather to put in place a “buffer zone,” his statements regarding the war are rarely reliable. In the days leading up to Russia’s full scale invasion, Putin’s government denied any desire to push Russian troops into Ukraine even as their tanks rolled into outposts near the border. The Bi-Co News’s conversation with Shudrenko took place a few months prior to the developments in Kharkiv.
Could you just introduce yourself?
Sure. So my name is Dan. I’m a sophomore. I’m originally from Kharkiv, Ukraine. I hope to major in psychology and computer science.
And where is that in Ukraine? Just for reference.
So Kharkiv is the second biggest city in Ukraine. It’s approximately the size of Philadelphia. And it’s one of the most eastern cities. So we’re just under [the] Donetsk and Lugansk regions, so that was occupied, starting from 2014, and my home was like 20 miles from Russian border.
Can you tell me some fun fond memories you have of your city growing up? Like something that American students or just Bi-Co students, something you would like to share with them?
Yeah, our city is pretty unique. First of all, it’s really large. We had the biggest market in Europe.
Like food market or just outdoor market?
Outdoor market. And you can go there and buy whatever you want and you can honestly get lost in this market. It was so huge… We have one of the biggest squares in Europe. It’s just a square in the city center and it’s pretty walkable. People would gather there to celebrate city day or to have any other related celebrations, like for day of Ukrainian constitution [and] they would invite many artists to perform. And it was basically like this big area where people could just walk… it’s also pretty beautiful because it’s close to our university which is a 16 floor building, which is super large. It’s called Karazin University. We have a really nice theme park also in the middle of the city. It was renewed pretty recently, like in 2010 or 2015. It’s a lot of new attractions and stuff like that. Also I would say people in my hometown, they all were super friendly, which is not as typical for Eastern Europe in general. And we had a lot of cool stuff to do… like you could go and…find some restaurants of different cuisines, you could find whatever you were interested in there, like multiple museums [or] art galleries, stuff like that.
How was your identity as a Ukrainian impactful to your worldview growing up?
So it was kind of complicated because Ukraine was colonized by Russia so many times, starting from like [the] 16th century. And the last [time]… was [the] Soviet Union, because Ukraine didn’t join [the] Soviet Union willfully. They forcefully occupied Ukraine after the first war, [the] World War. And in my hometown, because it was so close to Russia, it actually used to be a capital of Ukraine when it was in [the] Soviet Union. [So] it was extremely Russified. And so when I was growing up, I was speaking Russian. And to us, like, our culture was built in a way that we saw that people who spoke Ukrainian [as] less educated people of the village and stuff like that. And only in high school… I started to learn more about [the] history [of] Ukrainian [culture]… which includes, like, a lot of horrible stuff that the USSR did to Ukraine. For example, there [was] like a cultural elimination of everything that was Ukrainian related. They killed a lot of Ukrainians artists, writers… they were claimed to be Ukrainian nationalists because they were writing in Ukrainian, like that’s all. Like even some of their literature was not related to nationalism, they could have just like write about nature, but write in Ukrainian, and so it [the USSR] claimed them to be criminals and kill[ed] them, or sent them to the north of the country. And When I learned about that, I started to switch into Ukrainian… I stopped speaking Russian when I was 16, which was before [the] full scale invasion. And honestly, it was a hard process because of how incorporated this conception of Russian being more prestige… [is] in my region.
What brings you to Haverford? Why’d you choose to come to the United States to study?
Okay. So I’m a part of [a] program. It’s called Ukraine Global Scholars. It’s a program for low income talented students from Ukraine. It’s completely nonprofit… Specifically, I chose to go to United States because I wanted to have liberal arts education. In Ukraine, as in most European countries, you choose your subject before you enroll in a university. So, you enroll in a specific course and then there’s no flexibility to switch if you don’t like it. And I was not sure what I wanted to study and also finding something interdisciplinary was really appealing to me and that’s why I chose to go to the US. I specifically chose to go to Haverford because I had known one alumna from Haverford, she graduated in 2022, so a year before I came. And also I was like interested in going to a small college that was close to the city… most liberal arts colleges are in the middle of nowhere.
Okay, so how have you liked Haverford? Are you enjoying it here?
Yeah, I’m enjoying Haverford. I really like it. I find Haverford faculty [to] be really supporting. When I first arrived, I was like not in [the] best mental state, I was really stressed. I’m still kind of am because if I feel like if I fail…I [am] kind of homeless because I can’t go back home because…male adults are not allowed to leave the country. So if I come back home, then I won’t be able to leave the country again and come back to Haverford.
So have you not been home?
Yeah, I haven’t been home since [leaving]. I haven’t been into my apartment specifically since the beginning of the war, which was more than two years ago. And I left Ukraine in May of 2022. So I haven’t been home for two years. And then, when I came to Haverford, I was really stressed about it, because I felt as if something doesn’t work out, for example, after my graduation, I’m kind of homeless, I don’t have financial support from my family, I’m [an] immigrant. And it felt like it [was] too much pressure. And at the same time, when the war started, the school of my little brother was damaged and I helped him to get to the U.S. He’s, he used to go to North Country School in Lake Placid. It’s upstate New York and now he’s going to [a higher education] school in Dobbs Ferry. It’s close to New York City. And because I was also the only adult who speaks English in my family, I was doing all parenting duty for my younger brother. And when I helped him to get to the boarding school in the U. S., he didn’t speak English. And he speaks it now, but when he arrived [he didn’t]. And so, when I came to Haverford, it felt like it was like so much pressure, and I really appreciate the faculty…my dean, I appreciate…my pre-major advisor who supported me through all of that, and so I was really enjoying Haverford, not only like academically, but I had this strong social support.
Wait, so, just to figure out the timeline. Where were you when the war began?
I was in my hometown. So when the war began, I woke up from bomb[s] hitting the ground. My apartment [was] shaking because my apartment is on this part of the city that’s actually closest to Russia. So when it started, it was terrible. My mom woke us all up. It was like 5 a.m. or 6 a.m… People started to leave [the] city, it was immense traffic… it was really scary because [there] was rockets hitting the ground, you could hear a lot of explosions and stuff like that. And we then moved to a small village where my grandma lives, just outside of the city, and we stayed there for two weeks. But then, the village next to it was completely destroyed. And so we moved to a bit further [out] areas. Uh, to Western Ukraine, in the next state. And because my family lost [a lot], my father lost his job, we lost our apartment, it was not the best financial station. We had to live in really small apartments… that belonged to my grandmother[‘s] relatives, and it also was honestly terrible, because there was nine of us, and it was a two room apartment, and it was really old… [there] was moldy walls and stuff like that.
Is your family still in Ukraine?
Everyone except my middle brother.
I just was wondering about what it meant to you, or what it felt like to leave Ukraine, to come
to Haverford, and to not know when you were going to be able to come back. What led you to make that decision and just kind of your feelings surrounding it.
I feel I was so sad when going to study in the U. S., even before the war. As I mentioned my younger brother’s school was damaged, my middle brother. And he [is] also a super smart guy, and I wanted him to continue [his] education. So actually, my middle brother came to the U. S. earlier than I did. It happened in April… I started to reach out randomly to all [of the] boarding schools possible and just, texted their admission officers [saying] I have my younger brother. He’s super smart, but because of the war he cannot go to his school. They want[ed] to take an international student. And so my younger brother actually came to the U. S. much earlier than I did… he came to the U.S. in April of 2022. And so, also, partially for me coming to the U. S. was not [a] choice because I would not leave my younger brother… So that was kind of [the] reasoning. And also I feel [the] financial situation back home [was bad]… finding a job [during] the war is much harder… now I work in the Haverford campus and so [even though] it’s not a high salary for the U. S. I still can kind of financially support my family back home.
So what are you hearing from home concerning the war that people in the Bi-Co might not know about or that you would want to share with them?
First of all, I want to just explain how huge the scale of the war is. Ukraine is the country that is [the] biggest in Europe, except Russia… and the amount of destruction that’s happening is insane. I remember it was a half year after the beginning of the war, and there was data that 40 percent of my hometown was destroyed. And again for comparison, Kharkiv is the size of Philadelphia…There have [been] multiple massacres in many regions of Ukraine, on the front line. For example, Mariupol is now occupied by Russians… And not all of it is reported in the [Ukrainian] news for the simple reason of not demoralizing Ukrainians. Even the Ukrainian government will not release [the] official numbers of civilians killed… the ones that are released are really low, [and] so unrealistic… They [the Russians] would walk civilians into a… line and just kill them, shoot them…So I feel like not all the people understand how huge the scale of the war is in Ukraine, and also how many war crimes is Russia committing. For example, a year ago, they bombed a hospital in Vinnitsa. Vinnitsa is a region 800 miles from [the] Russia border. And it was just [a] civilian hospital… Their [the Russians] goal was just bombing a civilian place, it wasn’t any like military structure or whatever…A lot of people don’t understand that a lot of Russian people support war in Ukraine….When the war started, on February 24th, that day in Moscow there was a concert, a music concert, and the amount of people who showed up tp protest against the war was smaller than the amount of people who showed up to the music concert just next to it, which is absurd from my perspective. And because of that, it’s kind of really insane when people still romanticize Russian culture… I feel that people, especially like in Bi-Co, many students, for example, care about the conflict between Palestine and Israel. They actively cancel Israel, but then they don’t cancel Russia the same way, [and] it feels like really hypocritical from my perspective. It’s not like that only their government is supporting the war… the whole country and a lot of Russians support the war. And even those who don’t actually support the war, you can ask them questions like, ‘oh, who does Crimea belong to?’ And they would probably say that it belongs to Russia, which means that…they support the occupation of Ukraine.
Do you think there’s anything the students could do that would support Ukraine more?
Yeah… It would be amazing if Bi-Co [and] Tri-Co students could boycott Russian products, especially Russian music or Russian culture. I feel like, again, it’s super romanticized, but in reality it’s an imperialistic culture. Also, I feel like, in general sharing more news, attending more events. For example, when I was organizing my vigil, I honestly expected much more people to show up than actually did. They were only, like, what, 30 people? So as I previously explained, [the] war in Ukraine is not just some political stuff or whatever, it’s also a long history of colonization of more than four centuries. And I feel if students from Bi-Co care a lot about [the] Palestinian and Israeli conflict, from my perspective, it’s the same stuff that happening in Russia. It’s the same because Russia colonized Ukraine for so long. And the fact that there is not as much news spread among people about [the] war in Ukraine or, like, not as much fundraising or stuff like that… that can be changed.
If you had one message to share to all the students of the Bi-Co in, I don’t know, two sentences. If they were all listening to you and you were standing there and you had like a minute to speak to them, what would be the key things you would want to tell them, the most important things?
I want them to understand that [the] war in Ukraine is not over. And it’s not a war of 8 years or 10 years, it’s a war of centuries and it’s a history of colonization. And that Ukraine has to be supported because otherwise we are losing. As in Syria, Russians are going against international law. And it’s a potential beginning of [a] third world war if Ukraine gets occupied because Putin [has also] made statements about attacking Poland… And in Belarus and there is multiple examples already of how Russia has not stopped when they occupied Chechnya and part of Georgia, as they started the war in Moldova. And it continues with Ukraine. And there is no reason to think that if Ukraine gives up and joins Russia, there will be peace in Europe. It will get even worse. And when it gets even worse, it will be a third world war. [In a] third world war, the U. S. will be definitely involved. Not only with providing support, like economically and weapon wise, but… sending people there.
CORRECTION: The article has since been updated to include the correct spelling of Shudrenko’s name. We apologize for this error.
CORRECTION: Previously, Karazin University was erroneously listed as Skrajina University. We apologize for this error.
