‘I’m Australian but Ukraine is part of my identity’

Dmytro Matsypura is seething with anger at Russia’s assault on his homeland as he addresses an anti-war rally in Australia’s largest city.

Matsypura, a university professor in Sydney, says he is ready to fight in the Ukraine.

“I can do a lot more by being here and helping out, but if need be I have no reservations about picking up a gun.” [and] Go,” he tells the BBC. “My father is sitting with his hunting rifle, at the window, waiting for the invaders to come in so he can shoot them, and my father is in his 70s.”

With his parents and in-laws in the Ukraine, he tells me he is “sick with worries.”

“We don’t sleep much. It’s a nightmare I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he says. “The whole invasion fills me with rage towards this army that came to invade us, and I have a hard time containing that.”

kyiv is 15,000 km (9,320 miles) from Sydney, but for many in the Ukrainian diaspora the conflict feels unbearably close.

Inside St Andrews Ukrainian Catholic Church on a rainy Sunday, Melbourne-born priest Father Simon Ckuj tells the congregation that forgiveness is a virtue.

“If we let ourselves be overcome by our human passions, by our anger and, God forbid, by our hatred, then we are fallen,” he says. “We are no better than the enemy who does the work of the evil one.”

After the service, Father Ckuj explains his reaction to the Russian invasion.

“At first it was a shock. Now it’s uncontrollable pain,” he says. “Do we pray for [Vladimir] Putin? Yes, we have to pray for Putin for his conversion, for him to withdraw from Ukraine, for him to do penance and for him to face the consequences of his acts.”

Outside the church, the Australian flag flies alongside the Ukrainian, a blue and yellow emblem that has become a symbol of global resistance.

“I am proudly Australian but… being Ukrainian is part of my identity,” says Teresa Huzij, whose grandparents fled Ukraine after World War II. For her elderly grandmother, history feels like it’s repeating itself.

“My mother’s mother, who is still alive at almost 99 years old, said ‘it’s happening again’. She came… because Australia was the only country that accepted her as a widow with a child.”

“I have family from my mother and father in Ukraine and I send them messages every day through social media, I hear from them. It’s unbearable. But Ukrainians have always been and will always be free because that’s who we are. “.

Olexa Matiouk’s parents moved to Australia when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. Her grandparents and cousins ​​still live there.

“It has been intense, but we are in contact with them every day. It is a very jarring routine,” Matiouk tells the BBC. “You wake up, go on social media to see what’s going on, and hope no one you know has been killed or hurt.”

Ukrainians have a long history in modern Australia.

One of the earliest immigrants was a soldier who sailed to Australia in the 1860s and opened a sheep farm. Refugees would arrive in the late 1940s, and migration from Ukraine increased after its independence in 1991.

In Sydney, protesters have demonstrated every day to voice their opposition to Vladimir Putin’s invasion. At times, protesters from Belarus and Russia have joined their Ukrainian cousins.

“It’s a big mistake. We can see it now,” says Alexey Pustovoyt, an immigrant from St. Petersburg in Russia, the hometown of President Putin. “I can’t understand why he [Putin] I decide to go. There are no excuses. You can not do this. It’s the 21st century.”

Tatsiana, a Belarusian protester, echoes her condemnation.

“I don’t know a single Belarusian who sincerely supports what is happening. We all pray for Ukraine, we all hope for his freedom, ”he says.

The Australian government has called the Russian invasion “a total violation of international law.” [and] a completely spontaneous and unwarranted attack on your neighbor.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said China, which has supported Russia’s economy as Western sanctions creep in, has more power than anyone else to end the conflict.

“I was listening to the voice of the Chinese government when it came to condemning Russia’s actions and there was an eerie silence,” he said in a speech to the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research organization.

Here, too, there are fears that the invasion of Ukraine has fostered a “worrying new strategic convergence” between Beijing and Moscow that could embolden China’s regional territorial ambitions.

What Morrison called a “new arch of autocracy” that would “challenge and restore the world order” also worries spy chiefs.

“We are going to have to work much harder to maintain the liberal quality of the rules-based order in Europe and here in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Andrew Shearer, director general of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence.

But for the Ukrainian diaspora, their world has already changed. There is despair, but there is also challenge.

“We have this unity, we have this support,” explained Dmytro Matsypura. “It fills me with this feeling that we are not alone and we can win this.”