Residents of Ashland, Medford and other valley towns join in video calls

By Jim Flint for Ashland News

Each month on the 24th, the anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a group of citizens engages in conversations online with Ukrainians to hear their points of view, find out how they’re doing, and to offer support.

The group Ukraine Flags for Solidarity includes members from Ashland, Medford and other communities.

On Friday, March 24, a discussion was hosted by Michael Sawicky, a semiretired software developer in Ashland, and Sal Edwards, an owner-partner with Estelle Gray of Heart Zones, a 25-year-old Medford company that sells hardware and software to support the fitness industry.

It was the software business, in fact, that provided the connection in the first place. Six months before the Russian invasion, Heart Zones contracted with Euristiq, founded by Ivan Muts in Lviv, Ukraine, to build some software for their school and health club fitness solution. Muts’ firm develops software for airlines and public utilities.

So, when the war broke out, Edwards contacted Sawicky to discuss ways to support Ukraine.

Later, when she couldn’t find a Ukraine flag to purchase and fly at a Medford rally, Edwards’ partner, Gray, also an accomplished seamstress, purchased some fabric and made one.

Thus was born Ukraine Flags for Solidarity, which has raised more than $30,000 for Ukraine relief, much of it to buy tourniquets for the warn-torn country. Volunteers all over the country donate and sew flags for the effort.

Friday’s conversation

During Friday’s online discussion, Sawicky asked Muts if he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin had gained anything from his recent visit to Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Muts viewed it as a propaganda tour, meant to shore up Putin’s image at home and abroad.

“It was less for a local audience and more for an international audience,” Muts surmised. “It was an attempt to show an image that they are not isolated, but have more friends than enemies. I don’t think it made a lot of difference with people in Ukraine.”

Yuri Pochapskyi, also on the call, is project manager and engineer for another Ukrainian tech company, Yuristics. He agreed with Muts’ assessment.

“Putin tries to show he’s ‘supportive’ but it’s just a picture, designed to show he’s doing something,” he said.

Muts said Russia has zero to offer.

“No superior economy, no technology,” he said. “They are just destroying a lot.”

Muts noted that for the first time, in 2021, salaries in Ukraine caught up with Russian salaries. “That broke their propaganda message,” he said.

Sawicky wondered what changes might be in store in the spring.

“This winter was very hard emotionally,” Muts said. “But now that the days are longer and warmer, people are going hiking, businesses are running, we continue to pay our taxes. I, myself, can’t afford mentally to go have fun. It’s not the same when people are dying.”

He said Russia continues to run a psychological war as well, filling social media with propaganda and misinformation.

Sawicky asked Muts about the “brain drain,” the result of people leaving Ukraine.

“Yes, that happens in these types of situations,” Muts acknowledged, “and we don’t blame people for leaving.”

“Some people were already leaving, before the war,” Pochapskyi noted.

“Yes,” Muts said, “some had left because of quality of life or for economic reasons. Like (they did) in Poland. It was a poor country and people left to find better opportunities. But now Poland is doing very well and people are returning.”

Optimism for a postwar Ukraine

He believes that if the war ends with the right kinds of agreements, and new opportunities arise from a rebuilt and recovering Ukraine, people will return.

“We will need people,” he said, “and that will be a challenge — how to attract constructive immigration.”

Edwards asked about the problem of corruption in the government.

Muts agreed that it is a problem, but that it’s a problem everywhere.

“But Russia is becoming poorer, so they can’t buy loyalty as easy as they once did,” he said.

One thing that will help, he said, is when money is given from Western governments, it should come with conditions of reform.

Muts believes that Ukrainians in general now realize that Russia is not a friend, despite history and connections. “They see now that Russia is an imperial power that takes others’ resources for their own,” he said.

“We used to be 50-50, a bilingual country where about half the people spoke Russian and the other half Ukrainian. Now we have a big wave of people switching to speaking the Ukraine language. People are waking up.”

Muts said his country is grateful for all the support from the United States and other countries. “It helps save lives,” he said. “We want to be part of the free world.”

The war has been a painful reminder to all Ukrainians:

“Freedom is not just a word you learn in school,” Muts said. “The loss of it has very real consequences.”

For more information about Ukraine Flags for Solidarity and how to support its efforts, go to ukraineflags.org or its volunteer page here.

Reach writer Jim Flint at [email protected].

March 30 update: Caption on featured photo corrected to correctly identify the person pictured.