But, a year after Russia invaded its neighbor, upending the lives of millions, the Puzhalina family has stabilized: Anastasiia and her husband were elated to find an affordable rental and were relieved to receive their work authorizations in January. 

Central to their happiness, their children, ages 11, 10 and 7, are thriving: They felt welcomed by their new school and have made many friends. All have a penchant for mathematics and the eldest is no longer classified as an English language learner.  

“They are doing well at school and making really good progress in English,” Puzhalina said. “Virsaviia, my youngest, reads in English better than in Ukrainian already.”

And there was another development that will make life in America much easier for the family.

“I am learning to drive,” Puzhalina said. “It was hard for me to overcome my fear: It was something that paralyzed me. But now I feel more comfortable. I just have to practice backing up, parallel parking and get that license.”

The family’s progress comes amid ongoing tumult in their home country. The invasion has left , according to U.S. estimates. Some 5.9 million people are meaning they are running for safety inside its borders, and millions more have fled to neighboring countries and across Europe. 

There is no foreseeable end to the conflict. President Joe Feb. 20 came just a day before announced his plan to withdraw from the last major remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the United States. This latest move, , is among many policy changes that have left some Russians uneasy: Putin’s effort has prompted thousands here.

Other Ukrainians, including Puzhalina’s parents, remain under siege. Puzhalina would love for them to join her family in Washington, but at 57 years old, her father is not permitted to leave the country. 

Yana Annette Lysenko, working toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature and Slavic studies at New York University, is well aware of the war-time restrictions. 

Lysenko, whose boyfriend lives in Ukraine and also cannot leave, visited the city of Odesa from mid-August until the end of November 2022. Reuniting with family and friends, she worked on her dissertation and volunteered. She plans to head back for a week in April and again in May, perhaps for a month. 

“The last few weeks were probably the toughest,” she said. “That’s when the citywide electric outages started. Other than that, it’s surprising how in some ways things felt so normal, in others completely unlike anything before.”

Lysenko was moved by the solidarity of the Ukrainian people, and how they could find joy in the darkest of times. 

“There’s a lot of concern about this potential spring offensive, but more than anything Ukrainians aren’t losing faith,” she said. “They trust their armed forces and believe in victory. I think most people understand this war will continue for a long time so there’s a certain despair in that regard, but there’s a refusal to give up. There is an amazing sense of community no matter how hard things get: Almost every evening there were musicians singing on the streets of the city center and people would join in and dance and sing.”

But there is one fear she can’t shake, that her boyfriend will be called to serve. 

“That is a very real worry for me,” she said. “Every day they are mobilizing men, and one of the scariest things for me while I was there — even more so now — was seeing all of the soldiers walking around and going to people’s houses to give them military summonses. I’m terrified my boyfriend will encounter this soon.”

Marta Hulievska, a sophomore at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, has worried about her family ever since war broke out midway through her freshman year. 

Hulievska, a history and English major, saw her mother, Hanna, for the first time since she left for college when the two reunited in Berlin in December. They spent four days traversing the city and exchanging gifts: Her mother brought Hulievska’s favorite loose leaf tea, Ukrainian chocolates and a hair dye she couldn’t find in the States. The sophomore sent her mother home with candies, a backpack for one of her sisters and a stuffed animal for the other. 

“She was crying when she left,” Hulievska said of her mother. 

Her family’s life is not easy. Her father and one of her sisters are staying in Zaporizhzhia, minding the family home while her mother and another sister are across the country in Lviv. Separated by a 24-hour train ride, the family does their best to endure. 

Hulievska, who battles anxiety and depression, is often triggered by news from home. It’s hard for her to plan: She’ll occasionally miss class when she feels overwhelmed. 

“Recently, the anniversary brought back a lot of memories,” she said. “We thought this was going to end a lot sooner.  A couple of days ago, I saw a video of Mariupol two days before the invasion with people singing the national anthem. I was emotionally numb for the rest of the day. I have a lot of problems organizing and scheduling.”

Hulievska, who studied the Holocaust in Berlin, came to a disturbing realization while abroad, that the Russian invasion will one day be memorialized in a similar way. 

“I guess in 50 years, they are going to be talking about the Ukraine-Russian war, creating museums for the victims, commemorating what happened,” she said. “I’m going to be a part of history. But not necessarily the part of history I want to be a part of.” 

Despite their heartache about conflict at home, she and the others persevere. 

Puzhalina’s husband, Oleh, will soon become a maintenance technician, pending last-minute paperwork. But his wife has not yet found a job.  

“It is not easy to find something that will allow me to stay on the school schedule with my kids in the morning at least,” Puzhalina said. “But I’m not discouraged.”

Through all of the resettlement tumult, her children have latched on to their studies. At least two had a unique advantage: Illia, age 11, studied English in Ukraine, making his coursework easier to understand. Her youngest, Virsaviia, 7, became close friends with their landlord’s granddaughter, a native English speaker, so she had a partner with whom to practice upon arrival. 

Middle child, Yeva, 10, is taking a little longer to learn the language. 

“Her ELL teachers said she is doing really well, but her English is more academic,” her mother said. “What she needs is more like social English.” 

Illia, now a sixth grader, loves basketball, volleyball and his English literature class. Yeva, a fifth grader, adores mathematics, particularly fractions. 

Both children miss their family and friends in Ukraine. 

“We call them in the morning,” Yeva said of her maternal grandparents. “I want them to come here.”

Virsaviia, who is in the second grade, has adjusted well: She cherishes her teacher. “She’s so nice,” the little girl said. “She’s very kind.”

Despite all they’ve gained here, Puzhalina doesn’t know if her family will stay in America. 

“I am trying not to hope for anything — like living in the States forever,” she said. “The world is unpredictable. We have, at the moment, the right to legally stay here through October 2023 and then I don’t know.”

The second grader, who lives with her mother, father and two older siblings in Tacoma, Washington, was excited to return to class, though she was worried about having a new teacher. 

“Back home,” in Ukraine, her mother, Anastasiia explained, “elementary students have the same teacher from first through fourth grade.”

But Virsaviia’s fears melted after just a few hours.

“I like my new teacher,” said the little girl, sitting in the family car as her father drove her and her sister to Elmhurst Elementary on the second day of school last week. “I liked my class and my new friends.” 

Virsaviia’s brother, Illia, 11, felt the same: The sixth grader, who moved up to middle school this year, was thrilled to have Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking students in his English language classes. And middle sister Yeva, 9, was elated to have the same 5th-grade teacher this year as her big brother did for the few months the siblings were in school last year. Not only did Illia speak highly of her, Yeva got to meet her during a spring parent-teacher conference. 

“She was excited to see her (again),” her mother said. 

But underneath the joy that accompanies the start of the new school year is a painful uncertainty about the future. Virsaviia’s parents worry daily about their immigration status, their ability to work and about the family they left behind. 

They and others with strong ties to Ukraine wonder when and how the invasion, now in its seventh month, will end. 

����Ӱ�� has been keeping pace with expats since last winter and with Virsaviia’s family since meeting them at a refugee camp in Tijuana, Mexico in April: They were among more than who fled the country since the invasion began Feb. 24. 

Another 7 million Ukrainians are internally displaced and are living in areas prone to conflict, unable to leave because of security risks, battered infrastructure and a lack of money and information about how and where to head for safety, according to the United Nations.  

More than had been killed by early August and more than 7,400 others have been injured, the UN reported. 

The Zaporizhzhia power plant, located inside a city that has become , is currently being monitored by while Ukraine’s armed forces, bolstered by volunteers, held by the Russian military. 

Marta Hulievska, a rising sophomore at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, has been worried about the power plant ever since war began: It’s located in her hometown. 

The history major is anxious about her parents’ recent decision to reunite there after months spent apart. Married for 21 years, they were eager to live together again.  

“Sirens go off every hour,” she told ����Ӱ�� earlier this summer. “My dad ignores them: If you would go to the bomb shelter every time the alarms go off, you would not be able to function.”

Hulievska, who spent her summer in New York City working as an intern at a human-rights focused organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie, worries whether her father, a 57-year-old attorney, will be called up to war. 

“So far, he has not gotten any documentation about it,” his daughter said, speaking of the draft. “But it happens kind of randomly. It’s always in the back of our minds.”

And her parents’ financial situation is dire. The Ukrainian by the end of the year. Hulievska has been sending them money for several months. 

She isn’t sure when she will see them again, though she does plan to participate in a three-week study abroad program in Berlin in December. Hulievska hopes her mother and sisters, who are free to travel outside Ukraine, will join her. If they make the trip, it will be their first visit since she left for college. 

Wartime restrictions mean her father will not attend. Men in his age group are prohibited from leaving the country. And no one knows when — or how — the invasion will conclude. 

Her parents remain divided on the topic.  

“My mom feels it will end soon, which helps her to not panic,” Hulievska said. “But my dad is pessimistic. Whenever I talk to him about coming back to Ukraine, he thinks I might not be able (to).”

Yana Lysenko, a graduate student at New York University, wasn’t willing to wait any longer. Her boyfriend lives in Odesa, which is partly why she headed back to the country in late August. She was so worried about alerting her parents to her plan that she told them only after she bought her plane ticket. It took two days to enter the beleaguered country. 

“It was an exhausting trip,” she said in an Aug. 26 email from Ukraine. “I flew to Warsaw and then Moldova Saturday-Sunday, rested in Moldova overnight and then crossed the border via bus to Odesa on Monday night. Things are much calmer here currently than I expected. I’ve heard a few sirens over the past few days, but no attacks from what I know on the city itself.” 

Lysenko, working toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature and Slavic studies, longs to volunteer. 

“I’ve done a bit of inquiring and there are a lot of different opportunities, although I’m really leaning toward those that help prepare meals for people in need within the city, as well as those that help the elderly,” she wrote. “People are really struggling. Prices are very high for food and basic necessities right now, so I’d like to help the most vulnerable groups in that way.”

But vulnerability isn’t confined to those who remain in-country. Anastasiia Puzhalina and her family, who’ve been living in Tacoma for the past four months, have relied on the goodness of strangers as they navigate life in the United States. 

They currently live rent-free with an elderly man whom they met through their church. A recent widower who lost his wife to COVID, he enjoys their company. 

“He is an amazing man,” Puzhalina said. “His grandkids are almost the same age as our children, so this is such a great blessing for our family.”

He pledged to help them until they can live on their own but it’s a difficult position: Puzhalina’s husband worked for years at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and she sold clothing online. They’ve always supported themselves. 

They’ve applied for Temporary Protected Status and employment authorization but neither has come through yet. Right now, they’re surviving on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANIF. 

The uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future: Puzhalina has no idea where they might be in a year.

“It depends on what status we will have,” she told The74. “I am praying for the end of war, but I can’t see the end yet. If the war does end, I think our Temporary Protected Status won’t be extended and we will have to leave. I don’t think we have any path to legalization. I think we will use this time as much as possible to help our family in Ukraine.”

Puzhalina’s parents still live in Chernihiv. Her father is not allowed to flee and her mother wouldn’t go without him.

Their daughter’s concern extends well beyond their physical safety. 

“It’s not just about the danger of being hit by a missile, but about inflation, the lack of work, the price for groceries, of fuel, for everything,” she said. “It is a really bad situation in Ukraine.”

Despite these fears, the family’s stay in America has been marked by many bright spots — particularly for the children, who spent the summer swimming in a backyard pool, visiting a local rock-climbing center and camping. 

Illia, who months earlier in Tijuana expressed worry about making new friends in America, has since forged a strong bond with a boy at school. The relationship has greatly improved his ability to speak English. 

And the children aren’t the only students in the family. Their mother has spent the past few months learning to drive. 

She’s already passed her written exam and will soon sign up for the road test. 

“It’s very challenging,” she said, “I never had to do it in Ukraine: We lived in a 100% walkable place. The big test, I’ll take it when I will feel more confident. I had never been behind the wheel before.”

It’s not how most Black History Month workshops begin. 

“I’m streaming live from a hotel bathroom,” said Atnre Alleyne, co-founder and CEO of TeenSHARP, a college access program. 

Alleyne was speaking in February via Zoom to dozens of high school students in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Delaware. But his hotel bathroom was in western Ukraine, where, after awakening late that month to the sound of Russian bombs exploding, he and his family fled from their home in a Kyiv suburb. 

With Alleyne’s wife and co-founder, Tatiana Poladko, her 81-year-old father, and their three young children on the other side of the bathroom door, Alleyne loaded a virtual background — a 1968 of high school students on their way to a memorial service for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — and kicked off the workshop. 

“Injustice anywhere, as Dr. King said, is a threat to justice everywhere,” Alleyne told the students as he drew parallels between the fight against racial tyranny in the United States and political tyranny in Ukraine. “It is really important to be globally aware, globally conscious, and also to think of ways that you can stand up for what’s right.”

The couple’s commitment to their work and their students has been tested in recent years, first through the pandemic, when they transitioned to a virtual program, and then in January 2021, when they moved from Delaware to Poladko’s native Ukraine. The war and the family’s displacement further complicated matters.

But Alleyne, 37, and Poladko, 38, are steadfast. TeenSHARP, they say, is more than just a college access program serving low-income, Black, and Latino students; it is a leadership program. Their goals are more than just getting students accepted to, enrolled in and graduated from college; they are trying to close the gap that, on average, has left Black households with of the wealth of white households.

“I was an excellent student, a 4.0 student, but my parents never sugarcoated it. In this country, with the level of corruption that existed, that didn’t mean a whole lot,” Poladko said of Ukraine. “What I always tell students is that … someone sold you a lie in America that this is not also the case for you as a student of color. Your chances of success are as fleeting as mine were, and they are as dependent on luck as mine were. So what I always tell them is that at TeenSHARP, we are trying to diminish the percent of luck, and we do so by following the blueprint that affluent families have been following for years.”

Replicating that blueprint with fewer resources was already an uphill battle, requiring intensive work from families and the TeenSHARP staff, particularly Poladko, who serves as the college counselor. Living seven time zones and more than 4,000 miles away heightened the degree of difficulty. 

Earlier this year, before Russia invaded Ukraine, Poladko would start one-on-one meetings with early-rising high school seniors at 5:30 a.m. ET, or 12:30 p.m. in Ukraine. After four hours of consulting on waitlists and competing financial aid packages, including calls that Poladko often took while waiting outside her children’s ballet class or piano lesson, she would continue from 2:30 p.m. ET (9:30 p.m. in Ukraine) to around 8 p.m. ET (3 a.m. in Ukraine). 

“They realize that we’re going to go fricking hard for you, and you’re going to go fricking hard for yourself,” she said. “We have to show you how privileged America works — and you don’t know it.”

A flight to safety

The couple’s dedication is such that Russian bombs caused only a momentary pause in TeenSHARP’s programming. After the explosions woke the family on Feb. 24, Alleyne and Poladko, who don’t own a car, began searching for ways out. On Feb. 25, they celebrated their daughter’s Zoryana’s 7th birthday. The next day, they crammed eight people into an acquaintance’s Volkswagen Passat. The family only brought sandwiches and their clothes. After a 2.5-hour drive west, they reached the city of Zhytomyr, where Alleyne hosted the Black History Month workshop. 

“I couldn’t go to sleep [afterward], I was restless,” said Asquith Clarke II, a TeenSHARP alum who logged onto the workshop from Oberlin College in Ohio. “At first I thought to myself, ‘This is crazy, I’m not sure what I can do to support them, I have college things going on.’ But knowing how much Ms. Tatiana and Mr. Atnre have done for me, am I just going to sit here and go to sleep knowing that they’re in danger?” 

For the first time, Clarke wrote to his elected representatives, encouraging them to help Ukraine defend itself. The rising junior posted their replies to Instagram and encouraged his followers to act, too. 

Meanwhile, Alleyne, Poladko, their kids — 7-year-old Zoryana, 4-year-old Nazar and 2-year-old Taras — and her elderly father took a train, another train and a car driven by volunteers to get closer to the Polish border. They reached it after a 5-mile walk, Poladko ushering the children and Alleyne assisting her dad, already weakened from a long case of COVID. 

A series of temporary accommodations, some requiring the family to sleep side-by-side, heads next to toes, led them to Warsaw. 

By March, Alleyne and Poladko were able to enroll their children in day care and elementary school and rent a two-bedroom apartment in Warsaw that overlooks a tree-filled public park. Poladko’s father sleeps in one bedroom, and the couple and their children share three mattresses in the other. The family’s furniture is still in their rental house outside Kyiv, so decorations are limited to artwork the kids bring home from school. “You Are My Sunshine,” says a handmade painting in the living room.

To work, Alleyne perches his laptop on a bookshelf next to a Paw Patrol puzzle and calls it a standing desk. Poladko turned the dining room table into her workspace. When they have calls at the same time, Alleyne often retreats to the bathroom — just as he did in the hotel in western Ukraine. 

And when the couple’s Ukrainian nanny joined them in Warsaw, they developed a routine where she fell asleep in their bedroom while Alleyne and Poladko worked. In the early morning hours, after the couple finished up, they would switch spots, with the nanny sleeping on a tan couch in their otherwise barren living room. 

Ukraine meets Ghana in New Jersey

Alleyne and Poladko have been finding a way forward since 2005, when they met at the Camden campus of Rutgers University, in New Jersey while they each pursued master’s degrees. Poladko had earned a full ride through a fellowship that supports students from overseas. She clicked with Alleyne who, after completing his K-8 schooling in New Jersey, went to Ghana by himself to attend a boarding school. He could relate to Poladko’s experience as a non-native student navigating a thicket of challenges in order to reap educational — and life — opportunities. 

“To understand TeenSHARP, you have to understand Ukraine and Ghana,” Alleyne said with a laugh. “We’re tough.” 

Together, they decided to apply what they’d learned and help historically marginalized students access college and become student-leaders who are successful, high achieving, and reaching their potential (these traits stand for the SHARP in TeenSHARP). These students face hurdles during the entirety of the college process, from being encouraged to apply to colleges beneath their capabilities to , on average, than white students. 

TeenSHARP launched in 2009 with 10 students in the Philadelphia area, and has since expanded across New Jersey and Delaware, graduating more than 500 students and reaching thousands more in one-off programming. At points, Alleyne has taken on outside jobs, including a stint at the Delaware Department of Education and as the founding executive director of DelawareCAN, part of the that advocates for high-quality educational opportunities for all students, regardless of where they live. His salary from those roles allowed Poladko to donate hers back to TeenSHARP, she said, noting that she has not accepted any compensation from the group she co-founded. 

For TeenSHARPies, as they’re called, activities start in 9th grade. A seven-person team communicates with students and their families, offering sessions on the college application process and financial aid applications and promoting the idea of spending 33 hours a week on schoolwork. 

When the pandemic hit, TeenSHARP made its programs virtual and started serving students from across the United States, including Georgia, Ohio, Oregon and Texas. But the staff soon realized that remote instruction was causing their students’ math skills to falter. Alleyne, who as CEO oversees operations and development, reallocated $130,000 from their roughly $1 million annual budget— a “crazy amount of money,” for them, as Poladko said — to provide small-group tutoring. TeenSHARP is largely funded by a constellation of corporations and foundations that have offices in Wilmington, Delaware, including Capital One Bank and WSFS Bank. 

The heart of the program is the intensive advising that Poladko leads for high school juniors and seniors. While carrying a caseload of more than 70 students, Poladko provides one-on-one and group instruction. She estimates spending five to seven hours working with each student just on their personal statement. 

The goal is to be as well-prepared as a student from a wealthy family. TeenSHARP organizes more than two dozen college visits each year. Students are encouraged to apply early to their first choice, and Poladko is not above getting on the phone with an admissions counselor to lobby for one of her students. Lest they get saddled with debt, she encourages students to enroll in the college that is offering them the best overall package, not the best name recognition.

During the program’s College Signing Day event in May — starting at 6 p.m. Eastern, midnight in Warsaw — Poladko passed the Zoom spotlight from one student to another to tick through their acceptances and announce which they’d selected. One student had been accepted by 16 schools. Another by 17. 

“And who is getting your talent this fall?” Poladko asked. 

Back came the responses. 

Carleton College. 

Princeton. 

Yale. 

Macalester College. 

Poladko knows the acceptances — and the decision to attend the school that’s the best fit financially — are hard earned. The program has seen student outcomes remain consistent even through the shift away from in-person support. “Trust-building virtually is definitely not easy,” she said. “But it is definitely possible if students and parents see the commitment to students’ success.”

The couple took a brief pause in June before ramping up for a month-long summer program in July. In the meanwhile, they are still making rental payments on their house in Ukraine, which is 11 miles from Bucha, where the Russian military this spring . They’re paying partly to support the landlord, who recently sent them a video of the two-story property, their stroller still parked outside the front door, and partly because Alleyne and Poladko still hope to return there when it feels safe. They like the quality of life, and Poladko needs to fulfill a residency requirement for the fellowship she received before she can apply for U.S. citizenship.

“We could technically be in our house now,” Alleyne said. “You’re just living with this risk of an air strike.”

The couple is also — now more than $35,000 — that they donate to grassroots leaders and organizations in Ukraine. (Donations are processed through a nonprofit, ; designate Ukraine Grassroots Leaders Fund.)

Wherever they end up, Alleyne and Poladko are confident that TeenSHARP will continue to work with students and families to achieve racial and economic justice. Clarke, the Oberlin student, agrees. 

“It’s really hard to stop them from doing what they do,” he said. “A pandemic, war, they just keep going. It’s really inspirational. I think to myself, ‘If they can do that, then I think anyone can’ — or I don’t see it as impossible.”

This story was supported by a reporting grant from The Pulitzer Center.

What kinds of ties have existed between Western and Russian universities?

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, Western and Russian higher education institutions have formed and . These activities have included academic exchanges, curriculum development, joint online courses and collaborative research projects.

Russia has worked over the past two decades to make its universities . The Russian government its higher education system. This meant moving away from Soviet traditions and , particularly transitioning from the one-tier, five-year “specialist” degree to the two-tier “bachelor-master” system.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

In their , Russian universities built throughout former Soviet countries. They also offered more opportunities for and attracted more international students. The nearly tripled, from 100,900 in the 2004-2005 academic year to 282,900 a decade later.

Russian universities have opened and established joint- and dual-degree programs with Western universities in a variety of disciplines. For example, the offers joint bachelor’s and master’s degree diplomas with the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

What have these relationships produced?

Western and Russian students have learned about each other’s . Scientists in Russia and the West have worked together on research projects related to , , , and many other areas.

However, as geopolitical tensions grew over time, the Russian authorities became apprehensive about what they believed to be efforts “to educate young people in a pro-Western way, and inculcate a hostile ideology.” Subsequently, Putin began to stifle by imposing on them.

Russia has dissolved academic connections with the West through legislation on so-called “” and “.” The government ramped up scrutiny of foreign funding and outlawed dozens of Western think tanks, charities, and universities that previously had worked in Russia. These banned organizations include the , a nonpartisan international affairs think tank in Washington, D.C., and , a private liberal arts college in New York state.

In 2021, Russia not approved by the government. This includes cooperation with foreign universities. Before Russian academics meet with foreign scholars, they must .

In my work at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University since 2017, I have managed collaborative teaching, research and academic exchanges with universities and think tanks in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vladivostok. I have seen students and experts in the two countries of international affairs by and learning from one another.

These interactions were formally ended by the university where I work on March 15, 2022, as they are now considered “.”

Does Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threaten these relationships?

Yes. The Ukrainian government has of Russia. Many colleges have . They have also , and . These moves are all part of a against the invasion.

While many academic leaders have about moving too quickly, some American and European universities have already with Russia completely. Universities in and collectively decided to suspend all ties with Russia.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ended its with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow on Feb. 25. The partnership, which began in 2010, had been bolstered by a in 2019. Yet the program had been since 2018 over sponsorship from .

Many European governments, such as , , , , , have asked their universities to cut ties with Russia entirely. The United Kingdom announced on March 27 that it will for all research projects with links to Russia.

What are the reasons given for and against severing ties?

Proponents claim these actions are needed to against Putin. They also say they are meant to , reduce the , block and prevent . Chris Philp, the United Kingdom’s minister for technology and the digital economy, says he does not see how “anyone can collaborate with Russian universities.”

Opponents argue that by shutting out Russian academia, the West is and for international academic cooperation broadly. They maintain that promotes democracy and human rights, helps inside Russia and encourages conflict resolution.

Lawrence Bacow, president of Harvard University, emphasizes the value of . He points out that “individuals are not necessarily responsible for the policies of their governments.” On March 9, the university’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies with Russian universities whose administrations expressed support for the war.

How will these severed ties affect higher education in Russia?

By closing lines of communication with Russia, Western universities may be Putin’s efforts to isolate Russian students and academics. Putin wants to convince and academics, who and than the rest of the population, that there is no hope for them now that they are alone.

they increasingly feel disconnected from the West and disheartened about the future of Russian science. The Russian government declared on March 22 that it will in international conferences.

Are Russian academics free to condemn the invasion?

A climate of fear reigns over people in Russia who oppose the war. A new law punishes the spread of about the military with up to 15 years in prison. In his televised speech on March 16, Putin vowed to cleanse Russia of pro-Western “,” setting the stage for a severe domestic crackdown.

Russian scholars are unable to criticize the invasion without risking employment terminations, fines and jail sentences. Saint Petersburg State University has who were detained at anti-war protests. While issued a statement of support for the “special military operation” in Ukraine, voiced their opposition to the war in an open letter condemning the hostilities.

of fled the country in the wake of the war. They are afraid of political persecution and conscription. As , some universities abroad have opened temporary teaching and research positions for .

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

Wondering when life will return to normal in the States and abroad, they check social media for news of friends and loved ones, answer requests for cash from a relatively inexperienced yet robust civilian army and contemplate their return to the country they cherish. With no clear sense of the future, they pray for a quick resolution to the war while bracing for the possibility of a long and painful insurgency. Over the weekend, Russian troops retreated from their attempted assault on Kyiv, but what appeared to be a strategic victory quickly darkened with evidence that Russian forces had left in their wake.

Ukrainian national Marta Hulievska, 19 and a freshman at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, worries daily about her parents, with whom she speaks through WhatsApp. Her father has stayed behind in her hometown of Zaporizhzhia, eight and a half hours southeast of Kyiv, while her mother, two younger sisters and maternal grandmother fled to Lviv in early March. They’re staying with family in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment where, in an attempt at normalcy, they log onto their computers each day to continue with work and school. Hulievska’s mother is a law professor whose students struggle with unreliable internet in their own basements and bunkers. Her family’s efforts to carry on are frequently interrupted by sirens warning them to take cover. 

Sometimes, Hulievska said, they leave their building for a community shelter. Other times, they simply gather in the hallways — four adults and four children — hoping the walls can withstand a direct hit.

At least in the conflict and 2,038 have been injured as of April 2, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But Intense fighting in areas such as Mariupol and Volnovakha and the newly discovered atrocities in Bucha outside Kyiv make it difficult to quantify the carnage.

More than Ukrainians have fled the country to date and millions more have been uprooted from their homes, but remain within its borders.

Yana Annette Lysenko, 27 and working toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature and Slavic studies at New York University, can relate to Hulievska’s worries. She fears for her aunt, uncle and cousin who fled to the outskirts of Kyiv weeks ago but have not been heard from since.

“I don’t know if their phones aren’t working or if something really bad happened,” said Lysenko. “No one can call them — even family members in Ukraine.”

William Risch, a history professor at Georgia College in Milledgeville, lived in the country for four years. He’s maintained friendships with the Ukrainian students who have passed through his classroom as well as the scholars, historians and activists he met there while researching a book on the beleaguered nation.

He recently joined a Facebook group that serves as a resource for those searching for missing or evacuated loved ones. It also lists the dead.

The professor does not yet know what happened to a who studied at his school in 2017 and who was, weeks ago, heading a territorial defense battalion defending the airport at Vasylkiv. The airport has been destroyed by the fighting.

“I did ask a friend who knows him more to tell me any updates,” Risch said. “I have not gotten any.” 

He takes heart in what little information he can find about his friends, including a former graduate student who has since joined the army and reached out asking for cash: The professor wired him $120 through Western Union.

“He said it was for food and other supplies,” Risch said. “They don’t get very much as volunteers.”

Hulievska, the Dartmouth freshman, is glad to be in regular contact with family, but it doesn’t always allay her fears. Her concerns for her parents are two-fold: She worries her father, a 57-year-old lawyer, will be drafted into the military.

“He will probably join because he thinks that is what is needed of him, that it’s his duty as a Ukrainian — and as a man,” she said. “I’m scared.”

And she knows, too, her mother, sisters and grandmother are no longer safe as Lviv has become .

Hulievska came to the United States in 2021 through an organization that helps students from low-income families attend top-tier universities around the globe. She hopes to major in creative writing and chose America for its diversity, which she believes will improve her craft.

She doesn’t know when she will see her family again.

“I was very much looking forward to going home,” she said, but, fearing the situation there will be too dangerous, she’s already asked her dean to help her find summer housing. “I miss them — a lot.”

Hulievska’s distress, which seems to grow overnight and erupt in the morning, has shaped into anxiety, a condition for which she is seeking treatment.

Yet even now, she’s inspired by the hope her family provides others: Her grandmother, a medical doctor, travels each day to a nearby train station to give urgent care and advice to those refugees who come to Lviv knowing no one at all.  

“I think it is a good example for me and a good inspiration to keep doing what I can do here on campus,” said her granddaughter. Hulievska has recently begun translating social media posts written by Ukrainians in the early days of war for one of her classes, Media Research and Creative Writing in Russian. She  receives the incoming messages from an organization called War in Translation: The translated missives appear on the group’s Twitter account.

Such a task, Hulievska said, helps those outside Ukraine feel empathy for those trapped by the conflict.

Lysenko, the fourth-year Ph.D student, has much to lose in the war. She’s concerned about her boyfriend, who lives in Odessa, and might soon be drawn into the fighting.  

“He lives between three military bases and sometimes sees rockets flying over his apartment,” she said.

The graduate student wonders if she’d be better off relocating to Europe so she could use her Ukrainian and Russian language skills to assist incoming refugees.

“I definitely feel I’d be doing something better if I’m helping in some way,” she said, adding it’s difficult to watch the tragedy unfold from afar. “My plan is to get through this semester and once I submit the rest of the work I have to do, evaluate then.”

Marina Shapar, 26 and who spoke to ����Ӱ�� last month from her basement in Kyiv, a shelter she shared with nine other people, including her parents, siblings and neighbors, has since fled the country. After passing through the Slovakian border, she moved by train through the Czech Republic before landing in Poland.

She’s currently staying with a friend in Finland and remains on constant alert about the rest of her family, who plan to return to Kyiv — they’re temporarily relocated to the western part of the country — as soon as they deem it safe.

“To be honest,” Shapar said, “they said they planned to go home in one and a half months. I do not fully support this idea.”

As for Shapar, it’s unclear when she will be reunited with her family as her hopes for the outcome of the war might not be reached.

“I decided to go back as soon as the Ukrainian government confirms our victory,” she said.