Ukrainian in Tucson left in worry with family in harm’s way amid Russian invasion | news

TUCSON (KVOA) – Nickolai Bannick watches with horror Thursday night as his native Ukraine is fighting for its survival.

Some of his closest family and friends are in the war zone.

“In Ukraine, we have one thing that everybody says: together we can win, only together,” he said.

“None of them left,” Bannick said. “They feel like they are patriotic and they don’t want to leave, even I insist because some of them has really young kids like 10, 12-years-old, some of them barely born babies.”

After a week of bombings and missiles, the United Nations estimates more than a million Ukrainians fled their homeland.

Tucson Ward 6 City Councilman Steve Kozachik has family ties to Ukraine.

“We need to step up to the plate and we need to say these people stand for everything our founding fathers and mothers stood for when they came to this country,” Kozachik said. “And defending their rights to freedom, defending the rights for all of the things we find in our own Bill of Rights is absolutely critical right now or we don’t stand for anything.”

Bannick is hopeful his family and friends will stay safe. He believes its in God’s hands.

“The sooner we stop this, life will be safer,” he said. “But, that little trinket from the Kremlin, he will never stop.”

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