INDIANAPOLIS — “My family, my father, my little sister, my brother’s still there,” said Sasha Zakhvatoea as she stood on Monument Circle Saturday with her mother, uncertain where her father, brother and little sister were in Ukraine or if they were even OK.
“It’s really stressful and painful knowing they’re in danger,” she said.
Zakhvatoea and her mom were among hundreds who came to a rally in downtown Indianapolis, all with the same purpose: to show their support for Ukraine and condemn Vladimir Putin and Russian troops’ invasion of the second-largest country in Europe after Russia.
Wearing yellow and blue ribbons, waving the Ukrainian flag and holding signs, hundreds of Hoosiers, many of them born in Ukraine, gathered to show their support for their embattled homeland.
“We are here because we are worried about our mother country. It’s terrible what’s going on now,” cried Olga Roby, Zakhvatoea’s mom.
“I don’t know what will stop Putin, unless we all join together and fight against him,” said Anris Berzins, the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Latvia to Indiana.
Berzins thinks Putin has his sights set on rebuilding the Soviet Union, of which Latvia was once a part.
“That is probably the biggest threat to Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania. Thank God we’re part of NATO. We’ve got the other nations, 30, the United States behind us,” said Berzins.
“American people always stand with the right side of history,” Ukrainian-born, Indiana Congresswoman Victoria Spartz told the crowd, lending her voice to the rally.
“Ukrainians are going to fight for their country. Ukrainians are going to fight for freedom and win,” she said to the cheering crowd.
Later, Spartz said if Russian forces were successful in taking over Ukraine, Putin wouldn’t stop there.
“He will go as far as we let him go. That’s why we have to be united and strong to deter the aggression. Ukrainian people have to fight their fight for freedom and win,” Spartz said.
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She also praised Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for staying with his people to defend their homeland.
“That’s something you expect from any leader. You have to fight for your people, even if you have to die for your people,” she said.
Death and the growing death toll in Ukraine, are not far from anyone’s mind.
“We hate to see the Ukrainian people suffer,” said Berzins.