College student in Columbus tells family story amid conflict

On Mar 3, 2022

Daryna Zaitseva is a Ukrainian student at Capital University. Conflicts back home have put her family's safety at risk.

At about 11 p.m. on Feb. 23, Daryna Zaitseva dialed her mother’s number.

She had just seen Russian President Vladimir Putin demand on a television address that Ukraine’s military lay down its arms, and the 20-year-old Ukrainian student who lives in central Ohio had a bad feeling.

The speech sounded like a justification for an imminent invasion, she recalled, and her whole family — who lived in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol — might soon be in danger.

On the phone, Zaitseva urged her mother to leave immediately. It took her parents two hours to pack up their whole lives into a few suitcases. They started driving west, where things were relatively safe, and did not stop for two days.

Meanwhile, missile strikes, troop incursions and cyberattacks started to occur in dozens of cities across Ukraine. The same day, Zaitseva’s home country was under martial law.

As fighting rages in her native Ukraine, Daryna Zaitseva fears for family, friends

Zaitseva, a third-year pre-dental student at Capital University in Bexley, skipped her physiology midterm the next day.

She spent the following week frantically checking news updates: Russian troops attacked an army base in the capital city of Kyiv; a gas pipeline in northeast Ukraine was blown up; heavy shelling in her hometown of Mariupol left dozens injured … Zaitseva could not put her phone down.

“I just couldn’t make myself go to bed because I was afraid that if I closed my eyes for two seconds, God knows what’s going to pop up on the news,” said Zaitseva, who moved to the United States three years ago for college and currently lives in Marysville. “I was just staring at my phone like a zombie and watching the news like I was crazy. I just couldn’t pull myself together.”

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters into its second week, fear and uncertainty continue to hang over Columbus-area residents like Zaitseva whose families and friends back in Ukraine are hiding from gunfire in bomb shelters. As of Tuesday, at least 136 civilians, including 13 children, had been killed, and 400 have been injured, according to the United Nations.

Zaitseva tries to text and call her family and friends almost every hour to check in on them. On Monday, she saw on the news that a 6-year-old girl in her hometown was killed by shelling in a residential area. When she could not get a hold of her best friend, who also lives in Mariupol, for a few hours, she almost broke down.

“It turned out that my friend was hiding in a bomb shelter and didn’t have connection,” Zaitseva said. “You hear all this news of bombs exploding everywhere, and you realize they’re not far away from where your friends and families live. And that’s when the worst thoughts get triggered in your head.”

Russian aggression, intimidation against Ukraine long-standing, says Zaitseva

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden condemned Russia for its “premeditated and totally unprovoked” attack on Ukraine during his first State of the Union address to Congress. He said the United States and its allies are enforcing “powerful economic sanctions” to deter Putin’s war efforts, including cutting off Russia’s largest banks from the international finance system.

But Zaitseva said she and her family have had to endure “silent Russian attacks” long before this year’s invasion.

Growing up amidst the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014, Zaitseva remembers hiding in the basement of her middle school when Russian tanks traveled through her city. She remembers the vibrations she felt under her feet when bombs went off just miles away. She remembers how the television at her home would always be on so that her mom, a civilian volunteer for Ukraine’s military, could follow the latest developments as the conflict unfolded.

Now, Zaitseva wants to do her part to educate people in America, especially central Ohio, about the reality of what is going on in Ukraine. She also started a fundraiser on Facebook in the hope of offering assistance to people in her home country who are now left without homes, food or clothes.

“You realize the privilege of living as a normal human being, of getting up and grabbing Starbucks before going to school or getting groceries at Kroger,” she said. “The other day, I walked into a restaurant and heard people talking about Ukraine, and someone said this is not actually happening and it’s just fake news. My only mission right now is to spread awareness.”

The last time Zaitseva visited Ukraine was this past summer when she and her husband spent three months walking the very streets that are now being attacked by missiles and shells.

“Ukraine is a beautiful country. When we visited last summer — enjoying the beach and the mountains, visiting the big cities and small towns, seeing how hospitable everyone was — it was truly the best experience,” she said. “The people of Ukraine don’t deserve this.”