A growing number of Ukrainians in New York and across the country, many of whom have never fired a weapon, are heeding President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's call to join the front line against Russia
Ivan Danyliuk, a waiter at Veselka, the popular Ukrainian restaurant in Manhattan, at his home in Queens on Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Danyliuk is among a growing number of Ukrainians in New York and across the country, many of whom have never fired a weapon, who are heeding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to join the front line against Russia. (Sasha Maslov/The New York Times)
NEW YORK — Last week, Yuriy Blazhkevych, a taxi driver who lives in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, stood in his garage, scrolling through images of Ukraine on his phone that showed buildings with blasted-out windows, tanks rolling over cars and people fleeing for their lives.
Then there were the photos of dead children.
“I was crying,” he said in his home less than 24 hours before boarding a flight to Warsaw, Poland. “Every five minutes, there was something new. Then I told myself, ‘Either I watch the war on Facebook and write in comments and cry, or I go and help.’”
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