It can be hard to grasp the gravity of events until it hits home. February 24th seemed another monotonous Thursday for Timberline, but for the residents of Ukraine it was a life changing disastrous day.

Ukraine and Russia have been in conflict ever since the mid-1500s. In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea Peninsula, and Russian-backed separatists seized some of the south-eastern regions of Ukraine. But on Feb. 24, Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And for Timberline junior Olya Tsvilyuk, it hit home. Tsvilyuk is an exchange student from Ukraine as well as a member of The Blazer staff. 

Tsvilyuk is from a town called Bucha that she describes as “a little comfortable green town.” It is located in the suburbs of Kyiv, capital.

“It’s like Lacey, there’s 50,000 people in my hometown,” she said. Lacey and Bucha are both relatively similar towns, they have a similar population size, and a similar small town feel. But the news tells a horrifying story about the residents of Bucha. They have been massacred, hands tied behind their backs and shot dead in the streets of their hometown.

Tsvilyuk is familiar with war in Ukraine. For most of her life there has been a struggle with Russia. “I would never hear the war. I would never see the war. But in our school we would make nets for tanks to help soldiers in eastern Ukraine,” she said. “We would go to hospitals, where we would meet injured soldiers, talk to them and give them pictures of angels.”

When the invasion started, it didn’t feel real to her and her family. “I called my dad and he didn’t believe me. He literally said, to not listen to fake news and go to bed,” she said. But the invasion was real. “In a few hours, they called me back. And I heard my mom crying and saying that russians are bombing an airport near my house,” Tsvilyuk says, “I knew everything was going to be different.”

And to Tsvilyuk the war still does not feel real. “I can’t really realize that it has happened, I can’t believe that my hometown is destroyed, it’s like some kind of movie or a history book about World War II,” she said.

Tsvilyuk’s sister and mother had to flee the country, luckily Tsvilyuk’s connections were able to help them out “I have a really close friend exchange student here,” She explained. “She’s Spanish, and my mom and sister are at her house in Spain right now. Her family suggested to host my family for as long as needed… I got to know how kind and caring so many people are.”