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There are more than 14,000 people in NSW with Ukrainian ancestry, according to Multicultural NSW.

The school holds classes at St Andrews Ukrainian Catholic Church where Oleg Sapishchuk and his family participated in a prayer service.

St Andrews Ukrainian School principal Odarka Brecko said she felt extremely sad and disappointed about the prospect of war.Credit:Steven Siewert

Mr Sapishchuk arrived in Australia eight months ago with his wife Orysia Melnyk and four-year-old son Danylo after living in Japan.

He expressed concern that the massing of Russian troops along Ukraines border was an escalation of a drawn-out conflict.

Me and my wife we dont sleep very well in the past few days, he said. My wife, one of the nights this week, woke up at 4.30 because she had a bad dream and started checking her phone.

Mr Sapishchuk said daily life had become more difficult in recent months for his family and friends, who live in western Ukraine, as groceries prices spiked.

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Ukraine is a vast, multicultural country whose people have a variety of attitudes towards Russia, Mr Sapishchuk said. Myself, my family, we are more pro-European. We have a bad neighbour on the eastern side, but we want to be more with Europe.

We actually want to decide ourselves what we want to do, and not actually Russia telling us what we have to do, he said.

Hanna Mykytenko also pointed to the ongoing nature of the conflict with Russia, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 following the Maidan revolution in Ukraines capital Kyiv.

This aggression from 2014 has never stopped, she said. Our people have been dying from that date.

Ms Mykytenko said it really hurts to not be able to visit the land of her parents and their graves. I cannot visit this part of Ukraine because it is not safe.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has impacted the daily lives of Stephen Dumas relatives, with some prepared to take up arms while others seek refuge from conflict zones.

Theyre worried and scared because a war has sort of been happening in Ukraine for eight years now, he said.

Mr Duma, a director of the Ukrainian Council of NSW, said the problem is not the Russian people but rather Putin and his colleagues in Moscow.

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Mr Duma said ongoing public support by Australia was greatly appreciated by the Ukrainian community. He said military aid, humanitarian assistance, co-operation with cyber defence, and increasing sanctions were ways for Australia to support Ukraine.

Ukrainians have lived through enough tragedy and war, and want to be able to live a normal life in a free, democratic country, as we in Australia and the west do, Mr Duma said.

They want their children to grow up in a free country without the constant threat of war from a neighbouring country.

Read the rest here:
The Sydney schoolchildren preoccupied with the threat of war in Ukraine - Sydney Morning Herald