Life was good for Anastasiya Yushchenko two years ago. She was studying at the Ukraine Leadership Academy and living peacefully with her family in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, located in the country’s northeast.
That peace was shattered on February 24, 2022, when the Russian military invaded the country, with Kharkiv as one of its first targets. According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, as of February 2024, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed, and nearly 20,000 injured. Millions have been displaced. Yushchenko’s close friend and classmate, Serhii Movchanov, was killed on the front lines.
Yushchenko was luckier. While she is among the displaced, she has been able to continue her education as a River Campus undergraduate student this year on a one-year study abroad program. Her expenses, like Baitullah Hameedi’s, are covered by the University’s Global Emergency Response Fund, set up with initial support from Board of Trustees Chair Richard Handler ’83 in 2021.
She credits Jen O’Neill, enrollment and special programs manager in the Center for Education Abroad, and the International Services Office for her smooth acclimation to Rochester.
“We did so many wonderful things with other study abroad students when I arrived, such as going to the mall, going to an Asian market, and apple picking,” she says. “It really made me feel I belonged here.”
Yushchenko applied to study at Rochester through the Ukrainian Global University, a program with which the University is a partner. She moved with her family initially to England, where she began studying at City, University of London, in the fall of 2022. Now an international politics major, she lives on the River Campus and is taking four classes this spring. Her favorite is War in Our Time, taught by political science professor Hein Goemans, which examines the war in Ukraine.
“It’s a subject I unfortunately know all too well,” says Yushchenko.
Goemans says Yushchenko’s knowledge and experience make her a great asset to the class. At times, he says, “She deliberately holds back a bit. But when asked she always gives her own perspective. Her knowledge has been very helpful to fill in the picture of recent history for the other students.”
Before the end of the semester, Yushchenko or one of her family members will speak to the class. “It will make the war, and the daily life of Ukrainians at war, more immediate and visible for the other students,” Goemans says.
Yushchenko has befriended fellow Ukrainian students at the University and has found time to join the Debate Union, attending tournaments in Binghamton, West Point, and Suffolk County. “Debate club is a community and so much fun,” she says. “Debate excites me, especially policy debate. I like that you can argue, prove your point, and learn great perspectives from others.”
She speaks to her family daily and worries about her grandmother in Ukraine. “She is in her 70s and has to get up at 3 a.m. and go to air raid shelters,” she says.
Yushchenko will return to study in London after this semester. Eventually, she hopes to work in the Ukrainian government. Her goal will be to show the world what she already knows.
“I want to share that Ukraine isn’t part of Russia, that we have our own culture, language, and traditions,” she says. “I want to show my country at its best, and I want people to come to Ukraine. I think our country has amazing potential.”
And she wants to make her late friend proud. Movchanov was only 19 when he died and had recently become engaged to be married. “He had his whole life in front of him,” Yushchenko says. “I want to make my life have value, and do good things.”
