Russia-Ukraine war: A Hamilton Ukrainian tells his lucky story as he watches homeland suffer

A man walks past a destroyed Russian armoured personnel carrier in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv, in Ukraine. Photo / Getty Images

After horrific revelations of a massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, this week, Russia was accused of war crimes. Far, far away from the devastation, is Yuriy Gladun, a Ukrainian who has made his home in Hamilton. He talks with Anna Rankin about why he left and why his heart is torn apart.

Yuriy Gladun is the chairperson of the Ukrainian Association of New Zealand, and lives in Hamilton, working as a laser machine operator. Garrulous and animated, he arrived in New Zealand with his wife in 2000. He says his story of the war, as it stands, is a simple story, a lucky story; his sister has escaped to Poland.

Life in Ukraine was hard, he says; regarding the economy, jobs, manageability and predictability of life, "there wasn't much you could have done, people tried to do whatever they could just to get bread. So, I took a chance to leave and thought, 'Okay, let's do it.'"
On arrival, they knew no one. Friends in Australia arranged for a family in Morrinsville, with whom they're still friends, to host them while they sought work and tried to figure out what life in New Zealand might encompass. They didn't emigrate to relax, he says, they came to work and build a future. He sought out community, joining the Rotary Club, singing in a choir, coaching the Special Olympics football team.

"It was all about working, trying to do our best and build a future, and now, 21 years on, it was a good strategy. Obviously, you would think to travel somewhere and to see something and to befriend somebody. When you want to find something to do you can always find something to do. If you keep yourself busy it doesn't matter where you live."
Since the outbreak of war, the Ukrainian community has forged closer ties, he says; there are protests each Saturday in Hamilton and he's met Ukrainians he didn't know. Prior to the war he estimated the community was five times smaller than it is now.

I ask whether he feels Ukrainians and Russians are united here, in solidarity. It's a hard question, he says, sighs, and repeats his statement. At each rally there are a few ethnic Russians in support, he says. By different estimations statistics reveal there are between 6000 and 10,000 Russians in New Zealand, so seeing a handful at an event isn't exactly conclusive evidence. With emphasis, he adds that in times like these you have to make your choice.

"You have to choose your side, and it's very hard for everybody. Especially if all your life you've been on that side, and now you change your side, it's extremely hard psychologically. All your life, you believed in wrong messages. Oh, you mean that you got brainwashed? Yes, all your life you were taking the wrong side. It's extremely hard and some people feel it but cannot force themselves to stand openly.

"It's their motherland, they believe in it. They believe that it's a good country. We believed in our mothers and we believe in our motherlands, because it's human nature; to change your point of view is very hard because it is kind of engraved in your heart, and I understand the position they now find themselves, but it's still ... if you're a human being, it's time to take sides. You cannot sit on two chairs at this time."

Does he have any Russian friends? No, he says, he cut those ties a long time ago. Was this a conscious choice? He laughs, "I just don't have … look, I don't put myself into situations where I can get them."

What of language bonds, I ask, or certain cultural bonds. Here, Yuriy discloses his upbringing and its impression upon the present. He is careful to distinguish between Russian speakers and ethnic Russians, given the history of Ukrainians speaking Russian; and how this serves to undermine a sense of selfhood.

Despite the language they speak, they are Ukrainians, he says. "They identify themselves as Ukrainian and they are, by personality, Ukrainians and this is what differs us: we are free. We are free. And if I don't like something, I tell it."

Yuriy's mother was a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature, and he grew up speaking his mother tongue. It was a house filled with books. All his friends were Ukrainian.

He speaks Russian, he says, because he was born in the Soviet Union. When he studied at a polytechnic half his class spoke Russian, the other half Ukrainian and they communicated simply: people used the language of their choice and everyone understood each other. It was not a problem. This was, however, a function of living in western Ukraine; the farther east you went, the more difficult it was to retain one's language, one's culture.

The eastern territory was subsumed by the Soviet Union in the 1920s, whereas the west wasn't incorporated until 1939, at the dawn of World War II, when Poland was divided. Yuriy's parents learned Russian as young adults; they'd never spoken it in their families; they spoke Polish and German. But with Yuriy they spoke only Ukrainian.

Now, he says their "brothers" kill them, shell them, throw bombs, rockets, missiles. Vladimir Putin cannot imagine Russia without Ukraine, he says, because it holds Russia's roots. Without it, Russia has no past.

Ukraine is in Putin's way, Yuriy says. This was starkly evident with the annexation of Crimea, where the two countries previously had an agreement to share naval facilities in the Black Sea. Yuriy says once it wasclear Ukraine possessed the power to stop the agreement should it choose to, Putin prepared the expropriation.

"So when, in 2014, new pro-Ukrainian forces came to power, he used the moment and occupied Crimea, but it was like jumping on a small stone in a river because Crimea is not connected to Russia; it's been connected only to Ukraine. It needs water, food, provision, it needs everything and everything was basically supplied from Ukrainian territory … it was just a matter of time but nobody ever, ever thought that he could start this madness."
I ask whether the war has made him long for home. His heart is torn apart, he says.
If he were there, he would be fighting, no question. Here, he can do only what he can, which he realises is a drop, but he thinks of the end of his life, thinks of asking himself whether he did what he could.

He remains convinced Ukraine will succeed: "The last boot of the Russian soldier will leave the Ukrainian country and Ukraine will win. I am absolutely convinced of that. But how long will it take and how much suffering will it take?"

What are his thoughts on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? He pauses, laughs. Selects his words carefully and qualifies some of his comments by acknowledging opinions are divided, that people — the West — love him.

"May I say it this way: he plays his role very well. That's his job. He became the President of a big country, but he's still an actor, still behaves like an actor."

On Putin's claims of Nazi-occupied Ukraine, he again sighs. Putin has assembled that narrative for years. "In Putin's Russia, World War II and victory over Nazi Germany are key points. They cannot celebrate now the great Bolshevik Revolution because everybody knows it's bulls*** and it basically destroyed the country, its economy … the Bolsheviks ruling killed millions and millions and millions of people, innocent people, for nothing, just for a stupid idea. So, they cannot celebrate it."

He continues, saying they can't celebrate much of the Russian Empire before the revolution, so World War II remains the reified narrative — despite, he says, the fact that they fought the Nazi regime with the West. In Russia, the account is such that it emerges as the sole victor in that war — but it's not called this, he says; it's "a great motherland or nation war".

"He's been building that narrative for a long time. Enemies are very real enemies and the enemies are Nazis. Now, what would you do to mobilise the population in a very unpopular war? Make your opponent an enemy, make your opponent dehumanised. How? Just by calling Ukrainians Nazis. It's a very simple parallel, it works. In simple minds, it works."

Yuriy continues the discussion with fervour. He is critical of certain Western governments; of American intervention over the decades that he sees as creating the conditions for the war in which brother would betray brother. Western leaders don't understand Putin, he says; they did not try to understand what he communicated to Russians; they appeared to believe that what he spoke was truth. Ukrainians were collateral; they were made into enemies.

"He made us non-existing, and it's very easy to kill somebody who doesn't exist. I don't exist anymore. I'm not a human being, I'm a pig, so they came to Ukraine to kill those Nazi pigs. We are not humans, neither man nor woman nor child."

The complicity of the global economy in financing this war plagues him. Europe, with its reliance on Russian gas, is, in effect, funding the war. How can politicians cut gas from their countries' residents?

"You think you have nothing to do with war," he says, "until you realise that you too are partly responsible. You, too, are partly criminal because you are informally funding the war."

He is sombre in his statements, withholding at points; fearing he's said too much.

"But who can do it in one day? Nobody. So they will still be using gas and oil, they will still be paying Russia and Russia will use it for the war. Are trades fair and honest? This is the reality of war. Every government is in a very vulnerable position because this is not a normal time, this is not a natural business and you have to choose, you have to choose a side."

Guest writer Anna Rankin is a New Zealand journalist based in Los Angeles.