Buffalo's Niagara Square has become the place to hold a rally or a political protest. On Sunday, the yellow and blue flags of Ukraine snapped in the brisk, cold wind as a crowd attacked the Russian invasion of that Eastern European country. The crowd also sang the music of the former Soviet state.
There are many Ukrainians locally, generations of them. The first big immigration was in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as they settled here as refugees from the Eastern Front between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Most didn't head home, remembering the Soviet slaughter of Ukrainians in the 1930s, leaving millions dead. Their children and grandchildren remember those stories of why their families came here and built lives.
Myron Deputhe reached into history to say why there must be pushback against what Russia's Putin is doing in his ancestral country.
"For us to keep the best interests of both Americans and Ukrainians and the World in mind," Deputhe said. "And let's remember, that if Ukraine falls, then that emboldens people like Vladimir Putin and other dictators and tyrannical leaders to move forward and then continue their approach to other countries."
George Paszkowsky said he came here at the age of four from that time, as his family built multi-generational lives and told their family story.
"Hear the stories that my parents and their friends told me about when they had to leave Ukraine and spend time in Germany as Displaced Persons. How bad it was then," Paszkowsky said. "They were politically persecuted. They had to get out of there or they were going to die. And we ended up here and it's happening all over again."
Asked about sending American troops into the Russian invasion made many of those in the crowd nervous, since Putin, hours earlier, had put his nuclear weapons on high alert.
State Sen. Tim Kennedy was at the rally and said New York State stands ready to welcome more refugees.
"In this time of war, that their country is being shattered by the warmongering of Vladimir Putin and the Russians," Kennedy said. "And as they flee for safety and freedom and their families' sake, we here in Buffalo and in New York State stand at the ready to bring them in with open arms."
