The Sconi

A Ukrainian graduate of a Wisconsin-affiliated Ukrainian university in Kyiv recently discussed how life has been since Russia invaded her country.

Yuliya Morozova is a graduate of the Ukrainian-American Concordia University in Kyiv, a university partnered with Concordia University in Mequon, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. As the war intensifies approximately 600 of the university's students and 60 faculty and staff have had to escape to safe havens across Europe or have taken refuge at bomb shelters in Kyiv.

"We are very scared. We are very anxious ... and I cannot believe what’s happening," Morozova said, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. "We just want to be safe on our land. We want to be free as other people."

She said that she and her family hear missiles overhead at night, sending them to their basement.

"The level of violence and destruction is truly barbaric," Paul Thomas, an American citizen who is on Concordia University’s advisory board, said. "It's impossible to operate any kind of education when you're literally under vicious and unrelenting, indiscriminate bombing that's going on right now."

Morozova said many Ukrainians are currently without internet, electricity and/or food.

Despite the situation, Morozova said she feels lucky so far, as the Russian forces haven't invaded their city yet.

Yulia Sobkova, another alumna of Concordia University, is staying with her grandmother in western Ukraine. She has been helping prepare food and finding medical supplies for local residents.

"We do feel scared. We do feel angry. We feel nervous," Sobkova said, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. "We feel miserable, but at the same time we feel pretty united, pretty tough, pretty proud of what we're going through and how we are going through it. And if this is not an example of what an independency looks like, I don’t know what is."