San Francisco Rallies For Ukraine

SAN FRANCISCO, CA —Shocked, exhausted, and heartbroken by the news of the day, a crowd of around 1,500 arrived on short notice at San Francisco’s City Hall late Thursday afternoon to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

They sang the Ukrainian anthem through tears and waved the national blue and yellow flags against the sense of fear and uncertainty hanging in the air, and they called on the United States and the rest of the world to step up sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia and dial up weapons shipments to Ukrainian forces.

The “Solidarity with Ukraine” rally featured several speakers who addressed a crowd scrambling to make sense of a geopolitical crisis that in the view of some experts is a major miscalculation.

Russia on Thursday unleashed airstrikes on cities and military bases and sent troops and tanks from multiple directions, The Associated Press reports.

The crisis, experts say, imperils a post-World War II order in Europe that’s stood for 70 years.

And the scariest part, to hear those with ties to the region tell it, is that nobody knows what’s next.

“No one can imagine that such thing can happen, that we can have a war in the 21st century in the heart of Europe. It’s a crazy, stupid thing,” said Alex, a Kyiv man who just moved to the United States earlier this year on a work visa who asked that his last name not be published because he fears retribution against family members who are still in Ukraine, including his son.

“Just one crazy man wants to do something, I can’t explain this,” Alex said shaking his head. “There’s no logic.”

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced severe sanctions against Russia.

"Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences," Biden said.

Ukraine’s government pleaded for help as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.

Several speakers said the crisis was about more than just Ukraine; that the conflict is now the center of a broader struggle to preserve liberal democracies amid the rise of right-wing populism.

“The unthinkable has happened, and now people are dying. Which country is going to be next?” Marin business leader and activist Nataliya Anon said at Thursday’s rally.

Anon is the founder and CEO of Corte Madera-based Svitla Systems.

“Ukraine needs the world right now and the world needs Ukraine,” she said. “I ask you, I urge you, all nationalities … Americans, please, put on your Ukrainian faces today. Step into Ukrainian shoes and shout “I am Ukraine.’”

The protest was among many held across the country and around the world, including protests in Los Angeles and New York.

A NEW REALITY

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, a UC Berkeley economics professor from Ukraine who attended Thursday’s rally with his wife Iryna and their two sons, Max and Lev, said he’s doing what he can to stay in touch with friends and relatives back home, but acknowledged the crisis has been challenging.

“Especially being far away from Ukraine and being unable to help in any significant way,” he said,” but I think being here (at Thursday’s rally), being around all these people, I think it’s a way to help.

“Keeping public opinion firm, this is much needed, not only for Ukraine but for the world. I think it’s very important.

Gorodnichenko said during a call Thursday to his 73-year-old mother in Ukraine she described hearing what sounded like cruise missiles flying overhead.

“It’s a new reality,” he said. “More people should know about this violence and this death, what this (war) means for us all of us.

“If there’s no security for Ukraine, there’s no security for any of us.”

Hans Kolbe, who is from Germany but is now lives in the Bay Area, said he attended Thursday’s rally partly because he felt “embarrassed” about his country’s World War II-era atrocities that involved the killings of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

Kolbe said many Germans feel their country has a “special responsibility” to protect the Ukraine as it does Israel.

But he’s concerned the world isn’t taking the Ukraine crisis seriously enough.

Maintaining public opinion in support of the Ukrainian cause in the U.S. and allied countries will likely be critical to sustaining sanctions against Russia in the long run.

“There’s a lot of confusion about Ukraine and Russia in the United States,” Kolbe said. “A lot of people say ‘they’re the same and we don’t trust any of them.’

“I’m concerned about that.”

Kolbe is also concerned about how far Putin’s military adventure will go.

“He’s not going to stop. Estonia’s going to be next,” he said. The war “is not even in Russia’s interests. It’s going to bring doom to Russia, but in the meantime, it brings so much hardship.”

STANDING IN SOLIDARITY

Leon Fayerberg, a Daly City man from Ukraine who immigrated to the U.S. from the city of Odesa nearly 30 years ago, didn’t know about Thursday’s protest until the last minute, but he felt compelled to go.

“When I heard about it, I said ‘I have to go,’” he said. “What else can we do?”

He attended the rally with his wife Rimma and their daughter, Paulina Fayer, who lives in San Francisco.

“It’s important to stand in solidarity and show support, especially because we still have family and friends out there,” Fayer said.

The Fayerbergs have spoken with friends and relatives on both sides of the Ukrainian border with Russia. But less than 24 hours in, the crisis has become harrowing.

“I was shocked, I didn’t think it was going to be a ‘hot’ war,” Leon Fayerberg said.

“Putin doesn’t want the Russian people to see what democracy looks like in a neighboring country with almost the same language, almost the same culture.”

Rimma Fayerberg said she was impressed by the atmosphere at Thursday’s rally.

“I saw unity,” she said. “I understood they really came together to support Ukraine.”

But the Fayerbergs weren’t happy with everything they heard, noting some of the rhetoric reflected right-wing nationalist elements that are a small minority of the sovereignty movement.

An expression of antipathy towards the Russian people by one of the speakers was inconsistent with the spirit of the rally in Leon Fayerberg’s view, and a reference by another speaker to Stepan Bandera, a controversial far-right leader of Ukraine’s independence movement who at one point fought alongside the Nazis against the former Soviet Union, was especially troublesome, he said.

“The messaging should have been unifying, not divisive,” Fayer said.

TORN APART

For Alex, the Kyiv man, the war has literally torn his family apart.

He moved to the U.S. with his wife Oksana and Anastasiia, their 5-year-old daughter, but their 13-year-old son is still in Ukraine. The couple asked that their son’s name not be published over concerns about his safety.

The couple hopes to find a way to bring their son the U.S., but their chances of doing so are not good.

“We’re going to try, but it’s impossible,” Oksana said. “We weren’t expecting this.”

The rally at least bought them some comfort.

“There are a lot of people that think the situation in Ukraine matters,” Alex said. “It is very good to see.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report