Daughter's Desperate Bid To Save Parents Amid Sounds Of War In Ukraine

CLINTON, CT — Zhanna Kharyniak had never won anything in her life. Until she and her husband won what would be a life-changing jackpot.

In 2015, the couple submitted an entry for the Diversity Visa lottery, known as the Green Card Lottery. By way of example, in 2017, in their native Ukraine, 1,470,250 submitted an entry, 4,500 were selected and of those, 2,040 were issued Green Cards. So winning was huge.

“You have to wish," the mother of two from Clinton said. "And you have to believe.”

Kharyniak and her husband Viktor and their two very young children came to the U.S. and initially moved in with his grandmother, who lives in Branford. Soon, they’d move to Clinton, where both worked in the hospitality industry. In 2021, they became official American citizens.

Two years before, her parents, Dmytro and Nataliia Toniievych, applied for tourist visas to visit their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren on the Connecticut shoreline, 7,204 kilometers from Kuty, Ukraine as the crow flies. But they were unable to make that voyage; the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv denied their visa request, Zhanna said.

Not being able to leave Ukraine then to visit family was disappointing. Now, it’s dire.

The sounds of war

The Toniievych’s are both 63. Dimitro has serious health issues. Zhanna’s younger sister Yevgeniia fled Ukraine to Italy with her children. Dmytro and Nataliia stayed behind. Zhanna said that her father is a dedicated “patriot” who loves Ukraine. He’s told her that he should be the “last to leave.”

“He’s had his life and wants to help the young people of Ukraine, he says. It’s heartbreaking. But (her parents) know they need to leave. I’m trying to get them here.”

In Zhanna’s voice is a tremble, and a passion conveyed even by phone.

“The way we all feel, we’re not giving up. Our land is the most important to us. We’re a peaceful people. We’ve never hurt anyone. That’s what we believe,” she said, and how her father feels. Still, he knows getting to the U.S. would be best.

“They’ve been helping refugees escaping from the east, where the war is worse. They volunteer every day to help, to try to have a normal life. But there’s no more normal life,” she said.

Zhanna said that sometimes, when she’s on the phone with her parents, she can “hear the sounds” of war.

“The bombing in the distance. The danger that may come from any side. There’s a lot of fear,” she shared. “I’m very worried about them. That’s my pain.”

Her father, who worked his whole life for a “road company,” is so committed to defending his country that he “joined a volunteer group to fight.”

“He was not in the military but when he was at university when he was young, like all, he had some training. Now he goes to a (firing range) to practice. Mentally, he’s ready to fight. But I want him here, and safe.”

Born in Russia, "her heart's Ukrainian."

Zhanna's mother Nataliia was born in Russia, but her “heart is Ukrainian," Zhanna said. And when she’s tried to speak to family in Russia, they deny what’s happening in Ukraine.

“Whole generations there have grown up on lies. That’s the drama of this life, this situation,” Zhanna said. "Now, with all this Russian propaganda, they can’t even communicate anymore.”

Zhanna had been working on getting them to the U.S. for well over a year, with myriad applications, fees, forms, and endless hoops to jump through.

But then the Russians invaded Ukraine and that “changed everything.” There was a new urgency. She’s more committed than ever to do whatever it takes to bring her parents to safety.

“They will come. They must come,” she said.

With a little help from a co-worker, a mayor and 2 Senators

Zhanna works as a senior account at East River Energy in Guilford, where her colleagues there are very supportive, she said. A co-worker mentioned that they would reach out to a friend on her behalf to see if anything could be done to expedite her parent's visas. East Haven Mayor Joseph A. Carfora picked up that call and, shortly after, made a call of his own.

“Whatever I can do to help, I will,” Carfora said.

That call was to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Zhanna had already reached out to his office in Hartford, and staff there began looking into her request for help to “rush” the process. The near-final piece is a visa interview, though not in Ukraine, as the U.S. Embassy there is closed. Zhanna was told her parents would need to travel to Frankfurt, Germany, a 16-hour drive from Kuty in the Carpathian Mountains.

In a phone interview with Blumenthal early Friday morning, he told Patch he and his staff are “working to try to schedule an interview for them in Warsaw, Poland.” That's a seven-hour drive. “It’s tricky, but we’re working on it.”

Blumenthal said he was committed to doing what can be done after first hearing of the family’s plight from Carfora.

“I was immediately struck by the humanitarian and urgent health and safety issues involved,” he said. “These are the cases where potential immigrants from all over the world, who qualify, are caught in the bureaucratic morass of a broken immigration system.”

Blumenthal called the situation in Ukraine grim.

“I want to speed their coming to this country because the situation in Ukraine is so dire and dangerous,” Blumenthal said.

And Sen. Chris Murphy’s office confirmed they’ve been in touch with Zhanna but don't comment on specific cases owing to privacy concerns.

That said, Murphy is on it.

According to a Congressional aide to Murphy, he’s “leading an effort to urge U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to exercise humanitarian parole in order to expedite the evacuation of Ukrainian nationals who have approved visa petitions but are stuck in the backlog."

Meanwhile, in a Clinton elementary school

Zhanna and Viktor Kharyniak’s children, 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, are wrapped in the arms of a school community committed to helping make them feel safe, and cared for.

Their principal phones to offer “anything, whatever they can do,” Zhanna said.

“We feel the caring and the support. We’re very thankful for that,” she said.

Now, it’s just the waiting. And praying. And wishing.