On Feb. 24, the Dartmouth Student Alliance for Ukraine held a vigil to commemorate the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Approximately 80 students, faculty and community members were in attendance.
On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war, which began with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. The ongoing war has displaced millions of Ukrainians and is the largest and deadliest European conflict since World War II. In the three years since, Dartmouth students have founded the DSAU and continue to work to raise awareness about the suffering of Ukrainians.
The event opened with a minute of silence for the lives lost in the three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion and the 11 years since Russia annexed Crimea. DSAU members delivered six speeches and member Maya Spektorov ’28 read an original poem. East European, Eurasian and Russian studies professor Victoria Somoff also delivered a speech.
In her speech, DSAU co-president Marta Hulievska ’25 attributed this year’s higher attendance numbers in part to current events. Notably, President Donald Trump initiated contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 12 — ending a three-year communication pause — and his administration has stated it is “unrealistic” for Ukraine to retain all of its territory. The vigil also fell on the same day the United States refused to condemn Russia’s actions in a vote at the United Nations.
Members of the DSAU hypothesized these recent events increased attention on Ukraine, which impacted turnout at the vigil. “We’re really grateful to see so many people show up — way more than last year, probably for a good reason,” Hulievska added.
After the vigil, DSAU co-president Kyrylo Fomin ’26 said he has attended the past two vigils, since arriving at Dartmouth. Fomin is from Ukraine, and spoke on how his experience has shifted over the last three years.
“Every year, I think next year we’re not going to have it, but somehow it’s still happening,” he said.
In a speech during the vigil, Fomin criticized Trump’s recent comments that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “dictator without elections,” as well as Trump’s exclusion of Ukraine from peace talks with Putin.
“It’s the Ukrainians who fought for my country’s independence, represented by our president who no Ukrainian in their right mind would call illegitimate,” Fomin said.
Other students spoke about the perceived change in international support for Ukraine’s war effort. Hulievska, who was raised in the frontline city of Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, said she believes support for Ukraine has decreased in the years since the invasion.
“For a second when everything was full of uncertainty… the American people and the community at Dartmouth supported Ukraine,” Hulievska said. “I’m sad to say that this year I’m graduating, and it feels like the support has decreased.”
Spektorov, who is from Kyiv, read an original poem titled “For Your Entertainment” that she said was about “both the pain of the war and the pain of perception from the global public.” Spektorov said that when she wrote the poem, she “felt like people had forgotten that Ukraine even existed.”
“I realized that the only time that people seemed to care was when there was some huge revelation about the amount of Ukrainian death that had happened, and I felt that it was just so tragic that people couldn’t seem to care about us unless there was enough death that followed,” Spektorov said.
Spektorov elaborated on the feeling that people care about Ukraine cyclically, or in trends.
“[The poem] is meant to remind people that social media is so constructed,” she said. “Although it’s so hard to sometimes feel empathy towards people you may have never met, you must work to do so without being caught by just breaking news and momentary events.”
Speakers also spoke about how international developments in the war have affected Ukrainians. In her speech, Hulievska said the freezing of USAID has impacted her relatives in Ukraine, many of whom work with internally displaced persons in Zaporizhzhya. According to CNN, non-governmental organizations that provide vital aid have closed projects — from rebuilding classrooms destroyed in strikes to the helpline at Ukraine’s Veteran Hub. Hulievska said her father — who works as a refugee lawyer — has had his salary “cut in half” as a result.
“His salary was cut in half, which meant of course something bad for my family, but it also meant something infinitely worse for people who were receiving this help, for people who couldn’t afford to pay for it,” Hulievska said.
Following Hulievska’s speech, Somoff spoke about the state of Donetsk, her native city, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014. According to Somoff, 20% of Ukraine is currently under Russian control, while Ukranians living in occupation are “denied basic rights.”
“The full scale of Russia’s crimes remains unknown, as no Ukrainian or foreign monitors have access,” Somoff said.
In an interview after the vigil, DSAU treasurer Charles Bowers ’27 said he believes it is important to support Ukraine even without a personal connection to the nation.
“I have no ethnic or cultural ties to the nation,” he said. “However, I am firmly in support of Ukraine. … What’s happening is oppressive, and realizing it’s wrong transcends ethnicity and culture.”
Bowers added that he believes active support for Ukraine has decreased, in part due to “under-reporting.”
“The news cycle is always obsessed with new things, and people are constantly moving onto the new thing,” Bowers said. “There’s so much going on right now in the world that it’s just getting drowned out.”
Attendee Axel Schulz ’28 said he makes an effort to attend events such as the vigil to demonstrate his solidarity.
“The reason I came is because I really feel like [as] a new Dartmouth community member, I want to show my solidarity for things I care about,” Schulz said. “I want to use my voice and help and stay informed in any way that I can.”
Nico D’Orazio ’28, an international student from Romania, said he was “really happy” about the event’s turnout because he expected “something smaller.”
“I’m from Romania, which borders Ukraine, and so obviously Ukrainian issues are kind of close to home,” D’Orazio said. “That’s literally 50 miles away. The turnout is a lot more than I expected, which is really great.”
