{"id":210054,"date":"2024-02-23T15:58:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T20:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=210054"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:32:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:32:37","slug":"war-in-ukraine-reaches-two-year-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/02\/war-in-ukraine-reaches-two-year-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"War in Ukraine Reaches Two Year Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

The War in Ukraine has been underway (unbelievably) for two years. It started on February 24, 2022.<\/p>\n

Ever since war broke out, UConn Health\u2019s Dr. Leo Wolansky, professor and chair of Diagnostic Imaging and Therapeutics at UConn School of \u00a0 and now first past-president of the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America (UMANA)<\/a>, has been hard at work to draw attention to the critical humanitarian needs of the people of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Leo Wolansky.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UMANA is a non-partisan professional organization, which includes hundreds of members from across North America. A major portion of the organization\u2019s mission concerns health care to Ukrainians throughout the world. During his presidency, the Foundation of UMANA collected over two million dollars of donations and sent approximately 20 million dollars-worth of supplies to Ukraine (UMANA.org)<\/p>\n

To raise awareness of the ongoing plight of Ukrainian children, Wolansky is sharing a song he wrote and recorded in both English and Ukrainian. Wolansky\u2019s song lyrics below tell the story of the Mariupol theater bombing.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>In March 2022 the city of Mariupol in Ukraine was under siege,\u201d says Wolansky. \u201cIn Mariupol there was a large theater, which was being used as a shelter. The stage crew of the theater had painted the Russian word\u00a0 “\u0414 \u0415 \u0422 \u0418” meaning “Children” in giant letters on the pavement of the parking lot as a warning to Russian pilots, not to bomb the building.”<\/p>\n

But Wolansky sadly shares: \u201cDespite this, on March 16 Russian pilots dropped two large bombs on theater. The AP estimates that up to 600 people, many of them mothers and children died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolansky says that it is strangely ironic that the four-letter Russian word, if divided into two words, each two letters in length, “\u0414\u0415”\u00a0and “\u0422\u0418” means nothing in Russian, but in Ukrainian spells the phrase, \u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine that,\u201d Wolansky exclaims! \u201cWhere are you\u2026children?\u201d Wolansky says at least 19,000 Ukrainian children are missing, and many have died in bombings, and he says the question looms, \u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolansky, a semiprofessional musician, wrote this bilingual song below about the March 16 tragedy. He performed it for the first time this summer at a Ukrainian arts festival attended by several thousand people. The recording also features the voices of his two sons, Leo and Ivan, as well as a good friend, Olya Fryz.<\/p>\n