It’s been more than two weeks since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into eastern Ukraine for a “peacekeeping” mission.
Since then, more than 2 million refugees have fled Ukraine to the borders of Poland and Germany.
Members of The Commuter staff asked people about their thoughts about Ukraine.
Joshua Spivey, FCC communications professor, said he keeps up with Ukraine news daily. One reason is that he is a military veteran.
“Also just being a citizen and like things going on with not just America, but across the world. I feel like people need to know about it,” he said.
Some students have also made a point to keep informed about what is being named the Russia-Ukraine War.
First-year English major Shannon Heister has been updating herself on the situation via news and FCC email.
“I’ve heard and watched the news enough to know that Russia has invaded Ukraine and war has broken out,” said the 19-year-old from Adamstown.
Students are seeing how the war halfway across the world is affecting them here in the U.S.
“The rise in gas prices has made things for me as a college student more difficult to go places and do things I’d like to do,” said Ryan Yammarino, 18, a first-year business major from Frederick.
Heister agreed.
“Being a full-time student and working retail are two difficult tasks and with gas prices rising, it makes money used for other expenses limited,” Heister said.
Helping those in Ukraine
Despite the uncertainty of the situation, people want to help.
Yammarino said he wishes he was able to help, but he knows there are fundraisers being set up all across the world in order to aid Ukrainian efforts.
Frederick Community College hosted a fundraising event on March 9. The college collected donations and facilitated a moment of silence for Ukrainian citizens.
FCC students and faculty donated more than $11,000 and counting and have personally kept up with the issue.
War’s end?
Unfortunately, military and history experts say there will be a definite end to the war and Spivey agreed.
“I don’t think it’ll end anytime soon because there’s power involved and with power involved, people don’t just want to give that up extremely quickly,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t end up being a World War though for sure, I don’t want it to be anything where multiple countries are involved more than they already are.”
— by Maya Barnes, Tatum Anderson, and Aidan Shaw
