Marsel Dzharkas, 34, is in the territorial self-defense unit in Lviv, Ukraine. Courtesy of Dzharkas
Marsel Dzharkas had just gotten married and was preparing to go on his honeymoon. Two days later, Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine, and Dzharkas’s world like that of so many other Ukrainians, changed.
Dzharkas, 34, was born and lives in Lviv, a city about 370 miles west of the capital Kyiv. So far, Lviv has been spared of Russian military bombardment, according to news reports, but the western city is receiving hundreds of thousands of refugees each day who only have their documents and a “desire to live.” Now, an effort is underway in Midcoast Maine to help.
“I’m in the territorial self-defense unit, so every day for 4-6 hours we guard the entrance to our village Sokilnyky — which is located 3 kilometers from Lviv, checking the cars entering our village and not giving looters any chances,” Dzharkas wrote in an email to The Times Record on Tuesday. “Some of my friends are on the first lanes fighting with the Russian army, some of them already killed as real heroes who were protecting their own country.”
Harpswell resident Bridget O’Brian – owner of North Atlantic Inflatables in Brunswick – said she met Dzharkas in 2014 while working for the international branch of an ed-tech company.
The two worked together for three years, O’Brian said, training students and teachers on an English learning software in United Arab Emirates schools. Since then, she said they’ve kept in touch on and off through email and social media.
“He has an energy and a spark, and I think the other piece of it is I think I always felt like he really cared about the people,” O’Brian said. “He was in the ed-tech business because he was excited about the schools and the kids and the teachers.”
When O’Brian saw the wedding pictures and read about the Russian invasion, she said she reached out to Dzharkas to see how she could help him. After connecting, O’Brian said she sent $600 to Dzharkas, who said he is volunteering to coordinate international humanitarian support and raise money for medical supplies at the Lutsk city hospital.
A March 9 letter from the Medical Association of Lutsk City Territorial Community provided to The Times Record by Dzharkas indicates the hospital’s request for consumable and medical equipment to treat myocardial infarction and strokes.
Through social media, O’Brian is now looking to raise more in hopes of covering the cost of a defibrillator – roughly $4,000.
“For me personally, it was having someone in that experience that I knew I could touch directly,” O’Brian said. “If there is some way, we can sustain the hope and energy of the Ukrainian people to keep this going long enough to get Putin to back down, I think it will be such a statement to the world of where we are.”
Over the last two weeks, Dzharkas said his life changed completely. Each day the situation is getting worse, he said, and airstrike siren warnings and sheltering drills have become the norm.
“We are actively fighting with all of our country,” Dzharkas said. “It doesn’t matter if you have a gun in your hands, or a mobile with keyboard, or humanitarian help coming from all over the world.”
Ultimately, Dzharkas believes Ukraine will win the war. He regards the invasion as a failure, but described Russian aggression as “limitless.” Fear remains, he said, about the use of nuclear weapons and how far exactly the invasion will go.
O’Brian’s fundraiser is not the first showing of support to Ukraine from the Midcoast.
Over the weekend, the Bath City Hall changed the lights that shine on the cupula to be blue and yellow — the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
At the beginning of March, a collection of Ukrainian artwork and images were also installed at the front entrance of Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library by a Richmond resident whose parents immigrated from Ukraine.
While the official number of casualties remains unclear, the AP reported that thousands of civilians and soldiers are thought to have been killed in the last two weeks since Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Most recently, The Associated Press reported Wednesday that a Russian airstrike hit a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol, wounding at least 17 people, according to Ukrainian officials.
For more information on her fundraiser, email O’Brian at obrianmaine@gmail.com. Other ways to support victims of the war can be found through agencies such as Nova Ukraine (novaukraine.org), UNICEF (unicefusa.org), the International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org) and Doctors Without Borders (doctorswithoutborders.org).
Send questions/comments to the editors.
