It was a stark reminder of the reality that Ukrainians are facing daily.
On Wednesday afternoon, Global News was on a Zoom call with Oleksandr Tretyak, mayor of the northwestern city of Rivne, when air-raid sirens began blaring.
“I have to escape to a bomb shelter,” Tretyak suddenly said from Rivne, a city of 300,000 that’s about four hours west of Kyiv and close to the border with Belarus.
After quickly leaving his office, with laptop in hand, Tretyak continued the Zoom call from a bomb shelter, something he and residents are getting all too familiar with.
“We have to spend hours and hours in bomb shelters and this is terrible when you have to wake up with your kids at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., and go down to bomb shelters to hide,” he told Global News.
Also on the call from B.C.’s Okanagan region was Denys Storozhuk, president of the newly formed group, Kelowna Stands With Ukraine.
Tretyak and Storozhuk discussed the idea of Kelowna and Rivne becoming sister cities.
Tretyak said he had seen all the support coming from Kelowna residents on social media, so he reached out to Kelowna Stands With Ukraine for help.
Storozhuk took the request a step further and formally ask that Kelowna make Rivne its sister city.
“It’s much better to focus and being a direct connection, because our idea is not just sending some truckloads of humanitarian aid — whether it’s used or not, maybe half of that will be thrown away — but work on the specific things that they need,” Storozhuk said.
“Specific connection. That’s what we try to do.”
The request for the sister-city relationship will go before city council on Monday.
Coun. Mohini Singh said the idea is absolutely worth exploring.
“I can see us fundraising to help communities, help schools, help colleges, hospitals, so on and so forth, to help that community get back on its feet,” Singh said.
In the meantime, Tretyak made a plea to Kelowna residents to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
“Long-term food boxes with medicine, individual first-aid kits for our soldiers,” he said.
“I would be very grateful for you. I would be very appreciative for you.”
He also encouraged all residents to fly Ukrainian flags as a symbol of solidarity.
On Tuesday, a television tower was bombed outside Rivne. Twenty-one Ukrainian troops died and 10 were wounded.
“Any minute, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin can break our borders and he can send his troops on our regions,” he said.
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