photo by: Photo provided

Halyna Charron, center, walks toward a church in Ukraine with her mother Maria, left, and youngest daughter Natalia while visiting the country three years ago.

WHEELING — Pastor Jason Charron and his wife Halyna pray and worry for her Ukrainian family members who were forced to leave their country this week, as well as for her brother who stayed behind in Ukraine.

Jason Charron is pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in South Wheeling, a Ukrainian Catholic Church. The family lives in Carnegie, Pennsylvania.

Their relatives’ lives were thrown into turmoil this week as Russian forces invaded the country Thursday. More than 100 Ukrainian troops had died in the first day of fighting. By Friday, Russian military were bearing down on the nation’s capital, Kyiv. Multiple people in the Ohio Valley with ties to Ukraine expressed their worries about what is to come in that conflict.

Halyna Charron said she spoke with her mother and sister-in-law Wednesday. They had evacuated Ukraine amid attacks from Russia, taken her brother Yriy’s two children and were in Poland.

Yriy — who owns an internet company in Ukraine — remained in the country.

“I asked him, what is his plan?” Charron said. “He said he will stay in Ukraine as long as he is useful in preserving an internet connection. People there will defend their country, even though Russia outnumbers the Ukrainian military by 10 times.”

She said Yriy had worked hard to build up his internet company.

“His wife and children – they left everything behind when they had to flee the country,” she added. “They don’t know if they will ever be able to go back or not.

“But, as I told them, possessions are secondary.”

She called Russia’s attacks on Ukraine “a tragedy.”

“We woke up to horror together,” Charron said of her and her family. “I understand it (Ukraine) is far, but it is beginning. If they let (Russian President Vladimir Putin) win – if western powers let Ukraine perish – it will be just the beginning.

“I really hope and pray the world will realize that this is not just a Ukraine problem,” she added. “It is just one stop for him. All we can do is pray and support people as much as we can.”

She said that, up until recent days, Ukrainian people would never have imagined Russia would attack their country.

“Two weeks ago they were fine and going about their daily life,” Charron said of her family. “They asked me where I was getting my information. They told me there is no way Russia will announce a full-scale invasion. They were completely in denial.

“Then when I woke up this morning. I couldn’t believe it. We were always told that Russians are our brothers. Now the masks have fallen, and the Russian president has revealed himself for what he is.”

She said she, her mother and sister-in-law are trying to figure out what they should do next. Charron would like to bring her mother to America.

She explained that Russia’s considering Ukraine a threat to their country “is the equivalent to saying Canada is a threat to the U.S.”

“If (Putin) is not stopped now,” she said, “it is not going to end well for the world”

Jason Charron said he lived in Ukraine for three years, and the two oldest of the couple’s seven children were born there.

“It’s an act of barbarism,” he said of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “It undermines Mr. Putin’s claims to want to restore traditional values to Eastern Europe. What it is is the restoration of brute force embodied by the Mongol Tatars of the 13th century who brutalized Ukraine with no cause.

“We pray for them, and that their hearts will turn away from violence,” he said of Russian forces.

Jerry and Shirley Joseph of St. Clairsville have made 13 trips to the Ukraine since 1993 as missionaries affiliated with the National Road Church of Christ in Wheeling.

They couple said they “have been very upset” with news they are hearing from Ukraine, and they have been communicating with friends they have established there through the internet.

They said many have already moved on to Poland.

“They don’t understand why this is happening,” Shirley Joseph said. “They never thought this would happen.”

photo by: Photo provided

Halyna Charron, standing, puts an arm on the shoulder of her brother Yriy during a visit to the Ukraine three years ago. Also seated at the table are Charron’s daughters Sophia and Maria.

The Josephs most frequently visited the city of Dnipro, an industrial city in Ukraine with a population of nearly 1 million people. It was once the home to Russia’s defense industries, and now it specializes in rocket engines.

The airport in Dnipro was among the first areas that Russian forces attacked.

“They are a peaceful people,” Jerry Joseph said. “They have no offensive weapons whatsoever. They are frightened and bewildered.”

He suggested Putin was interested in taking over the city not just because rocket engines are made there, but because of its fertile soil. Dnipro is considered the breadbasket of Eastern Europe, according to Jerry Joseph.

“(Putin) doesn’t care about Ukraine, but he wants the land,” Joseph said. “I don’t think he is really sympathetic to civilians, but he wants the land.”

The Ukrainians also are “the most beautiful artists – from art to voice,” he added.

“They have a fantastic central orchestra, and an opera every other week,” Joseph said. “They are kind and gentle. Their poetry is beautiful, and they are some of the most pleasant people I’ve been around.

Joseph said, for the last 28 years, Ukrainians have tried to live as a kind, civilized society, and largely they have succeeded.

“They wanted to be like the west, and their towns are beautiful,” he said. “Their downtowns are the hubs of activity, like ours used to be.

“There are shops and sidewalk cafes. It’s beautiful.”

Shirley Joseph said when they made their first visit to Ukraine in 1993, they found people there had not been allowed to worship, go to church or have a Bible.

“They were not allowed to speak about God in their homes,” she said. “If a child in the house reported they did so, the family would be shipped off to Siberia and the government took the child and raised them into communism.”

She said 1,000 Bibles were distributed to the people after the fall of communism, and many cried upon seeing one.

“It’s very easy to spread the word there,” Jerry Joseph said. “I would just go to the park, stand on a bench and talk about the gospel. Then 30 to 40 people would turn out to listen to the word of God.”

Those under the age of 50 mostly had no knowledge of God or religion, and they “were spiritually hungry,” according to Jerry Joseph.

“This is personal with us,” he said. “We know them. There are so many young people there who don’t know about anything other than freedom. They are going to be emotionally hurt if it comes under communist rule again.”