Ukrainians gather at State Capitol to support country

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - People with friends and family in Ukraine, from Ukraine, or simply wanting to show their support for the country gathered to pray, sing, and show their support.

“It is madness right now for us,” said Mykhailo Smyshliaiev, who coordinated the event. “We’ve been sleeping for one to four hours a day and it keeps coming, we keep calling people in Ukraine to find out if they’re okay, if they’re safe. We don’t know how to help but we’re praying all day long.”

Mykhailo planned today’s gathering yesterday at noon.

A little over 24-hours later, he saw just how much support his home country has in the capitol city.

“We are not only one or two Ukrainians who lives in Nebraska and the war in Nebraska is not impacting someone, somewhere, but it’s impacting all Nebraskans because everybody has someone or they know someone who is Ukrainian, from Ukraine, or still in Ukraine,” Smyshliaiev said.

The goal of the gathering was to show just that, and to unite Lincoln’s Ukrainian community to lean on each other.

Leaders from Ukrainian churches in Lincoln spoke at the event, and tried to facilitate ways to help their home country.

“80% of the church are Ukrainian people and that’s why they have connections with people back home and it’s a huge shock for our people,” said Oleg Stepanyuk, associate pastor at House of Prayer church. “Our hearts go out to our people back in Ukraine, we pray for Ukraine daily and we send support to the channels that we have.”

Mykhailo said while they are trying to figure out how to get aid into the country...He’s already gathering supplies to send when he can.

“For now we’re gonna start collecting stuff. We don’t have guidance on what stuff we need,” Mykhailo said. “We need everything. The country will be destroyed so we need everything.”