‘Life in Kyiv’: Saskatoon nurse reflects on work in Ukraine four years after Russia’s invasion

Saskatoon nurse Tanya Baran has visited Ukraine seven times since Russia invaded the country in 2022.

Baran serves as the medical lead for the nonprofit group Ukrainian Patriot, co-ordinating the delivery of first aid kits to front-line areas. She said people cannot truly understand war until they see it for themselves.

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“It is very real and a very uncomfortable feeling when you are sitting in your apartment miles away from the front lines and you can hear ballistic missiles landing or Shahed drones flying just outside your window,” she said.

Baran said she’s prepared for the nights when air raids hit by keeping an emergency bag full of medical supplies, clothes and documents ready by her door.

“You kind of find a spot in your apartment away from windows, and you just kind of watch and wait,” she said.

“This is life in Kyiv,” Baran added. “It’s miles away from the front lines, and families and people shouldn’t have to feel that way.”

Many stories have stuck with Baran over the years, but she said one in particular came from her time in Kramatorsk, a city in eastern Ukraine. Baran said she met a mother with three children who had been under Russian occupation once before in 2014, and lived in fear of the situation repeating itself.

“She told me how her family slept in a crawl shelter for months. The kids never went to school and they barely saw daylight and had minimal food,” Baran said. “They could only go out when it was deemed safe for them to get groceries, and relied on organizations to bring them aid.”

When the war began in 2022, Baran said the mother chose to move her children to a nearby city to keep them safe, but instead her children ended up living under Russian occupation for nine more months.

“I can’t imagine how many families that have had to make the decision to send kids off, or even the men and women who are defending Ukraine who’ve made the choice to separate from their families,” Baran said.

During Baran’s last trip to Ukraine, she said water, power and heat were limited to only a few hours a day due to Russia targeting infrastructure.

“It’s not even ideal times, because they’re trying to rotate through the entire city,” Baran said, noting that on some days she would get up at 3 a.m. to cook meals and do laundry before another blackout hit.

“I does give me a little bit of some guilt, knowing that when I talk to my teammates back in Ukraine, a lot of the times they’re sitting in the dark, they don’t have heat, or they haven’t showered in a couple of days because the water hasn’t been on,” Baran said.

“It’s really tough for them.”

Four years after the war began, Baran said it’s just as important to bring awareness to the issues Ukrainians face every day, and Canadians have the power to keep these conversations going.

“We are such a huge community here in Saskatoon, so working together is what can keep information out there to help support Ukraine.”