Nika Rudenko ’24 has not gone to class in more than a week. The war in Ukraine, and the responsibilities she feels for her family and country, matter more than any homework assignment. Along with a handful of other students from Ukraine and neighboring countries, Rudenko demands that Harvard University take action in support of Ukraine, which has yet to make an official statement in support of Ukraine.
“I couldn’t understand why no one from the administration had reached out to me earlier saying anything about how my family was doing, about my mental state in general,” said Rudenko. “That’s why I composed a large email addressing the administration to tell them about the maltreatment of the international student body, about their negligence and lack of support, and demanding structural institutional change.”
In the email sent to Harvard College President Larry Bacow on February 23rd, Rudenko wrote: “despite the threat to my safety and the safety of other Ukrainian students, the University took no action to support us … My country is being ripped to pieces, my family is in great distress not knowing where to find asylum.”
Rudenko’s family is currently searching for ways to escape from their home in Kyiv, which has been bombarded by missile strikes as the Russian military pushes closer to the heart of the Ukrainian government. Though men aged 18-60 are unable to leave the country due to a mandated conscription, Rudenko’s brother, aunt, and nephew are likely going to flee to Western Ukraine, where they will delay their conscription edit. Her parents will stay in Kyiv.
“I wish I could say that I belong here, but I can’t and I don’t.” Rudenko continued in the email. “I am writing to you so that I, my peers, and future generations can fully feel like Harvard has our best interests.”
Rudenko found Bacow’s response to her disappointingly curt. “I understand that [you and Dean Khurana] have found some time to meet next week,” Bacow wrote over email. “Please allow the good people around you to do what they can to lighten [your burdens] now—and to help you have the kind of experience you expected to have at Harvard.”
Jan Kryca ’25 was born in Warsaw, Poland, and currently lives just 110 miles East of the Ukrainian border. Two weeks ago, he received the following text from a friend: “Single mother with three kids. She’s homeless today in Warsaw, a refugee from Ukraine. Do any of you have a place to stay?”
“Texts like these are not normal,” Kryca said.
Warsaw has become a “logistics hub for the transfer of assistance to Ukraine,” Foreign Policy Chief of the European Union announced last week, representing the collective effort of Eastern European countries to aid their neighbor in fighting Russian aggression.
“The way people are reacting here at Harvard to this now [attending protests, posting instagram stories, raising awareness, etc]. … It’s as if this has just happened in the last few days,” Kryca continues. “Let me remind you this war started in 2014.
Crimea, Kyrca said, “is not some disputed territory—it is a part of Ukraine. The border has been there since the fall of the Soviet Union.”
Since the initial invasion of Ukrainian territory in 2014, the two countries have encountered a series of conflicting interpretations of both agency and rights to land. Russian leaders failed to recognize Ukraine’s passage of a series of decommunization laws which mandated the removal of communist landmarks, monuments, and any public influence directly related to the Soviet Union. The Minsk Accords, signed later in 2014, sought to cease Russian aggressions in Ukraine. But movements by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the last few years suggested alternative motives.
“In April last year, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia began to escalate once again. And once again, I was threatened for my life,” Rudenko mentions, in regard to Russia’s initial mobilization of troops on the Ukrainian border. “People started clearing bomb shelters in Kyiv [after Nika and her family were forced to flee their home], and no one from the adminstration or faculty reached out to me.”
“Yes, the conflict has escalated exponentially,” says Kryca. “But fundamentally, the fact that only now the University is asking, ‘How can we reach out to students? What can we do to help?’ is long overdue. This conflict is almost ten years old.”
Rudenko grew up in Donetsk, the eastern Ukrainian region that has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, when she fleed to Kyiv. Towards the end of 2021, Russia began to make advancements throughout Ukraine, occupying the capital city with Russian troops, tanks, and artillery.
“When the war started in Kyiv, the administration was still very silent. Only in the past couple of weeks has Harvard acknowledged the urgency of the situation,” Rudenko said, referring to their private outreach to Harvard students and the hoisting of the Ukrainian flag at the John Harvard statue.
On February 28th, she received an email from Rakesh Khurana, Danoff Dean of Harvard College, expressing interest in meeting with her. “I shared with him my availability and the urgency of the situation … and after the war even started, without common courtesy or even asking any how I was doing or how my family was, he canceled our meeting, saying, ‘Given the snow on Friday, I can’t meet. Let’s postpone our meeting to Monday.’ I think it says a lot about him as a person and about the whole University.”
Both Rudenko and Kryca see a disconnect between the University’s mission statement and its response to the growing conflict—or lack thereof.
In his opening remarks at a speech made at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University on February 27, Bacow shared support for the people in Ukraine and the advancement of its history, culture, and language. That day, the school raised the Ukrainian Flag over the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard, to which it still stands today.
“With all due respect, that really means very little. It’s just a symbol. Here it symbolizes nothing because Harvard hasn’t really taken action,” Kryca voices, in response to the flag flying in the Yard.
Rudenko and Kryca wish to see a few small, but feasible and effective, changes in the coming days.
“First, Harvard needs to publicize if there are any Russian investments,” Kryca comments. “All the Russian investments are made by oligarchs, which then fund the war effort. Harvard should hold itself as an institution accountable. If they are investing in these Russian companies, they are investing in the war effort.”
“Perhaps it’s quite difficult to cut financial ties with Russia,” Rudenko added. “But if we want to uphold our values and moral standards high, we need to understand that the endowment should not be our first priority.”
“The Harvard endowment is one-third of the Ukrainian GDP,” Kryca said, emphasizing the degree of financial influence that Harvard has.
He continues, “Secondly, no Harvard student who’s been affected by the war in Ukraine, especially if they are Ukrainian, should experience consequences on their grades. The last thing that people whose families are being bombed should be thinking about is a C or a B on their test. They shouldn’t even have to ask their professors for help. Extensions should be the default. I understand Harvard can’t directly stop the war. But they can do some things very directly.”
Without Harvard’s appropriate recognition of these students’ needs, Rudenko and Kryca are reassessing their priorities.
“I’m considering taking a leave of absence. It is very difficult to focus on my academics right now, and I think that I can be much more helpful to my country than with my University,” Rudenko notes, referring to the remote aid she can provide through raising awareness and promoting pro-Ukrainian activism. “I understand my effort might not have a physical impact. We are a very small country with a small budget, that’s why we need donations from the international community. The students, the faculty, and the administration should contribute to supporting us.”
“Helping us with humanitarian aid is something that Harvard can definitely do. Dean Khurana’s response was that my personal impact would be much bigger than the University’s, and that I should basically do it all by myself,” said Rudenko. “At the same time, I don’t understand how I am supposed to keep my mental state sane, make sure my family is doing okay, make a plan for Harvard to act, and carry out the plan myself.
“Volnovaha, the town which is very close to my home, has been completely bombed,” adds Rudenko. “There are people stuck in shelters and can’t get out because buildings have just fallen on them. All of the water heating and gas pipes are bombed. They don’t have food, and they can’t leave these regions. They have no resources, and our government can’t do all the work by itself. That’s why the international community has to contribute.”
“There seems to be a misunderstanding that this is a political issue,” Kryca added. “There’s talk about this being a conflict, tension, whatever … Yet this isn’t really a political thing. This is a crime against humanity.”
Russians are shooting at ambulances and bombing elementary schools. Just yesterday, Rudenko’s friend posted a photo with the caption: “they’re bombing us again… I hope I wake up again tomorrow.”
The University’s silence, Rudenko said, is very loud.
“We are not turning our backs on them,” Kryca said. “We want to work together.”
They ask their peers to properly educate themselves about the severity of the war and make efforts to help raise awareness and funds to support Ukrainian families.
Nika Rudenko and Jan Kryca are only two voices in the handful of Harvard students with ties to Ukraine and Eastern Europe. On Saturday, February 26, they helped lead a protest on the steps of Widener Library in support of Ukraine. They flew Ukrainian flags and shouted phrases like “Act Now” and “Honor the Memo.”
“As individuals, we cannot do that much, but as an institution, we can move mountains,” Kryca said, “The amount of stuff [the school] says about diversity, inclusion, and community—well, now is a great time to show if you stand for those values or not… We have a community of people from Ukraine here at Harvard, and they need our support now. If we stand for these values, now is a time to show that.”
Visit https://linktr.ee/Nika_Ukraine for more ways to help.