DETROIT – A Metro Detroit doctor is fearful for his family members in Ukraine and doing everything he can to help them during Russia’s invasion.
After World War II, many Ukrainian refugees fled the war zone and came to settle in Metro Detroit. They started families here while keeping relationships with family members left behind in Ukraine.
As war once again spreads across Ukraine, Dr. Marco Gudziak is one of the many people doing everything they can to help their loved ones.
“It brings us to tears, at times, to see these bombings,” Gudziak said.
Gudziak is a urologist. He told Local 4 that his family is doing everything it can to provide help to Ukrainian family members. His wife’s family is in the Carpathian Mountains area in the west, and Gudziak’s family lives in Lviv.
People in Lviv are currently building bomb shelters and covering antiquities they want to salvage in advance of a possible invasion moving there.
“The young men obviously will have to stay, and then her uncle who’s in his 80s has decided, ‘I’m just not leaving. I’m too old to go,’” Gudziak said.
Gudziak is working with a number of organizations to provide broader assistance. One of them, the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, has been around since WWII.
Here are some of the organizations Gudziak is working with:
“Trying to send medical aid,” Gudziak said. “Simple things, such as tourniquets, just to stop active bleeding on the battlefield, are needed, including sutures, any kind of medical supplies, clothing.”
Gudziak believes Ukraine isn’t getting the promised international protections after giving up its nuclear weapons in the 90s.
“We must support freedom,” Gudziak said. “We must support democracy. We must support international rule of law.”
He said he wants to be optimistic about Ukraine’s future, but he can’t be. He believes if Russian President Vladimir Putin takes Ukraine, China will go into Taiwan, causing more global turmoil.