Deli owner working to get grandmother to Canada, supplies to Ukraine

Daniyil Lytvynenko has been in contact with his two grandmothers every day since the war in Ukraine started.

“One of the grandmas is already on her way to Canada; we just purchased a ticket a couple of days back so she will be in Canada in the next couple weeks,” Lytvynenko told the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Friday. “One of the grandmas is just old and stubborn so she’s not willing to leave her apartment.”

Lytvynenko said that grandmother is in the Sumy territory, near the Belarussian border.

“It’s a little bit better than the first few days. They are currently under Ukrainian control so they have their territorial defence holding the grounds. Right now she’s saying there aren’t as many bombings as the original state, but it’s still pretty scary for her because alarms go off every other hour,” Lytvynenko said.

“You can hear how devastating it is for her. She’s exhausted for the most part. I never heard her talk the way she is, which is really pessimistic in a way where she is just tired of everything and wants to sit back and relax but it is hard to do so.”

He said they recently opened up a convoy for civilians to leave the country, which helped them get their relatives who wanted to leave.

As he watches Ukraine deal with the Russian invasion, he feels like other countries could still do more.

“I do feel like more could be done because I can see the physical result of Ukrainian resistance versus Russian aggression,” Lytvynenko said. “I can see what kind of fight they are putting up.

“I see a lot of tanks and helicopters and all kinds of military equipment getting destroyed in Ukraine right now with Javelins and Stingers that were originally provided by the United Nations and United States. But right now covering the skies (with a no-fly zone) is the only gap we have in our defence system where we cannot resist that. We cannot fight bombings.

“I totally understand why the president (Volodymyr Zelensky) is asking for (a no-fly zone) and I wish the governments of different countries would step up and play along, but I understand why they are skeptical about it.”

While he is thousands of miles away from Ukraine, Lytvynenko has been doing what he can to help out. He has been collecting money, clothing and other donations at his business, Euro Deli Kiev in Regina.

“It was incredible to see the number of people who just stopped by the store, not even necessarily to purchase anything (but) just people bringing us donations and cash and e-transfers to the website we have and that helps a lot to spread about what we are doing here in Saskatchewan and get the strongest support it can gather,” Lytvynenko said.