Davyd Kaminsky is a Ukrainian who, four years ago \u2014 at just 15-years-old \u2014 was forced to leave his home when Russia invaded the country.\u00a0Kaminsky, his family, along with thousands of others, fled to Winnipeg for refuge, but he still remembers vividly the day his life changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that my dad was supposed to come over, and then he wakes me up at five in the morning and basically tells me that the war has started, and then I hear sirens outside of the window. I get up and look outside and I see a bunch of people walking with their backpacks, everybody\u2019s panicking,\u201d Kaminsky explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could not even imagine in four years, when im almost 20, that the war is still happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maksym Solomko left in 2023, when the population of his hometown shrank by a third. He was forced to close his business, forcing him to come to Winnipeg to look for work.\u00a0He says he\u2019s grateful to be working as a truck driver now, and that Canada opened its doors for Ukrainians escaping the violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember that day clearly because I woke up at 4 a.m., because a rocket was flying over the roof of my home,\u201d Solomko explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy that it\u2019s still lasting, but the fortune of Ukraine, that we\u2019re still holding, that Ukraine is still able to resist, that\u2019s because of (Canada), because of you helping us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Solomko and Kaminsky are trying to apply for permanent residency, like many others from Ukraine.\u00a0They\u2019re encouraging people to sign a petition led by the United Ukrainians of Canada Foundation, which has 50,000 letters sent to government officials, lobbying for a special pathway for Ukrainians to apply for their PR.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of Ukrainians who came here, they\u2019re hard workers, they\u2019re paying taxes, obtaining jobs, trying to learn, their children are already settled here going to school.\u00a0Some of those children don\u2019t know [Ukrainian language], so there should be some pass for them to stay here,\u201d said Solomko.<\/p>\n
A statement from the foundation reads, \u201cOur organization remains committed to working collaboratively with government leaders and communities across Canada to achieve a sustainable and humane solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Solomko and Kaminsky say they want a future in Canada, four years of their home country fighting against an invasion has taken an emotional toll.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say I just miss the peace, I miss my childhood, all my friends, all my memories are left back there,\u201d said Kaminsky.<\/p>\n
Solomko added, \u201cI lost one of my best friends in this war. Another friend was wounded. Lots of Ukrainian territory is just vanished.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Davyd Kaminsky is a Ukrainian who, four years ago \u2014 at just 15-years-old \u2014 was forced to leave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-497459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}