Torrance woman struggles to keep contact with family in Ukraine

Like many Californians with household in Ukraine, the final three weeks of Russia’s invasion of the nation have been agonizing.

For Anya Komisaryk, it has been a nightmare. She’s spent the previous few weeks doing her finest to maintain tabs on her relations who’re a world away.

“Simply the hopelessness of each dialog, that’s what hurts essentially the most,” Komisaryk instructed KTLA about her efforts to be in contact together with her relations within the struggle zone.

Anya got here to the USA together with her mom when she was 7 years outdated. The remainder of her household stayed in Kyiv.

Anya’s been doing her finest to examine in on them day-after-day. She says her grandmother Larissa, at first, didn’t notice the gravity of the state of affairs taking part in out in her hometown.

“It was 5 within the morning and I name my babushka — my grandmother — and she or he answered all sleepy,” Komisaryk mentioned. Anya was watching on TV from her house in California as missile alerts rang all through her grandmother’s metropolis.

She instructed her grandmother concerning the missile strikes taking place in Kyiv. At first, she didn’t imagine it.

“She’s like, ‘No, that’s all speak,’” Komisaryk mentioned.

Larissa turned on her radio and Komisaryk mentioned she may hear the emergency alert system blaring.

Since then, Larissa has fled her house and is now sharing a single room with 4 different individuals close to the Romanian border.

Komisaryk mentioned her grandmother is distressed and shedding weight.

“The true hazard is her drugs. She has a thyroid challenge and if she doesn’t take these she’s going to die and all of the pharmacies are shut down so there’s nothing out there,” Komisaryk mentioned.

Within the weeks since Larissa fled her house, Russian assaults have additionally reached different members of Komisaryk’s household.

On Tuesday, an condominium constructing the place her different grandmother lived was broken and caught hearth.

“That’s when my coronary heart drops, as a result of Kyiv is a really large metropolis and now it’s in my neighborhood,” Komisaryk mentioned.

Fortunately, her grandmother wasn’t house on the time.

Komisaryk additionally mentioned one among her cousins is on the entrance strains of the battle. He wasn’t a part of the energetic navy, however conscripted as soon as the combating started.

He’s now combating on the identical avenue the place he grew up. Anya mentioned she hasn’t heard from him in three days.

With no indicators of of violence stopping, and with Russian assaults now hitting the western metropolis of Lviv for the primary time, Anya mentioned she doesn’t know what else to do and hopes the remainder of the world steps as much as do extra.

“We don’t want anymore prayers,” Komisaryk mentioned. “We’d like planes.”