By David Fleet
Editor
Along side a group of militia entrenched somewhere in central Ukraine, Anna Sorochynska conveyed a message to Americans.
“This year, 2022 is our 1783, and freedom is not free, so we want the world to know about the strength, determination and courage of our defenders,” said Sorochynska. “Here we are fighting not only for our land, but also for the freedom and safety of the Western world. Everybody is extremely angry. It hurts to see the civilians suffer from Russian bombs.”
Sorochynska a native of Vinnytsia, a community of about 400,000 located in west-central Ukraine—was a student at Goodrich High School during the 2015-16 school year as part of the Future Leaders Exchange, or FLEX program. The U.S. State Department-sponsored scholarship program is for students from the countries of the former Soviet Union, including the Ukraine. Sorochynska stayed with the Brehl family of Goodrich. The Citizen newspaper has kept in contact with Sorochynska as tensions between Russia and Ukraine intensified.

Sorochynska’s reference to 1783, the ending of the American Revolutionary War, reflects the British acknowledgment of the independence of the United States. Like the British army who outnumbered the American Patriots, so does the Russian military far overmatch the Ukrainian army.
Beginning in late 2021, Russia built a massive military presence—estimated at 150,000 troops on the Ukraine boarder, according to news sources. Then on Feb. 22, the Russians launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine attacking from three directions.
On March 1, Sorochynska, who speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English responded and provided a report from inside the embattled country. In 2018 she joined a Ukrainian volunteer militias in the Eastern Ukraine. From the summer of 2018 through winter 2019 she served during a relatively calm period of time although it did include 15 to 30 minutes of combat action daily. Now, following the last weeks Russian invasion, Sorochynska has rejoined the Ukraine militia.
While communications are limited and often sporadic given the nature of the war, at about 3 p.m. EST (10 p.m. EET) Sorochynska reported she was stationed in Central Ukraine doing anti-diversionist work and patrols.
“The (Ukraine military) are very organized and united,” said Sorochynska, 22. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t met the Russians in direct combat yet, as we are simply guarding and patrolling one major city in central Ukraine. We are searching for saboteurs and making an effort to prevent the Russians from entering this region.”
“Still, from the information I get from the hotspots closer to the border – the Russians are absolutely disorganized, and their army turned out to be in a much worse state than the world imagined,” she said. “Russia sent 18-year-old conscripts and soldiers without motivation here and they surrender a lot, sometimes even unarmed civilians manage to capture them. They do not have any resources to control occupied cities, so they simply advance slowly along the highways and often get eliminated by drones or in direct clashes or even with Molotov cocktails.”
Sorochynska said the current escalation of tensions and invasion from the Russians was imminent ever since the Russo-Ukrainian War started in 2014 that ended in absorbing Crimea into Russia. Since that time, the Ukrainian Army has recognized and is doing amazing much better than in 2014, she said.
“I believe that Ukrainians are prepared for the fight,” she said.
Sorochynska said the level of readiness is way higher than in 2014, and urban warfare is tough, so with Russia’s full-scale operation, “they are going to suffer heavy casualties regardless of the outcomes and many Russian mothers will never see their children again.”
“Russia didn’t manage to capture any major cities, only some small towns near the border,” she said. “That’s why they decided to resort to bombing civilians, using weapons prohibited by the Geneva conventions. A lot of civilians are helping our army with supplies. The unity is fascinating, I have never experienced something like that.”
(A pre-invasion story was posted Feb. 19 on thecitizenonline.com)