Narration is in bold.

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Nahanni: Hi, Nahanni Rous here. Welcome back to Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive, where gender, history, and Jewish culture meet. 

The war between Ukraine and Russia is now entering its fourth year. According to Reuters, over 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, along with many times more soldiers on both sides. American officials are holding separate meetings this week with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to discuss a temporary ceasefire. 

On the ground in Ukraine, though, attacks are intensifying. Dozens of people have been injured and killed in the past month, including children. I checked in with Vlada Nedak, the CEO of Project Kesher Ukraine, about how the war is affecting her daily life and work. Project Kesher supports Jewish women in Ukraine, Belarus, and Israel. Vlada was last on Can We Talk? three years ago, just after Russia’s invasion began.

A few days ago—March 20—I talked with Vlada just after she had returned from a trip to New York, where she spoke at a United Nations workshop on the impact of armed conflict on women. Just before Vlada’s speech, an attack on her city killed a woman on her way to work.

Vlada spoke to me from her home in Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine.

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Vlada: Hi. 

Nahanni: Hi, Vlada. 

Vlada: Hi. Hi.

Nahanni: Hi, can you hear me? 

Vlada: Yes, very clear.

Nahanni: Oh, good. How are you?

Vlada: I'm fine. Today's really a day full of sirens, one by one, and the closest big city is under attack. It started yesterday evening, something like…some kind of a new escalation.

Nahanni: What is the nearest city that’s under attack right now?

Vlada: Uh, today it was Zaporizhzhia and some cities of Dnipropetrovsk region, and it was [in] the night attacked, big number, Kropyvnytskyi, which was Kirovohrad in a previous time. They have like 20 shaheds in one city. 

Nahanni: And those are Iranian-made kamikaze drones that Russia has been using against Ukraine, particularly to attack infrastructure.

Nahanni: Zaporizhzhia is where the nuclear power plant is, right?

Vlada: Yeah, it's that site. And my city is just between Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro. And today it's really, really—I mean one by one, one by one. It's just finished, like five minutes, and it starts again.

Nahanni: So have you been spending lots of time in the shelter?

Vlada: No. Today the reality looks like we continue everything we planned, every work, but as soon as we see that it's specifically, our direction, like my city, you have two minutes, or sometimes less, to get to a shelter or a place with two walls, like we say. 

Nahanni: What a way to live. 

Vlada: Mmm. To live, to work, to grow up kids. I mean, everything continues to work. I just, as I told you, I jumped from the office, grabbed my coffee, took the car, drove—

Nahanni: You feel safe moving around like that?

Vlada: Yes. Absolutely.

Nahanni: Uh-huh. Why is this escalation happening now?

Vlada: Because we speak about the peace. I don't know who speak about this peace. It's very interesting when people ask how do we feel? Is it the peaceand negotiations [are] so close. We don't feel at all that it's a moment of some break or peaceful end of this. We feel like it's absolutely much stronger in attack.

Nahanni: Mm-hmm. So as peace is discussed in the high levels, it’s actually getting worse in your daily life.

Vlada: Yeah. 

Nahanni: How are you understanding the new American government's approach to this war?

Vlada: Maybe in some way, this loud expression or loud slogans like, "I will finish the war during the first three weeks or the first month." I understood that it [was] a little bit optimistic. And now it looks like President Trump, he absolutely [is] in some agreement, I don't know, game, balance with Russia. And I don't see that it can help us. 

It frightens me, sure. Because if we lost the connection or support from the United States—I mean, in some military aspects, as weapons or all which help to see where ballistic [missiles] are going or where the rockets, this whole system—it means, like, how many days the country will stand?

Nahanni: You mean if the defensive systems were no longer present?

Vlada: Yeah. 

Nahanni: So it sounds to me like you are not optimistic about Trump’s leadership.

Vlada: Absolutely. No. It looks likeTrump [has] his plan, how to… I don't know, how to collaborate, or he has his own plan. And it's not to help Ukraine.

Nahanni: You know, when we spoke three years ago at the beginning of this war, you had decided to stay in Ukraine rather than leave the country, which I know you thought about at first. Are you still thinking about that?  Is that a decision that you’re still struggling with?

Vlada: There are so many changes, and it's not easy just to take your family, the whole family, and to move somewhere. I still have a big team in my city and it's still a decision [that is] not just about me. I can't just, in a day, run away. [Sighs] It's very complicated. It's very difficult. 

Every time I [come] back from a number of my business trips, and I feel like once again, it's so difficult to [go] back to the war. How [will] I live? How [will] I stand the sirens? I come to my apartment, I breathe, I touch everything and think, oh my God, it's my house. I love them. It's everything mine. It's still mine. It's still the place where I can [come] back.

Nahanni: It's your home. 

Vlada: It’s my home. For example, I can drive and, because I live outside of the city, like in a small village, but it's very close to the city, it's like fifteen minutes of driving. And I cross three fields and it's very great. At this moment, it is green. I see the new grass appears, the water. We have close water. And [in] this moment, I feel how much I love all of this. I just enjoy the moment, how beautiful this view and this country [are]. 

Your life you built for years. That’s why it’s so difficult. And when you've adapted to [the] most dangerous, terrible things, it’s more difficult to leave this.

Nahanni: Yeah. But it sounds like you do think about it a lot.

Vlada: Sometimes, yeah, especially after [an] attack. And when you're waiting for these two minutes of information, you hear this terrible noise. Then you check the local chat, you speak to the whole team. How did you hear it? What do you see? Do you hear ambulances, do you see something in the air? Do you think it's civilians? [Is it] a house or some industrial zone? And all this discussion, and then it's a number of all different kinds of photos, information, somebody needs blood, somebody lost animals because they were frightened. I mean, it's several days of this… [sighs] I don't know how to say.

Nahanni: Disruption.

Vlada: Yes. And you try to continue to do what you are doing, what you planned, to be busy, but in some way, it also follows you everywhere. And I just think, how much can I stand? I mean, I'm just tired of this. I don't want to drive [through] my city and see one more destroyed, terribly destroyed building.

And you pass this and you see these windows or somebody's pieces of furniture, you can see and understand that it was somebody's life. Families. It's very difficult. 

In some ways, it's terrible to make a tour for people who come to my city. "Oh, it was a hotel, it was this attack," or "Look at thisbuilding. It was two attacks in five minutes, people were there. Here is the story of the family, they just came back from Poland and spent less than a week, mother and daughter, who decided to go back to Ukraine. Andwhen their father was at work in the morning, the city was attacked and they were killed. 

I mean, I'm still thinking, is it real? I don't sleep. It happens to me. Why [did] it happen to me? In my childhood or in my twenties, I can imagine that I will live in a war?

Nahanni: So the war is really touching every aspect of your life, every day, on a daily basis, it sounds like. 

Vlada: Yeah. Maybe speaking to you, I give you this complex of details. But I come to the store or supermarket and everything is absolutely full–the fresh vegetables, bread, milk, everything. The restaurants, everything continues to work. It's still difficult with education and it's just because my daughter is in private school and they have a real bomb shelter [that] she's doing school every day.

Nahanni: And how is your son? When we talked three years ago, he was a student in Kyiv. Where is he now?

Vlada: He continues to live in Kyiv. He graduated from the university. He's 21. He's not in the army, and the age for the military starts from 25. But nobody knowshow it can change. And it's one of the issues we discuss all the time that it can happen and they will just change the age.

Sometimes he's not optimistic. Sometimes he's optimistic. He also experienced friends who are in the army, the friend who lost, a piece of [his] leg, a friend who is still not found during two years, not identified. I mean, it's difficult.

Kyiv also every day is attacked very much, especially night attacks. And he doesn't report to me, like,"Oh, the night was terrible, and this night was terrible." But from time to time, he can say, "Oh, it was so loud today."

Nahanni: Right. 

Vlada: We adapted to these conditions of everyday living.

Nahanni: So can we talk about some of the work you are doing with Project Kesher?

Vlada: Last year we officially celebrated 30 years of Project Kesher Ukraine. And we support Jewish community life through women's leadership, and we help women in recovering, in support and mental health [services], and financial stability. In April 2022, we registered one more organization, a charitable fund, which is called Women's Opportunity Fund. And, it's a humanitarian arm through Project Kesher United States. We supportwomen's businesses in Ukraine. We are doing humanitarian projects with medical [professionals]. We are helping women and businesses and NGOs and different small institutions. We support women with travel grants to bring women's voices to international European conferences on women's issues. 

Nahanni: Are these initiatives aimed at Jewish women specifically, or at women in general?

Vlada: Project Kesher mostly works with the Jewish community and Jewish women, but we have our mental health initiatives, they are absolutely open to all women. And as the Women's Opportunity Fund, we work with everyone. 

Nahanni: So what are you hoping for, for the future? At the beginning of this conversation, you said that attacks were increasing because of talks about a ceasefire, and so, what should we be hoping for ? 

Vlada: I hope that as it started, it will finish. I don't count the days anymore. I don't count even the years. It makes more difficulties to live life when you count. Now, for me, it doesn't matter which kind of season it will be, because in my mind, I dream that it'll be spring. I imagine so many times in dreams or just in my thoughts, how it will be, how we will cry, how we will shout, and the shouts will be so loud because everyone, everyone will be outside. I had several dreams so clear that I woke up and said, "Oh my God, I saw these pictures. It'll be like this. I absolutely believe in this."

I know that a big number of people in Ukraine, they give their lives or they give their husband or son, and it's not that…I don't want to send, but if it will come to my family, I will not run away from this. And that's why we are still here, the whole family. We don't discuss this with my husband, but I know that he will not run away if it will happen to him. 

Nahanni: In our last interview, you talked about previous generations of your family living through wars in your region, and you said that you had a new sense of yourself as someone who would now hold memories of a time like that. I don’t know if you remember saying that.

Vlada:  I say that I will be the person, the grandmother, or just [the] old woman who will tell these war stories. But now I look at my daughter, I know how she reacts to some noises or her specific questions or the questions when we come to a new place. The first question is, "Where is the bomb shelter?" in the hotel or somewhere. It makes me sad. One question is about me and my memories. And I will bring these stories to people. But it's so sad. I wish my daughter and her friends will forget this. All these details, just clean these from their memories. Absolutely.

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Nahanni: Vlada Nedak is the CEO of Project Kesher Ukraine and the Women’s Opportunity Fund. The fund, supported by the Jewish Federation of North America, is distributing over a million dollars in grants to women-owned small businesses, and providing humanitarian aid specifically for women and girls in Ukraine. To learn more, go to projectkesher.org.

Thank you for joining us for Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Our team includes Jen Richler and Judith Rosenbaum. Our theme music is by Girls in Trouble. Find us online at jwa.org/canwetalk.

I’m Nahanni Rous. Until next time.

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