Ukrainians in Nebraska Rally at State Capitol to Remember Four Years of War
by Matt Johnson
LINCOLN — The Ukrainian community in Lincoln held a vigil outside the Nebraska State Capitol on Saturday to commemorate the four-year war still underway in Ukraine.
The community has gathered weekly on Saturdays at 1 p.m. at the State Capitol to remember the conflict, typically drawing 20 to 50 people. Saturday’s event, however, drew several hundred. It was organized by the Orel Alliance of Omaha, whose founder and executive director, Amanda Hall, spoke at the event.
Among the attendees was Tom Brewer, a former state senator from District 43 and retired Army colonel with 36 years of service. Brewer has made ten trips to Ukraine—including two before the full-scale invasion—primarily on humanitarian missions, delivering aid, documenting frontline realities, supporting agricultural recovery efforts, and reporting back to inform U.S. policymakers on the war and Ukraine’s needs.
“They invited some of us to come and speak that have been to Ukraine multiple times and kind of share a positive message for them,” Brewer said. “Because four years of losing your sons and daughters, you know, it’s hard.”
Brewer was carrying a loaf of bread that was given to him at the event.
“This was a gift from a Ukrainian lady, who doesn’t speak any English, but had her young, seven- or eight-year-old child interpret for me,” Brewer said. “She said, ‘Listen, in Ukraine, this is a way of showing gratitude, and I want to give you this bread and tell you thank you.’”
Since the war began in 2022, thousands of refugees have resettled from Ukraine to Nebraska—many in Lincoln—through the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program, a streamlined humanitarian parole process initiated by the Biden administration in April 2022.
One attendee, Oleg Stepanyuk, is the lead pastor of the House of Prayer, a Slavic church in Lincoln that has served as an outreach for Ukrainian refugees in the area.
“Our church became a main humanitarian hub for Ukrainians that were fleeing the war,” Stepanyuk said. “We helped many of them. We collaborated with our municipal and state government to accommodate these people and help them adapt to a new life.”
Stepanyuk hopes that Ukrainians now residing in Nebraska will be given more permanent status and be permitted to stay.
“Our plea to the government is this: Allowing these Ukrainians to stay helps the land,” he said. “Ukrainians are all about hard work, faith, and family, so they share the same values that America has—people that are self-sufficient, that contribute back to the community, people that truly love the land and share the values.”
In the meantime, the vigil’s weekly attendees just want to make sure that, with other conflicts around the world, Americans still remember the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“A lot of people don’t even know where Ukraine is on the map or anything about the war or the sacrifice,” Brewer said. “And that’s kind of what we’re trying to do—to make sure that it’s not forgotten.”
— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.
