Since Russia launched its attacks on Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022, many Ukrainian college students attending the more than 30 higher education institutions in the Boston area have frequently engaged in campus activism in support of their country, especially amid President Donald Trump’s gradual alignment with Russia after taking office. 

According to 2024-25 institutional data obtained by The Huntington News, there are 25 Ukrainian international students and 116 international students from Eastern Europe enrolled at Northeastern. However, Ukrainian students say support for their community members on campus has fizzled out since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leaving many to wonder what other universities have that Northeastern doesn’t.

Nearby universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Tufts University and Wellesley College, have maintained active student organizations dedicated to building community among Ukrainian students. Volodymyr Gota, a first-year civil engineering major at Northeastern who hails from Kyiv, said he isn’t sure why the same isn’t true at Northeastern.

“I have friends at Tufts that talk about their Ukrainian community, and I’ve kind of been asking myself, why is there not much at Northeastern?” Gota said.

But it wasn’t always like this. 

In 2018, Terenia Hankewycz —  then a second-year civil engineering major — along with her younger brother Zachar Hankewycz — then a first-year computer science major — and a few other family and friends formed a small, informal Ukrainian club at Northeastern. They only met as a complete group once or twice a year and would make Ukrainian food and go to cultural events in Boston. 

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and started a war that is now entering its fourth year, everything changed.

“When Russia invaded that night, I remember it was 10 p.m. on a Wednesday. We all just started messaging [each other],” Terenia Hankewycz said. 

Terenia Hankewycz said that night, the group posted on Instagram and organized a rally on Centennial Common the next morning.

“We immediately tried to get something together. Everybody took a day off from classes, from co-op, whatever, and we spent the day on Centennial, just trying to raise awareness, trying to fundraise,” Zachar Hankewycz said. 

The turnout was substantial, both from the Northeastern community and beyond.

“We showed up, and we had a lot of friends come from other schools as well. Some were also Ukrainian, and others just in support,” Terenia Hankewycz said. “And a lot of our Northeastern friends who weren’t even Ukrainian came out to support.” 

The group said the rally pushed them to form an official club on campus to have definitive support and avoid any pushback from campus police or administration for protesting. They were successful, and President Joseph E. Aoun mentioned the club in a March 4, 2022, statement about the invasion.

Terenia Hankewycz became the first vice president of the first officially recognized Northeastern Ukrainian Cultural Club, with Deanna Zawadiwsky as president and Zachar Hankewycz as treasurer. After Terenia Hankewycz and Zawadiwsky graduated, Zachar Hankewycz became the president. But as time went on, Zachar Hankewycz said support from the Northeastern community began to dwindle.  

“We felt that we were getting less in terms of attention and support for us and for the charities that we were supporting from the Northeastern community,” Zachar Hankewycz said. “So, at that point, it was more of individualized efforts where our club would publicize information about events going on at different schools or events happening Boston-wide … We started moving to more of a supportive role for other groups.”

Zachar Hankewycz said other schools, such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have strong foundations supporting Ukrainian students that Northeastern lacks.

“Harvard especially has very excellent foundations because they have the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, so [Ukrainian student groups] have a solid background of this cultural support. They have solid institutional support,” Zachar Hankewycz said. “I always felt that there was a lack of that same support at Northeastern.”

Julia Lemesh is president of Ukrainian Global Scholars, or UGS, a non-profit that sends Ukrainian students to top global universities and boarding schools with full scholarships on the basis that they return to rebuild Ukraine for five years afterward. Lemesh, a Harvard alum who is based in Boston, said that many UGS students who are supported by their universities are very involved in advocacy at their campuses.

“I’m in touch with them and they’re very active. I’m so proud of them,” Lemesh said. “Some of them even organized rallies here in Boston in support of Ukraine. They’re activists and they’re doing a lot on their campuses. Not only do they raise awareness about the war, but they also organize different fundraisers and cultural events and whatnot. They do everything possible to advocate for Ukraine and to help it based on the capacity that they have and support they have.”

Some recipients include MIT’s Sashko Horokh, who has led rallies for Ukraine in Boston, and Andriana Petrykevych, a first-year biochemistry and medieval studies double major at Wellesley College. Petrykevych said that getting her education in the United States has given her an opportunity to educate her peers about the war in her country.

Petrykevych and Yelyzaveta Zablotska, a first-year political science and environmental studies double major at Wellesley who is also from Ukraine, are both part of the Wellesley Ukrainian Cultural Association. Zablotska said the club has given her the chance to build community and help her country.

“Once you’re abroad, you have this feeling that you need to connect with your country, you need to do something. Because when you’re in Ukraine, it’s a lot about survival. You’re just trying to get by every day, just trying to go on. But once you’re in the U.S., it’s safety,” Zablotska said. “This [advocacy] is how we’ve been trying to invest the energy and the resources we have, which are opportunities that we got that other people in Ukraine didn’t get. This is what has kept me going, this feeling that we have to do something about [the war], because if not us, who else?”

Lemesh said that sending Ukrainian students to the U.S. to attend university and engage in activism has shown to be beneficial for their growth as students and future leaders.

“Participating in all these events and advocating for the country of their citizenship is an important part of [students’] growth. You can’t just detach for four years and forget where you come from. … It’s your life,” Lemesh said. “[Ukrainian students] are campus community leaders and future Ukrainian leaders.”

Lemesh offered some advice for fellow Ukrainians in the United States in the current global climate.

 “You should not miss all the opportunities you have here, while being in the United States at all those tough institutions, but you also have to keep fighting for Ukraine as much as you can on all different levels,” Lemesh said.

Petrykevych said juggling her studies and her work with the club was worth it for the impact she’s made with the established Ukrainian community at Wellesley.

“The club was there before because there are other Ukrainian students at Wellesley. Now, we’re making sure that it will still go on, because unfortunately, it is the [fourth] year of full-scale invasion and 11th year of war,” Petrykevych said. “People start to forget, so it’s really important for our club to continue to raise awareness and support.”

Reflecting on the founding of the Ukrainian club at Northeastern, Terenia Hankewycz said it was rooted in a similar sense of duty to advocate for her country.

“I felt a bit of a responsibility to do activism [at Northeastern],” Terenia Hankewycz said. “That sort of activism and involvement in the Ukrainian community is something I’ve been doing my whole life and it’s very important to me, so the opportunity to do that on campus was really great.”

Zachar Hankewycz said that while Ukrainian students at Northeastern are familiar with each other, they lack the institutional support to organize like other schools.

“I think [Northeastern] is in a similar situation as it was before the war, where there’s still a solid group of Ukrainian students who know each other,” Zachar Hankewycz said. “There’s a few group chats floating around. … But there’s a lot more communication and there are more events with student [groups] at different schools.”

As Zachar Hankewycz sees it, this isn’t the fault of the students. Northeastern implemented new policies regarding student demonstrations in fall 2024 that intensify punishments for violations against strict rules about on-campus protesting. Past posts on the Northeastern Ukraine Club’s Instagram point to a lack of support from administration for the club and for Ukrainian students, such as monetary support for students whose financial situations were negatively impacted by the war. Zachar said the new university policies discouraged the club’s leaders from continuing to demonstrate, fundraise or even maintain their official club status on campus.

“Northeastern doesn’t offer much in terms of institutional support or financial resources for smaller organizations,” Zachar Hankewycz said, adding, “I don’t think it’s that [Ukrainian students] are gone. It’s just that they’re not officially active at Northeastern.”

Gota said for most Ukrainian students at Northeastern, their cultural activities are mainly personal practices.

“I have for sure met plenty of second and third generation Ukrainians who bring the culture here to Northeastern,” Gota said. “Some of them are Christian Orthodox, the primary religion in Ukraine, and they bring that here. They bring the Ukrainian traditions of celebrating Ukrainian Flag Day and Ukraine Independence Day.”

However, if an organized, active group were to return to Northeastern, Gota said he wouldn’t hesitate to join.