Ukrainians in N.L. watch in horror as bombs rain down, trapping loved ones in Russian attacks

Nadiya Butt-Velychko woke up to a nightmare: news of bombs raining down on Ukraine, perilously close to her mother's house near Hostomel Airport.

"She just sent me a video — helicopters, planes, missiles just going above [her] roof," she said, her voice catching in her throat. "She can hear bombing and her house is just shaking."

The Ukrainian native now lives in Harbour Grace, an hour outside St. John's and thousands of kilometres from her family, who've found themselves trapped in a warzone overnight after Russian forces launched a widespread attack across the European country.

She feels powerless, she says: glued to her phone but unable to keep her family safe. The most she can do is keep her mother on the line, convincing her to stay inside rather than attempt to flee to Poland.

Just days ago her parents and sister, all of them multilingual, would switch between speaking Russian and Ukrainian without a second thought. But things have changed, she said.

"We are all making a choice, and we never will speak again the language of an aggressor," she said, reached by phone Thursday morning. "We are all deliberately making efforts to speak [the] Ukrainian language, because it's our national language.… We are independent."

Butt-Velychko, who moved to Newfoundland with her husband in 2015, is part of a small diaspora of Ukrainians in the province. Little here reminds her of home, but despite the distance, she says her neighbours in Harbour Grace are doing what they can to help.

She's been fielding messages and phone calls all day Thursday, and she's planning a fundraiser this weekend — selling traditional Ukrainian food — to rustle up donations for humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, her father, a truck driver currently stuck in England, is frantically trying to reach Kyiv. He wants to join the army, she says, to protect his wife, daughter and grandchildren from what the Ukrainian president likened in a tweet Thursday to the invasion of Ukraine by Nazi Germany in 1941.

Ukrainian officials have reported 40 casualties so far.

Brian Cherwick, a musician and instructor in St. John's, told CBC News he woke up his family in western Ukraine as the air strikes began, warning them of imminent danger. They've spent the morning teaching small children how to hide in bomb shelters, he said.

He hasn't slept since the invasion began.

"I play music, and it seems like it's frivolous, happy music. But at all times that I'm doing that, I'm trying to help inform people about what's been going on in Ukraine," Cherwick said, referring to his local folk band, Kubasonics.

He feels torn, now, focusing on the band while his family fears for their lives — but also thinks music remains a form of protest, of maintaining Ukrainian identity.