Ukrainian and Russian students who fled the war find ‘island of stability’ at Hunter College

A new study abroad program at Hunter College has brought together students from Ukraine and Russia with one thing in common: They’ve all fled the war.

The six undergraduate students – three from Russia and three from Ukraine – are studying everything from biology to political science. During a get-together last week attended by Gothamist, hints of tension surfaced: One Ukrainian student said she tries to stay away from Russian neighborhoods in the city.

Another student from Moscow said he still loved his home country of Russia, but feared it will fall deeper into autocracy.

All the students shared an overwhelming anxiety about their friends and families back home – and an appreciation of the opportunity at Hunter. The university is assisting each student with tuition and financial aid so they can continue studies disrupted by the conflict.

They shared their stories as momentum in the war shifted again. On Monday, Russia retaliated with a barrage of deadly air strikes after a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Georgii Lifshits’ journey to Hunter College from his hometown of Moscow began days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine in February. Lifshits, 22, left his family and rode trains and buses to Estonia. He then took a ferry to Finland and flew to New York City.

Along the way, Lifshits scrubbed all traces of anti-Putin, pro-democracy activism from his phone, laptop, and social media for fear of being detained.

Now he’s joined the Hunter College Class of 2024.

“It feels like an island of stability,” said Lifshits, a biology major who is studying neuroscience. “(For) the first time, in a few months, there was some certainty in my life. It just was kind of a miracle that such a program even exists.”

Hunter College President Jennifer Raab said the study abroad program was quickly organized in the early days of the invasion.

“When the war erupted, everyone was thinking about ways to help support,” said Raab. “We really said to ourselves, ‘can we offer an education to students who are really at risk of disrupting their education? And can we open our doors?’”

Olha, 21, a student from Kyiv who, like others, didn’t want to give her last name because of security concerns, was already studying abroad at a large public university in Ohio when the war broke out.

She was terrified for her family, who live in a small town in western Ukraine. Her father joined the military and was out of contact for days. Her mother and younger brother sheltered numerous Ukrainian residents, hiding together in the basement as air raid sirens blared.

The war made paying tuition in Ohio a challenge, but Olha couldn’t go home. She’s now at Hunter studying economics while worrying about her family. Her classmates, meanwhile, have other interests.

She said her classmates were talking about the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial while she was spending all day checking in on the latest news from the war, worried about her family.

"It was kind of like two different realities for me," Olha said.

Olha said she’d visited Veselka, the Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village. But she wasn’t in a hurry to visit any Russian eateries. “To be honest, I try to avoid the Russian community here,” she said.

Anton, 21, another student from Kyiv, said he and his family first fled the Ukrainian capital to their country house when the war broke out. That put them perilously close to the Belarusian border, which Russian troops eventually crossed.

“We were helping local territorial defense, taking down trees, roadblocking the small highways, guarding the local roads, checking IDs. Looking back at this situation I think that was not really a safe choice for the civilians,” Anton said. Once the Russian troops drew nearer and electricity and internet service was cut off, Anton and his mother decided to travel through Romania and Poland to New York, where they have relatives.

Anton said his experience in the war had already shaped his medical school ambitions. He’d wanted to be an oncologist, fighting cancer to “make the life of the patient more meaningful and to extend it.”

He now wants to be an orthopedic surgeon.

“When you see civilians just dying… not from any health problems, just because like some political conflicts… (you) re-evaluate your choices,” Anton said.

He works at a hookah lounge while attending Hunter.

“I'm walking from my job at 3 a.m. to Manhattan. So I have, like, every possible New York thing already happened to me,” Anton said.

The Ukrainian and Russian students said their new classmates have been friendly, but added that it has sometimes been difficult to focus on making new friendships.

“They seem very polite and patient if I'm starting to talk about (the war), because sometimes it's really hard to think of anything else,” Lifshits said.

He didn’t expect to return home. He said economic sanctions have made it unlikely he could pursue a career in neuroscience in Moscow because technical equipment is difficult to obtain from Europe.

“Science in Russia is pretty much dead,” Lifshits said.