UC Berkeley professor in Kyiv flees to bomb shelter during Russian drone attacks

OAKLAND, Calif. - UC Berkeley professor Anastassia Fedyk says she awoke in Kyiv in the middle of the night to the sound of Russia's drone attacks Wednesday, and fled to an underground shelter. Russia launched another attack in southern Ukraine on Saturday. Fedyk spoke with KTVU on Saturday morning about the continuing attacks and the work she and other Ukrainian Americans are doing to help people in besieged areas.

Russian Drone Attack on Kyiv

KTVU: "What was it like in the capital at that time [of the Russian attack on Kiev]?"

Anastassia Fedyk: "So the thing is that at this point, air raid alerts are very frequent all over Ukraine. It's actually extremely hard to tell whether they are the start of a deadly attack or something. That sort of happens several times a day."

Fedyk: "So it was Wednesday night, the night from Wednesday to Thursday that the deadly attack happened. I think at this point the count is up to 23 casualties in Kyiv, dead and of course many more wounded. I was walking home from a small independent theater performance when the air raid alerts started and sort of life continued as as usual, people continued sitting out in restaurants and the way back to the hotel and kind of got ready for bed. And it was only at 3:00 in the morning or so, once we actually heard explosions that the hotel patrons and guessing others in other buildings the same, rushed down to the shelter and then spend the rest of the night in the basement downstairs. And of course, at that point the damage had been done. At that point, those strikes had already occurred and people had already died."

Fedyk: "So that's something that is very challenging, because people don't go down to the shelters immediately, since otherwise you wouldn't live a normal life because there are several, you know, there were several air raids that only last 15 minutes and everything's clear. Nothing happens. So at this point, we are into the fourth year of the war, and kind of people have adapted, and largely they try to continue life as usual until you hear a very loud explosion nearby."

Mood in Ukraine with no Ceasefire Agreement

KTVU: "That must be so surreal to be there and to be thinking about having to go down into a bomb shelter in the middle of the night. We have seen that there was this meeting in Alaska between President Trump and President Putin that did not result in a cease fire. I'm wondering if you can tell me what it's like there on the ground for some of the people who are living on the front lines. I know you, your husband and many other people from the Bay Area have been trying to get resources for people. Can you talk about those efforts that you and others here are trying to do to make a difference?

Fedyk: "Absolutely. I'll talk a little bit about the mood here in Kyiv, and then pan out to the efforts that we've been undertaking. I think at this point the expectations are pretty low because we've seen several cycles of basically Putin stringing along President Trump with conversations that seem to go well and then renewed attacks and sort of nothing changes."

Fedyk: "So I think you know, they expressed that they're hoping that it'll be a breakthrough, that President Trump will definitively, once and for all, recognize Putin for what he actually is. But there's also a feeling of sort of moving on and I think sort of becoming less relevant, these US efforts at peace talks. People are just not getting their hopes up. The attitude is pretty pragmatic. It's sort of okay, at least us is going to sell their weapons and make money, and hopefully Europe can pay for that and sort of step up."

Fedyk: "So I think everybody's focusing on sort of realistic goals and what they can do immediately and what and what can be done to make things better.

Bay Area "AI For Good Foundation" Efforts in Ukraine

KTVU: "And let's bring in some pictures here, Anastasia, because I think we have some pictures of some of the work that you are doing and how people can help from the Bay Area. I think if we can put that up. We were looking at a school right now.

Fedyk: "Absolutely. So the organization I'm working with, the AI for Good Foundation, is quite technology oriented. So a lot of our initiatives are more kind of in the tech space, you know, helping to match humanitarian aid. We've now provided our software to city councils in Ukraine, so they can use that software to help better distribute social resources."

Bay Area Efforts to Give Other Aid

Fedyk: "We also have the largest kind of archive of first hand accounts of the war people's stories. So we work on war crime prosecution, but also just kind of keeping that history for the future, which I think will be very important, kind of like the Anne Frank diary."

Fedyk: "And then we're also do work directly on the ground. So the pictures that you've just shown, those are some of the schools that we run in cities that are closer to the frontlines. So not in Kyiv, which is relatively safe ...  Odessa, Mykolaiv and those centers allow hundreds of kids per year to receive a quality education, a space that is relatively safe....All of our education centers are also shelters. They're underground in basements, making kind of a happier childhood and also a more productive education for those children because their education has been really disrupted. If you imagine going down to the shelters and for something like schools, they absolutely do. Every time there's an air raid, the teachers have to take the children down because their responsibility is."

KTVU: "Thank you for sharing those photos. I'm sorry to interrupt because we're running out of time, but I think those photos really show the impact that it has on children who are there, experiencing this firsthand and of this, this war and trying to have some normalcy in there again. UC Berkeley Haas Professor of Economics Anastasia Fedak, thank you.