‘Strength was our family:’ Ukrainians in the Bow Valley reflect on four years since Russia’s invasion

Olha Kulybanych in Banff on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (LEAH PELLETIER /RMO)

Danyil Sheiko remembers celebrating his 16th birthday huddled in a damp basement cellar, shoulder to shoulder with his family in his hometown of Starobilsk, Ukraine.

Russia had launched a full-scale invasion in Ukraine five days earlier, on Feb. 24, 2022, and life abruptly went from sports and hanging out with friends to weeks spent in the darkness of a two by 1.5 metre storage space, unsure what was going on in the city above.

“I didn’t get any presents or gifts at this birthday. It was just a big hug,” Danyil recalled. “I remember (my family) were saying to me that the only thing that matters is that you’re alive, and right then I understood that my childhood is over. It just felt different from that day.”

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Bundled in winter jackets and boots to stay warm with no room to even stretch out their legs, Danyil and his family would live in the dimly lit cellar for a couple weeks before making the decision to leave Ukraine through Russia.

" For the first couple days we weren’t even going upstairs to grab food or water because we just brought everything downstairs. It was too scary to go out," Danyil recalled.

“The main strength was our family. We were all together. That was the only thing that [mattered],” added Danyil’s mom, Svitlana Sheiko.

After a long journey leaving Starobilsk, a city in Eastern Ukraine now under Russian occupation, the Sheiko family found their way to the Bow Valley on Ukrainian Independence Day, Aug. 24, 2022.

Four years later, on Sunday (March 1), Danyil turned 20.

“It feels really weird to have a cake and … people, music, friends around me. When I blow the candles, I felt like I transferred back there, and it was like a crazy comparison. It was like two completely different universes,” he said.

Starting a cleaning company and building a life in Canmore, Svitlana says that home for them is no longer their house in Ukraine but wherever their family is together.

 “Our biggest dream is to stay in the country, what we can call our home. We are really thankful and want to give back to the community that was really helpful for us when we came here,” she said.

As the war carries into its fourth year, Danyil says he hopes people will not forget.

“I see people are forgetting that the war is happening and it’s not ending. I just want people to remember,” he added.

‘Home will always be Ukraine’

Living in Doha, Qatar in 2022, Banff’s Olha Kulybanych remembers news of the invasion reaching her from family and friends back in her hometown of Kalush.

“I remember how at 5 a.m. Ukrainian time, my family started to call me that it started,” said Kulybanych, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) Bow Valley Association.

She remembers her phone ringing with her best friend on the other line.

“She called me crying because there was an explosion just next to her house. She was very close to the airport. I had to stay home to tell her to pack her stuff and to move out from her house. It was very hard.”

The days and weeks following were “horrible”, Kulybanych describes.

“I didn’t know if Ukraine will stand and the whole world was saying that it will not.”

Making plans to help her family evacuate, the next news would come from her father who decided to serve on the frontlines.

“He [said he] cannot stand a young man giving their life to this war and he wanted to protect our family.”

Now, four years later, Kulybanych still feels the pain of those days and the loss of her father who died while serving in September 2022.

“It brings back a lot of pain,” she said.

“Especially on the anniversary, you are almost reflecting on what was happening the first day and how your life was divided before and after and this afterlife will never be the same as before and how blessed we were before this war.”

With family who have decided to stay in Ukraine, Kulybanych regularly receives troubling news from back home.

“Every single day we have terrible news about new shelling, new bombing rockets. My family was not having any light or electricity in their house when the temperature drops down lower than -2 Celsius,” she said, noting that blackouts in the winter months make living conditions even more challenging.

Through it all, Kulybanych says she has “great hope” — hope that is rooted in Ukrainian people, in the stories of her friends, family and all those back home.

“Right now, I don’t think that there is anyone who thinks that Ukraine will fail. It’s just a matter of time,” she said. “Russia will pay for everything that they are doing. I just hope that the whole world will not forget about this and will not normalize war.”

“We say that Ukrainians either are in the army or are for army, meaning that those who are not serving, they are still trying to support financially, support with their rehabilitation, fundraising for animals, shelters and other institutions that’s supporting one way or another,” she added.

While Kulybanych and her husband have built a life in the Bow Valley after moving to Banff in 2022, she feels that “home will always be Ukraine.”

“I understand why Canadians love their country and I love Canada too. I love the people here; I love how friendly everyone is and I feel very blessed here. However, your home country is your home country. You will always want to go back home,” she said.

“When you are home, you don’t have to pretend, you don’t have to make any efforts, you just be yourself.”

Time of remembrance

With Ukraine flags draped over their shoulders, the voices of many Ukrainian-Canadians were raised in song outside the Canmore Civic Centre on Tuesday (Feb. 24) in remembrance of lives lost and forever changed because of the war.

“[It] gave me an opportunity to remember those whom I lost to this war and remember them with the prayer and [be] together with those who share the same feelings,” said Kulybanych.

Kulybanych says while it’s hard to pinpoint an exact number, there are just over 300 Ukrainians living in the Bow Valley.

“[Out of] over 70,000 Ukrainians [who] came to Alberta, only a little bit more than 200 are relying on some supports. All of the rest are working and bringing and paying taxes here in Canada, here in Alberta especially,” she added.

While grateful for the support she and other Ukrainians have received from Canada, Kulybanych says the community wants to also give back, sharing their culture and connecting with others through the work of UCC Bow Valley.

“Ukraine has something to give, not only to take and we are very blessed and thankful [to] Canada for supporting us and having us here,” she said.

“We want to remind the world what is happening. We don’t want to just talk about Ukraine through the war perspective, but sometimes we have to remind [people] about the war as well,” she added.

UCC Bow Valley holds several events throughout the year with the goal of bringing together the Ukrainian community and connecting other cultures and newcomers throughout the Bow Valley.

For upcoming events visit: uccbowvalley.ca

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.