SEE IT: Explosions rock Ukraine in video taken from the ground
In dramatic footage shared with Fox News Digital, Ukrainians record attacks taking place outside the capital of Kyiv, on Feb. 24, 2022.
A dramatic video taken outside Kyiv, Ukraine late this week and shared with an American woman living in the U.S. — who shared it with Fox News Digital — shows a view of Russian missile attacks on Ukraine as two people in a car speed along a road, fearful for their lives and praying for the survival of their country.
That video appears at the top of this article.
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Ukrainian-born Katerina Manoff, an American citizen who runs a nonprofit that pairs American volunteers with Ukrainian students, told Fox News Digital that this video was sent to her by people she knows in Ukraine.
They wanted Americans to see it, she said, so people here can understand exactly what they're going through at this moment — and how badly they need help.
A screenshot from a video taken on the ground in Ukraine late this week and sent to Fox News Digital. The people in the car who took the video began praying for their fellow citizens and for their country when they saw these scenes of devastation. (Katerina Manoff)
Manoff, who lives in Connecticut, described the assault on her native land and its far-reaching impacts as "devastating."
Her nonprofit group, ENGin (pronounced "engine"), pairs American volunteers with Ukrainian students in Ukraine who seek to improve their English-speaking skills.
The cross-cultural interactions are all virtual, and there is no charge to participants of Manoff's program.
"They're saying to me, ‘Can you share this with the media?’"
The organization is donor-funded; participants ranging in age from 13 to 25 "meet" for online conversational practice and cross-cultural connection.
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Manoff is extremely worried about her family, friends and colleagues in Ukraine.
Local people form a long line to withdraw cash from a bank's ATM in Lviv, in western Ukraine, on Feb. 24, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in Donbas and multi-pronged attacks on several Ukrainian cities has begun. (The Yomiuri Shimbun)
"We think that what we're doing [at ENGin] is directly fighting what Putin wants," she told Fox News Digital in a phone interview on Friday.
"He's trying to isolate Ukraine. He's threatened by any sort of connections with the West," she said. "And we're building connections directly between young Ukrainians and their peers in the U.S. and Europe and all over the world."
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Manoff (enginprogram.org) said she's been speaking with her students who are still in Ukraine, and they're saying to her, "What's going on? Why aren't they [the Americans] helping?"
Medical specialists transport a woman — wounded in the shelling of an apartment building — to an ambulance, as her husband stands nearby, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 26, 2022. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)
She said she's told her students, "I am so, so sorry."
She said they've described scenes of "apartment buildings burning, an orphanage that was attacked, a kindergarten that was attacked — and they're saying to me, ‘Can you share this with the media?’"
Several buildings in Starobilsk within the Luhansk Oblast region of Ukraine show significant damage because of shelling, according to images shared by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
In a piece she wrote for The Independent this week, Manoff noted, "To be of Ukrainian descent on [in late Feb. 2022] is to be a pseudo-celebrity."
She also wrote, "Messages from friends and classmates pour in. Reporters reach out for a quote or an interview."
Several buildings in Starobilsk within the Luhansk Oblast region of Ukraine show significant damage because of shelling, according to images shared by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
"Everyone, without fail, asks if I still have family in Ukraine," said Manoff.
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"As if it makes a difference," she added. "As if not having family there would make the slaughter more bearable somehow."
To see the video referenced in this piece, watch the video at the top of the article.
