OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — Yanina Nickless is from a small farming village of roughly 200 people near the city of Kherson in Ukraine but she now lives in Maine and works as the human resources coordinator for the town of Kennebunkport.
All of her family is still in Ukraine, even after the Russian invasion.
She said Friday she has been calling her family multiple times a day and will keep doing so "until they lose contact."
"My dad sounded more sure than ever that they're not going to leave their house behind," Nickless said. "They are just ready to fight, and they are ready to protect whatever they have."
Nickless graduated from the University of Southern Maine in 2019, when she was the commencement speaker.
She said she feels "drained" from the "emotional roller coaster." Now, she said she feels caught between feeling helpless and proud.
"On one side, I feel very sad, because I feel very helpless, because I feel like I'm here and I'm not doing anything and they are there," Nickless said. "I also feel very proud. They make this choice every day to be there and to be in the middle of it, and it's a hard choice to make for many Ukrainians."
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said she invited Nickless as her guest of honor for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address Tuesday night. Nickless watched virtually as the President delivered his speech.
Pingree said legislators had a very extensive briefing Monday with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to hear what measures and sanctions the U.S. plans to implement next.
"They are taking an approach of increasing the pressure day by day," Pingree said Tuesday in a virtual interview. "I think they have had incredibly good intelligence and insight, and I think they have done a lot of damage already in the Russian economy. I am in favor of ramping that up. I am in favor of being persistent and taking actions against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin himself and the other oligarchs who have investments in this country. We just have to keep the thumb on it and keep moving that direction."
Nickless is understandably concerned for her family's safety as Russian attacks amplify.
"It's obviously one of the hardest things to talk about, and nobody wants to say they're scared, but as I said I was in denial for a while," she said. "I keep saying it's going to be OK, and I want to believe it's going to be OK, but I am absolutely scared. It's the hardest thing to live through when it's your family, when it comes to your parents, and especially when you can do nothing about it," she said. "I know that Ukrainians will stand until the last person. They will stand until the end."