"Ukraine is Not Giving Up": On The Hope for A Free, Democratic, Multiethnic Ukraine

Interview with Oleksandr Shyn, a Korean-Ukrainian student living in Taiwan.

When we attended the Ukrainian solidarity protest last week, we were drawn to a speech by a Korean-Ukrainian student living here in Taiwan. We reached out for an interview, and we’re so grateful that he agreed to share his life story with us. Here he discusses his fears and anxieties about his parents, who are in the Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine. Oleksandr Shyn speaks movingly of his hopes for a democratic Ukraine and about his family’s migration: his grandfather was one of nearly two hundred thousand Soviet Koreans deported by Stalin from Far East Russia.

His parents grew up in Uzbekistan, where Olek was born and lived until he was one, when they moved to Ukraine. Since last October he’s been in Taiwan, pursuing a master’s degree in indigenous language education policy. Our conversation ranged from the current war to his family’s journey to his sense of identity as a Korean Ukrainian and his hopes for a free, democratic, multiethnic Ukraine. We were struck by his self-p…