Story by Sarah Monoson
The air conditioning unit outside the bedroom window clicked on. It began to rumble. To Alina Briednieva, it sounded like bombs falling. The young woman hid in the bathtub of her en suite bathroom, shaking in fear. She was transported back to the coastal city of Odesa, Ukraine, the home she fled to escape the Russian invasion. But even 5,000 miles away in Cary, North Carolina, the war was not over for Briednieva.
In August 2022, the then-30-year-old had packed up her life and moved into the spare bedroom of her older half–brother’s family home. There, with her shy English and violent memories, she settled in with Vitaliy Levit and his wife, Sarah, au pairing for their baby, Ilona. A year later, Briednieva was able to move in with a roommate in a Durham apartment, closer to the family she now nannies for. After 2.5 years in North Carolina, Briednieva has acclimated. Yet, under the new presidential administration, her future in this country has become uncertain.
When the Russo-Ukrainian conflict escalated in 2022, Levit — who was raised in the United States — reached out to his sister to see if she was OK. She wasn’t. She was terrified, he said. Buildings were collapsing around her, bombed. People were fleeing in panic.
Briednieva hadn’t met her brother until they were adults. They share a father, but were each raised by their mothers, an ocean apart. About a decade ago, Levit became curious about his father’s side of the family. In his digging, he discovered Briednieva.
“I always wanted a sibling,” Levit said. “When I was growing up, my mother used to ask me what I wanted for my birthday. And every year for three years straight, I would tell her I wanted a sibling.”
Levit visited Briednieva in Moscow, Russia — where she was living at the time — and the pair kept in contact for years. When his sister was suddenly in danger, Levit searched for ways to help.
He found a Biden Administration-era federal program, Uniting for Ukraine, that streamlined the humanitarian parole process for Ukrainian refugees. Levit applied to sponsor Briednieva in May 2022, was approved by July and had his sister moved in by August. Getting her Jack Russell terrier, Caspar, out of Europe was harder; they had to re-register the dog in Romania because Ukrainian animals weren’t allowed to travel.
“I didn’t want to leave Ukraine, but when my brother booked my plane ticket,” Briednieva laughed, “I didn’t have a choice. He did the documents for me, and until the last moment, I thought ‘it’s a joke and I won’t go to America.’ I prepared, but I didn’t believe it. Until I came here, and it’s like, ‘OK, it’s real.’”
It was Briednieva’s first time on an airplane. She and Levit agree: the most difficult part of getting to America was getting on the plane. Briednieva couldn’t just fly out of Ukraine. She had to go to a neighboring country first, then Amsterdam, then New York City, before finally landing at Raliegh-Durham International Airport.
“That’s tough for anyone, let alone somebody who’s traveling for the very first time trying to escape a war-torn country,” Levit said.
But on the first leg of the journey, a flight attendant noticed how nervous Briednieva was. The plane’s captain came out of the cockpit to move her up to first class. She was given a first-time flyer’s pin and a drink. It was a kind gesture from a stranger, making a tough journey easier.
“So, she got here,” Levit said, “and then the other challenges began.”
Everything was new to Briednieva: the people, the language, the culture, the laws. And, she was still grappling with the trauma of Russia’s invasion.
Soon after Briednieva arrived in North Carolina, she and the Levits were invited to a neighbor’s party. Host Erv Portman wanted to help her feel welcome. His grandchildren were shooting off bottle rockets.
Did Briednieva want to join?
Her answer was an emphatic no.
“It was a stupid thing you do,” Portman said. “It was just part of the celebration — but not recognizing she just came from Odesa and her life involved fearing rockets.”
While far from her home country, Briednieva gets daily updates from her best friend Julia, who is still in Odesa. Russia recently dropped a couple of bombs by the seaboard where Julia lives. The windows of apartment buildings exploded. One time, Briednieva was talking to another friend who had left her apartment to go to the grocery store. When she returned home, the building was gone. Still, these friends and others don’t want to leave Ukraine and start a new life, as Briednieva did.
“She had more details and information than any news outlet would ever give you on what was happening,” Sarah Levit said. “One of my best friends is Ukrainian, and she had brought her cousin over. She said it was kind of like the war moved into your house.”
To keep her connected to her roots, Vitaliy Levit found local Ukrainian experiences for Briednieva, but also introduced her to American activities, music and restaurants. Briednieva described herself as a “wild human” during this period, reacting to each discovery with awe.
She wanted to speak Ukrainian as much as possible, but that limited Briednieva to communicating only with and through her brother. He encouraged her to use English around everyone else — particularly his wife, Sarah — and to practice by watching movies and television shows in English. Sarah Levit said Briednieva knew English when she first came to the United States, but would ask Vitaliy to translate certain words. One night at dinner, about six months into Briednieva’s stay, Sarah realized how much Briednieva’s fluency and confidence had grown.
“Do you realize you’ve just told me a whole story in English?” she said to Briednieva.
“Oh,” Briednieva said. She hadn’t even realized she was doing it.
When her time au pairing for the Levits reached its end, Briednieva became a nanny for a Ukrainian American family in Durham. She found a roommate through a Telegram group for Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking women. She took on the responsibilities of her housing, transportation, health care and more.
And beyond the necessities, she has fun. In her free time, Briednieva kickboxes — a continuation of her boxing interest in Ukraine — and organizes hikes and other outdoor activities with Russian and Ukrainian speakers in the area.
“It’s really cool to see her blossom here,” Levit said. “To make friends, organize events, get into the different activities she likes. She’s figured out how to pay her taxes. The things that, for us, are everyday, for her were entirely new learning experiences. But she’s gotten the hang of it.”
Briednieva also loves to travel. She drove down to Miami, Florida. Over the winter holidays, she visited California with her brother. They stood on a friend’s San Francisco balcony with a view of the ocean, mountains and Golden Gate Bridge.
“I saw my dream,” she said of the bridge. “It was unforgettable.”
She has multiple destinations in mind for the future. Briednieva is not allowed to leave the United States, but that still leaves plenty of options. Soon, she’ll go to Puerto Rico with family. Her longtime wish is to visit Hawaii.
“Tickets are expensive,” Briednieva said. “For now, I’ll dream for a couple more years and then go.”
Her best friend Julia’s 6-year-old daughter asks Briednieva, her godmother, when she will return to Ukraine. Briednieva tells her she doesn’t know.
She said that even if the war were over, she’d want to stay in the United States. She doesn’t want to restart her life again. Besides, things couldn’t be the same as before.
“Right now, it’s another country,” Briednieva said. “It’s Ukraine, but it’s another country. Lots of people change after war, the country changes.”
She said she’s happy to be here, but Vitaliy Levit said with a laugh that that changes, based on Briednieva’s mood. A month ago, she showed up to his house declaring she was leaving for Ukraine. Still, Briednieva has over a year left in her visa before it is up for renewal.
Sarah Levit said Briednieva is worried her request would be denied under the Trump Administration, which has suspended the program that allowed Briednieva to come to the United States. In a Jan. 20 Executive Order, President Donald Trump froze Uniting for Ukraine’s application process until a federal review is completed. According to a Homeland Security report on the program, it has accepted over 150,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country as of 2023.
Briednieva’s life has been marked by uncertainty since Russia’s invasion. With the help of her family and her own strength, she’s adapted. Although the future of federal refugee policy is unclear, for now, Briednieva has made up her mind.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said. “I need to build my future here.”
