The Macomb Daily: Students appeal to Michelle Obama to help free Ukrainian pilot

Immaculate Conception Catholic School third-graders Anhelena Sobol and Victor Diachenko show cards they made to send to First Lady Michelle Obama.

A group of elementary school students hope their voices will be heard by first lady Michelle Obama to help free an imprisoned female Ukrainian pilot.

Sixth graders from teacher Olga Novatchinski’s class display their cards.

Fifty-five third- and sixth-graders from Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Warren are mailing cards containing handwritten messages to Mrs. Obama encouraging her to help free Ukrainian Air Force pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who is being held prisoner in Russia. She was captured last June while volunteering for the Ukrainian Aidar Battalion that is fighting Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine in a conflict that has lasted more than a year.

Savchenko has been on a nearly three-month hunger strike while imprisoned in Moscow.

Sixth-graders Andriy Tryshnivskyy and Kristina Migalvhan’s cards will greet Mrs. Obama with personal artwork on the front and a description of the situation inside.

“Please help us save Miss Savchenko,” Andriy’s letter concludes.

Kristina tells the wife of President Barack Obama, “I ask you to help free her.”

The school is heavily attended by students of Ukrainian descent, and teaches some students in the Ukrainian language.

Immaculate Conception principal Romana Tobianski and teacher Olga Novatchinski said Wednesday they hope Mrs. Obama, as a powerful female figure, can influence efforts to free Savchenko, a rare female pilot in Ukraine.

“We’re trying to do our part,” Novatchinski said.

“We want to bring attention to her plight,” Tobianski said.

Both students said Wednesday they want Ukraine to be independent.

“I’m very proud to be Ukrainian,” Andriy said. “If I could, I would fight for Ukraine against Russia. I’m hoping our letters will have effect.”

“I want Ukraine to be a peaceful country like it was before Russia came,” Kristina said.

Her parents were born in Ukraine before coming to the United States. Andriy was born in Ukraine and arrived here as a baby with his parents. Andriy’s grandparents and other relatives reside in eastern Ukraine. He prays for them.

“I do feel a bit scared and worry that something will happen to them,” he said.

The letters were to be mailed Thursday.

The effort piggybacks on note-writing campaigns by the students over last Christmas and last spring. The students wrote personal messages to Ukrainian soldiers. The notes were placed in First Aid kits carried by soldiers.

The school has 205 students enrolled in preschool through eighth-grade.