Is Ukraine in NATO? | wgrz.com

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Ukraine has been in the news since Russia invaded in February 2022, and the battle there has now become the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.

Since then, the United States has approved $175 billion in aid to Ukraine, including nearly $70 billion for weapons, equipment and other military support, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In this week’s News 2 You Extra, we go back 30 years to a time when Ukraine had only gained independence three years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the summer of 1994, Channel 2 reporter Rich Kellman and photojournalist Jerry Gasser traveled to Ukraine and produced a series of reports detailing how the blessing of independence had brought the burden of freedom, including the availability of utilities, food and medical care.

Kellman and Gasser traveled hundreds of miles over five days with a medical team from Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, which had provided medical equipment, medications and expertise as part of an exchange program with five partner hospitals in Ukraine.

They described their mission as a delicate partnership in perilous times, driven by idealism and duty.

Along the way, we see what was, at the time, still a rare glimpse of life behind the recently lifted Iron Curtain, including the rebirth of religious freedom and the growing impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster eight years earlier.

Watch News 2 You on Mondays as part of Daybreak and Most Buffalo on WGRZ Channel 2.

Watch past episodes on our YouTube channel.