BUFFALO, N.Y. — Wednesday night, EST, the world watched Russia start to invade Ukraine.
"It's a major, major insult on Ukraine," said Yuri Hreshchyshyn.
Striking a nerve with Ukrainian-Americans in Buffalo like Hreshchyshyn.
He's the chairman of the Buffalo's Ukrainian Congress Committee for America.
He also has extended family in Western Ukraine.
"We're worried about them. They may stay, they may choose to go into Poland or possibly if we can invite them here for a little while," Hreshchyshyn said.
Some of those relatives and even more of Hreshchyshyn's friends are in the Ukrainian military, trying to prevent Putin's takeover of their home.
"They are on my mind as is the nation in general. I worry about the state of affairs across the world," Hreshchyshyn said.
NYS Senator Kirsten Gillibrand shared that sentiment at a press conference Thursday.
"So the world community is standing against Putin. It is extremely serious what Putin has done because it's disrupting the entire region," Gillibrand said. "It is flying in the face of all international and diplomatic norms and it's going to destabilize the region for a long time."
Despite images of some Ukrainians trying to flee, Hreshchyshyn says some of the Ukrainians he knows aren't going down without a fight. He hopes that and the country's allies, such as the U.S. providing weapons and ammunition, will be enough to stop Putin sooner rather than later.
"He wants what he believes is his fictitiously. But he'll fail. He'll fail but it'll be at a tremendous price," Hreshchyshyn said. "The price will be in blood."