Ukrainian Teen, U.S. Student: A Shared Fight for Stability

Heart-stopping: not the description that comes to mind for most high school volunteer projects. But on a Friday afternoon late last March, my role as a virtual English tutor with ENGin was exactly that.

For nearly a year, I’ve been meeting weekly over Zoom with a 14-year-old Ukrainian teenager named Max. During our sessions, we’ll chat about everything from Marvel movies to the latest football scores—he’s a die-hard Real Madrid fan—and play games like charades or "Would You Rather." But on that particular Friday, Max wasn’t online.

Worried, I checked my phone. Max had sent a rushed message: I’m not zoom there are bombs I am shelter.

Panicked, I refreshed my phone for hours, hoping for a response. Nothing. The silence was deafening. Would Max be okay? Until, finally: a text.

He was safe, for now. So was I—yet looking around my cozy dorm room, safety felt increasingly elusive.

For Max, being able to go to school every day remains a question. He’s since shared how much he struggles to pursue the limited opportunities available in his war-torn home. Once, when we were discussing goals, he shrugged and said, “My goal is to finish one normal week.” Another time, when we practiced the word routine, he joked, “My only routine is sirens.”

That week changed our dynamic. We didn’t just practice English anymore—we talked about survival, hope, and what it means to keep learning in chaos: how to stay calm during air raid sirens, where to find reliable news, what dreams still felt possible, and how to hold onto them.

As for me, I’m a Canadian who came to the U.S. for a better education. I’ve attended boarding school in Connecticut for the past two years, starting at age fifteen. While fully aware of the privilege such an opportunity represents, I was unprepared for the political fragility that increasingly defines what it means to study in America as an international student.

Recently, I’ve been questioned more at the U.S. border than ever before—where I go to school, the details of my classes, how long I plan to stay, and even why I chose to study in the U.S. instead of attending high school in Canada. The questions seem innocuous at first, but they quickly shift in tone—probing, skeptical, like I’m trying to game the system rather than pursue an education. A month ago, several of my Canadian boarding school classmates were pulled aside for intensive questioning—frightening, stressful interrogations none of us had ever experienced before. It felt like we were being treated less like students and more like suspects. I remember clutching my passport as the officer asked why I didn’t just stay in Canada, as if ambition itself were a threat.

That experience has changed me. I now think twice before planning trips home for holiday breaks—not because I don’t want to see family but because the border has become a point of anxiety, a place where the legitimacy of my goals gets put on trial.

It’s made me realize that the education and plans I’ve worked so hard for can be taken away in an instant. After years of Dean’s List-worthy academic effort, all aimed at earning a spot at a top American university, I’ve started to seriously consider Canadian schools—places I had once ruled out in hopes of a U.S. degree. I now understand that the universities of my home country offer something the U.S. no longer guarantees: stability. I never thought I’d have to choose safety over ambition. That shift has left me disappointed and angry—resentful, even—after all the sacrifices I’ve made to study abroad. For the first time, I’ve felt what it’s like to be bullied out of my potential. And in that feeling, I’ve come to better understand Max’s reality: the instability I now fear shadows his everyday. Ever since I met Max, his future has been fragile, shaped by forces entirely beyond his control.

On February 28, President Trump met with President Zelenskyy to discuss a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war. Watching that now-famously tense meeting, I couldn’t help but feel that Zelenskyy was being bullied. He came to America to seek help for a nation under attack. Instead, he was dismissed and undermined. Taken within the context that English is not Zelenskyy’s first language, Trump’s comment—“You don’t have the cards”—felt especially cruel.

Towards the end of the meeting, Zelenskyy made a comment that has stayed with me. “Everybody has problems, and even you. But you have a nice ocean and don’t feel it now. But you will feel it in the future.”

Rather than extending its self-proclaimed values of liberty, equality, and democracy, that meeting exposed the U.S. government inching closer to a Putin-style regime. It ended in contention, with Trump pulling all U.S. funding from Ukraine. This is a profound mistake that sends a dangerous signal to the world. Worse yet, Trump again falsely blamed Zelenskyy for starting the war, including dangerous pro-Russian rhetoric—“You don't start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles”—as if Ukrainians had sought out invasion.

In May, Russian forces intensified attacks on Kharkiv and Odesa, while Ukraine’s eastern counteroffensive stalled amid reduced U.S. aid. Aid groups have reported record shortages in food and medical supplies. Meanwhile, more lives are senselessly lost—not only to bombs and bullets but to the absence of clear, principled diplomacy. By cutting aid, withdrawing from negotiations, and signaling unpredictability to both allies and adversaries, the U.S. is no longer the stabilizing force it once claimed to be. Its retreat leaves allies like Ukraine exposed and emboldens authoritarian regimes that thrive on chaos. Each diplomatic silence, each broken promise, accelerates the slide toward a wider, deadlier conflict.

What strikes me is that this erosion of stability isn't limited to the battlefield. It mirrors what’s happening between Canada and the U.S.

Already, the global ripple effects are undeniable. In mid-March, the S&P 500 dropped nearly eight percent. Germany passed a historic defense spending package. Earlier this month, Russia launched its largest drone and missile attack of the war—nearly 500 projectiles hit cities like Kyiv and Odesa, damaging hospitals and heritage sites. Ukraine struck back with a covert drone campaign inside Russia, and ground offensives have escalated in Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk. As the war intensifies and peace grows even more distant, markets remain volatile, allies more cautious, and my own country of Canada continues its search for more stable trade partners. Trust in America’s protective capacity is eroding.

While, thankfully, military conflict between the U.S. and Canada doesn’t extend beyond Trump’s threats of invasion—he even floated the idea of “annexing” Canada as a 51st state and pressuring it with tariffs to that end—it's hard not to notice the parallel erosion of stability. Like Ukraine, Canada is watching long‑standing international norms dissolve. Internationally recognized promises once taken for granted are being rolled back, fraying protective, peace‑promoting alliances.

And let’s be clear: Canada’s southern border was already less safe due to American neglect. More drugs flow into Canada from the U.S., including meth, cocaine, and fentanyl, than the reverse, which is a minuscule 0.2%. The same goes for illicit firearms. If border issues are truly Trump's concern, it’s the responsibility of the U.S.—not Canada—to protect their border from illegal items entering the country.

Back home, America’s shifting loyalties have been a significant blow. Canadians once viewed the U.S. as a trusted partner, yet the federal government has issued caution for Canadian travelers to the United States. And on April 15, the Canadian Association of University Teachers warned Canadian academics against Stateside travel. Trump’s comments about Canada—calling us “the 51st state” or referring to our federal prime minister as “Governor”—are not just insulting, they’re ominous.

This rhetoric sets the stage for a darker future. I fear the U.S. is preparing for a slow economic war against its closest allies that will remake the current world order. These policies may yield short-term material wins, but the long-term global consequences will be devastating.

Russia, China, Iran—the new “Axis of Upheaval”—are the players set to gain from such disruption. With each new tariff, another move is made in this high-stakes game with our global stability. And America holds the dice.

Trump—along with his unelected, now explosively dismissed, associate Elon Musk—treats everything, including humanitarian crises, like business transactions. Allegedly, Trump pushed Zelenskyy to sign a $500 million mineral deal in exchange for security. That kind of bargaining reveals the true cost of appeasement: it turns lives into leverage.

Preventing a violent dictatorship shouldn’t be a matter of profit margins or resource deals. It’s about protecting real people—like Max—whose futures are being dismantled by war. It’s about defending the right to learn, to grow, and to dream without fear.

That’s why I started tutoring Max: to do my small part to remedy the tragedy he has to endure in his most formative years. From threats to his education to his physical safety, this war will mark his entire future. And lately, I’ve found myself wondering: what kind of future will I have—as a Canadian, as an international student—if borders grow hostile and institutions more unstable? I’ve always assumed I belonged in North America: I speak English fluently, attend a well-known boarding school, carry a “friendly” passport, and come from a close ally. Even with all that, I now find myself questioning my stability. If I feel displaced by uncertainty, how much more destabilizing must it be for Max? The greed of a few has forever altered his opportunity to learn and thrive. It’s disheartening, unfair, and demoralizing. But I also know that one weekly hour of practicing English together can open doors to opportunities outside of Ukraine.

The U.S. has been lucky to avoid internal conflict for generations, but that comfort has turned into complacency. Now is the time for Americans to reject greed and isolation, restore trust with their closest allies, and recommit to the values that once made their country a beacon of hope—not only within its borders but against any threat to those ideals abroad, from Ukraine and beyond.

Because if liberal values like peace, freedom, and safety—values America claims to uphold around the world—are not protected, it’s only a matter of time before a crisis comes to our North American shores and Zelenskyy’s prophecy is proven true.

If conflict crosses the ocean, what will you do?