Ukrainian Congress Committee of America

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Ukrainian Congress Committee of America

Since 1940, the largest representation of Americans of Ukrainian descent. bureau, the Ukrainian National Information Service.

Established in 1940, UCCA unites and advocates in the name of nearly 30 fraternal, educational, religious, cultural, veterans and humanitarian organizations in the Ukrainian American community. UCCA maintains local all-volunteer chapters across the United States, with a national office in New York City, as well as a Washington, D.C. UCCA is also a founding member of the Ukrainian World Congress (ukrainianworldcongress.org), the international assembly of Ukrainian public organizations representing over 20 million people, as well as a founding member of the Central and East European Coalition (ceecoalition.us), which coordinates the efforts of national ethnic organizations representing 20 million Americans.

09/09/2026

UCCA member organization - the Ukrainian American Veterans - invites the hromada to their National Convention Banquet on Saturday, September 26. Please see flyer for details or click on this link: https://www.uavets.org/about/annual-convention/

08/31/2026

Across America, UCCA branches marked 35 years of Ukrainian independence with flag raisings, concerts, cultural events, and community gatherings.

From Atlanta to Hartford, Westchester, Long Island, and Clifton-Passaic, Ukrainian Americans came together to celebrate Ukraine’s independence, share our culture, and keep Ukraine visible in the communities we call home.

These events reflect the strength of the Ukrainian-American community and the work UCCA branches carry forward every day through advocacy, culture, education, and public engagement.

Thank you to every branch, volunteer, community leader, elected official, veteran, performer, and supporter who helped make this year’s Independence Day celebrations possible.

🇺🇦 З Днем Незалежності, Україно!

08/27/2026

Just days after Ukraine marked 35 years of independence, Kyiv and cities across the country were again under massive russian attack.

UCCA’s current and former presidents were in Kyiv this week, meeting with partners and seeing firsthand the reality Ukrainians continue to face. Early this morning, UCCA President Mychajlo Sawkiw left Kyiv for Lviv shortly before the scale of today’s attack became clear.

Throughout the day, explosions, air-defense fire and jet-powered drones were heard across the capital. russia launched 258 attack drones and multiple missiles, including ballistic missiles, as part of a coordinated assault across Ukraine. Schools were damaged in Kyiv, warehouses and civilian infrastructure were struck in Kyiv Oblast, and attacks also hit Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and other regions.

In Zaporizhzhia and the surrounding districts, at least seven people, including three children, were reported injured. In Odesa, the attack damaged infrastructure, an educational institution and a high-rise residential building.

For the people UCCA works with in Ukraine, this is the reality behind every humanitarian request we receive.

A request for a portable power station means someone needs electricity when the grid fails. A request for Starlink means a unit or medical team needs reliable communication when infrastructure is damaged. A request for medical supplies, protective equipment or other essential aid comes from people trying to continue their work and protect lives under conditions shaped by attacks like today’s.

That is why UCCA’s humanitarian mission continues, and why we are asking our community to help us respond.

Through your support, UCCA works with trusted partners on the ground to procure and deliver humanitarian and critical non-lethal assistance directly to those who need it. Our recent efforts have included communications equipment, portable power, medical and casualty-care support, protective and field equipment, clean-water supplies and humanitarian assistance for displaced Ukrainians.

Today’s attack is another reminder that the need remains immediate.

The Ukrainian-American community has sustained this work from the beginning. Every donation gives UCCA greater capacity to respond quickly when requests arrive and to keep essential aid moving into Ukraine.

If you have supported our humanitarian mission before, thank you. Your support has already been put to work. We are asking you to stand with us again today.

Please donate to UCCA’s campaign and help us continue delivering assistance where it is needed most.
Ukraine is still under attack. Our humanitarian work continues.
🇺🇦 Stand with Ukraine. Help us keep the aid moving.

08/23/2026

🇺🇦 The Ukrainian flag carries a history far older than independence in 1991 — and a history of people who risked their freedom to keep it flying.

Blue and gold appeared for centuries in the heraldry of Ukrainian lands, including the golden lion on a blue field associated with medieval Galicia. Cossack banners also frequently used blue fields with golden or yellow crosses, stars, weapons and religious imagery.

The modern Ukrainian national colors began taking shape in 1848, during Europe’s “Spring of Nations.” In Lviv, blue and yellow were adopted as Ukrainian national colors, and a blue-and-yellow banner flew over the city hall.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the colors had spread across Ukrainian lands. During the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921, they became inseparable from the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state. Blue and yellow flew at Ukrainian demonstrations, over the Ukrainian People’s Republic and Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, and in April 1918 over ships of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

Under Soviet rule, raising the Ukrainian flag became an act of resistance.

On May 1, 1966 Heorhiy Moskalenko and Viktor Kuksa replaced a Soviet red flag over the Kyiv Institute of National Economy with the blue and yellow. The KGB spent nine months searching for them. For raising Ukraine’s flag, Moskalenko and Kuksa were sentenced to three and two years in strict-regime labor camps.

In 1973, another group of Ukrainians secretly raised four blue-and-yellow flags in Chortkiv.

Still, the flag kept returning.

By 1989, blue and yellow was appearing openly again at Ukrainian demonstrations. In 1990, the flag rose over city halls across western Ukraine. On July 24, 1990, a massive crowd gathered as the blue-and-yellow flag was raised over Kyiv’s City Council — more than a year before Ukraine restored its independence. Soviet authorities continued resisting its return, and a prosecutor even opened a criminal case over the raising of the flag.

Then came August 24, 1991.

After Ukraine declared independence, Ukrainians carried the blue-and-yellow flag into the Verkhovna Rada. On September 4, it was raised over Parliament. On January 28, 1992, Ukraine formally adopted the blue-and-yellow banner as its State Flag.

The struggle surrounding these colors continues today.

In Ukrainian territories under russian occupation, the United Nations has documented the systematic suppression of Ukrainian identity. People have faced prosecution for displaying Ukrainian state symbols and even blue-and-yellow colors.

That history helps explain why Ukraine’s flag means so much more than a piece of cloth.

It has flown over revolutions and independent governments. It survived imperial suppression, Soviet prisons and occupation. Ukrainians carried it when doing so could cost them their freedom because the blue and yellow represented something fundamental: Ukraine’s right to exist and Ukrainians’ right to determine their own future.

On Ukraine’s State Flag Day, we honor everyone who carried these colors, protected them and raised them when others tried to tear them down.

🇺🇦 З Днем Державного Прапора України. Слава Україні!

08/20/2026

While russia kills Ukrainians in their beds, air defenses are being stretched to the breaking point

Overnight, russia launched another massive attack on Kyiv and communities across Ukraine. At least 16 people were killed in Kyiv and the surrounding region, with dozens wounded. A children’s hospital, school, preschool, apartment buildings and other civilian infrastructure were damaged. Across Ukraine, at least 25 people were reported killed and 132 injured in the past 24 hours.

This attack came as Ukraine faces a severe shortage of the air-defense interceptors needed to stop ballistic missiles. Kyiv has been forced to defend itself with depleted Patriot stocks while russia increases the number of ballistic missiles it launches.

Ukrainian officials say the country currently has only a fraction of the interceptors it urgently needs.

The result is visible in the infernal images being shared across social media and the news, in the rubble of homes, schools and hospitals.

Every delay in resupply gives russia another opportunity to strike a Ukrainian city, destroy civilian infrastructure and kill people in their homes.

The danger is also spreading beyond Ukraine’s borders. During the same wave of attacks, russian drones entered Romanian and Moldovan territory, while Romania scrambled F-16s after an explosive-laden maritime drone approached an offshore natural gas project.

This is a sustained campaign of escalation, russia’s way of testing the West’s resolve and will to defend its land and its allies. russia is attacking Ukrainian civilians, exploiting gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses and pushing the consequences of its war deeper into Europe.
The response must address the weapons already in the air and the resources that allow the kremlin to keep producing them. The U.S. House must immediately pass strong sanctions on russia that further restrict the revenues and resources feeding the kremlin’s war machine. Every dollar denied to the kremlin makes it harder to finance the missiles, drones and weapons used to destroy Ukrainian cities.

UCCA calls on the United States and all of Ukraine’s partners to act with the urgency this moment demands. Ukraine needs Patriot interceptors, additional air-defense systems and the am******on required to protect its cities now. Congress must also move immediately to strengthen sanctions on russia and cut the revenue streams sustaining its war.

Statements of support must be matched by the weapons that save lives and the economic pressure that limits russia’s capacity to produce more weapons of destruction. Ukraine knows what it needs. Its partners know what must be delivered.

Every day of delay gives russia another chance to turn apartment buildings into ruins and families into casualties.

Give Ukraine the means to stop these attacks. Cut the kremlin’s ability to build the next missile before it lands at your doorstep.

08/07/2026

Before Ukrainian Chicago became a community, people had to build it.

For this installment of Ukrainians Were There All Along, the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago suggested three men whose lives helped shape the city’s early Ukrainian community: Volodymyr Simenovych, Rev. Mykola Strutynsky, and Myroslav Simenovych-Simens.

Their work spanned medicine, religion, journalism, education, culture, civic organizing, diplomacy, and philanthropy. Together, their stories show how Ukrainian immigrants created institutions that allowed a community to take root in America and endure across generations.

Volodymyr Simenovych (1859–1932) was a physician, journalist, and one of the early builders of Ukrainian community life in the United States.

Born in what is now Ukraine’s Ternopil region, he studied law at Lviv University, where he was a student and friend of Ivan Franko. He arrived in the United States in 1887 and settled first in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. There, he became involved with the newspaper America, organized education for children and adults, helped establish a Ukrainian church choir, and created an amateur theater group.

After visiting Chicago during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Simenovych eventually made the city his home. He completed his medical studies, established a medical practice, and helped organize the Brotherhood of St. Nicholas, which became an important institution in Chicago’s growing Ukrainian community. Later in life, he edited the Chicago newspaper Ukrayina and published an early statistical study of the city’s Ukrainian population.

Rev. Mykola Strutynsky (1870–1943) helped build the religious, educational, cultural, and civic infrastructure that Ukrainian immigrants needed.

Born in Kalush, he came to the United States in 1902 and served Ukrainian communities across North America. In Chicago, he became the first pastor of St. Nicholas Church. His work extended far beyond the church. Strutynsky helped establish Ridna Shkola, an early Ukrainian school that began with one teacher and ten students. He organized the Mykola Lysenko Choir, described by the Museum as Chicago’s first Ukrainian choir, established the Dnipro Savings Association, and other Ukrainian Catholic and civic organizations.

He also helped organize Chicago’s Sich movement, participated in Ukrainian relief efforts, worked to advance Ukrainian education in America, and devoted substantial energy to journalism and publishing.

A generation later, Myroslav Simenovych-Simens (1885–1967) emerged as one of Ukrainian Chicago’s leading civic and political figures.

Born in Chernivtsi, he arrived in the United States in 1907 and studied medicine at Loyola University. He later served as a military physician and attained the rank of major. His life also remained closely connected to Ukraine: in 1920, he participated in the diplomatic mission of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic to London.

From the late 1920s through the 1940s, he led the Hetman “Sich” organization in the United States and Canada. In 1933, he served as president of the Exhibition Committee responsible for the Ukrainian Pavilion at Chicago’s Century of Progress International Exposition.

Then, in 1952, he became the first president and a principal benefactor of the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago. For many years, recognition of his leadership and support.

A church. A school. A choir. A newspaper. A savings association. Civic organizations. Cultural institutions. And eventually, a museum dedicated to preserving the history that these immigrants themselves were helping to create.

That is how Ukrainian Chicago was built.

And it is part of a much larger story. Across the United States, generations of Ukrainian immigrants built institutions, served their neighbors, preserved their heritage, and became part of the civic and cultural fabric of America.

Ukrainians Were There All Along. 🇺🇦🇺🇸

We are especially grateful to the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago for suggesting Volodymyr Simenovych, Mykola Strutynsky, and Myroslav Simenovych-Simens for this campaign, and for providing the majority of the biographical research, archival information, and historical photographs used to tell their stories.

Know a Ukrainian-American story America should know? Submit it to [email protected].

08/06/2026

Across Ukraine, filling a tank has become another calculation of risk.

In recent months, russia has launched a systematic campaign of drone attacks against Ukrainian gas stations—civilian businesses used every day by workers, families, evacuees, delivery drivers, emergency personnel, and travelers.

Nearly 250 Ukrainian gas stations have been attacked in recent months. Conflict monitors recorded at least 246 strikes since the beginning of April, including 194 between the beginning of June and July 27.

The attacks have spread across frontline and interior regions, including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Poltava, and Ternopil.

In Zaporizhzhia alone, local officials reported 54 attacks on gas stations in just 24 days, killing four people and injuring 29.

These stations are civilian infrastructure.

They are also an essential part of life in wartime Ukraine.

With commercial air travel suspended, Ukrainians rely heavily on the country’s roads. Gas stations serve as way stations where evacuees, truck drivers, service members, volunteers, families, and emergency workers can stop, regroup, and continue their journeys.

During blackouts and evacuations, stations with generators have provided electricity, warmth, hot tea, food, bathrooms, and places where parents could prepare milk for their babies.

Today, many of these familiar places bear shrapnel scars, scorch marks, sandbags, and boarded windows. Others have been reduced to burned-out shells.
Drivers have changed their routines. Some avoid bathroom or food stops, carry additional fuel in their cars, start the pump and move away while their tanks fill, or leave as quickly as possible. Workers at some stations now remain at a distance from the pumps when they can.

Gas station operators and local authorities are adapting.

Stations have installed anti-drone netting and reinforced pumps and entrances with wood and sandbags. Some close overnight, turn off exterior lights, and suspend fueling during air-raid alerts. In Trostianets, mobile fueling points were established after strikes destroyed every gas station in the area.

Despite the damage, russia has failed to create the fuel crisis promoted by its propaganda. The attacks have primarily inflicted death, injury, fear, and disruption on civilians.

This campaign reflects a familiar russian strategy: target the ordinary places people depend on and make daily life itself feel dangerous.

Ukraine continues to adapt, work, travel, evacuate civilians, and keep essential supplies moving. Its people should not have to risk a drone strike while filling a car or buying a cup of coffee.

Ukraine urgently needs stronger air defense, sustained military support, and accountability for russia’s deliberate attacks on civilian life and infrastructure.

Stand with Ukraine. Help protect its people.

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