Two years into the Russo-Ukraine War, the University re-created the “Unissued Diplomas” exhibit, displaying students who lost their lives as a result of this invasion. The University displayed the exhibit almost one year ago, created by Ukrainian graduate student Sofiia Tarasiuk MBA ’24 and Prof. Irina Dubinina (RUS), but since the war has yet to conclude, Tarasiuk worked with Ukrainian graduate students Kamila Haieva MBA ’25 and Yuliia Stelmakh MBA ’25 to re-install the exhibit.

The updated exhibition opened on Feb. 29 in the Mandel Center for the Humanities and displays 40 Ukrainians’ photographs — compared to last year’s 36 — paired with a short passage about their character and how they died. Since each individual was a student who died before they could graduate, the profiles are formatted as diplomas. 

“We decided to do this exhibition again because unfortunately, we still have war in our country,” Tarasiuk said in a Feb. 28 interview with The Justice. She said that finding ways to keep the public engaged with the war has been challenging, since people are “used to” the conflict whereas the war is Ukraine’s reality. “It’s very hard to explain to people why they need to support us even now,” Tarasiuk said, “So we think that through stories, through such cultural events, we can touch more hearts and explain more. I think storytelling is the most powerful through the ages.” 

Tarasiuk recalled that she did not have a lot of support when she created the exhibition last year. However, with Haieva and Stelmakh, Tarasiuk said that “everything changed” and they were able to “[unite] their strengths.”

This exhibition comes to campus at a particularly notable point during the Russo-Ukrainian war, considering Russia made what The New York Times reports as its largest advance since May on Feb. 17. Russian forces captured the Ukrainian city Avdiivka and have since been pushing past the city center, with The Times noting “rudimentary earthen fortifications” with a trench for infantry troops “but little else.” The same article notes that these defenses could be lacking for a number of reasons: an overall focus on offensive efforts, the cost of added defense and a lack of manpower to build them. 

The Washington Post stated that Ukraine’s lack of clear plan to find new soldiers has created dissent within Ukrainian society because it has “left the military relying on a hodgepodge of recruiting efforts and sown panic among fighting-age men,” causing some to go into hiding for fear of dying as a conscripted soldier.

Regarding the international aid Ukraine has received to mitigate its smaller pool of resources, Tarasiuk spoke about how she appreciates the support, but “compared to the scale of Russia, it’s unfortunately not enough. And that is why a small country … it’s harder to defend and support people,” she said. 

Support for Ukraine has also been a divisive issue in the U.S., splitting between party lines. The Associated Press explains that Democrats are more likely to say the government is not spending enough on aid for Ukraine, whereas most Republicans believe that it is.

In the same Feb. 28 interview, Stelmakh said that while she expected the war to proceed for as long as it has, she felt many Ukrainians did not feel the same way. Rather, she explained that most Ukrainians did not expect the war to last longer than a month, telling The Justice that her mother continued to go to work during the invasion’s early days. Tarasiuk added that she didn’t expect the war to start in the first place, recalling her disbelief when her father, a history teacher, mentioned the possibility of an invasion. 

“I was laughing, I thought, ‘That’s impossible in the 21st century because we’re … thinking about launching rockets into the universe to learn about new territories, but not to still fighting against each other.’” Tarasiuk said. She described that after spending the first month of the war in a bomb shelter, her family realized that [they] would have to “create another plan for [their] life,” which led to her applying for a scholarship to study in the U.S. She said that she had to leave her home in the middle of her renovation plan for it.

“I don’t know where we have the strength, but sometimes … being here I am more worried about what’s going on there than being there,” Stelmakh added. “When you’re in Ukraine, you see how life is going. Even under bombing, it’s more or less easier [to know what is happening] because you’re with your family and friends. But here, you don’t know what’s going on.” She clarified that the news often upsets her more than it informs her.

Building on how the war forced her to change her life and career trajectories, Stelmakh emphasized the psychological scars that many Ukrainians have from the war. She revealed that she, and many others, can now identify different military rockets based on the sounds they made.

To manage the emotional strain the war has put on her while managing her studies at the University, Tarasiuk shared that she tries to “think on three levels.” She considers the potential level of impact her actions can make on a personal, local and global level. 

“Of course, I’m not a very powerful person,” Tarasiuk admitted, “but I also understand that we are all people and together, we unite our power so we can also change something.” She recognized the “Unissued Diplomas” project as a local level action, since she was able to work with Haieva and Stelmakh to bring this gallery back to the Brandeis community. 

Haieva expressed, “I believe when you feel that others support you, you understand that you shouldn’t give up and that is the main reason that we know what we are doing and why we are doing that, and we don’t want to lose our freedom … by supporting others, we feel we can have more energy for that.”

Brandeis’ gallery is one of 16 currently in the U.S., with numerous others globally. 17 countries — from Nigeria to South Korea to Ireland to the United Kingdom — have their own “Unissued Diplomas” exhibitions in various universities and museums to spread awareness for the Ukrainian cause. According to Tarasiuk, the organization plans to have the exhibition erected within over 250 universities around the world including all continents.