Maksym, 14, hopes to play basketball at Brookfield.
BROOKFIELD — Maksym begins to describe what it was like when the Russian bombs struck near his home in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
His limited English and memories of unlimited fear stop him.
“It is very hard to find the words,” Maksym said.
So he makes the high-pitched screaming sound that bombs make as they tear through the sky and follows it with the crashing sound of destruction.
“Like that,” he said. “The house shakes. The windows shake. It is very scary.”
A half world away from battle-torn Ukraine, the 14-year-old freshman sits among the books at Brookfield High School library. He is a basketball player, a good one, and if anyone should be welcomed into the Connecticut high school ranks this winter it is this 6-foot-2 forward.
“I love basketball,” said Maksym, who played with the Polytechnic Kharkiv junior club team.
What do you love about it?
“Everything.”
And your favorite player?
“The whole NBA,” he said.
Maksym, 14, played basketball for a club team that played for the Ukraine championship in his age group last season and traveled to Romania.
His name is long. Athletic director Steve Baldwin already has taken to calling him Max. His answers understandably are short.
It is good that his mom, Vera, was an English teacher in Ukraine.
With the help of the government program, Uniting for Ukraine, Vera was able to arrive in the U.S. with Maksym and her younger son Danys in June. Danys is 7.
They were in New Haven first and recently have since settled in a place in town. Her husband, Yurii, was able to rejoin the family several weeks ago. They are sponsored as part of the refugee resettlement ministry started by the Congressional Church of Brookfield and has become more a community-wide effort that includes other churches.
“This war is the second in our lives,” Vera said. “So we are starting our life from the very beginning for the third time. Not the first. Not the second. The third time. It is very difficult.”
For reasons of confidentiality and security, the family’s last name will not be used.
The family originally is from Donetsk, the most prominent city in the Donbas region overtaken by Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
“When the war in 2014 started, I was pregnant,” Vera said. “In 2015, I gave birth while the bombing was going on. When Danys was one month we moved to Kharkiv. It was a safe place. We started a new life. We bought a new flat. We got a job. Maksym started to play basketball.”
On Sept. 30, 2022, Russia declared the annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporihzhia and Kherson oblasts. The annexation is not recognized by the international community. The war rages.
That war found the family again. Kharkiv, about 180 miles northwest of Donetsk and only 25 miles from the Russian border, was an early target of the Russian invasion in late February. With 1.4 million people, Kharkiv is the country’s second largest city.
Although her English is excellent, Vera’s first reply about the bombings is eerily similar to her son’s.
“I can’t say in words about this,” she said. “It was horrible. When it started we were sleeping. It was 4 o’clock. We didn’t expect it. From the first days of the war, we lived with our neighbors in the basement with our children. Everyone was very scared.
“They wanted to kill us on the land. They were bombing from the air. The basement was too cold. We didn’t have enough food. Shops were closed. We didn’t have enough water. It was a very difficult time, very difficult.”
Maksym’s family stayed in the basement of a neighbor during the first few days of the war.
Maksym sits there silently in the library, listening to his mom, nodding his head.
To evacuate Kharkiv was very dangerous. It was a risk the family decided was worth taking.
“We were driving with our friends, because we don’t have a car,” Vera said. “We were covering our children by ourselves. There was bombing.
“We were ready to die for our children. We understood it. I don’t want anyone in all the world to have that feeling.”
Vera was on the speaker phone. Maksym whispered he could tell his mom was crying.
“Sorry for my emotions,” she said. “But I was just a mother ready to die for her children.”
They drove as far as they could across Ukraine and crossed on foot to Slovakia. There were busses and trains available, and the decision was made to go to Poland. They spent three months in Poland before arriving in USA.
Yurii was not required to remain for active military duty.
“He has bad vision,” Vera said. “When he was in Ukraine, he volunteered helping the army with anything he could. All the Ukrainians do. To prepare food. To move big boxes. To put things into a lorries or vans.”
The basketball hall where Maksym would practice was destroyed during the war.
Vera said she and Yurii are awaiting employee authorization from the U.S. government. The program involves a two-year stay in the country, but who knows what will happen?
“We decided to do this, because we believe USA is a safe country for our children,” Vera said. “After two wars, it was impossible to stay in Ukraine. It is too unsafe. We love our country very much. We’re scared to go back again to Ukraine.
“I can’t answer this question (about the future). We like this life in Brookfield very much. A lot of people are helping us. So many good people. Of course, we want to be with you. We want to stay here and to be safe.”
Wearing a blue Brookfield hoodie and an easy smile, Maksym seems surprisingly comfortable for a kid who has escaped war and is in only his second week at the high school. He says he has made some friends who play basketball and football.
Maksym is fitting in well since arriving in Brookfield last month.
“I love Brookfield,” Maksym said. “I love Brookfield people.”
He was 8 when he started playing basketball back home. Although soccer is easily the No. 1 sport in Ukraine, basketball is popular. There has been a half dozen Ukrainian players in the NBA. Celtics fans will remember Vitaly Potapenko.
Maksym’s Polytechnic Kharkiv team played for his age-group club championship in the Ukraine. He traveled with the team in Romania. This year they were planning to go to Luxembourg, but the war had other plans.
“They worked hard for this, but it didn’t happen,” Vera said. “Aleksei Zolotous and the second coach Artem Tinyakov, they were like his father and best friend. We are very grateful to these coaches. They showed the players how to love this game, how to play.”
The basketball hall where they played and practiced?
“It is bombed now,” Vera said.
Even a sports complex was not safe from Russian missiles.
jeff.jacobs@hearstmediact.com; @jeffjacobs123
Jeff Jacobs is a 10-time Connecticut Sports Writer of the Year and four times has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors as one of the top 10 columnists in the country. Jeff’s passion for local sports runs the gamut from high school athletics to UConn basketball – he has covered all four UConn men’s championships and 10 of the 11 women’s titles. He’s also covered multiple Olympics, World Series and Super Bowls. Along the way, he has demonstrated a zeal for the big scoop and a finely honed ability to convey essential human tales that resonate far beyond the sports world.