N.S. fisherman returns to Ukraine to provide aid and transportation to refugees

Lex Brukovskiy, a Nova Scotia lobster fisherman, says he's feeling a sense of calm being back in Ukraine to help his war-ravaged homeland.

Though the air raid sirens shatter his rest, Canadian fisherman Lex Brukovskiy says he’s feeling a sense of calm being back in Ukraine to help his war-ravaged homeland.

“Sitting back home and watching it, it was hard,” he said in an interview on Monday. “I feel a lot more useful here.”

Standing outside a humanitarian aid distribution centre in downtown Lviv, the bearded 38-year-old lobster fisherman from Meteghan, N.S., said via FaceTime he spends his days and nights drawing up lists of the supplies needed by refugees — particularly women and children — and then delivering what he purchases.

And on Tuesday, he said in a followup telephone interview he’s been assigned a van to drive in a convoy that will make its way to besieged cities in eastern Ukraine with humanitarian supplies before bringing refugees back to safety.

Brukovskiy came to Canada with his parents when he was 12 and has made frequent trips back to Ukraine for extended visits since then.

After living in Ontario, he settled on the southwestern coast of Nova Scotia in 2009, buying his boat and eventually acquiring a captain’s licence. He is currently the president of Local 9 of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, an organization that represents independent fishers around the region.

However, Brukovskiy said he couldn’t bear remaining on his fishing vessel on the Bay of Fundy while hearing devastating news reports of the war in Ukraine. He has two children in Canada, while his mother, cousins and extended family are in Ukraine, mostly in the Lviv area.

After finding a captain to take charge of his lobster boat, Brukovskiy decided to depart in the middle of the winter fishing season, a time when he and his crew normally make a substantial portion of their annual catch.