RICHMOND, Va. -- One Richmond man is sharing his concerns over his friends and colleagues who are in Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion.
"Shock. I was a little scared, to be honest for them," George Copeland said.
Copeland describes how he felt just five days ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. As he watched troops invade the country, he worried for the country and friends he had left there just over a month ago.
Copeland runs Laborem Edge, a digital marketing agency in Richmond and partners with a company in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv for software support.
Despite concerns of the troop build at the time, Copeland went there in November to spend some time with his colleagues.
"I was embraced warmly, not just by my team there, but all the country as a whole," Copeland said.
He said that while he was in London in late January, he opted to come home early after receiving an alert from the United States embassy.
"Today, the 28th, is when I was actually supposed to fly back from Ukraine," Copeland said.
The Ukrainian company's CEO said until everything happened, no one believed the Russians would actually invade. He and his girlfriend fled the capital on Thursday morning when they woke to the sound of falling bombs.
"It just took for us, I don't know, about 15 or 20 hours by car. And there was like thousands and thousands of cars that were trying to leave Kyiv," Igor Prokopenko, the CEO, said.
He added that while most of his staff of 90 or so have left the city, about 20 to 25 of them remain because it's either too dangerous to leave or they wanted to stay and do what they can to help.
"They're just like trying to take photos of the places where the Russian military is based or like just monitoring what happens on the streets," Prokopenko said.
He said the company is also giving its profits to the military to help with the defense. He adds that he is thankful for the support the world has sent Ukraine but says more is needed, including military support, especially in the air.
"It's gonna take, I don't know, maybe months or years to handle this problem by ourselves," Prokopenko said.
Copeland said that watching how his colleagues are responding to the conflict has been inspiring.
"That is the type of people they are. They aren't going to hide. They aren't going to cower," Copeland said.
Meanwhile, both men said they're hoping for a quick and peaceful solution to the conflict.
"I hope that Putin can listen to the rest of the world, including a lot of his people, and find a way to end this right now because it's just a lot of needless death," Copeland said.
