"Before this whole tragic war/invasion occurred, if you mentioned Ukraine or said you were of Ukrainian heritage, everyone would go, 'Oh yeah, where's that?' Or they would say, 'Oh yeah, Kyiv, like chicken Kiev?'"

But much of this has changed over the past few months.

Since Russian forces began a military invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year, many in the Hunter have developed a greater awareness of the country, its history and what it's currently up against.

And while many people have been shocked by both the barbarity of the crimes committed and the level of resistance shown by the Ukrainian people, it has been no surprise for Bazaley.

"I knew that Ukraine would arm up, that Ukrainians would fight to the end, because the whole Cossack tradition - which means "free man" - was to be free, and that's all they wanted," he says.

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Indeed, while many might see the current battle as simply the result of a recent dispute, the conflict is in many ways a mature one for Ukrainians, who have fighting for independence etched into their DNA. The destruction and violence are on the TV news every night, and in mainstream media every day.

Although there have been various Ukrainian-led states in the past, for much of history Ukrainians have been ruled by various different foreign states and empires, including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire.

And while there was an independent Ukrainian state briefly towards the end of and after World War One, from 1917 to 1920, this was ultimately subsumed into the Soviet Union, which ruled the land until the current Ukrainian state's independence in 1991.

These centuries of occupation - which often consisted of persecution, massacres and other tragedies - have shaped a fierce sense of resistance in Ukrainian culture that has been evident over the past two months.

"It is the foundation upon which the identity has been built, and it's been built because of the adversity," says Dr Wolodymyr Motyka, a Newcastle-based academic. He has written books on the Hunter Valley's Ukrainian community.

"The previous century, from a political point of view, has been nothing but disaster after disaster after disaster ...," Motyka says in all earnesty.

"Look at the 20th century: first world war, famine, second world war, and then we have a relative period of stability."

For Ukrainians, the struggle hasn't just been one of political independence; it has also been a battle to preserve their identity and culture.

During the Soviet Union rule, any attempt to promote Ukrainian identity or culture was dealt with swiftly and harshly by the authorities.

"A lot of our intellectuals were locked away, a lot of our artists were locked away and killed," Bazaley says. "Anyone in Ukraine who sprouted, 'Oh, we actually want a free Ukraine' was pretty much locked up by the KGB and murdered."

In addition, many historians believe that the Soviet government's attempt to collectivise farming - which led to the Holodomor (Great Famine) of 1932-33, responsible for the death of an estimated 3 million to 7 million people - was also constructed by Soviet authorities to crush a sense of Ukrainian nationhood.

"The famine was about identity," Bazaley says.

"Stalin had a problem with the wealthier farmers in eastern Ukraine, in the wheat belt, so he manufactured a mass genocide of them, because they wanted to be Ukrainian and he wanted to nip that in the bud."

And while the famine might have occurred 90 years ago, Bazaley says there are a number of parallels with the current conflict.

"It's a cultural genocide that Putin wants - and he's said it. Putin doesn't believe that Ukrainians exist as Ukrainians; he believes that everyone's Russian. But that's a myth that the Russians are obsessed with."

This history has also greatly shaped the fierce patriotism of the Hunter's Ukrainian community, the bulk of which migrated to the area in the years following World War Two.

Australia has between 30,000 to 50,000 people of Ukrainian heritage, most of whom settled in Sydney and Melbourne.

"They came out either as 'stateless' or as Polish," says Dr Motyka, who himself was born as a refugee in Germany in 1948. "What you didn't have was a nation-state called Ukraine. But what you had was Poland with Ukrainians in it, the Soviet Union with Ukrainians in it and so on."

Regularly mistaken as either Russian or Polish, and as a group of people who'd suffered persecution either through the famine, war or during general daily life, Dr Motyka says the Hunter's Ukrainian community - just like others around Australia - was often far more vocal and patriotic in their celebration of Ukrainian culture and identity.

"All of these communities were intense, because they brought with them what they couldn't put in their bags: which is their memories, their experiences. It was traumatic, some couldn't talk about it until decades past, but they were adamant that they were not going to be indifferent."

As a result, it was those in the next generation, like Michael Bazaley, who were brought up with a strong connection to Ukraine - even if they had never visited it.

"We always grew up with stories that were about your identity: 'Remember where you're from? Keep the memory of where we were from,'" Bazaley says. "[After they arrived] the community spent the next 60 years trying to maintain an identity, trying to promote Ukrainian culture."

However, it's not just the older heads or those with long memories who have been fighting for Ukraine.

"If you look at it, it's all the young people who are fighting for freedom for their country," says Olha Pokhmurska of Garden Suburb.

Pokhmurska, 26, is herself somewhat unique within the Hunter's Ukrainian community. While the majority moved to Australia in the late 1940s and early 1950s - or are descendants of those who did - Pokhmurska, who was born in Lviv in western Ukraine, first moved to Australia with her mother in 2009, aged 13.

For her generation, an independent Ukraine is all they have ever known - and they are fighting fiercely to hold onto it.

"Looking back in history, Ukraine became independent in 1991 and they haven't always been independent, there's always been that shadow over them. So for the young people now, they just want to have a country of their own," she says.

In fact, for many young Ukrainians, it's not just a battle for political control, but also one of values. Many see themselves as democratic, liberal and aligned with the EU and the West rather than Russia.

This was no more evident than during the Euromaidan uprising of 2014, when students played a key role in the protests that ultimately led to president Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, and thus paving the way for more liberal, EU-friendly policies.

Aside from highlighting the strong sense of Ukrainian resistance and identity, the war has also brought longstanding suspicions and emotions about Russia to the surface.

"The attitude of [the Hunter's Ukrainian community] was shaped by their experiences, so everything negative that they experienced was related to Russia," Dr Motyka says. "My mother-in-law, for example, survived the famine, her family members died and how is she supposed to look on that as a superior culture? They were always cautionary about Russian culture."

It was a similar story for Michael Bazaley.

"The stories we had of the Russians were war stories, stories that [older people in the community] experienced," he says. "A lot of it was about 'When the Russians came, they killed everyone in our village; when the Russians came, they killed all our livestock.'"

Once again, with reports of widespread rape, hospitals being targeted by missiles and civilians executed en masse, the current conflict has eerie parallels to the past.

"Russia always had a problem with Ukraine," Bazaley says. "We're always being attacked by them, so you always have to have one eye on the bully ... It wasn't that we were paranoid, we had enough evidence. At some point the bully was going to turn his eye on us and we needed to be wary of that."

Despite this long history, Pokhmurska says she directs her anger towards the Russian government rather than ordinary Russians on the street.

"I don't hate the Russian people. I do feel really sorry for a lot of them," she says.

"I have a few Russian friends, and the thing with being Russian is that you can't speak out; if you do, they'll take you away straight away and you'll never be seen again."

Despite the fact that the Hunter's Ukrainian community is 15,000 kilometres away from the warzone, as a group that ultimately ended up in Australia because of war, the current conflict has stirred up often long-buried emotions and memories.

Charlestown woman Anna Adnum, 80, was just two years old when she fled Ukraine during World War Two.

"Now it's Russians, but with us it was the Germans," she recently told ACM.

Anna, her pregnant mother, brother and sister fled to Germany amid fierce conflict between Soviet and German forces in Ukraine.

But instead of finding safety, life as a refugee was anything but safe as the Allies closed in on Germany from both the east and west.

"We had no home or food. I remember running from bombs and being shot at," she said. "I remember running through fields to get to the bunker where we were sheltering. I remember seeing this huge hole and a man in there screaming. Obviously he would have died. I'll never forget that."

The war, and the extensive news coverage of it, has also brought up recollections in Michael Bazaley's family.

"A lot of things are happening in a re-traumatising way," he says. "For my father, it's actually bringing up a lot of memories. The other day he said to me, 'Oh, I remember when there were Russians in our house. I was a little boy and the Russians just stormed in.' And we were like, 'We've never heard that before.'"

But aside from merely triggering memories from those who experienced war as children, Bazaley, who works as a psychologist, notes that some in the community may be suffering from "vicarious trauma", a theory describing second-hand trauma that has been studied at length in Israel.

"It's the children of the Holocaust, the people who listened to the stories and imagined how terrible it would have been. So you don't experience the trauma first hand; you live it in your mind the way you think your parents would have suffered it," he says.

"I can see in the community that it's kind of shaking them a little bit. Their concept of Ukraine being free is now being shattered as they visually watch a World War Two that's in their head, that they'd listened to from their parents. So they're suddenly getting traumatised in a vicarious way."

Despite all the hardships and trauma, the conflict has seemingly strengthened the bonds within the Hunter's Ukrainian community.

"People are coming together, supporting each other through this and definitely becoming a lot tighter," Pokhmurska says.

Indeed, since the outbreak of war, many have sought to raise money and donate goods for those in Ukraine, with Pokhmurska herself walking 100 kilometres around town between March 14 and April 24 to raise money for the Ukraine Crisis Appeal.

"I definitely am a lot more invested and I definitely am a lot more pro-Ukrainian," she says.

The events of the last couple of months have also stirred up an increased sense of pride.

"I'm quite proud to be Ukrainian," Pokhmurska says. "It's just something about the culture - they're so vibrant. They might be going through the worst things of their life but they're still so optimistic about anything. Even with this war - they're so optimistic that they're going to win."

Bazaley agrees, saying that regardless of the trauma experienced by his parents, they always focused on the positives.

"What they tried to always remember was that there were happy times, there were nice times, and that's what we're to remember: that one day we'll meet and we'll go to that village if we ever get free."

With the war set to enter its next brutal phase with the battle of the Donbas, it is this sense of pride, positivity and identity, so deeply embedded in Ukrainian culture, that is driving the resistance.

"We've fought for so long to create our identity, to say, 'Hey, we're Ukrainian, we're here,'" Bazaley says. "That's what our national anthem is about: 'One day we will be free; one day we will be lords in our own country; Ukraine has not yet died.' It lives on. So if you think like that, they won't be able to take that identity away, even if you kill every last one of us."

There are several ways to help the people of the Ukraine. Donations intended for humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees and those in Ukraine can be given via caritas.org.au/emergency-appeals/ukraine or ukrainecrisisappeal.org.