FORT WORTH, Texas — Tom Sanchez has felt the concern in Kyiv change in the past couple days.
“I believe everybody is very apprehensive this weekend,” he said. “There are days when it starts to look like it's not normal and today was one of those days.”
Sanchez lives in Irving but has been in Ukraine’s capital for a month for language classes, and he visits the country regularly.
Prior to this weekend, he saw Ukrainians carrying on life as normal even with reports of 150,000 to 190,000 Russian troops surrounding the country on three sides.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told ABC News Sunday he doesn’t believe the staging is a bluff by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He’s assembled the right kinds of things that you would need to conduct a successful invasion,” Austin said.
He added they’re looking at every possibility but trust the intelligence they’re received so far. Earlier this week, Russia said it were pulling back while adding more troops, according to ABC News. They’ve also blamed the Ukraine for their own attacks to create an excuse to invade.
“There's a lot of disinformation,” Sanchez said. “You read stories that are being printed and you just know that they're false.”
Sanchez says people in Kyiv rely on calls from relatives in eastern, occupied Ukraine for updates on what’s happening.
“They are the kings of misinformation across the border,” he said.
Sanchez has seen his apartment building fill this week with refugees headed west away from fighting on the eastern border.
The U.S. has troops staged in Poland, but they won’t be sent into Ukraine to fight. Instead, U.S. leaders have promised sanctions worse than anything Putin has seen before but haven’t provided specifics, saying they don’t want to tip their hand.
“We have prepared, together, economic measures that will be swift, severe and united,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in Germany this weekend.
Locally, leaders told Inside Texas Politics, the effort to help Ukraine democracy could increase gas prices and more.
“We may see parts of our supply chain either interrupted or parts of it becoming more expensive because we’re trying to hit those parts of the Russian economy,” U.S. Rep. Colin Allred said. “Part of us standing up to Russia is going to have to be hitting them where it hurts and where it hurts is on the energy market and raw materials.”
Sanchez says his Thursday flight has been canceled, but he’ll take a train out of the country if he feels unsafe. Like everyone, he’s waiting, watching and wondering what Russia will do next.
“Not surreal, it’s tragic,” he said. “It’s tragic.”