Rodricks: From Baltimore, a son of Ukraine feels heartbreak and hope for his ancestral homeland

More than once during recent conversations, Peter Charchalis apologized for getting emotional, but I told him this was no time to hold back. If you don’t get emotional about your ancestral homeland being invaded by the armed forces of a ruthless dictator, you have no soul. You shouldn’t call yourself a freedom-loving American, either. Charchalis is a 56-year-old American businessman of Ukrainian descent, born in Baltimore to refugees who escaped both the Nazis and the Soviets near the end of World War II.