Yevgeny Prigozhin is pictured near a tank. (CNN)

John Hewko, a Ukrainian-American, recently returned from a trip to Ukraine.  As a lawyer working in Ukraine in the early 1990s, he helped the working group drafting the country’s first post-Soviet constitution.

A serviceman checks his machine-gun in a shelter on the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants at frontline with Ukrainian government forces in Slavyanoserbsk, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. (AP Photo / Alexei Alexandrov)

Ukraine’s leaders sought Tuesday to reassure the nation that an invasion from neighboring Russia was not imminent, even as they acknowledged the threat is real and received a shipment of U.S. military equipment to shore up their defenses.