December 7, 2022
48,323 people evacuated from danger to date
304 people evacuated last week
8 missions into battle zones and deoccupied territories
We would like to take the opportunity to thank our generous supporters for their donations to Ukraine TrustChain on Giving Tuesday last week. Your support means that during these dark, cold days, we continue to provide aid to Ukrainians through food, water, and warmth of blankets, generators, and firewood. Moreover, we are directing all the reserves formed from donations in the last two weeks to larger initiatives that involve purchasing and transporting wood stoves, generators, and establishing warming centers and charging station in the most affected parts of Ukraine.
As we race to help as many people as possible before the onset of winter, the world is preparing for the winter holidays. Children in Ukraine are living an altered reality, a time of want and fear. And as we approach the holiday season and the New Year, children’s letters to Santa collected by Dina’s volunteer Yulia from Kremenchuk remind us of the simple joys that children have lost due to violence and corruption. In these letters, children tell Santa that they love soccer, that they long to taste chocolate candy for the holidays, and that they above all want peace.
Ukraine Team Milestones
Natalia’s Team
Last week Natalia’s team loaded two trucks with food, warm clothes, candles and detergent and set off to the recently liberated Kherson region. The city is slowly coming back to life after the enemy occupation. There is a steady stream of aid coming into the city thanks to the efforts of volunteer teams, including many mentioned in this newsletter. As usual searching for the most effective ways to distribute resource, Natalia decided to travel into the distant suburbs of the city, which for a while were right on the frontline between Kherson and Mykolayiv.
In the small town of Snihurivka, Natalia found “tired and emotionally broken people” who have been under the enemy occupation for 9 long months. In her videos, Natalia captured stories from local residents who continue to suffer from the consequences of the occupation. Some live in basements without heat or electricity; mines left behind by the Russian army are still a constant threat. In fact it seemed that the enemy’s goal was to create as much hardship as possible before retreating. Some residents recounted a disturbing story of the Russian army collecting and burning warm clothes, blankets and pillows in an unexplained act of petty cruelty.
Over next two weeks Natalia is preparing the next mission into the brutal battles on the Eastern front, while her satellite team in Kryviy Rih will take another trip to the Kherson region — an area that will still need much help for weeks to come.
Pavel’s Team
202 people were evacuated from Zaporizhzhya and Mykolayiv. Most Mykolayiv evacuations are Kherson residents that make it to Mykolayiv by chartered routes and then look for evacuation services going further West.
The focus for Pavel’s team has shifted to providing assistance for the winter and distributing humanitarian aid. Last week, the team fed 7,668 people. The key areas of distribution were Mykolayiv and Zaporizhzhia. In Zaporizhzhia, Pavel’s team found basements and bomb shelters that became temporary homes for a large number of refugee families that escaped Russian occupation and crossed over to the Ukrainian side in the last few months. Pavel’s team has been delivering food to these shelters daily.
The aid distributed at Pavel’s Mykolayiv office continues to operate even during power outages. Additionally, Pavel was contacted by residents of the village of Zasillia requesting help. This village is merely 10 miles east of Snihurivka (see Natalia’s team). Many of the houses in this village were destroyed while the front line was nearby, but people continue to live in their damaged homes. Pavel is providing repair kits, stoves and firewood to these families, and is looking for more suitable shelters for some families.
Pavel continues to support a large group of children, orphans that live in Kyiv either in foster families or in dormitories.
Also his team continues to distribute generators to larger households and organizations. Three generators were provided to centers for people with disabilities in Mykolayiv; two were delivered to Kharkiv families.
Andriy’s Team
Last week Andriy organized a major expedition to Kherson. 5 vans delivered 9 tons of food, supplies, blankets and toys to about 800 families at a local church by a large team that included Andriy himself along with his his amazing clown staff. This team never fails to cheer up people receiving the aid.
Meanwhile, the Dnipro warehouse resumes working at full speed and over the last week distributed aid to 719 refugee families in Dnipro or 1,837 people. 101 people continue to live in Andriy team’s shelters.
Inna’s Team
Last week Inna Kampen’s group provided food assistance to 7,200 people distributing 26 tons of food across 15 distribution points. Roughly 8 tons of aid went into the deoccupied territories and cities suffering from daily attacks by Russian artillery.
In parallel Inna Kampen’s foundation is executing a major joint project with Ukraine TrustChain to expand winter help into the red zones of this war, bringing in stoves, firewood, powerbanks and other items into the most impacted areas. The initial deliveries were made on Sunday into deoccupied parts of Kharkiv region with more information on these trips coming up in the next week report. Behind the scenes Inna Kampen’s organization is quickly procuring wood, gas stoves and other items that will form the major deliveries into the deoccupied red zones in the coming days.
Kseniia’s Team
Last week Kseniia’s team Livyj Bereh organized logistics for this week’s trip into the Kharkiv region to continue fixing up roofs for as many households as possible. In order to speed up the process her team is using inexpensive sheet metal roofing materials usually for industrial settings. As we write this report, Kseniia and her team are already in the Kharkiv region working on roof repairs.
Another project that is sponsored by a theater and a group of artists from Germany is building a modular home for Ukrainian refugees. The materials for the home have just arrived from Germany and the construction will soon begin.
Meanwhile Kseniia continues to support two trusted teams in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions. Kherson teams also choose to concentrate on the villages around Kherson and provided help to 303 families.
Oleksandr’s Team
We continue to support a growing network of projects supported by Oleksandr Davydiuk with targeted high efficiency funding.
Last week, teams Ukraine TrustChain supports helped 120 families in the occupied territories with basic food packages.
Reports arrived from Pavlo Vystratenko whose team continues to go weekly into Slovyansk, Druzhkivka and Konstantynivka - badly damaged towns located 10-20 miles away from Bahmut, the epicenter of fighting on the Eastern front. Pavlo’s team brought in 5.7 tons of food. The food and energy poses an extreme challenge there with continuously disrupted supplies of basic goods as well as unstable electricity and water supply. In the coming weeks we are working with Pavlo’s team to winterize and provide generators to the self-organized communes living in the highrise basements.
6.5 tons were delivered to the distribution points in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions by Oleksandr Shnurenko. 2 tons of food and hygienic products were distributed into the Chernihiv region that suffered from occupation, with the focus on families that lost their homes earlier this year.
We are working with Yuri to organize a major delivery of stoves and firewood into Siversk, another city under siege in the East of the country.
Mobile clinic Angeliya this time traveled into the smaller towns in the Kyiv region providing medical services to 61 people on a large variety of issues. A number of specialists such as a gynecologist, an ENT, dentists, and physical therapists took part in the trip.
Andriy Pylypchuk assisted families that attempt to return to Mykolayiv, as the city experiences fewer bombings after the liberation of the nearby Kherson region.
Our Odesa team managed by Sandra Spars specializes in feeding refugees arriving at Odesa train station. Since last week, the team went into overdrive mode as trains with 400-500 evacuating Kherson residents have been arriving to Odesa daily. So far Sandra’s team is able to help 250 people daily. They situation is further exacerbated by power outages and the recent attack on the city’s water supply. UTC is expanding our support to this group to meet this short-term demand.
Oleksandr Zhalovaha continues to conduct art-therapy classes for refugee children. Also Oleksandr is still collaborating with Inna Kampen’s group to provide glasses to refugee families, distributing 46 pairs of glasses last week.
The teams that we funded in Kherson during the occupation now continue their volunteer work openly. Oleksandr is organizing large shipments that our Kherson teams will distribute to the identified families in need.
Timur’s Team
Even as most of the team has been battling illness – fevers, bronchitis, and fatigue – due to cold weather and no heat, they still made sure that those that waited for them in villages like Barshevaya, Liptai and Pechenigi received aid packages and hygienic products. They braved the bad roads and slippery conditions, delivering 870 packages to those villages. This is in addition to the 200 parcels to Staraya Saltivka as well as 60 packages made just for children that contained a few sweets to bring smiles to their faces. Winter is here; it is bitter cold. And just when everyone was getting used to a few days of quiet, the now familiar sound of explosions is waking them up again.
Karina’s Team
Evacuations from Kherson have picked up. Last week Karina’s teams evacuated 74 people from Kherson, including 28 kids. She also evacuated 21 people out of Bahmut, 13 of them were severely wounded after an artillery strike.
102 people continue to live in Karina’s shelter. Last week Karina found a new vendor that agreed to provide hot dinners three times a week. Due to increasingly frequent power outages Karina purchased a generator for the shelter. It should be noted that a working generator needs fuel and our estimates that a gas generator within ukraine will require ~$700 a month in fuel costs alone.
Dina’s Team
Last week Dina provided help to 860 refugee families. Her Kharkiv group did not travel outside of Kharkiv this week. The team prepared a major shipment of about 90 stoves into homes and bomb shelters around Kupyansk, but the delivery was delayed. When used inside basements, stoves need to be outfitted with chimneys that need to be produced separately, and the team is waiting for a batch of chimneys to be procured to start the delivery. Meanwhile, Dina’s teams distributed 266 warm blankets in preparation for the winter.
Amidst this ongoing work, Dina traveld to Kanev, where her Kanev team leader Lena was getting married. Her husband Serhiy is a member of Ukrainian armed forces stationed around Bahmut.
Tetiana’s Team
Tetiana’s team distributed aid packages to 87 families in Rebedailivka and Revivka, villages in the Cherkasy region. During the aid distribution, they learned about a family who needed extra aid since they had 9 children. Tetiana asked the family to wait so she could talk to them, but they did not hear. After the packages were distributed, they inquired further and found out that the family was from Bakhmut, with 3 of their own children and 6 others who were under their care. Tetiana’s team is going to connect with them to offer them additional support.
Alena’s Team
Alena continues to push aid into Kherson. 2 tons were delivered into the region early in the week. Another trip was also completed since Sunday — we will discuss this trip in greater detail in the next week’s newsletter. In the meantime we continue to work with Alena to establish warming centers and charging stations within the Kherson region.
US Team Updates
Last week, Ukraine TrustChain concluded an online fundraiser in collaboration with Valentyna Levchenko who documented in film the lives of Ukrainian women during the war. The video received over 100,000 views and raised $5,200. Funds collected through this video will allow the Help in Mukachevo organization to purchase a mini 34-kWt power plant to run a refugee center over the winter. You can watch the moving film here.
How to Help
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