March 2, 2023
48,822 people evacuated from danger to date
71 people evacuated from danger this week
13 trips into the deoccupied and frontline territories
This newsletter will not follow our standard format. I’ve been traveling in Ukraine for the past two weeks, and would like to share insights about the work of our teams I experienced firsthand during the trip. A summary of weekly accomplishments by team in condensed form is available at the end of this report.
During my visit I’ve been organizing summits connecting multiple team leaders in the cities where they live and operate. Although each team defines their own priorities and process, I focused on the intricate connections that, like mycelium, permeate the Ukrainian volunteer movement. These connections turn the volunteer movement into a coherent, effective network that provides resources, emotional support, and intelligence to everyone doing vital work.
One of the key objectives for my visit was to strengthen these connections among teams and create new nodes within the volunteer network. In the process, I also felt that we were able to reinforce the powerful bonds of trust and gratitude that connect all of us donating and fundraising outside of Ukraine to the volunteer teams we support. It was also symbolically important to connect on the anniversary of the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, in defiance of Russia’s threats and genocide.
Kharkiv
Kharkiv is a city at war teeming with soldiers and volunteers. The streets are empty and pitch dark at night, although behind the drapes all Kharkiv businesses have figured out ways to be fully functional using generator power when the electricity goes out. Air alarms sound every couple of hours, but the locals ignore them and go about their business unperturbed.
I met with our fearless teams Timur, Darya Taran, Slava Kedr as well as Serhiy Tiora from the Kharkiv branch of Dina’s team. We met at a building still housing homeless youth who lost their homes during the attack on Kharkiv.
Our teams connected us to the local volunteer coordination center. Many Kharkiv teams are focused on pushing help into the highly dangerous frontline areas. In the last few weeks the number of evacuations have picked up as Russia was able to recapture some villages to the East of the city. Up to 500 refugees a week arrive at the registration centers. Together with the volunteer coordination center, we are exploring ways to support a cluster of teams in Kharkiv that is involved in evacuating civilians.
Villages around Kharkiv and Izyum
Together with Serhiy, I went on a mission to the Izyum area to the village of Ridne. From speaking farmers and agricultural experts there, it became clear that a major need in the coming months will be demining fields; currently 100,000s of acres of land are unusable, threatening food security in that region next year.
Yet people are eager to return to their land. Kseniia’s team continues rebuilding roofs in the villages north of Kharkiv severely damaged by Russian artillery. This process had a major rejuvenating effect on the communities there, distilling a core group of local activists who are now also dedicating their lives not just to rebuilding roofs, but also to working around-the-clock on all high-priority projects aimed at restoring village life. An important part of their efforts focuses on people as well as on supporting the animals, dogs and cats left behind by civilians fleeing the invasion.
Kseniia and I had the honor of meeting Masha, a 10-year-old volunteer who spends hours each day feeding and supporting nearly 50 pets she knows by name that were left behind. Kseniia was quick to post a video of her on social media, and close to 1,000 pounds of pet food have already been donated to Masha, but this situation is prevalent in all villages we visited. Drivers going into the largely destroyed villages around Kherson mentioned that dogs provide a way to find civilians as they gather at the gates of people who feed them. It became clear that a Ukrainian village is not just a place of residence but a microcosm of people, animals and plants that have coexisted for hundreds of years and are inseparable from one another.
Dnipro
Dnipro’s location at the very center of Ukraine, currently equidistant from all points of the frontline, and its strong versatile economy make it the key hub for the entire war effort in Ukraine. Although the city periodically comes under enemy fire, including during the recent major terrorist attack destroying a high-rise, Dnipro is full of bustling energy and has recently addressed its infrastructure problems.
Dnipro is home to some of our largest, experienced and well organized teams. Two of the shelters we support are based in the Dnipro area. I was able to visit both of them and see the uneasy life that hundreds of people lead, sleeping in classrooms and offices. Thanks to the efforts of our volunteers there is a curious unity among the shelter residents, they are considerate of each other’s needs and are sincerely grateful for a place to live. It was hard to see their eyes well up with tears when I asked them “where are you from?” Soledar, Bahmut, Svatovo – these places have either been leveled to the ground by Russian artillery or are under the brutal boot of Russian occupation. Andriy’s shelter is preparing for an influx of refugees in the coming weeks.
It was also important to see the warehouse with generators and aid which are continuously distributed to tens of thousands of refugees in Dnipro as well as many other towns through road trips and distribution centers. Just as I arrived, a box truck full of generators was heading out to deliver them to vetted large families with adopted children and children with special needs.
It is in Dnipro where we spent time together at the volunteer summit on February 24th. Inna Kampen, Andriy Pinchuk, Karina and Dina’s team were present, each representing 100s of thousands of Ukrainians nourished and nurtured. At the summit, Karina introduced us to a large evacuation team “Dobra Sprava” that we had been sponsoring indirectly, but will now partner with to help facilitate hundreds of additional evacuations each week.
Kyiv
On the way to the city where I spent my childhood, I expected to have periods without electricity or mobile connection, a standard occurrence during this winter. Yet in the last week the situation improved drastically, and in defiance of Russia’s continued strikes on infrastructure, Kyiv not only turned on the streetlights and resumed its tram and trolley routes but also reopened the iconic cable car running along the river slopes.
Teams based in Kyiv no longer see the need to supply the Kyiv region where municipal governments took over key population support functions. Our teams instead concentrate on trips into the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, and facilitating logistics and distribution of aid UTC and other organizations help obtain to high need areas, mostly right along the frontline. Prior to our team meeting, I participated in the unloading of 20 pallets of food with Natasha’s team. This experience gave real weight to the simple report line of “X tons of aid was received” – 6 people came out on Saturday morning and, box by box, loaded and then unloaded multiple vans full of protein bars that will provide sustenance in particularly dangerous areas.
At our meeting in Kyiv, I finally met Olena – who coordinates the Angeliya Mobile Clinic. We discussed providing consultation to other teams on various medical needs. We also met with Oleksander Shnurenko currently distributing 100 generators to high-need families in Kyiv region and discussed partnership with larger foundations supporting their efforts.
Kyiv is also an important center for connecting with government officials. In particular, with Natalia’s support we were able to establish connections with civilian demining corps that have been formed to help villages demine agricultural lands. We hope to facilitate these efforts as part of our initiatives to support rural communities during the planting season.
Lutsk
This regional capital in the Northwest of Ukraine is a major hub for UTC, where a subnetwork of teams curated by Oleksandr Davydiuk obtains, packages and delivers aid all over Ukraine, concentrating on the frontline areas and areas with high numbers of refugees.
Oleksandr and I visited multiple locations where the work is happening, and got together with teams in an old Soviet era barber shop, which has been donated as a space for working with children with disabilities and children of refugees. Modest, run-down rooms only amplified the altruistic existence radiating from our volunteers. The key topics we discussed were the growing difficulties in obtaining aid shipments in Poland, as well as continuously changing needs on the ground, which again include wet wipes, hygienic products, pet food, among others. Teams not involved in delivery continue their work with refugee children in the area, who need more support for their education, hobbies and play, as more than a year of their life has been disrupted by the Russian invasion.
Next steps
Although I’ve been traveling non-stop, I haven’t met all of the teams that we work with and support. I am heading to Mykolayiv to meet with Pavel, Oleksii H, but I will miss Kherson teams, teams in Smila, Kanev, Krasnokutsk, Vinnitsa and other places. There is a lot more to unpack, but here are the key theses we identified so far:
The efforts you support through UTC are exceptionally effective and help many at the fraction of the cost. People of Ukraine, and our volunteers are grateful, and view everyone supporting their efforts financially as key allies and friends, because the funds we provide from so far away not only provide them with tangible resources but uplift their spirits and their confidence in Ukraine’s and the civilized world’s victory over Russian tyranny.
The work of our teams has made a huge difference in helping Ukrainians survive this winter without famine.
Our efforts need to continue to be flexible and attentive to new needs identified by trusted volunteer teams. Multiple teams stress that it is this flexibility enabled by trust and strategically built relationships what allowed them to complete vital projects that cannot be taken on by other often much larger organizations.
Our support of rural regions needs to continue to focus on the rejuvenation of local communities, providing not only food but means of restoring normal life, such as helping people repair their homes, and provide them with seeds and tools they will need to go through the upcoming planting season, distributing it through the channels and community connections already created by our volunteers.
The war is not over. The situation is deteriorating in some parts of the frontline. We need to be ready to support teams involved in evacuations and to help new refugees, or to push help into new areas the Ukrainian army will liberate.
We need to continue to support volunteers and understand their personal needs so that the volunteer movement does not sustain damage due to burnout or ending up in poverty and homelessness due to lack of income.
Ukraine Team Milestones
Inna’s Team
36 tons of aid delivered to 9,110 people
6,500 people received bread
3 trips to deoccupied areas
Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks
4 tons of aid to Kyiv/Chernihiv region (Oleksandr Shnurenko)
36 tons of drinking water delivered (Vladyslav K)
1,700 fed in Odesa (Sandra S)
Art therapy classes continued, 65 children received glasses (Oleksandr Z)
Oksana K brought in a van from Poland
280 food and hygiene packages distributed in occupied territories.
Angelia - Mobile Clinic
84 people received medical help
327 medical procedures performed
6 cars including the following specialists: stomatologist, pharmacist, family doctor, ENT, endocrinologist, rehabilitation specialist, psychologist, ultrasound specialist, gynecologist, dentist, laboratory technician
Kseniia’s Team - NGO Livyj Bereh
Livyj Bereh rebuilt 9 houses this week
Aid Distributions in Kherson, and Kherson region villages of Tokarivka, Fedorivka Ivanivka, Shaslyve and Kostrovka
Darya completed two trips to Dvorichna in the zone of active fighting
Natalia’s Team - Vysnia Volunteer Center
Natalia has been down with pneumonia all week last week.
Karina’s Team - We Save Dnipro
Evacuated 12 mothers with children from Krivy Rig
Evacuated 6 bedridden residents from Nikopol
Evacuated 39 residents from the Donetsk region
There are 82 people living in the shelter, 31 of them children
Alena’s Team
Alena was in Kyiv this week taking care of her mother, but received some photos and a video of the generator in Shmidtovo pumping water for the town.
Timur’s Team – Timur and Team
Hygienic products/blankets/flashlights distributed to 700 people in Kovsharivka
200 in Cherkasky Tyshki
50 in Saltyvka
Andriy’s Team - BF Pomahaem
Since last report, 3,770 families received aid through humanitarian warehouse (6,122 people)
Mobile humanitarian aid delivery to village of Komar (28 km from the front), where aid scarcely comes:
20 villages came for aid delivery
320 packages of food and hygienic products were distributed
200 kiddiboxes were given out to children
91 people (31 children) live in Andriy’s shelter; 30 arrived last week
Pavel’s Team - Touch of Heart and Dawn of Hope
Evacuated 14 from Zaporizhzhya (6 children)
4,315 people received food in Prybuzke, Kalynivka, Partyzanske, Velyka Koreniha, Zaporizhzhya and Mykolayiv
Installed 14 woodstoves in Prybuzke
Delivered 56 cubic meters of firewood to Partyzanske
Delivered 36 laptops to children in large families and orphanages
Marina’s Team — Good Give Ukraine
150 displaced families received food aid, and 100 more families received much-needed medicine and hygiene supplies from Marina’s distribution centers this week.
Dina's Team - Vilni Liudy – Vilna Krayina
Distributed 574 packages (Kremenchuk had a week off for Yulia to rest)
Sponsored snacks and drinks for the art therapy for children’s group in Kremenchuk
Bought medicine for a volunteer in Kharkiv who is very ill
Paid for fuel for Ya Zmogla aid delivery to people with disabilities in Dnipro
Tetiana’s Team — Dopomoha Poruch
Distributed help to 300 families in Smila, her largest aid distribution to date
1000km round-trip to Dobropillya – a village in Donbas, bringing much-needed aid to 130 families
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