September 12th, 2024
64,565 people evacuated from danger to date
162 people evacuated from danger this week
45 trips into deoccupied and frontline territories this week
Last week, Pavel and Olena Shulha’s team delivered their first batch of firewood to the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. We are already preparing for a hard winter. This year we are unlikely to have the resources to match the scale of last year's firewood deliveries, when we distributed more than 4,300 metric tons of fuel. But we are confident that our teams will do as much as possible to help Ukrainian civilians weather the winter, from continuing to evacuate people from dangerous zones, to providing them with supplies essential for survival (water, warm clothing, firewood, etc.).
This aid is particularly precious in the more forsaken, remote parts of Ukraine our teams visit every week. In this work the terrain is always changing, so we tend not to build long-term plans. Instead we focus our efforts on ensuring that funds donated to UTC go toward the most urgent needs. We urge you to share information about this channel for supporting Ukraine, as the coming months are likely to be very difficult for the people we help.
Stories
Grim Evacuations from New Ghost Towns
A Dobra sprava volunteer who has been making regular evacuation trips to the areas around Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, tells about the deteriorating situation there:
The mood is grim: civilians are dying from shelling every single day. The shelling has now reached communities that had been relatively safe [until now]. Recently, several BM-30 Smerch rockets with cluster munitions hit the Cherkaske community, killing some elderly women who were tending to their vegetable gardens. And today, a KAB-250 bomb landed in Kramatorsk, in the city center…
Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad are essentially ghost towns now; there are still people there, but not many and they are hiding. I don't know what they are waiting for— city services are all getting shut down. In nearby towns, Selydove, Ukrainka, Hirnyk, Tsukuryne, Kurakhivka, and Kurakhove itself, there are street battles or artillery is shelling the cities at point-blank range. The regional administration is constantly sending text messages calling for the evacuation from the entire Donetsk Region.
Wildfires in the Minefields of Ukraine
After the abnormally hot summer, there is a critical risk of wildfires in Ukraine. An example is the village of Studenok, near Izyum, which was surrounded by fiends, covered with tall, dry weeds. These fields were mined during the Russian occupation and could not be cleared. An animal may have tripped up a mine there, causing a fire that has destroyed 157 homes.
Families have crammed into the 94 remaining houses and need all manner of help. Inna’s team is delivering food, hygienic supplies and camping stoves to assist the locals, while Dina’s team based in Kharkiv, is planning to bring in shovels and rakes needed to clean up the debris. The fire is now contained, but people who’ve lived through two and a half years of war, the Russian occupation and now wildfires need a lot of support to get back on their feet with the winter approaching.
Chromebooks for Ukraine
In the spring of 2024, four alumni of Niles Township High School District 219 in Illinois donated their Chromebooks to Ukraine TrustChain. Daniil brought these to Odesa, when he traveled to Ukraine last June. We are grateful and happy to report that the Chromebooks have found new owners — students in small towns near Kherson, who are only able to attend school online due to the constant dangers of war. We hope to expand this project in the future and find more used equipment to bring to Ukrainian students in the upcoming year. Our volunteer Alena tells us that the need is huge, as many school children have no access to devices at all.
Thank You, JetLAG!
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the organizers and attendants of the 2024 JetLAG festival. JetLAG is an annual open-air music festival in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. The organizers have supported UTC since our founding in 2022, donating part of the festival’s proceeds. We have just received another very generous contribution from them!
Please reach out to us by replying to this email if you are holding an event and would like to donate part of the proceeds to UTC.
Help in Occupied Territories
100 people received help occupied Ukraine. Due to increasing risk of operations in the occupied zones after Ukraine’s military incursion in Kursk, the evacuations from occupied territories are likely to cease completely in the coming days.
Team Summaries
Alina’s Team – Dobra sprava (Good Deeds)
18 trips and 151 people evacuated, mostly from around Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
Inna’s Team – Krok z nadiyeyu (Step with Hope)
Distributed 20.1 tons of aid in 27 towns, in 5 regions of Ukraine.
Helped 8,050 people.
4,000 people received bread.
Kherson Operations:
Performed disinfections and exterminations in 7 buildings.
Provided charging station for elementary school teacher, who teaches Kherson kids online.
Delivered 1 ton of clothing to Beryslav.
Delivered aid to Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, and Kostyantynivka.
Helped villages near Izium suffering from wildfires.
Provided aid in Nikopol and Katerynivka, near Nikopol.
Angelia Charitable Fund
Brought 1,085 kg of medical goods, used clothes and shoes, appliances and furniture from Lithuania and Germany to Kyiv, and then from Kyiv to Kramatorsk.
Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks
Vladyslav K (Mykolaiv): delivered 35 tons of drinking water to Mykolaiv. The team plans to resume water deliveries to Kherson, even though the situation there is deteriorating.
Sandra S (Odesa): kitchen fed more than 600 people. The team is gearing up for a greater flow of refugees, coming through Odesa from Pokrovsk.
Vitaliy Z (Kharkiv): delivered 3.5 tons of humanitarian kits, medicines, clothes and animal feed to the front-line town of Kostyantynivka (Kramatorsk District). Delivered 2 tons of aid near the town of New York. After 3 months of planning, a long-awaited concert was held in the basement of the Kharkiv Opera and Ballet Theater, dedicated to the anniversary of the formation of the 77th separate airmobile brigade.
Oleksandr D (Lutsk): Oleksandr’s volunteer Vadym T brought 1 ton of instant breakfast cereals from Poland to Oksana K’s team in Lutsk.
Natalia B (Kherson): distributed dairy products to 9 families with children, children with disabilities, and elderly people with disabilities, 4 times during last month.
Oleksandr Z (Lutsk): provided therapeutic interventions and aid for internally displaced (IDP) children, children with disabilities, and children from military families.
Held art therapy for 44 children of military families and IDPs from Donetsk Region.
Visited a museum with 45 IDP and disabled children.
Helped 260 IDP children with bread and other food.
Provided 75 physical therapy and wellness sessions for recent refugees from the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia Regions, as well as to other displaced persons who need physical rehabilitation.
Organized a rehabilitation training for 26 volunteers and specialists.
Kseniia’s Team — Livyj bereh (Left Bank)
Continued to help Kharkiv-based hospice, housing 35 elderly.
Darya, delivered 100 packages to villages east of Kharkiv (Monachynivka, Kasianivka, and Kut’kivka).
Evacuated 2 people.
Svitlana helped 185 people around in Pryozerne, Fedorivka and Posad-Porkovske, near Kherson.
Karina’s Team — My ryatuyemo Ukrayinu (We Save Ukraine)
147 people in the shelter.
Tetiana’s Team — Dopomoha poruch (Help Is Near)
Distributed 55 aid packages to the old and disabled in Smila through the Smila department of social services.
Delivered aid to the orphanage in Mykhailivka, Cherkasy Region.
Timur’s Team — Komanda Teymura Alyeva (Timur Alyev’s Team)
Evacuated 9 people from Kivsharivka and Novoosynove.
Distributed 370 aid packages in Sloviansk and Saltivka.
Additional special deliveries of 17 sets of diapers for disabled elderly and 14 for babies.
Pavel and Olena’s Teams — Dotyk sertsya (Touch of Heart) & Svitanok mriy (Dawn of Dreams)
67.5 tons of fuel briquettes delivered to 225 families in the villages of Lubomyrivka, Partyzanske, and Myrne.
3 tons of water delivered to Novohryhorivka.
Pomahaem Foundation (We Help Foundation)
Helped equip evacuation center in Dnipro, as the stream of evacuees is increasing.
Delivered 500 family packages to Zasillya and Novoukrainka, in the Mykolaiv Region.
250 packages delivered to Dobropillia in Donbas.
Provided additional aid to 122 individuals with disabilities in the above villages.
24 tons of water delivered to Nikopol.
2 trips to Druzhkivka and Kramatorsk vetting people for cash aid.
Marina’s Team — Daruy dobro Ukrayina (Give Good Ukraine)
150 food and hygiene packages were given to internally displaced families in Zhovty Vody.
Dina’s Team — Vilʹni lyudy, vilʹna krayina (Free People, Free Country)
Distributed 360 packages in Kanev, Krasnokutsk, Poltava, and Kremenchuk.
Mailed 100 packages from Dnipro.
Serhiy T traveled to the village of Zavody, bringing food and hygiene products to the 47 people remaining there.
Bohdan’s Team — Vse robymo sami (We Do Everything Ourselves)
42 families received food and hygiene kits in Zhytomyr.
100 mothers with small children got formula.
At club for children with disabilities, kids had their weekly culinary class and took part in a psychological relief session.
Alena’s Team — Diva (Virgo)
Traveled to the towns of Zymivnyk, Pryozerne, and Komyshany in the Kherson Region, delivering valuable goods, such as yogurt, clothes and rainboots, donatd by partner organizations for 500 kids. Also brought generators and 4 Chromebooks from UTC.
Liza’s, Odesa-based team helped 44 wounded at an Odesa hospitals in the last 2 weeks.
Anna — Independent Nation
333 tons of water delivered to 77 households in Kherson Region.
1 person evacuated from Sumy Region.
Anastasia’s Team — LoveUA
Delivered 381 packages of food and 381 packages of hygiene products to a small town outside of Pokrovsk.
How to Help
Donate — The money goes directly to teams providing aid on the ground, who respond dynamically to the most urgent needs.
Fundraise — Organize fundraisers at your school, work, place of worship, with friends and family, etc.
Spread the word — Share our website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Fill out this form if you’re interested in volunteering with us, and we’ll let you know when opportunities come up.
Download and print our flyer. Ask your local coffee shop if you can add it to the bulletin, or use it as part of your fundraiser.