First Diary after lurking for years.
In the years since Russia invaded Ukraine, I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about warfare. One of my good friends went to Ukraine in April of 2022 as an unpaid volunteer with an organization delivering aid and evacuating orphans and families from combat zones. A group of us formed a nonprofit called Civilian Shield in 2023, to support his personal efforts that he took on in addition to his initial role, and to allow those supporting him and his team to have their donations be tax-deductible. Through this experience, I’ve learned that there are many parallels between the difficulties with supplying military aid and delivering humanitarian aid in Ukraine, and I’d like to share the top two.
“Logistics, logistics, logistics”
For those of us following from the beginning of the invasion, Kos hammered the importance of logistics into our brains; it isn’t enough to donate, it needs to get there, be supported and maintained. Within the US, nonprofits are focused mainly on fundraising rather than procuring donated items. Shipping donations from the US to Ukraine isn’t possible, shipments to Poland can be tied up in customs for a very long time and delivery within PL can be unreliable, and shipping to Europe in general is very expensive.
As a result, most of our donated materials are coming from Poland and Western Europe and transported by truck to Ukraine, mainly Kherson and Mykolaiv Oblasts. Our most active donor organization is in the Netherlands, which is about a 1465km trip to pick up supplies. The majority of the donations are medical and surgical supplies and used fishing nets. (A joke in Ukraine is that the day after the invasion, there wasn’t a single fishing net, volleyball net, or basketball net left in the country.)
“Force Multipliers”
In the same way that certain weapons or other materiel can be a force multiplier for the UA military, some types of aid have a benefit that far outweighs the cost of the items. Focused asks for specific medical and surgical supplies are delivered to hospitals in Kherson and Mykolaiv and used to treat combat personnel. Evacuation kits and basic combat medical training for volunteer personnel and UA combat medics enable them to save the lives of soldiers.
A single generator was enough to power a kidney dialysis center in Mykolaiv Oblast. Another generator was able to power the pump of a village’s well, restoring water to a community that had been without water for months due to the lack of electricity.
Fishing nets may be the most well-known of these low-cost, high-impact items. Used nets from Northern Europe are being donated and transported to combat zones and villages in Ukraine - babushkas are still weaving nets into camouflage netting for various assets and ghillie suits for personal camouflage. Some of the larger nets are truly massive and are capable of physically preventing attacks by certain drones.
If you’re interested in supporting us, or would just like to learn more about our Executive Director Christopher Freisinger, watch the video below and visit our website at Civilianshield.org , If there’s any interest, I can post diaries with additional stories, pictures, or videos from our work in Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini!
