Helping Ukraine and Ukrainians

[StevenBauer]

Thanks Martin! We’re making another donation tonight.

[Alan H]

I doing an arrangement of the Ukraine National Anthem for my symphony's concert on April 9th. Here's a sneak preview of the opening fanfare, using the synth'ed voices in my composition software.

[Osborne Russell]

Like!

[Breakaway]

Nice! It evokes a coming together, a common rising.

Kevin

[Concordia...41]

I doing an arrangement of the Ukraine National Anthem for my symphony's concert on April 9th. Here's a sneak preview of the opening fanfare, using the synth'ed voices in my composition software.

Excellent!

[WszystekPoTrochu]

As for 21-03-2022, the total number reached 3.6 million

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Ukraine launched their official aid info site:

https://help.gov.ua/en


Page contains listings of most necessary items, reports on aid already delivered, addresses of regional and international aid collection points, separate account numbers for humanitarian and military needs, and many more. You can find phone numbers that can elaborate further, as well as useful info for those wanting to leave Ukraine.

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Fundraiser of Monika Andruszewska, a war reporter mentioned in the Ukraine thread

receiver: Pomoc dla Ukrainy: Stowarzyszenie Pokolenie
account no. INGBPLPW 82105012141000002293732315 (PLN, I'll inquire for EUR/USD and update if they have it)
title: Andruszewska

She's also published her email:
mon.andruszewska@gmail.com

[Tom from Rubicon]

I have several hundred rounds of 7.62X39 I would love to donate.

Tom

[lupussonic]

I'm sure Miko can furnish you with an address.

[rbgarr]

Drones reportedly sinking Russian Raptor boats https://www.editorji.com/world-news/...-1651569365308

[mizzenman]

I prefer to use the large well known actors. I'm thinking they have the experience and organisation in place to do this kind of things

[Chip-skiff]

I've donated regularly to Doctors Without Borders (previously mentioned).

Two other groups I support that are active inside Ukraine are Direct Relief, which donates medical supplies— https://www.directrelief.org/emergency/ukraine-crisis/

and The International Committee of the Red Cross— https://www.icrc.org/en/donate

For some reason, the ICRC website often declines credit cards. Sometimes I try a couple before they accept.

[Juan]

(...)

[skuthorp]

Juan, I have often thought of the Spanish civil war in relation to the Ukraine conflict. There are many parallels including the atrocities against civilians. But then in a war they are part of the conflict, from the London blitz and Dresden to Liddice.
Humans are like that.
But I do also recognise that the continuing power plays in international politics leaves the small players vulnerable to both sides in different ways.

[Juan]

Thank you, thank you very much for listening to my lament, thank you very much for your understanding, generosity, freedom of spirit and open-mindedness. May the heavens bless you

[skuthorp]

Steady on there chaps……...

[Lew Barrett]

Has U24, the official Ukrainians organization been linked to on this thread?

This one allows you to select the way your donation is allocated. Zelensky endorsement.

https://u24.gov.ua/

[Peerie Maa]

Are any organizations collecting and distributing warm clothing, blankets, duvets and so on?
Camping stoves and fuel, maybe?

[Dinghy Pipedreams]

Are any organizations collecting and distributing warm clothing, blankets, duvets and so on?
Camping stoves and fuel, maybe?

Nick, check out:https://www.charitynavigator.org/dis...ranian-crisis/
there are several organization rated there.

We are making some contributions in place of Christmas presents for/to ourselves this year.

[Peerie Maa]

^ Thanks for the link

[Dinghy Pipedreams]

^ Thanks for the link

You're most welcome.

[Jimmy W]

Visiting a help center for Ukrainian refugees // Volunteers Tbilisi

[Tom from Rubicon]

My son, regularly miss judging what to gift us for a Christmas gift. I spelled it out and he complied.
Our gift from him to us was an encrypted donation to UNITED24.
50/50 offensive munitions and landmine removal.

[Chip-skiff]

The biggest supplier of tanks to Ukraine, so far, is Russia.

The Ukraine repair shop: where Russian tanks go to change sides
Engineers work on modifying and fixing tanks and armoured personnel carriers in a secret warehouse.

Daniel Boffey in Ukraine
Fri 3 Feb 2023

The first task is to wipe off or cover up the Z, says Anatoly, 44, of the call sign infamously daubed on Russian hardware involved in the war in Ukraine. “We don’t want friendly fire later on.” Then the mechanics get to work.

In a secret location in Ukraine, within a vast warehouse that could be mistaken for a tank graveyard, what was once Russian – Soviet, in many cases – is being turned Ukrainian.



All the headlines have recently been made by the decision of Germany and a host of others to supply Ukraine with western heavy armour: Leopard 2s, Challengers and Abrams. The names have become familiar and they may have the technical cutting-edge and firepower to turn the course of the Ukraine’s war, when they arrive and if in sufficient numbers.

But for all the efforts of the Nato allies, it is Russia that is unwittingly, and yet by some margin, Ukraine’s biggest donor of tanks today.

Oryx, the open-source Dutch intelligence defence analysis website, has collected photographs of 546 captured Russian tanks. It will be just a fraction of the total haul that were either abandoned by the fleeing Russian forces or seized in bloody battle.

Admittedly the trophies do not always turn up in tip-top condition.

Gesturing towards a T-72B3, covered in dry leaves, and bearing evidence of battle in the form of warped and battered armour, Anatoly proudly boasts that it is the most recent upgrade of the old Soviet T-72 tank.

It was brought into the facility, which lies just a few miles from the frontlines, by the 54th brigade from the eastern Donetsk region, four weeks ago. “It took a direct hit on its turret,” says Anatoly. “The firing system was damaged too.”

They plan to get it back on its tracks in swift time, with added armour. There is little time for sentiment. Did Russian soldiers die in it? “I don’t know, I suppose so. There were arms and legs in it. Lots of blood.”

In some cases the Ukrainian army has set about getting such vehicles back on the field of battle under their flag. “But the state is busy repairing Ukrainian tanks,” says Roman Sinicyn, 37, a coordinator at the Serhiy Prytula Foundation, a charity managing this operation in partnership with an engineering company whose name is being withheld to avoid identification of the plant site.

As a result, civil society has stepped in. A host of private companies have set aside their usual business to get in the game of refurbishing killing machines: the tanks, armoured vehicles, missile systems and other lethal hardware left behind. These operations are often funded through donations. The Prytula Foundation, one of the largest organisations crowdfunding the purchase of military equipment, has invested £200,000 in this facility. “It is not a lot of money,” says Bohdan Ostapchuk, 30, who is leading on tank refurbishment for the Prytula Foundation.

It has, however, borne deadly fruit: seven tanks back into battle, a command vehicle, a Hurricane rocket system, a multiple rocket system, an infantry transport vehicle and a host of armoured vehicles, so far.



Their destinations are a roll-call of Ukraine’s deadliest hot spots: Bakhmut, Kramatorsk, Luhansk, Svatove, to name a few.

The liberation of the Kharkiv region, in north-east Ukraine, last May was the high point in the hunt for battlefield treasure, as the Russian forces panicked in retreat. “It was like walking into a big, big shop where you can walk through and say, ‘I will have this one, and this one,’” says Ostapchuk. The mistake was not repeated when the Kremlin ordered the retreat in the southern Kherson region before Christmas, but there remains a healthy supply of vehicles coming through the doors. They are, however, often of an older model, the mechanics note.

Pointing to a former personnel carrier brought in by Ukraine’s 46th airborne brigade from Soledar, the eastern Ukrainian city recently captured by Russia, Anatoly says it was probably built somewhere between 1982 and 1987. The same goes for a Soviet-era Shturm S model anti-tank missile carrier that bears the O sign of the Russian marines on it side. It went over a mine near Vuhledar in the Donetsk region and was abandoned.

Then there is the T62 Soviet tank, likely dating from 1970 or so, brought back by the 128th mountain brigade from Kherson, three months ago, at the time of the Ukrainian counteroffensive there. “This old tank is no good for war,” says Anatoly, “so we have cut off the top of it, the turret and we are going to turn it into an evacuation vehicle that can pull heavy armoured tanks when they get stuck.”

The Prytula Foundation has contacts across the Ukrainian armed forces as a result of also being a supplier of smaller equipment, such as thermal imaging goggles, drones and medical packs, and so spare parts can be summoned up relatively easily. “There is a database in his head,” says Sinicyn pointing to Ostapchuk.

The noise of the metal presses, soldering and hammering, along with the heavy smell of tank exhaust fumes makes this a difficult place to work. It is cold, dirty. There is the constant threat of Russia identifying and destroying it. They have between 30 and 50 staff working here at any point, seven days a week among the cylinders, cannibalised engines and piles of tyres and tracks.

But if there is something Steptoe and Son about the operation, with the rag and bone appearance of the BBC sitcom of the 1960s and 70s, there is more than a element of the US television series, The A-Team, to their work, with ever more ingenious modifications being made, as they acquire knowhow.

There is a sense of mission. Sometimes they find papers and personal effects belonging to the former Russian owners inside the vehicles. They are thrown away, not given a second thought. How does Anatoly feel about working around the tanks and armoured vehicles sent out to kill Ukrainian soldiers? “I am just glad to be getting them for free.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

[Tom from Rubicon]

How much skin in this gave have you Chip? Our taxes put us in the game but that has political limits.

[heimlaga]

As many Americans seem unaware of the amount of voluntary help sent to ukraine I think it would be worth highlighting some actions as they happen:

Let's start with this:
Norwegian resque services have now delivered a convoy of 25 resque vehicles and two semi trailers full of equipment.
https://twitter.com/NorwegianAidUkr/...657812482?s=20

[heimlaga]

Vasakyrkan, a lutheran church in Kalmar in Sweden has become the largest single donator of generators for emergency power supply. Both for civilian and hospital and military use. They are scooping up every old surplus 220-230 volt single phase or 380-400 volt three phase petrol or diesel generator they can lay their hands on all over the Nordic countries and rebuild them properly and send them to Ukraine.
They also supply other materials needed to keep the power supply running.

So far they have collected 5.5 million Swedish kronor which has turned into 3200 kW generation capacity delivered directly in Ukraine.

Their present project is to scrape together 60000 kronor so they can buy and rebuild 4 large terrain going flatbed lorries and fit each with a huge diesel generator in the back.

https://www.powerupukraine.se/

[heimlaga]

There was a surplus bus on Åland and the owner was willing to donate it locals set about converting it for transporting wounded in Ukraine. Aquintances on the mainland collected equipment for it. Soon the bus will be heading to Ukraine. Grassroot activism at it's best:

News text in Swedish:
https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-10029381

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Currently, about 1500 Ukrainians come daily to the Przemyśl's refugee reception point. This is almost two orders of magnitude less than what happened in the first weeks, it still is not an insignificant number. Aside from scale, there is also another difference: first refugges came out of fear, current come out of poverty.

Sustained humanitarian aid is almost as important for Ukraine's survival as the military.

[Osborne Russell]

1,500 x 365 = 547,000 per annum

[Concordia...41]

Vasakyrkan, a lutheran church in Kalmar in Sweden has become the largest single donator of generators for emergency power supply. Both for civilian and hospital and military use. They are scooping up every old surplus 220-230 volt single phase or 380-400 volt three phase petrol or diesel generator they can lay their hands on all over the Nordic countries and rebuild them properly and send them to Ukraine.
They also supply other materials needed to keep the power supply running.

So far they have collected 5.5 million Swedish kronor which has turned into 3200 kW generation capacity delivered directly in Ukraine.

Their present project is to scrape together 60000 kronor so they can buy and rebuild 4 large terrain going flatbed lorries and fit each with a huge diesel generator in the back.

https://www.powerupukraine.se/

There might have been a way to translate it, but the website came up in Swedish. The icon for donations was clear though as was the Paypal link.

Thanks for posting that.

[heimlaga]

A very local small scale piece of grassroot activism which I want to highlight.
The no profit organisation Kalyna collects donations, mainly generators and hospital equipment in Österbotten and other parts of Finland as well and and ships them to Ukraine where they have local contacts who ensure that the stuff goes to where it is needed. They also help Ukrainan refugees get their lives started in Österbotten and create cultural contacts between Finland Swedes and Ukrainans. The association is based in Vörå just half an hours drive away from me.
https://www.kalyna.fi/aktuell/

[heimlaga]

Others work on a way greater scale.

Blågula Bilen (the blue-yellow car) is based in Sweden. They collect or buy secondhand lorries and trucks and pickups and jeeps which they repair and camouflage paint and stuff full of whatever civilian equipment the Ukrainan army needs and asks for. Then they deliver the vehicles and the cargo to the Ukrainan army directly into the hands of servicemen from the units that will use them. At the time of writing they have delivered 152 vehicles and the number is growing every week.
Logistics wins wars!
https://www.blagulabilen.se/

[heimlaga]

Swedish Resquers are a group of Swedish firefighters and paramedics who collect or buy old ambulances and fire engines and vans which can be fitted out as first aid vehicles. They load the vehicles full of equipment and deliver them directly to the firefighters and paramedics who will use them in Ukraine. Because of the Russian habit of first bombing a place once and then bombing again half an hour later to kill resque personell and destroy vehicles there is a never ending need for fire engines and ambulances. Pretty much every vehicle that is no longer in use and can be repaired is scraped together and brought to those in dire need.
https://swedishrescuers.se/