Dispatch 002: "Send Bullets, Not Prayers"
The Top Takeaways
The most actionable way to help Ukrainians is to send money to the Ukrainian Army directly. (Click this link)
Refugee crisis growing at Ukraine’s borders fleeing the conflict. (Click this link to donate to UNICEF’s work clothing, feeding and housing Ukrainian families in need)
If you’d prefer to donate directly to a Ukrainian family in need, 100% of the subscription fees from this newsletter go to supporting my current and former students, colleagues and their families from my Peace Corps.
Kyiv and Kharkiv withstanding onslaught of Russian Invasion.
The most actionable way to help Ukrainians is to send money to the Ukrainian Army directly.
The common question by Americans is “How can I help?” To which my Ukrainian colleague responded with this:
Don’t send prayers, send bullets.
There are three things that matter in war: money, munitions and morale.
Ukrainians are high on morale, but they need money to buy more munitions, medical supplies and weapons.
Many feel abandoned by NATO, the EU and West after they had stuck their necks to try to join these institutions.
And, while thoughts and prayers are well-intentioned, they are quaint and will not stop Russian bullets, missiles and bombs from killing Ukrainians.
Ukraine has been forced to literally fight a super power through a GoFundMe page.
Here is the direct donation link to donate to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Border Crisis
Part of Putin’s plan is to drive wedges into NATO and the EU by creating a Ukrainian refugee crisis on its doorsteps.
EU members, already exhausted and strained from the flow of Syrian refugees in the past decade aren’t likely to have a large appetite to digest even more refugees indefinitely.
However, the initial responses from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania have been incredibly positive.
According to just the Polish government over 100,000 Ukrainians have already crossed the border claiming refugee status.
One of my former students is making a try for the Ukrainian-Polish border in the coming days with her entire family. Here’s what she had to say:
It’s scary…we don’t know what else to do…my brother is 17 and he’ll be 18 in a few months. Once that happens, the [Ukrainian Army] won’t let him leave the country and he’ll have to fight…we’re waiting in line for hours and hours with thousands of other families from all over Ukraine trying to find any space on trains to take us to the border with Poland…every time the air raid siren sounds we have to clear out of the train station and take shelter…
Western Ukraine
Even in my old town of Zolochiv, in Western Ukraine, they’re seeing a massive influx of thousands of Ukrainian families trying to make their way to the border.
Though unscathed by Russia’s missile strikes, life has been put on a war footing for even small town Ukraine.
Below are a few conversations I’ve had in the past few days with old colleagues and friends.
My former colleague, Natalia, a teacher in her late 50s, told me this:
Bren it is awful. These people have nothing…a young mother with three boys…her husband was killed in the fighting, she had no money, no food for her children, no shelter…I cook and provide and collect some money for her as best I can, but there are hundreds just like her. But we all stick together and do what we can…you never know you can die tomorrow.
When we got around to talking about school, here is what Natalia told me:
We’re on a two week holiday because of the conflict, but I don’t know when we will ever return to school…most of our children, especially the little ones, have either left for the border or left the city to live with their grandparents in the villages while mom and dad stay to fight…it is awful. Our old school is now a makeshift bomb shelter, we are prepping beds to handle incoming wounded from Kyiv…I’ve signed up to help in the hospitals.
My friend, Yuri, who helps manage a gas station in town has been working all day and all night as the lines for gas stretch on for miles as families try to fill up before hitting the border:
There’s just so many cars, so many people…I’m hearing there’s tens of thousands of families stuck at the border trying to get processed to get into Poland…some families wait up to four hours just to stand in line to buy a coffee…it’s crazy…we organize patrols now throughout the city looking for Russian saboteurs…they put these GPS stickers pre-marking targets for cruise missiles on our bridges, roads and military base already even all the way out here…we are united we’re ready.
The Collective
One of the things you will hear repeated by Ukrainians is the idea of being a part of a collective, or group-mindset.
Culturally, Ukrainians have survived by their unique ability to band together in the face of overwhelming adversity be it WWI, WWII, Hitler, Stalin or now this.
I never went hungry in Ukraine. I always found older Ukrainians offering me food on trains, or cookies on subways. This wasn’t because I was a strange American - it was the unwritten duty of every Ukrainian adult to look out for others, especially the ones.
The joke in Peace Corps was:
If you get in trouble, don’t call the cops, find a babushka.
Maybe Americans, a people drunk on the idea of the rugged individual, would do well to take a page from the Ukrainian way of life once in a while.
The Round Up
The NYTimes’s Live Updates on Ukraine are more accurate than most.
The Wall Street Journal’s Live Update is a little slower, but typically more accurate.
Ukraine island defenders who told Russian navy ‘go fuck yourself’ may still be alive
Poland military canceling leave of military members; NATO members stocking up on advanced weaponry.