How to Help Ukraine NOW
In a war effort, every little thing counts.
While always appreciated, thoughts and prayers are not nearly enough. Ukraine needs action — and you can do your part.
Ukrainians need physical equipment — body armor, helmets, boots, etc. The Ukrainian American Coordinating Council UACC) has the required permits to ship such regulated equipment.
Donate body-armor, helmets through UACC here.
Or buy body armor and ship through Meest (remember, it’s illegal to ship body armor, bullet proof vests, etc. without a permit).
I’m a Ukrainian-American with friends and family in Ukraine with whom I speak regularly. Please do whatever you can to help preserve freedom and democracy in a country that desperately wants to be free. Here’s a link to a site with ways to help written by people in Ukraine. Here’s another top notch website with tons of resources!
Ukrainians tell me that there are two highest priorities right now: more defensive weapons and humanitarian aid.
Priority 1: Lethal Defensive Weapons
Most of all Ukraine needs more defensive weapons: anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles like stingers and javelins. The best way of getting these into Ukraine is through your government — and your government needs to know that you care.
Contact your representative / country leader and ask for IMMEDIATE additional defensive weapons to be sent to Ukraine.
In the US, get in touch with your congressional representative and your two senators. Call the White House: 1–202–456–1111 and/or leave a message on their website. ASK for the IMMEDIATE release of more lethal defensive weapons for Ukraine.
Two ways to directly fund the Ukrainian army (Note: I have checked with US attorneys who found no US laws preventing citizens from funding the armed forces of a foreign country. I do not know about other countries’ laws.)
- KyivIndependent advises donations to Come Back Alive to help the military directly both with equipment and with ancillary support.
- The National Bank of Ukraine has set up an account to directly fund the Ukrainian Army.
Priority 2: Humanitarian Aid
These are all vetted by me personally:
- Razom for Ukraine: This is a grassroots Ukrainian American 501(c)3 charity started in 2014 after the Maidan Revolution of Dignity and is led by a personal friend of mine. My sister-in-law worked there, too. Donate here. [Note: Razom (with an M) has gotten a lot of publicity and there are scammers trying to take advantage of misspellings. My links go to the official site].
- Plast, Ukrainian Scouts. I’m a live-long Ukrainian Scoutmaster (yes, here in the US). This 501(c)3 org is a member of the Worldwide Scouting movement and they’re collecting money for humanitarian needs in Ukraine. Donate via PayPal for wounded warriors here. Donate via GoFundMe to help families of wounded scouts here.
- United Ukrainian American Relief Committee: they’ve been providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine since 1944, the last time Ukraine was invaded (by both Hitler and Stalin). Donations will be used to purchase medical supplies and equipment and sent to their volunteer network in Ukraine. Donate here.
- Revived Soldiers of Ukraine: this non-profit provides medical aid and sustainable living standards to soldiers of Ukraine and members of their families as well as to those people who suffered and were affected by military conflict. Donate here.
- Spirit of America: this non-profit works closely with US military and State Department personnel in Poland to meet the urgent needs of Ukraine’s Armed Forces on the front lines. They provide medical supplies, first aid kits, and medical equipment for Ukrainian soldiers and field medical personnel to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Ukrainian refugees who have escaped to safety in Poland. Donate here.
- Nova Ukraine: this charity provides humanitarian aid to vulnerable groups and individuals in Ukraine. It raises awareness about Ukraine in the United States and throughout the world and supports Ukraine in its effort to build a strong civil society, to reform its educational system, and to eliminate corruption. Donate Here
- Sunflower of Peace: This nonprofit organization is raising money to prepare first aid medical tactical backpacks for paramedics and doctors on the front lines. Each backpack is designed for groups of 5 to ten people and includes an array of first aid supplies. Donate here.
- The Ukrainian Institute of London has another great list of places to donate.
- The Ukrainian National Women’s League of America is collecting donations to help civilians inside Ukraine who have been displaced or injured. The UNWLA was established in 1925 to unite women of Ukrainian descent or affiliation to preserve their ethnic identity and cultural heritage within a framework of volunteer humanitarian endeavors. Donate here.
Everyday Activities
Every one of us can seize this opportunity to ask for help from neighbors, colleagues, supermarkets, our mayors, etc. Turn your emotions into ACTIONS. Here are some ideas of what each of us can do (I’m doing all of these):
- Spread the link to this post. Recursive self-referentiality is kinda cool, no?
- ASK friends to donate (see lists above).
- INFORM Russians of reality: Review restaurants and hotels in Russia but instead of an actual review, tell people in Russia what’s really going on. It’s illegal for Russian journalists to mention a war, so do it this way.
- Donate by ‘booking’ a Ukrainian AirBnB: donate directly by booking an AirBnB in Ukraine but don’t show up. NY Times article about this here.
- BUY a Ukrainian flag and fly it.
- JOIN a rally in your nearest town or city
- ASK your mayor to raise the Ukrainian flag in solidarity with Ukraine. Donate the flag.
- ASK your local liquor store to put all Russian products in storage until Russia rejoins the civilized world.
- Boycott Russian businesses like Lukoil.
- ASK your supermarket to remove all Russian products from the shelves.
- Carry your Ukrainian flag when you walk your dog.
- SHARE your other ideas about what else to do.
Learn About Ukraine
Ukrainians have never been Russians. Even when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire (subjugated by force), it had a fiercely independent culture and language.
- Here’s a blog I wrote about what it’s like to be Ukrainian-American.
- Timothy Snyder is a Yale historian who explains a brief history of Ukraine here. He’s great and worth reading every word he writes.
- Anne Appelbaum is a pulitzer prize winning historian and an authority on Eastern Europe who writes for the Atlantic. Here’s a recent article on Ukraine’s Calamity to get you started. She’s fantastic and worth reading every word she writes.
- Here’s a great 1-hour interview with Anne Appelbaum, Timothy Snyder and Yuval Noah Harari taking about the war in Ukraine and Ukraine’s place in history.
- This Vox article dispels the myths around recent Russian-Ukrainian history.
- Stalin’s forced starvation of 3–6 million Ukrainians in 1932–33, known as the ‘Holodomor’ was one of the examples Raphael Lemkin used to define his newly cointed term ‘genocide’. The 2019 movie Mr. Jones, starring James Norton and Peter Sarsgaard, tells its story on the big screen.
- Ukraine’s national symbol — the Tryzub (trident) dates back to before the 980’s long before Moscow was founded. It was illegal to display in Soviet times as part of the attempted erasure of Ukrainian heritage.
- If you like movies and want to learn more about Ukraine’s history, here’s a 2019 movie about Stalin staring James Norton and Peter Sarsgaard and here’s a Netflix documentary about Ukraine’s fight for freedom and the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
- Peter the Great’s theft of Ukrainian culture and the renaming of Muscovy.
- The world’s first tri-party Constitution with Separation of Powers was not in Philadelphia in 1776 but in Ukraine in 1710. Fear of autocracy was one of the reasons they limited the power of the chief executive.
