KYIV, Ukraine – In the evening, the streets are mostly dark in the Ukrainian capital. Russia has systematically destroyed the country’s national power grid because its Western allies have interfered in providing a promised air defense system. Generator rings have become the new night music for restaurants, hotels, and homes that can withstand the gloom.
The damage caused by six months of congressional US arms shipments to Ukraine mounts in every conversation I have — lives lost and morale down, all while allowing Russia to invade. On Wednesday night, five air raid warnings for Kyiv flashed through my phone on the country’s Air Alert app. Dozens of signs buzzed for other cities with less protection.
Good news: Western supplies of new missile interceptors have arrived. On Wednesday, they shot down a barrage of Russian missiles and killer drones all over Kyiv, and almost everything they launched in other parts of the country.
But what has cheered me up at the beginning of the trip – and strengthened my faith in the future of Ukraine – is that the civilian volunteers who rose up after the Russian invasion are still active, helping other Ukrainians escape the fighting or seek medical treatment after a terrible injury.
They are not waiting for the help of the US government to act.
I’ve been covering world conflicts for decades, and I’ve never witnessed such intense civil activism in any country other than the United States. This grassroots movement defines the difference between democratic Ukraine and authoritarian, top-down, follow-your-order-or-be-killed Russia. They will be critical to future recovery if the West helps Ukraine drive out Russia.
A typical example: In Odesa, I visited a small metal factory where the workers became actors and stage designers in the city’s famous opera houses and theaters. Currently, they are welding military vehicles and drone prototypes.
Dimitro Bogachenko started a factory a few years ago with colleagues to produce metal stage sets and curtains.
“I was an actor for 15 years in a musical comedy, and then a stage director in an opera,” he said. “Now I can’t remember the set I designed, only the specifications for the work we did for the army.”
During the first week of the war, he and his friends started making flak jackets out of metal plates with money collected on the Telegram app. They then armored 40 trucks and told the Ukrainian troops.
The work drew the attention of National Guard Lt. Col. Sergei Sudets, who commands a mobile unit that patrols 157 miles of the southern coast to protect drones. They formed volunteers into innovative units that repaired and repurposed old devices to meet new needs.
“Russian drones fly higher now,” Sudets told me, pointing to the Shahed drone he bought from Iran, as welder sparks fly across the factory floor. They took an old Soviet machine gun from 1943, mounted it on a truck bed, and modernized it so it could attack up to three miles away, Sudets said.
As we speak, a tall former ballet dancer in a work-dyed jumpsuit passes by.
These innovative artists have created a new model of flying attack drones, a weapon that has become essential to compensate for Ukraine’s shortage of ammunition. “Hitting a drone at a distance of 40 kilometers will push the (Russian) artillery out of range,” Bogachenko said. “We have people who can produce, but we lack funds.”
They have submitted prototypes for consideration for testing and government funding, but in the meantime, the workers are still making their own money. Bogachenko said his wife would be horrified if she found out how much money he was getting into the project.
There is still a dire need in Ukraine’s defense system for a more organized way to expand and fund drone prototypes designed by Ukrainian civilians – a critical need if Russia is to back off.
Volunteers to provide army units by collecting funds from their own salaries, on the Telegram app, or from family, friends, businesses or foundations – to send everything from drones to used cars to night goggles – may not match the impact of missiles. , but it is important for morale and survival.
The same impressive volunteer organizations focus on helping civilians, such as Helping to Leave, a project launched by cognitive neuroscientist-turned-socialist Dina Urich to help Ukrainians escape from the occupied territories, which is almost 20% of the country.
“It’s heartbreaking because these people don’t have basic rights and are treated like slaves,” he said. The only route to escape requires a Russian passport from Russian occupation officials, then travel through Russia and survive the terrifying checkpoints. Many of the people who will get away with it are too old or too scared to try.
Urich, a young woman who overcame personal health problems to take up this campaign, had to raise all the costs to extract the escapees and find shelter when they arrived in Ukraine for free. They have 150 volunteers, often people who have been evacuated and want to give back.
“Of course, many volunteers stop because they have to work, or they lose faith,” he said. Indeed, I have heard that many contributors to volunteer efforts feel trapped after two years of contributions. But many are in it for the long haul.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Urich said. Ukrainians know they are engaged in an existential struggle to preserve their freedom and independence.
They are like the volunteers I met with TrustChain Ukraine, who are rebuilding the roofs of village houses destroyed by Russia, and risking their lives to save villagers displaced by Russian aggression in villages near Kharkiv. And many others use every spare moment to raise funds to help war amputees or feed families displaced by war.
They are lying to Russian propaganda – too often told by the ignorant MAGA media in the US – that Ukraine is an authoritarian state, or, to put it mildly, a Nazi state.
These volunteers represent what kind of European democracy Ukraine would be if the United States and its allies finally decided to give Kyiv the weapons it needs now – to push Russia back before it’s too late.
