December 19th, 2022

Hello all,

My fourth trip here has come to an end and I am now safely in Poland. My last day in Ukraine was one I wish had occurred much earlier. My colleague Hymie Rutherford and I traveled about 40 minutes northwest of Kyiv to the village of Brodoyanka. Brodoyanka was on the route of Russian forces in their initial failed push toward Kyiv. Like all the places Russia touches, this town was seriously damaged. Bullet holes puncture every building, windows are blown out, the scars of fires can be seen on balconies and windows and entire buildings, schools, and shops lay in ruins.

But I was encouraged to see the rebuilding taking place. Cranes lifted construction supplies, and heavily bundled workers set cinder blocks, rebar and cement.

The purpose of our visit was to meet and hopefully partner with a woman named Yulia who is setting up a foundation to care for injured soldiers and provide equipment and supplies to the army. I am often asked why this is necessary given the billions of dollars of equipment sent to Ukraine by the US and our NATO partners.

The simple answer is threefold. Most of the aid is in the form of big ticket items. HIMARS, anti radar missiles, tanks, howitzers, training in Europe, and backfilling used NATO equipment etc. Individual field equipment for troops like cold weather gear, optics for rifles, night vision etc is sent from retired and outdated NATO stock for a variety of reasons, and it is not always enough to outfit the expanding Ukrainian military, nor is it always reliable. Then there is corruption. It is just a fact in former Soviet states and some gear goes missing. This is why my practice is to hand deliver aid, and your donations, or distribute it directly through those I have built a relationship with over the last 9 months.

Yulia introduced us to three Ukrainian soliders from the newly reorganized 47th Brigade. Andrei, Sasha and Vitaly have recently returned from the bloody Bakhmut battle and are recuperating before they are assigned to their new unit.

Andrei has lived and attended school in Scotland and speaks with a British Ukrainian accent. He is very intelligent, well read and was a professional until May when he joined the military. We had a fascinating conversation over lunch about the war, politics, military service and the differences and similarities between our two armed forces. In our conversation I learned that the most important needs of his unit and other squad level units are thermal sights and hand held radios. I have heard this before and am going to work with my friend Maurice in Kyiv to try an procure some of these. Maurice has a State Department and MOD permit to import otherwise restricted military gear into Ukraine.

We took a quick tour of the now famous murals in Borodyanka painted by Banksy, the elusive and mysterious artist. One was recently stolen by someone who cut the stucco off the building. The perpetrators have been caught and are in custody. Unfortunately we had to leave earlier than I wanted but we headed to Kyiv to meet my friend Pasha and his girlfriend Olya.

I met Pasha when his news magazine, Ukrainer.net, interviewed me in the summer while I worked on a rebuilding work party with Repair Together. He is one of the most genuinely good people I have met here and we attended a charity auction and concert at a venue in Kyiv.

While Kyiv is far from the front, it comes under missile and drone attack frequently. It is surreal that this night we drank a beer, listened to music and visited, and then just a few hours later the sirens sounded and Kyiv once again fell into total darkness and cold as Iranian drones fell on houses, hospitals and electricity generation stations. People huddled in shelters and worked and studied in the subways. But once the skies cleared, they went back to life as they always do.

Kyiv has endured three straight days of attacks. As I went over my departure plan I had to move it up and pile in a van with other volunteers and head west a day early. Damage to the train and the lack of electricity delayed or canceled several trains and I figured it would be better to leave early with friends than be stranded and miss my flight.

We drove through yet another snow storm with a missing headlight, no brake lights and “healthy” supply of hotdogs. After an eight hour drive and a four hour wait at the border I finally entered Poland. The five hundred meter difference between a country with fully functioning services, snow free roads, power and water and the struggling but defiant Ukraine couldn’t have been more stark.

I am now sitting in the lobby of my hotel in Warsaw. I am a day early and I see my friends in Kyiv have endured yet another drone attack a few hours ago. Over my four visits I have made friends with the hotel staff. Bartosz the general manager is a Broncos fan, Olcia is the bartender without equal and Matteuz is the Ukrainian waiter who always greets me with “hello buddy, welcome back.” The hotel always has several fellow bearded, military looking types hanging around and today is no exception. There was a young American at breakfast who I could tell had probably just left Ukraine. I wanted to talk to him, but I have seen that thousand yard stare many times before and I knew he was going to be dealing with some demons for a long time. I left him in peace as he sat staring at his orange juice as if it was talking to him.