Angry Planet - The Support System That Keeps Ukraine Going

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

When you’re talking about disasters, natural and manmade, it’s always the first responders—soldiers, police, EMTs—who get all the credit. But what about the people who not only support the first responders, but who help people once the front line has moved on?On this show, we talk a lot about wars and weapons and such. We talk about geopolitics and strategy. We rarely talk about people who are working to make things just that little bit better.Today we’re changing that in the case of Ukraine. We’re going to talk about humanitarian efforts and what’s happening to people—not just soldiers—on the ground.Joining us are Britta Ellwanger of For Peace and Nelli Isaieva of Helping to Leave. Their efforts, and the efforts of those they work with make a huge difference in people’s lives in Ukraine, getting civilians and soldiers the aid they need when they need it, but also helping people get out of some pretty sticky situations using mostly the power of the mobile phone.Angry Planet has a Substack! Join to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Jason Fields. Matthew Galt has flown away. On this show, we talk a lot about wars and weapons and such. We talk about geopolitics and strategy, but we rarely talk about the human cost of those fights. Today, we're changing that in the case of Ukraine. We're going to talk about humanitarian efforts and what's happening to people, not just soldiers on the ground. Joining us are Britta Elvanger, and she works for an organization called For Peace. And we also have Nellie Asieva of helping to leave, which, by the way, it's just absolutely a fascinating group, and we'll find out about them very soon. So, hi. Hello.

Hello. So let's see, if your organizations are very different, or at least their aim seemed to be. Britta, would you mind starting and just sort of tell us what your group does and what it's all about? I think it reflects well your intro about the human cost of the war. War peace sort of started in Ukraine. I was already living in Ukraine as a master's student in Kiev in the anti-corruption program at Keev Mahila Academy. And immediately once the war started, you know, for anyone who's outside of Ukraine, you read these headlines. Russia's invaded.

But yeah, the point is that this was like a personally felt and personalized war. This is a family war. And so if you were in Ukraine amongst Ukrainians, like what that meant was my like my like, my, like, My graduate cohort had a student who watched the tanks drive through her town in Lujansk. My friends were immediately the ones who were called up to defend their hometowns. And so, like, this war was very personal. And it was very, very human in the sense that, like, it was all that we saw was ordinary people responding to this invasion. And so it sort of just naturally and organically grew from that.

I just really did start from like my graduate cohort. We just had lists of like this is what is needed here, whether it was Pocross Donets or whether it was down in Mariupil or whether it was, you know, in Kiev. And so it was very much just responding to what local people were saying and how locals are responding to this invasion. And that quickly then developed into, yeah, you're helping people who are internally displaced. You're helping people who are leaving the country. You're helping men who all of a sudden are soldiers. But it just we do, we have a lot of different directions, whether it's medical, front line with soldiers, frontline with civilians.

But it just like happens naturally because that's how Ukrainians, every Ukrainian is balancing all of that at once. So what kind of aid do you actually, like, literally provide? I mean, are you sending food? And if you're sending food, where are you sending the food to, that, you know, that kind of thing. Okay. So we have medical aid sort of ranges from the individual first aid kits that eat soldier needs to providing more extensive surgical equipment to frontline field hospitals, stabilization, centers. And then we also support like doctors in more established trauma clinics with necessary surgical equipment or even just like, you know, extra, what are they called, like

sanitary consumables. With frontline soldier help, it's anything from shoes to clothes to this iPad kits to body armor, helmets, drones. More recently, one of our big projects is supporting a Kiv-based engineer group that is making signal amplifier stations for those drones, because one of the top things that every Ukrainian is always fundraising for is drones. They, you know, they get taken from, Russians have the advantage with radio-electronic warfare. And so they sort of jam drones or they just get destroyed. So drones are the number one thing everyone's fundraising for. They're very expensive. But if you could just get the signal amplifier station out with a drone team, then it drastically reduces the attrition rate of the drone. And it also, more importantly, saves the life of the drone

operator because they don't have no longer have to operate in exposed open places. So that's sort of the range of, I mean, we've provided like cranes to mechanized units so they can pick up the tanks that Western countries are donating and then kind of try to save what parts they can. It just ranges, whatever is like the most current need we're getting. And then with civilians on the front line, our big project is clean water. We've been providing water filters along the entire front line up from, you know, Sumi down to Harrison since the beginning of the invasion. and we have also done some food,

but food is usually pretty well covered by bigger international aid groups. And then the main one, though, that we work with with civilians in recently liberated territories is they're not waiting for reconstruction. They're already doing it now, even in Herzon after the recent,

you know, the Kohokadam destruction, like the number one request that people are asking for is building materials. So it's an interesting contrast. right now in London, at Chatham House, there's this two-day conference for reconstruction. But all of our partners along the, you know, the gray zone or liberty areas, they're doing reconstruction now on their own, like they're taking that burden on themselves. And so there's a lot of, you know, even when it comes to like providing new water pipelines,

because obviously places got shelled, the water pipelines were destroyed. They were old anyway. Or, you know, providing the equipment for the school. so they can start the school up again. So there's a lot of, yeah, so it goes into like educational support. And I think that that covers, trying to think that there's other ones. That's a hell of a list. We provided like tractors to liberated areas so that they could start, you know,

well, this was over the winter, but, you know, there was the big scare of, and it was a very legitimate scare, but energy crisis, blackouts, very little centralized, Ukraine has a centralized heating system. So that was out for a lot of those villages. And so, but the other risk was these liberated areas, you can't go into the force anymore to collect your own wood

because they need to still demine these areas. And people that were going to collect their wood were dying. And so we came together with a couple of the homadas down by Harrison and they were like, if we could just control that by at least picking up with the tractor and some like wood chip machines. And we can just make smaller amounts of wood. but we're sort of safely managing this for our homadas, then we can save lives and also provide

like almost a recyclable type of heating. This was, you know, this was junk pieces of twigs that they were then making into firewood for the locals. So that was one of the projects that we did, not we did, that we supported Ukrainians in doing because they're like, they're just unbelievable. They don't stop. Well, speaking of unbelievable people, Nellie, I'd like to talk to you about. about sort of the same thing.

Your organization is actually seems very specific, at least the name is, helping to leave. Could you tell me what your group does and how long you've been doing it and just sort of, you know, background so people know who you are? Yes. So our organization was started on February 24th, 2022. It was start with the telegram chat where people were trying to contact each other, people who knew each other. They were from different cities. They were discussing how they can be evacuated or just escape the Russian invasion.

Those were people who were in Kiev or in other cities. They were next to Kiev, and it was like the main target at that moment. later we started to receive messages from people who were in the temporary occupied territories we were searching for the ways to help them to get out from there because you know there's a lot of information that you can find just scrolling different telegram groups just watching what people are posting because someone tried to get out from this way it didn't work they tried another way it worked so they're sharing the experience So yeah, this is how we started.

And in March last year, we've got a telegram bot. We started to receive official request for evacuation. And our organization was officially registered in April. Yeah, it was April last year. It was April 25th last year. I think one of the most difficult things that you're facing is when someone from the temporary occupied territory is calling you, when they are in desperate, they don't know where to go. They just sometimes people have money. They have a car to escape, but they are in the state of mind where they cannot just understand what to do.

They just need some kind of support. and sometimes we provide just the information for people to be evacuated, especially if we're speaking about the temporary occupied territories right now, because until December last year, it was the direct way from the temporary occupied territory to the territory that is under Ukrainian control. Right now, it is totally closed, and the only way is to go to Russia.

Of course, we do not recommend people to go to Russia or Crimea, because there is no war, but it's still not safe for Ukrainians. So in actually March last year, we started to receive messages from people who were telling us that they are in Russia. So at first we were surprised because, like, okay, like the war is in Ukraine. And here are Ukrainians who are writing us from Russia. And those people, they were forcibly deported to Russia. Russia. Most of them, they didn't have money. They were in a shock. They didn't know where to go and they were terrified. One of the things that Russians do, especially in the beginning, they were trying to do it many times. They tried to convince people that there is no way to get out from Russia. They say that we have cameras everywhere. We're going to follow you. But actually, it's not true because they don't even have. have these kind of resources.

But people are scared. People are coming from bomb shelters, from the totally destroyed cities, and they just scared to go somewhere else. And they need support. And sometimes money, sometimes information, sometimes we provide the psychological support. We find some organization that's do this.

So with the people in Russia, is the border, between Russia and Ukraine really, does it have a lot of holes in it so that people can actually come back through? Or I just, I guess in my mind, I would have thought that at this point, everything is pretty militarized and checkpoints would be blocked. So if you're speaking about the way from the temporary occupied territories to Russia, they just forcibly deported through the checkpoints. though they call Maripo and other cities

they say it's Russia but still there is a checkpoint or like many of them because they need to check if you are the person who who they would like to see in Russia or maybe you're going to do something that's like I don't know you will try to harm them military

some kind of this or sometimes they just don't people go to Russia If they understand that these people want to escape Russia after that, these people have Ukrainian position. And if somehow they will show it or just a soldier or the body control guy will feel this way, they can just block the way to Russia for this person. And they say you need to stay here until the end of the special military operation. Right.

And if we're talking about the way from Russia to Ukraine, currently we have one checkpoint where people can directly go from there to Ukraine. Okay. That's still interesting. Is there a lot of corruption and bribery for, you know, to get people around to help them move? Does that... You mean for us, like for an organization?

Well, actually, we just normally, if the person is healthy, if they have all the documents, or at least some of their documents, we just buy them tickets and they escape. If they have some special needs, it could be kids who were forcibly deported, or there were kids from the temporary occupied territories where their parents were told, like, yeah, it's nice that your kids will go for a summer camp to Crimea. it's warm there, it's nice there. Of course, many parents, like they see that other parents, they sent their kids, and then kids later, kids came back. And they feel like, okay, it could be a chance for my child to have one or two weeks outside of the war. And they agreed, but then the territory was deoccupied by Ukrainian army. And Russian says, we cannot give your kids back. There is a no way. Right. And there are lots of stories about how the children's identity is being taken away from them and they're being raised in Russia by Russians. Yeah. And that's something that you've been

seeing. Yeah. Yes. Okay. You see it, we cannot speak about all the cases because it can, it can like harm those people who are in Russia right now. So yeah, there are a lot of cases where teenage kids, they, like, they are old enough to understand what's going on. They are old enough to understand what they want. Do they want to stay in Russia or they want to go back to Ukraine? But in some cases, they are not allowed. So they are people communicating. And actually, Brita, I was sort of wondering also for you. People are using Telegram as the main way to communicate with each other or it's one of the ways

yeah and it's actually when they contact us by our telegram bot it's safe for them because it like it doesn't save your cash it's like no one can check what were you doing what were you texting on the bot and it's like you're kind of safe

if they won't find any information and so Frederick what does your group do we're a bit more chaotic with just whatever the group that we're working with what they use but like the fun anecdote is I met Nellie through their telegram bot and part of what Nellie maybe didn't explain or didn't add to all she also does is because they already had all these amazing contacts and a long established network in the Hearson region because of all the evacuations they've been doing this whole year, her group became not only like a central place for evacuation work this past, you know, weeks since the Kahof Kadam was exploded, but it also became

like a crucial starting platform for anybody who wanted to do direct humanitarian aid in the region. Our partners that also do medical evacuations out of Harrison area and occupied areas, they were the ones who put me in touch with Nellie's group. And so I joined their telegram chat. and it was just unbelievable how they were coordinating things. Like, I don't know how they do it on telegram, but they're like automatically updating. They created these Excel sheets of like very detailed. Like this is the person to contact in this village. They're saying that they need this, this, this, this, you know, they need water.

They need this medication. They need this building material. And then they're also tracking like this organization has already said that they're going to bring this. So this is still the part that needs to be fulfilled. Like that's the kind of detail that Nellie's network is doing. And that's not even with evacuations. That's just for like immediate post-catastrophe, you know, relief aid in the region. And I just think thousands of people in Ukraine when they wanted to know how to help in Harrison,

they were using Nellie's telegram bots. And not just the bots, but there's like more interactive groups that they set up this past week for evacuation help, for humanitarian aid help. So yeah, yeah, I do. Telegram is a pretty important baseline. And then from there, you, you quickly move and you just try to make the person to person contact with someone. Yeah, I never quite understand. Maybe, you know, someday someone will tell me why cell, you know, cell phone networks are still up and running.

I mean, I know some of it has to do with Starlink, but, you know, I would have thought, okay, first thing we do is take out, you know, all the cell phones. But everybody's, it seems like you can get and you can call anybody anywhere still. Is that been your experience? No, actually it depends on the area and it depends on probably what the Russian military expect. Because if we were talking about the Harciffe region before it was the occupied, people like the cell phones, everything was blocked. Sometimes they were taking your cell phones. Sometimes they just like they didn't have, they like did they destroyed all the towers. So there was almost, yeah, almost no way to get the network.

But there was a hill. At some point, people were going up to that hill to reach any kind of contact, any kind of network, and try to call their relatives. And even in these situations, Russians were trying to shoot those people who were trying to do this. Oh, wow. But even in these circumstances, we were helping people to be evacuated, We're telling them, like, if we can't reach one person in one city, in one area, we ask them, because we already had the addresses where relatives were telling us that we have relatives in this area. We want them to be evacuated.

Some of those people were, like, some of them were children. Some of them were disabled, and they needed special treatment. So we were asking, we caught one person. we ask them to speak to everyone and to find all the people who may want to be evacuated. And then we ask them to come to a certain place at certain times. And like they were coming. And that's how they were saving themselves. Actually, there's a question I should have asked earlier.

Where do you evacuate people to? What's considered, you know, safe? Where do refugees go? It depends on what they want. but a lot of people, they want to go to the territory that is under Ukrainian control. We always ask them if they have a place to stay. If they don't, we can find some shelters. In some cases, when people are wounded or they have no one in the territory that is under

Ukrainian control, we can offer them other options like going to Europe, because there are a lot of countries who are accepting refugees and providing different kinds of help. Okay, so, Britta, new question for you. What happened after the dam was exploded? I mean, I guess no one, the New York Times just did a big thing looking at how the dam exploded and why it must have happened from internally and why the Russians must have done it.

But, okay, so I guess everybody's also assuming the Russians did it anyway. How has the situation changed? I mean, how many people, do you have any idea how many people were affected? I mean, in the thousands, Nellie probably would know better numbers, but I think about almost under 2000 were evacuated, Nellie, is that right? If you speak about the territory there's under Ukrainian control, that probably, and also almost the same number, I guess, for the territory. under Russian control right now.

I think the stark like numbers that are coming out now is the attempt to tally deaths. So as I understand, as I last saw, it's been recorded that 17 died in Ukraine-controlled territory of Harrison versus 500 plus uncounted, that we really will never know how many died under Russian occupation. but I think that that's a pretty I honestly was pretty surprised to find out that so few had been killed on the territory where Ukraine was able to quickly respond and again like so much of that was the result of volunteer networks like Nellys who were coordinating a lot of people

and directing people where to go and pick up people and find people. No, that's really remarkable. I would have thought, you know, I'm from thousands of miles away. It sounded like the death toll would have been just horrendous. Not that 17 people is okay. But, you know, it sounded like it would be tens of thousands of people. But so do you guys, either of you, like, do you have people working who are literally like on the front lines? and if people are in immediate danger, how do you deal with that?

How do you deal with what people, you know, where you know that you're putting them in danger in a way in order to help other people? How do you deal with that? For me in particular, I don't ever ask anyone to go. So it is definitely if somebody is going, then they tell me what they. they need and we help them do it. But we're certainly not the ones putting people out there. Or wherever I go, then I go. But that's sort of our line with that is definitely we're not directing where people go.

Okay. But Nellie. Yeah. I would also like to add that a lot of people who are helping, especially on the temporary occupied territories, especially right now, those are people who live there. They're just helping their neighbors. We can see the same situation that happens in her son. Because I think you saw those stories when elderly women, they were saying,

like, they could be drowned in like 30 minutes because they were sleeping or they just, like, they just couldn't help themselves because they can properly walk. And they were telling that their neighbors just ran into their houses, kill them that you need to be evacuated and just immediately take them away. The same situation is happening in the temporary occupied territories, but it's a little bit, no, it's much worse because even those people who have boats, those boats can be taken. Like a Russian military, they see that people are going to rescue someone

or just they see the person on the boat. They just, they can take the boat. they see people who are on the rooftops sometimes they don't know what sometimes they don't know what to do because they were not ready for these things of course as well and in many cases they just don't care they don't allow people to leave those territories

like for a couple of days for the first days no one could like just few people could escape the volunteers were gathering the information when there were someone on the territory who were saying that I have a boat, I can help, we were trying to get the contacts or like the addresses and put them on the map of those people who, you know, even if the person is on the rooftop, it doesn't mean that you will see them or hear them. So when there were like children, elderly people or like anyone who needs an immediate help, we were trying to tell people like if you can you can go this way you can go to this address because

of course people local people they know these addresses they don't need a sign to to find the street and in other ways when we were occupied when we were evacuating from the archive region or any other territory volunteers they just want to go there and want to help we of course we also we don't encourage anyone like we don't force anyone to go we don't try to find people i'm sorry i didn't mean like anybody is forcing you know yeah yeah of course of course i mean like they know what they do maybe sometimes they don't understand what exactly they're going to face because when it's like your first trip you never know you just you think that you know what is this but you don't and uh there were cases um with our volunteers especially in the petchenne him in harquev region and

when especially if there is a disabled person who cannot walk, the volunteers, they had to walk more. They had to go towards the Ukraine, towards the Russian army, to pick up that person. And in these cases, some of the volunteers were kidnapped. And after that, they were tortured. And some of them were able to escape. We were trying to find them, even the territory was occupied.

So like even the Russians at that moment, they say, okay, like we give you green light. This is the day when you can be evacuated. They let people go and they start to shoot them. Yeah. So like this is how they work. I just also wanted to emphasize what Nellie said. I think a really crucial element of humanitarian relief in Ukraine is less often like going somewhere, but knowing people who are already there.

That's pretty critical. think that that's, like, that is the reason why the Ukrainian, like, response is so fast and so effective. Like she was saying, like, you're not telling, you're not working through intermediaries. You don't necessarily have to, like, explain where to go. You're working with people who have, who have local knowledge and can command this, this environment. And really, all that you need to do is know those people and then just help them in the way that they need to be helped to do what they can uniquely do because it's their home. And, you know, that's like their home in terms of like, it's their street.

It's their village. But they really do command unique knowledge. And it's not, it's less about having to swoop in and save someone. It's just they're doing it. And they just need help and maybe a little bit of sort of like that last mile coordination. But I think that's where my dumb question comes from. Because what I'm used to thinking about when you talk about refugees are pictures. of camps being set up by the UN and other organizations, you know, and people literally

streaming over borders by the tens of thousands. And it really sounds like Ukraine is just a different situation. I really, I mean, I haven't ever had this experience before. Ukraine was my first experience. And like, the only reason that I'm doing this is precisely because, like, it was just the environment I was in and everybody's doing this. Like, it's not, everybody is a volunteer. Everybody's responding. You know, like even my law professor when the dam exploded,

like he just wrote to us all like, hey, my grandparents' old little village home is open. Let me know if you need somebody to come stay there who's evacuating out. So that's like this, it's super, super tight social networks of every, you know, and then the power of what that looks like when it's the entire country doing it.

And then you extend that into, you know, know what Nellie said, like, they're taking people out of Ukraine and then bringing them, helping them relocate across Europe. But that's also being largely coordinated by Ukrainians who are living abroad. And so there's just, you know, it's not just an in-country response, but it extends across Europe into the states. It is really unbelievable what the Ukrainian, I would consider like the Ukraine's social network is doing just amongst themselves. Yeah, I wonder if, you know, how that would work in other countries. But Ukraine seems like an interesting case no matter what.

If we could talk for a second about what people are facing in terms of the Russian military. I mean, you know, there are reports everywhere of atrocities being carried out by the Russians. Is that what if either of you. you know, don't feel qualified to talk about it. But I'm just wondering if that's what people who you are talking to are also seeing. Yes. And I think what's the degree to which everybody in Ukraine is affected and carrying that kind of trauma, like, everybody has it. And it comes out in casual conversations almost because nobody, on one hand, we're trying to learn how to cope with it.

And then no one knows how to cope with it. But like I was talking to Nellie yesterday, there's another volunteer. that we worked with. And he was a soldier. He was wounded last year in the counteroffensive. His leg was totally shattered from shrapnel. And so ever since then, though, he's still like, he, he's taking it upon himself to make sure that soldiers are okay in hospitals and then does whatever other, you know,

he's just always active. And in preparing eye fat kits yesterday, he just, it wasn't casually said, but he just expressed, I'm taking a combat medic nurse to a therapy center in LeVos. she was under Russian captivity for three days. You know, she was three days with 12 Russian soldiers. She's suicidal right now. We know that she was sexually abused and she's on suicide watch. And, like, you know, that was, I wouldn't have known that.

I wouldn't have known that he was dealing with that as well or that that was, you know, a degree of sexual torture. that everyone is sort of, it's on everyone's mind and it's present, and it just sort of comes out in a conversation in which you're doing something totally different. Or another partner that we work with in liberated areas of Harkiv, her, as Nellie described earlier, you know, soldiers were checking if you looked like you were pro-Ukrainian, and who knows what metric they decided that meant. But one of them on the border between Havikiv and Russia, so this was a town that was very quickly under occupation and they just described, you know, they never let the children out

because they were so worried about having them deported or kidnapped. The soldiers would check every house to see if there were weapons or if there was any evidence that they were pro-Ukrainian. One of the teachers, the school teacher, her father was, they deemed him pro-Ukrainian. Of course, all of them are pro-Ukrainian. And that's also part of it is like, well, not all of them, but the degree which, you know, solidarity has to come at the town level because if one town person snitches and says that woman has a son who's a soldier, that person is automatically going to be tortured, sent away. And so this was actually a very beautiful case where this woman, this school teacher, her son was a soldier and not a single person in the town ever told the Russian occupiers

that. But her dad was then identified as someone that was pro-Ukrainian. And he was sent, they knew that there was about 30 kilometers from their town where the torture chamber was. And he was sent there for a month. He has never told anybody what happened to him during that month. And he's one of the few that returned. So there are still many men from that town. They still don't know what happened to them. And these are women that, like, I have sat with because we've decided that we want to fundraise

a Starlink for them so they can start teaching school again. Like, they're still living life and they're still pushing to start up online kindergarten. And then you just learn slowly what all they're still dealing with. But I would say that it is kind of all present. And it takes time for people to say it. And it also slips out sometimes in ways where you just have to be listening. And I'm sure Nellie has a lot more to share on that. Yeah, just when you were talking about the experience that you've heard about in your experience,

I just recall the recent situations that were happening in the temporary occupied territories. While people were sitting on the rooftops, they were waiting for the help to come. They saw Ukrainian military, Ukrainian soldiers who were coming on boats. They were trying to save. Of course, it was like a huge risk, but they were trying to save people. and sometimes people on the rooftops because they see like they're standing higher and they can see more than the soldiers who were on the boats. People were yelling to them like you need to go away, you need to hide because the Russian military is standing right there. Like we're going to be fine. We will wait here, but you need to be safe.

So people even in these circumstances, they are thinking about other people. And when we were calling the first days, when people, when people, they didn't even know will the water go up or like will everything be drawn like what floor should they hide on even if they didn't have chance to go to to the city center for example in the Leschke because the city center is like higher it's like a bit up on a hill and it's more safe to stay there so sometimes when we were calling to people like for me my personal experience I was talking to them I was like, I thought that maybe I dialed the wrong number because the person is so calm.

But they are just like, yeah, we're here. No, our house is totally destroyed. It's absolutely underwater, even the rooftop. But we are like three houses away from it. Our neighbors have like three, fours a house and something like this. So like people are doing incredible job cooperating. and protecting each other. Yeah, I think how do you guys get resources to help?

And how can people contribute from outside of Ukraine? Either one of you wants to start, please. I think the number one is Ukrainians, at times there's specific aid that's needed. But in my experience, what Ukrainians need is money. They need donations because they really know what to do with money and they stretch it so far. Like I just, I can't even imagine, I know what I do working with Ukrainians and seeing the budgets that they create, I mean, even, for example, Harrison, when I got the list through Nelly's network, who was working with evacuation teams of like, this is, you know, we need 10 more of these boats. We need 20 more

of these motors for the boats. We need waiters. No, no, no. We could, you know, I quickly kind of tallied up a budget. And on that budget, it was, it was already much better priced than what we would have done if it had been some bigger international org. But then on top of it, like, we got to, they just, we got some of the boats donated. We got some of the waiters donated. So I do think the number one is donate, donate to Nellie's org, donate to Four Piece, because like Ukrainians, they don't waste that money. And, you know, when we get like a list where there's a budget, we still find ways to reduce

the price. So that would be my thought, is find direct local volunteer groups in Ukraine. train and donate. And what's the best way to find those groups if you're from outside? It sounds like it might be a problem, you know. I think helping to leave is a good one for peace works directly with Ukrainians on the ground. Okay. And Nellie, you wanted to say something too.

Yeah, like the way how we are getting money is donations and also grants. We have, for example, grants for patients with oncological, with cancer, with different kind of cancers. And we try to find some clinics that will start to treat them immediately or like very fast or the countries that will provide them the best treatments and as soon as possible after arriving. And also like those money are going for the evacuation of these people sometimes because even we, we do the evacuation to Europe, but sometimes people need to, like, medical assistance, they need to be evacuated in an ambulance, and it's like it's way more expensive. So, yeah, so sometimes we use the grants, sometimes we use donations. But two things that I think every organization that works in Ukraine needs its people and money.

because money is great, but if no one can do this job, you cannot do anything. Well, I want to thank you both for coming on Angry Planet and taking us through all this. Thank you for hosting. Thank you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Angry Planet. The show is produced with love by Matthew Galt and Jason Fields with the assistants of Kevin Medell. This is the place where we ask you for money. If you subscribe to us on substack.angriplanet.com, it means the world to us. The show, which we've been doing for more than seven years now, means the world to us,

and we hope it means a lot to you. We're incredibly grateful to our subscribers. Please feel free to ask us questions, suggest show ideas, or just say hi. $9 a month may sound like a big ass, but it helps. us to do the show on top of everything else that we do. We'd love to make Angry Planet a full-time gig and bring you a lot more content. If we get enough subscriptions, that's exactly what we'll do. But even if you don't subscribe, we're grateful that you listen. Many of you have been listening since the beginning, and seriously, that makes it worth doing the show. Thank you for listening

and look for another episode next week. Stay safe.