Inside the covert network sending arms and drones to Ukraine forces

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/09/private-donors-military-supplies-ukraine/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/bq3vn

LVIV, Ukraine — They wait in a secret warehouse on the city’s outskirts, lounging in a corner hammock or an idle wheelchair as a red van weaves through small villages and over gravel roads. When it finally pulls into the gated lot, seven bodies spring into action. The drones are here.
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The volunteers unloading the military supplies are friends from the Ukrainian film and television industry — a longhair bunch of cinematographers, gaffers, set decorators and marketing strategists. They take dozens of boxes of self-heating meals, six thermal rifle scopes, a satellite communications kit and 10 drones worth $8,000 each. All are bound for the front.

The paths these vans weave daily from the Polish border to the Lviv warehouse to places such as Kyiv, Sumy and Kharkiv illustrate a daunting reality for Russian invaders: The defense of Ukraine has mobilized citizens from every sector of life, from battle-hardened soldiers who have been at war in Donbas for almost a decade, to the people who decide the food budgets for Florence and the Machine music video shoots.

This is Vladislav Salov’s show. Before Russia invaded six weeks ago, the 34-year old was a cinematographer who shot Apple, BMW and Mercedes commercials for a Kyiv-based film studio. On most shoots, he was the first assistant camera, responsible for image clarity.

*snip*

[mobeau69]

1. Thanks for posting.

[wnylib]

2. Last Sunday, during a local church service's announcements,

a member of the congregation updated people on the work his wife and son are doing as aid workers in Poland. Before they left, he strongly reminded his wife to stay on the Polish side of the border. She has past experience as a Peace Corp volunteer and also has some Ukrainian friends so she knows the culture and some of the language.

So his update revealed that she does go into Ukraine to deliver food and medicine and to pick up refugees to take back to Poland, mostly children and sick or elderly adults who need to get out.

She told him that it is the women who do the border crossings because Ukrainian men are in the army fighting. If men go on these missions, even if they are volunteers from other countries, the Ukrainians don't know that until they detain them to check on whether they are eligible for conscription, which delays the mission's delivery and pick up. So, this guy's wife goes with Ukrainian women whose male relatives are fighting. The Ukrainian women know the terrain for arranging the drop off and pick up meetings with Ukrainians inside the country who will then pass the food and medicine on to their destination.

The woman's son apparently stays on the Polish side providing meals and resettlement help to arriving refugees.

It just felt so much more real and moving to hear this report from someone so directly connected to what we read about and hear daily in the news.

Ukraine has inspired volunteers from around the world to assist them.

[mitch96]

3. well I guess it's not covert any more...nt