When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, 35-year-old Evgen Vorobiov was working as a legal advisor in the capital city of Kyiv. As Moscow forces continued with their blitzkrieg, leaving behind a trail of destruction in several cities, Vorobiov says he quit his job to protect his nation, home to over 4 crore people.
Vorobiov, a law school graduate, started a crowdfunding campaign in June 2022 to arrange medical supplies, communication equipment, mobile power stations, drones, tactical headsets, vehicles, sleeping bags, etc, to help his country’s military in the war. Five months later, as the war rages on, Vorobiov and his team are consistently generating funds to empower their troops. He says that he also gets requests from Army commanders for particular equipment.
When asked why he left the work, the 35-year-old said, “The legal work was important to me before the full-scale Russian invasion but it became less relevant in the face of the larger threat that my country is now facing.”
In September, Russia had proclaimed the annexation of four partially-occupied regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, and intensified its attacks in the past few weeks with airstrikes on Ukrainian cities, killing hundreds of people.
The 35-year-old sees Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a “blatant attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation”. The Russian army has engaged in multiple acts of genocide— killing civilians on purpose, raping women, and destroying schools and museums that nurture the Ukrainian culture, he alleged.
“As a non-combatant, I felt compelled to help the Ukrainian army defend our country in the ways that I know best: marshalling financial resources to buy the best medical supplies and non-lethal technology (such as communication equipment and drones) to help them do their jobs better,” he added.
Vorobiov and a group of his friends spent money out of their pockets before starting the crowdfunding campaign. They don’t use funds for fuel, vehicle repair, customs clearance, or administrative expenses, and use their money instead to cover these costs.
Getting help
Vorobiov, who answered CNN-News18’s questions via email, said he started his initiative when a group of his friends expressed willingness to help him deliver important medical supplies from the United States to Ukraine. “As the number of donations to our cause grew steadily, we also started to bring other types of supplies that the military needed, such as mobile power stations and commercial drones,” he said.
As time went on, said Vorobiov, he received more help in the initiative from people from other friendly countries: Poland, Lithuania, the United States, and Norway. “Some of them brought these supplies personally with me to the frontlines, and some of them sent these supplies to me, so I can deliver them to the Ukrainian troops with my team,” he added.
Vorobiov said that the key goal of their campaign is to buy and deliver the supplies that will save the lives of Ukrainian defenders. “The major focus of our work is medical supplies: life-saving pieces of equipment (such as tourniquets and airway management gear) that combat medics use on the frontlines to save the Ukrainian servicemen. That is why we call our initiative ‘Protect Ukrainian Defenders’,” he said. His initiative has raised more than USD 90,000.
Next plan
Vorobiov said his key goal is to make sure that the Ukrainian military units have the necessary medical supplies and technical devices to be as safe as possible on the frontline. “I do not have a final figure of the total donations that I want to achieve. I plan to keep on raising funds for the Ukrainian army as long as there is demand for these supplies from our Ukrainian soldiers — probably until Ukraine wins this war,” he added.
When asked how the Ukraine military reacted to his campaign, the 35-year-old said they appreciate this help a lot. “It is important for them not only to receive the equipment that they need in their work but also to feel the moral support of the Ukrainian civilian society and our international friends. Every time we come to bring supplies to them, we receive a warm welcome and lots of words of gratitude. They find this support indispensable in their staunch defence against the Russian invaders,” he said.
“We do not sell the equipment that we procure, we hand it over to the army for free. I am absolutely happy with the way that the army uses the equipment that we have donated,” he said.
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