The Ukrainian volunteer movement has become a large-scale phenomenon that united the entire country and helped the nation withstand the Russian invasion. Zgraya was among the organisations that brought together Ukrainians from different parts of the country. Founded in Kyiv during the Revolution of Dignity, it began operating systematically after the full-scale invasion, which turned volunteering into a matter of survival. Since then, its volunteers have been actively helping soldiers, civilians, hospitals, and even animals who are being rescued from the frontlines and provided with new guardians.
Revolution of Dignity
a series of nationwide protests that culminated in deadly clashes between protesters and pro-government special forces in Kyiv in February 2014. Those events resulted in the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine.Two years after the full-scale invasion broke out, Zgraya is not simply operating but expanding its efforts. Since the release of our previous article featuring its efforts, this volunteer initiative has evolved into a full-fledged non-profit, significantly increasing the amount of aid provided. Moreover, Zgraya has expanded in new directions, opening its own medical centre in the Donetsk region, establishing a tailor shop at its headquarters, and launching medical evacuations.
Fulfilling military needs
The organisation has several priority areas, one of which is supporting the military. Zgraya has prioritised this focus since 2014. According to the organisation’s co-founder, Yevhenia Talinovska, the military needs account for roughly 80% of Zgraya’s total expenses. The organisation does not confine itself to a single focus and strives to meet a wide range of requests, from food to expensive equipment. In particular, it provides the military with ammunition, tactical medicine, personal protective equipment, toiletries, clothing, gear, and more. Zgraya volunteers also procure drones, thermal imagers, and vehicles they transport from abroad. According to the latest report published by the NGO in early May 2024, its volunteers have supplied the military with over 100 drones, 60 thermal imagers and night vision devices, and over 400 communication devices, such as radios, headphones, and satellite phones.
In spring 2024, Zgraya elaborated on opening a shop to paint the cars it donates to the military. During the war, cars are often considered expendable due to the risk of damage from shelling, yet they play a crucial role in safeguarding soldiers’ lives and health; in order to reduce their visibility to the enemy, all vehicles are painted in colours and patterns that blend with the surrounding environment.
In addition, Zgraya activities are closely linked to military medicine. After receiving the first ambulances, the organisation’s co-founder Oleksii Yudkevych, along with other volunteers, headed to the Donetsk region to conduct medical evacuations and provide stabilisation treatment for wounded soldiers. He managed to bring together a team of highly motivated people with backgrounds in general or military medicine, ready to enhance their skills and eventually provide assistance in evacuation ambulances or stabilisation points.
Stabilisation point
An improvised facility closest to the frontline which provides essential first aid to wounded soldiers to ensure they are in a stable enough condition for safe transport to advanced medical facilities.
During their six-month stay at the Bakhmut stabilisation point, the Zgraya mobile team served as combat medics and evacuation crew, driving off-road vehicles into the most challenging front-line areas without medical equipment. For a while, Oleksii has personally collaborated with a unit of the Special Operations Forces, a division of the Armed Forces of Ukraine tasked with particularly high-risk operations, such as raids behind enemy lines or creating intelligence networks. As of August 2023, his mobile group has assisted in stabilising and evacuating over a thousand soldiers and civilians.
One of Zgraya’s latest projects is a tailoring workshop, launched in the summer of 2022 at the initiative of the volunteer Oleksii Sobchuk, who introduced the early samples of first aid kits. Since then, the first-aid kits have gone through several rounds of revisions and testing until the first batch of finished products filled with tactical medicine was sent to Sloviansk (a frontline city of the Donetsk Oblast in the east of Ukraine – ed.) in late June 2022.
“Everything fits perfectly in it (the pharmacy bag – ed.); nothing hangs around. [Zgraya’s head of the medical department] Nastia and our doctors have designed the perfect set of necessary fittings for it,” shares Yevheniia Talinovska.
Zgraya’s first aid kits contain all the essentials soldiers require. The volunteers equip each unit with a certified medical tourniquet, bleeding control products like homeostatic and Israeli bandages, a decompression needle and occlusive dressing for chest wounds, a parapharyngeal airway with lubricant to restore airway patency, and more. Yevheniia points out that purchasing pharmacy kits is more expensive than sewing and equipping them in-house. The Zgraya kits are pretty spacious and do not concede to the factory-made equivalents. Based on the feedback from soldiers, the kits are designed for a quick one-hand release, which is crucial to swiftly providing first aid in critical situations.
In addition to first aid kits, the Zgraya tailor shop manufactures helmet covers and various pouches, including models designed for carrying medical tourniquets, ammunition, and grenades. All organisation’s products continuously receive positive feedback from soldiers, the Emergency Service, and critical infrastructure workers. Volunteers have already sewn and equipped at least 550 first aid kits and produced approximately 420 covers for helmets and other gear.
Humanitarian missions: how Zgraya helps civilians
Since the onset of the full-scale invasion, Zgraya has been actively providing civilians – primarily refugees and residents of frontline cities – with medicine, clothing, household appliances, and food. One of their first major initiatives was the evacuation mission in Chernihiv, which allowed them to safely relocate over a thousand civilians out of the city.
During the large-scale invasion, Chernihiv was among the first cities to be attacked and besieged by the Russian military. In March 2022, a humanitarian catastrophe struck the city; water, electricity, and communication were cut off, and enemy attacks razed a significant part of the city. Chernihiv residents were trapped in the city for a long time as the Russian troops blew up the bridge connecting it with the neighbouring settlements, including Kyiv. Civilians lined up for evacuation, and the number of civilians seeking safety exceeded Zgraya’s capacity by seven times—the lack of resources compelled the organisation to turn many people down. Yet, despite life-threatening circumstances, the volunteers continued coming to Chernihiv day after day to deliver humanitarian aid, evacuating as many women and children as they could.
Meanwhile, in Kyiv, whose outskirts became a scene for heavy fighting early in the invasion, Zgraya launched an initiative assisting people with limited mobility. The team cooperated with volunteers to establish ten district-based chat groups across Kyiv. Once a week, they delivered food packages, medicines, and hot meals to residents who couldn’t go out shopping or prepare their meals. Yevheniia Talinovska recalls how Zgraya let the initiative live its own life.
“We actually came up with it (the “Neighborly Delivery” initiative – ed.) not as a project, but as an idea long before the full-scale [war]. We wanted it to be a grassroots initiative, [fostering] good-neighbourly European values.”
When the situation in the country’s north somewhat stabilised and the neighbourly initiative started operating independently, Zgraya began to travel to the newly liberated and frontline areas in Ukraine’s south and east, delivering humanitarian aid. In total, the volunteers have visited more than 200 settlements.
Moreover, during those missions, the volunteers found that as Russian troops began actively advancing in the Donetsk region, plenty of doctors had fled the area. Hence, the number of patients requiring medical assistance far exceeded the number of available specialists. That prompted the volunteers to mostly put military medical care on hold, prioritising civilian needs.
Realising the great demand for medical care in the Donetsk region, in mid-summer of 2023, Zgraya opened several medical offices in the city hospital of Kostiantynivka, located 15 kilometres from the front line. Oleksii recalls that once the project was launched, the team encountered a challenge: few doctors were willing to move closer to the frontline and work there long-term.
“If you happen to live in Kostiantynivka and have health issues, and your family doctor hasn’t yet left, you can call him, and he would say, ‘Come back in two years.’”
Nevertheless, the Zgraya team has found a solution: remote healthcare. This involves using technologies that allow doctors to consult, examine, and even treat patients remotely.
Since Ukraine is just starting to advance in this area, the American startup ZiphyCare stepped in to assist Zgraya. The company has provided telemedicine stations – suitcases with various medical tools to examine skin lesions, conduct blood exams, or perform ultrasounds. This system enables doctors to see a patient from anywhere in the world. Oleksii notes that many medical professionals treating Donetsk residents are originally from Ukraine and currently reside in Israel.
“The doctor is in Tel Aviv, the patient is in Kostiantynivka, and there is a third person involved; we call them ‘doctor’s hands’. This person is a telemedicine system operator who may not have a medical degree but is trained to work with the platform, assisting the physician.”
At the medical centre, individuals can receive free examinations, consultations and medication. By the end of February 2024, over 700 soldiers and civilians had already received qualified medical care in Kostiantynivka’s medical offices. Additionally, the health centre owns an ambulance to transport patients with limited mobility and those in serious condition to the hospital. According to Yevheniia, many elderly people in the Donetsk region need medical assistance but cannot reach the health centre on their own. Hence, the ambulance takes patients to the city hospital for examination and then brings them back home.
The reality of Ukrainian volunteering and the future of Zgraya
As the war continues, volunteers play a crucial role in strengthening Ukraine’s defence capabilities, filling in the gaps the state apparatus cannot adequately fill. Over the two years of the large-scale invasion, the demands covered by charities and NGOs have only increased. The explanation is simple: the Ukrainian military is not only defending its positions but also carrying out counter-offensives and engaging the Russian army in its rear.
Fundraising through donations has become increasingly challenging due to the protracted nature of the war and the extensive needs of both soldiers and civilians. This is why Yevheniia is considering expanding its audience by engaging people who are generally not interested in donations. How can this be achieved? According to Zgraya’s co-founder, the solution lies in creating a competitive, high-quality product that would appeal to donors not deeply involved in the war context. The simplest example is introducing merchandise.
“Speaking in the context of growing charity and donation culture – this is one story and a long-term play. On the other hand, we currently have an opportunity to offer a quality product or service that people would purchase immediately. While they may not donate, they will buy from us and fund our activities.”
In addition to occasional giveaways, Zgraya accepts one-time and regular donations. Details and reports are available on the
organisation’s website.
Yevheniia believes that after the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war, her volunteer headquarters will have at least as much, if not more, work to do. Post-war recovery necessitates assistance in rebuilding destroyed cities and addressing the collective trauma experienced by Ukrainians. However, Zgraya will likely continue cooperating with the military, aiding veterans’ psychological and physical rehabilitation.
“Rebuilding our country will be difficult because any major war is followed by a crisis period. Each region faces specific challenges, even regarding technical, human, and natural resources. This is why we broadly described the range of things we could elaborate on afterwards when we created our public organisation and were drafting its statute.”
While the war remains in its active phase, volunteers must work with the military, whose lives often depend on the timely delivery of a drone or pickup truck, as well as with civilians in de-occupied and frontline areas. The Zgraya team relies on black humour to cope with stress. Yevheniia admits that if someone heard the volunteers’ jokes, they might think that they were “some kind of freaks”.
“We are stressed, dumbfounded people with a rather strange sense of humour, a strange attitude to life, and restrained emotions. Once all is over, it will probably result in a long course of psychotherapy. Otherwise, we might come out of it completely fine, saying, “We have survived all of that – so okay, let’s move on with our lives.”
Yevheniia believes that nobody can know for sure when and how the Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression will end. Therefore, it is best to continue actively engaging in your work. To ensure your effort remains effective and efficient, volunteers should surround themselves with people who share similar values and work on projects that resonate with them.
“Volunteering is pointless if you are not doing something that resonates with you. You burn out quickly, and a dead, burnt-out volunteer is bad. So, it is essential to engage in what you enjoy.”
