VOLUNTEERING
The Ukrainian House's active assistance to the Armed Forces and civilians began from the first days of the Kremlin's full-scale war against Ukraine.
And it started quite unexpectedly. The head of the Ukrainian House received a phone call from his old friends, who informed him that they wanted to organise the delivery of significant aid. Both to the soldiers at the front and to civilians suffering from the invasion of Moscow barbarians. But they wanted the Ukrainian House to lead this movement. It was the initiator, the well-known lawyer Eugenia Sutkienė, her family and friends who came up with the idea. A couple of days later, we received a call from Linas Skardžiukas, the CEO of the KAUTRA transport company. He informed us that 12 large buses, fully loaded with medicines and humanitarian aid for people in Ukraine, were ready to be delivered to the Ukrainian House. Linas added that they have decided to provide the convoy with fuel as well. The only thing left to do was to find drivers. A group of enthusiasts and friends of Ukraine, almost all of whom were members of the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union, came to the rescue. The group was led by Arunas Surdokas, who has been an active volunteer and friend of the military since 2017. For this activity, he was recently awarded the insignia of the President of Ukraine. But all our volunteers never thought about any awards, they just helped because they knew it was needed. Not only in Ukraine, but also in Lithuania and the rest of Europe.
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Soon, there were many people willing to help Ukraine. These were both ethnic Lithuanians and Ukrainians who had been living in Lithuania for quite some time and were citizens of this Baltic country, and these activists were joined by a large number of newcomers, the so-called internally displaced persons. It is not even possible to list all those who helped, collected things, organised fundraising events, arranged exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, raising money for the army. There were many people who came to load trucks, prepare documents for customs, repair vehicles, prepare containers, or simply got behind the wheel and took all this to Lviv or Kyiv, or even to frontline cities and regions such as Kherson, Dnipro, Kharkiv. We had to coordinate all these activities. And our team members, Oleksii Matvieiev and Petro Pyrohov, did a very good job of that.
Ukraine House's effective assistance is still ongoing to meet the needs of the army, especially volunteer units, and to help civilians who have lost their homes and money. We are focused on the needs of the army through close contacts with the leaders of the Tavria group, the Azov regiment, and the brigades of the Armed Forces in the Kharkiv sector, near Chasovyi Yar, and Kherson. We are trying to help civilians and have started to cooperate with a number of cities in the rear, because we know for sure that the whole of Ukraine is the frontline.