Introduction
Solidarity is the most precious thing we have for preserving democratic values. We help others and ourselves when we act together. The Pickup4Ukraine community is growing, and we want to recognize the people who participate. Therefore, this time we would like to offer two reports: one narrative, as always, about the preparation and the trip itself, and one about the people who are making their contributions to help Ukraine.
Vehicles and Freight
We were able to purchase four vehicles for this transport: two pickups, an SUV and a large VW van. We specifically selected these based on the recipients’ requirements.
A Ukrainian colleague from SAP approached us last spring to ask if we could find a pickup for her former classmate’s unit. The requirements were particularly high, and it took us a long time to find something suitable that fit the budget. The Toyota Hilux has a reputation as an especially durable and reliable pickup. They are relatively rare in Germany, and we were lucky that our friend Andreas P. was able to inspect and secure one near Aachen. The seller, who usually deals in heavy equipment, had bought the pickup from a construction company as part of a package with “more interesting” vehicles and sold it to us at a significant discount when he found out what we were doing. The pickup will be used with the unit on the southern front near Zaporizhzha .
The VW bus is being converted into the seventh “Casevac”, i.e. casualty evacuation vehicle, in cooperation with our partner organisation “Lawyers’ Move.” It is long and tall and allows paramedics to work standing up if necessary. It also has four-wheel drive, which is essential for use far off paved roads. Lawyers’ Move is having the bus equipped with a stretcher, night vision device, auxiliary heating, additional interior lighting, siren and emergency lighting, among other things, to transform it into an ambulance.
The large volume was helpful for another reason. Pickup4Ukraine received the phenomenally generous donation of a surgical microscope from a clinic in Heilbronn. Don’t confuse this with the microscope from biology class: It weighs nearly 500 lbs. and is over six feet high, so that it just barely fit into the VW van standing up. It will be used for eye surgery in the regional hospital in Mykolaiv. Boxes of surgical instruments and a treatment bed from a dialysis practice in Karlsruhe were also added.
Once again, we received extensive donated material from clinics and hospitals in the region. We received a wheelchair and medical consumables from the Lake Constance area, and we packed several thousand disposable gloves from the Freiburg University Hospital, also in high demand, especially at the stabilization points.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support—everything we bring is checked with Lawyers’ Move, so that we take only useful items and nothing superfluous. These things really help.
Thursday
For this twelfth delivery, we only had a few days because of scheduling constraints and had to do a lot in a short time. We had to get to Kyiv and back again in five days. As usual, we set off at 5 a.m. on the way to the Polish-Ukrainian border. That is a distance of almost 1300 km (800 miles,) about the same distance from where we live as to southern Italy. Thankfully spared mechanical problems this time, we made good progress, but because it was a Thursday, we got stuck in traffic jams several times during the day — near Dresden, Katowice and Kraków — which tried drivers’ patience. In addition, we encountered rain and high winds, especially in the morning, which was particularly noticeable in the long, tall VW bus.
On the long first day of travel, we have two people per car for safety reasons so that we can switch drivers, which can be necessary on long, monotonous stretches of highway. We also don’t allow ourselves the luxury of long breaks so that we don’t get to our hotel too late. The next day is long, too.
Those of us who cover the first two thirds of the route before heading straight back home share the hardships and effort with the drivers who drive to Kyiv, without the satisfaction of delivering the aid themselves. Pickup4Ukraine thanks you, Dave, Frank, Georg and Peter, for your commitment without the “glamor of flags” and without the direct gratitude of the recipients expressed in smiles and hugs.
Friday
Because of the tight schedule, our destination on the second day was Kyiv, without the buffer of an overnight stay in Lviv, as we usually did in the past. You never know how long passport and customs clearance will take on the Polish and Ukrainian sides. Because we now have a certain routine and are well prepared for the Ukrainian side with the help of Lawyers’ Move, we decided not to add a safety margin this time, either. We set off from the hotel shortly after 7 a.m. but, despite a reasonable processing time of two and a half hours at the border, we didn’t arrive in Kyiv until 9 p.m. In addition to the usual traffic jams around Lviv, there was constant rain that lasted until just before Kyiv and sometimes made for dangerous road conditions, especially in the dark. On the way, we saw several serious accidents, regrettably fatal ones, as the radio reported. The long distance, the difficult conditions, and the darkness were nerve-wracking, but we arrived safely and were greeted at the destination by our friend Ruslan and were able to park three of the vehicles at Lawyers’ Move headquarters. Four of us took the remaining one to the hotel and checked in… when the first air raid alarm sounded, and we had to shelter in the hotel corridor. Luckily, it was a very abstract warning for the whole of Ukraine, and, after 40 minutes, just before 11pm, the all-clear was given without us having to go to an air raid shelter. After that, luckily, we had peace and quiet and could sleep undisturbed.
Saturday
On Saturday morning, we had to unload the vehicles at Lawyers’ Move’s headquarters, but before that we met Ruslan for coffee, who took us to a newly opened café where we had superb coffee and cake. We are always impressed by the level of creativity, the attention to detail, and the striving for perfection. What we praise as excellent at home in normal times, people in Ukraine manage to do even during war, despite the constant risks, despite the lack of sleep and despite the fact that every family now has relatives or friends who lost their lives at the front.
Mariia was waiting for us at Lawyers’ Move at the hub. She assessed the medical materials we had brought with a practiced eye and decided whether they should be stored first or sent directly to the hospitals with the logistics provider Nova Poshta . Then we carried the items to be stored inside, loaded everything else into two vehicles, and drove to Nova Poshta .
Once there, everyone pitched in to get the heavy dialysis bed and the bulky microscope out of the VW bus and take them to the counter on a pallet jack. To Mariia’s dismay, Nova Poshta had run out of suitable packaging material, and they had to keep the microscope at the facility until Monday morning until it could be properly wrapped and shipped. Nova Poshta is the backbone of civilian Ukrainian logistics—they kept their word and the microscope was professionally wrapped and sent to Mykolaiv on Monday .
In the meantime, Nadia of Lawyers’ Move called: Our first pickup handover had to be brought forward from 4 p.m. to 11 a.m. We had to leave Mariia at Nova Poshta to complete the formalities while we hurried back to Lawyers’ Move. A group of soldiers was already waiting for us, closely examining their new (old) Toyota. We handed over the keys and papers, answered their questions about the vehicle and took some photos.
Then we had to hurry to arrive on time for an appointment with the Permanent Representative of the German Ambassador in Kyiv. This was followed by an informal round with an assessment of the situation in the Ukraine war, followed by a question and answer session . The Ambassador’s Permanent Representative stressed the importance of not allowing Ukraine to be abandoned to Russian aggression and also described his personal efforts to make people in Germany aware of the situation. Igor and Elena Gilbo also participated. Igor Gilbo is an important photographer of everyday Ukrainian life from the Soviet era to the present day and brought a selection of his books and pictures with him. We were deeply impressed by the immediacy and honesty of his art.
We couldn’t stay too long because the next handover was scheduled for the afternoon. We received an inquiry from a young man in August. The man, Ihor, an employee in a hardware store, was drafted into the army in the summer. We learned from Sasha Sidyelnikov that his unit was deployed in Kursk and needed a pickup truck. Ihor couln’t make it to the handover—he was deployed at the front on this day. The representative who was there in his place, code name “Bach,” was extremely happy about the imposing Mitsubishi pickup and, after our conversation, headed straight back toward the Russian border.
Just five days later, we received feedback from Ihor and his comrade “Bach”: After one of their armored vehicles was damaged in battle, “Bach” and his colleagues called for help, and a buddy used the new pickup to get the men of the unit out of the line of fire and save their lives. Pickup4Ukraine sees this as the essence of our mission: to give the defenders of Ukraine the means to survive on the battlefield. We are deeply grateful that our help was could have an effect after such a short time, especially under the terrible circumstances.
After this impressive encounter, there was still one appointment left on Saturday – dinner with a large group of friends and acquaintances in Kyiv, including with driver Gert’s (please see the our report on the people of Pickup4Ukraine) old friend, Volodymyr Ohryzko, former Foreign Minister of Ukraine.
Sunday and return trip
Our second and final day in Kyiv was to be as packed as the first. After a brief air raid alarm at 5 a.m., we were able to get down to the “business” of the day: handing over a Nissan Pathfinder SUV to a border guard unit. The unit is deployed near Vovchansk and is tasked with shooting down enemy drones, both reconnaissance and attack drones, using shoulder-fired missiles. This unit was put in touch with our Ukrainian friend in Walldorf, Roman L., who, together with his family, actively supports Pickup4Ukraine. Our contact, also with the code name “Darwin,” comes from Kakhovka, like Roman, and the two have known each other for decades. Ihor explained that their unit of drone hunters is under constant observation and therefore prefers an inconspicuous car. The gray SUV would therefore not be repainted, but left as is.
Afterwards, we were able to meet our friend Serhiy M., who has been accompanying and advising us on site for a long time. Gert and Daniela met him for the first time, and Serhiy was able to tell them many stories from his life and from his experiences at the front as a guide for foreign journalists.
Then we met with SAP colleagues at the “VDNG” exhibition grounds, which during Soviet times displayed (but did not sell) the achievements of the socialist economy. The tour underlined the Soviet quasi-religious aesthetics, the elevation of the Soviet state to the sacred as a replacement for the destroyed traditions of its peoples.
Anna Mikulytska of SAP also planned our final activity, a visit to the CourageGarage. CourageGarage is a monthly charity event with booths of designers, artist,s and craftsmen who donate a portion of their proceeds to a charitable organization. This Sunday, the focus was on SuperHumans, an organization that provides prosthetics and rehabilitation for war veterans. Numerous stations in the exhibition encouraged dialogue between amputees and other citizens. Here, the consequences of the war are on display, as are the gigantic social challenges to Ukrainian society to deal with them. Equally visible is the creativity that Ukrainians bring to meet those challenges.
For this journey, we had packed a lot of activities into a short amount of time. Now, the last thing to do in Kyiv was to get to the train to Poland on time. We stocked up on provisions, collected our luggage and went to the platform, where the train was already waiting for us half an hour before departure. It was a luxury to be able to stow our luggage and make our beds at leisure. As usual, the night train left exactly on time, to the minute. After four very busy days and without air raid warnings, we slept through until the next morning. After the border formalities and a short stop in Przemyśl, we took the train to Kraków and then to the airport. We arrived in Frankfurt on time, where colleague Hansi Huber picked us up and took us home. Thank you very much, Hansi!
Outlook
People often ask us what the mood is like in Ukraine right now and what has changed since our last visit. We have not seen any significant changes. We observe fatigue and a growing lack of understanding for those who are not actively involved in national defense. It is absolutely clear that Ukrainians are not prepared to give up the fight and certainly not to surrender territory to the aggressor. In Ukraine, few people think that the bloodshed will cease in exchange for ceding territory. Rather, the prevailing opinion is that a ceasefire can only be a respite during which Russia can rearm and prepare the next attack. Therefore, despite all the fatigue, the will to resist is not waning.
So the war continues, and with it, the demand for vehicles, medical equipment, surgical supplies remains unbroken. We will continue, as Ukrainians themselves do. Our next transport is planned for early 2025. We have already started to collect funding for more vehicles.
