Earlier this year, the Kyiv Independent launched its “How to Help Ukraine” newsletter — a membership benefit created in direct response to our community’s requests for more ways to help Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Since June 2025, we’ve sent out one edition of the newsletter per month, each highlighting a different organization that is helping Ukraine. The newsletter gives our members more opportunities to get involved — through donating or in some cases volunteering — as well as a closer look at Ukrainian civic society.
In the first six months since the newsletter’s launch, our community has raised over $105,300, according to the organizations we featured.
Here’s a breakdown of exactly what the Kyiv Independent’s members have achieved since June.
June 2025: Leleka Foundation and procurement of front-line medical supplies
In the first edition of the “How to Help Ukraine” newsletter, we featured the work of the Leleka Foundation, a U.S.-Ukrainian charity that procures medical supplies for those on the front lines.
Leleka has a team of about 20 people, with a decade of experience in procurement of high-quality emergency medical supplies. The team works directly with front-line medics, making sure they’re delivering exactly what the medics need. Because of their streamlined operations, it only takes 2-3 weeks from receiving a donation to delivering the supplies to medics in the field.
Our community raised $20,000 for Leleka’s tactical medical backpacks for front-line medics. A fully-equipped backpack contains enough equipment to provide life-saving care to up to 10 wounded individuals. Leleka’s backpacks are stocked with tourniquets, bandages, hemostatic dressings, chest seals, soft splints, trauma shears, burn treatments, and more. Each backpack contains over 100 essential medical items and weighs approximately 22 pounds. These backpacks are the number one, most popular request from medics. Each costs $1,000 — so our members were able to fund 20 backpacks.
Tactical medical backpacks are the most popular request from medics for Leleka. (Courtesy of the Leleka Foundation)
July: Packaging meals for front-line soldiers with Murashky Kitchen
In the second edition of the newsletter, we featured Murashky, a volunteer kitchen based in Kyiv that produces dry rations for the Ukrainian army.
Murashky, which means “Ants” in Ukrainian, was started by Kostiantyn and his wife Oksana in Kyiv on the second day of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Feb. 25, 2022. The couple is originally from the now almost entirely occupied Luhansk Oblast, and eventually settled in Kyiv in 2019. When Russia initially invaded Ukraine in 2014, they lost their home in Luhansk and their usual life, said Kostiantyn. “But we retained our dignity and desire to act.”
“When war knocked on our door again, we knew that this time we would not just run away, but take a step toward it, and fight,” Kostiantyn said.
Murashky only requires about $7,800 per month to keep the operation running — this covers electricity ($1,500), input materials ($5,000), rent ($600), and the salary of two employees ($700). It is financed by individual donations, as well as donations in the form of raw ingredients from businesses and individuals. All together with these resources, Murashky are able to produce between $30,000-$35,000 worth of packaged dry rations every month — and then send them to Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines, completely free of charge.
Besides the money that Murashky needs to operate every month, the organization is also raising $20,000 in order to upgrade their operations and to create a separate production line for dried meat and jerky. Thanks to our community, they’ve raised $12,000 towards this project.
Murashky told the Kyiv Independent that they’ve had at least one foreigner volunteer in their kitchen as a direct result of the “How to Help Ukraine” newsletter, as well as over 40 people becoming their members on “Buy me a Coffee.”
Ukrainian and foreign volunteers in the Murashky kitchen. (Courtesy of Murashky)
August: Voices of Children and psychological support for war-affected families
In the third edition, we shared with our members Voices of Children, the largest Ukrainian foundation providing comprehensive psychological help to children and parents who are affected by war.
The organization initially started in 2015, when human rights activist Olena Rozvadovska left her job in Kyiv and relocated to live and work near the front line, providing humanitarian aid, relocating families, and organizing vacations for children from war-affected areas. While in eastern Ukraine, Olena met documentary filmmaker Azad Safarov, and the pair began working together.
Our community donated just over $10,100 to help fund summer camps for children who have experienced war. Each year, Voices of Children runs seasonal camps for children that experience war trauma, including those who are internally displaced, have parents who are in the military, or are from front-line or liberated areas. Each camp lasts 14 days in the Carpathian Mountains, in the west of Ukraine, far from the front line and usually free from aerial attacks. This setting provides children with a safe space to recover and learn how to cope with stress. This was the fourth year that Voices of Children has organized these camps, and demand has grown each year. It costs about $830 for one child to attend their two-week camp, so our community was able to provide the funding for about 12 children.
The participants from the children’s camp that Voices of Children ran in autumn 2025. This is a photo from the camp our members’ donations went to help fund. (Courtesy of Voices of Children)
September: Dignitas and empowering Ukrainian soldiers with technology and innovation
In the fourth edition of the newsletter, we featured Dignitas, a volunteer-powered nonprofit working to empower Ukrainian soldiers through technology, training, and innovation.
The history of Dignitas dates back to a grassroots effort by U.S. volunteers to support Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014, raising money, procuring equipment, and delivering body armor, generators, and medical aid to protesters in Kyiv.
In 2023, Dignitas was officially launched with a mission to support Ukrainian soldiers defending the country against Russia’s full-scale invasion, delivering equipment like drones and drone detectors, as well as training personnel. The U.S. team all work as volunteers, without any compensation, and 95% of all funds raised go directly to Dignitas’ programs in Ukraine. The remaining 5% is allocated for the overhead expenses and operational costs of running Dignitas in Ukraine.
Our community raised $29,000 for Dignitas’ Victory Robots program, helping to train an entire unit of unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) operators. UGVs are quietly revolutionizing Ukraine’s ability to defend against Russia’s full-scale invasion, as these remote-controlled drones can do the work of entire convoys, delivering food, water, ammunition, and medical supplies, as well as evacuating the wounded, without putting more soldiers in harm’s way. The money our community raised went to fund the training of a UGV unit and to cover the costs of the UGVs themselves, equipment and spare parts, technical support and maintenance, and the costs related to training personnel. Dignitas’ original goal was $100,000, and our members raised nearly a third of that.
Ukrainian soldiers practice operating unmanned ground vehicles as part of the Dignitas’ Victory Robots program. (Courtesy of Dignitas)
October: Superhumans Center and rehabilitation of those affected by war
In our fifth edition of “How to Help Ukraine,” we featured Superhumans Center, a state-of-the-art center designed to treat war trauma in military personnel and civilians, providing them with prosthetics, reconstructive surgery, physical rehabilitation, and psychological support.
Superhumans opened a modern war trauma center to treat both military personnel and civilians in Lviv in April 2023. The center has already fitted more than 1,440 patients with prostheses, manufactured nearly 2,000 limbs, and helped rehabilitate almost 3,000 people. The center has also completed over 1,700 reconstructive surgeries, with more than 100 of them involving foreign specialists.
The Kyiv Independent community donated $14,200 toward Superhumans’ targeted evacuation program, which rapidly moves wounded soldiers from the front lines to Lviv, so that they can receive more specialized treatments and operations and have a better chance at keeping their limbs. Superhumans already has agreements with seven different military units that if one of their soldiers has a wounded limb, which in the opinion of doctors can be saved, Superhumans is notified, and the soldier is immediately evacuated. Targeted evacuation allows wounded soldiers to be transported to Superhumans within only 17 hours after the injury was sustained. The money that our community raised covered the targeted evacuation of six soldiers, including the patients’ delivery to Lviv, laboratory tests, medicines, fuel, and the work of two evacuation teams.
An evacuation team in front of the Superhumans Center in Lviv. (Courtesy of Superhumans Center)
November: Dzyga’s Paw and procuring front-line equipment for Ukrainian soldiers
On our community survey, we heard that there was particular interest in helping Ukrainian soldiers, so in the sixth edition, we shared the work of Dzyga’s Paw Charity Foundation, a Lviv-based defense non-profit that brings technology to Ukrainian soldiers through global crowdfunding.
Dzyga’s Paw, initially started by two young IT professionals at the beginning of the full-scale war, has now existed for over three years and has raised over $4.5 million for technological assistance to the Ukrainian military. They prioritize investing in technologies that give Ukraine a tactical advantage on the battlefield, maximizing effectiveness and saving lives, including drones, satellite communication systems (e.g, Starlink), encrypted long-range radios, night vision devices, thermal imagers, tablets, charging stations, and autonomous power systems.
The Dzyga’s Paw team keeps track of every single donation they receive, as well as every expenditure and shipment to the front line. They display all financial and delivery reports on their website here, as a way to build trust and credibility with donors.
Each winter, Dzyga’s Paw runs their Secret Santa for Ukrainian Defenders. They launched this program in 2024, after seeing how much soldiers valued personal notes and small gifts from Dzyga’s Paw donors. The team then decided to create a big holiday project, so anyone could have the opportunity to create a small miracle for someone on the front line, and so that Ukrainian soldiers would know that somewhere far away there are people who sincerely support them.
This year, they collected over 140 letters from soldiers from 36 different units, with requests for everything from Lego sets and smart watches to candy, as well as equipment needed for missions, like helmets — and even an engagement ring.
Dzyga’s Paw had over 150 people sign up for Secret Santa — and they estimate that the Kyiv Independent community made up about one-third of their Santas this year! That means that our members helped contribute roughly $20,000, both through donations to the project and in buying the gifts themselves for Ukrainian soldiers.
Gifts from last year’s Secret Santa for Ukrainian Defenders, en route to be delivered to their recipients. (Courtesy of Dzyga’s Paw)
If you’re not yet a member of the Kyiv Independent community, you can sign up here for as little as $5 per month. Thank you to our community of over 25,000 who already support the Kyiv Independent!
