‘People Die Because Aid is Delayed’: How Indifference is Killing Ukrainians

On a recent trip home to Poland to rest and fundraise, 29-year-old Kuba Stasiak could not shake a disturbing perception.

“People have become indifferent. They have gotten used to the war and now it’s really hard to move them from their apathy,” he explained from an apartment in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.

After two years of full-scale war, invading Russian forces remain along a 600-mile-long front that cuts across the south and east of Ukraine, occupying 18% of the country. Up and down this line remain pockets of civilians living in rural villages and the bombed-out towns that outline the war.

Usually elderly and without other resources, these communities rely on the humanitarian aid delivered by volunteer formations and small NGOs. If fighting threatens to overtake their homes, volunteers evacuate the willing and organize safe places to stay, often at great personal risk. 

Though the need for this work remains, the donations that support it have begun to slow down dramatically. While in Poland, past donors whom Stasiak approached to help repair a vehicle in Ukraine were suddenly no longer interested in providing more funds.  

“Even the people I was expecting to be more willing to participate, businessmen for whom two or three thousand euros is nothing collectively, were apathetic,” he lamented. “Most people can’t even recognize the names of Bakhmut or Avdiivka, and now the volunteer community is really struggling.” 

A journalist by trade, Stasiak has worked for the last two years as a humanitarian volunteer along Ukraine’s frontlines. In collaboration with Ukrainian and international volunteers — in Sievierodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut and beyond — he has helped deliver aid and evacuate around 400 civilians from some of the most dangerous areas of the front.

Right Wing Objections

Donor fatigue is growing at a time when the continuation of aid is increasingly challenged by the political right in the governments of the United States and European Union, the two largest sources of assistance.

As Russian forces continue to push, the delays in aid are undermining Ukraine’s ability to defeat determined assaults and daily attacks on civilian infrastructure. Each Russian advance widens the areas destroyed by fighting and multiplies civilians in need of humanitarian assistance. As the latest package of US aid remains stalled in Congress, small groups of self-organized volunteers and supporters abroad are continuing their work as circumstances grow increasingly dire.

“I call Ukraine a DIY country,” explains 40-year-old volunteer Kirill Marlinski. “Because if you don’t do it, no one else is going to. So everyone’s gotta be a volunteer, pitch in, and do something.”

Despite initial Russian expectations of limited resistance and even support from sections of Ukrainian society, the invasion was overwhelmingly met with determined military resistance and the flowering of volunteer initiatives and international aid networks organized to support Ukraine’s civilian and military needs.

Normally an artist based in Kyiv, Marlinski is one of the countless Ukrainian and international volunteers who mobilized in response to the 2022 Russian invasion, spending the last two years delivering supplies to frontline villages and military units around Donetsk oblast.

Like Stasiak, Marlinski has worked with numerous informal groupings and non-profits to get aid in and people out. But as the war has dragged on, he also noticed a decline in volunteer activity along the front. 

“A lot of volunteers have just stopped, for the simple reason that if you don’t have people dropping at least a thousand dollars in your account, you will not be able to keep going,” he said. “A ridiculous amount of money gets burned up just maintaining the van; fueling it and repairing it.”

The roads of eastern Ukraine can vary widely in quality and vehicle or tire repair is a near-constant expense for many volunteers. While individuals like Stasiak, who raise money through social media and crowdfunding, are finding it difficult to keep people engaged, the problem has been widespread.

“At the beginning, we had donors providing in-kind donations of medical supplies, but that definitely dwindled in the past year,” explained 36-year-old Natasha Rudenko, a photographer and co-founder of the group Post Angeles. “The past year has been really, really hard for getting in-kind donations, or any donations, for that matter.”

The California-based non-profit has worked extensively with Marlinski, and since forming in response to the 2022 invasion, has shipped over 183,000 pounds of aid to Ukraine. 

Ukraine’s defence is reliant on the economic and military assistance provided by the United States, European Union (EU), and other allied countries. Though 47 states have provided aid, the bulk has come from the United States and the EU. Since February of 2022, roughly $75 billion of assistance has been committed by the US, and $144 billion by EU institutions and member states, though only half of EU funds have been allocated.     

Front Line Dangers

Commitments for Ukrainian aid began to drop towards the end of summer last year, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive approached its culmination. Launched in June, the counteroffensive was unable to overcome Russian lines reinforced in the months Ukraine trained and awaited delivery of advanced tanks and other weapons.

In Zaporizhzhia oblast, Ukrainian forces faced minefields up to 500 meters deep while attacked with artillery and helicopters. Losses were high and success was limited. The situation was soon characterized as a stalemate by General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander who was replaced in February of this year. In October the Kiel Institute reported an 87% drop in committed aid compared to 2022 from August to October.

Additionally, the number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine has increased from an estimated 190,000 to roughly 450,000, and the Ukrainian government is now debating how to mobilize 500,000 new recruits to replace its exhausted forces. With a much smaller population, Ukraine has begun to struggle to find new recruits, and the average age of a soldier is now above 40. Ukraine has yet to conscript anyone below the age of 27, though a proposed law could lower that age to 25. 

A pledge made by the EU in March of 2023 to provide Ukraine with one million artillery shells within a year has failed to meet that goal, and the EU recently acknowledged only 52% of the one million shells will be delivered by March of 2024. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy recently stated only 30% of the critical ammunition has been delivered. Throughout the war, Ukraine has struggled to match the Russian rate of artillery fire, and Russia is estimated to be currently firing 3X the number of shells as Ukraine. The disparity in firepower has been central to Russian battlefield successes and poses acute threats to volunteers as well.

“Anytime you drive up somewhere 2, 3, 4 kilometres directly from the Russians, you run a risk of getting blown up,” explained Marlinski. “It’s a very small risk compared to soldiers, but you have to deal with it, that’s it. You have to understand that there is a possibility that you’ll get killed.”