Useful Idiots
In a black T-shirt that says “warrior” in Ukrainian, Ivan Sikorskyi swerves around potholes on the Queens cemetery belt in his Dodge Caravan with a silver chrome skull on the top of the gear shift. Behind him are two blue duffels and a suitcase filled with body armor, drone batteries, and tourniquets; stacked on top are three combat helmets from a stranger in Pittsburgh. Sikorsyki isn’t sure how the man got his number. “People just call me and ask if I can deliver to Poland,” he says.
For years, Sikorskyi and others like him have been donating to Ukrainians fighting Russian-backed separatists, sending over Salomon boots and reconnaissance drones roughly once a month through commercial shipping firms such as Meest and DSV. But when Ukraine’s airspace closed following the Russian invasion, he and others started fundraising on Facebook for a makeshift operation that sends dozens of checked bags with a passenger on Poland’s national airline, LOT, to Warsaw. Then it’s on to Ukraine by van. At first, there were some concerns about sending supplies to a warzone, but theTSA is surprisingly lenient about what goes in a checked bag, and a representative for the airline said it doesn’t object.
In the beginning, the trips were fairly smooth. Long waits leaving the country were common, but coming back in, soldiers at sandbagged checkpoints in the fields of western Ukraine waved the luggage through without much scrutiny. Recently, with Lviv facing Russian missiles, checkpoints have grown more stringent.
Read more:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/ukrainian-americans-personally-deliver-gear-to-fight-russia.html