We work with our Ukrainian partners to provide vitally needed resources to the soldiers and Marines fighting for Ukraine’s freedom, and we provide equally important resources to the volunteers who support that fight. If there’s a dual-use item you can think of, we’ve probably delivered one or more of them to frontline units.

The single biggest category in our operational support list is vehicle support. We have directly provided over a dozen vehicles and made major repairs to three times that number. The Ukrainian military and volunteers survive based on their ability to move quickly, and there have never been enough “authorized” military vehicles to meet a fraction of their real-world needs. War tears up roads and vehicles with equal ferocity and the russians routinely target civilian and medical vehicles, which are easier to destroy than tanks and APCs, and can’t fight back. This leads us to our next biggest category of operational support.

We do everything we can to improve the odds of survival for our Ukrainian partners in and out of uniform. Just like US troops in the first years of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, most Ukrainian troops need more and better protective gear than what is available through military supply channels. We invest in body armor, helmets, shrapnel-resistant panels for aid bags and backpacks, and a host of other protective items in the simple hope that more of our friends and their families survive to return home when this war is won. These items are not cheap although we use innovative strategies to provide the best protection we can afford for the troops and volunteers we support. These are complex ethical choices also (should we buy one set of great armor for ourselves, or four sets of acceptable armor for a front-line drone team?) Your support helps us do more and brings men and women home to their families.

Protective gear in Ukraine also extends far beyond flak vests and helmets. In violation of the Geneva Convention and all internationally recognized principles of conflict since the First World War, russia exploits its unearned position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council while using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops on a daily basis. If we ever get a chance to sit down together in a room without microphones or recording devices, I’d love to share some of our stories about our “critical wins” like just-in-time delivery of chemical protective gear to troops fighting far forward of “the lines of contact”. Similarly, russian targeting of ambulances and evacuation vehicles with FPV drones creates a continuing need for anti-drone technology, from frequency analyzers and video signal interceptors, to broad-spectrum drone jammers. Many US readers of the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Seattle Times became familiar with Alaska2Ukraine through an article about our drone-jammer manufacturing project in Nome, Alaska, early in 2025. In fact we’ve been working with Ukrainian engineers and 3D hobbyists to design, build, and deliver specialized technical equipment as far back as March of 2022. Your donations make all of this possible and save lives in the process.

Once we get out of the big categories of vehicle support and protective equipment, Alaska2Ukraine has supported operational troops with everything from warm socks and trench candles in the frozen mud of wintertime trenches, to camouflage nets and water purification kits for troops sweltering in summer heat and humidity that make Alaskans yearn for frozen fish fillets. Our partners’ records of donated equipment are a snapshot of the first crowdfunded war in modern history. What we bring to the table is the ability to work quickly to precisely address specific needs and deliver supplies exactly where and when they’re needed. We can’t do very big things, but we can do and we have done a great many small things to shift the balance on the battlefield in favor of Ukraine’s defenders. After three and a half years of this, your support is now the only thing that lets us keep going.

Thank you for choosing to stand with Ukraine!