Americans are not getting accurate information about Ukraine, especially policymakers in Washington. The Ukraine Freedom Project is getting firsthand, data-driven information from Ukraine to members of Congress and opinion leaders across America.
The 1100+ donors to the Ukraine Freedom Project have delivered medicine to the front in Kyiv while that city was surrounded on three sides by Russians. Our donors delivered more than 200 tons of food to Kharkiv while that city was under siege. When Ukrainians needed body armor, the Ukraine Freedom Project donors helped them get it.
Steven, who worked as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill for seven years, is one of the few people who has been to the Ukrainian front and to the floor of the House of Representatives. He has also ran scores of campaigns in half a dozen countries.
Ukraine Freedom Project's donors helped Steven educate Republican members of Congress up to and including the Speaker of the House to create an environment where $62 billion in aid to Ukraine could pass Congress with 71% of the vote.
The work of the Ukraine Freedom Project was credited by the Financial Times, CNN, Huff Post, Voice of America and other media outlets for helping move Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to support aid to Ukraine in April of 2024.
The Russians spend as much as $2.4 billion annually on propaganda worldwide. We need your donation to compete.
Your tax deductible donation will help us continue our mission of educating policymakers with information from the Ukrainian front and pushing back against Russian propaganda.
Join the Ukraine Freedom Project with your tax-deductible donation.
Highlights
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Message from Stepan
Hey friends, I am in Ukraine helping to save lives. I need your help to continue.
I lived and worked in Ukraine in 2018-2019. While I was there, I developed a sizable network of really great friends - they call me Stepan, the Ukrainian version of my name. Many of them were unprepared for Putin's invasion.
At this critical time, I have the freedom and skillset to help friends who are fighting for survival. This is not my first war zone. I was one of the first wave of civilians into Iraq in 2003 and ultimately spent two years there. Democratic Republic of Congo and East Timor are both places I have called home.
The Monday after Putin invaded, I landed in Europe and hired a car to drive me to the Ukrainian border. I called some of my Ukrainian friends to pick me up and I have spent most of the time since then in a Ukrainian city. I rented an apartment - itself not an easy task with the flood of people fleeing Kyiv for relative safety - and sent out word to my friends and their friends that I had a safe place for them to land.
Since arriving in Ukraine, I've helped get some 70 people to safety, most of them friends. I've done all this out of my own pocket. I have spent enough money to buy a car, even at today's inflated prices. To help keep my friends alive, this is well worth it. I can't imagine a better thing to spend my money on.
If I can get more funding, I can help more people. Essentially, we have built a machine that gets people out of the dangerous parts of Ukraine to a safer part of Ukraine or across the border, if they choose. The machine also works the other way. We can get equipment and supplies from the US and the rest of Europe into the hands of people who need them in Ukraine's hot spots. We call it the Ukraine Freedom Project.
Here are a couple of projects the Ukraine Freedom Project working on:
- Internally displaced people (IDPs) are a major problem and one that not enough NGOs are currently addressing. Of the people who have come through my apartment, only about a quarter have left the country. Military-aged males are not allowed to leave. Most of the people who come to me are making a very difficult decision as to whether the family should split up and the women and children should leave the country or whether they can make a go of it as a family in the safer parts of Ukraine.
- I have a line on a former children's camp facility that sleeps about 100 people. It is relatively easy and inexpensive for me to lease this, but I don't want to get 100 people into it and find out in June that I have no money to feed them. I need a continuing funding stream.
- My Ukraine network includes doctors that have a reach into some 70 hospitals in Ukraine. If we can get panel vans to a safe part of Ukraine near Kyiv, which should be relatively easy, we can put the supplies in a warehouse, and volunteers from the Kyiv area can get them in their private cars.
Please take a few minutes and donate now. Thanks for taking the time to read my story.
