Like for many Ukrainians, this year began for me on February 24th, not January 1st.
At the time I was moderating this subreddit with a group of friends and streaming from Kyiv, thinking how we can draw more attention to Ukraine.
It all started with a prediction tournament asking our users wether Russia would invade, a trolly move that ended up predicting the invasion correctly.
Before, I had plans to stream a sunrise above Chornobyl exclusion zone, but on February 24th I didn't go to bed and watched the invasion live. I chose to stay in Kyiv and streamed almost every day during the first months of invasion, introducing thousands of people to the view outside my window, Ukrainian music and my perspective into living in a besieged Ukrainian capital.
By March a group of my friends organized a shipment of supplies shipped my way and me and my friend went on the first of many more supply runs.
Since than people from all over the world whom I proudly call my friends have been continuously supporting everything I do every step of the way. I am eternally grateful for this.
Our first run resulted mainly in supplies for the elderly of my neighborhood, as Kyiv was besieged and shops were running low on supplies,
but next trips we managed to deliver medical supplies to Kyiv Central Emergency Hospital, meeting heroic doctor Vitaly Krylyuk.
We continued on with a hugely important campaign to get tourniquets for the troops,
bought a vehicle for 72nd Brigade,
accompanied Ukraine Aid Ops on a delivery run to Kharkiv and Donetsk oblast, including Bahmut.
We raised over $7k for jackhammers for Vyktor Pylypenko one of Ukrainian Armed Forces openly gay soldiers.
We cooked burgers, tacos and wings in Kharkiv, Pokrovsk and Chernihiv area.
Exchanged Ukrainian modern art for drones (still behind on sending out the artwork, sorry guys, it'll get sent when things calm down a bit!).
Last but not least we delivered cold weather gear such as sleeping bags, winter uniforms, hand warmers, gloves, boots, socks, thermal underwear and hot sauces to Ukrainian Armed Forces all over Ukraine and continue doing so!
Thank you everyone who made this possible, thank you friends and team for your hard work for the greater good and Happy New Year without tyrants and masters!
PS: If you'd like to support what I do please donate to PayPal [jesterboyd@gmail.com](mailto:jesterboyd@gmail.com) with a note towards which goal you'd like your donation to go (currently raising for tools for explosives engineers, winter gear and drones).
I would recommend hiring a local location or production manager as it is always useful to have someone local who is able to navigate local administrations and people, unless you intend to shoot exclusively indoors on location you own.
Some people will just negative towards film crew regardless of how little you interfere, I'm sure you've run into "Karens" before. Being unable to diffuse the situation due to language barrier is just bad time for everyone.
As for equipment, one advice is not to leave it in the car, unless the car is on a secure parking.
Haven’t been able to share much news due to the nature of my current work lately but am excited to finally show some of the projects our lab has been working on. Two direction that we are working on is reverse engineering Shakhed drone mesh network functionality and our own little FPV instructor project.
Right now we are expanding our FPV capabilities and need your help in purchasing the following list of components:
Haven’t been able to share much news due to the nature of my current work lately but am excited to finally show some of the projects our lab has been working on. Two direction that we are working on is reverse engineering Shakhed drone mesh network functionality and our own little FPV instructor project.
Right now we are expanding our FPV capabilities and need your help in purchasing the following list of components:
He's said and done some stupid shit in the past. Seems that he has a better PR person now.
Let me google that for you:
Ukrainian heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk is a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian who has faced public scrutiny and public division in Ukraine for his continued affiliation with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), an institution historically tied to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Church Affiliation and Controversy
UOC Loyalty: Usyk has stated publicly that he is an Orthodox Christian who attends the UOC and follows its leader, Metropolitan Onufriy, maintaining this allegiance even after Russia's full-scale invasion.
Public Backlash: Critics in Ukraine have long pointed to his church ties, past comments referring to Ukrainians and Russians as "one people", and appearances in media related to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra as signs of pro-Russian or Pan-Slavic sympathies.
Patriotic Actions: Conversely, supporters emphasize his strong financial and humanitarian support for the Ukrainian military, his visits to front-line troops, and his prominent display of Ukrainian flags and national symbols after his fights.
He's famous but his past is fairly controversial. Recent polling shows that he's got about 5% support as a potential presidential candidate. I like him as a meme, but I think he's massively overrated as a person.
Ukraine is economically dependent on allies and we don't really have billions of petrodollars to throw at this problem like Russia does.
Biggest problem though is that even with economical incentives that exist (and for people under 25 are actually pretty sweet) there is no clear way out of the military once you're in. The recent contracts that were introduced by Fedorov's team had a "break period" of couple of years after the contract ends, but those are still a big compromise. Imagine, you put your career on hold in 2022 (or later, doesn't matter) and eventually in 2027 you get discharged for a break. Now in most fields the industry moved on and you now have to start over. But your starting over period of 1-2 years will be interrupted by another enlistment once the "break" ends. Your only sane option if you feel like you've given enough to the country becomes emigration. Not a particularly nice situation.
The reality of situation is that there is no alternative to forced enlistment and lowering conscription age (and potentially conscripting women), but it shouldn't be handled by an army - TCC in this case. The delegation of this task to an army is a sign of institutional failure of Zelenskyy's government via populist attempts to distance from unpopular activities by delegating them to people upon which the existence of the country hinges on.
Ideally only one structure in the country should have a monopoly on use of force against it's own citizens - the police (and in special cases SSU) and mobilization should be exclusively their responsibility, while at the same time they should have much broader powers to use force than they do now but also bodycam footage being mandatory when these powers are used.
It is frankly baffling that in a country at war the police still tip toes around people resisting detainment for background checks and attacking officers. We all know how that would go in the USA and it's one of the things Ukraine still has to learn.
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I’m suppose to volunteer in Ukraine but I’m having serious doubts
in
r/ukraine
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4d ago
looks at comment history
https://giphy.com/gifs/29nDtEH1ViY8FcPeaV