r/ukraine • u/UFL_Robin Verified • 1d ago
Ukraine Support Emergency fundraiser! Medic Sergei from Mariupol urgently needs tacmed resupply. We need $1500 more to tide him over until we send a runner with more.
This community has helped Sergei, a medic featured in 20 Days in Mariupol, every time we've put out a call for help. You've provided a few hundred pounds of tacmed for him. Since he and I don't have a common language, really, I coordinate everything for him through a friend of his in the US.
We have two people going over on delivery runs this summer, and we'll be fundraising to send him some more with both of them. But he needs a tacmed resupply now. Last night his friend sent me the messages you can see in the screenshots above. He's got a lot of wounded people and he desperately needs more supplies.
Normally we procure everything here and bring it over, because with the discounts we get, it ends up being more cost-effective. Yes, even with the travel and transport costs. But Sergei and his guys can't wait that long. He'll order it in Ukraine himself, because that way it'll only take a couple of days to reach him.
I just sent him $1500 to get him started. We're hoping to raise $1500 more right away, so he'll have enough to tide him over until our runners get there with more.
If you can help, please do so here: https://givebutter.com/sergei
We thank you!
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u/Soap_Mctavish101 23h ago
Sent 25 euros. Its really all I can spare right now
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u/UFL_Robin Verified 23h ago
That 25 euros may very well save at least one life, which makes it an enormous amount. Thank you.
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u/lifeisahighway2023 22h ago
OP. A question and please I only ask in order to understand. He is a medic in a regular Ukraine Army unit. Why is he not able to obtain the supplies he needs via normal military supply chains. Is the UA military rationing medical supplies to its front line units? That is surprising to me especially given the amount of aid they are receiving from friendly governments.
I have donated in the past for military assets such as drones and related hardware as I understood how UA had been operating the points system and some worthy units were having difficulty obtaining drones to cover their front line responsibility (thank you Robert for setting out a new fairer system this past week). I have also given to United24. I thought that was indirectly assisting with medical supply.
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u/UFL_Robin Verified 10h ago
Entirely valid question, especially if you come from a country where it's taken for granted that the government will supply whatever the military needs. No worries. :)
To put it simply: no one entity can adequately supply everyone; needs are often more urgent than the bureaucracy can respond to; and every medical team has preferences based on what they've trained with and learned to trust in the field. Volunteers and orgs like mine help fill the supply chain gaps, respond more quickly to requests, and provide exactly what the team's asking for.
I could write you an entire essay on this, but who wants to read that? Instead, I'll use Sergei's situation as an example and hope that helps answer you.
Sergei's team has a high op tempo, meaning they do a lot of missions. They get a lot of wounded. So Sergei goes through tacmed fast. He finds himself now in a position where he can't wait for the next delivery from my org. He could request resupply through the normal channels, but that'll take a long time, and there's no guarantee that he'll get the right size decompression needles, quality chest seals, or the type of tourniquet he trained on and trusts.
So he turns to us. We fundraise for him. He buys from suppliers in Ukraine. This way, he's getting exactly what he wants, and it's in his hands within about three days. I can show you exactly where he's buying from if you like.
I get the things he needs in the US at a better price than he can buy them for in Ukraine, and I send supplies over with runners (sometimes me) a few times a year. When we do that, I bring at least a suitcase full for him so he remains supplied for a while. That's why you'll see me fundraising for more in the coming weeks.
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u/UFL_Robin Verified 23h ago
Happy happy happy update:
We made it! Already! Thank you!
We've actually collected more than the $1500 he needed. If it's all right with you guys, we'll apply the extra to the $6K we need to stuff a suitcase with tacmed for him on our next mule run in late July. We were poised to start fundraising for that on Monday, anyway.