A large part of the Razom Emergency Response is advocacy to increase the world’s support to Ukraine, and rallies play a key role. Today thousands of Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine gathered into one of the largest rallies in recent Ukrainian-New York history. The message was clear – Close the sky! No Fly Zone for Ukraine! Stand with Ukraine! Times Square turned into blue and yellow ocean and stretched for over 5 blocks, the Ukrainian anthem was heard loud and proud, our faces were the faces of hope for Ukraine and its bright future.
Photos by Polina Buchak and Vitaliy Raskalov
Many organizations joined forces to invite their supporters to this highly important rally… in the last 11 days we all have clearly realized that our biggest strength is in unity. Razom for Ukraine was joined by Ukrainian Jersey City and many others – because together, razom, our voices are louder and are heard in the top cabinets. We demand to protect Ukrainian airspace and introduce the No-Fly zone, as Ukrainians in Ukraine say – “Protect us from above, and we will deal with the rest”.
“The reasons why we go out to the streets is to continue feeling that sense that ‘I’m not alone’, that we are in this together. For others, it’s our attempt to make sure that people are reminded that this is current, that this is today, that this is our life right now. And in the end of the day this issue, while some might think: ‘Oh, this is just Ukraine fighting its neighbor’. It’s not. It’s far more than that. Us uniting at the rallies, and talking to the public, talking to the media about it – it’s reminding them that this is a world issue. We are your shield and have been for the past eight years” – said Razom volunteer Polina.
Watch the video made by Jess Francis of a day in the life of Polina as she attended the rally.
Huge thanks to everyone who joined! It matters! You matter! And our voices are loud, together.
It’s not just March 3rd, it’s day eight of Russia’s war on Ukraine and Ukrainians’ incredible resistance. Below, you’ll find the latest on how you can continue to get involved & support Ukraine, and updates on Razom’s Emergency Response project.
Let’s begin with how to update your to-do list for today. If Ukrainians dare to stop a tank with their bare hands, you can dare to do the following:
Thanks to the UACC’s (Ukrainian American Coordinating Council) quickly obtaining a special export license for regulated, military-grade items, you can now help us get protective gear for the civilian defense units that are protecting each city, town, and village in Ukraine. This means procuring large shipments of military-grade helmets and armory vests.
Keep putting the pressure on your representatives, the US administration, and European leaders to close the airspace over Ukraine, enact harsher sanctions to isolate Russia, seize russian oligarchs’ wealth, and provide more military & humanitarian support for Ukraine. We’ve got some templates for that right here.
Don’t worry, the list continues below…
Stay vigilant when it comes to disinformation. Make sure that you are verifying where you’re submitting your donations given there are so many tools available to us for raising awareness. Razom’s donation page has options for bank transfer, check, PayPal, Zelle, and crypto. You can always choose to donate to fundraisers on Facebook or Instagram too (we’re finally blue check mark verified!), knowing those funds take a bit longer to arrive.
Many of you are also taking advantage of corporate matching! If you have any questions regarding this, please email us at donations@razomforukraine.org.
Meanwhile, if you find an account that you suspect to be fake, please report it to security@razomforukraine.org.
There is now a Ukrainian migrant task force consisting of experienced immigration attorneys, attorney bar associations, law firms, and law school clinics. Razom volunteers are there too! If you are a lawyer willing to help, fill out this form to get involved.
Join a rally to #StandWithUkraine to meet Ukrainians, connect with each other, and learn about what’s at stake in the world right now. There’s a repository of rallies & protests held around the world here. You can add a rally or protest to that list here.
In New York City on Saturday, March 5th, there will be a 1pm rally in Times Square and a Stand With Ukraine Community Concertat 5pm at the Ukrainian National Home. You can purchase your tickets to that here.
An Update on Razom’s Emergency Response Project:
We’ve raised over $4M in the past week, and with your continued support hope to significantly increase that number. It’s never been more important than now to support work in Ukraine.
A 20 ton shipment of tactical medical and hospital supplies is making its way through customs in New Jersey right now.
We’ve rented out a Boeing 787 from LOT Polish Airlines to be able to fill and transport an entire aircraft of only the most urgent emergency supplies for Ukraine by Tuesday, March 8th.
We’ve partnered with Americares to procure their entire surplus of tactical medical supplies (9 pallets) that should make it’s way to New Jersey in a day or two.
We can’t wait to keep you updated on the impact of your support, and post regular updates about the project on our site.
“I stand with Ukraine and against Russian aggression. As your constituent, I ask that you speak for me in the halls of Congress and say that we will not tolerate this violent assault on Ukrainian sovereignty.
I ask that you support and advocate for the following actions:
Provide weapons to Ukraine
Provide medical/humanitarian assistance
Isolate Russia economically and politically
Protect Ukrainian airspace
The United States provided security assurances to Ukraine in 1994 with the signing of the Budapest Memorandum. As a constituent, I request your support for Ukraine in Congress, to uphold our obligations by suppressing the Kremlin’s destructive actions against Ukraine.”
In order to expedite the delivery of much-needed medical supplies to Ukraine, Razom first and foremost set out to buy up resources in Europe. Thanks to eight years of active cooperation with Euromaidan – Warszawa, including a large network of volunteers (some of whom traveled across Europe and relocated to Poland!), we have a team of dedicated and trusted volunteers.
They were able to purchase supplies within only a few hours of discovery and now it’s all ready for the delivery to Ukraine, which will take much shorter time.
The supplies include the following: large standard police bags with pre-set first aid content, including hydrogel bandages, valve bandages, modular bandages, waterproof individual bandages, rescue scissors, CELOX gauzes, etc., as well as medical stretchers.
It’s day 7 of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and time is always running against us, because it is. That’s why Razom is working hard at confirming partnerships with some major international corporations/suppliers in order to deliver goods in bulk and ensure that every time the shipments make the journey to Ukraine, the containers are absolutely filled to the brim.
In the meantime, the incredible amount of individual contributors seizing the moment to buy up medical or tactical medical supplies in the largest quantities possible are keeping our Emergency Response moving forward. Thank you to the volunteers in Poland. Thank you to the doctors across the US and Canada who are leveraging their roles to negotiate purchases on our behalf and even at times making donations “in kind” or waiting days, if not weeks, to be reimbursed. Thank you to all those who share their on-the-ground intelligence with us so we can coordinate the best routes for shipment. Thank you to those who have become master coordinators for humanitarian aid. And of course, thank you to all the donors that care.
Razom’s teams of volunteers – a truly diverse group of individuals and partnering organizations across US, Europe, and Ukraine – have been urgently working to establish highly efficient procurement, logistics, and distribution channels. We are constantly working against the clock on this and cannot begin to properly thank all those determined to make it happen! At the same time, we have been hard at work analyzing the overwhelming amount of support in donations from you and are finally here to deliver some long awaited updates.
Razom was founded on purely volunteering efforts of Ukrainian Americans in NYC during the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, believes in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to unlock the potential of Ukraine. We work towards that mission by creating spaces where people meet, partner, and act.
Razom has maintained an open Emergency Response project since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 where we mobilized to procure medical and tactical supplies to the eastern front. We picked up this project again in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to fundraise for, procure, and deliver medical supplies across covid hot spots in Ukraine. Since 2014, the Emergency Response fund has always remained open for donors so that we were in a position to act swiftly in support of Ukrainians in crisis situations. When reports came that Russia began amassing troops on Ukraine’s borders, we began actively promoting for the Emergency Response fund again on February 18, 2022.
Given that Razom is an entirely volunteer-run organization, our grassroots network is our key asset. All of our fundraising efforts for the Emergency Response project are conducted via social media and word-of-mouth. Donors have the option to donate via Facebook and Instagram where individuals are able to start their own fundraising campaigns on behalf of an organization. Razom has spent years amplifying voices from Ukraine in conversations around the world, therefore we were able to swiftly communicate to our community the reality of the war in Ukraine. We organized resources for those interested in an easily accessible information hub (Linktr.ee/RazomForUkraine) and our awareness and global reach grew at least sevenfold in a matter of one-and-a-half days. Razom’s list of resources via the Linktree went viral, even so far as to become a poster slogan at major rallies across New York and D.C. and posted through the social media accounts of people with large followings.
Since our campaign going viral, to date, people have donated over $768,000 via social media alone. These funds will take as much as four weeks to transfer to our accounts, as per the policies of Meta. However with the increased visibility of Razom as a trusted resource for individuals looking to do something about the injustices and tragedy in Ukraine, many people chose to donate directly to our PayPal and bank accounts. Since February 18th, we’ve raised over $1.05M through those efforts. Within 5 days 14,371 donors contributed directly; the average donation size was under $100. In total, we expect to have $1.8M to deploy.
Over the past eight years, Razom has led several projects or partner projects in the healthcare space. These include programs that allow doctors based in the US to train doctors in Ukraine (Co-Pilot Project) and organizing container shipments for hospitals in Ukraine. During the global pandemic Razom led several waves of projects to procure and distribute PPE (in the early days of the pandemic) and later, medical equipment to hospitals. Thanks to the relationships nurtured and impact of those projects, we were able to identify doctors across the United States who could procure medical supplies on behalf of Razom. This list of doctors doubled and tripled within hours through word-of-mouth allowing us to purchase more goods at once to fill large shipments.
When it comes to the logistics and transport process, Razom is building a scalable, repeatable logistics operation to efficiently prioritize needs and deliver goods to the appropriate destinations. We’re partnering with organizations in the US, Ukraine, and Poland, that we’ve worked with since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. Given the urgency and scale of the needs however, we are also actively building new partnerships. We hope to provide more details soon, and in the meantime you can keep tabs on our progress over on our website.
Razom’s teams of volunteers – a truly diverse group of individuals and partnering organizations across the US, Europe, and Ukraine – have been urgently working to establish highly efficient procurement, logistics, and distribution channels. We are constantly working against the clock on this and cannot begin to properly thank all those determined to make it happen! At the same time, we have been hard at work analyzing the overwhelming amount of support in donations from you and are finally here to deliver some long-awaited updates.
How the Emergency Response Project Began
Razom was founded on purely volunteering efforts of Ukrainian Americans in NYC during the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, believes in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to unlock the potential of Ukraine. We work towards that mission by creating spaces where people meet, partner, and act.
Razom has maintained an open Emergency Response project since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 where we mobilized to procure medical and tactical supplies to the eastern front. We picked up this project again in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to fundraise for, procure, and deliver medical supplies across covid hot spots in Ukraine. Since 2014, the Emergency Response fund has always remained open for donors so that we were in a position to act swiftly in support of Ukrainians in crisis situations. When reports came that Russia began amassing troops on Ukraine’s borders, we began actively promoting for the Emergency Response fund again on February 18, 2022.
Currently our work is focused on purchasing tactical medical supplies (for critical situations like blood loss etc in the field) and medical supplies needed in hospitals. Thanks to having one of the largest and most active volunteer networks in the Ukrainian-American diaspora, we’ve been able to quickly build a procurement team that purchases life-saving supplies across the US and Europe. Additionally, thanks to our years of work with volunteers and organizations in Ukraine, we have a logistics team that’s able to transport our supplies from Warsaw, Poland to Ukraine.
Fundraising Success
Given that Razom is an entirely volunteer-run organization, our grassroots network is our key asset. All of our fundraising efforts for the Emergency Response project are conducted via social media and word-of-mouth. Donors have the option to donate via Facebook and Instagram where individuals are able to start their own fundraising campaigns on behalf of an organization. Razom has spent years amplifying voices from Ukraine in conversations around the world, therefore we were able to swiftly communicate to our community the reality of the war in Ukraine. We organized resources for those interested in an easily accessible information hub (Linktr.ee/RazomForUkraine) and our awareness and global reach grew at least sevenfold in a matter of one-and-a-half days. Razom’s list of resources via the Linktree went viral, even so far as to become a poster slogan at major rallies across New York and D.C. and posted through the social media accounts of people with large followings.
Since fundraising efforts began on February 18th via Facebook, our campaign went viral and people around the world launched independent Instagram fundraisers. To date, people have donated over $768,000 via social media alone. These funds will take as much as four weeks to transfer to our accounts, as per the policies of Meta. However with the increased visibility of Razom as a trusted resource for individuals looking to do something about the injustices and tragedy in Ukraine, many people chose to donate directly to our PayPal and bank accounts. Since February 18th, we’ve raised over $1.05M through those efforts. Within 5 days 14,371 donors contributed directly; the average donation size was under $100. In total, we expect to have $1.8M to deploy.
The Procurement Process
Over the past eight years, Razom has led several projects or partner projects in the healthcare space. These include programs that allow doctors based in the US to train doctors in Ukraine (Co-Pilot Project) and organizing container shipments for hospitals in Ukraine. During the global pandemic Razom led several waves of projects to procure and distribute PPE (in the early days of the pandemic) and later, medical equipment to hospitals. Thanks to the relationships nurtured and impact of those projects, we were able to identify doctors across the United States who could procure medical supplies on behalf of Razom. This list of doctors doubled and tripled within hours through word-of-mouth allowing us to purchase more goods at once to fill large shipments.
The Logistics & Transport Network
Razom is building a scalable, repeatable logistics operation to efficiently prioritize needs and deliver goods to the appropriate destinations. We’re partnering with organizations in the US, Ukraine, and Poland, that we’ve worked with since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. Given the urgency and scale of the needs, we are also actively building new partnerships. We hope to provide more details soon!
Thank you so much for your continued support. We’re razom.
This begins a series of newsletters from Razom to keep our community updated on our work and impact, and the resources available for you to join in.
Dear Razom Community,
The past 24 hours have been unimaginable. The reports that started flooding in from our friends, our loved ones, or the reports that wouldn’t come in for what felt like ages, is a moment in time that we know won’t leave us for a long time. Razom volunteers have been mobilizing, coordinating, working nonstop across time zones to ensure we understand what Ukraine needs right now and how we can all help.
We are in awe with the speed that volunteers across multiple states and countries found each other, focused, and organized to carry out this Emergency Response. Especially when one considers the circumstances and the amount of obstacles that are thrown their way. At times it’s been incredibly overwhelming – especially when websites go down, or russian bots block Facebook fundraisers, or other organizations join the cause so swiftly, accelerating our fundraising efforts that we are simply overwhelmed. So we’re here to take a collective deep breath and remind ourselves (and others!) about what resources, tools, networks, and tactics are available to us.
Here’s what we must do (listed in order of urgency, every minute counts right now):
Write and call your elected officials to act immediately and enact debilitating sanctions on Russia (including cutting Russian banks off from SWIFT, and an embargo on Russian oil and gas), fully isolate Russia from the international community, provide weapons and equipment for Ukraine, and send financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. Just do it, here’s a quick guide that’ll help you do it in no time.
If you want to help us translate these guides into as many languages as possible, email Mariya Soroka to get involved at mariya@razomforukraine.org.
Join rallies around the world to raise awareness in your community locally, nationally, internationally to demand the world leaders support Ukraine and the public doesn’t take its eyes off the urgency of the situation. You can find a constantly growing list of rallies here.
Razom volunteers have some big bold ideas for how we can mobilize millions to put pressure on their governments to immediately stand with Ukraine. Email Mariya Soroka if you want to get involved at mariya@razomforukraine.org
Want to organize a rally? Do it. Share it with Razom and we’ll support you.
You can absolutely donate directly to the Ukrainian Army. It’s pure and simple – heroes never die. This is where to do it.
There are many reputable, committed organizations that are raising funds for specific things. They will give us the power to provide much needed humanitarian aid. Consider donating to these and passing on to your friends and family as well:
Our Razom Emergency Response fundraiser was created to provide urgent help and support in face of extreme and unforeseen situations in Ukraine. For example right now, we are purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items. First deliveries started to trickle in and most are en route. So far we’ve been able to use $50,000 of funds raised, and are continuing to work tirelessly to use them as effectively as possible.
Nova Ukraine’s fundraiser for humanitarian aid is engaging donors on the West Coast. Razom volunteers are collaborating directly with Nova Ukraine’s.
Project Kesher supports a network of multigenerational, trained leaders across Eastern Europe. Like us, they are collecting an Emergency Fund.
Come Back Alive has been supporting Ukrainian soldiers in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, with special emphasis on technical support, training, and medicine.
Support Hospitals in Ukraine have sent over $4.05M in cargo to hospitals since 2014. They continue their operation to support this key infrastructure in Ukraine at a time of war.
Army SOSis yet another great organization supporting Ukrainian soldiers by purchasing necessary ammunition, shields, intercommunication and reconnaissance facilities, uniforms and food supply.
Voices of Children provides psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by hostilities and have been working on the ground in many villages and towns along the front lines in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Sunflower of Peace delivers lifesaving backpacks (for second level medical care according to the standards of tactical medicine) to Ukrainian soldiers, civilians, volunteers, and children.
Revived Soldiers Ukraine is yet another organization we’re collaborating directly with to send medical supplies as described above.
As always, if you want to donate your time/ energy/ skills/ smarts/ creativity/ ideas/ connections, email Mariya Soroka at mariya@razomforukraine.org. That’s all it takes to become a Razom volunteer. We need translators, writers, social media managers, medical specialists, logistics managers, fundraising specialists, people who have experience with refugee crises, and volunteer managers.
There’s a straight line from the consistency with which Razom is able to connect people who care and do the work to our effectiveness as an organization. The work isn’t easy and we don’t know what’s in store in the coming days or weeks, but as we stay up day and night for the people in Ukraine, we also look out for each other as Razom volunteers.
In the first 24 hours, while fundraising efforts were gaining full momentum, we connected an impressive team of Razom volunteers and nearly 20 partner organizations (Ukrainian, European, and US) with the expertise and resilience to create channels through which we could safely deliver much-needed goods across the Ukrainian border. As of today, there’s a trusted corridor between Poland and Ukraine that links two warehouses where life-saving supplies can be stored and distributed further. Meest-America, the trusted package and freight delivery service providing logistics solutions to Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucus, offered to fill their plane to the full with humanitarian goods from several organizations, including ours. Flying from Clifton, New Jersey, the first shipment is en route right now. We expect it to reach Ukraine in two days.
Given that the situation on the ground in Ukraine shifts rapidly, it is our hope that the channels we’ve established between the US and Ukraine via Poland will be a route of delivery we are able to repeat on multiple occasions.
Right now, we are actively looking for contacts with international humanitarian organizations or wholesale companies where we can purchase medical and tactical supplies. Our logistics network is well developed, but the procurement network needs most urgent support. If you can connect us to people who work or worked with such organizations or companies, we would be grateful. You can reach out to us at info@razomforukraine.org.
The latest supplies we purchased are listed below. Please be aware that not all purchases have made it to Clifton, NJ at the same time so we are working to maintain a consistent green corridor between US, Poland, and Ukraine.
100 disposable resuscitators
90 survival wrap packs
1000+ tourniquets
150 water jel burn dressings
30 abdominal pads
20 woven sterile sponges
We will continue to keep you updated and ensure your donations are well spent. Our team is working on providing a more detailed list of funds raised and spending. Please bear with us as our volunteers are responding on multiple fronts – media, humanitarian, and more – and are trying our best.
Thank you all for your tremendous support during this week! Razom volunteers have been working around the clock to respond to quickly get your generous donations into the hands of the people who need it most. Many people have asked us about the legitimacy of an Instagram fundraiser on behalf of Razom run by Plant A Tree Co (@platatreeco). We had questions too and we will share what we have learned here.
To our surprise, no one in our team of volunteers had any prior experience with Instagram’s independent fundraising feature before the morning of February 24, 2022. (Instagram now allows anyone with an account to launch a fundraiser on behalf of an organization.) The first thing we ever saw about the fundraiser was an influx of questions from our followers in DMs expressing concern over whether this was a legitimate fundraiser or not. We took these concerns very seriously, and prioritized playing it safe and acting fast in case people were being scammed. So we acted almost immediately to block the fundraiser and investigate how much damage had been made.
It turns out we were wrong!
Every single donation that was made under this independent fundraiser will go directly into Razom’s account, albeit with a delay. Instagram’s reporting mechanism has a built in delay so we don’t see every donation just yet. As per Meta rules, this money will come into our bank account two weeks after the fundraiser is closed.
We connected with both Instagram (including escalating the concern through our personal networks of Ukrainian engineers inside the company) and with Plant A Tree Co directly to be able to verify that this indeed is a legitimate fundraiser benefiting Razom. Thank you @plantatreeco for raising awareness to their 1MM followers about our work to procure medical and tactical supplies for territorial defense forces in Ukraine, and for allowing us to discover this Instagram functionality. We are looking forward to continuing to use this functionality as effectively as possible. Just like you all started using facebook fundraisers for Giving Tuesday and your birthdays over the years, we’re looking forward to doing the same (and more!) via Instagram.
We are so sorry for the confusion this has caused. But we are grateful for how well you all look out for each other and Razom.
We take reporting to you on money raised and spent very seriously, and aside from the formal Annual Reports that we publish on our website, we’re maintaining a reporting document (to be published shortly with link) on Emergency Response that will be regularly updated with stories, fundraising status, and a summary of our procurements.
We ask that if you see someone questioning the legitimacy of this fundraiser that you send them the link to this page to educate and clarify. Since publishing this statement, the fake warning about this fundraiser has been removed from the VOXUA site, our social media accounts have been updated, and the money raised directly from @plantatreeco’s fundraiser is hitting our account.
Within the Emergency Response efforts, our team is working day and night on finding and purchasing the needed medical supplies.
The initial plan was to purchase everything needed in Ukraine, but as it usually happens Ukrainian suppliers ran out of gear and med materials within the first orders from the government. Our current plan is to purchase medical supplies in the US and Europe and deliver it to Ukraine as soon as possible. At the moment we have ordered life-saving medical supplies for the amount of about $100,000 and continue purchasing as you are reading this post.
Among the first purchases are: – Rescue CAT Tourniquets (GEN 7), – Israeli Emergency Bandages (6″, 100/box), – QuilClot Combat Gauzes (Z Fold), – IV Start Kits, – Nasopharyngeal Airways, – Bag Valve Masks, – Sterile ABD Pads – and Iridium Satellite Phones.
The receipts for $50K are attached. We highly value transparency and will share the other receipts soon, as well as all the updates of further purchases. Please, be patient, it’s an emergency, and we are doing our best.
Donate today to provide relief and financial support to Ukraine in the time of need.
NEW YORK – Razom for Ukraine has issued the following statement regarding the ongoing crisis:
The United States must act immediately. The future of Europe and the world is at stake. Millions of Ukrainian lives will be affected. It is naive to believe that this kind of unprovoked attack and disruption of the world order will not affect Americans as well.
Razom for Ukraine is making an urgent plea for the following action plan:
Protect Ukrainian air space
Along with European and NATO allies, request the enforcement of a “no-fly” zone over Ukrainian territory
Continue to transfer defensive weaponry and equipment to Ukraine
Cut Russia off the SWIFT international banking system and levy additional sanctions against Russia
Fully isolate Russian Federation leadership from the international community by all means
Deliver financial assistance to strengthen the economy of Ukraine
Provide humanitarian assistance
Razom is accepting donations to assist the people of Ukraine. Donate directly so that there is no delay in your funds arriving.
Spread the word by sharing this now and donating here.
Razom for Ukraine
Razom is a 501(c)(3) organization. Donations and gifts are deductible to the full extent allowable under IRS regulations. Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, believes deeply in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to unlock the potential of Ukraine. Razom works towards that mission by creating spaces where people meet, partner, and act.
