Impact of War
Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014 and raised questions in our society about the value of Freedom. We did not stand aside: the Revolution of Dignity became one of the prerequisites for the launch of USF, our activists organized their own campaigns (for example, “Humanitarian Convoy for russia”), and when a new threat from russia loomed ever closer, in addition to projects on economics and politics, we began to organize training courses on first aid.
Since 2022, Russian missiles and UAVs have been attacking Ukrainian cities daily, and hostilities along the entire line of contact continue unabated. As the enemy gets closer to our hometowns every day, Ukrainian Students for Freedom are increasingly joining volunteer initiatives: most of them are conceived by one of our activists, and then our community joins in and helps in any way it can: we are Ukrainian Students for Freedom, so helping Ukraine is our responsibility.
We are even more proud of those USF members who are defending Ukraine’s freedom with weapons. We also remember those who died at the hands of the Russian aggressor.
Volunteer initiatives
Charitable Organisation «Volunteer HQ – SECOND FRONT»
Founders: Kyrylo Dymov, Artem Bakutin
Founded on 25 February 2022 by activists and supporters of USF from Odesa in response to the russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine.
Initially, the fund existed as an informal group of friends, which was able to grow rapidly and significantly assist the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the period of active threat of occupation of Odesa. Later, the focus of activity shifted to assisting civilians and military personnel in Mykolaiv. After the de-occupation of the right bank of the Kherson region, the team focused on supporting the civilian population of these territories. At the same time, in cooperation with international and national donors, in particular Atlas Network and Ukrainian Students for Freedom, initiatives were implemented to partially restore small farming businesses.
Since 2024, the team has focused its activities on providing military vehicles and servicing them. During their activities, volunteers have visited all frontline regions of Ukraine, assisted the military and civilian population in frontline villages and towns, repeatedly found themselves under threat of FPV drone attacks, visited the destroyed «Pyatirochka» in Sudzha, Russia, and delivered aid totalling more than 10 million hryvnia.
Currently, the Second Front holds regular fundraisers and implements joint projects with representatives of the USF and the organisations Mission Lifeline and Ukraine Defense Support.
All links: https://linktr.ee/thesecondfrontofficial
NGO «Kyiv Humanitarian Headquarters»
Founders: Anatoliy Didyk, Yelyzaveta Pidopryhora, Illia Platukhin
A volunteer initiative founded in March 2022 by members of Ukrainian Students for Freedom, the Kosmos Tabir cultural project team, and medical expert Lyudmila Bileka.
The headquarters arose spontaneously and with fervour in response to the first requests from friends in the military and gradually grew into a team that delivered more than 45,000 items of aid, mostly tactical medicine and equipment. Recipients included the 72nd, 92nd, 118th, and 128th assault brigades, AZOV, ODIN, and other brigades.
KHH provided everything from tactical first aid kits to armour, from tourniquets to Starlink. They worked not as a large foundation, but as a mobile, digital, horizontal headquarters that created its own accounting system in Notion and tested and launched Ukraine’s first decentralised fundraisers in March 2022.
The symbol of the KHH is the Cossack cat (TikTok star), the style is humour, the fundraisers are fast and efficient, mostly closed by friends for friends. The largest project was the 2024 purchase of 200 tactical first aid kits for the Colonel Yevhen Konovalets Military School (1.2 million UAH).
The HQ is currently on hiatus because the Cossack cat has been mobilised, but when KHH returns, you will know about it.
All links: https://linktr.ee/kyivhumhead
Our Heroes
Support Yehor Shapovalov
Yehor has been the COO of USF since 2021. He turned down a much more lucrative offer to take this position because he genuinely loved USF. It was his dream job.
During the 2021 Leadership Programme, Yehor and another USF member, Nazar Kovbasa, took a participant to the hospital in the middle of the night because she was feeling unwell. At that time, he had slept no more than three hours a day, but the well-being of other members of the organisation was more important to him than his own, so Yehor did not even consider doing anything else.
Yehor has a sister who is 14 years younger than him. So that she could live in a free Ukraine, he joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the age of 20 when the full-scale invasion began. Yehor had no previous connection to the military, but life quickly threw him into the then already half-destroyed Siverskodonetsk. He joked that in 2022 he had completed his goal of visiting every corner of Ukraine and finally visited the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Yehor dreamed of running four world marathons. He dreamed of a free Ukraine and a cool car (older USF members will remember his legendary turquoise Lanos, which once carried eight people to the USF’s 2021 birthday party). In general, Yehor was an ordinary twenty-year-old guy and did not want to be a hero: he wanted to be happy and make others happy as well.
His university friend, Dmytro, wrote the following about Yehor:
Yehor always knew that there were things more important than himself. He rarely put himself first. Once, Yehor asked me what I spent my money on. He earned less than me because, unlike me, he chose to do unpopular but important things. Material possessions were so far outside his sphere of interest that he sincerely did not understand why a person would need more money than was necessary to satisfy their basic needs. He found meaning in life by helping his country.
On 29 June 2022, an enemy shell hit his trench. Since then, Yehor has been in a vegetative state due to a brain injury caused by a mine explosion.
Yehor is a close friend of many USF members and a hero to our entire community. We continue to tell his story to new USF activists year after year, hoping that one day they will be able to get to know Yehor better.
Currently, medicine has no way to cure Yehor. However, caring for him requires monthly expenses. So you can help by using these details provided by Yehor’s mother:
Recipient: Shapovalova Iryna Oleksandrivna
IBAN: UA933220010000026206329926244
TIN/EDRPOU: 2867001280
Payment purpose: Account replenishment
We hope that medicine will make progress and Yehor will be able to recover. We would very much like to introduce him to our community. Yehor is one of the best among us.