American heroes send $30 million worth of equipment to Ukraine as Kiev launches counter-offensive against Russia
A group of US veterans has helped raise more than $30 million to send much-needed supplies to the Ukrainian military as Kiev begins its fight against Russia.
Since the full-scale invasion began in February last year, they have coordinated and delivered more than just non-lethal aid to the front lines.
Nearly 9,000 civilians have been killed and more than 15,000 injured since Vladimir Putin’s all-out assault on Ukraine.
Dimmick, a former infantry and foreign officer, served on overseas assignments in Saudi Arabia, Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo, Russia, Iraq and Georgia
Russia invaded its neighbor on February 24 last year and launched a series of attacks on the capital Kiev
A missile hit this residential building in the Ukrainian city during a frenzied Russian bombing raid
Spirit of America, the Virginia-based non-profit that counts several ex-servicemen and women in its ranks, tracking down non-lethal military supplies and bringing them to the front lines to aid the Ukrainian war effort.
It is the only organization in the US that works directly with the Defense Department to assess the needs of Ukrainian soldiers.
Weapons shipments are left to Ukraine’s allies, with a small number of US officials tracking deliveries in the country to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.
The group was founded in 2003 by tech entrepreneur Jim Hake after the 9/11 attacks.
It is present in more than 100 countries and has been operating in Ukraine since 2014 Moscow illegally captured Crimea, initially aiming to set up a radio station to fight back against the Kremlin’s propaganda.
But attention shifted when Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin sent troops and tanks to the capital Kiev.
The staff and donors have made it possible to ship more than 200 tons of non-lethal equipment, such as helmets, body armor and surveillance drones.
The organization, using its Ukrainian government contacts, has even paid to refurbish old Soviet-era military vehicles to help the country’s military fight back against Russia.
Now a director at Spirit of America, Colleen Denny served with the U.S. Coast Guard for nearly a decade and was involved in the humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake
Colleen Denny, who served with the U.S. Coast Guard for nearly a decade, joined the nonprofit in January 2019.
“We had actually been working with the U.S. embassy in Kyiv and U.S. military partners for the full-scale invasion for a few months now,” she says. “We just read what happened and understood what Russia was doing;
When the Russian army finally rolled over the Ukrainian border, Dendy was vacationing in Utah, where she watched the events unfold on TV.
“I watched the news and saw what happened and how unfair and cruel it seems,” says Denny.
But just 24 hours later, the Johns Hopkins graduate was back at her Washington DC home and packing her bags for Poland.
From there, over the next few weeks, she would coordinate the “monumental task” of getting supplies within 36 hours for those in need in Ukraine.
The 35-year-old, who was involved in the US humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, reached Rzeszow, a key supply hub for the Ukrainian war effort, on Feb. 28.
“On March 18, our first cargo plane landed,” she says. “I don’t even know how many Signal messages, WhatsApp messages, emails I received from any Ukrainian somehow got my number.
“I think my weekly screen time averaged 21 hours. We were just around the clock.’
“It was really a triage of how we prioritize and assess what funding we have and what help we can provide.”
Denny and fellow veteran Matt Dimmick, seen here with Ukrainian soldiers on the ground, helped coordinate deliveries of critical non-lethal aid from neighboring countries
Ukraine’s government revised the rules to make it easier to join the country’s territorial forces just before Russia’s latest illegal land grab.
According to British defense think tank RUSI, their ranks grew from 55,000 to as many as 110,000 by May 2022.
A presidential decree also bans men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country.
It meant that demand in Ukraine for life-saving items, such as Kevlar-coated vests, skyrocketed in the first few months of the war.
One of the group’s donations last year helped a young soldier cheat death on the frontline in the southern port city of Mykolaiv after coming under Russian fire.
“We took care of the helmet he was wearing,” Denny said. “He texted a picture and said, ‘Last night I was in a gunfight and this saved my life.'”
Spirit of America hopes to eventually ship the equivalent of $200 million in non-lethal aid and equipment to the Ukrainian military, which began its long-anticipated counter-offensive against the Russian invaders on June 10.
Unlike many other nonprofits, it prides itself on being “non-neutral” and openly supporting U.S. foreign policy goals.
The website labeled Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion as “the greatest threat to freedom and democracy since the Second World War.’
Retired Colonel Matt Dimmick, who served 29 years in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer and overseas officer, said he enlisted because he missed work on the “hard missions or targets” that serving his country entailed .
“It’s hard for veterans to replicate that on the outside after you take off the uniform,” the 52-year-old explains.
Dimmick, an expert on Russia and Ukraine who has advised the Pentagon and the White House, describes his work coordinating aid deliveries to the war-torn country as “coming home.”
He said experience abroad in conflict zones like Kosovo and Bosnia was “part of the recipe for what drove me to where I wanted to do after coming out of the military.”
“These are similar examples where you have an aggressive, larger neighbor wreaking havoc and destruction on a smaller population…”there are certain things that powerful countries can do to help those people resist only blatant aggression.”
The West Point and University of Kansas graduate was preparing to go live on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network when he learned that Putin had “continued this madness.”
But there are people who are part of the project and still serve in some capacity.
Adel Hussain, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants, is a reservist paratrooper and psychological operations officer in the United States Army in addition to his work for Spirit of America.
The 28-year-old helped train Ukrainian soldiers as part of a NATO program known as Operation Atlantic Resolve from September 2017 to June 2018.
Hussain, a practicing Muslim, has served as an army field artillery officer with an overseas tour in Germany and Poland
The 28-year-old dropped his plans to study international relations at the University of Denver, preferring to help Spirit of America in its efforts to support Ukraine.
On the night Russia invaded, he decided to withdraw from a graduate program in international relations at the University of Denver and ended up at the Arlington-based nonprofit.
“I felt this kind of helplessness where you hope that the training you gave your friends in Ukraine will now keep them alive,” explains Hussein. “But I felt incredibly frustrated and guilty for not doing more.”
Against the backdrop of the Spirit of America fundraiser, some in Republican circles are arguing that US taxpayers shouldn’t be helping the Ukrainian military at all.
Since February 24 last year, the Biden administration has pledged just over $77 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Just over $47 billion has been spent on weapons and other military equipment, much of which is made in the United States itself.
“The U.S. government spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year, even trillions of dollars over time, to deter Russia from doing exactly what they are trying to do to Ukraine,” Dimmick counters.
“The Ukrainians are doing a huge favor to all freedom-loving, freedom-loving people in Europe, in the United States by taking on Russia and extorting huge amounts of resources from the Russian military machine,” he told DailyMail.com.