Dear Mission Supporters,

My goal in making this announcement and writing this comprehensive all-inclusive FAQ bulletin, is to cover at least 95% of every factor that might weigh into your decision-making process for considering joining us on the Mission II trip to Ukraine in September-October. So if you are at the very least considering undertaking this noble Mission, please invest the time needed to read through all of this first-hand knowledge, then feel free to call me to discuss whatever is not included that is important to you in making this decision.

And if you decide that you do want to see, hear and feel just how important your efforts will be, as recognized by the incredibly grateful Ukrainian people, I can promise you this: this will be a life-changing moment for you, and in some of you (as I affected me) you will equate this with the most meaningful work you have every done in your entire life.

As you can see from our reporting while in Ukraine and now afterwards, our first 2022 Mission trip was enormously successful – we rescued numerous children and small families, delivered two tons of food and other supplies to several villages and military camps along the front lines, provided a Field Hospital with vital medical equipment and supplies, helped reunite five siblings who lost both parents to the war, provided gifts and personal essentials to an orphanage housing forty of these “double orphans” (who lost both parents in the past four months), and much, much more. Above all, we gave all these Ukrainians and many more, “hope” in the form of us returning to Ukraine in “Mission II” with a larger team to continue with even more of our heartfelt, person-to-person charity, reinforcing in the hearts and minds of imperiled Ukrainians that we Americans have not and will not forget them.

So now it is time to begin planning that return visit – the OFT Ukraine Humanitarian Mission II, scheduled for September-October – and with that impending need, I would like to put out this call for volunteers. We mostly need people who would go with us on this second Mission into Ukraine, but we will also need a few Americans volunteering here state-side to provide administrative and logistical support for our second Mission.

You each will have your own reasons for joining us on this second Mission, but I can personally attest to the fact that whatever those reasons are, you will not come away disappointed, in fact, I can pretty much assure you that you too will find this to be a truly life-changing experience. It was for me, and I’ve done a lot in my life and career, but nothing, absolutely nothing came close to this in terms of feeling that we made a difference. We made a BIG difference. We saved lives. We fed the starving. We brought happiness to displace sadness, we replaced suffering with comfort, we showed them love, and we gave them hope.

Now you can do the same and come away a better person. Please sign-up for Mission II today!

Dr. Chuck Olson
Director, 2022 Ukraine Humanitarian Mission

What follows are the answers to the most frequently-asked-questions, answers that are backed by our experience gained during July’s first Mission I trip to Ukraine. In it, I cover every aspect of the trip and link it to your specific decision-making process.

For those of you who want to join us on Mission II by going to Ukraine with me in September-October…

– First and foremost, if you are at all interested in coming along with me to Ukraine in September-October, please reach out to me personally at my email address, even if just to say, “I’m IN!!”’ Chuck@BluefieldRanch.com So finish reading all of this, then send me the most applicable information.

– Second, determine the range of dates (from when to when) that you would be able to go to Ukraine, and send that along to me as well. We normally keep our specific Mission dates flexible until we determine who the participants are and when they can go (see below for more information on that).

Then, once we have a full slate of Team Members, we set the bookend dates, which are the all-inclusive dates of when one or more Mission Team Members will be in-country. Not all of our participants will come at the same time (unless the Team is small), and also, if you will be joining us along with a friend or another family member, make sure we know that too so that we can schedule you at the same time.

Towards the end of this long list of recommendations below, I discuss a new exclusive feature we’re adding to our second Mission, which is an option for other people to go with you to Europe, but instead of going on to Ukraine with you, they can instead go elsewhere in Europe while you are in Ukraine and then meet you once your service is over in Ukraine.

For this feature, Dawn Edwards, our State-side Director will be coordinating this for whoever wants to take advantage of this optional assistance. Dawn will be going with me as far as Paris (or Warsaw or Amsterdam), then I’ll meet back up with her when the Mission is finished. We are also contemplating adding a second option, which would be for those who wanted to go along with the participant all the way to either Lviv or Kyiv, and stay there in Ukraine’s larger safer cities throughout our Mission, so keep an eye out for that news in future Mission Bulletins.

– As of right now at this very earliest planning stage, our bookend dates are widely spaced, which means that until we refine the calendar, we could be going to Ukraine anywhere from September 1st to October 25th.

– From personal experience I can tell you that the single most important factor for most of you in determining your bookend dates has to do with your Passport. Obviously, you will need to have a current, valid Passport for the international travel (whether your travel is by air, bus, train, private car, etc.), but I can also tell you that while in Ukraine you will be stopped dozens of times or more at military checkpoints and police and customs stops, where here and everywhere, whenever you are asked to show identification, you are always expected to show them your Passport (and not for example your Driver’s License).

Why this is relevant to your bookend dates is if you need to renew your passport, like I had to, or get a new one if your old one had expired. Be forewarned: this process will take up to 4-8 weeks depending on your personal circumstance. I have told people who have already decided to join us to make this your first and most urgent priority because of this long processing time; in this age of online registrations, it’s crazy and frustrating that you’ll have to wait for the paperwork to make its way through several layers of bureaucracy AND snail mail, but that’s the reality of it, so do not underestimate the potential delays.

– I can’t really discuss the next priority factor – getting your appropriate shots and vaccines – without also speaking about the entire issue of your personal health and conditioning and the medical situations you’ll face there in Ukraine. So let me start with the most universal of those: the shots and vaccines that you should be considering getting, also as soon as possible (because sometimes you must wait a couple weeks in-between certain shots, others have to be ordered, etc., so the bottom line is again, as with anything, PLAN AHEAD).

So to begin with, talk to your personal physician about what shots they recommend. He/she will also ask you about what you’re planning to get in terms of the recommended or required inoculations, so get out ahead of that by going to the US State Department website and search for required shots/vaccines, or just google, “what shots and vaccines do I need traveling from ____ (your home state) to Poland and Ukraine” (I’ll explain the “Poland” in a minute).

My approach was simple – I got every available shot/vaccine recommended and then some, including Tetanus, Malaria, Flu, etc., which brings us to…

– For me it was too hard following all the COVID rules and regulations – both here in America and overseas – and since I have no other reason NOT to get a Covid booster, I actually got two different Covid boosters about two months apart.

I can report to you that I was asked for my proof of Covid shots (or my status in terms of having Covid) ONE time during my nearly two-week trip, and that was when I checked into my return flight from Warsaw to the US, via Amsterdam; I don’t know what triggered that request, or why it was never asked for at any other time during my travels, which again is why I just went with the maximum vaccination coverage possible.

But each to their own on this one. That said, I would really hate it if you made plans to join us on our Mission and you travel halfway around the world only to face some silly bureaucratic reason that would halt you in your tracks and turn you around and send you home.

– As to the matter of your own physical capacities, I’ll approach those recommendations from a couple different angles. To begin with, most of this depends on your existing physical/medical condition and your existing level of fitness conditioning, specifically in terms of your overall physical fitness as it pertains to the work you will be doing. Here and elsewhere in my recommendations, I will use myself as a comprehensive reference point.

On one hand, on our first Mission trip, I personally did everything that could possibly be included in our Mission assignments, in other words, on our second trip we will never do anything that we haven’t already done during the first trip, and myself in particular will never ask you or any of our Team Members to do something that I personally have never done before in Ukraine. As with every aspect of this second Mission, I have first-hand personal experience with every aspect of our second Mission trip, so as they say, “I know of what I speak”.

So from that personal perspective, and for my personal reference point, I am 67 years old, I have moderately high blood pressure and routinely have to battle skin cancer, but I have no other real underlying condition that merited any special consideration. That said, I will also say that I have been very active my entire life, I’m a lifetime sports and fitness nut AND for the four weeks prior to the first trip, I did some special conditioning (which I describe in more detail below).

So with that as my physical and conditioning status, I never once in conducting our aid delivery and other services throughout Ukraine, never once did I feel that I was in over-my-head physically, I never detected that I was pressing my heart/lungs/immunity or otherwise endangering my health in any way.

Well, to be totally honest, the only marginal exemption to that was when I was trying to make a flight connection in Paris (which for you who have never used DeGaulle Airport, it’s like Atlanta times ten in terms of the distance between international and inter-Europe travel gates) running through the maze that is the DeGaulle Airport was extremely taxing, in that I had to drag two oversized carry-ons for what seemed like 10 miles over a period of less than 55 minutes. THAT nearly wiped me out, but the saving grace moving forward is that I already made that mistake for us, so on our second trip I will make sure we have at least two hours lay-over for any and all flight connections.

– Starting about one month before I departed for Ukraine, I included in my daily schedule about 30-45 minutes of conditioning for the trip. Now I originally envisioned the trip as being much more physically difficult than it turned out to be, so my entire conditioning program ended-up being overkill, but I needed the extra fitness training anyway so I regret not one bit of it.

So to pare it down to something reasonable, my advice would be that in the month leading up to your departure, you at least walk or power-walk for 30-60 minutes at least 3-4 times a week for cardio, then for strength training (here I am thinking here of lugging heavy suitcases, and loading and unloading boxes of aid supplies, etc.), I filled a backpack with 10-20 pounds of dumbbells (or a few gallons of water) and did my 2-3-mile walks with that heavy-pack on. If you can get to a gym, even better, so you can do any of the various general lifting exercises.

The cardio work I did paid off the best, as our days were long and involved a lot of walking, while sleep was irregular at best, so you’ll benefit the most by just being a little more physically fit than otherwise, and that should be fine.

I also want to assure you that we will tailor your assignments so that they are a good match for your age and physical condition, so you’ll never have to worry about doing too much. And like I said, I’m a 67-year-old grandfather for crying out loud, so if my old beat-up rancher body could handle a frenetic, hectic two weeks of running around delivering supplies, any of you will do just fine.

– As far as the health/medical conditions you’ll encounter over in Ukraine or along the way…in general, once I arrived in Poland and traveled by car to Ukraine, and then as I went all around the northern two-thirds of Ukraine, I can honestly say that it will be hard to not think you are in America. Perhaps it was no more than my ignorance or naivety, but whatever, I did not expect Ukraine to be this…well, modern. Everything looked and felt like it was back here in the US (only better in some respects, including the fact that Ukraine was the cleanest country I have ever been in).

While I did not have any opportunity to use any one of the quite numerous clinics, urgent care facilities and hospitals in Ukraine, they all looked very modern and from what the Ukrainians told me, their healthcare is among the best in all of Europe, and I see no reason to doubt them. All of the pharmacies we went to (which was quite a few because we were buying much of our medical aid supplies there to support the local Ukrainian businesses) were exceptionally well-stocked, very clean and very reasonably priced.

One additional safety net is that all our Mission personnel all carry with them a comprehensive first aid kit, and each Mission Team is given a trauma bag that will provide everything you would need for nearly any kind of injury including very major ones.

So between what we will carry with us, and with how convenient medical centers and pharmacies are in Ukraine, my recommendation is that you only bring whatever medicines and medical equipment and supplies you need for your everyday health and for your own unique health emergencies – in other words, bring what you would otherwise bring on any typical extended vacation to Europe.

– Now as far as the conditions in the southern one-third of Ukraine, which is where 90% of the fighting is being done (therefore this is also where the vast majority of the neediest Ukrainians are, there quite a few “it depends…” come into play.

For example, when enrolling people for this next Mission trip, you mostly (with my/our advice/input) will decide whether you want to join me in going literally, “anywhere the most-neediest Ukrainians are” or whether you want to stick to aid deliveries and other services in the northern one-third of the country (which means working out of Lviv and Kyiv mostly). That will be your choice entirely.

If you decide to join me and go, like we did on our first Mission trip wherever the neediest Ukrainians are found, this will most likely take us again to the front lines of the War, or just back off the line a mile or two or three. In the next topic section below I will describe conditions there on the front lines in more detail, but in terms of the medical or health factors, it is what you think it would be: while there are Field Hospitals placed about every 10-15 miles apart, and there are medics assigned to nearly every small troop company, we will rely on three of our own inherent safety factors for all needed medical treatment.

The first layer is the personal medicines and treatment supplies you will bring with you; you know best what works for you in everyday and in emergency situations, so you’ll bring that along as your first line of defense in treating any health concern that is out of the ordinary.

The second level of emergency medical treatment are the medic packs and trauma bags that we will always have with us. With these kits on-hand, we will be able to treat the vast majority of the more troublesome health problems, especially if you are “injured on the job”.

With these kits and the field medic training I and any nurses or doctors that will be going with us have had, I know that for example I alone can treat anything from a serious cut requiring stitches, to broken bones, to most burns, all the way up to and including GSW’s (gun shot wounds), choking or airway blockage, severe hemorrhaging, and other more serious wounds (it is VERY important to note that we never even had so much as needing a splinter removed on our first trip, but we will always be prepared well in-advance for any and all serious injuries or afflictions to ensure not just your optimal health status but so that you can enjoy the Mission without excessively worrying about a health problem).

The third and final level of emergency medical treatment is simply our vehicles and where those can take us. If we encountered a very serious medical condition (say for example a presumed heart attack), at all times we will know where the nearest field hospital is or have directions to the nearest civilian hospitals that are in the nearby towns or cities.

When you look at how well we are equipped and supplied, along with how well we are trained, we essentially are our own EMT’s (in fact I’ve had a few EMTs express interest in joining our second mission, so we might have those along with us, which we did not have on our first Mission trip).

– If you are like most people, “the front lines” of a War conjures up visions of WWI trench warfare or US Marines storming the beach at Iwo Jima or other frightening images of brutal warfare conditions. So before anyone starts to get concerned about that, I need to first tell you about our general rules of where we will go and where we will not:

– First and foremost, you and only you will have 100% control over where you will go and not go during our entire Mission. You will never be asked to go somewhere or do something that you are opposed to, and you will never be “left behind” if the majority of the Team will want to press ahead and you don’t. We will have all of this arranged and agreed upon before we depart for Ukraine.

– Second, we will be persistently highly-adaptive in terms of our day-to-day scheduling and planning, especially for where we will go to deliver aid and where we won’t. This approach served us well in our first Mission trip, as it worked both ways: first, we abandoned a planned trip to the region southeast of Dnipro because two days before we were to depart, the combat greatly intensified in that vicinity, and we deemed it too dangerous to travel through and to.

On the other hand, we replaced this two-day trip with one to the front lines at the far western end of the front lines, near Mykoliav and Kherson. On the day before we departed Lviv we had received news from the Ukrainian government that the Ukrainian military had forced the Russians to “de-occupy” a dozen villages in that vicinity, and those then became the location of “the neediest of Ukrainians” (because not only had their village been brutally occupied for nearly a month by Russian soldiers, who would have stolen all of their food and personal supplies, but also because they had last been delivered aid for three weeks even before the Russian forces invaded).

And yes, what we found there in these very recently de-occupied villages was the worst of the news we had been receiving all along. These imperiled villagers suffered greatly, and some of them seemed barely alive when we arrived. Which told me we were exactly where we were needed the most.

-Third, we will make any and all needed “on-the-spot” decisions if we ever encounter conditions being where we do not feel totally comfortable, in other words, if we hear artillery strikes getting closer, or if we see or hear reports of Russian troops nearby, or any other of the many warning signs, we will immediately turn around and retrace our route back to safer areas.

– Fourth, even though the areas around Mykoliav and Kherson were listed as being “combat zones” and all of the villages were technically on the War’s front lines (or as the Ukrainians refer to the front lines: “The Zero Line”), and although throughout the entire two days there we heard consistent artillery explosions far off in the distance and we saw Ukrainian jets fly overhead several times each day, and even on one occasion we watched as the Ukrainian Aerial Defense System performed its magic by shooting off rockets that intercepted and exploded Russian missiles and rockets high up in the sky, I can honestly say that never once did I feel as if we were in immediate or imminent danger.

Never once did I worry about anything happening to us (and in general I am a very safety-conscious person), and that assessment was rewarded as we never encountered anything dangerous (in fact, I can honestly say that on numerous occasions in the past when I was in Miami or New York City, I felt as if I were in immediate danger, and I was more frightened about being in those American cities than I ever was on the front lines in Ukraine.

Now in saying all that, I do not want to totally dismiss the dangers inherent in Mission assignments such as this. In asking for volunteers to deliver this aid in this region, the Ukrainian government flatly said, “this is a dangerous assignment” – and it was. While traveling along the front lines, we DID see evidence all around us that at one or more times since the war started this was a very dangerous location – we saw huge gaping holes in the ground caused by Russian ICBM and cruise missile explosions, the exterior walls of many homes were pockmarked by bullet holes or where frags hit…and tragically we saw evidence of the worst outcome in this or any war, we saw many of freshly-dug graves. So yes, War is dangerous on the front lines.

But it stands to reason that if we are to live up to our Mission mantra: “to deliver the most-needed aid to the neediest of Ukrainians” – – those neediest Ukrainians are most likely found in the combat zones and along the front lines. So again, I will return to the basic rule we have of personal choice. If you do not want to go on any particular mission assignment, then just decline it and someone else will step in and we will find you an assignment that better suits your needs.

On the other hand, if you want to come to Ukraine driven by a personally-determined duty to save lives and give relief and aid to people who have no other source for that, or if you want to arrive in these villages and be hailed by the most appreciative people you will ever meet and be seen as a hero or an angel sent from heaven, then our Mission gives you that opportunity as well.

– Shifting gears back to planning for Mission II, in making the decision to join our next Mission trip, and then in preparing yourself for the trip, I strongly encourage you to do two things: first, read as much as you can get your hands on the coverage of the War. I have personally found that the reporting coming from European news bureaus (there are plenty of references for these European news bureaus here on our website) is more accurate and “real”, for all the obvious reasons, but they have served to educate me better for what I encountered over there. This heavy reading will prepare you for the good and the bad that we will encounter, so that neither comes as a surprise to you.

– In fact, I have found the European reporting of the War to be so superior to US coverage and so comprehensive that I have just started a new feature on our website – “News Headlines from Ukraine and Europe” – where I have gone to each of my primary sources of news and excerpted their headline stories for that day. I will be updating these Bulletins every couple of days so that as these Bulletin’s accumulate, you will have in one place a continuous record of all of the major news reporting coming from Ukraine and Europe in the run-up to when we arrive.

The second thing I encourage you to do is to call me and ask me whatever you want as some prospective volunteers already have (if you are curious about the most commonly-asked question of me to-date? It has been “Did you see many dead bodies?”, to which my answer was “no”, in fact I think I only saw two in the entire time we were over there). If you call me, I will be totally transparent in telling you whatever you need or want to know, at least as based on what I experienced during my first Mission trip over there.

When you think about it – we are going to be relying on each other possibly even in some life-or-death situations, so we absolutely MUST trust each other to the highest degree, and as the veteran of this Mission work, it is incumbent upon me to be totally upfront and honest in sharing with you everything that I know. So please take full advantage of my willingness to ease your concerns and answer any questions you have.

– Back to the more mundane topic of travel, you probably already know that there are no commercial airline flights going into or out of Ukraine, so to get there by air, you must travel into one of the neighboring countries. Poland was my choice and it’s one that I would still recommend.

There are plenty of flights going in and out of Warsaw each day, and it is “only” a 5–6-hour drive from Warsaw to the Ukraine border. You could also try to fly into Bucharest or Prague, or even Athens, but I cannot recommend that, nor have I heard many favorable comments about going those routes. So unless there’s some new reason not to go through Poland and Warsaw specifically, that is definitely the way I will be going for Mission II.

– Once we get a little closer to our trip, and once we get our full Team Members selected, Dawn Edwards will help you make your travel decisions (e.g., whether you want or need to stay the first night in Warsaw, or whether you want to retrace your flights in with your flights out, using the same connecting cities) – we’re not a travel agency so we won’t have all the answers, but we can speak from experience, and like I said earlier, Dawn assisted me with all of my pre-trip planning for Mission I, and she will be going over with me as far as Warsaw in Mission II, so she can help if you, for example, have anyone who wants to go that far too, and then either go to other countries while we are doing the work in Ukraine or just spend the week in Warsaw, Dawn can provide advice on that.

In terms of how long we’ll be working in Ukraine during Mission II, that varies from person-to-person, but in general I recommend that you think in terms of blocks of ten-days (including travel, so that’s like 7-8 full days delivering aid nearly non-stop). Not only is that duration and especially the intensity of working back-to-back-to-back days in the Goldilocks range (not too long/intense, not too lax or too short), it is also the most efficient.

For you younger volunteers, you may feel as if working consecutive 7-8 days is not enough, and if so, I’ll encourage you to sign up for the maximum number of days that you feel you can work. After all, in deciding upon 7-8 days being my personal maximum workload, I took into account my age and fitness, and while I’m sure I would have survived several more days of delivering aid, I took the cautious approach – and that suited mine just fine.

Here’s another personal observation: On my 9th and final day in Ukraine, as we were done delivering aid and were instead making our way back up north to Lviv and on to Warsaw, my physical and mental systems collapsed; I felt totally drained and exhausted, something that I had not felt in any of the previous 8 days leading up to that.

But as I analyzed that new feeling, I recognized that the more likely explanation was that for every aid deliver day prior to that last day, the adrenaline produced by the self-imposed intensity of the organic workload stress I was under elevated my energy levels far above and beyond my body’s natural levels, so that I never once felt “done” or “cooked”, even under the strain of delivering aid and avoiding Russian forces for upwards of 16-18 continuous hours each day. That final day however, without people to save, without that added adrenaline stoked by the challenges we’d be facing, my body returned to “normal” energy levels, and that was obviously insufficient, and I crashed, and I ended up sleeping most of the drive back north.

– Some of you might also want to do what I might be doing and that is undertaking two separate ten-days blocks of time pursuing Mission goals in Ukraine, separated by a few days on R&R in Warsaw or other eastern European cities. I might be doing this – returning to Ukraine for the second half of Mission II – so that I can meet up with the second team of Mission Members who will be coming over for the latter portion of Mission II; all of you will have that option as well.

All of these options are on the table and will stray there until we fill out our Mission II Team, so please reach out to me to express your interest and your criteria for joining us on Mission II so that we can factor that into our advanced planning.

– In general, we plan on delivering about one ton of aid supplies each day – with one ton fitting on enough pallets to fill one large delivery van or pick-up truck (but outside of the military, pick-up trucks are few and far between in Ukraine). And depending on the number of stops each day, it generally takes one full day to offload one ton of aid supplies to a Field Hospital and 2-3 villages.

– In terms of logistics and scheduling – and depending on how many vehicles and Team Members we have – once we depart Lviv or Kyiv, we will most likely work out of our decentralized regional aid depots.

What this specifically means is that first, you need to understand that the vast majority of aid supplies are currently located in Ukraine’s largest northern cities – Lviv and Kyiv, so almost every Mission will begin in one of these two large cities, where we will get our vehicles, most of our Ukrainian staff and at least our initial load of aid supplies.

I will also be working ahead of the trip to see if we can get larger quantities of aid supplies moved from Lviv and Kyiv to one or two regional aid supply depots. On our first mission we did this by establishing regional aid supply depots in Odessa and Mykoliav…

…which brings me to another important (albeit) random recommendation: Study a map of Ukraine and use map when reading our website reporting to better understand where the fighting is and where the major cities are, and especially be attuned to the distances between all of these major sites – so that you will be familiar with the geography of where we will be working.

– Back to our overall itinerary, herein I’ll give you a brief overview of each day. So if you look at your primary option of coming for one ten-day block of time, assuming that we are traveling together, Day One will be consumed with getting into Warsaw, and then heading south to the Ukrainian border crossing, and most likely ending up at our first destination, which will be Lviv. Alternately, if there is a major reason why we need to start in Kyiv, on this first day we would make the longer drive to Kyiv.

In this discussion and all others involving travel within Ukraine, you need to keep in mind that in Ukraine there is a universal 11:00 pm curfew (which is rigidly enforced) so this first day of the Mission will be entirely traveling to get to our destinations in Ukraine before the curfew kicks-in.

Everyone should also keep in mind that in traveling from the US to Warsaw, most of the flights crossing the Atlantic are red-eyes, starting in America (NY, Boston, Washington, even Detroit, where I left from on the first Mission trip) departing around 10-11 pm, and arriving in Europe around 6-9 am. Then we’ll make connections (typically in Paris. London or Amsterdam or possibly Berlin) and arrive in Warsaw in the early-mid-afternoon – but early enough so that we can make the 5-6 hour drive to Ukraine and then the 2 hours to drive from the border to Lviv, or the 5-6 hours from the border to Kyiv – arriving before the 11:00 pm curfew.

– This is perhaps the best place to bring up the issue of air raid attacks. On Mission I, we hadn’t even gotten to the Ukrainian border on Day One when our phone apps lit up with air raid warnings, and as it was on that first day/night the entire drive from the Ukrainian border to Lviv was under the cloak of an active air raid (postscript: all of the missiles the Russian’s launched that evening were intercepted by Ukraine aerial defense system, however the next day, of the six Russian missiles fired at Lviv, 2 evaded the defense network and hit residential targets, injuring 18).

Of the ten days we were in-country during Mission I, there was only one of those days when we did not have an air raid. For those of you who volunteer for Mission II, once we get closer to our departure date, I will share with you all of the apps that were most useful for me over there, beginning with two that are linked to the Ukrainian air defense office.

– Back to our itinerary, with Day One being consumed with travel, we will awaken the next day – Day Two – in Lviv where we will likely first go to meetings with the Ukrainian government for briefings on the status of the War and humanitarian needs.

One of the major reasons why I have established Lviv as our primary launching point is because the Lviv region is led by Governor Maksym Kozytsky, who I have found to be a great personal friend in addition to being an incredibly helpful government official. For example, on the very same day we first met Governor Kozytsky, he authorized his offices to assist us in any way we needed it, which included him giving us a delivery van packed full with one ton of medical and humanitarian aid. Remember that name – Maksym Kozytsky – because no doubt he will play a major role in Mission II, and over the coming years we will likely see his name circulated widely in political discussions. As I said, he is an easy friend to make and a very, very effective leader.

– So Day Two will be spent getting the latest information on the War and humanitarian needs, and by the end of the day we will have established our various target destinations for aid delivery over the next 7-8 days, along with getting our first major supply of aid items; there we will also secure the needed Ukrainian Team Members, including our fixers, interpreters, and drivers.

– Speaking of Team Members, I encourage you to look at our website’s Home Page and see who comprised our first Mission Team; for our second Mission we will have more staffing overall but what will remain the same is that each Team will be comprised of a nearly equal number of Ukrainians and Americans, which is an incredible opportunity to learn more about these amazing people. I made what will likely to be lifelong friends with every one of our Mission I Team and I know that you too will love getting to know these people.

– Early on Day Three we will leave Lviv (or Kyiv if our alternate plan is in-place) and begin making aid deliveries in the northern half of the country, along with undertaking our other primary Mission goals of fact-finding and reporting on the conditions we encounter.

– Day Three’s schedule of delivering all forms of aid during the daytime hours and then using the remaining time between then and the 11:00 pm curfew to re-stock our vehicles with more aid supplies – is a schedule that will be repeated each and every subsequent day (except for our final day in Ukraine). So whether you will be delivering aid for 7-8 days or more (or less), the only factor that changes will be the destination for those aid delivery trips, beginning and ending in the northern half of the country while using the days in-between delivering aid down in the more active combat zones and along the front lines.

Speaking of these primary Mission goals also gives me a good opportunity to identify the skills and experience needed by our Mission, and hopefully you and our other American volunteers will have these skills, as they will be needed every day we’re over there. So please review these skill needs and if you think you would like to go on Mission II, in emailing me that notice, include any of the following skills that you could provide and roles that you think you could fulfill.

Our primary Mission goals include:

– First and foremost, our primary Mission goals include rescuing imperiled Ukrainians and taking them to safer locales in Ukraine, while delivering aid to “the neediest Ukrainians” who wish to remain in their homes. So for this work we just need Americans with big hearts, people who relish the opportunity to save, clothe, feed and protect people in difficult situations. Also, if you have any experience in therapy or psychological counseling, that would be terrific because the Ukrainians need for that is as great as their need for any other type of aid.

Also, a categorical need throughout our entire Mission is for Americans who are reporters, writers, investigators, documentarians or in any of the ventures allied with the media.

Another categorical need is for people who routinely work with children, either as teachers or child-care specialists.

When we arrive at these villages, some of our volunteers will be offloading supplies, while others are fact-finding (e.g., what were conditions like when the Russians occupied this village, about how many deaths and injuries occurred there, and the same inquiries will be made about War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity), while others are documenting conditions in writing and photography (before we leave on Mission II I will discuss in detail with you what it is appropriate to photograph and what it is not).

And then if we have Americans along who have experience in therapy and counseling, you all will work with the village leaders and if available, any religious figures present – while others, if they routinely work with children in their regular lives, will seek out the children in the village to tend to their needs. Typically it takes us anywhere from 3-4 hours to provide aid at each village, so that means that we usually can service at a minimum two-to-three villages each day.

Also, when are delivering aid to civilians on the front lines, we will also be delivering aid to Ukrainian troops who are posted approximately every 8-10 miles apart up and down the Zero Line, and to one or more Field Hospitals that are likewise spaced-out along the Zero Line. In all these cases we will have special aid supplies tailored for those specific needs.

Again using Mission I as an example, we delivered vitally needed medical equipment and supplies to the Field Hospital located at the southern/western terminus of the Zero Line – and we have followed up with that support now that we are back home in America.

While there, the doctors at the hospital made us aware of their vital need for small inflatable rafts and boats to transport wounded soldiers (and injured civilians) from the active combat area to the hospital; this part of Ukraine features quite a few rivers and streams, and the Russians have already destroyed all of the bridges crossing them, so without these rescue boats, the field medics have to drive hours more to get to the hospital.

The tragic result is what you would expect it to be: may soldiers have bled-out and died because they couldn’t get to the hospital in time to save them. I have personally paid for the first three of these boats (along with repair kits and hand pumps) to be purchased (near Odessa) and then transported to the Fields Hospital.

– Having offloaded all of our supplies by the end of the day, we will use the remaining hours before curfew to drive back to our nearest aid supply depot (some the government has created, others we have). In the case of Mission I, this required us to go back to Mykoliav and Odessa to reload supplies and sleep, then we started the next day at dawn and repeated our delivery schedule further down the front lines. ‘
For each of the 7-8 days during our Mission that we will deliver aid, each successive day is occupied by the same logistical elements of re-supply then deliver, repeating each as many times as we have aid supplies for.

– As we near the end of our overall delivery schedule we will work our way back north, possibly delivering aid on the way, but we just need to be in northern Ukraine before the 11:00 pm curfew, so that we are relatively close to Poland, so that the next/final day we can make it to Warsaw in time to catch our departing flight.

On Mission I, I encountered what is a typical or common occurrence over there due to the uncertainties caused by the War. The only flight I could catch leaving Warsaw was a 6:00 am flight, so we departed Lviv around 8:00 pm the night before (to get us out of the country before the 11:00 pm curfew; Poland does not yet have a curfew in-place), then drove through the early morning hours so that I could get to the Warsaw airport by 4:00 am (not so surprisingly, the Warsaw airport at 4:00 am was packed mostly with war refugees leaving Ukraine).

– This is a good opportunity to discuss passing through all of the Customs and Border Patrol and Military and Law Enforcement checkpoints we will encounter on the trip – the greatest of which in terms of required time (and potential screw-ups) is when we will be departing Ukraine; there we have to go through both Ukrainian and Polish Customs and Border Patrol checkpoints.

During Mission I, I was not prepared for the ordeal we would be facing departing the country, because the process of coming into the country of Ukraine was so relatively easy and without incident. It took us only around 90 minutes to get into Ukraine, while it took us nearly five hours to leave the country.

Fortunately I had hired a Ukrainian law firm (“Asters”, who are among Europe’s finest law firms) to assist us with this specific challenge, so between their driver, the travel papers they were able to obtain from the Ukrainian government, and some good luck backed by a little “American goodwill”, we were processed rather smoothly and quickly – yet it still took us five hours to pass through into Poland.

In one of our forthcoming website articles I will be writing about this next topic, the massive civilian exodus attempting to depart Ukraine, which was literally shocking to witness. As we were driving north from Lviv toward the border, I saw what turned out to be the tail-end of an incredibly long line of back-to-back cars, trucks, vans and semis waiting to leave Ukraine – so surprised by this, I asked my driver how far we were from the border: “twenty-seven miles” he said.

This meant that the line for vehicles waiting to leave Ukraine was 27 miles long!

And as stunning as this was, when we reached “thirteen miles to the border” I saw on the other side of the road an endless line of people standing in line – these were the Ukrainian refugees that were walking out of Ukraine!

As we slowly drive past this linear parade of people and their belongings, I asked about how long it would take them to get to and pass through the border, to which my driver responded, “ten-to-twelve days”.

As we slowly drove these determined people, I saw in their eyes nearly every emotion from hope and anticipation to patience and occasional smiles (probably because surrounding them were the only things that mattered anymore to them, their family). Surprisingly absent were any expressions of impatience or frustration, which again drew comparisons of what I would expect to see if this 13-mile-long human chain was comprised of Americans; simply stated, I doubted whether Americans would wait this long for anything, not to mention their temporary salvation.

I also saw that about every mile there were a cluster of tents and tarps along the wood-line that bordered the road, which signaled the areas where people would gather to spend the night. My driver told me that the Ukrainian government and NGOs established these linear refugee camps spaced about one-days-walk apart, where they also regularly delivered aid supplies of food and water. Kudos to the Ukrainian government (and NGOs).

– One of the major realities of our first trip to war-torn Ukraine will be undoubtedly one of the major realities of our second Mission trip, and that is the multitude of often memorable military checkpoints, beginning and ending with the passing through Ukraine-Poland Customs and Border Patrol.

As I noted above, getting into Ukraine was relatively easy, while getting out was an entirely different story. There, 27 miles of vehicles and 13 miles of foot traffic led to the dual-country immigration-emigration gateway, where everyone and everything in our vehicles will be searched to one degree or another.

In between, increasing in number as you go south towards the active combat zones, Ukrainian Military and Law Enforcement personnel will be manning checkpoints located every couple miles apart once you enter the southern half of the country (and once you’re within ten-to-fifteen miles of the front line, the checkpoints take on a decidedly combat-like presence, with each featuring 6-8 fully armed soldiers, a 30-caliber machine gun and a sand-bagged bomb shelter).

While there is a measurable difference between the Customs checkpoints at the border and the military checkpoints nearer the front lines, the official rules and the desirable etiquette for all are about the same, as are my recommendations for you.

In general, my advice to Mission Team members is to act as if…well, act as if you are exactly who you are: Americans visiting their country on a mission of people-to-people peace and friendship, to deliver humanitarian aid and provide vitally needed relief to as many Ukrainians as possible, and beyond that, here are a few hopefully helpful other suggestions:

• First, forget about bringing guns (more on that below) or other weapons into Ukraine, because as crazy as it sounds (especially for us gun-loving Americans), this warring country where hundreds of thousands of armed citizen-soldiers are fighting hundreds of thousands of (more) armed Russian soldiers – has strict laws prohibiting the private ownership, much less the private carry or concealed carry of any kind of a weapon.

• Likewise, forget about bringing any recreational drugs into Ukraine, because while it is not as notorious as Thailand let’s say in harshly forbidding the transportation of drugs, Ukraine is still pretty serious about this.

• And while ordinary prescription drugs are even a little iffy, I would definitely hesitate bringing even doctor-prescribed medical marijuana into Ukraine, as that might test the limits of what prescription drugs are allowed and not allowed. By all means if you must bring medical marijuana, I would strongly recommend you ask your doctor to give you a letter further authorizing this, but I would also copy any and all references of its legality in the online laws of Ukraine. But here is a good opportunity to offer this related recommendation:

• Before I came to Ukraine – two months before – I retained the services of a prominent Ukrainian law firm (Asters Law Firm, which is the most-recognized Ukrainian law firm in the country, and it also has offices in most major eastern European cities) for a wide range of potential services relating to the Mission trip and travel to and through Ukraine.

I found myself repeatedly relying on them and the paperwork and other travel documents they were able to give to me (if or as needed), which they were at both the Ukrainian Customs leaving the country and at several of the military checkpoints outside Odessa and Mykoliav.

So if you’re able to enlist their services (and paying the customary $5,000 retainer) it will more than likely pay for itself in just the comfort and confidence it gives you that you have native Ukrainians who can help you 24/7 in working through any misunderstandings you have with their fellow citizens.

Trust me, at 10:30 pm (in other words with 30-minutes to go before Ukraine’s iron-clad 11:00 pm curfew would kick-in) along an otherwise dark-as-the-moonless-night-it-was-road, when I was still ten miles from my Odessa hotel and I encountered a rather stubborn police officer – that “how can I help you” answer by an Asters’ attorney to my nervous call was a God-send.

Asters’ services were of even greater assistance if and when the soldiers/police searched our vehicles, where they found our van and cars packed full of aid supplies, but fortunately we were headed in the right direction with them – right to the Ukrainian front lines (and not, for example, headed towards the Russian border).

Two other times during our trip we had to call Asters’ 24-hour number – both times we were headed to a Ukrainian city but we were cutting it close in terms of getting there before the 11:00 pm curfew, and while we did make it to our small hotel before 11, the call did ease the minds of the soldiers at the checkpoint along with my own.

Like I said, I considered this to be $5,000 very well spent – think of it as “travel insurance” – because of the peace of mind it gave me considering the overall situations I encountered during our Mission. If you are interested in following suit, I can recommend who specifically to speak to at Asters for obtaining this legal representation

• Otherwise, there is a range of very rational recommendations for how to act while going through these checkpoints and Custom crossings, including the biggest recommendation I have, which is to be at all times extra nice, friendly, humble and supportive of the Ukrainian people and their cause.

• Almost to the very last soldier or policemen I encountered, their disposition changed entirely (for the good) the minute they found out that I was an American who came halfway around the world just to rescue Ukrainian children and help feed and clothe their imperiled countrymen and women.

In the greater picture, in general and overall I found that the Ukrainian people LOVE America and Americans (at times it felt as if they saw us individually as older brothers or uncles) and they appear humbled and honored that we would do what we are for them.

So use that inherent feeling to your advantage. There’s a lot of waiting at times at these checkpoints, so I used that to strike up conversations with soldiers who made eye contact with me (having an interpreter is a must almost everywhere outside of the major cities, but especially here at these checkpoints).

It seemed the more they learned about me, the more they considered me a friend and a benefactor (so maybe make that a “rich uncle”). Another habitat that I got into (because it always paid dividends) during those hurry-up-and-wait periods, was when I showed them photographs of my children and grandchildren.

• Here’s another tip for something that worked especially well for me: before I left America, I had my (adorable) little grandchildren pose while waving Ukrainian flags or holding “Slava Ukrainii!” stickers; those photos were a HUGE hit, especially with the Ukrainian soldiers, who mostly had children of their own of this same age!

• Equally as important as these “how TO act” tips are the “how NOT to act” rules of thumb, which include…

…don’t act nervous or scared or intimidated, or in general, don’t act guilty,

…don’t be rude, loud, entitled or impatient,

…don’t get into any political discussions (other than to say “Slava Ukraini”, which is a Ukrainian national salute which means quite simply, “Glory to Ukraine!”

…don’t photograph anything or anyone – at the Border or elsewhere in Ukraine – unless and until you have received tacit approval to do that. As I said earlier, once we get closer to leaving for Ukraine, I will go through all of the photographing protocol (where the basic rule is to not take the picture of anyone who you haven’t already asked for and received approval to do).

And especially suppress the urge (as I had to) to take photographs of Ukrainian or Russian military personnel or equipment or vehicles.

Trust me, you WILL be compelled to take photographs of tanks (especially blown-up Russian ones), armored personnel carriers (APCs), rocket launchers and soldiers – especially the female members of the Ukrainian army. As tempting as this might be – to capture the scenes of a country at war – we need to respect that the Ukrainians are fighting for their homeland and their own lives.

Rightfully so, Ukrainians know there are many Russian agents or those separatists sympathetic to Russia mingling among the Ukrainian people. And by photographing Ukrainian soldiers or equipment, right there you are acting suspicious because Ukrainians in general see nothing special or memorable about the ruins of war or those fighting for their independence.

• One of the great benefits of having hired Theo Petrov as our fixer and interpreter is that he is also a professional photographer, and as a native Ukrainian (and being fluent with the indigenous customs and language), it was much easier for him to conduct his business as a professional photographer while adhering to the most applicable rules and standards. I am nearly certain that Theo will be joining us again for our next mission, and if so, he will take photographs of all of us, his fellow Mission Team Members in action.

• On a more pragmatic note regarding the things we will be carrying around, be they personal or for the Mission, it helps to pack things large and small (even socks or underwear) in clear bags, zip-locks for the smaller items, large clear compression bags for clothes and other larger items; even when you are not at Customs or Border Crossings, your luggage will be routinely opened and inspected, and whether it is figuratively or not, these soldiers appreciate that you have “nothing to hide”.

• Finally, and perhaps most importantly: DO NOT OFFER BRIBES to any Ukrainian official, whether they be a Customs agent or a soldier just off the front lines.

In addition to this act or any like it obviously being illegal, the Ukrainians are a VERY proud and law-abiding people – so forget what works getting into or out of Mexico or Cuba or anywhere else. Treat these Ukrainian officials with all of the respect they are due.

As a seasoned global traveler, I found myself on several occasions perilously close to violating this hard-and-fast rule for no other reason than I am by nature a very gregarious and generous person, for example, at the military checkpoints I habitually found myself offering the soldiers standing next to me a cigarette.

Now I did have enough sense to ask my Ukrainian fixers ahead of time if this was appropriate or not, so I restrained myself from doing what I have done literally dozens of times during my life whenever I traveled to countries that were amidst a war or warlike conditions, which was to hand over a carton of cigarettes to every soldier I met (which has been a universal sign of friendship among soldiers ever since WWII). I never encountered a situation where me offering a single cigarette to a solider was met with any blowback, but to be honest it was hard not offering them to take things from our boxes of food or personal items.

You’ll get more comfortable with this protocol and others that are needed as time goes by and before we leave for Ukraine we will discuss this thoroughly.

For more information and to answer any questions, please feel free to reach out to Dawn Edwards and myself.
Dawn Edwards can best be reached at her Mission email address:
ECOMission2022@gmail.com

I can best be reached either at my email address or my direct phone line (but if I don’t answer, please leave your message and contact information).
Chuck@BluefieldRanch.com
772-708-1776