We’ve just recently returned from villages near the front lines in Ukraine, delivering 44,000 pounds of food to 18 nearly cut-off communities. It’s a small portion of the 4 million pounds we’ve delivered since 2022, but to each outstretched hand that grasps a 30-day supply of food, it represents an important message of hope and support from generous, caring people in the United States. It was our 14th trip to Ukraine, with each trip revealing more of the atrocities of this unprovoked invasion. This winter convoy came with the backdrop of peace talks deciding the fate of Ukraine and its people.
Still, a chance interaction in an earlier convoy from this past summer remains in the front of mind. After more than a week crisscrossing Ukraine, from frontline air alerts to endless fields of sunflowers, our heads were filled with thousands of striking images and encounters with ordinary Ukrainians. The crush of hundreds of people eager for food. The old woman who just grasped my cheeks in both her hands, looked long and hard into my eyes and cried as I handed her a bag of food.
“Dyakuyemo,” (We thank you), she gasped, again and again. We saw pale, frightened children who filled the halls of an underground school, newly built to protect several hundred of Ukraine’s precious future.
At the end of the week in Ukraine and safely back in Poland, we were exhausted, packed, and eager to get to the airport. We simply called an Uber.
The Uber driver jumped out of his tiny car and we filled every inch with our suitcases and bags. I settled into my seat beside him and noticed his name, which looked Ukrainian, I thought. I noticed his yellow shirt with the Ukrainian trident on the breast pocket and I broke the silence.
“We are just back from Ukraine. Zaporizhzhia,” I typed into my translator. “We’re a group of Americans who deliver millions of pounds of food to children in safe houses and frontline villages with our nonprofit, Common Man for Ukraine.”
He grabbed his phone, dialed up Google Translate, and the blanket of war spilled over us.
“Thank you,” he typed. “We are so grateful for your help. You are doing something good and holy.”
“Before the Russians bombed my house, they came through my village. We had two dogs. They shot the big dog in front of my family and cut it up to eat it in front of us.”
He explained that he is from a tiny village outside Zaporizhzhia. The Russians bombed his home, and the shrapnel wounded him, so he and his family were sent to Poland for rehabilitation. “My mother is still in the village,” he lamented, as he pointed to the map. Impossibly, it was a village we drove through to deliver food not more than five days earlier. Was his mother in the crush of humanity, mostly young mothers and the elderly, who came to greet us, to accept both food and hope?
“Last week,” he said, “my best friend was killed at the front.” At the next traffic light, he scrolled through his photos to show me his friend, smiling, in a military uniform, deep in a trench, leaning on his weapon. My drivers eyes filled, and suddenly I noticed darkened drops on his shirt. He was crying.
“Before they bombed my house, they came through my village. We had two dogs. They shot the big dog in front of my family and cut it up to eat it in front of us. They are barbarians. I paid 5,000 hryvnia [$116] for them to spare our tiny dog.”
I reached across the space between our seats and rested my arm on his shoulder as it heaved. There were more and more drops darkening his shirt. We sat in silence, connected, for several kilometers.
“My wife and children are here in Poland for my rehabilitation, but now that’s over. They will stay here and I will return to the front next week to fight.”
Back to the front. Leaving his family in Poland. Unspoken, we both knew the risk to his safe return. We paused at more traffic lights.
To break the heavy silence, I asked, “If you were the president of Ukraine, what would you do?”
“That is a difficult question. I would continue to fight. This is our land.”
And so he went, going back to join his military unit to continue to fight. A man of integrity, wounded once already, with a family in Poland, he returned to stand for what he believes. After all, he is Ukrainian.
“We would not still be standing if it wasn’t for help from America. But now we need weapons. And data.”
“What would you like me to do when I return to America?” I asked.
“America has been a big help to us. We would not still be standing if it wasn’t for help from America. But now we need weapons. And data.” Ukrainians know US intelligence can help economize their dwindling weapon supplies. Can we share what we know to help people defending their homeland, their tiny villages, their watermelon fields, and schools forced underground?
Silence sat between us. He grabbed his phone once again. “If Ukraine falls, so will Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Poland. We need help.”
The airport loomed closer. I wished we could talk longer. I grabbed my remaining Ukrainian cash and tucked it into his hand. “Not for me,” he gestured, “this is for my children. Thank you.”
We pulled into the Kiss and Fly lane. Indeed.
I quickly rummaged through my bags and found a box of Ukrainian candy that I had intended to give to friends at home. I handed it to him. “For your children,” I said. More spots danced onto on his shirt.
We hugged, then posed as a friend took a quick photo of our embrace. He jumped back into his tiny car and drove away. I was left standing by the curb, surrounded by luggage, cars honking and my head spinning. More and more spots appeared on my shirt.