Dear friends –
Somehow that time is upon us. The bags are packed and inventoried, the final preparations are underway, and our US-based personnel will be leaving for Ukraine on Friday! There is the usual confluence of excitement, trepidation, and hope – all mixed with the underlying feeling that we wish none of this was necessary. As you may have seen on the news, Ukraine launched a counter-offensive into the Russian territory of Kursk. Simultaneously, the Russians have strengthened their push into the Southeast of the country in an attempt to take the strategically important town of Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk sits on both major road and railway systems. It is also a town where we have stayed and based out of in the past – I have attached a picture of our team house from our previous two trips. We know the fighting around there has been incredibly intense – one of the groups we were attempting to provide medical training to in March has sent personnel to the region and have taken heavy losses. We are worried for our friends there, and across Ukraine. We lament the unnecessary loss of life and livelihood. We have so many good memories there of team dinners, interacting with shopkeepers, interacting with the kids in the neighborhood where we stayed, being welcome in the town. Outside of Pokrovsk, many of the trainings that we had scheduled have been cancelled or otherwise altered due to the heavy fighting. We wish this were not the case – we always tell those that we train that our prevailing hope is that they will never have to use any of the lifesaving skills or knowledge we teach. Sadly, as it feels like I say every time, the work we do is as important as ever – teaching whole blood transfusions and other advanced life saving procedures remains critical as Ukrainian medics fight to save as many as they can.
Our US team is departing a little early because we have an incredible opportunity to be part of a combined effort of several groups doing advanced hospital and pre-hospital training. We will be joined by our friend Kyle from a local outfit, ANR, and will be linking up with Dr. Steve, Viktoriia, and Yuliia once in country. We will also be working with doctors and surgeons from Ethos Philanthropic and Refugee Relief International to provide a dual-track of out of hospital and in-hospital trainings over the course of a week. Ultimately, the out of hospital cadre will filter their “patients” into the hospital, so we can train on the spectrum from point of injury to definitive surgical intervention. This opportunity is being funded by our partners Ethos and RRI, and has provided additional funding for our follow-on mission.
Once this initial training is done, the Força Ukraine team will consolidate and our training mission will begin 7 SEP. For security reasons, we will not be sharing our locations until after we are safely out, but I will be providing regular updates. As always, if you are new here, this is our way of keeping you, our donors and supporters, aware of our progress. As I have said previously, there is a direct line from you, through us as conduits for equipment and knowledge, to the end users who utilize this information and tools to save lives. If you do not want to receive future emails, just let me know and I will remove you. If you stick around, we will try to regale you with tales of amazing work, even better people, and our adventures along the way. From communal living to re-purposing salvaged items to use as toilets, epic storms to village fires, we always have adventures.
From the bottom of my heart, and from all of us here at Força Ukraine, thank you. Without you, there is no us, and we know that thanks to us – the collective us – lives are being saved. In my moments of doubt, in the times I wonder if we are moving the needle at all in a conflict this big, I look back at a text that we received after our July 2023 training. It says: “In XXXXX, a tank hit our trench and wounded my comrade. He was wounded in the thigh and legs, he screamed when I applied the tourniquet. He said ‘enough,’ but as you taught, I turned the windlass two more times and then we evacuated, as your guy with the tattoos (Finch) taught. The guy is alive. I am not lost. Thank you.” That tourniquet was a $15 Dnipro TQ that we purchased thanks to previous donations, and were able to put in that medic’s hands thanks to you. Your belief in us allows for that to happen. I am always humbled when you believe in us – I tell the team all the time that when people give to us, they are really giving to Steve and Vik, Emily and Yuliia, Finch and Bohdan, Susanna and trust us to be your hands and action in Ukraine. We are not a big name – just a small group of individuals committed to doing what we can to make the world a little better. Your belief in us keeps us going – literally. Your donations make our trips possible, your words of support when we are out there buoy us – I read every email we get to the group. We are the lucky ones to be on the ground to teach and interact, but all of us, our team of the ground, the Força Foundation, you – we are all part of this. I thank you. There are not appropriate enough words to capture it, but I thank you.
Sincerely – Mike
