The Radarom! campaign has dispatched the first safe soldier packs to Ukraine. They were delivered to Kyiv on Tuesday evening and immediately sent to the troops fighting on the front line.
The first 50 safe soldier packs, bought with the funds raised by the campaign, are already in Kyiv at the Lithuanian mission. As soon as they are unloaded, they are handed over to soldiers travelling to the battlefield.
“We are taking some of them to the Zaporizhzhia front, where 50,000 Russian troops are now stationed. We are doing our part,” says John Ohman, founder of the NGO Blue/Yellow which is one of the organisers of the Radarom! campaign.
There is no shortage of units wanting to receive the safe soldier packs – they include Lithuanian-made anti-drone systems that have proven their worth in the trenches.
“Our Lithuanian technology is simply able to repel [drone attacks]. Many times soldiers wrote to me: Jonas, this happened yesterday. Three drones or seven drones flew at us, everyone fell, we are alive,” Ohman says.
Ukrainian troops need the equipment now more than ever. Russia is stepping up its offensive. The kit for Ukrainian troops includes not only an electronic anti-drone protection system, but also thermal imaging cameras and laser sights for effective combat.
“We have just spoken to many battalion and company commanders. The losses are very high, many soldiers get killed in intense kamikaze drone attacks from the Russian side,” says journalist Edmundas Jakilaitis, another organiser of the campaign.
The funds raised in the Radarom! campaign so far – nearly 3.5 million euros – will be enough to equip at least 500 Ukrainian soldiers with the safety kits.
“When Radarom! started, we were asked how much we were hoping to raise, and I said that I dreamt it would be enough for a battalion-sized unit. That is, give or take, 500 soldiers,” says Jakilaitis.
Another kind of support from Lithuania also reached Ukraine on Tuesday. Together with Radarom! organisers, the staff of the Lithuanian National Museum have sent supplies for the restoration and conservation of artworks.
“We know that Russia is trying to erase the most important symbols of Ukraine, it is really attacking the history, the roots of the nation, and that is why it is extremely important to preserve this evidence, these symbols,” says Rūta Kačkutė, director of the Lithuanian National Museum.
Hundreds of thousands of artefacts and artworks have been evacuated from Ukrainian museums and temporarily replaced with objects reminding of Russia’s war crimes.
“The museum is in a very open place, unprotected, so the first task was to dismantle the exhibits and hide them,” says Fedir Androshchuk, director of the National Museum of Ukraine.
According to him, Russian forces are stealing from museums and churches in occupied Ukrainian territories.
“It’s paradoxical that they [Russia] have an academy of sciences, many historians, but they are all silent and we have to listen to Putin. The silence seems to mean that they agree with him,” says Androshchuk.
The histories of Ukraine and Lithuania are closely linked, he adds. Preserving it is a great responsibility and Ukraine cannot do it alone.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
