Support Ukrainian Victory
This website serves as a way to get involved and support Ukraine. The main way to help is understanding what is happening in Ukraine. The Forums portion of this website contains post updates with news coming out of Ukraine as well as providing a space for social engagement. This website is run in connection with a Facebook group, Stand with Ukraine
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We also provide other ways to get involved, which you can learn more about in the How to Help tab. This includes ways to donate. Thank you for stopping by. Check out the other information on this page to learn more about the admin who runs this site and some history about Ukraine.
A bit about us
Brielle and Vladyslav
My name is Brielle and I run this site with my husband, Vlad. We met and live in the US but Vlad is originally from Ukraine. He was born in Mykolaiv but grew up in Nova Kahovka in the Kherson region. As a result, we have many friends and family who are currently in Ukraine. Vlad also follows verified Ukrainian Telegram channels that serve as a central communication hub for getting updates to Ukrainians about what is happening across their country. If you would like to follow some of these updates, there are a few sources at the bottom of this page available for non Russian or Ukrainian speakers. My husband and I work as a team. He compiles photos and videos through his connections and translates the information. I then take this information and compose posts to share with English speakers. Originally, our goal was to connect with friends and family in the US but the desire for information coming out of Ukraine grew to an international community. Thank you all for coming here! Slava Ukraini!
About Ukraine
Ukrainian history goes far beyond when the modern day country gained it's independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. The people of this nation existed long before Moscow was anything more than a forest. Ukrainians have their own culture and language that is distinct from Russia. There is a long history of Russian subjugation of many nations, including Ukraine. Throughout history, the people of Ukraine have dared to resist subjugation of their culture and identity. As a direct result of this, Stalin orchestrated a famine in 1932 that resulted in the death of 4-10 million Ukrainians in what is known as the Holodomor. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine aimed to break free of the shackles from Moscow. With the rise to power of Putin, the shackles took the new form of election rigging and puppet presidents. That was until 2014. Read how we got here to learn more.
How we got here
November 2013, President Yanukovych suspended the signing of an association agreement with the EU. The Ukrainian people were enraged by this decision and began peaceful protests in Maidan Square. This was the start of the Revolution of Dignity. In response to the peaceful protests, which gained momentum as a movement throughout Ukraine, Yanukovych ordered his police to use strongman tactics to squash protesters. By February, 108 Ukrainian civilians had been killed, over 1100 were injured, but the movement was a success. Yanikovych was exiled to Russia and Ukraine held a free election. To learn more about the Revolution of Dignity, there is a documentary on Netflix called Winter on Fire that does a great job of showing what happened during those protests.
*Images of the fallen are displayed in Maidan Square as a tribute to their loss
Start of Russian Invasion
It should be no surprise that this movement angered Russia. They lost their control over Ukraine and have been working to get it back ever since. Russian forces quietly took up stations in Crimea, forcefully removed elected officials in the region, and held a referendum that was ratified by the newly appointed pro-Russian government. By mid March 2014, Russia now had control over Crimea. During this time, Russia began to flood Russian state media with propaganda that described the Ukrainian government as being infiltrated by Nazis who were raging a cultural war against Russian speaking Ukrainians. Russia sent forces into the Donbas regions of Ukraine and started the Separatist movement. Russian soldiers have been fighting Ukrainians alongside separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk (the Donbas) ever since. This conflict largely stalled with no progress made by the Russian backed separatists. This directly led to a change in tactics by Russia, which is partly how we got here, to the full-scale invasion.
