On February 24, 2022, Stefan was living in his hometown in the Kherson region when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Life got a new meaning, a dose of adrenaline that made us alive," he said.

Before the war, Stefan worked on restoring traditional bead embroidery, a significant cultural tradition of Nova Kakhovka, but his focus quickly shifted. Together with a friend, he began to create online information chats for people they knew in the city to use to ask for or offer to provide help—such as to leave the city, or to seek supplies. This initiative started to gain support from other citizens in Nova Kakhovka, and developed into an organized, volunteer-led response. 

"People who had already had some volunteer experience were the first to join the ranks of volunteers during the occupation. They were not afraid to go against the system,” explained Stefan.

Following fundraising activities, the volunteers started to deliver medicines.

Stefan shared, "Medicines were delivered by boats and evacuation buses. Some critical medicines were given to people, but most were donated to intensive care units and children's hospitals because [Russia’s forces] did not supply them.”

The volunteer response around the messages and requests for support did not stop there. It also helped unite other volunteer initiatives in the occupied city into one single network. At one point, the team was delivering around 300 food packages a day.

"Sometimes, we would deliver over 10 thousand humanitarian kits a month: food, insulin packs, water cylinders. We brought water in 10-ton trucks as long as we were allowed to do so,” Stefan explained. 

By spring 2022, Stefan and his team began to offer residents free evacuation out of Nova Kakhovka.

"In the summer of 2022, we received 30,000 requests from across the Kherson region. We started buying full [trips], paying for fuel, paying drivers to pick up these people," said Stefan.

In total, Stefan’s organization helped more than 2,500 people leave occupied Nova Kakhovka. Children made up approximately 30 to 40 percent  of the evacuees.

To date, Stefan and his volunteer colleagues have supported 100,000 Ukrainians living in temporarily occupied territories. Now, there are fewer requests, and Stefan hopes that those who were willing and able to leave the occupied city have already done so.

He shared, "Perhaps the biggest victory is to get people out and not to let those who stay behind despair... It's a team effort of all the volunteers from different regions." 

“From the first days we decided that no matter how long it lasts, we will help until the end,” he continued.

“And so far we are succeeding…In [occupied] villages and areas where there is no electricity or communication, they say that Ukraine has already lost. The people we evacuate cannot believe it and are very happy when they find out that Ukraine is still fighting…When people receive Ukrainian aid, they don't have to humiliate themselves and ask for low-quality help from the Russians. They know that they can write to Ukrainian volunteers and get a package of food for a month, or food for a child. They realize that they are taken care of."

Two long years on from the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, these volunteers and their essential work, and their willingness to involve external partners such as USAID, remain central to Ukrainian perseverance and resistance in the face of such prolonged adversity. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives has supported the work of over 40,000 volunteers across Ukraine. Over 1,200 of these volunteers are engaged in partnership with the Ukrainian Volunteer Service (UVS), serving frontline and temporarily occupied communities. UVS ensures that volunteers like Stefan receive full support, including the consultations, legal assistance, and logistical support they need to help other Ukrainians no matter the request, from evacuations to receiving humanitarian assistance. In particular, in the temporarily occupied territories—and despite Russia’s brutal pressure tactics, intimidation, and worse—Stefan’s efforts to reach and aid fellow Ukrainians, and those of other volunteers like him, are critical to ensuring that Ukrainians living in those areas know that Ukraine has not forgotten them, as they continue to put their lives at risk to resist Russia’s brutal full scale war.