Getting back into the 'fight'...

Piotr, Wojtek and I before Orchiv, April 2023 - a picture we look forward to recreating soon.

It has been a long summer - and before that, an even longer winter.

As most know, UA Future/UA Future US is made up of volunteers with full-time occupations - and the lives that go with them. While Piotr (UA Future President and Founder) has continued full steam ahead through the winter and spring, with UA Future running missions during the darkest days of the war, the activity level of the US members has admittedly been dormant for quite a while, as we have dealt with the loss of family members, and the challenges posed as US foreign policy has "evolved" since January 20th of this year. No complaints, of course. Things have been a little "rocky" on this side of the pond, and our activity level here has reflected that.

But for those of us watching from the US as our parnet organization continues the good fight - our hearts have never left our friends in Ukraine and our comrades in UA Future - even if we have been unable to be with them in person.

Today - July 16th - with this very first blog post, the sun is coming out, the skies are clearing, and the US side of UA Future is getting back into the proverbial fight, with some US-funded special projects targeted for August of this year. Furthermore, we intend to use the website/blog function on this page as another means of communicating to US-based donors and interested parties in real time (or close to it, for our own security) as we undertake missions.

Couple of quick updates and news:

Piotr continues to work his two-pronged approach to countering Russian agression - not only continuing to run missions while residing in Ukraine with our parents charity, UA Future https://uafuture-pl.org/, but has also stood up PostPravda https://postpravda.info/en/ (English link) focused on countering Russian propaganda narratives, which contains both original and shared articles related to all aspects of the war as well as geopolitical trends. You will see some well known academics publishing on PostPravda, so I encourage you to regularly visit and maybe even subscribe. You can also regularly follow his work with UA Future on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/UAFutureCharity. It's a busy page - as he is constantly working - so make sure you follow it to see regular updates.

Jeff has been given a green light - after several months of admittedly chomping at the bit - to schedule his return to "in country" status (and now that we have symmetry with the bold titles, I am dropping the third-person writing style). The flight is now booked for August, which is a nice thing to finally have scheduled. I will be travelling in and will meet Piotr in Ukraine - our plan is to head east per usual with full vehicles, work on one special project, assess other needs, and most importantly: visit our friends who hold the line - literally - defending freedom for the rest of us.

There will be more updates soon - and we will be launching a special fundraiser for our upcoming project shortly. Details to follow. I will leave you all with one important point - a fact that has made me proud to be a part of this charity, and grateful to Piotr for allowing me to be a part of these journeys:

UA Future/UA Future US is not the biggest, the most visible, and likely not the most well-known charity entrenched in Ukraine; but we do stake a claim to being the most efficient, effective, and honest group involved. In 2024 - 97.4% of what we collected went directly into humanitarian aid - there are no salaries, we cover our own travel costs, and we do not have an office or any development arm tasked with fundraising. We are small - but that just means we can move quickly.

(Though hey - if you all want to force us to hire an accountant to manage an avalanche of donations? I won't argue)

From the beginning, Piotr and I have used the "water droplets" analogy to describe what we do and how we do it: we think of ourselves as a drop of water. And we aim to be the best tiny droplet we can be, as we join with other tiny droplets working towards the same goal, eventually, in tandem, becoming a trickle, then a stream, then hopefully one day - a raging river of force to do good.

.....preferably one which helps flood the Kremlin out.

That's it for now, more to come, and updates to follow.

-Jeff