The wonderful Jillian Kay Melchior (an NR alumna) is reporting from Ukraine (Lviv) for the Wall Street Journal:
Elsewhere, civilians have gathered to weave camouflage nets by hand for soldiers on the frontline. They cut short and long strips of fabric, which they call “butterflies” and “snakes” respectively, and tie the ribbons to nets. Each takes a day or longer to complete. In Uzhhorod, I saw mothers and their young children working on them in the town square. In Lviv, volunteers told me they bless each finished net by singing the national anthem over it.
“The front can’t exist without its backside, without civil society,” says Sofiya Filonenko, 47, who fled the eastern port city of Berdyansk on the first day of war. Now in Lviv, “I see that everybody is doing something, something useful. Everyone wants to be active. . . . I don’t want to identify myself as a refugee. I’m not a victim. I think I’m actually not weak but strong, active, and I think of me as a volunteer, so I do everything I can to make our victory closer.”
The war has displaced as many as 1 in 4 Ukrainians. In the early weeks, families in western Ukraine took in those forced to flee. Workers at schools, libraries, gymnasiums and other institutions converted their spaces into makeshift shelters. Internal refugees I interviewed said they fear becoming a burden, so they have thrown themselves into volunteering.
One of them is Serhii Hnylytskyi, 48, who fled Kharkiv with his wife and daughters. The women have continued to Germany, but with few exceptions Ukrainian men 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving the country. Mr. Hnylytskyi volunteered in Lviv to help new arrivals from the east. Since our interview, he has returned to Kharkiv to help clear rubble. “Someone helped me, and I am helping someone else,” he says. “That’s the way it is.”
The Ukrainian volunteers I interviewed said their civic work wards off despair and boosts national morale. Soldiers at the frontline can rest assured that someone is looking after their wives and children.
…
Today’s volunteer movement began to form in 2014, after the pro-Russian then-President Viktor Yanukovych responded with brutality to young protesters gathering in Kyiv’s Maidan Square to demand political and economic integration with Europe. The demonstrations swelled as violence galvanized the public.
Kyiv residents brought protesters food, fuel for fires, and tires to build barricades. Doctors and nurses feared injured protesters would be arrested if they showed up at hospitals, so they formed makeshift clinics. The protests culminated after Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014, but by then dozens had died after riot police opened fire into the crowd. In the weeks that followed, Vladimir Putin invaded eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.
By that point, Ukrainian civilians felt emboldened. Some Maidan alumni joined volunteer battalions to fight in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Some donated money, bought medical and military equipment, and ferried it to the front line. Others focused their efforts on rooting out corruption and promoting democratic reform in Ukraine.
Ukrainians have spent the past eight years strengthening their ability to govern themselves, and a vibrant civil society is proving to be a significant advantage in the war against Russia.