'We will fight and win': Ukrainian civilians find ways, big and small, to resist Putin's invasion
Marina Eismont's whole family cooks for soldiers, weaves camouflage nets and makes batches of a slightly modified version of this region's notorious Molotov cocktail – a "Bandera smoothie," named after a Ukrainian nationalist figure.
Costume designer Anastasia Sudets uses her Ukrainian movie industry skills not to dress actors, but to source uniforms, shoes, helmets, gloves, body armor, knee pads and other military equipment used to defend her country.
Oleksandr Rybitskyi, an engineer by training, now stands guard day and night in his city, looking for Russian saboteurs trying to infiltrate his homeland.
Seven days into Russia's unfolding invasion of Ukraine, satellite images show a massive military convoy advancing toward Kyiv, the country's capital. Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, is surrounded by Russian troops. Civilian casualties are mounting across the country.
U.S. officials say Russian forces have grown increasingly frustrated by Ukrainian resistance, but they have warned that Moscow's military superiority will likely limit Ukraine's ability to fight back over time.
Ukrainians are nonetheless still finding ways big and small to resist Russian President Vladimir Putin any way they can.
“Freedom is above all for us,” said Rybitskyi, 27. On Monday, he detained three Russian agents masquerading as Ukrainians in his city, which he didn't want to identify for fear of drawing attention to it. “I help maintain order."
Sudets said that in addition to helping Ukrainian fighters get sufficiently attired for battle, she is helping to prepare meals for soldiers.
"I never thought I would cook in a school canteen," she said.
In Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, dozens of volunteers lined up Tuesday at the local library to help shred old shirts, sheets and other cloth into long strips, to be braided into camouflage coverage for Ukrainian troops on the front lines. Men, women and children of all ages worked together to make foot after foot of green-khaki-brown cover, while sipping hot tea and intermittently breaking into patriotic songs.
“We don’t want to spend all day running back and forth to a bunker, waiting for the worst,” said Iryna Bidna, 24, as she braided a piece of green cloth into the netting. A ceramic artist before the war broke out last week, Bidna now passes her days attending first-aid trainings and working with volunteer groups like this one to make herself as useful as possible.
In other cities across Ukraine, donations of medical supplies and money have poured in, thousands of volunteers have joined the war effort, blood banks have reported long lines, and Ukrainians have opened their houses and apartments to the growing number of those displaced from their homes.
Civilians such as Maksym Bozhok, 24, a procurement officer for a gas producer, have taken it upon themselves to put their skills to use where they are most needed.
"My job now consists of finding bulletproof vests, Kevlar and other items throughout the world and making sure we can get them delivered to Ukraine in the shortest time possible," he said. "By doing this, I hope to save as many brave and fearless Ukrainian fighters as I can."
On Monday, PrivatBank, one of Ukraine largest banks, reported that Ukrainians have donated around $60 million to the country's military.
On Tuesday, Ukraine lifted visa requirements for foreign volunteers who want to join the fight against Russian forces. The move came after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend established the International Legion of Territorial Defense and called on volunteers to “join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world.”
According to Ukraine's State Border Guard Service, 80,000 Ukrainians have returned from abroad since Russia invaded. Most of them are men.
Ukrainians have fought back harder against Russia than many military analysts expected. However, as Russia ramps up its bombing campaign, more civilian deaths are expected in the coming days. The United Nation has said that more than 600,000 Ukrainians have fled the country.
Ukraine's diaspora has been active in the volunteer response, too.
In Budapest, Hungary, Oleksandr Stognienko has been coordinating rides and meals for Ukrainian families who have been pouring across the border into neighboring countries. such as Hungary. Stognienko has been buying baby food and shuttling supplies around the city.
Walking past Budapest main train station on Monday night, he saw that many Ukrainians were coming out with bags, so he stopped. He took one family, a mother with two children, to McDonald's for dinner and an Internet connection.
They didn’t have a place to stay that night, so Stognienko found a volunteer who took them in. He picked them up the next day and helped them with their onward journey.
Emira Garsalli, a 25-year-old entrepreneur, has been organizing buses to take mostly women, children and the elderly to shelters in western Ukraine. They have been staying in kindergartens and schools.
"I'm so proud of my country. I can't describe it with words," Oleksiy Sorokin, a journalist with the Kyiv Independent, an English-language website, tweeted Tuesday.
"Women and girls have signed up to territorial defense," said Eismont, 26. "We will fight and win."
Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard and Katie Livingstone