@clacke @maswan Please do, if you can afford it! This is going to be a long-term project and restoration.

Of the big groups, Läkare Utan Gränsen have had no scandals to their names, and I am personally partial to UNICEF, because I know which local groups they're funding and have seen the supplies they've provided.

@erosdiscordia 💜 Thanks. For freedom, yours and ours!

@maswan This is us: https://www.facebook.com/StockholmTacticalFundraisingUkraine

We're in the process of registering a charity, so for now donations go either to my Swish (+31623021596) or to my Paypal kzorya@gmail.com

(And yeah, anonymity? What anonymity? That's a privilege for those not raising funds, unfortunately. :P)

@maswan The large problem with "free shipping" type donations is that people usually send stuff that's not as needed. Say, most people won't think to send specific types of batteries, or powerbanks, whereas having connectivity is more important than having old clothes.

I'd basically err on the side of "find a volunteer group that's doing something concrete for concrete people and donate to them/find out what they need and collect for them"

@maswan Those are actually super useful. TBH - considering that we're collecting, you can basically send them our way in Stockholm, we still do regular shipments.

@maswan Thank you, and I'm so glad your people know. Because so many folks have gotten severe resistance from Sweden for even mentioning the idea.

I've heard nothing bad about Doctors Without Borders, so you should be good on that.

Government aid is trickling down to the army, but more slowly than direct donation to smaller groups.

@maswan Yell at 'em to donate to local Ukrainian groups if at all possible. The International Red Cross is working "neutrally", and while I understand the idea of helping those deported to enemy territory, if I understand anything from the Russians' playbook, they have most likely been made accessory to kidnapping.

The gist of it is this: if you see grief-stricken Ukrainians howling and wishing death upon all responsible - show some kindness. You have no idea what sort of death might have just visited their kith and kin and what they have just learned.

Give us time to grieve. We will be kinder again in a kinder day. But that day is not today.

Unfortunately, this childish understanding has proven true.

One of the first messages to the volunteers was: "Please don't bring baby food. Nearly all the children are dead."

And quite a few of those children were tortured as well. Not to mention the adults, who were gunned down in the streets or taken to makeshift torture chambers.

Anyone who was slow to run, anyone who was unlucky, anyone just going about their business, anyone trying to help people or animals.

400 murdered civilians in one city. And there are many cities in the north of Ukraine.

People made jokes in the beginning of the war: "why did they prepare 45000 body bags? Did they really plan to lose their entire army?"

Well, now we know. And now we know that Russia adopted a state standard for digging mass graves in advance of the invasion.

And now we see official news outlets openly writing about "denazification means liquidation of all the nationalists."

In their slang, "nationalist" is "anyone who will not accept Russian rule." As if "the final solution to the Ukrainian question" was not proof enough, they have spelled it out.

This is why Western analysts' "why can't they just give up the East, it would only cost them some dignity" rhetoric misses the mark entirely.

It wouldn't cost us dignity, it would cost us our lives. And the deaths would be brutal.

So we will fight as long as we need to.

Well, this is the first time since the beginning of the war when I have seen the bulk of my Ukrainian friends completely stunned and shocked.

This is because news started trickling in from the north, which Russia has abandoned in order to focus on the east.

And there's only one word to describe what happened in my beautiful north, where I'd walked every summer with my grandfather.

That word is massacre.

Somehow, even back when I was a child, I have always been a fan of fighting when faced with a threat to my life. I'd managed to absorb - from somewhere, somehow - that if you aren't fighting, they will kill you anyway. Mercy for those who give up is a fiction. They'll just torture you first. Join whichever group is fighting if you can do anything, anything at all. You'll be safer. As a combatant, you might just be too dangerous to capture, or be valuable for a prisoner exchange.

@harald We're safe, yes. :) TY!

My house in Kyiv, though pretty far from my apartment (the house is long).

This isn't even a missile strike, though. This is damage from pieces of a missile that has been successfully neutralized by anti-air.