Ukraine’s ‘volunteer army’ helps rebuild what Russia destroys

Kyiv, Ukraine – One of the ۷۰ missiles Russia fired at Ukraine in an hours-long attack early on June ۱۵ exploded above Mariya Prokopchuk’s apartment building.

It shook the neighbourhood in eastern Kyiv with an ear-splitting boom, but most of its debris fell into a nearby algae-blanketed pond, startling a dozen ducks.

The shockwave shattered hundreds of windows in the area, blowing razor-sharp shards of glass or plastic and dust clouds into the apartments.

“Three more centimetres, and [the shards] would have pierced my skull,” the doctor told Al Jazeera.

She said she “felt no fear” about the blast during the overnight attack that killed five civilians, wounded three dozen and caused fires, including in the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra, a centuries-old Orthodox Christian complex dubbed “Ukraine’s Vatican”.

But Prokopchuk was afraid the missing windows would make her first-floor apartment an easy target for looters.

Hours after the ۴am explosion, Dobrobat, Ukraine’s largest “volunteer army”, solved her problem.

More than ۱۰۰ volunteers arrived to clear the rubble and install temporary window coverings made of honey-coloured board.

‘I got angry’

They came with truckloads of strand board and filled the air with the whizzing of portable, battery-powered saws.

“These guys are skilful and try to make things better,” Prokopchuk said sitting at her kitchen table while three Dobrobat volunteers were finishing boarding up her windows. The coverings would make her rooms dark but safe until she gets a government subsidy for new, plastic replacements.

Dobrobat is a Ukrainian abbreviation of “Battalion of Kindness,” and it has more than ۵۵,۰۰۰ volunteers who have already helped restore apartments and houses for more than a million Ukrainians, according to the group’s spokesman Vadym Severyn.

“Irrespective of the amount of work, irrespective of its volume, the number of volunteers at work, the result is always the same – ۱۰۰ percent of the people who asked for help get it,” he told Al Jazeera, standing outside the damaged apartment building.

Despite its rapid-response strategy, Dobrobat dispatches volunteers only after the damaged areas have been cleared of unexploded mines and other hazards, he said.

Most volunteers are Ukrainians, and some hopped in their cars or on buses in other regions after hearing about the June ۱۵ attack on Kyiv.

But foreigners from three dozen countries have also joined, arriving in Ukraine for months-long stints.

One of them is Lars Fersters, a retired blacksmith from the northern Swedish town of Njurunda, who enlisted after learning about the atrocities committed by Russian servicemen in occupied Ukrainian regions.

“I got angry, and asked myself, ‘Is there anything I can do’? ” the ۷۰-year-old, clad in an orange-and-white vest, told Al Jazeera standing next to Prokopchuk’s shattered window he was about to fix.

Fersters uses gestures and a translation app to communicate with Ukrainian colleagues and residents whose homes he helps mend.

Apart from quick repairs including tarpaulin roofs, Dobrobat provides long-term retrofitting.

Last year, Fersters worked shoulder to shoulder with volunteers from Canada, China, Israel, and the Netherlands to build an elaborate new roof over the house of a ۷۳-year-old woman in the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.

The house was damaged by a Russian shell on the first day of the full-scale invasion back in ۲۰۲۲ – along with more than ۳,۰۰۰ buildings in the town of ۶۵,۰۰۰.

On June ۱۵, less than ۱۰۰ metres from Fersters, an American was cutting wide board panels and furring strips, pieces of wood that level uneven surfaces and provide secure attachment.

Jason Hercula literally bled to get to Ukraine – the ۳۷-year-old hair stylist from North Carolina said he sold his plasma to buy a plane ticket to Poland, and then took an overnight train to Kyiv.

“I’ve been to two house fires, so I know what it’s like to lose my home and I want people to get back to their homes as soon as possible,” he told Al Jazeera.

Quicker than the state

Dobrobat is part of a much wider volunteer movement that involves millions of Ukrainians and supplies civilians and servicemen with virtually anything much faster than government agencies.

Volunteer groups raise money for drones, flak jackets, night goggles and anti-shrapnel glasses, medical treatment, prosthetics, first aid kits, footwear, batteries and heaters for trenches and bunkers.

They evacuate the elderly, children and pets from frontline areas – and rush to liberated areas to provide immediate help.

“It took them three days to find and get me insulin,” Mikhail, a ۶۷-year-old diabetic from the northern village of Yahidne, told Al Jazeera in ۲۰۲۴, recalling his near-death experience two years earlier, during a month-long Russian occupation.

He nearly died of insulin shock after Russian soldiers herded him and ۳۶۶ villagers aged from ۹۰ days to ۹۱ years into a school basement and kept them there for four weeks in damp darkness next to the bodies of neighbours.

Another volunteer group helped plaster the bullet-riddled walls and roof of Mikhail’s house, where Russian soldiers looted all the valuables, ate his pigs and even a dog, broke most of the furniture and left faeces on the floor before retreating in late March ۲۰۲۲.

Even Ukrainian schoolchildren volunteer to make trench candles of empty tins, cardboard and wax, assemble drones and weave camouflage nets to cover trenches and stretches of roads to protect against Russian drones.

Volunteers sometimes switch to other, more sophisticated tasks on the go.

Army SOS, a group that supplied the frontline with flak jackets and paper maps, ended up developing software for tablets or smartphones that let soldiers acquire and transmit coordinates for precise drone strikes.

The volunteers’ speed often cannot be matched by government agencies mired in bureaucracy and frequently accused of corruption.

“If we’re dealing with volunteers, things will get done,” a serviceman who only identified himself by his call sign, Baloo, told Al Jazeera. “If we’re dealing with the state, the chances are ۵۰/۵۰.”