In Ukraine, Less is Often More
U.S., NATO, and Western support in general, has been a serious gamechanger for Ukraine. Not only has the aid contributed decisively to stopping Russia’s military advance, it has also had a geopolitical and symbolic effect by showing the extent to which the Free World is willing to go to halt Russian aggression. With the incoming additional US assistance efforts being provided through H.R. 7691 (“Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022”) and S. 3522 (“Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022’’), this assistance is destined to reach another level.
This massive support, however, is only part of the story. Currently, Ukraine’s armed forces are struggling with a wide array of additional needs that are barely addressed within the “big picture,” seriously hampering defense efforts. As a result, civil society, in response to requests from all military levels, has been stepping in to fill these needs. And this alternate, complementary, flexible system requires consistent, dependable support in order to continue to operate successfully.
Regional small to mid-sized NGOs, a major component of the civil society effort, have been supporting Ukraine’s armed forces, some since 2014. These have gained years of experience in the procurement and delivery of non-lethal aid to any type of fighting Ukrainian unit as well as auxiliary and non-military entities. Since the start of Russian military aggression in Ukraine, their activities have increased tenfold. They receive requests from all branches of Ukraine’s armed forces and security structures, and from foreign Special Forces units and servicemen cooperating with Ukrainian counterparts to get protective gear, vehicles, tactical drones, optics, night vision equipment, medical supplies, webbing, backpacks, uniforms, and much more to where they are needed.
There are several reasons why Ukrainian armed forces are reaching out to civil society. Among them are the long-term inability of Ukraine to prepare and equip its forces for a large-scale war, partly due to: 1) a political inability to formulate a total defense approach (e.g. clarifying the role of, and getting equipment to, territorial defense forces), and 2) the slowly changing official systems, which are heavily politicized by internal rivalries and bureaucratic turf-wars.
And Western support efforts, though definitely a positive development, are heavy-handed. Much of the support gets stuck in transfer. NGOs have been approached by very combat-able units asking for Javelins, stuck somewhere in Kyiv’s centralized distribution system. Further, large scale support does not always allow for the complexity of a fighting army’s dynamic and changing everyday needs to be recognized. And in Ukraine, agility matters. Certain NGOs have been successful in organizing systems aimed at providing accurate support within three to six hours from request to delivery to the units at the Eastern Ukraine front.
To achieve much greater efficacy, large-scale assistance must be integrated with a subtler, long-term, approach to on-the-ground reality, for comprehensive support of Ukraine. This is exactly the approach NGO-level support in Ukraine has been taking during these past eight years of war. When facing evil with few resources, one needs to be crafty, a characteristic of the NGOs supporting Ukraine.
NGO support efforts are everything official assistance from the West often isn’t, despite essentially being crowdfunded defense efforts. NGO assistance is primarily non-lethal, small to mid-scale, often aimed at the unit/sub-unit level and, most importantly, at direct daily tactical and logistical needs. It is specific, increasing the accuracy in meeting the units’ needs, and thus the probability that the support will be useful. It is delivered in the exact amount, and continuously, over a longer time-period, creating strong and reliable bonds between providers and recipients, thus providing for increased quality.
If we are going to win the war in Ukraine - and we must - it is imperative that part of the support provided in huge quantities by Western powers, is re-directed to the parallel support system created and maintained by these regional NGOs, who are able to support the frontline units more accurately, quickly, and flexibly, for a fraction of the cost of any similar central efforts. In Ukraine, less is often much more than one may think.
Jonas Ohman leads Blue/Yellow, a Lithuanian based NGO, supporting Ukraine since 2014. Since the Russian armed invasion on February 24th of this year, Blue/Yellow has received about 30 million USD in support from its donors. It is listed among the top 10 NGO’s working in Ukraine by Forbes.
