Dobrobat Volunteers Repair Kyiv Homes Hours After Russian Strike
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- Russia fired 70 missiles at Ukraine on June 15, with one exploding above Mariya Prokopchuk's Kyiv apartment building, shattering hundreds of windows, killing 5 civilians, and wounding 3 dozen.
- Dobrobat, Ukraine's 55,000-volunteer 'Battalion of Kindness,' sent 100+ volunteers within hours of the strike to clear rubble and install strand-board coverings at Prokopchuk's building.
- Dobrobat has already helped restore apartments and houses for more than 1 million Ukrainians and dispatches only after damaged areas are cleared of unexploded mines, according to spokesman Vadym Severyn.
- Foreign volunteers from three dozen countries have joined, including 70-year-old Swedish blacksmith Lars Fersters and 37-year-old Jason Hercula, a North Carolina hair stylist who sold plasma to fund his plane ticket to Poland.
- Fersters worked last year with volunteers from Canada, China, Israel, and the Netherlands to rebuild a roof in Irpin for a 73-year-old woman whose home was hit on day one of the 2022 invasion; Irpin saw 3,000+ buildings damaged.
- The wider volunteer movement supplies frontline troops with drones, flak jackets, prosthetics, and night goggles, and Army SOS developed tablet software enabling soldiers to transmit coordinates for precise drone strikes.
Why it matters: Ukraine's volunteer ecosystem — 55,000-strong Dobrobat, schoolchildren weaving camouflage nets, and a North Carolina hair stylist — fills a material gap the state cannot. With more than 1 million Ukrainians already helped and government agencies 'mired in bureaucracy,' civilians increasingly depend on volunteers for both frontline supplies and basic home repairs after each Russian barrage.
