Updates

Last week was a bit light in updates, but this week is not!

To begin with, the 5th Assault Brigade received their power station.

The awesome HUR "Timur" unit received 15 gas masks from you.

You kitted out three Brazilian soldiers of the 25th with their basic gear: plate carries, gloves, boots, etc.

UFL's adopted International Legion HUR unit received a power station, generator, and drone scanner.

And not least, our good friends at the 17th Special Purpose Center thanks you for their new generator.

$2 TACO Tuesday

I am stoked for this week's $2 pack! A postcard joins a beautiful beaded keychain, a patch from the 43rd Brigade, and an Arcaist mom's hand-crocheted 50cm placemat. The star of the show, however, is a truly rare package of salt. Yes, salt.

"Why salt?" you may ask. Well, this salt came from Artyom Salt in Soledar, Donetsk and you will likely never see one like this again. For those who don't remember, the Soledar salt mines was a defensive position outside Bakhmut when the russian mercenary group "Wagner" made use of the meat wave tactics. United 24 recognizes the historical importance of the mines here. The volunteer that donated this 1.5 kg bag of salt was loathe to let it go, but knew that it would serve Ukraine well.

$10 Pomsta pack

As awesome as the $2 pack is, Arcaist pulled out all the stops on this one. The Pomsta Brigade was so thankful for your help that they sent these items to show their appreciation.

A volunteer from Trostyanets Territorial Defense beautifully painted a .50 cal ammo can. The writing is a section from Schevchenko's poem "And Archimedes, and Galileo" and reads "І на оновленій землі врага не буде супостата" (And on the renewed land, there will be no enemy, no adversary). They also provided their unit patch and unit flag, but they didn't stop there! They sent a set of shot glasses made from 40mm grenade casings!

UFL is currently working on getting Pomsta an urgently-requested recon drone from our general fund, into which these proceeds will be going.

In closing:

Last week I shared with you a couple lines from Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's poet. This week, I wanted to share a modern poem from Lyudmyla Khersonkska. This one is a little different from my usual findings, but I think it is well worth a read:

When a country of — overall — nice people
turns — slowly — fascist,
nice people do not notice this transformation all at once.

As when a person we know intimately
goes, next to us, through
an imperceptible process of aging. Imperceptibly, new wrinkles
slice the skin, frightening, deep.

Nice people nod when they run into each other,
and try, more and more, to lower their eyes,
until finally, raising them becomes an inhuman gesture.

Regardless of where you live or what you may think of people of other cultures, I think it is incredibly important to consider what those other peoples may be going through. As the Nazis taught us, to dehumanize others is to become inhuman ourselves. And once we allow that inhumanity into us, it becomes all too easy to imagine that selfsame evil in our neighbors and use it as an excuse to invade and oppress.

Thank you for seeing your world neighbors (whether you know them or not), seeing the new wrinkles on their faces, and not avoiding reality. Thank you for raising your eyes to your neighbors every week. Thank you for helping.

-Scott

Don't forget:

Givebutter may limit ticket purchases to 10 at a time, but as many of you know, you can always buy additional ticket packs without limit.

UFL has amazing art here if you haven't seen it yet!

And please note that although the event description mentions a livestream, there will be none. And while we do deeply appreciate those of you who choose to donate as well as buying raffle tickets, we want to make it clear that donations are not required to enter the raffle.

17 March awesome UFL raffle

This week's items are amazing!