Tennesseans for Ukraine

16/09/2026

This is a short but excellent and short documentary about ruzzia’s hybrid warfare using (mostly) unwitting poor and vulnerable people from Latin America, Africa, etc. as “disposable” agents of sabotage.

Features and interview by one of my favorite authors on the subject, Kiers Giles of "Russia's War on Everybody."

In 2024, several Latin Americans were caught committing sabotage on...

15/09/2026

This is a stunning and brazen breach of US national security and massive conflict of interest.

The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large group of other Russian guests.

14/09/2026

If you're blaming Ukraine for high gas prices, I'd like to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime deal on perfectly good bridge in Brooklyn I've recently come in possession of.

Kyiv’s energy war on Russia may hurt on the margins, but the real culprit is Trump’s war on Iran.

08/09/2026

Anna is not a Tennessean but she is a dedicated journalist/volunteer whom I enjoy reading for her clever insights about evacuations near frontline facing cities and villages.

I’m going to let Sunday’s events speak for themselves. Tragic, off-colour, banal, bleakly hilarious, defiant, take your pick. It’s war.

06/09/2026

Hymie and Mark of Cary and Dunn Humanitarian let Anastasia and me ride along and film their 13th mission last month in Ukraine. I am working on a video documentary of the excursion as a follow-up to "My Summer in Ukraine," adapted for today's media landscape. It's tentatively titled "Another Summer in Ukraine."

Hymie and Mark do a great job keeping their donors informed about their missions, and with their permission, I can share these with the broader public for those who are interested. Here is Hymie's latest update. Feel free to share, or if you'd like to donate to their causes, let me know. Mark's update is coming up soon as well.

FROM HYMIE DUNN: September 5, 2026 (Mission 13)

Dear Friends,

I left Kyiv on the second day of this latest major attack. If I say we drove away under a barrage of missiles it sounds dramatic and filmic but the reality is that the drones and ballistics have been coming in all day and night for eight consecutive days. Trying to buy a small basket of groceries for a picnic on the road, I had been evacuated from the shop twice before successfully returning a third time. Since the large death toll in a supermarket in Kryvyi Rhi which didn’t shut its tills when the alarm sounded, shop and office managers are now applying the rules more stringently. It was hit by an Iskander-M ballistic missile equipped with cluster mu*****ns.

As well as the overhead sirens, loud and unavoidable announcements come through on civilians' phones. The Ukrainian-American voice that blares out from mine is in English:

ATTENTION! AIR RAID ALERT. PROCEED TO SHELTER. YOUR OVER CONFIDENCE IS YOUR WEAKNESS.

Mark and I drove fast back through Europe. The van was having problems, but we made it. Having tipped out my hold all I re-packed a small rucksack and next day we caught a train up to Burnley to pick up a vehicle bought at auction and repaired by the magnificent Harley who I’ve mentioned previously. The large pick-up truck is destined for Leonid the soldier whom we met in Kharkiv. American Andrew has paid for it, and as I write, Mark and fellow American Ralph have just arrived back in Ukraine to deliver it. The world of self-funded volunteers is small. I first met Ralph and his wide Debby in Medyka at the refugee camp back in March 2022. This is the first time he’s been back to Ukraine since then and I think he’s going to be in for a shock.

In other news:

Our boxes of books, puzzles and educational toys (which we dispatched four weeks ago) were eventually delivered to Tania F in her Kherson village. They were driven there along with other essential items by a friend who lives in a village further north towards Mykolaiv. Tania F told us she decided to hand out some of the books to ‘gifted’ children. The rest will go into storage in the bunker-school although who knows when they’ll be used. Soon no more families will remain there.

After we heard of the mandatory evacuation order of families, Mark, Tania, Stas and I spent the best part of 3 days messaging and speaking with Tania, trying to persuade her to leave. Alas, to no avail. She told us she was worried her husband would be conscripted for active service as soon as they register as displaced people (highly unlikely because he has a medical condition and is also Tania’s carer as she suffers epileptic seizures). She explained several times how scared she was of what will happen to them if they leave. They won’t be able to afford to rent a house elsewhere and she doesn’t want to leave her home and village. She explained that the authorities help families but not people like them who have no dependents. Stas offered to find a short term solution for them in Kyiv but again she told him she didn’t want to leave her region. At the same time, she said there was no electricity in the village that day and sent pictures of a drone and an unexploded bomb which had landed in their yard. Truthfully, I don’t think there’s much more we can do. Sachko has made enquiries about accommodation in a village not too far away but still out of drone reach but was told there was no availability. Too many houses remain uninhabitable since they were damaged under occupation.

A few days later, Tania F told us two cars with families who were leaving her village had been ambushed by kamikaze drones hidden in bushes along the roadside. The cars were burnt out but the passengers survived. We don’t know how they were rescued or where they are now but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this cynical and inhumane kind of warfare. Tania F asked if we could send her fire extinguishers as there are none left in the village and they have no way of putting out fires caused by explosions.

Eventually through contacts Mark was able to find a group of volunteers who were planning to take aid to Tania F’s village. They added three extinguishers to their mission and the last we heard they were on their way. For 10 days neither our contact nor Tania F heard anything until finally we found out that the three volunteers are all in hospital. They too were hit by a drone as they travelled the road. They lost their vehicle and all the aid supplies but not their lives. We've asked if we can provide support in any way for their medical care.

This kind of situation is sadly not an isolated one and it leaves people like us in a moral dilemma. Do we continue to send aid to places where people really shouldn’t be living or do we ‘ignore’ their needs, telling them they can no longer expect to be helped if they stay in a dangerous zone? N.B. that ‘dangerous zone’ is for many the only home and place they have ever known.

I’m really pleased we’ve been able to source some of the items requested by Kateryna for the 1st Medical Batallion. We’re waiting the arrival of another American partner who’s (hopefully) bringing with him three of the 3M Ranger blood warmers. We’re trying to source more and I’ve been in touch with the David Knott Foundation for advice and now have a super helpful contact there.

We gave the last of our Ecoflows to a young soldier in Intelligence Operations. We have money for another drone detector but are waiting for the right spec. And we gave tourniquets, chest seals and IFAKS to a soldier friend of Mark’s called Serheii who works in frontline special operations.

We’ve bought 4 new generators for ETOC who will distribute them where need is greatest in the winter, and we’ve sent money for four more. Once again, the Kremlin has announced it will be targeting the power grid this winter.

Sadly, I didn’t have time on this trip to visit Lada and the orphanage. However, we’ve transferred funds for her to buy the kids new equipment for the start of school. Lada sent me a moving message in the form of a prayer, asking that children in Ukraine be allowed to return to school in peace. On 1 September the attacks continued, school children’s journeys to school (where there are physical buildings) were interrupted, and yesterday a university in central Kyiv was struck. In the latest spat of warehouse attacks, as well as food stocks and aid supplies, thousands more Ukrainian books have burnt to cinders - clearly a symbolic attempt to erase the culture.

When I first met Lada in summer 2022, she had a new orphan, little Sophia who’d been found wandering the streets of Kharkiv. She was mute. Even now, age 9, she can still only speak mumbled incoherent words. Doctors say her speech defect been caused by concussion and trauma from a large explosion. When the second major tragedy in Bucha (a neighboring village of Lada’s) happened last week, it made the headlines here. With over 27 deaths and many injuries caused when a mu*****ns depot was hit, over 130 homes were also badly damaged. Lada sent a picture of the smoke plumes rising from not too far away.

This morning a large box of North American Rescue CAT tourniquets has arrived and I’ll be dispatching them to Kyiv on Monday. A Ukrainian Nova Posta office has opened in London’s Fleet Street not far from where I work so this will make small, light deliveries easier. That said, of course Nova Posta depots and delivery trucks are now frequently targeted and some of their major depots have been destroyed.

Today in London it's a beautiful, peaceful, blue-skied day. In Kyiv they’ve had attacks since midnight: 23.58, 3.09, 4.53, 13.03 - a threat level which remained until well into the afternoon. The USA requested a ceasefire for three days while American emissaries Witkoff and Kushner visit Moscow then are supposed to go to Kyiv, although last week they said they were too scared to do that. At the time of writing the ceasefire is supposed to have started. There’s discussion around the Americans arriving in Ukraine by plane; the russian strikes in the small hours were aimed at Kyiv and Boryspil airports.

When the siren sounds the all-clear, my phone announces:

AIR ALERT OVER. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

Even under these conditions, the Ukrainians retain a sense of humor.

Your donations continue to come in. It’s overwhelming. Thank you so very much.

With love and sincere gratitude,

Hymie x

04/09/2026

So this just happened. It was the restaurant where I dined with Yulia from JK Tours and George from Expert Guides Georgia, and where I've also dined alone a couple of times. I can’t tell you how it feels to see a place you are intimately familiar with get bombed, but Ukrainians understand this all too well.

Thank goodness Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are going to Kyiv to get a peace deal going this weekend… oh wait. Breaking News: Witkoff got scared, and now the trip is off? If only the Ukrainian grandparents, children, and special-needs folks had such a choice.

01/09/2026

How many more children must ruzzia murder before people will call their elected representatives and ask them to support Ukraine?

Russia has launched a large aerial assault in and around Ukraine's capital that has killed at least 11 people.

31/08/2026

BLOG POST FROM HYMIE DUNN OF "CARY AND DUNN" HUMANITARIAN OF OUR TRIP TO ZAPORIZHIA - Posted with permission:

FROM HYMIE:
Firstly, thank you again VERY very much for all your incredible kindness and generosity. Donations have continued to come in so I’ll send a later report of where your money is going. In the meantime, here’s news about Zaporizhia.

Over the period I’ve been in Ukraine this time Zaporizhia has continued come under daily attack. The stats below are from local media sources who report in real time so the number of fatalities caused by injuries are unknown. Likely, it is many. Unfortunately, there are many more hits than actually reported in the news and the number of drones and missiles intercepted by Ukrainian soldiers isn’t recorded here. Still, it’s a reminder of what just one city has to endure on a daily basis.

- 2 August. Eight guided aerial bombs hit the city in 1 1/2 hours killing one person and injuring 31.

- 4 August. A bomb struck a children’s hospital.

- 6 August. Guided aerial bombs attacked. 1 elderly man died.

- 10 August. In an attack a garage was hit. Further attacks damaged the power grid and 24 civilians.

- 11 August. In Zaporizhia alone 6 people died and 20 were injured as a result of a major attack across the country with Zircon and ballistic missiles and 120 drones. A day of mourning was declared.

- 12 August. A private house and a shopping centre were destroyed.
Another bomb took out a power station leaving 5000 with no electricity or access to fresh water.

- 15 August. A farmer in the Zaporizhia countryside was seriously injured by a drone attack.

- 21 August. At night a bus and a car were destroyed by a drone.

- 22 August. During a drone attack a private home and a warehouse were destroyed.

- 24 August. 6000 drones and 165 guided aerial bombs in an enemy attack were launched across the entire country.

- 25 August. A guided aerial bomb killed two civilians. Three people were injured and 10 cars destroyed.

- 27 August. Two men and a woman were injured and a car and a building were destroyed in an attack. In a further drone attack two women were injured.

- 28 August. The only remaining Epicentre superstore in the city was destroyed. 5 staff were injured.

- 29 August. 1 person injured in a strike on a private home. News that day was largely about the awfuldeath toll in Bucha.

- 30 August. Warehouses were hit and burned down.

After Kharkiv, the Gang of Four headed for Zaporizhia. Mark and I wanted to visit the school which your donations support. Called ArtLand, its Head Teacher, Irina, recently won an award for her pioneering techniques teaching children with special learning needs. She's devised a method which teaches children maths as they make art. I lived for my art lessons at school but found numbers daunting and baffling so would have loved the opportunity of being taught by her alongside her very lovely children.

With reports of daily KAB (guided aerial bomb) attacks, we had already decided not to stay the night in the city centre. Instead we stopped at Dnipro which gave us the perfect opportunity to meet up with Lars of Universal Aid Ukraine. I’ve known Lars since 2022 and admire him hugely. At almost 7’ tall, his heart and brain match his height. With a small group of German and Ukrainian volunteers, Lars is still evacuating people from frontline villages in Donbas. Often they are the last people remaining in these places - elderly, poor, frail - and Lars and his colleagues put themselves at huge risk carrying out these mercy missions. His latest mission involved bringing to safety his youngest refugee yet - a three day old baby.

Rob and Anastasia filmed Lars discussing his work and the issues involved as well as all the challenges. Lars is not only brave but a typical German pragmatist and logtistics guy who calculates risk based on military intel and on the ground experience. During the interview Lars mentioned a new drone detector that he’s waiting to buy. Mark and I told him he shouldn’t wait but should go ahead and buy one straight away. We gave him the money on the spot to buy one.

Bright and early next morning we got on the road to Zap (as we like to refer to it, lovingly). Anastasia operated the drone detector. In the event hearing its warning bleeps became darkly farcical when one of the guards at the block post before the city entry chose to challenge us and we were left ‘exposed’ for hours. The guard tried to justify his action by explaining this was not his fault, he was only obeying orders and that he needed to have the relevant paperwork and security clearance for us before he allowed us to pass. Irina spoke with him several times on the phone, explaining who were were and that the children were waiting to see us but he had decided we were his focus for the day. While Irina’s sister scrambled to pull strings with friends in the police and home security in order to speed up our entry, we sat in the baking sun under the drone net for four hours.

Eventually Anastasia lost her cool and told the guard how irresponsible he was making us wait in this dangerous area and especially treating foreign volunteers in this way. He remained unmoved but finally a police guard intervened, told us the official approval had come in from 'on high', apologised for the guard and told us to be on our way.

Mark and I hastily put on our body armour and I sped into the city as fast as I could. That highway is known to be targeted and everyone drives very fast in Zaporizhia. To our right, beyond the city, dark smoke plumes rose.

At the small semi-underground school were met with open arms and a small group of happy, smiling kids. They’d been decorating biscuits for us and wanted to show us some of their artwork and handicrafts. I’d brought play-dough and other art equipment but it was almost the end of the school day so we didn’t get as much time with them as I would have liked. After parents had collected their children, Irina invited us into the staff office for a wonderful spread of old-fashioned high tea. We stayed for over an hour talking about the situation. Irina told us their landlord likes the children and has given them an additional room at no extra cost and hasn’t raised the rent. It seems extraordinary to an outsider that rents should be high in a war zone but the truth is that so many homes, schools, offices and businesses have been bombed that the country faces a sever shortage of accommodation. Ruthless landlords exploit this. None of their families have left yet in spite of the situation but they have a couple of new pupils who have arrived in the city as refugees from their co

Irina told us about the way they live in constant fear from KAB strikes which can hit at any time although the big attacks tend to start in the late afternoon. She and her colleagues said how incredibly grateful they were to us for visiting during the war and how they admired our bravery. It seemed pretty ironic to me that we should be congratulated for bravery when they live through this all the time.

True to their prediction, at 4.30pm the air raid siren sounded so they told us not to leave until the all-clear was sounded. Soon after a dull thud from a distant explosion the alert stopped and so we said our farewells. As we drove across the damaged bridge over the dam, we saw smoke to our left on both sides of an adjacent smaller bridge where the bomb had exploded. The bridge seemed to have remained intact.

Since I’ve been writing this, we’ve just heard some bad news from a contact in Kherson. I will follow up later.

With love,
Thank you,
Hymie x

30/08/2026

I chose the lonely road and paid the price. But like most blessings/curses, I also reaped the benefits. One benefit is the ability and desire to dedicate myself to a cause much greater than myself. Loneliness turns to mission which turns to love then suddenly I’m not alone.

When I first traveled to Ukraine in 2012 I knew a grand total of zero people. Many years and several trips later I know scores and the friendships developed are deep, and lasting. Yes, the lonely road I chose so long ago, is not so lonely.

Love cannot be squandered and it must express itself in some way. This is one way. Thank you to Anastasia and her family for adopting me into your circle and making me feel loved (and for the vyshyvanka I’m sporting in the photos).

Thank you to all the Ukrainians I broke bread with, had a drink with, or shared a hug, a kind word or smile. Hugs and smiles are not in short supply in Ukraine and turns out the more you give the more you get. Lesson learned.

And thank you to the big hearted volunteers and supporters from Ukraine, the USA, Canada, UK and all across the planet, for letting all Ukrainians know, whether they are in a front line facing village or in the west in lovely Lviv and all parts in between, they don’t walk alone. Dyakuyu. Slava Ukraini!

29/08/2026

Reposting with permission of Mark Cary of Cary & Dunn Humanitarians and “My Summer in Ukraine”

From Mark: email 8.29.26

As I write this, Kyiv and all of Ukraine has been under contstant bombardment for the last 48 hours. Drones, ballistic missiles, glide bombs, ground launched artillery are killing scores of people and eliminating entire neighborhoods. We have front row seats.

The focus is of course is Kyiv. I was awakened around 0300 by the first strikes, several of which were intercepted by the few Patriots that recently arrived in the country from an unspecified NATO partner. The attacks commenced again later Thursday morning and they are continuing right now. I am safe, but this is the absolute worst I have ever experienced over the last four and a half years.

In the last week russia has destroyed 90% of Ukrainian commercial warehouses. The UNICEF warehouse was also hit as was an additional UN facility storing medical supplies. Attacks on gas stations continue at a much increased pace in the last weeks. The headquarters of SBU Alpha, the top tier Ukrainian special operations unit was just destroyed not far from my hotel.

The Ukrainian state rail system, a source of immense pride for Ukraine, due to it's professionalism and on time scheduling has been hit in various locations around the country. Travelers are stranded nationwide. But the most damaging tactics is the targeting of Nova Poshta, the gold standard in mail delivery. Several warehouses and transfer facilities have been completely destroyed.

In bomb shelters in Kyiv, children are asking their parents to remain underground rather than having to come and go every hour. It seems russia has decided that if they cannot conquer the country, they will just raze it to the ground until Ukraine comes to the negotiating table, where the russians will insist Ukraine give up 20% of its territory.

In the past 96 hours we have successfully recieved the four generators we ordered to replace some that were lost at the ETOC warehouse. These will assist military units in winter. We hope to purchase more in the coming weeks.

We also procured and delivered 30 3M Ranger blood warming kits that are being sent to the 1st Medical Batallion in Donbas. An American partner "RP" whom I met at the Kyiv Independent function in December is bringing as many of the actual 3M Ranger devices as he can carry when he comes in a few weeks. These were purchased on Ebay, cross your fingers that they work. 1st Medical Batallion needs 300 warming kits and 15 of the actual warmers. With your help we are continuing to source these requests. Nova Poshta just advised us by email that the warming bags would be delayed. This is significant as Nova Poshta is NEVER delayed.

We also delivered 25 tourniquets, 25 chest seals and 100 trauma dressings and an ECO Flow power station to 1st Medical Batallion. And we donated our personal Eco Flow to the "Timur" drone team of Ukrainian Intelligence.

Kseniia and Kristina from KLYN drones are driving to Kharkiv to deliver a batch of drones that we (you) helped construct. We had an extra 40L of fuel for emergencies so we donated it to them for the 12 hour round trip. Diesel is still around $7 per gallon and getting worse. We also purchased an additional 20 motors, batteries and propellers to allow them to complete the next order. We need 20 more to make 100.

In between shelling and missile strikes seven of us donated blood at the Kyiv military hospital. This was my sixth donation in Ukraine and I was presented with a very "smart" old school donation record book. I intend to fill every page.

Please forgive my strident and frank talk now. One gets a very clear perspective in the midst of explosions and death and destruction, and often to my detriment I have never been one to show verbal restraint. And none of us has slept much.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind anyone who follows this that this war and the chaos and brutality of the last 12 years is in a great part due to the negligence of the United States and our partners. We failed to live up to the commitment we made to Ukraine's defense in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. We took no solid action when russia invaded and occupied Donbas and Crimea in 2014. We watched as russia downed a civilian airliner over Ukraine and we did nothing.

When the full scale invasion happened we offered the Ukrainian government evacuation instead of support. Then when we did decide to help, every single request from HIMARS launchers to tanks, to F-16s had to be begged for and endlessly debated before they were delivered. In the case of the tanks they were delivered so late they had no impact on the battlefield.

During the counterattack of 2022 when the war could have been won, the Biden Administration pressured Ukraine not to press the attack any further out of fear of a russian nuclear reaponse. Now our current government has abandoned or reversed every promise it has made to Ukraine since aid was cut off in 2025. Sanctions bills in the congress have been watered down giving the president the ability to ignore them as he continues to suck up to putin and other dictatorial regimes around the world.

As someone who spent almost 30 years in the uniform of the United States, I feel a profound sense of guilt and shame that the United States has not lived up to our own values and has failed to protect freedom and democracy when we promised that we would. I suppose this is part of the reason I keep returning here, and will do so until the end.

As always your support makes it possible. I will be heading to the UK to pick up a truck for the military and will return next week. This will be three road trips from one side of Europe to the other in one month. Thank you all for helping me and our team as we continue to help the vulnerable and support the warriors in the field.

More to follow
Mark
VENMO: -cary-7
ZELLE: [email protected]
PAY PAL: John Mark Cary