Your Money Is Our Weapon: Ukrainians Invest Over 2 Billion Hryvnias in Summer Offensive

Between February 1 and May 9, 2023, the Come Back Alive Foundation for Competent Assistance to the Ukrainian Army spent 2,088,602,607.92 hryvnias to support the Defense Forces of Ukraine in preparation for their summer offensive campaign.

“We had been accumulating resources for a while in order to be able to make a momentous investment at the right time, and we did it,” says Come Back Alive’s Director, Taras Chmut. “Every hryvnia of these more than 2 billion came from regular donations made by people and businesses. This gave us the opportunity, in particular, to procure weapons and pickup trucks abroad, and purchase optics, communication equipment, copters, demining equipment, and control centers, i.e., all the things that make offensive actions and the liberation of our territories possible.”

Weapons became the largest item of expenditure of this counteroffensive investment.

The Foundation purchased and supplied the army with 1,460 7.62-mm machine guns and 1,000 ATGL-L3 hand grenade launchers, worth a total of UAH 417,468,492. Come Back Alive directly contracted both batches of the collective infantry weapons abroad, complied with the necessary customs procedures, and delivered them to the Logistics Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Together with the General Staff, we distributed 2,460 weapons to 40 divisions.

Drones were the second biggest expense. A total of UAH 335,409,701.96 was spent on 2,542 copters of various models. The ones equipped  with thermal imaging optics were extremely scarce, so the Foundation’s procurement team searched for them around the clock.

Also, thanks to this effort, the army received 11,834 radio stations worth UAH 330,842,257.51. This figure is almost 50% larger than the total amount of donations the Foundation raised for the Armed Forces from 2014 until the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

We purchase radios and ensure secure communications because we want the actions of our troops to be as coordinated as possible. The success of all operations along the front line directly depends on the speed and accuracy of data transmission.

The army also received 2,306 units of thermal imaging optics worth UAH 161,167,009.08. Specifically for the summer offensive of the Armed Forces, the Foundation purchased 93 new pickup trucks from abroad for UAH 118,921,297.62. A reliable vehicle means the mobility of soldiers and their safety in combat.

In addition to all of the above, the Defense Forces received thousands of units of auxiliary equipment, including kilometers of cable, chargers, tablets, monitors, network devices, and demining gear.