Tomash tank, drones, helping deaf -mute. "Gifts for Putin" from the Czech Republic

Almost 100 thousand people in the Czech Republic transferred funds to projects organized by the public initiative " Gift for Putin ." Within its framework, the Ukrainian army was transferred, for example, the modernized T-72 Avenger tank, which received the nickname Tomash (according to one version, in honor of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomash G. Masarik). This tank was on the battlefield even before the Western countries decided to provide Ukraine with their tanks to confront Russian aggression.

Tomash became a symbol of Czech assistance to Ukraine, more than 11 thousand people took part in the campaign to raise funds for its purchase. Thus, it was possible to collect 33 million Croat ( 1.5 million US dollars. - RS ). Following this, the Czech citizens began to transfer funds to buy non -ears of drones, for trainings for doctors working at the advanced, on uniforms for Ukrainian soldiers, as well as to help the hard of hearing citizens of Ukraine, who escaped from the war to the Czech Republic and encountered the problems of adaptation in the foreign language environment. The funds of donors are sometimes spent on very ordinary needs - food, fuel or medicines for residents of liberated or front -line areas.

Those who wish to send funds to the aid of Ukraine can not only finance specific projects, but also acquire various objects brought from Ukraine with Czech volunteers at the main volunteers or participants in missions, collecting evidence of Russia's war crimes in Ukraine. Recently, a sculpture was also handed over to the auction in the form of a rat that reminiscent of a rat that covers a gas pipe. The sculpture stood in the Prague Square for a month, where for many years the monument was a monument to the Soviet Marshal Konev, transferred to the museum due to its dual historical role: on the one hand, the marshal participated in the liberation of Prague at the end of World War II, but on the other, he led the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. The “rat” statue symbolizes Vladimir Putin as the culprit of the energy crisis that came after the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, its author - the sculptor Daniel took out.

Sculpture that will be sold at the AUS AUCTION AUCTION

Despite the fact that the war has been going on for almost a year, according to one of the organizers of the collection of funds to the aid of Ukraine, Yana Polak , the flow of the transferred funds of Czech citizens has not been drying out:

- We still have quite a lot of donors who continue to transfer funds to the aid of Ukraine. And I must say that a wave of solidarity rises every time Russia carries out another missile shelling or makes shelling of critical infrastructure in Ukraine, or when it becomes known about the death of children as a result of Russian strokes. People are trying to do at least something. They do not remain indifferent. Immediately after the outbreak of war, we managed to collect about a billion kroons (almost 50 million US dollars at the current rate. - RS) . Later, the flow of charitable contributions decreased, but in the Czech Republic people sympathize with the residents of Ukraine and continue to transfer many funds to the aid of this country.

- A tank is a very expensive weapon, so I can not help but ask what amounts people most often transfer to the aid of the Ukrainian army?

- These are a variety of people. Some transfer large amounts to us, but most often we are talking about small contributions, in the amount of 10 to 100-200 dollars.

Tank "Tomash" before being sent to Ukraine

- How did you manage to attract such a significant number of people, because one hundred thousand donors for such a relatively small country in the country as the Czech Republic?

- It seems to me that this is due to the past. Many people in the Czech Republic still remember the times when Soviet troops stood in Czechoslovakia (in 1968-1991, as a result of the invasion of the troops of the USSR and other countries of the Warsaw Treaty. - RS) . Many still evaluate this as injustice. I think for this reason our initiative has found such a significant response. People are glad that they can help Ukraine, resisting Russian aggression.

- How do your donors and initiative employees evaluate what is happening in Ukraine now?

It turned out that Russian politicians absolutely do not care about the people living in Ukraine, and even to their people, in Russia, also does not care

- At the present time, in the civilization that we have, I still cannot believe that a war of this scale could break out. We believe that the right to safe life is today the primary value of our society ... But it turned out that in Russia, unfortunately, this is not so. It turned out that Russian politicians absolutely do not care about the people living in Ukraine, and even before their people, in Russia, there is also no. Human life does not mean anything to them. And only in order to stay in power and preserve their luxurious life, they agree to sacrifice a huge number of human lives. The war is generally terrible, and the war in a situation where the army of one country violates the international recognized boundaries of another state and shoots at residential buildings, is doubly terrible. No one could imagine that in our time something similar is generally possible.

- Please tell us how your work began?

- It all started with the fact that when the Russian army began the invasion of Ukraine, many thought about what they could do in this situation. Entrepreneur Dalibor Dedek (owner of one of the largest technological companies in the Czech Republic. - RS) then decided that he would help people from cities who were subjected to Russian bombing - he wanted to help them safely leave the war zone. Then there was an initiative called We must act ("we must act"). One of the goals she set for herself is to achieve the emergence of a useless zone over Ukrainian cities. So it all began. Unfortunately, it was not possible to carry out any of the plans then: the useless zone did not arise, it was also impossible to help export people in the situation on Earth. Then we began to think what else we can do, how can we help? And we decided to spend the funds that we managed to raise, on weapons and on the ammunition for the Ukrainian army. So the project "Gift for Putin" arose - a site where people can make a donation for equipment and supply of the Ukrainian army.

- What projects have you already managed to implement?

- We have implemented projects to transfer the ammunition and weapons worth about 370 million Croat (almost 17 million US dollars. - RS) . Donations are transferred to the account of the Ukrainian embassy, which decides, what to spend them on. At the same time, we also implement our own projects. One of the most famous is the collection of funds for the purchase of the Tomash tank. Another project that we implemented concerned the air defense: its meaning was to ensure that people could protect civilian objects from Russian strokes. We also raised funds for the professional training courses of military doctors, for an armored ambulance car ... Another large project is a collection of funds for non -eating reconnaissance drones that help detect the wounded or adjust the fire.

Any decision on the supply of weapons is made by the Ukrainian side together with the Czech Ministry of Defense. We do not interfere in these processes, we only try to help so that there is money for weapons. And where this weapons are sent are decided by those who are able to make this decision better than us. As for the collection of funds for commercial drones, as well as our other projects, we also support Czech volunteers who are fighting in Ukraine, and we send them funds directly. We send drones commercial, here we are not talking about weapons. In Ukraine, there are different volunteers from the Czech Republic. Some of them are professional military, which operate in foreign legion, but at the same time there are many volunteers who simply bring humanitarian aid to orphanages or train military doctors. There are those who work as a military physician and help directly in the war zone: for example, they transport the wounded from advanced to medical institutions in the rear. At the same time, Czech citizens are part of groups of experts investigating war crimes. There are Czechs among those who travel to the liberated territories where exhumations are held in the areas of mass burials, they assess what happened during the Russian occupation. We help these people with the fact that we give them money to buy gasoline, food and drugs for distribution, for example, in the liberated territories, or for the work of various missions that operate in Ukraine.

- How do you determine in which equipment there is a need? Do you also work on the spot directly in Ukraine?

- No, we usually discuss this with those who are in place. Firstly, these are employees of the Ukrainian Embassy, and secondly, employees of the Ministry of Defense, who help us understand which equipment will be useful, paying attention to the nature of the hostilities in Ukraine. We consult whether this or that type of weapon or ammunition is realistic and what difficulties we will have to face if we decide to send bought directly to the place where the battles are going on.