For Ukraine, for their Freedom and Ours ! - CSO
Shards of Ukraine - Delivery Log
In December 2025, Pierre Raiman (For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours!) and Svitlana Murer (Kalyna Association) crossed war-torn Ukraine to deliver, thanks to hundreds of donors, an extraction vehicle, generators, and medical equipment to some thirty units and hospitals. From Lviv to Kharkiv, via Kyiv, Poltava, and Izyum, this journal reveals powerful encounters with the Ukrainian resistance: Solomon of the Special Forces, Ivan of the drone brigade, Tatou Ania, a one-legged Belgian volunteer who became a drone pilot, the wounded from Poltava, Yuri of the Odin detachment, and so many others. These fighters demonstrate uncompromising clarity – "We can win. But our losses are heavy" – without relinquishing their humanity. Their composure in the face of sacrifice reveals the debt of Europe, which debates while they die. An essential testimony on the urgent need to support Ukraine.
Prologue
At the end of a dead-end street in still-sleeping Lviv, a fighter from a renowned and formidable unmanned aerial attack brigade was waiting for us. Under the lamplight, we traded three generators and an EcoFlow—those power machines that have become survival tools—for an inscription on a blue and yellow flag. It was a brief encounter: Ivan was heading off to a destination he couldn't name, and we had a rendezvous four hundred kilometers further east that afternoon. The transaction was quick, punctuated by a smile and a handshake.
What strikes me, what I will not forget, is the intact humanity of his face after four years of fighting – that of a man who is perhaps an attentive father, a reliable friend, a passionate technician or teacher, and whom nothing destined to become a volunteer in this unit which held the Russian army at bay for one hundred and ten days, in Bakhmut in the spring of 2023. Ivan was not a superman – that was precisely what made him admirable.
Ukraine deserves it
But let's go back to the beginning of our journey. After thirty hours of driving and six hours of waiting, the Polish customs at Medyka send us back: " Return to Poland! " claiming missing forms.
The next day, with all the documents and a priority humanitarian vehicle certificate, we opted for another border crossing a hundred kilometers away. A customs officer tried to fine us, repeatedly shouting "Fine! Fine! 3 !", but Svitlana, our mission leader, didn't flinch, and he gave in. Then came the weigh-in; we were 260 kg overweight, a disqualifying 260 kg. But this customs officer was accommodating and invited me to back up, get a running start, and go over the scales as fast as possible, braking hard before the barrier. We never found out the displayed weight, but we had made it through, Ukraine was just 10 meters away, and the longing was immense. With a kind gesture, the last customs officer invited Svitlana to raise the barrier herself. On the other side, the Ukrainians were incredibly warm, and a customs officer embraced Svitlana, confiding that her husband was at the front in Kherson.
It's hard to express how happy we were driving through the night towards Lviv.
Our mission extended as far as Izioum, in the northeast: a series of appointments to reach some thirty recipients, units, and hospitals. This meeting in Lviv was only the first step. On the road, while I drove, Svitlana constantly planned and rearranged the appointments, meticulously keeping proof of each delivery.
Solomon the Wise
In Margarita's house in Zhytomyr, a man enters unceremoniously. A few words in Ukrainian, then he comes towards me: "Hi! I am Solomon, it's my call sign."
A warrior bearing the name of the wise king. The enigma intrigues me.
" Why Solomon?"
– Because my comrades think I'm wise . »
Wisdom. The word resonates strangely. The wisdom of the Special Operations Forces is anything but contemplative – it is tactical, embodied, silent. But did Solomon also carry something else: the Jewish memory of Ukraine, that of nearby Berdychiv, the city of Vasily Grossman's mother , exterminated in 1941?
“ No, I am not from Berdychiv. I am a native of Donbass, raised speaking Russian. I had a good life down under, in Australia. But I had to come and fight. »
The Russian-speaking Donbas, the Australian exile, the return to defend what Moscow claimed to protect in its name. Solomon alone exposes the lie of the Russian narrative: these Russian-speaking Ukrainians, supposedly "liberated," who took up arms against their alleged saviors.
After the meal, sitting side by side, I asked him about the new Ukrainian weapons, long-range underwater or aerial drones. He smiled enigmatically, but couldn't give any details and simply said about the latter:
“ They are like modern V1, but for a just cause. »
Ukrainian ingenuity is rewriting the history of the struggle against totalitarianism. For Solomon, victory also lies in the burning Russian refineries and the sunken phantom fleet.
Then he pauses.
“ You know, we can win. But our losses are heavy . »
The statement is chilling. Just this stark observation: yes, victory is possible, but it comes at a price. This kind of clear-sightedness is rarely heard in Europe. Solomon knows the cost of every kilometer defended and that Ukraine's new weapons are forged in the face of absolute urgency. And his words hold up a mirror to our own inadequacy.
“ Our losses are heavy. ” The phrase kept coming up, containing what the West refuses to hear: that victory demands a sacrifice we have never had to make since 1945. That every day we withhold aid is paid for in Ukrainian lives. Solomon spoke of the arithmetic of war, and in that arithmetic, a debt was growing. They fight, we debate. They lose men, we lose time.
“ How do you explain the silence of Russians? Fear of the FSB is not enough… ”
The silence of the Russians. Not the silence of the propagandists—the silence of others, those who are not participating in the war, who do not openly support Putin, but who do not take the risk of opposing him. A heavy, bloody silence.
How can we not think of the silence of the Germans under the Third Reich? Karl Jaspers stressed that all citizens of a state are accountable for the regime they have tolerated and bear this moral responsibility which engages each individual in relation to themselves.
Silence falls again. Millions of silent Russians are funding, through their taxes, the missiles that will kill tomorrow. I don't mention Jaspers to him. But by asking this question, Solomon is already thinking along those lines.
Kyiv, a war-torn capital
Kyiv outwardly displays the bustling energy of any capital city. But this is only an illusion. Electricity is only available for two three-hour periods per day. Bombings are frequent: the day before our arrival, there were five alerts and a residential building was hit.
We're staying with Valera and his wife Svitlana, high up in a tower block. Svitlana makes amazing little orthopedic cushions for the injured, embroidered so that each one is unique. We'll be distributing them to the hospital in Poltava. Valera, a bank executive, becomes our driver in Kyiv, a vast city the size of Greater Paris, and takes us to Oleksiy's, who welcomes us into his office-workshop.
There, with four other tech-savvy individuals, he invents new drones and, most importantly, an astonishing long-range detector that locates and classifies enemy drones. The army has already placed orders. Our eyes shining, we say to each other that we'd need a thousand as soon as possible, ten thousand quickly. In the meantime, our EcoFlows are a welcome addition, and Valera offers us two jars of honey from her beekeeping father in Sumy. Oleksiy embodies this inventive and generous Ukraine that saves the country through ingenuity as much as through force of arms.
At the Nova Pochta depot—along with the railways, it's another institution that keeps the country connected at war. As soon as Svitlana announces our shipments to the front, everything speeds up: counter, trolley, pallets. The generators will be gone within the hour. The very next day, Kherson sends back a photo of a beaming soldier with his "gift." Thus, in the capital, too often described as disconnected from the front, many also live for the army.
Late in the afternoon, six hundred meters away, a vehicle exploded. One dead, one wounded. Two Ukrainians bribed by Moscow were allegedly responsible. Ukrainians also strike in Moscow, but not like this: their targets are legitimate—generals, torturers. That's the difference between terrorism and resistance.
Light, love and solidarity
Svitlana and I were talking in front of Viktoria's cottage when a cheerful voice cried out: "Ah, what a rare pleasure to hear French spoken here!"
There she is. Tatou Ania, already a legend, accompanied by two Ukrainian companions, lights up the Poltava evening. Blonde and radiant, she arrives after hours on the road to pick up two EcoFlows.
“I’m the only one-legged Belgian woman on the entire front,” she says with a self-deprecating humor that disarms any misplaced compassion. She left Belgium, joined the 37th Brigade, and, despite her disability, now pilots drones.
She inscribed our flag with the motto: "Light, love, and solidarity." Are these words naive in a war of such brutality? No, because Tatou Ania proves that one can fight without losing one's humanity.
The light, I tell myself, is the one she carries everywhere, the one that refuses to let war extinguish what makes life worth living. Her love is not mere sentimentality—it is this profound attachment to a country that is not her own, to its men and women, that she defends at the risk of her life. The solidarity she invokes should be the motto of those who understand that this war concerns us all, that the freedom of Europe is being defended here.
In Vika's house, Tatou Ania beams as we hold the autographed flag together. The debt I mentioned has another side: these foreigners who have chosen Ukraine remind us that there are causes worth sacrificing one's comfort, security, sometimes even one's life. That Europe is built as much here—where a one-legged Belgian woman comes to find batteries to destroy Russian drones—as at the summits in Brussels.
Tatou Ania sets off again into the night. Light, love and solidarity – the keys to victory.
Poltava Hospital
Forty packages of equipment, several generators: we're delivering to the military hospital in Poltava. Svitlana insists I accompany her to visit the wounded. "Don't leave this reality out of sight," she urges me. Here come those who have passed through Stabilization Point 7 , those who have survived.
The rooms are large and clean, with four or five beds per room. The wounded come from all the year's battles: Pokrovsk, Kupiansk, and other places whose names mean nothing to Europeans, yet which are hells. Their wounds are severe: split legs, abdominal gashes, amputated arms. Most choose the small cushions from Svitlana of Kyiv, feeling them for a long time—as if this simple gesture gave them back some control over a world that had slipped from their grasp.
A young blond man named Artem, his eyes filled with sadness, confides in me: taken prisoner at the beginning of the war, he was released in 2024 and returned to the front. He was wounded at Kupiansk, losing a forearm. I say nothing. Thank you would be meaningless, and courage condescending. Svitlana speaks for both of us.
In another room, two wounded men are recovering. The third, Bohdan, seems much worse off. He doesn't want to speak, remaining huddled in a ball. It is then that Svitlana makes a gesture I will never forget: she approaches him, takes him in her arms, and speaks to him softly. Little by little, Bohdan's features relax. Now he is the one holding Svitlana's arm. He asks her to read his service record: 2022, 2023, 2024, up to Pokrovsk in 2025. Years etched into his battered body.
I didn't know what to say to the injured while Svitlana introduced me as "a doctor of history from France".
" You know, Svitlana, a doctor of history, it's not important …"
" Yes, it is important to them ."
Why? So that tomorrow, Ukrainian historians will record their names, their wounds, their sacrifices. Tomorrow. So that the wounded of Ukraine are not forgotten, so that Russia pays for their rehabilitation.
We have to leave too soon, but these faces will stay with me: Artem and his missing forearm. Bohdan in Svitlana's arms.
Yuri and the names
The giant of the Odin detachment, named after the Norse god of war and wisdom, bears his two wounds like others wear medals they never display. Broad-shouldered, with a short, salt-and-pepper beard, he possesses a physical presence that commands respect. His voice is deep and hoarse, and Yuri smokes heavily. One of these wounds, received in Bakhmut, nearly killed him—a bullet near his heart. After treatment, he returned to the front. The second, to his hip, forces him to walk with a crutch. Since then, he has been in charge of logistics and preserving the memory of his former detachment, Odin, a group of volunteers who formed to defend Poltava and oppose the Russian advance in 2022, and of whom only a few survivors remain today.
In another life, Yuri could have been an actor. But history decided otherwise. " Look," he said, pointing to the new sign. "Odin Assault Detachment Street. " Where a Russian name once stood. Like all streets with Russian names, this one has been renamed. Yuri insisted that the new name not be impersonal, but dedicated to his comrades.
This is a crucial act: Russian denialism begins here, in this desire to erase the language, the places, the memories. Renaming is not an act of revenge—it is an ontological resistance. It is saying: we exist. We name our world.
With a simple gesture, Yuri tears the badge from his uniform and hands it to me. The round, black patch with Odin's winged helmet. This badge must have been earned—by fire, by Bakhmout, by Lyman, by Avdiivka. Moved, I humbly accept it.
Our truck broke down just as we were leaving Poltava for Kharkiv, where we were supposed to hand it over to Andriy, a doctor with the 9th Brigade, to be converted into an ambulance. It was to be repaired overnight by the unbeatable Ukrainian mechanics. But Andriy came all the way from Kharkiv to drive us there immediately.
When he gets out of the car, Yuri and he stop, recognize each other, and embrace. They had fought in the same unit in 2022 and hadn't seen each other since. It's a touching moment; Yuri, leaning on his crutch, and Andriy, the doctor, exchange a few words. I only understand what's happening: the brotherhood of those who stood together and didn't know if they would ever see each other again.
A vehicle breakdown and French volunteers: that's all it took. Coincidence? But what exactly is a coincidence? Pure chance, or that way war has of forging bonds that never break?
Later, we walk along Poltava's Heroes' Avenue. Hundreds of faces stare back at us—soldiers who have fallen since February 2022, some as far back as 2014. The avenue has transformed what was once a simple promenade. Now, the portraits are lined up at eye level. The rows stretch far, far too far.
It's the exact opposite of the renamed street. There, they erased the names of the occupiers. Here, they engraved those who fell. Two sides of the same struggle for memory against the great Russian silence and its totalitarian uniformity.
Yuri and Andriy walk, search, and quickly find their friends. They stand frozen in their uniforms. Yuri stops in front of several graves, whispering their names.
In front of one of the portraits, he stands still for a longer time. Then he lights a cigarette, takes one or two puffs and wedges it on the small grate.
He confided to Svitlana: " We always shared our packs of cigarettes. So let him enjoy it while he can. "
What might seem theatrical is not. The bond between the living and the dead that forges a nation will remain profound in Ukraine for a long time – sustained by memory and the land where they rest. Among the portraits, I notice two women. One, in civilian clothes, smiles at us with bright red lipstick. She too fought. She too fell.
When we leave Yuri, we hug him and invite him to France after the victory.
On the road, Svitlana often says to me: " Look to the right, the soldier's gait - under his uniform, he has a prosthesis, and so does the one on the left .
– But Svitlana, I'm driving…
– Okay, so davai [Translator's note: "Go for it!" in Russian] follow the truck in front ," she continues in her mix of languages.
Following Tantchik
Twenty minutes earlier, Tantchik, a seasoned fighter from the 3rd Assault Brigade, had asked me, " Do you want to come with me? " He arrived in his pickup truck, bristling with drone jammers. He lives up to his nickname, "Little Tank": stocky and bearded, he exudes a quiet strength. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.
Izyum, a martyred city southeast of Kharkiv. There was a moment of emotion upon reaching the city limits, liberated in September 2022 after five months of occupation. The Russian rout revealed a mass grave of hundreds of bodies: soldiers, civilians, and children, some tortured and emasculated.
We set off on a road protected by anti-drone netting, then Tantchik leaves it for an unlit lane. His rifle next to the steering wheel, he warns: " Keep one hand on the handle. If I yell 'Go,' get out and run ."
We pass through a completely destroyed village. " Only two old women remain here ." Then he gets out. " Now we walk. "
He runs through the night. The torch of his rifle, pointed towards the ground, illuminates his steps. We try to keep up with him through the tall grass, somewhere at "15 km to zero." Running behind him, I understand how much the resistance depends on men like Tantchik, whom people follow because they inspire such trust.
We arrive at a deserted housing estate, bombed in 2022. Then, further on, a gutted church, riddled with bullets.
" Here we fought for six weeks to retake the church ."
Inside, a certain solemnity reigns despite the devastation. A few small paintings hang on the walls, some intact, others in tatters. And then, larger, a reproduction of Abraham's Hospitality – a prefiguration of the Trinity in the Orthodox tradition – which, alas, was torn to shreds, bearing the mark of the cultural war: what Moscow cannot appropriate, it destroys.
In the night at the front, only a few 20mm shots fired at a Shahed break the silence. We have to leave. Svitlana takes down the small surviving paintings to evacuate them. A gesture that is anything but naive, simply the conviction that even here, fifteen kilometers from the zero line, culture must not be abandoned.
On the way back, Tantchik blurts out:
" When I joined the army in 2014, there were thirteen of us. Today there are only two of us left ."
The sentence hits like a ton of bricks. Eleven comrades gone. The debt grows even deeper.
In the speeding pickup truck, I physically feel that this war is won or lost with men like him – tenacious, sober, carrying their dead like a burden they never lay down.
Kharkiv in the dark
From Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, I saw only the night and a long series of air raid alerts.
Andriy leads us to our last meeting with Paul Israël, a young Frenchman who created the Dignitas association in Kharkiv, which manages mobile care stations for injured children and practices hippotherapy.
Our meeting is at a still-lit gas station. The young Frenchman arrived back in 2022. " It was my Catholic faith that motivated me to act. " Before, he was working on a philosophy thesis in Strasbourg about religion and totalitarianism. The topic intrigues me. I ask him if he's finished it.
" No, it's pending. Perhaps you know my director: Gérard Bensussan ." I exclaimed, " But he's one of the founders of our association! "
A second coincidence? Or rather: the continuity between thinking and acting that connects each of us. We parted ways after sending a selfie to Gérard Bensussan.
It's getting late. We need to get to the train station for the 11:50 PM train. But the alerts are still going on, and the city is completely dark. The streets are empty, and the GPS is turned off so Russian drones can't use it. We have no idea which way to go.
A rare car passes by. Andriy stops it, using the authority of his uniform. The driver, Angelika, offers to show us Kharkiv. And so begins, in the night, the most unusual of tours.
Fresh out of university with a degree in chemistry, she takes us to her faculty building, which was targeted and completely destroyed. Then to the Kharkiv Opera House. " It's closed, impossible to secure. But there's a room in the basement where performances continue. " Finally, the monument to the children of Kharkiv killed, where hundreds of small teddy bears are placed. " In memory of these little angels who will never grow up ," says Svitlana.
We are speaking in the dark. After her thanks, I return the compliment: it is we who should be thanking Ukraine for its defense of Europe. Angelika corrects me:
“ More than Europe – democratic civilization .”
Angelika gave us a glimpse of HER city, three places in the night that together speak volumes: destruction, resistance, memory. She embodies this attachment that I've felt growing within me since the beginning of the trip. Not an abstract feeling of solidarity with "Ukraine," but something more intimate.
The station seems empty. Will the train run? Yes. We are the last passengers for the 11:50 PM train, which will soon be pulling away from Kharkiv.
Back to Kyiv
The Ukrainian trains are beautiful, clean, and comfortable, but I didn't sleep. All the appointments of the past few days were swirling in my head, along with the need for us in France to do more to help these men and women. The terrible bombing of Odessa the day before , the total blackout—unbearable. Even worse, the lack of a French response to the request for protection of Ukrainian airspace. Hadn't Macron said a year earlier, " In the coming year, I'm going to have to send some guys to Odessa "? I'm at a loss for words.
We arrive in Kyiv, beautiful and white under the snow. In the two days that remain, despite my desire not to be a tourist, there's no question of refusing the visit that Valera and Svitlana offer me. Hagia Sophia and Maidan covered in snow: two magical and meaningful moments.
Hagia Sophia was built when Moscow did not yet exist. Anne of Kyiv prayed there. Now Russia claims to call it "Anne of Russia"—yet another Orwellian lie that denies Kyiv's Ukrainian identity and retroactively projects the modern Russian state onto a past in which it did not exist, in order to legitimize its territorial claims.
The day before, Islamist terrorists massacred Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Australia . But in Maidan Square, this place of history and freedom a few kilometers from the bloody ravines of Babyn Yar , stood an immense Menorah. “The tallest in Europe,” Valera told me proudly. On the Menorah, it is written: “A little light dispels much darkness.” A phrase that applies to Putin’s lies.
I left the next day, happy with the mission accomplished, and sad too. I returned changed; this trip hasn't altered my convictions, but it has embodied them. To Svitlana, her good humor and unwavering will: friendship, affection, and admiration.
As the train approached the border under the setting sun, I realized how much I had allowed myself to be invaded by Ukraine.
For a long time.