Fred Roeder, whom I’ve known for nearly a decade, and Maria Semykoz (who is from Sievierodonetsk in Donbas) have a way for avgeeks to support Ukraine. Fred recently shared with me that he’d obtained a piece from the AN-225 Mriya that was destroyed by Russia early in the war, and used it to raise funds.
He now has available luggage tags from downed Russian aircraft. And you can have one in exchange for a donation to a U.S.-based tax-exempt non-profit.
Russia’s fighter jets and helicopters terrorize Ukrainians. They kill with bombs, missiles, and salvos. Ukrainians defend their homeland and turn Russian war machines into scrap.
We recycle this scrap into luggage tags. The money we raise goes to support Ukraine’s defenders.
For a donation of $399 you’ll receive one of these luggage tags, which “specifies the model of the jet on one side and the date & time when it was shot down, crash coordinates & the tail number.” Funds go to provide the unit that shot down the plane with “drones and other non-lethal supplies such as warm clothes.” In addition for a $3000 donation you can name a drone.
The project is Recycle Russia. And while I’m always somewhat concerned sending funds to foreign war efforts, given potential lack of clarity of U.S. rules around the matter, you are actually just sending funds to a U.S. non-profit and they assure that the efforts being funded are humanitarian and information-gathering in nature.
