What is the NGO Free Ukraine?

Our NGO is perhaps the first civic organization that began helping the Ukrainian army. This started in 2014, when Russia initiated the war in Donbas. We immediately began organizing aid, and it was an interesting time in the sense that the Estonian government didn't yet know how to react to everything happening there and was being very cautious.

I remember that our first real aid shipment consisted of some medical backpacks in Estonian digital camouflage. I also recall having a conversation afterward with an Estonian official — maybe someone from the defense structures — who said, "Listen, please don't send items in digital camouflage; send regular backpacks instead." We agreed to that, but in reality, the shipment had already been sent. People were very cautious back then.

Since then, we have been active, with a small break between 2018 and 2022, because it seemed that state support was now carrying the aid efforts, making the work of an NGO seem less necessary.

We all followed Maidan closely. How did the idea to take action come about and who were you working with?

It all happened somewhat spontaneously and by chance. There were two groups forming in parallel, one in Tartu and one in Tallinn. Actually, not even groups at first — just individuals who came together. Someone had been trying to collect tourniquets to send to Ukraine, someone else was working on something similar and then we heard about each other through Facebook, joined forces and formed a really great core team with people from different fields. There was a doctor, some IT specialists, entrepreneurs.

Today, we still have about the same number of people — eight active members. And around them, there is a wider circle of supporters and helpers.

Are those eight the same people you started with?

Not all of them. A couple of years ago, we had a bigger split, when four members left. They founded a new NGO focused on Estonian soldiers in Ukraine. Their organization is called Soldier to Soldier, and I think it is a very remarkable initiative.

In 2014, the Ukrainian army was very different from what it is today. At times, even the most basic equipment was missing. Do you now find yourselves sending very different kinds of aid compared to back then?

The tourniquets we sent to Ukraine were just a small part of our activities. Perhaps our most significant achievement was that, in cooperation with the Military Academy in Tartu, we organized a series of courses in 2015 where Ukrainian military medics were taught how to handle battlefield casualties. There were one hundred students in total, over five courses.

At that time, the Ukrainian army had no understanding at all of how to act when dealing with the wounded. The contacts we made through those courses were incredibly valuable, and we were able to build our future aid efforts on those relationships because we knew these people. We knew what they were doing. We trusted them.

The idea was that these same students would go on to teach others, and that is exactly what has happened. It's very good to see. Because a tourniquet is just one tool. If you don't have the skills to use it, it's useless. We feel that our greatest contribution has been organizing the training for battlefield casualty care.

Even today, Ukrainians are using the same Western system. There have also been some changes, such as the conversion of tourniquets, which wasn't practiced in armies with Iraq War experience because transport to the rear was very quick. The so-called "golden hour" — the critical time window to get a wounded soldier from the battlefield to the hospital — worked well in Iraq, so tourniquets didn't need to be adjusted. But in Ukraine, it can sometimes take a couple of days to reach a hospital, which means medics must constantly monitor the wounded, check whether tourniquets need to be loosened, repositioned lower or whether they are even needed at all.

The harsh reality is that if a tourniquet is left on too long, the person can lose a limb. There have been cases where a tourniquet was applied completely unnecessarily and the soldier lost both legs. It's a terrible, terrible tragedy.

Over the years of war, Ukraine's frontline medics have likely developed tremendously, since unfortunately they have had far too much practice.

Absolutely, absolutely. Whenever I have been there on the ground, I have gone there to learn. To see how things really work in practice.

What are the biggest challenges in providing aid to a country at war, one that is so much larger than ours, so far away and home to all kinds of people?

What really helps is having personal relationships and personal trust — you know these people, they have been recommended to you and they have already achieved something; there's a track record. The units receiving aid have something to show for themselves. They aren't just some random group of people. Everything still goes through the leadership of the units and they must be able to prepare the necessary documents and send them to us.

But have there been situations where you simply have to trust, where you cannot verify — but it seems like you must trust anyway?

When we first started our activities, of course, we initially found our contacts simply based on some Twitter posts or through Facebook. But again, those people were already actually doing something on the ground.

So you firmly believe deep down that 100 percent of the aid has gone to the right place?

A: Yes, I do. I would put it this way: because our transport time is so long — it takes about a month from receiving a request for aid to actually delivering it — we can't do anything quickly. We always think everything through carefully. We have the time to do so.

When the full-scale war began in 2022, did you continue providing the same kind of aid to Ukraine as before?

When I first started this work, I thought I was doing it for humanitarian reasons — to help people. To treat the wounded, to save lives. But when the full-scale attack against Ukraine began, I realized that we could keep sending tourniquets and bandages for the next hundred years and it would just go on and on without ending.

It seems that war is full of paradoxes. In order to help people and prevent them from being wounded, you have to stop the enemy. Which meant that we also started sending other kinds of supplies — things needed for actual combat: drones, power banks, generators, communication equipment, night vision devices.

When the full-scale war began, a lot of different aid organizations sprang up, and I believe everyone in Estonia wanted to help in some way. How many of those organizations are still active today?

Before coming here, I looked around a bit out of curiosity and found that there are 14 organizations listed on the kriis.ee website that are recommended as safe places to donate. I know there are actually many more. I think you could easily add at least 20 more to that list. In addition to those, there are also groups of friends and companies that are doing this work completely quietly.

We ourselves also work together with a wonderful group of friends whom we call the Boatmen. The name might sound a bit ominous — after all, in Greek mythology, the boatman ferried the souls of the dead across the river — but in this case, the name came from the fact that they once donated or collected inflatable boats for Ukrainian sappers who needed them to cross water obstacles while demining liberated areas in eastern Ukraine.

We helped them back then and have continued working together ever since. They're a group of very capable men who repair vehicles, build everything themselves and don't have any official NGO; they're just a group of friends.

How did you feel watching the Johanna-Maria Lehtme and Slava Ukraini case unfold? And of course, we also have the Henri Laupmaa case involving the toeta.me platform.

On one hand, it was, of course, a tremendous disappointment — a feeling of betrayal — because we also had to start answering questions and responding to accusations. People were asking, "What are you really doing? Where is your aid going? What's the point of all this if it's just going to get stolen?" It was not a pleasant feeling; it greatly devalued all the aid efforts.

On the other hand, many disillusioned donors who still wanted to help began donating to us and we received new funds to procure supplies for Ukrainians.

I actually witnessed a bit of the Slava Ukraini situation firsthand, because at that time, they had an office in the T1 Mall in Tallinn. In the same place was also the Aitan Kaitsta (I Help Defend) camouflage net weaving center. I used to go there to look at the nets and sometimes offer a few tips, and I was quite astonished when I saw the Slava Ukraini office. It was a room about the size of a small classroom, where a bunch of young women were working at computers. From time to time, Johanna-Maria Lehtme would come in and give them instructions.

To me, it all felt strangely authoritarian. I personally find that kind of authoritarianism and cult of personality very off-putting and it raised some doubts for me. In my view, if you are leading a successful aid organization, you highlight the people who are working there. You emphasize that it's not solely your personal achievement, but rather the result of Mari, Malle and Piret's work — that they are the important contributors. But I didn't see that happening. And I didn't like what I noticed.

So everything that unfolded afterward seemed quite logical to me. Good organizations that function well must be led with a certain spirit of benevolent consensus, where the members feel valued and important.

Ukraine as a country is complicated and corruption is deeply rooted there. What do you think might have happened to Slava Ukraini over there?

What might have happened is that the amount of money they received was so large that it may have felt, in a way, distant and detached — like it wasn't really their money. They might have felt that the aid projects they had already carried out had made them very important people. That their help was so crucial that, well, taking a small bonus from that big pile of money seemed justified. That it was somehow okay because they were doing such important work.

But in reality, they were merely intermediaries of aid. Maybe they didn't fully grasp from the beginning that the money was to be used solely and exclusively to support Ukraine's fight.

In our own organization, we have one principle we are very proud of: we cover all administrative costs out of our own pockets. That means we pay our accountant ourselves. Often, for particularly meaningful aid projects, we personally put in money first.

For example, if I want to send a power bank to a unit, I might personally put in a couple hundred euros first, then the NGO adds a few hundred more and we send it off to Ukraine. Technically, I don't have to contribute my own money, but doing so gives me a reasoned motivation — it makes it clear why that particular unit should get that power bank.

We have never paid a salary to any employee, never bought a ticket with NGO money, never covered any running costs, never even bought a coffee. We have a big round zero when it comes to overhead. What makes handling the money very simple is that every donation is backed by a corresponding expense document — so if someone donates a hundred euros, we buy something for exactly one hundred euros. It's fully trackable and transparent.

We also publish all of our annual reports on our website and anyone can check our activities through the Business Register.

Watching Johanna-Maria Lehtme's rise to fame, did you ever feel even a moment of envy? Before the elections, there was even a time when all of Tallinn was covered with her huge portraits. Did you ever feel a sense of bitterness, thinking that here you are paying for your own coffee, while the public admiration is going somewhere else?

Of course, there was a small thorn that pricked the heart. But at the same time, I thought to myself: it's very good that they are doing all of this, very good that major donors have gotten involved, very good that they have managed to engage companies, very good that the aid is reaching those who need it.

Naturally, there was also a bit of a feeling that... well, there is actually a large number of hardworking people who have been doing this kind of work for years, but... they have never been invited to the Riigikogu, no one has ever reached out a hand to them.

No one has pinned a medal on their chest.

Of course, there was that small thorn, but we were never doing this for glory or recognition. We don't want to create some grand aura of being great benefactors around ourselves.

But didn't it make you angry to see how easily our people were influenced, how they turned one person into a kind of god?

Absolutely... although I actually think it wasn't really the people behind it, but rather our media. I know it was Postimees that essentially made Johanna-Maria into a superstar. But what is very admirable is that they were also the ones who eventually took her down. They very bravely started investigating the whole case and dismantled it piece by piece.

It was clearly visible that this was some kind of media project, and in a way, I understand it — society needed a figurehead, it needed a Jeanne d'Arc.

There was a time when everyone in Estonia was weaving camouflage nets. Are people still weaving them today and are they still needed?

Yes, people are still weaving them. They've been weaving them all these years, and I just recently visited a weaving center where a new large shipment was packed and ready. I won't say exactly where they are located — those who want to find them will — but there are people there who have been weaving nets for years.

Camouflage nets are always needed because they wear out. Basically, everything at the front line must be covered with such a net: generators, trenches, technical vehicles, whatever it may be. They also simply get damaged, burn up, are abandoned and so on. Ukrainians have even started building tunnels from nets — true, from regular fishing nets — to protect certain road sections from FPV drones, for example.

Similarly, you could ask about orthopedic braces. Right now, we are sending a batch to Hospital No. 6 in Kyiv. I even thought to myself, "Okay, we've sent quite a few by now — isn't it enough?" But the doctor in our organization explained it clearly: the braces go with the soldiers and Ukraine is a big country. Those men who receive their braces in Kyiv might later be sent to somewhere like Zaporizhzhia. And even if the hospital asks them to return the braces afterward, often that's simply not possible. There's a constant influx of wounded and each of them needs to use a brace for at least a month or even several months.

So the demand for them is ongoing, just like for tourniquets and all kinds of disposable first aid supplies. A tourniquet, too, can't really be used more than once. One person might need several tourniquets.

The need for even the simplest items continues. I recently had a conversation with a Ukrainian aid worker who said that units also really need things like good shovels and axes. These get broken, abandoned and lost. It's hard for them to keep track of everything out there. A good Fiskars axe, for example, can make their lives much easier.

Ukraine has oligarchs who have owned entire cities and regions. Why does a small Estonian NGO even need to help the Ukrainian army — shouldn't Ukraine's own oligarchs be taking care of that?

I don't have any friends or acquaintances among Ukrainian oligarchs, but it seems to me that quite a lot of them are actually helping the Ukrainian army — so we shouldn't completely demonize them. They are doing good work, from what I have heard.

I think it works like this: the oligarchs deal with the big problems, but small Estonian NGOs handle the small and specific problems. It's a bit like asking a surgeon, "Why do you need a scalpel when you already have an axe?" It seems to me that these small helpers provide the necessary flexibility to solve problems. Some units might need a very specific item they can't get through official military supply channels — because no one really cares about these minor issues — but we can send that crucial item. Maybe it's a tool that helps artillerymen replace a track more quickly and easily, for example.

Has providing aid to Ukraine and learning about conditions there also made you think about what war in Estonia might look like and what should be done here?

I myself am a member of the Defense League, and in fact, I am always preparing for such a possibility. Hopefully, it will never happen here, but it's wise to be ready.

One thing that differentiates Ukraine from Estonia is the sheer size of the territory. When I have spoken with Ukrainian soldiers, for example, about how they build their defensive lines, one interesting thing they mentioned was that they now use plastic pipes — bought from places like Bauhof. They fill them with sand and use them to construct posts or other structures when wood isn't available or would be too cumbersome to use.

I tried to put that into the Estonian context, and if there were to be a large-scale attack against Estonia, I fear that we wouldn't have a single warehouse capable of supplying our soldiers with construction materials on that scale.

We simply don't have a rear area — we would be completely covered by war. Which actually means that we need to be psychologically ready to improvise, ready for just about anything, so that nothing would catch us off guard and we could adapt to the situation and do whatever we can. The most important thing is to be ready to fight and to contribute.

Not to fear it, not to run away from these thoughts, but rather to familiarize ourselves with them and be ready for even the worst-case scenarios. We have no other homeland, no other people and no other language.

The metro systems in big cities have helped Ukrainians a lot — Kharkiv, for example, has really benefited from it. But it seems to me that in Estonia, the situation with shelters is still quite fragile. When a proper shelter gets built, it's considered a major event.

Our local governments really need to critically review where they are placing those orange-and-blue squares that mark shelter locations.

I have a somewhat sad and funny personal experience with this. I live in Pirita, and I noticed some time ago that a shelter sign had appeared on the wall of the Pirita district government building. I get it — the officials, caught up in the enthusiasm for labeling shelters, decided to put a sign on this building. Why not, right? The building belongs to the city. People could come there.

The Pirita district government is located relatively close to the monastery, down by the river where there's a boat rental service. Nearby is the Pirita Bridge — maybe about 60 meters from the building.

Now, thinking more broadly: the district government would be directing a large number of people next to a bridge, a potential target for bombing, especially since it might be used by Estonian Defense Forces vehicles that need to get across. Tons of civilian cars would be parked there, clogging the whole area. Considering that Russians often miss their intended bridge targets and instead destroy everything around them, this means that the district government building could effectively become a mass grave.

I wrote them a letter about this and got a reply saying, "Well, war isn't the only reason people might need shelter — there could be natural disasters too."

So I thought, okay, what kind of disaster are we talking about? A tsunami coming from the Baltic Sea? Even then, bringing people down to the riverside near the boat rental wouldn't make much sense. Even if a chlorine cloud were released, it would likely linger along the riverbanks.

So, I sincerely urge Estonian municipalities: think strategically about what it really means when you direct people to a certain place. Will those people actually be protected or is it just so you can tick a box in an Excel spreadsheet, claiming the problem is solved and shelter locations are "in place"?

Ukraine is exhausted from the war. How much do you sense on the ground that they truly just can't cope with everything anymore?

Just yesterday, I spoke with my good friend Kseniya, who fled Kyiv when the full-scale war began. She later returned and has dedicated a huge part of her time and energy to helping. Yesterday, she was in the hospital because she had suffered a psychological breakdown. So yes, the people who are involved in aid work and the war effort are still carrying a constant, heavy burden.

In a way, I myself live constantly in the atmosphere of this war, and it is heartbreaking for me to see some of my acquaintances among Estonia's Russian-speaking community living in a completely different reality or bubble, where they seem to have no problems at all. They don't think about the war; they avoid the topic. They don't carry the stress that, for example, I carry.

Personally, that has been one of the greatest disappointments for me. After the start of the full-scale war, I thought that the local Russian-speaking population would come out strongly against the war, especially since the old narratives about Russians as liberators and so-called fighters against fascism — all of it was suddenly turned completely upside down.

I thought we would see demonstrations led by Russian speakers in front of the Russian Embassy. I thought we would see aid organizations led by them. But in reality, we haven't seen much of that. I think that part of the population isn't participating in the aid process at all. Maybe a few people are helping quietly, behind the scenes... I hope so.

But it is painful to see this clear dividing line between Estonians and Russian-speaking people. Yes, for me personally, that has been one of the deepest disappointments.

How much additional stress has U.S. President Donald Trump caused Ukrainians, or is there actually some hope among them that maybe, just maybe, he could bring peace?

I think there's a big difference between those on the front lines and those in the rear. In the rear, Trump has added an enormous amount of stress. I've heard that when the meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump took place — which ended in a huge fiasco in the Oval Office — many Ukrainians just felt completely deflated. For a moment, it seemed to them that all their efforts had been completely pointless, that the rug was simply being pulled out from under them.

Since then, they've pulled themselves back together; they've, so to speak, brushed the mud off their knees and continued on. But the men fighting in the trenches don't really feel the impact of what happened in the Oval Office — as long as they still have ammunition and supplies.

Basically, they don't care what Trump or anyone else does. They are fighting.

Deep down, are Ukrainians prepared for the possibility that they could lose this war?

I believe that most, if not all, have thought about it. Let's put it this way: there's probably a distinction between the patriots and fighters, and then those in the rear. There's a paradox here. The closer you are to the war, the more you want that war to have meaning, for the fight not to be in vain. You don't want the struggle to end simply in defeat.

The farther people are from the war, the more they start thinking about their own comfort and survival — just wanting it all to be over because, after all, they are doing fine.

But I think everyone has considered the possibility of losing the war and has, to some extent, mentally prepared for it.

At the same time, I believe that if Russia remains occupying any territories, the fight will continue for decades. For the Ukrainian soldiers who have already fought, who have lost friends and loved ones, they will keep fighting. They don't really have much of an alternative.

What do you do in your everyday life?

I am the managing director of a small private museum. You could say it's somewhat like a history museum, and the work there is very interesting and something I really enjoy. Wonderful people, wonderful visitors.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!