Category: News

“We believe in you!” are probably some of the most important words we can hear about our work.

Today, we met and talked with representatives of public organizations and veterans’ initiatives about joining forces, sharing experience, jointly developing mechanisms to cover all areas where we will be needed and useful to our target audience – veterans, their families and family members of the deceased.

We at the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation strive to be open and sensitive to the needs of veterans and their families. Because we work for them. It is important for us to move in the right direction.

Thank you to the participants who came to the meeting online and offline and talked about their own experiences.

We know that this is far from the last such event, so follow our news and join the next meetings!

On June 27, a free hotline for crisis assistance and support from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation was launched. You can call from Monday to Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at +38 (067) 400 46 60 or directly on our website from a smartphone.

The hotline can be called by veterans, members of their families – people who find themselves in critical situations and need crisis support here and now.

“Before the launch of the line, the Foundation team prepared especially responsibly. More than 30 qualified professionals with experience in providing emergency assistance in crisis situations underwent a two-week training before launching the hotline. Veterans and their families can call when they are in dire straits, when they need someone to listen, someone to be there, someone to help and support just a phone call away. Our line is of immediate help,” says the Executive Director of the UVF Nataliya Kalmykova.

The chief specialist of the crisis assistance and support hotline of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation, psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences Olena Lashko emphasised that the training process of the hotline specialists has already been completed.

Specialists who will work on the hotline are selected based on their professional sense, personal values ​​and motivation to provide help to those who need it. Each of them is aware of the importance of the cause to which they are involved, and is already waiting to become a support for veterans and their families, who need qualified support in this difficult time.

“Many professional challenges lie ahead for each of us. However, we believe that we will be able to be useful, and appreciate the opportunity to contribute to strengthening the well-being of veterans and their families,” Olena comments.

The UVF crisis assistance and support hotline is designed to help here and now, to provide support and ground underfoot at a moment when it seems that the whole world around is collapsing. The difficulties of experiencing crisis situations, anxieties, fears, problems in relationships, self-realisation, the meaning of life – our specialists will help you cope with these and other challenges.

“Our support hotline project is like a wounded person’s access to an emergency first aid kit on the battlefield. When you urgently need to stop the bleeding and relieve the pain shock. To survive and feel safe. To feel that you are needed, that they are ready to support you at any moment,” summed up the project manager, UVF employee Kateryna Teslenko.

Part of the funds collected during the auction in memory of the deceased lieutenant of the 95th separate airborne assault brigade of Amphibious Assault Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, translator and teacher Denys Antipov, were transferred to the Ukrainian Veterans  to support veteran businesses. This is 12 thousand hryvnias.

The auction was announced by Denis’s friend Oleksiy Plotnikov.

The auction lots are four postage stamps with the “Russian ship” that has moved in the right direction from the original first issue of “Ukrposhta”. Denis gave them to Oleksiy when he was in the hospital after a concussion received during the fighting in the Izyum area.

Therefore, Oleksiy Plotnikov transferred 12 thousand hryvnias to the Ukrainian Veterans’  to support business projects created by veterans.

“The goal of Ukrainian patriots should not be to die for our state, but to make sure that as many muscovite occupiers as possible die for theirs…”, Denys said in a lifetime interview recorded for the UVF.

An officer of the 95th brigade, Denys Antipov, died on May 11 near the village of Dovgenke, Izyum district, Kharkiv region. By decree of the President of Ukraine dated July 29, 2022, he was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III degree, posthumously.

The Ukrainian Veterans Foundation has launched a project on microfinancing of veteran businesses. The amount of payment is up to 20,000 hryvnias.

  From now on, veterans, members of their families, families of deceased combatants, who have become internally displaced persons and have confirmation of this status, will be able to receive monetary compensation for purchased goods necessary for their own business.

In general, the amount of 10 million hryvnias for about 500 applications is provided in the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation to support the own cause of veterans and their families, but funfdraising has been started in parallel to support as many businesses as possible.

“It is possible to receive financial assistance if a person has already purchased something from the means of his production or entrepreneurship in the place where he moved since February 24 of this year. With these funds, she will be able to compensate for the costs in whole or in part. This will be done from the funds that the state has pledged for 2022 for the work of the Foundation, which is 10 million hryvnias. We also started fundraising among international partners to replenish the Foundation’s resources. This is an important signal for veterans that their families are needed by the state, that they are in the spotlight and important steps are being taken for them. Maybe not global yet, because the majority of the budget is currently allocated to the security and defence sector, but it is additional support for families who take over the management of affairs until the veterans stand up for the defence of the country,” says the Foundation’s executive director Nataliya Kalmykova.

To receive one-time financial support, you need:

Collect a package of necessary documents, namely: passport,  the certificate of an internally displaced person, extract from the Unified State Register about the individual entrepreneur or self-employed person, confirmation of the status of a war veteran or the status of a family member of a war veteran, documents confirming the purchase after February 24, 2022 for business operation in accordance with Standard Industrial Classification codes.

Send your application with documents through the application form on the website in the business microfinancing section — https://veteranfund.com.ua/

Receive a response from the Foundation after checking the package of documents.

After approval you can receive funds.

We emphasise that applicants must meet three criteria at once:

1. A veteran or a veteran’s family member.

2. Individual entrepreneur or a self-employed person.

3. Internally displaced persons.

4. A check or other document confirming expenses for conducting activities after 24.03.2022. It is important that the expenses (goods) correspond to the Standard Industrial Classification codes of the Individual Entrepreneur.

People who correctly fill out the application, upload the entire package of documents together with purchase receipts or an expense invoice, will be able to receive a refund of up to 20,000 hryvnias within 10 days. Applications are accepted until the end of martial law.

The main efforts of the Ukrainian Veterans’ Foundation since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion will be directed at projects of assistance to the families of veterans, their psychological and financial support.

This was announced on Monday, April 4, by the executive director of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation, Natalia Kalmykova, during a live broadcast on the “Espresso” TV channel.

As the executive director of the UVF recalled, the Foundation was registered on February 2, 2022, and at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, three people worked in the institution.

“We currently have more than 23 employees. We are reformatting the strategic plan that was (prescribed) for a conditionally peaceful time, because the war continued anyway. We are now planning to launch projects to support families of veterans. We are talking about those families where the husband, father, wife or mother returned to the front. At the same time, families were forced to move from Kyiv, Chernihiv, or Kharkiv regions, and in a new place they needed to somehow start living, earning, and providing for themselves. Actually, this is where our main efforts will be directed,” Nataliya Kalmykova said.

In addition, the Ukrainian Veterans’ Foundation is currently waiting for the adjustment of the order according to which the Ukrainian Veterans’ Foundation will provide financial support to self-employed persons from among the families of veterans and veterans themselves. It is about grants for conducting business activities. As an example: reregistration of Individual Entrepreneur from the region where hostilities continue, in the western regions.

The UVF team also completed the preparation of the “hotline”.

“This will be a psychological decompression line… The idea is for people to turn to us and receive first (psychological) aid in an acute situation. Then we will direct them to the appropriate structures under the Ministry of Veterans Affairs for further, longer psychological support,” Nataliya Kalmykova said live.

The executive director emphasised that the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation faced different challenges than those before the Russian full-scale invasion.

“Currently, the number of families of veterans has increased, as more people have gone to the front; volunteers of territorial communities will be recognised as participants in hostilities. That is, the number of veterans from the target audience with whom we work has increased in a geometric progression”, Nataliya Kalmykova emphasises.

Also, the executive director of the UVF called for proactive communication with the international community regarding crimes committed by russians on the territory of Ukraine.

“We have to work against prejudice, showing the world the terrible destruction and torture inflicted by the russians on the territories they have reached. A proactive story is very important: the more aggressively and proactively we will show the crimes of the russians and at the same time show the values ​​with which our people defend their Motherland, the more successful we will be,” added the executive director of the UVF.

The team of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation is being formed together with the institution and today we are working on finding our common values.

Olena Yuzkova, a teacher at the MIM business school, helped us with this during the online training.

We found those common values, thanks to which each and every one of us ended up here and working for the future. It:

• team
• ambition
• responsibility
• result
• honesty
• public benefit

“I had the professional pleasure of conducting a session on defining values for the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation. A bright, valuable team led by the irrepressible Natalya Kalmykova. They are about responsibility, development, efficiency, reputation and daring goals as the first steps into the life and work of a new world according to the new rules of the game…” – Olena Yuzkova shared her impressions of cooperation with the UVF team.

The personnel composition of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation was finally approved – on April 8, 2022, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, Yulia Laputina, signed the relevant order.

Our Supervisory Board consists of nine people. Three each – from the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine, public associations and international development partners.

From the Ministry of Veterans Affairs in our Supervisory Board:

• Svitlana Kashenets – adviser to the Minister of the Department of Advisers of the Patronage Service of the Minister of Veteran Affairs of Ukraine;
• Maksym Kushnir – Deputy General Director of the Directorate – head of the expert group on the formation of civil identity of the Directorate of Civil Identity and Veteran Development of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine;
• Oleksandr Porhun is the First Deputy Minister of Veteran Affairs of Ukraine.

From public associations of veterans and members of veterans’ families:

• Maksym Zaichenko – head of the public organisation “Zaporizhia Association of ATO Veterans and Fighters of the Separate Special Purpose Unit “Azov”;
• Andrii Zelinskyi – representative of the public organisation “Life after the War”, deputy head of the Military Chaplaincy Department of the Patriarchal Curia of the UGCC (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church);
• Taras Chmut – chairman of the board of the public organisation “Ukrainian Military Center”, director of the charitable organisation “Return Alive International Charitable Foundation”.

From international development partners:

• Trevor Boyd – First Secretary of the Embassy of the United States of America in Ukraine, Head of the Veterans Reintegration Program of the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization
• Dominique Haydn Braithwaite – First Secretary, Regional Adviser on Conflicts of the British Embassy in Ukraine;
• Karen McTeer – the head of the NATO Representation in Ukraine.