At a welding shop in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, workers added steel plates to a donated truck so that a volunteer could drive it to the front. “Our victory depends on us,” said Ostap Datsenko, a welder involved in a massive voluntary effort to oust the Ukrainian resistance, with the support of the diaspora. But he did not expect to see so much of the war, or its shrapnel, so soon. He was standing in the truck and in a hurry to finish work before sunset on Saturday, when he heard a noise, looked up and saw an object whistling in the air. “It was big enough, but I have never seen rockets before,” he said. “Then I heard a huge explosion.” The Russian airstrike hit an army-linked factory and the explosion caused Datsenko to collapse. Stunned, he hurried into the makeshift garage shelter in the lubricant. The next day, he returned to work for the final touches on the truck before being driven to eastern Ukraine on Monday, along with three other vehicles. The camouflage paint of the truck was completed. The welders put rods in the back to support a machine gun. 31-year-old Datsenko, with his clothes full of oil, said he was ready like all Ukrainian men to be called to fight. But he had no combat experience, which means his time has not yet come. Until then, he said, “I do what I can.” The Ukrainian army appears to have fought Russia’s much larger army in a stalemate on some fronts, much to the surprise of many observers. One of Ukraine’s weapons is a parallel army of volunteers who are busy mobilizing funding and supplies ranging from armor to cigarettes. Others make military connections. In Lviv, which was relatively far from the war until Saturday’s airstrikes, the welder shop was looking for ways to help. He started making “hedgehogs”, or metal barriers that were placed at checkpoints and around some sensitive facilities. Then they heard the call for cars. The story goes on “Vehicles are in high demand on the front line,” said Artem Pastushyna, a 27-year-old welder with metal nuts glistening in his ear lobes. Only a small number of vehicles have been fitted with steel plates and camouflage, he said. The need is very great and the time is short. “Many cars from Europe are driven directly to the front line,” Pastushnya said. The truck was the first vehicle adapted by the welding crew, he said, and he hopes to do much more. Until then, the welding crew is paying new attention to its fat after Saturday’s air raids. They expected an attack at some point, but not so great, Datsenko said. In the shelter that had been turned into a pit, accessed by a wooden staircase, an empty pizza box indicated that the workers had spent more time than usual. “Until yesterday, it was just a basement,” Datsenko said. “Now we realize that it would be wise to have more things there.”
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