Back in February, bulletproof vests were still being improvised from whatever was available. Aleksandr Babich, a historian who worked as a tour guide before the war, received men’s sleeveless vests fitted with sawed plowshares in the hope they would act as ballistic plates. At first, some of these homemade life jackets had uncovered metal plates that did nothing to absorb shocks; Some of the soldiers wearing them were injured. Quickly, a solution was found: When cut to pieces, the drive belt for the Odesa excavator turned out to be just a suitable rubber damper. The sheet metal and rubber dampers are held together by duct tape, but overall looks surprisingly neat.
Now, bulletproof vests are made locally and jackets carry panels — on both front and back — sewn from khaki, camouflage, or “pixelated” non-combustible fabrics that look professional. . These vests are covered with pockets and pockets to hold the tourniquet and everything else a soldier needs to carry. Sewing work could have been neater, but many women, especially mothers, who had the most experience with needlework, left Ukraine with their children at the beginning of the war, leaving the workshops short of staff. agile, nimble.
Another important military device outsourced to the volonteri was the periscope, which soldiers used to observe the battlefield from trenches and bunkers. The first ones were produced on 3-D printers, but this was an expensive and slow process, with only 5 being built per day. Soon a low-tech substitute was found: a water pipe, two mirrors at each end parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle, and that’s it.
Igor Yakovenko, an engineer who has produced 3,000 periscopes, has devised another device to solve another problem facing Ukrainian soldiers: cold. The Russian onslaught began during some of the coldest days of winter, so there was an urgent need for a heating system for troops on the battlefield. Mr. Yakovenko started the production of portable stoves made by welding two empty gas cylinders from the back of the refrigerator together (it’s confusing that they are always light – sky blue, light blue, pink or orange), which is attached to a metal pipe and a door on the ground. hinges for stuffing firewood. Last winter, these devices, widely known as “bourzhuyki” (“bourgeois”, because of their stout appearance), were used by soldiers on the battlefield, but since October, As Russian attacks on the power grid became more common, the whole of Ukraine began to live “in the field”.
For long periods in bomb shelters, women weave camouflage nets by tying together scraps of cloth to make covers for tanks, other vehicles, and soldiers. The Ukrainian version of the Ghillie suit – full-body camouflage designed to make soldiers blend in with the bushes, trees, and grassy mounds around them – is sophisticated. But these are mostly worn by snipers, so they aren’t deployed very often.
The Ukrainian army looks like a mixed bag because their uniforms come from a variety of sources; local volunteer groups raise funds to buy equipment buy any uniform they can – at least dozens of foreign models are in use – as long as the colors are not too similar to those used by the Russians . To avoid confusion, Ukrainian soldiers displayed a large strip of brightly colored duct tape on their helmets, either as armbands or attached to their bulletproof vests. It changes at the command of the commander; first it was green, then blue, now yellow.
Even tablets, smartphones and laptops have been deployed as part of civilian defenses since the early days of the war. Some apps give warnings about air strikes; Notifications also appear on most local Telegram channels. Ukraine still has plenty of internet access, thanks to the Starlink service, which was created and paid for in large part by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. But after that clarify at the beginning of October (on Twitter, which he does not own) that Crimea should be Russian and the fate of Ukrainian regions should be decided by new “elections”, Mr. Musk himself is not welcome. welcome. His face has been covered up on billboards around Odesa, where the former has expressed gratitude for his support.
