ON THE POLAND-UKRAINE BORDER — There were no passport officers on the dirt road, no customs lane, no signs marking this isolated patch of farmland for what it has become: a clandestine gateway for military supplies entering Ukraine.
The convoy was carrying 45 vehicles — retrofitted Jeeps, ambulances, an armored bank truck and an army field kitchen — as well as 24 tons of diesel. It had traveled overnight from Lithuania as part of a swelling supply network racing to catch up with the return of war to Europe. More than a dozen volunteer drivers, including one whose relief work was normally limited to helping motorists stranded on the highway, had driven hood-to-taillight almost around-the-clock to rendezvous with Ukrainian fighters.
While governments negotiate over fighter jets and high-end weapon systems, soldiers on the ground are struggling to fill more basic needs. With Ukraine’s own factories shut down by shelling, its forces rely increasingly on volunteer, pop-up supply chains like this one for vital gear, including body armor, medical supplies and the pickup trucks and SUVs they covet as fighting vehicles.
The journey began hundreds of miles to the north in a warehouse in Lithuania, a country not usually thought of as a military supply hub.
But this tiny Baltic nation has seen a huge outpouring of support for Ukraine, imagining what Russian President Vladimir Putin might have in store for it should he prevail in his current invasion. Vilnius, Lithuania’s small medieval-era capital, is filled with blue and yellow Ukrainian flags.
Much of the donated money and supplies has flowed to Blue and Yellow, a nonprofit founded in 2014 to supply Ukrainians fighting the takeover of eastern Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists. Now the group is the focal point of a country’s yearning to help.
“It has just exploded,” said Jonas Ohman, a Swedish-born filmmaker who started the group.
For years, Ohman said, he took no salary and had no paid staff as he fulfilled direct requests from front-line units with an annual budget of less than $200,000. Since the invasion last month, more than $20 million has poured in from within Lithuania, a country of 2.8 million residents. He is dispatching a convoy to the border every four or five days.
With a cellphone held against a days-old beard, Ohman orders military gear by the ton from around Europe, China, Israel. He argues with customs officials in a half-dozen countries to get the shipments delivered, railing against functionaries who block his way and officers who are slaves to regulation.
“I tell them all the time: 10,000 euros can be more deadly than a million if you know how to spend it,” he growled between phone calls.
There were no passport officers on the dirt road, no customs lane, no signs marking this isolated patch of farmland for what it has become: a clandestine gateway for military supplies entering Ukraine.
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