As you can hear from his accent and see from the flag on his plate carrier, this is a volunteer who came from Turkey to defend Ukraine. He has been there 3 years and has no plans of leaving. He is on an assault team and recently had a plate carrier damaged from shrapnel. He urgently needed a new one before heading back out.
Turkish volunteers are actually a huge group in Ukraine. Turkey has mandatory military service so they come with experience. As they are from the region many see the threats to Ukraine as threats to their own country. And finally, many people in Turkey are descended from Crimean Tatars that Russia drove out of Crimea or feel solidarity with the Tatars and want to defend them. The Turks defending Ukraine get little to no media attention and also little to no support from NGOs.
The plate carrier purchased here was 12,000 hrivyna, purchased slightly used in Ukraine. A quality plate carrier is essential. This came from our general donations at protectavolunteer.com
If you would like to help this volunteer or others in similar circumstances this is how you can help:
Sign up to get matched. You can sign up at protectavolunteer.com and get matched directly with a defender and support them and their team. This is a great way to get to know them and learn what it's like in Ukraine. Donors who do this will tell you it's a fantastic way to help.
Donate directly via our paypal. We are currently replacing a LOT of equipment for assault teams, especially those who participated in Operation Vivaldi. This is the most efficient way to help. We won't have every update on Reddit so we don't overwhelm the subreddit however.
If you have military kit, snacks, medical supplies, or camping equipment you can send reach out to [library@protectavolunteer.com](mailto:library@protectavolunteer.com); we often have people turn in plate carriers, helmets, sleeping bags, etc. This saves us a TON of money if we can replace damaged gear without buying anything.