I have some military-grade gear from my time in the army that would be useful for anyone sitting in cold, wet conditions, and that has to move a lot. For example a soldier. Can anyone here give me an indication as to how it is best to send it, and what is needed most? How can I ensure that it gets to the people that need it?
I would recommend checking out the Ukraine community on Reddit if you need to support Ukrainian soldiers, as there are a lot more people there trying to get help, and there are some verified accounts so you can feel a bit safer sending aid.
They have a wiki of recommended charities and ways to send aid that may be directly helpful.
Not that I don’t love Lemmy, but for some things, such as getting in touch with the right people inside Ukraine, best go to where the people are at.
How are they with the winter gear at the front? I assume that all of the other countries flooded them with their own winter surplus.
I’m every little bit helps though.
Germany, Denmark and other countries have indeed donated a lot of winter gear. Still, there are hundreds of thousands people on the frontline, so the gear is mostly supplied by home industry.
Fair enough.
It would probably be more helpful to donate your gear to a local homeless charity.
The logistics to get items where they’re needed in Ukraine are going to be far too complex for individual items.
If you specifically want to help then financial donations are going to be more useful to support buying things in bulk.
The easiest and most reliable way is via the Ukrainian volunteer communities of your country. The organizations which collect and transport donated things act in a transparent and responsible way, providing you with photos from the receiving party.
In the UK, for example, it’s https://www.british-ukrainianaid.org
In the US - https://ukraineaidops.org/ and other orgs.