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IU graduate student assisting Ukraine's Territorial Defense

By Mitch Legan

Posted June 17, 2022

IU grad student Dafna Rachok & partner

Dafna Rachok and her partner Ivan Shmatko Zoom from Mykolaiv. (Zoom)

Looking back, Dafna Rachok finds irony in the day she returned to Ukraine.  

It was Aug.  24, 2021 – Ukraine’s Independence Day. She had returned home from Bloomington, where she was studying to get her doctorate in anthropology. 

“I was about to do my field research in Ukraine,” she said. “But when the full-scale invasion happened, basically, we also reoriented ourselves a little bit.” 

Rachok and her partner Ivan Shmatko have been helping coordinate the Ukrainian Territorial Defense since then. Initially, they helped relocate people fleeing the country – connecting them with housing or helping them find a way out of Ukraine. They also assisted with media projects to help spread their message. 

But as the war dragged on, that mission has turned to assisting defense forces. The pair took Dafna’s mother’s car to Lviv to pack it full of supplies.  

“Mostly, I was driving, Dafna was on the phone constantly communicating with people, trying to get what are the needs there,” Shmatko said. 

Shmatko recalls a request from some fighters for night vision goggles. He tried using some cryptocurrency to send a pair their way, but that didn’t work. So he hopped on an overnight train to buy some. He paid cash and hand-delivered the goggles himself. 

“We don’t work like big funds or bigger organizations,” Shmatko said. “We are quick, fast in our response. And we are generally driven by very precise needs of the people.” 

The pair is now focusing on logistics and connecting people with resources, rather than delivering items themselves.  

They recently traveled to Mykolaiv, a frontline city on the Black Sea, to help with media coverage of some soldiers. Rachok says daily explosions remind people of the Russian threat, but the war has become a part of everyday life for Ukrainians. 

“The closer you are to the actual conflict, in a weird, odd way, the easier you feel,” Rachok said. “You’re in the moment, you know? You have a lot of things to do. You don’t have to constantly think and overthink, ‘Okay, like, what is going to happen?’” 

The war in Ukraine is nearing its fourth month of fighting, with no signs of stopping. Rachok says they’ll help as long as needed. 

“What we are doing, it’s important, it’s necessary work,” Rachok said. “But I wouldn’t say that we are particularly brave or something.”

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