Hello friends. As the world is upside down, I wanted to send a message regarding the situation happening in Ukraine and share some ways to help.

As you may know, I was born in Ukraine, and I don’t have enough words to express what I feel about the massacre of my loved ones and my friends started by Russia and Belarus. The bravery, resistance, and courage of Ukrainians are unimaginable. Many sports athletes, singers, artists joined the Ukrainian army, and they will not give up.

A picture of an orphanage that can’t leave its shelter for over 5 days now due to constant bombing.

The way the world showed support to Ukraine is overwhelming and inspiring. Many countries around Europe opened their doors to shelter Ukrainian families.

The values of friendship and love have been re-calibrated for many.

There is no common sense behind Russia's actions. Many data points show already the damage it did to its own economy and its own people. Russia lost over 5,300 soldiers during the first 4 days of the war. Its stock market crashed, and the currency plummeted:

Ukrainians appeal for sanctions. Why they are slow to enact

Millions of people around the world demand the EU enact the toughest sanctions against Russia. Europe is hesitant because it has a dependency on Russian oil and gas. Russia accounts for more than 40% of all of the European Union's gas imports. Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Germany are dependent on Russian gas and oil the most (source). This is the reason they are hesitant to impose harsher sanctions on Russia - for fear of retaliation.

That being said, every day there are more and more new restrictions being initiated and hitting the aggressor’s economy in a substantial way. Here is a list of most sanctions imposed on Russia. And more to come.

How to help

For the first time, I regret that I am an analyst and not a DevOps or a cool Security data hacker. I’d love to put those skills into work now. That being said, I still can help to do analytics, and you are welcome to join me in volunteering. We are looking for analysts who can quickly parse files with address and IP data, are proficient in NLP, and are quick with visualizations (either Python or javascript). Please let me know if you want to help.

Here's a link to the official information about donations, volunteering, humanitarian help, media, and more grouped by categories - How to help Ukraine.

To donate (all these are verified links from trusted sources):

Support Savelife.in.ua to help the Ukrainian army.
Support Ukrainian Army directly.
Support VostokSOS_ua, help IDPs
Support Charitable Foundation Voices of Children, they help children affected by the war in Eastern Ukraine, providing psychological and psychosocial support.
Support Medical battalion “Hospitallers”, the doctors who work on the frontline (they have no website, all information about money donations are in the pinned post via the link, MoneyGram and Western Union are possible)
Support the Сharitable organization that receives and distributes food and medical supplies.
Support Polish Humanitarian Action that offers food and assistance to Ukrainians who had to leave their homes.
Support Hospitals in Ukraine.
Collecting funds to help children in Ukraine. UCAREINC.ORG for Paypal Donations.

I’ll keep the links updated, so please, pass it around and spread the word.

Here is a list of all Substack newsletters dedicated to the war in Ukraine.

My friends in Ukraine created a website posting daily the latest news and developments in English - War in Ukraine. Daily updates.

During this historical time, on behalf of Ukrainians, we ask you to:

Boycott events organized by Russian institutions.
Cancel any cooperation with Russian artists if they openly support Putin’s invasion.
Refuse any donations, funding, or sponsorship from Russian organizations, their proxies, and affiliates based in other countries.
Please help Ukraine by suspending any cultural cooperation with Russia and communicating your decision publicly to encourage your peers to follow your example.
Please don't buy/use Russian services and products.
Urge your company leadership to stop working with Russian businesses and agencies.
If you have family, friends in Russia or Belarus – call them and ask them to go outside the streets and protest.

Russia was prepared for every sanction, and it has the world's second-most powerful military. But I believe it will lose the war, because informationally, Ukraine is more advanced. It has the best IT talent and a strong media grasp. The sheer volume of video and information coming from Ukraine in real-time and transparent intelligence sharing makes a big difference. Also, Russia miscalculated how much resistance and defense Ukrainians showed. And February in Ukrainian means “Angry”. A bad time to attack.

We have the power to stop the bloodshed. And, it’s working. Let’s combine our efforts and end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As always, any Ukrainian around the world gets a free subscription to my journal.

All Premium revenue from subscriptions now is donated to support Ukrainian people.

Subscribe now

As I’m heartbroken and involved in volunteering, I want to assure you that the frequency and topics of my newsletters for Premium subscribers won’t change in March. You will receive the newsletter weekly every Wednesday with a deep dive into analytics, as always.

Thank you for reading. And #StandWithUkraine.

Yours truly, Olga.

Data Analysis Journal

Russian Invasion of Ukraine