By Rostyslav Averchuk
Lviv, Dec 19 (EFE).- Ukrainians mobilize to help their soldiers battle the falling temperatures and snowfalls by producing camouflage nets and trench candles as combat only intensifies despite the arrival of winter.
Despite the cold, work is in full swing in a small shed where Svitlana and Natalia, or “Fireflies” as they call themselves, hurry to produce hundreds of makeshift heating devices known as “trench candles,” to have them shipped to the frontline as soon as possible.
The building is open to let some fresh air in while paraffin is melting in several large pots on a firewood stove. Once it is ready Natalia, a bookkeeper, confidently pours the hot liquid into different-sized tin cans, collected by multiple volunteers and lined up on a table nearby.
Svitlana, a psychologist by profession, is busy stuffing the cans with hundreds of miniature pieces of carton, made out of egg trays.
“We have to hurry up to help our guys,” she tells EFE.
Fighting the cold
Even though most soldiers are now well equipped with clothes and shoes, they can still get frostbite, having to stay in positions or fight in the open for days, Svitlana explains.
Amid the piercing cold, the soldiers face a bitter choice of whether to stay warm or risk being detected by the enemy, who uses thermal vision devices and drones to find and shell them.
Once the paraffin hardens in the cans, trench candles can burn for hours yet emit less heat than open fires or stoves and are thus easier to conceal, even though the risk never completely goes away.
Some soldiers use chemical heating pads or insoles, however, requests for candles keep coming in.
The smallest can be kept in a pocket and used to warm the hands up while the bigger ones are placed inside the stoves or lit to help soldiers warm up, dry up the clothes, or cook food.
“Imagining that someone lights it far away in the east and says, “Oh my God, how good, how warm,” motivates me to keep going,” Natalia says while coughing.
“If we get cold, we could go inside to warm up. The soldiers cannot do this,” Svitlana underlines.
Hiding in the snow
Another challenge emerged after the trees lost their foliage and snow covered the fields.
To help Ukrainian soldiers hide themselves and their equipment from the enemy’s drones overflying the battlefield in search of targets, dozens of volunteers weave camouflage nets, used to cover anything from the trenches to air defenses and tanks.
With confident and swift movements, they attach hundreds of polyester strings onto several nets stretched vertically in a medium-sized room in the center of Lviv, while trying to avoid repetitive patterns that could capture the enemy’s attention.
Nina, a former university professor, comes every day to prepare the stripes. Green or brown during the summer, they come in different shades of white and gray now.
“Every order comes with a detailed description of the area so that we can choose the right colors,“ she explains to EFE.
Volunteers, the oldest of which is 86 years old, work in three shifts as the demand from the soldiers is very high.
“This month alone we produced thrice as much camouflage as two years ago,” Olga, a coordinator of the initiative, says.
Although the nets are of better quality than the mass-produced equivalents, they cannot offer complete protection, but they do help to conceal what exactly is underneath, she explains.
Not only do they help to save valuable equipment but, crucially, save the lives of soldiers too, Vira, whose son is fighting in the east, explains.
As the Russian army advances, the volunteers find support in each other and the feedback they receive from the soldiers.
“They need these nets there, and this inspires us to stay strong and keep working,” Nina says. EFE
ra/dgp
