I quite unexpectedly got ~$41k USD from a Solana memecoin, when some guys created $LADA and forwarded the rewards to me. In addition to that, since my last delivery, I got ~1,700,000 in sats.

So using 3,885.45€ of the $LADA funds I completed the Rainbow Battalion fundraiser on @carforukraine to get an up-armored Toyota Hilux for Flash Battalion. Delivered with style!

Car for Ukraine is a huge operation that has delivered over 900 vehicles worth over 8 million € in total. This was my first time working with them, and I'm really happy with how easy and professional it was. Importantly, this truck had an armor package, with about 250kg of steel plates added to protect the soldiers in the vehicle, and critical parts of the vehicle such as the radiator: I suspect if the L200 I previously delivered had this armor package, the FPV hit wouldn't have disabled it at all.

One of the Car for Ukraine volunteers was kind enough to give a short interview explaining it:

I picked up the truck in Lviv; mine was one of a group of half dozen vehicles getting delivered at once. Mostly Toyota Hilux's or Mitsubishi L200's. But not all:

While picking it up I also checked with the unit to see what else they needed:

I drove the ~7 hours to Kyiv that evening, picking up an ecoflow and a cheap fridge along the way:

I told the salesman I was taking the fridge to a military unit in Kramatorsk. Turned out he had a brother serving in that area. He couldn't help with the ecoflow. But he was able to use his employee discount to get me another 5% off the fridge!

The next day there was some debate on whether or not I should drive directly to Kramatorsk. The problem was timing:

Including breaks and the difficulties of navigating by myself without GPS during air raids, I was realistically looking at 11 to 12 hours. Even if I left at 9am, that might have me arriving in Kramatorsk after sunset. It's safer to drive on roads at risk of drone attacks during the day.

1. There's (hopefully) more people around, who are higher priority targets than you.
2. Thermal cameras don't work well during the day; on thermals vehicles show up very clearly.

So as I was traveling alone, we decided it'd be best for me to spend the night in Kharkiv and do the final leg to Kramatorsk the next morning. That gave me plenty of time to do the drive, and pick up the second ecoflow. I even had time to try to get a good photo of the truck with a rainbow, for the Rainbow Battalion guys:

(don't ask me how many photos I took trying to get that to work... should have just used photoshop)

Kharkiv to Kramatorsk is 2.5 hours on Google Maps by the direct route. Actually a little longer, as we'll see later:

Between Kharkiv and Izyum, the road is pretty safe and uneventful. Though that morning there were constant air raids, and hence GPS jamming, so I had to stop a few times to figure out where I actually was. There is some recently installed drone netting around Chuhuiv. But my understanding is that's been installed in anticipation of a future threat; not because there is a significant threat right now. Izyum itself is actually doing relatively well: there's an important bridge on that route that got destroyed in 2022. I noticed on this trip that they've almost fully repaired and reopened it, in the middle of the war!

Just before you leave Izyum is the last gas station. That's where I put on my vest, and a bit later, my helmet:

Why the body armor? Let's look at the map of where Russian forces were the day I drove in:

At the closest I was about 20km from Russian forces, a direct line from the Russians at Drobysheve to the main Izyum to Sloviansk highway (yellow). That's close enough that FPV drones are a danger. But attacks aren't that common. However if I had screwed up my navigation and blindly followed Google Maps, I would have been as close as 15km - a lot more dangerous. Or if you really mess up, you could end up driving right into Russians... Making this turn into Sloviansk early, before the main cross roads, is important:

Notice the three signs warning you of FPVs? They're there for a reason. As for the rifle on top of the netting... I have no idea how that got there! I had actually forgotten to account for this detour in my time planning; it adds ~15 minutes to the trip.

Speaking of netting, as I was coming into Kramatorsk I spotted a destroyed FPV drone frame on the netting:

I'm not sure how that drone frame got there. Usually if they hit the netting and explode, it punches a hole in the netting. Possibly the drone actually hit somewhere else and the frame got thrown on top.

For the previous L200 delivery we decided to meet at a bombed out hotel. I didn't like the optics of that - I wanted to try to get a more hopeful shot in a nicer part of Kramatorsk. Also, the soldiers I was going to meet didn't think that location was really all that safe anymore as Russia has been targeting that part of Kramatorsk repeatedly with glide bombs. So we decided to do the actual handover near the main park, famous for it's gigantic Ukrainian flag. Of course, we filmed some handover footage:

...and did a $LADA photoshoot:

In Part 2 I'm going to cover what I did in Kramatorsk, the two nights I stayed there, and the current state of the city and the surrounding area. Russia is really pouring resources into trying to destroy the city; it's noticeably more dangerous than last time I was there, with fiber FPV drones now flying over part of the city.

Thanks goes to the $LADA community for making this possible, as well as the Bitcoin donors. Though I gotta say, the Bitcoin donors are falling behind the Solana community. 😂

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