Росія, иди нахуй! ©2024 William L. Brown. This is a photo of the actual sweatshirt for sale on Zazzle. Royalties will be donated to the NH aid groups below. See the note and more photos at the bottom.
Native Cpeaker is busy packing for a trip to Capitol Hill next week. So, no new illustrations this week.
I’ll be meeting for the fifth time since 2023 with a few hundred other Ukraine-supporters in Washington, DC at the Ukraine Action Summit. to advocate for Ukraine. Yes, even in the current political environment in which the president seems to have an iron grip on Congress, there is enough bipartisan support there to pass measures helpful to Ukraine.
Just such a bipartisan bill, the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, was introduced this week by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). Co-sponsored by 50 senators—evenly divided by party—it threatens sanctions against Russia and Russia’s trading partners.
Note the press release’s careful language in support of President Trump.
“The dominating view in the United States Senate is that Russia is the aggressor, and that this horrific war and Putin’s aggression must end now and be deterred in the future.
“We share President Trump’s frustration with Russia when it comes to obtaining a ceasefire, and support President Trump’s desire to achieve a lasting, just and honorable peace.
The Summit delegates will be lobbying for that sanctions act, advocating for abducted Ukrainian children, the transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine, and continued support.
It will be a relatively easy task for the New Hampshire delegation. New Hampshire’s Congress-members are all Democrats and all support aid to Ukraine.
Our job will be to thank our members for their past and continuing support. Our presence alone demonstrates constituent concern about Ukraine, but showing other consituents share that concern is even better.
I’m going to tell them about New Hampshire residents who are so concerned about Ukraine they go there with aid supplies. Some of them go for months. Sometimes they distribute supplies within sound of artillery fire on the front line
I know of two New Hampshire groups who do this. Both of these groups, and others fund-raising groups I know of have had support from Rotarians, who have been a strong source for Ukraine aid-funding and volunteerism. The Rotarians are an international organization. My understanding is that the Polish Rotarians have been instrumental in rallying world-wide support for Ukraine.
NH4Ukraine.org is an all-volunteer organization formed by Bedford, NH residents. The group is just wrapping up it’s seventh mission to Ukraine, distributing aid to areas very close to the front line. They distribute aid such as: food, adult diapers, toys and other goods.
They are just finishing up their seventh mission to Ukraine, which has been underway since last April. When I communicated with Brian Nolen, NH4Ukraine founder, he had just returned from a delivery of aid and medical supplies to a village near the town of Toretsk in the disputed Donbas oblast (state), where there was “a lot of artillery going back and forth down there.”
Co-founder John Fitzgerald, NH resident, Navy veteran and retired air traffic controller, was disturbed by Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His statement on the group’s website says, “I spoke with my friend Brian Nolen and learned that he felt the same way and was, in fact, flying to Poland the following day to aid a refugee center in Przemysl. I told my wife of Brian’s plans and she said, ‘You should go. ’So, I did.”
The group is all-volunteer. The volunteers pay their own way. The goods that they distribute are mostly purchased in Ukraine, according to the website The costs are lower, logistics are easier, and it’s better for Ukraine’s economy.
They have a Facebook site where they regularly post progress reports, photos and videos.
Common Man for Ukraine, based in Plymouth, NH, is an initiative of the New Hampshire-based nonprofit organization Plymouth Rotary Foundation. “Common Man” is the name of a well-known chain of NH restaurants. Alex Ray, the founder of The Common Man Family of Restaurants is one of Common Man for Ukraine’s founders.
Ray and three other co-founders are based in Plymouth: Steve Rand, a third-generation family hardware store owner, Susan Mathison, USDA Forest Service (ret), and Lisa Mure, a public health consultant. More than 4000 Granite Staters have contributed.
The group has provided 3 million pounds of food, ten-thousand sleeping bags, hundreds of generators, and trauma-counseling for nearly a thousand children.
The group partners with a Rotary club in Poland to deliver food and other critical supplies to orphanages, safe houses, and other places of need in Ukraine. They provide each orphanage and safe house with a 40-day supply of nonperishable goods on a rotation.
Susan Mathison, on the groups 12th mission, was recently interviewed by Boston25.
The group provides trauma counseling for children, operating Children of Ukraine Health Retreat in Zakopane, Poland, a three week residential trauma-counseling camp for Ukrainian children who have lost at least one parent in the war. They host 30-35 children per monthly session.
Common Man for Ukraine is also the major funder of a Ukrainian Support Center near Warsaw, Poland, where over 50 children at a time can receive counseling, speech therapy, and more. Trauma support, legal assistance, and Polish or English language learning are also available to the children’s guardians – primarily mothers and grandmothers.
The group has committed to raising six million dollars in 2025 for: trauma retreats. tele-mental health services for children and families, monthly food and supply convoys to safe houses and hard-hit villages in Ukraine, long-term support, and a Rebuild Ukraine Fund.
Wearable art
Росія, иди нахуй! ©2024 William L. Brown. It means “Russia, go ____ yourself.” See the photo at the top of the actual sweatshirt for sale on Zazzle. Royalties will be donated to the NH aid groups above. But, if your priority is to donate rather than to have unique apparel, you should send funds directly to the groups. The royalties are only about four dollars a sweatshirt, two dollars a t-shirt.
