ODESSA, Ukraine — There’s not much difference between designing dresses and bulletproof vests, says Ivan Fotesko, a military-turned-designer from Odesa.
Fotesco and his friends still can’t believe the turn their lives have taken. Mid-morning they sit down at an outdoor cafe to talk to an American reporter from The Hill. Across the street is the municipality’s food distribution center for Ukrainians who have fled their home towns now under Russian occupation.
Fotesko and his two friends, Arthur Petrosjan and Michael Mirkovich, are preparing to drive to Mykoliav the next day. They are bringing donations of bottled water – the city is out of water supplies – and their latest set of military fatigues, which includes jackets, boots and other tactical gear for soldiers fighting on the front lines of that the city.
The three have been working together since March to complete the necessary military clothing and supplies for Ukrainian soldiers. While military aid from the US and other Western countries focuses on big-budget items like heavy artillery, volunteer initiatives and NGOs have stepped in to fill the smaller – but critical – gaps.
In the earliest days of the Russian occupation, friends went from stockpiling Molotov cocktails to supplying military clothing as needed – with Ukrainian soldiers posting on social media begging for combat jackets, boots and uniforms.
Fotesco is considered a high-profile designer in Ukraine. He transformed his Odesa storefront, where he had been selling custom women’s designs, into a factory producing bulletproof vests, uniforms, boots, medical bags and other useful textiles.
Its metal security gate bears a graffitied caricature of a cat, the symbol of Odesa, dressed in military clothing, jacket and a Ukrainian flag. Inside the “Ukrainian Concept Store” there are piles of boots in plastic wrap. On shelves and tables are stacks of camouflage pants, belts, medical kit bags and camouflage nets.
A female mannequin lies thrown in a corner.
Camouflage fabric is laid out on a drafting table in the back, to be measured, cut and sewn all in one place.
Fotesco shrugs when asked if the change has been a big one, saying he’s still managed to produce at least six dresses over the past six months. He would rather be designing dresses, saying he cries every day but aims to help where he can.
Supplying front-line fighters takes up almost all of Fotesco’s and his two friends’ time.
Mirkovic and Petrosjan mainly help with financing and production. They say most of it is self-funded – the production needs are so great that they have little time to raise funds.
They advertise a little on their social media, but are mostly responding to requests for front line items needed.
“On every Instagram you can find the information that ‘the military needs everything, from shoes to bulletproof vests.’ So we decide to start making vests. It was our decision at the beginning of March,” said Mirkovich.
They have gone from providing full flak jackets, meaning including bullet proof plates, to only providing flak jackets, with the Ukrainian military handling the plates themselves.
From March to this Wednesday, they said they have delivered about 750 bulletproof vests.
“At first it was like crazy, everyone needs it. Now it’s a little better because the government” is helping to meet the needs, Mirkovic explained.
However, the men are spending almost all of their time filling orders or working to raise funds to produce even more goods. They created a social media page advertising their work just a few days ago.
“All the money we get is fundraising, our money, and it’s getting harder and harder, day by day. We can do more and we want to do more because we have a lot of orders,” he said.
Mirkovich, a regional manager of Guess stores in Ukraine, continues to work full-time — “my job goes on, but the pay goes down,” he said — while devoting his free time to their volunteer outfit.
Petrosyan, a professional architect, said he spends “almost all day” working on the military clothing project. In the early days of the Russian occupation, he said, he began volunteering at a humanitarian center that was filled with thousands of refugees fleeing the onslaught in Mariupol and Kharkiv.
“It was hell,” he said of meeting the refugees, each with “their own stories, their own tragedy — it was hard work.”
Petrosyan said that making clothes for the soldiers is exhausting, but they are proud to do it.
Fotesco agreed that they are doing their best to help people on the front lines.
“The main thing is to stand up and help us now,” Fotesko says of what his message to the US would be. “Not tomorrow, not for five minutes, just now”, adding that “every cent” of donations and aid is put to use.
“Every coin is very important to us.”
Laura Kelly of the Hill is on assignment in Ukraine.
