Keep Ukraine Connected

About the task force

When Russia invaded Ukraine, René Fichtmüller didn’t want to stand idly by. His first action was to get together with his friend Patrick and help organise two truck’s worth of relief (trucks courtesy of Wemme Events), which they dropped off at the Ukrainian border in the second week of March 2022. However, of course this was not enough.

Seeing the news reports of network engineers trying to keep the internet going amongst the rubble, Rene and the rest of the Global NOG Alliance team are now working hard to bring the internet community together to bring the necessary assistance to their Ukrainian counterparts. We’re looking for your help to spread the word, source useful equipment that Ukraine can make use of, and help us with monetary donations so we can buy harder to find equipment and make the logistics work.

We thank you for your time, your enthusiasm and your assistance — all are greatly appreciated!

Yours,

René, Sander, Jan, Corinne and Nathalie

Keep Ukraine Connected Task Force

Want to get involved? We’d love to hear from you. Please email us!

This taskforce is working with and supported by these Ukrainian organisations:

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What we’re doing

We are gathering intelligence on what the Ukrainian government, ISPs and network engineers on the ground really need to keep the internet and essential communication systems running. We already have quite a few requests. They can be found on our list of specifics.

We are connecting vendors and donors directly with the people requesting the equipment.

We are also organising to have useful equipment from across Europe and the world shipped to Berlin — so Rene can make another supply run in his trucks — and liaising with suppliers closer to Ukraine to drop off their equipment directly.

If you think you can help in any way, please get in touch.

Think you can help? Got more questions? Please email us!

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Answering your questions

Are you profiting from this in any way?

No. We are all volunteers and the Global NOG Alliance is operated on a not-for-profit basis — if there is any surplus as a result of this task force, it will be put back into helping network engineers the world over.

Is this the first time you’ve organised something like this?

There’s a first time for everything! But yes, it is. We have perhaps a few hundred years of Network Operating between us but this is our first foray into disaster management and logistics, so please bear with us. If the model is successful we intend to apply or adapt it to other areas in the world that could benefit from technological assistance.

Isn’t there a more efficient way of doing this?

Probably! Large companies will no doubt have better and more efficient logistics teams than us, but we wanted to do something we could get off the ground relatively quickly.

How do you make sure the equipment ends up with the right people?

The nature of the situation is that no, we can never be 100% sure. The situation on the ground is far too fluid and we cannot guarantee everything will get to the right people every single time, but we’re making every effort to make sure we’re talking to real people, in real need in Ukraine and doing what needs to be done to get the equipment directly to them. At the unloading end there is not a lot we can do outside of providing named contacts and following the required instructions — but we will do what we can to keep communication going so the right people can pick up the stuff and deploy it where it’s needed.