Norway doesn't give enough help, so we 'donate' names of top officials: Oslo-based foundation buys cars for Ukrainian army

“People go as drivers and come back as ambassadors of the foundation”

On the way to Lviv, a small group of soldiers and volunteers from a local charity foundation meet 6 khaki-painted vehicles. This is only the first batch. The rest of the cars were delayed at the border.

There should be 19 vehicles in total, mostly pickup trucks and 11 Toyota Hiace vans, which are going to be upgraded into paramedical vehicles.

When everyone gathers in Lviv, they will go to Kyiv to deliver the transport to the military. Meanwhile, the Norwegians are driving the vehicles — 38 drivers - two per car. Most of them are in Ukraine for the first time. Gisle Brovig, a ship broker, is one of the most experienced, as he is accompanying the convoy for the second time.

“My first trip was this summer,” says Gisle. “It was a really good experience. When I come to Kyiv, I see a lot of gratitude, even though we are only contributing and not helping much. But you guys are very happy to see us, and it's very touching.”

A former Foreign Ministry State Secretary in the Stoltenberg government, Kjetil Skogrand is driving for the first time. He says he is honored to join the initiative and contribute to helping Ukraine.

“We are very happy to be here, it's a long journey with these cars, which are not very fast, but we are here now and we hope you can make good use of them,” says Skogrand after two days on the road.

Involving new drivers every time is the strategy of the Ukrainian Freedom Convoys organization, explains one of its leaders, Ole Kvale.

“Of course, we could recruit a few drivers and use them over and over again, but then we wouldn't be able to spread our cause as well. Because it's not just an operation to deliver cars to Ukraine. It's the basis for the next trips. We encourage everyone to take pictures of the cars and cargo, to make posts to spread the word, and we like to repeat that people go to Ukraine as drivers and come back as ambassadors. They meet with soldiers, hear stories, get emotionally involved in the situation, and when they return home or on the way, they call their business colleagues. I would say that such people provided us with about half of all the funds raised,” says Ole.

Each of the drivers pays for their own travel, accommodation, and tickets home. This way, donor funds are used exclusively for the purchase of vehicles.

It all started with volunteering at Embassy of Ukraine

The co-founder of the UFC, lawyer Ole Kvale started volunteering in March 2022. When the full-scale invasion began, he contacted the Ukrainian embassy in Oslo and offered to help them. He traveled to Ukraine with humanitarian aid himself. For Easter 2022, he hired a van in Poland, bought medical equipment, and traveled to Lviv and Kyiv twice. After that, he began to focus more on cars, and handed over his first vehicle to the army in the summer of 2022.

“From the very beginning, there were a lot of requests from Ukrainian soldiers for cars. We have a lot of quite good quality vehicles at a much lower price than you can buy in Ukraine, the UK, or the Baltic states,” explains Kvale.

Since then, Ukrainian Freedom Convoys has raised about $800,000. They have purchased, repaired, painted, and donated nearly 200 vehicles.

“The Prime Minister is about to arrive”

Among the ways to raise money for the trucks are charity auctions, where the right to name the car is auctioned off.

“This car is named after the daughter of one of my friends, her name is Ashild,” says Kjetil Skogrand.

Next to Ashild is Rambo. In a few hours, a large representation of the Norwegian government will gather in the parking lot in Lviv.

“This is Eide, our foreign minister,” Ole points to a neighboring car. “And there's Støre, the prime minister, but he'll join us later.”

The cars were named after the government officials because the trip to Ukraine began with a rally outside the Norwegian parliament. Participants say they wanted to draw attention to the fact that Norway could do more to help Ukraine.

"Here, we named this car Vedum in honor of the Norwegian Minister of Finance. He is the boss of a large oil fund." More than 150 billion dollars were earned additionally because of the war in Ukraine, but we (Norway - author) give only 1.5 billion. Vedum, this is not enough!" Kvale concludes, imaginatively addressing the minister. "We invited all the political parties and our message was that we are donating these cars in the name of these three politicians because of the lack of large donations from the Norwegian parliament. Since they do not give enough. We are giving their names."