As hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians try to get out of the country during the continuing invasion by the Russian military, people in the Bay Area are trying to ship humanitarian aid to those still caught in the battle zone.
San Francisco resident Lana Horowitz loaded up her SUV to drive disposable diapers, energy drinks and first aid supplies down to San Jose.
"People have been coming in nonstop,” said Dimitry Kondratyev, who just opened up the San Jose and Pennsylvania shipping centers for donations.
Before the Russian invasion, Teknika distributed packing and shipping supplies around the world.
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So now, they're using their logistics experience to get these items to Lviv in Ukraine.
"We have people on the ground there in Poland, we have a warehouse there with I believe 15 trucks that can go back and forth through the green corridor that has been established,” said CEO Kondratyev.
In less than a day, there was a large pile of supplies that people already had brought to the distribution center.
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The plan is to send a shipment out every week, and more often if necessary.
There's been a run on all these types of supplies in Poland, so getting them there will help.
But Kondratyev, who's also an Iraq War veteran, knows there's other items that are desperately needed in the battle zone.
"There's some stuff that will be needed that will be impossible to get in Europe like body armor, for instance. That's not something that's readily available in Europe. Here, we can buy a lot of it,” he said.
Getting the supplies to Ukraine is a team effort, and everyone at Teknika is working together to make it happen regardless of where they're from.
"Yeah, for a long time, we work together, we've been friends with each other,” said logistics manager Igor Yuzvinskiy, who was born in Russia.
Yuzvinskiy recently helped coordinate efforts to get family members out of Kharkiv, one of the cities that's been hammered by the Russian military.
Now he's figuring out how to get the items as far into Ukraine as possible.
