From New Hampshire to Kharkiv: Brian Nolen and the Americans Who Refuse to Look Away

By Matthew Parish

Monday 2 November 2026

There is something remarkable about the number of Americans who have abandoned comfortable and secure lives in the United States to dedicate themselves to helping Ukraine survive Russia's war of aggression. Some have joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces, others have established humanitarian organisations and still others have quietly devoted years of their lives to delivering food, medicines and other essential supplies to people whose existence has been turned upside down by the conflict. One such individual is Brian Nolen, a former businessman from Bedford, New Hampshire, who has made the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv the centre of an extraordinary humanitarian undertaking.

Nolen is the founder of NH4Ukraine, a small American volunteer organisation established shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Its name is an abbreviation of New Hampshire for Ukraine, reflecting the American state from which its founders originated and where much of its fundraising takes place. Unlike the enormous international humanitarian institutions whose activities are coordinated through substantial bureaucracies, NH4Ukraine operates on a comparatively intimate scale, purchasing essential supplies and transporting them directly to Ukrainian communities suffering the consequences of Russian military aggression.

The organisation's origins illustrate something important about the international response to Ukraine's predicament. In February 2022, Nolen was watching the unfolding catastrophe on television in much the same way as millions of other Americans, appalled by the images of bombarded cities, displaced families and frightened civilians attempting to escape an invading army. He initially did what most conscientious people might do under such circumstances: he donated money to a charitable cause. However, he came to the conclusion that sending money from the comparative safety of New Hampshire was insufficient. He wanted to contribute something more immediate and personal.

In March 2022, Nolen travelled to Europe and obtained a passenger van in Germany before proceeding to the Polish city of Przemyśl, close to the Ukrainian border. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees were passing through the region, and transportation was one of their most pressing practical requirements. Nolen began assisting refugees with their journeys, often communicating through translation software with people whose lives had been shattered almost overnight. He later recalled the emotional difficulty of saying goodbye to families he had transported, even when the journey itself had been relatively short.

Together with another New Hampshire resident, John Fitzgerald, a retired United States Navy veteran and air traffic controller, Nolen developed these initial activities into a more permanent humanitarian organisation. The two men discovered that one of the most effective ways of helping displaced Ukrainians was to purchase basic necessities in bulk and personally transport them to places where they were urgently needed. Their approach was straightforward, practical and founded upon a distinctly American tradition of voluntary civic service: identify a problem, raise the necessary resources and undertake the work oneself.

As the war developed, the geographical focus of NH4Ukraine moved eastwards. Nolen's journeys took him from western Ukraine towards Kyiv and eventually Kharkiv, where he established a continuing presence in late 2022. Kharkiv was an unusual choice of base for an American humanitarian volunteer. Situated close to the Russian border, the city has endured repeated missile strikes, drone attacks, attacks on its infrastructure and the constant psychological pressures of living within reach of an enemy determined to undermine civilian resilience. Nevertheless, Kharkiv also provides access to some of Ukraine's most vulnerable communities, including villages near the front whose inhabitants often have little practical means of leaving.

The work of NH4Ukraine consists principally of delivering food, hygiene products, cleaning materials and other necessities to displaced families and civilians remaining in frontline communities. The organisation also supplies local food banks and, according to its own published account, transports donated equipment and supplies to Ukrainian military units. Its humanitarian activities have extended across several parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, including Kharkiv Oblast and communities affected by the fighting in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts. Nolen and his colleagues have documented deliveries to places such as Balakliia and Sloviansk, where the civilian consequences of the war remain particularly severe.

The organisation's method of providing assistance is deliberately uncomplicated. Donations raised in the United States are used to purchase supplies, frequently from wholesalers within Ukraine, before those supplies are assembled into packages and transported to their intended recipients. The World Affairs Council of New Hampshire has described the organisation as typically delivering approximately 80 aid packages during a distribution, containing basic foodstuffs, cleaning products and personal hygiene items. Even pet food may be included when necessary, recognising that the animals remaining with elderly or isolated residents are sometimes their only daily companions.

This may appear modest when measured against the enormous sums committed by foreign governments and international institutions to Ukraine's defence and reconstruction. Yet the significance of such assistance cannot be assessed exclusively in financial terms. For an elderly resident of a village repeatedly subjected to Russian bombardment, a package containing buckwheat, cooking oil, soap and other everyday necessities may represent several weeks of relief from the anxiety of obtaining food. The personal delivery of these supplies also conveys a message that is psychologically important: that the people who have remained in these dangerous places have not been entirely forgotten by the outside world.

Indeed, one of the most disturbing aspects of the war in eastern Ukraine is the persistence of civilian populations in locations that outsiders might reasonably assume had become uninhabitable. Elderly people are particularly reluctant to abandon the houses in which they have spent their lives, especially when their families have departed and they have no obvious destination. Others lack the financial resources, physical mobility or emotional capacity necessary to undertake the uncertain journey into displacement. For such people, humanitarian assistance is not merely an incidental supplement to normal life. It may have become one of the essential conditions of their continued existence.

The growing prevalence of drones has made this kind of humanitarian work increasingly hazardous. Whereas earlier phases of the war involved recognisable distinctions between relatively safe rear areas and dangerous frontline districts, advances in drone warfare have progressively complicated those distinctions. Vehicles travelling towards vulnerable settlements may be exposed to observation and attack, while the destruction of roads, bridges and civilian infrastructure can make even apparently straightforward deliveries difficult. Volunteers operating in these circumstances must continually reconcile their humanitarian obligations with their responsibility not to expose themselves or their beneficiaries to unacceptable risks.

Nolen's activities have attracted attention in his home state. American television station WMUR has reported repeatedly on his work, including his humanitarian deliveries during the Christmas holidays, while Rotary clubs and other civic organisations in New Hampshire have invited him to describe conditions in Ukraine. These public appearances serve an additional purpose beyond fundraising. They provide American audiences with an account of the war from someone who has spent substantial periods living among the people affected by it, rather than observing the conflict exclusively through television reports and political commentary.

In 2026, NH4Ukraine and another American humanitarian initiative, Common Man for Ukraine, received recognition from the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire through its Global Citizen of the Year award. The award acknowledges the importance of voluntary organisations that have mobilised American communities in support of Ukrainians suffering from the war. It also illustrates the extent to which Ukraine has become a cause around which otherwise disparate groups within American civil society have been able to organise practical cooperation.

The financial arrangements of small humanitarian organisations naturally merit scrutiny, particularly when donors are thousands of miles away from the eventual recipients of their assistance. NH4Ukraine describes itself as entirely volunteer-run, with participants meeting their own personal expenses in order to minimise overheads. Donations are channelled through United Ukraine, a California-based American charity registered under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code, which NH4Ukraine says reimburses expenditure against receipts for humanitarian purchases. This model provides a mechanism for documenting expenditure, although it should not be confused with the independent verification of every delivery or the publication of comprehensive audited accounts. As with any organisation soliciting charitable donations, transparency remains an essential component of maintaining public confidence.

There are also limitations inherent in a humanitarian organisation of this scale. Much of its operational capacity necessarily depends upon the continued availability, health and judgement of a small number of committed individuals, together with the generosity of donors who may themselves be experiencing economic uncertainty. Unlike major international charities, small volunteer groups cannot ordinarily maintain extensive institutional reserves or easily replace experienced personnel. Their comparative advantages are flexibility, personal commitment and the capacity to develop direct relationships with local communities. Their principal vulnerability is that these advantages may depend heavily upon the continued involvement of their founders.

The question of American public opinion is particularly pertinent in the autumn of 2026. Ukraine has now endured more than four and a half years of full-scale war, during which American political debates about the cost, duration and strategic purposes of assistance have become increasingly contentious. For an organisation such as NH4Ukraine, the danger is not merely that political leaders may change their priorities but that ordinary donors may gradually lose interest in a conflict that has become an apparently permanent feature of the international landscape. Humanitarian emergencies, however, do not become less urgent because they cease to dominate the news.

Nolen has publicly expressed concern about reductions in American assistance and uncertainty surrounding future support for Ukraine. His response has been to continue and extend his humanitarian activities. On 14 July 2026, NH4Ukraine began its ninth mission, planned to last an entire year, until July 2027. The duration of this commitment is significant. What began as a temporary personal response to a sudden humanitarian emergency has developed into a sustained undertaking whose endpoint remains uncertain.

There is a deeper philosophical question underlying the activities of people such as Brian Nolen. Why should a successful American businessman, who could presumably have enjoyed a comparatively peaceful retirement in New Hampshire, choose instead to spend considerable periods of his life in a Ukrainian city repeatedly attacked by an aggressive neighbouring state? The conventional explanations of altruism, compassion and moral responsibility undoubtedly provide part of the answer. Yet they do not entirely capture the transformation that can occur when an individual becomes personally acquainted with the suffering of strangers and discovers that those strangers have gradually become friends.

War has an unusual capacity to expose the superficiality of the distinctions by which people ordinarily organise their moral obligations. Nationality, language, geography and cultural background become less important when confronted with the immediate predicament of another human being who lacks food, shelter or security. An elderly Ukrainian woman living in a damaged farmhouse near the Russian border may have little in common with a retired American businessman from New England. Nevertheless, the encounter between them can create a bond of human solidarity more powerful than many of the political abstractions through which international relations are ordinarily understood.

There is something particularly striking about the contrast between New Hampshire and Kharkiv. The former is a prosperous American state celebrated for its forests, mountains, small towns and traditions of local independence. The latter is one of Europe's great industrial, scientific and educational centres, whose inhabitants have endured the violence of a neighbouring power seeking to extinguish their country's independence. These are very different worlds, yet the voluntary efforts of Nolen and his colleagues have established a practical relationship between them, built not upon diplomatic agreements or governmental institutions but upon an uncomplicated determination to assist people in need.

The wider implications of this kind of undertaking should not be underestimated. Ukraine's survival depends principally upon the courage of its soldiers, the resilience of its population and the ability of its government to sustain national defence. Nevertheless, the endurance of civilian communities also depends upon thousands of comparatively small acts of solidarity undertaken by individuals whose names will seldom appear in histories of the war. A delivery of food to an isolated village cannot determine the outcome of a military campaign, but it can make the difference between despair and continued endurance for the people who receive it.

Ultimately, the significance of NH4Ukraine lies not in its institutional size or the amount of money it raises but in its demonstration that individual initiative remains meaningful even amid a conflict of enormous geopolitical proportions. Brian Nolen and his colleagues cannot prevent Russian missiles from striking Kharkiv, compel political leaders to make peace or restore the homes and livelihoods destroyed throughout eastern Ukraine. What they can do is ensure that particular people, in particular places, receive assistance when they need it. In a war whose scale sometimes threatens to overwhelm our capacity for moral understanding, such practical acts of compassion deserve recognition.

The war will eventually end, although nobody can confidently predict when or upon what terms. When that happens, the contribution of foreign volunteers will form an important, if comparatively modest, chapter in the history of Ukraine's struggle for survival. Among them will be those Americans who, having watched the invasion of a distant European country unfold on their television screens, concluded that sympathy alone was insufficient. Brian Nolen was one of those who decided to do something about it, and who continued doing so long after the initial wave of international attention had begun to fade.

The people of Kharkiv and the surrounding region have learned that promises of international solidarity are not always reliable. They have also learned that some strangers, arriving from places as distant as New Hampshire, mean precisely what they say when they promise to stand beside Ukraine. The distinction between those two experiences may be one of the most enduring moral lessons of this war.