The volunteers who never left

When the first Russian missiles struck Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol in February 2022, Ukrainians did not wait for instruction. Across the country, grandmothers boiled tea for strangers at train stations, students turned working spaces into logistics centres, and technology workers transformed Telegram channels into evacuation lifelines. Millions volunteered — not out of obligation, but out of instinct.

More than three years later, as the war drags into its third and most grueling phase, some of those volunteers have returned to their former lives. But many others haven’t. They are still there — in bombed-out towns, in temporary shelters, in front-line kitchens and mobile clinics. They are known now, unofficially, as “the volunteers who never left”.

Their story is not one of headlines or heroism, but of consistency: the day-by-day, often invisible work of holding a country together.

From Spontaneity to Structure

In the early months of the war, Ukraine witnessed one of the largest spontaneous mobilisations of civil society in modern European history. Volunteer networks delivered food and medicine to besieged towns, repaired bomb shelters, and set up communications infrastructure when state systems collapsed.

But as weeks turned into months, something changed: what began as emergency response evolved into parallel institutions. Volunteer groups became well-organised entities — managing aid distribution networks, databases of displaced people, and even trauma recovery programmes.

“We didn’t plan to become an organisation,” said Iryna, a former art teacher from Zaporizhzhia. “We just never stopped.”

By 2023, many such groups were coordinating directly with local governments, military units, or international donors — still unpaid, often unsheltered themselves, but trusted.

Bridging the Gaps

Volunteers have filled critical roles wherever the formal state struggled to reach — or reach fast enough.

• In Kherson, newly liberated after Russian occupation, volunteers rebuilt schools and delivered heaters and hygiene supplies long before formal reconstruction teams arrived.

• In eastern Donetsk, they patched roads, organised first aid workshops and delivered pet food to elderly residents who refused to evacuate.

• In Lviv and Chernivtsi, they coordinated housing for refugees, often personally renting apartments or opening their own homes.

And they didn’t stop when the cameras left.

“I thought I’d stop after the first month,” said Nazar, who coordinates a community kitchen near Kupiansk. “But the need didn’t stop. So why would I?”

Invisible Infrastructure

By 2024, many volunteer-led initiatives had become informal infrastructure. It was not part of the state, but no less essential.

• Medical aid groups deliver dialysis kits and trauma supplies to front-line hospitals weekly.

• Coding collectives run secure communications for drone teams and frontline medics.

• Psychologists offer free therapy over Signal to displaced teens and grieving mothers.

• Volunteer drivers — sometimes in battered sedans — ferry amputees from combat zones to rehabilitation centres in Dnipro or Uzhhorod.

This unbroken chain of help — often built without a budget — is the quiet scaffolding of Ukraine’s wartime resilience.

Why They Stay

Not all volunteers are activists. Many are accountants, baristas, nurses and welders. What unites them is not ideology but a shared refusal to leave a hole unfilled.

Some have stayed in memory of those lost. Others have stayed because they could not imagine going back to “normal” when others still slept in tents.

“I couldn’t reopen my café while my old neighbor’s son is still missing in Bakhmut,” said Alina, who now runs a pop-up laundry service for IDPs.

Their presence is not always heroic. It is tired. Frustrated. Often, unthanked. But it is also entirely irreplaceable.

A Force Without Uniforms

Ukrainians often say, “Our army defends us. Our volunteers hold us up.” Together they form a two-part defence: one of weapons, the other of will.

The volunteers who never left don’t wear uniforms, but they are soldiers in their own right — in the war for dignity, humanity, and continuity.

They drive through mortar zones to deliver books to a reopened library. They sleep on floors in Mykolaïv to keep the lights on in a children’s shelter. They carry portable solar batteries and portable grief.

Their strength is not in their numbers — though they are many — but in their refusal to give up on each other.

Conclusion: Holding the Line Between Chaos and Care

Wars are often remembered for battles and negotiations. But wars are survived through care: food passed hand to hand, a 'phone call to check in, a stranger who shows up every day with bandages and no reason to be there other than love of country.

The volunteers who never left are the immune system of a wounded nation. Unseen, often uncelebrated, but endlessly working — to clear rubble, carry groceries, hold hands in the dark.

Their war is not for territory, but for one another. And they are winning it — quietly, stubbornly, every single day.