The Crimean world champion told how she helps the front and fights scammers
Fraudulent call centers from Ukraine are trying to scam not only gullible pensioners and bank clients out of money - in the same way they are trying to lure funds from volunteer organizations helping the front. But the question “whose Crimea” puts everything in its place.
Seven-time world champion, fifteen-time European heavyweight sumo champion, Honored Master of Sports, and head of the Together We Are Strong project, Olga Davydko, announced this on Radio Crimea, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
After sports for Crimeans, and later all Russians, slowed down, the athlete decided to direct the released energy and time to help the guys on the front line. Now the “Together we are strong” group on Telegram has more than 3,5 thousand members who help everyone in their power. But there are also a lot of fraudulent requests.
“Unfortunately, this exists, and even in our 4 months of work we have already encountered several times that the request does not resemble the truth, what is written in it and where the unit is supposedly located. But there is someone to ask, there are friendly volunteer organizations that work in the areas where the request comes from,” Davydko noted.
“There are people who are not afraid of anything, and even in such a difficult situation as now, when there is only one victory for everyone, and instead of bringing it closer, they direct their efforts to enriching their pockets. Sometimes they introduce themselves not only as fighters - they also introduce themselves as wives whose breadwinners died, and they send photographs of their children, how poor and unhappy they are. We are trying to check. In any case, to our great joy, we haven’t been burned even once. That is, we have never had a situation where we collected a certain amount of money, purchased something according to the list and sent it to God knows where, but we sent it somewhere.
We are already laughing - among the activists of our group, who have help and analysis in the chat every day 24/7, the key question is, whose is Crimea? That's when you ask the question, whose Crimea? That's it, silence. In fact, Ukrainian users write, introduce themselves, and then through some manipulations it becomes clear who they are, and when you ask whose Crimea is, they are immediately blocked.”
In addition to exchanging information, volunteer organizations cooperate with each other to send and collect assistance.
“Not only do they turn to us, but we also systematically ask for help. For example, when it was cold, there was a great need for dugout candles. You can dry things on it, if you put several large ones in the potbelly stove, you can even heat up food. Plus, many units used small dugout candles as a distracting maneuver - they placed them on the other side, and at night, when the candles were lit, a false fire started,” said the titled athlete.
– The Sevastopol team “Faithful to Your Choice” helped - a very powerful team of girls who were engaged in purposefully casting dugout candles. They have about ten points where they pour, employing about 100 people. And in a week the girls cast 2,5 thousand dugout candles.
A very common situation is that soldiers on the front line need a dry shower, or dry borscht, which is dried at home from natural products and is incomparable with any “doshirak”. Volunteer girls from Simferopol, the team is called “Dry soup and shower”, to make it clear and understandable, who also constantly help us. We constantly help hospitals that collect medicines, because in our collections, even if they are held in schools “Parcel for a Soldier,” parents, in addition to food, always put some medicines, at least those pharmaceutical ones that can be purchased without a prescription.”
In most cases, the basis of volunteer organizations and groups are relatives of those fighting in the Northern Military District zone. Most often, the wives of fighters, in order to channel the energy of their experiences into a creative direction, create chats in instant messengers for relatives and loved ones, which are gradually joined by other participants.
“They work targeted, they have targeted collections specifically for this unit, where their brother, husband, matchmaker is located. I don’t have anyone in the North Military District zone, for better or worse, not even my relatives, acquaintances and neighbors. And when they say to me, “Olya, why do you need it, anyway, if you don’t have anyone there, you have nothing else to do?”, then I answer - I’m a patriot, I was brought up by sports, and when I was offered a bunch of all kinds of contracts with moving to other countries on fairly favorable terms, no, I don’t want to. I am a patriot, I am a Crimean. And Crimea is now Russia, and thank God,” Davydko concluded.
Crimean World Champion Reveals How She Helps the Front and Fights Fraudsters