There has been no shortage of Ukrainian ingenuity throughout the four months that the invasion had been raging on. In another instance of Ukrainian creativity, a group called “Car4Ukraine” had been building battle vehicles for the Ukrainian forces in an attempt to contribute to the war effort.

The Ukrainians needed to be creative as they were up against an army with more military equipment than them, albeit not well-maintained, as we have seen from their military performance thus far. From the get-go, Russia had been touted as one of the world’s largest and most advanced militaries in the world, with only the United States surpassing it in a numbers game and perhaps even in a technological aspect, but I digress.

From a comparison on paper, Russia should have run over the Ukrainian Armed Forces as they had the advantage in virtually all aspects, having a far larger military budget of $61.7 billion in 2020, with Ukraine just spending $5.9 billion. In terms of armored vehicles, Ukraine only had some 2,870 armored vehicles ready to be used at any given moment, while Russia had over 19,783. That’s a pretty huge disparity, to say the least.

Wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ivan Oleksii, a 25-year-old E-sports analyst from Kherson, wanted to help retrofit civilian trucks to become combat vehicles so that the Ukrainian Armed Forces could have more vehicles at their disposal to use for whatever capacity they may deem necessary. Oleksii had a health condition that made him medically exempted from active service, but he still wanted to contribute to the fight against the Russians. Thus, the Car4Ukraine initiative was born.