Chicago organization cuts up Russian tank armament, sells rings to support Ukrainian families
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Protests and solidary around the world marked the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion to Ukraine on Friday.
From the beginning, the Russian tanks that came flooding into Ukraine when the invasion started have stood a s a symbol of the war.
But a Chicago man is now turning them into a new symbol – one of aid and one of unity.
Alex Zatvor a first-generation Ukrainian-American, and he came up with the idea to help Ukraine by getting one of those tanks, chopping it up, and selling off the parts to raise money for Ukrainian families.
Zatvor, executive director of the Chicago-based nonprofit Gate to Ukraine, spent months along with a team trying unsuccessfully to obtain a tank. But they finally got some assistance from Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi, according to a news release.
"Eventually, we were able to get the defense intelligence involved – which is kind of like the CIA in Ukraine – and the CIA chief, his name is Kyrylo Budanov – connected us with a brigade called Kraken, who was super-excited about the project, and they essentially agreed to give us all the tanks that they stopped in eastern Ukraine," Zatvor said. "We took the cannon or the gun of the tank and cut it into these fragments that are kind of like rings, and then engraved some messages on there."
The are now being sold – with 100 percent of proceeds going toward saving Ukrainian lives.
"It's just taking something that was meant for evil and turning it into good," Zatvor said.
"There is something very symbolic about taking a brutal instrument of war, a hunk of metal that came to kill Ukrainian families, and recycling it as a way to support those families," Zatvor said in the release.
So far Zatvor has raised about $50,000. He still has the rest of the tank in Ukraine.
When the cannon pieces are gone, he plans to have more parts cut down made into items he can see.
If you want to support Zatvor's organization, follow this link for Gate.org.