MacSources Stands with Ukraine

Stand strong with Ukraine – today and for the future.

The disaster that is happening inside of Ukraine bothers me to the core. In the ten years since I started MacSources, I’ve been very fortunate to work with some amazing public relations specialists and software programmers based out of Ukraine. These people are more to me than work contacts. They are my friends.

I have lengthy conversations with them about every topic under the sun and they are some of the most supportive people in my life. Even though Ukraine is more than 5,300 miles from where I am located, I’ve even been able to meet some of them in person. I am very protective of my Ukrainian friends and it hurts my heart to know that they are in harm’s way.

If I was standing with them, I would gladly pick up arms to help my friends protect their homes from the Russian invaders, but I am not anywhere close. So what can I do? I can try to help bring some more light to the sea of information floating around about what is happening inside of Ukraine since prime news outlets only provide so much. This article will outline first-hand information that I’ve collected from people who are in Ukraine and hopefully, it will shed some light on the real situation over there.

Background

The current crisis has been building for many years, but most recently, Russian forces started building up along the Ukrainian borders in November 2021. Throughout the subsequent weeks leading up to the invasion in February, Russia continued deploying forces to the Russo-Ukrainian border and at one point may have had nearly 100,000 troops in place. Russian President, Vladamir Putin continually denied that Russia’s military actions were leading to an invasion and even labeled the suggestions as ‘alarmist’ during an interview on November 13.

In addition to the deployed troops, other subtle changes were taking place – such as the slow, but deliberate evacuation of Russia’s embassy staff in Kyiv that began in January and was finalized on February 23 – that pointed to a dangerous situation for Ukraine. In the early morning of February 24, 2022, Putin launched a ‘special military operation’ into eastern Ukraine. Within minutes of the announcement, explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and the Donbas.

First-hand Accounts

In the interest of keeping my friends safe, I will not divulge individual names, but some representatives for specific Ukrainian-based software companies have made public declarations, which I will be sure to call out. Again, I want to state that the purpose of this article is to provide accurate, honest information from people who are experiencing it first-hand.

• Over 200 civilians have been killed by Russian attacks. This was provided by a friend who is located in Odessa. As of February 28, People.com was reporting that 406 civilian casualties have been counted as of Sunday night. This figure includes children.

• MacPaw, a software development company, was founded in and based in Ukraine. They have issued several statements stating how they remain dedicated to both their customers and team members throughout this time. Their blog states, “For us, Ukraine is our home, which we do not leave despite the danger. We believed in the best outcome but prepared ourselves for the worst. We have prepared assistance programs and launched a contingency plan to ensure not only the safety of our team but also the uninterrupted support and development of our products.” MacPaw has drafted a blog that describes their position and provides options for people to help.

• Another software company, Readdle, is based in Odessa, Ukraine. We’ve worked with Readdle since 2014 – more than 80% of our life as a website. They have also collected their thoughts into a blog post with many different links that provide options for assisting civilians, animals, and the country at-large during this volatile time. Their article that was published on March 1 states that, “Since the start of the war on Feb 24, more than 357 civilians have been killed, 1684 wounded, including children.”

I’ve been trying to send out daily messages to my friends and I get the following types of responses back.

“Thank you. I’m in a safe place but this is a very tough time for us.”

“Unfortunately, we’re not safe. My family and I hear sirens a couple of times a day and hide in shelters, and we hear bombing and shellings. So, please inform people about the critical situations in Ukraine. This is a war against the World, not Ukraine.”

Keeping Data Safe

MacPaw and Readdle’s teams are both working around the clock to ensure that their team members are safe and that their customers don’t have any service interruptions.

“All critical Readdle infrastructure is up and running and there will be no disruptions to anything customer facing as a result of the complex situation in Ukraine.”

Igor Zhadanov, Readdle Founder and CEO 

“We have launched an emergency plan to ensure the safety of our peers based in Ukraine. With regards to the use of our products, including CleanMyMac, Setapp, etc., we ensure no disruptions in the support and development. We securely host all of our infrastructure and user data on Amazon Web Services, and the cloud service server’s physical location is outside Ukraine.”

MacPaw

Oleksandr Kosovan, CEO of MacPaw:

Russia invaded our country and has been bombing civilians in acts of unprecedented violence. Still, we’re more united than ever, ready to fight for our home.

Ukraine will resist! #StopRussianAggression #StandWithUkraine #RussiaInvadedUkraine pic.twitter.com/pmBbjKJXxt

— MacPaw ?? (@MacPaw) February 27, 2022

If you use any of their products, you can feel safe knowing that amidst the conflict they are enduring that the specialists at both developer companies are looking out for your privacy, too.

Final Thoughts

While I try to remain neutral in circumstances like this because I want to remain a credible source for information, I find it more and more difficult since this attack on innocent people seems completely baseless and uncalled for. I’m upset that my own country and the councils around the world are only issuing ‘sanctions’ instead of truly helping to prevent conflicts like this from occurring.

Right now, Ukraine needs support in the form of funding and military/weapons. If you want to donate directly to causes that are benefitting the Ukrainian people, click one of the links below.

• Donate to Ukrainian armed forces here
• Donate to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine here
• Donate to Red Cross in Ukraine here

I also want to introduce this petition. It’s provided on openpetition.eu and it’s calling for NATO to close the airspace around Ukraine as well as deploy peacekeeping troops to the area. There are only 2 days left on the petition (at the time of publishing). At this point, the goal is 1,000,000 signatures and more than 835,000 people have already pledged support (at the time of publishing this article).

I wish I could do more to help, but hopefully providing this information will help others see what is going on and provide some assistance to the people in the middle of this atrocity.

#StandWithUkraine