The over 3 million złoty raised for generators for Kyiv is not only an impressive sum but, above all, a story of specific people. One of them is Jerzy Wójcik, a Polish journalist and co-founder of an initiative that has evolved into one of the largest grassroots solidarity actions for Ukraine.
“Let Ukraine know its heroes,” he wrote. Zhenya Klimakin, pointing out that behind big numbers there are always specific people. This is also the case collections for generators for Kiev, which quickly exceeded PLN 3 million.
One of the initiators of this action is Jerzy Wójcik – long-time journalist of Gazeta Wyborcza, former deputy editor-in-chief, and after the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, co-founder of the Polish-Ukrainian portal Sestry.eu.
The fundraising campaign began simply. A phone call from a friend pledging a few thousand złoty for a generator sparked a simple yet groundbreaking conclusion: one generator is not enough. The idea quickly found support among like-minded individuals, and the initiative began to grow.
Entrepreneurs, media, and public figures joined the campaign. The solidarity mechanism kicked in quickly, and the grassroots initiative evolved into a broad movement of support for Ukraine, which is struggling with Russian aggression and systematic attacks on its energy infrastructure.
In conversations with Ukrainian media, Jerzy Wójcik emphasized that his motivation stems not solely from his family roots in Lviv. “I simply like free people. And Ukraine today is a country of people fighting for freedom and needing real help,” he said.
This story shows that Polish-Ukrainian solidarity isn’t a slogan, but real action. Sometimes it begins with a single conversation and ends with millions of złoty and thousands of people coming together to light a light where others are trying to extinguish it.
Source: Zhenya Klimakin
Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Nowiny Wschodnie, a news platform followed by more than 140,000 people on social media. A graduate in Journalism and Social Communication, he has been co-creating and developing Nowiny Wschodnie since 2017. He gained professional experience working with local and international media.
He specializes in fact-checking, countering disinformation and propaganda, and information security. His work focuses on Poland, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and Polish-Ukrainian relations. He is also the founder of a non-profit organization working in the fields of integration and intercultural dialogue.