Refugees from Ukraine need urgent help!

Dear Friends, many of you may know me personally. For those who do not know me, my name is Dmitriy Todorov. I live in San Diego, CA, with my son and wife.

I was born in the Country of Ukraine. My American friends invited me, and I moved to San Diego, CA, from Odessa, Ukraine, in 2004 to set up and operate Bald Eagle Security, a Security Guard Company.

I wish I would never do this kind of recording in my life; unfortunately, some devastating things happen in our lives that we do not have control over, and we have to do this to cure the growing pain.

This was right after 7 pm on February 23rd, about two weeks ago, while I was sitting here in my office and working on some emails to my clients. I had a live news update on one of my computer screens, and suddenly, breaking news ran through my screen saying that a few Russian missiles landed in Kyiv Ukraine, Kharkiv Ukraine and Odessa, Ukraine, my hometown. My 1st thought was that this was some computer prank or virus. In complete disbelieve, I refreshed my computer screen, but it did not change. I restarted my computer, but it did not help either. Here I started realizing that this could be the truth. I immediately called my friend in Odessa, Ukraine. This was right after 7 pm our time, or 5 am in Ukraine. My friend confirmed that 3 missiles landed a few minutes ago and exploded somewhere on the outskirts of Odessa, Ukraine. He lives in a high-rise. His family woke up of buildings and windows shaking right after 5 am.

Bombing at 5 am on a random morning! A city with over a million population. The last time someone was bombing Ukraine happened at 4 am on June 22nd, 1941, by German Nazi troops over 80 years ago.

My friend looked outside his windows to see dozens of cars forming a line at a gas station. My friend was in speechless shock, and I ended a phone call shortly after. I immediately called my wife, who has all her family lives in Odessa, Ukraine and let her know the devastating news. She was driving her car on a freeway bringing our son back from school. My wife had to pull out from a busy freeway, and she called her family and ordered them to immediately get together, jump in their cars and drive to the Country of Moldova, where my mother lives in our family house. My wife was probably the only person in our family who saw this was coming and so a few weeks prior to that morning, she insisted to all her family to keep their cars gassed-up and emergency bags on stand-by and loaded ready to leave the city or country if anything like this was to happen.

My cousin and her family, 2 kids, and husband live in Odessa, Ukraine, too. However, firstly they did not take this seriously and wanted to stay in Odessa, even after the 1st bombing. My mother, she is 81, stayed with her for a few months after my father passed away in November last year. However, she decided to briefly go back in Moldova just a couple of weeks before the bombing and accidentally stuck in Moldova as she had to wait for some of her documents to be renewed before going back to Odessa, Ukraine.

So, my wife’s family, 7 adults and 5 little kids loaded in 3 cars with a few little bags, left Odessa within 2 hours crossed the border to enter the Country of Moldova to head on to my mother’s house.

Later the same day and the following day, the Ukraine border became absolute chaos. On the following day, the President of Ukraine shut down the border for all the men to declare total mobilization for war against Russia.

My cousin’s husband was enlisted into National Guard and a machine gun was issued to him on the spot. He eventually convinced my cousin to take their two kids and leave the Ukraine for Moldova while still no direct shooting was happening on the streets of Odessa, Ukraine. She jumped on a train with her two little kids, and my uncle met them at the border of Moldova. So now they safely re-joined the family while her husband and a dad of 2 little kids is guarding Odessa boundaries with a machine gun ready to off-load.

One of my wife’s brothers, Kirill, who fled to Moldova with his family on the 1st day, is a Pastor at the Grace of Jesus Christ Church in Odessa, Ukraine. His Church is a part of the chain of Churches in Europe and USA. From day 1, while in Moldova, he, with the support of some small funds from his Church and the help of my cousin, Sasha, who is local there, and my wife entire family, set an ‘evacuation logistic hub.’ They coordinate the refugees transportation from any part of Ukraine into Moldova, meet them in Moldova, provide them with a food, warm closing and a temporary shelter, then coordinate their destination to either Germany, Romania or Poland. They are renting small buses or minivans and sending refugees to any country in Central Europe when it’s confirmed that they will be met and placed in government-supported temporary shelters in any of those Countries. They already received in Moldova and distributed over 200 refugees to different locations in Europe. These are mainly women and little kids and their.... pets. Most of them have no money or any other clothes except for the ones they wear. Their husbands and dads are staying in Ukraine and fighting the Russian enemy. As you all probably watch the news, not all of them will ever see their family and kids again.

All my relatives in a small village of Moldova participated in this ‘goodwill operation.’ Every their house is filled with refugees who are expecting to be distributed to another Country through the help of my wife’s family and my cousin Sasha. I called my mother the other day to hear kids are running and small dogs are barking in the background. My mother said there were refugees, and she had never met them before; she fed them, and they were waiting for Kirill to form a group to fill in a bus that would take them to Germany or Romania.

As you may know from the news, in the 1st two weeks, over 2 million refugees fled Ukraine. They expected this number to be at 5 million in the next two weeks.

My wife and I wired some money to them in the last two weeks; however, with the increased number of refugees and the gas price at $9.00 per gallon in Germany this is becoming a substantial financial hardship and responsibility. We set up an account through “GO FUND ME” to raise funds to help them evacuate more people arriving to Moldova from Ukraine every day. Once the money is received on the account, it will be immediately wired to my wife’s brother Kirill using Western Union, the only financial outfit available in Moldova, to receive quick US transactions. Kirill is a Pastor at the Grace of Jesus Christ Church and in charge of all the coordination, the meet-greet, shelter and transportation of refugees, mainly single moms and kids. These people can’t stop crying and still do not believe there will be a safe place for them and their kids.

With the help of our friends, you and your friends, we are hoping we get that desperate need of funds to people who just want to be alive. Standing shoulder to shoulder, only together can we help others who need our help the most. I want to ask every one of you to forward this email to all your friends and share this video and our “GO FUND ME” account link on all your social media because we believe no one can be irrelevant to watch other people dying from the bombs and missiles in the middle of the night, in a center of Europe, in 21st Century. Thank you very much for your time that you watch this video to the end. Thank you for your open heart and any help that you can offer at this time. People of my Country just want be alive; they are not asking for anything else…