Hello I'm Luke Jones and welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

In BBC OS conversations we bring people together to share their experiences.

This time we hear from people in the United States who are organizing their own aid efforts

to help the war in Ukraine.

In this edition we'll hear from people with families and friends in Ukraine

who are watching the war from the US and doing whatever they can to support the fight.

Our guests include Nastia who didn't stop fundraising even on her wedding day.

I got married in January instead of gift to the guests that came.

We used that money to buy a drone.

Everybody at the wedding signed it and we sent it to

my cousin and his battalion they are currently using it.

Also our guests discuss the challenges they're experiencing in the US as they try and keep

up awareness and interest in Ukraine's war with Russia.

It reflects to a certain extent the debate in Washington DC where a $61 billion aid package of military

assistance for Ukraine took months and months to get over the line.

Some politicians there argued that no more money should be sent. But in the end

the US continued its streak as being the single country to give the most aid to

Ukraine. When it was passed Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky said it could save thousands of lives and

President Joe Biden said it would make the world safer. Our first conversation

is with three Ukrainian Americans who despite the limbo of whether the US would

or wouldn't continue to send weapons and equipment have been providing aid of all

kinds by themselves. Slava Petakova and her husband have lived in North Carolina since 2001.

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