Ukrainian-American truckers rally for those besieged in Mariupol

Drivers went round-trip from East Dundee to downtown Chicago to raise support for native country’s defense

A miniature pair of Ukraine-decorated boxing gloves dangle from a rear-view mirror. Drivers gathered Saturday morning in East Dundee for the Deblockade Mariupol truck protest rally hosted by Help Ukraine Foundation LTD to bring attention to the blockade of Mariupol.

On Saturday morning, Ukrainian-born Oleg Mykytin and several dozen others drove their trucks and semis in a two-hour loop around the Chicago area to raise awareness about the war.

Mykytin had a more personal story to tell. This was far from the most ambitious trip he’s taken recently.

In March, Mykytin flew to Poland and back three times to bring his mother, brothers and their families to the U.S. from Poland, where they had sought refuge from Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“It wasn’t easy,” Mykytin said. “Thankfully the Polish people are very helpful right now. We need people to know what is going on in Ukraine, to understand that this is the biggest tragedy in Ukrainian history, I think.”

Mykytin and Nazariy Nechesnyy are the co-owners of the Lake in the Hills-based logistics company Otaman Trans Group Inc., which organized the truckers’ rally as part of its new nonprofit Help Ukraine Foundation.

Nechesnyy said it’s one of several such small organizations that have sprung up in the Chicago area since the invasion began.

“In the Ukrainian-American community here, people got organized in smaller groups,” Nechesnyy said. “And then their efforts go to bigger groups. We are trying to help Ukraine as much as possible.”

Several dozen truckers drove around the Chicago area Saturday morning in vehicles decorated in yellow and blue – Ukraine’s national colors – to raise awareness for the war in Ukraine, and in particular, the plight of the southern port city of Mariupol, which is under seige by Russian forces.

Oleg Mykytin of Addison attaches a flag to his truck as drivers gather Saturday morning in East Dundee to begin the Deblockade Mariupol truck protest rally hosted by Help Ukraine Foundation LTD to bring attention to the blockade of Mariupol.

“They are not surrendering,” Nechesnyy said. “But they are surrounded by the Russian military, who are bombarding it every day. The city is getting wiped out of existence.”

Nechesnyy, who lives in Elgin, has taken in a Ukrainian woman and child who fled to Slovakia en route to the U.S. Nechesnyy’s own parents retired to Spain years ago and his sister and her family are now in Poland, he said.

“I cannot believe what happened until now. It’s like a dream,” Mykytin said. “I never thought this could happen to my country. It’s like a movie or something.”

The trucks began their caravan at Christina Drive in East Dundee. The rally took them along Interstate 90 to downtown Chicago, and then back west along 290. The trucks then headed north up I-294, which is when they agreed to go their separate ways for the afternoon, Nechesnyy said.

“We got a lot of support,” truck driver Volodymyr Sovtysik said of the trip. “When we’d stop or honk, people would open their window and say hello. If you drive quietly, nobody cares, but people do care.”

Oleg Mykytin of Addison takes a look at decorated vehicles as drivers gather Saturday morning in East Dundee to begin the Deblockade Mariupol truck protest rally hosted by Help Ukraine Foundation LTD to bring attention to the blockade of Mariupol.

Of the 65 employees in Otaman, 25 are Ukrainian, Mykytin said, who himself came to the U.S. in 2007 when he was 20 years old, from the city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Viktor Zholkevych, the manager at Otaman, said that many Ukrainian immigrants who come to the Chicago area are attracted to the trucking industry because it offers decent pay and the work doesn’t require new skills or fluency in English.

“When people come here from Ukraine they have friends in the trucking industry,” Zholkevych said. “For people who are 35 years and up, they don’t want to go back to school or university. If they come with a family, they need to make money.”

Viktor Zholkevych of Hoffman Estates attaches an American flag to a truck as drivers gather Saturday morning in East Dundee to begin the Deblockade Mariupol truck protest rally hosted by Help Ukraine Foundation LTD to bring attention to the blockade of Mariupol.

Sovtysik, who has been a truck driver since 2006, said he came while still young, but that he wanted to work immediately and it was easy to obtain a driver’s license.

The truckers have sent clothing, medical supplies and military gear as part of their efforts to help friends and family oversees, either in Ukraine or in neighboring countries where they’ve fled to as refugees.

Nechesnyy said Otaman owns two cargo vans in Poland, which they’ve used to help deliver supplies to Ukraine, and also to pick up refugees and bring them to safe havens throughout Europe.

Sovtysik said he’d spent more than a thousand dollars of his own money on 11 pairs of Nike shoes requested by friends who were in the Ukrainian army.

“We want to show support for everybody,” Sovtysik said. “Beginning with kids.”

Volodymyr Sovtysik gathers with other drivers Saturday morning in East Dundee to begin the Deblockade Mariupol truck protest rally hosted by Help Ukraine Foundation LTD to bring attention to the blockade of Mariupol.

While none of the truckers who spoke to the Northwest Herald have had friends and family die in the war yet, several said they had friends fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, or knew of friends of friends who had died.

While Americans have been offering much-needed assistance, Sovtysik said he remains concerned that organizations were waiting until bombings or other disasters happened to organize relief efforts.

“It feels like people are waiting for something bad to happen,” Sovtysik said, whose father lives near an airport close to Ivano-Frankivsk, which has been getting bombed semi-regularly, Sovtyisk said.

Sovtysik said his father won’t leave his house, although he tried to bring him to the U.S.

“I tried to tell him, go to the mountains, at least,” Sovtysik said. “He said, ‘No. It’s my house.’ And then he joked that he’s going to cage the Russian rockets with his hands.”

While this weekend’s rally came together in just a few days, Nechesnyy said their goal is to have another truck rally along the same highway route in two weeks. But the hope is there will be hundreds of trucks, not a few dozen.

Mykytin said that any time people can raise awareness about the war, as the truckers did Saturday, it has the potential to sway both the people and the American government to act on their behalf.

“The U.S. is still the main country in the world that makes decisions,” Mykytin said. “It’s not simple. War never is. But what President Biden says is very important in the world. So we are trying to send a message.”

Uriel Gomez of Hoffman Estates gathers with other drivers Saturday morning in East Dundee to begin the Deblockade Mariupol truck protest rally hosted by Help Ukraine Foundation LTD to bring attention to the blockade of Mariupol.