The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB)

AUGB | Association of Ukrainains in Great Britain?

Questions, questions

 I am the founder of In Lviv Tours. Born in "Great Britain" (England, actually). I reached out to AUGB last week regarding a collaboration, after all, I am working with Ukrainian veterans, supporting injured and traumatized Ukrainians, and many of my Ukrainian friends are front line as I write. Some have been killed.

 A reply from AUGB came quickly from a certain Antonina Smyrnova, and I quote, "Thanks for writing to us! What kind of collaboration are you looking for? We will be happy to help in any possible way. We can write about you on our social media if you give us more specific information." Antonina has a Facebook profile, have a look. I was grateful to read her kind reply. She clearly cares a great deal about Ukraine and what is happening to her compatriots.

 On the other hand, the opposing pole, as it were, we have a certain Roman Krawec, who hijacked the communication between Antonina and I with several rather arrogant replies, one of which was a blatant lie. Prior to my communications with AUGB, I was under the impression that the only liars were russian propagandists.

 Roman is an elderly man, not on Facebook (probably better), and I will quote his lie as follows. He wrote: "I'm afraid I don't use social media." In the real world, AUGB is very active on Facebook with other 12,000 people following the main group and thousands more following local AUGB groups. Just one post on the main group, or any of the local groups, would have been a tremendous help for In Lviv Tours, but no, Roman said no. And he lied.

 I have been working online since 2002 and I know how easy it is to link to other websites. Link reciprocation is useful, it is beneficial. Positive action. Roman Krawec, in his wisdom, wrote: "the project does not fit with the aim of our site".

 Sir, we have over 500,000 dead, dying, injured and traumatized Ukrainians here IN UKRAINE, while AUGB is profiting from grants in the comfortable space of MY country. Roman, understand the concept of support where it is desperately needed. In this case, it would have cost nothing, just a little empathy, if that word is in your very limited vocabulary.