The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
In a black double-breasted suit and paisley tie, Taras Mahlay looks a bit out of place driving a forklift through a Cleveland warehouse. He got dressed up because the Ukrainian ambassador was in town Friday with former U.S. Senator Rob Portman for an event at the City Club of Cleveland. Mahlay needed to get a few pallets of medical supplies loaded into a shipping container before heading downtown, though, so they can start making their way to Ukraine.
“Surgical equipment, beds, ultrasounds, we also are helping out one of the rehab facilities, so as you can tell there’s wheelchairs and crutches,” he says walking around the pallets, already wrapped in plastic and ready for shipping.
“I think this is an ultrasound machine,” he says peering closely at a large appliance. On another pallet, he points out a crash cart.
After more than 30 years as a physician, working on aid shipments like this one for the Cleveland Maidan Association has become Mahlay’s full time job. It’s why he learned to drive a forklift and it’s why he can rattle off the pallets’ measurements from memory.
“They’re between 92 and 96 inches (tall),” he says, “because we fill the container to the max. We can fit 21 pallets (per container).”
With a wry chuckle he explains the odd number comes from the pallets’ not-quite-square footprint. “We crisscross, crisscross, so that’s why you get 21 pallets,” he says. “At the end, you get the one row which has 11 and the other row has 10.”
“I used to be a physician,” he says. “Now I’m a logistics expert.”
Ukraine funding
In Washington D.C. some right-wing lawmakers bristle at the prospect of spending more money to support Ukraine’s war effort. Ohio’s junior U.S. Senator, Republican J.D. Vance, is among the loudest voices in the chorus.
In an op-ed, Vance and the president of the Heritage Foundation rejected the Biden administration’s proposal to advance funding for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific and the southern border as a single package.
“It is becoming abundantly clear that the U.S. has overcommitted resources and attention to Ukraine at the expense of allies like Israel and Taiwan,” they wrote. “A new aid package only threatens to set our readiness back even further.”
But in Cleveland, Vance’s predecessor Rob Portman struck a very different tone. He described the Ukraine war as one element in an “endless fight for freedom.”
“Today that fight is being fought in various places around the world — as we see it’s a dangerous and volatile time — but no place more distinctly about freedom than in Ukraine,” Portman argued.
He added that doing nothing would likely cost more in the long run.
“This is a consequence that must be considered,” Portman said. “Putin will occupy Ukraine. All the negative consequences in terms of the message to the rest of world happens, but then you have four additional countries that are NATO allies where we have an Article Five obligation to protect them, a mutual defense treaty, that will be on the border with Russia.”
What’s the hold up?
Asked why some Republicans steadfastly oppose Ukraine funding, Portman offered a handful of possibilities. Between hostility to any spending, a long-standing streak of isolationism and the partisan impulse to view the conflict as “Joe Biden’s war,” Portman acknowledged some in the party are finding reasons to criticize the effort.
But he argued that opposition is misguided. Much of the proposed funding would be spent in the U.S., paying domestic defense suppliers to produce new equipment. Portman added that the funding going to Ukraine as cash is subject to an enormous amount of oversight.
“There’s never been a dollar, in my view, that we’ve ever spent as taxpayer dollars, that’s better reviewed and audited,” he contended.
Still, Ukraine’s history of corruption gives pause to many. Speaking alongside Portman, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova acknowledged the problem, but argued they’re working diligently to root it out.
“The response is very swift and very strong, like it was recently with the Chief Justice in Ukraine,” she said. “Nobody is untouchable. He was engaged in alleged bribery, and he’s in prison right now.”
Ukrainian authorities detained former Chief Justice Vsevolod Kniaziev in May, alleging he accepted a $2.7 million bribe. Kniaziev has denied wrongdoing.
Markarova admitted her country still has work to do — corruption “unfortunately exists where people exist,” she said. But she insisted cases like the chief justice’s demonstrate the strides they’ve already made.
“Is everything ideal? Definitely not,” she said. “You have people here in the audience who do business in Ukraine, you have people who work in Ukraine, but the corruption is definitely not systemic anymore.”
“The fight with it is systemic,” she added.
Rebuilding a health system
Most of the Cleveland Maidan Association’s shipments are headed for Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine along the Dnipro River. According to Mahlay, Russian forces brought in barges as they retreated. What medical equipment they couldn’t move, they destroyed. When they returned, Ukrainian doctors had to start from scratch.
“Pretty much everything that needs to be in a hospital, we’re shipping,” Mahlay explained.
From the warehouse in Cleveland, containers take a train to the east coast, and then a boat to Poland. They show up in a port town there called Gdynia and truckers from Ukraine pick up the containers and deliver them the hospital.
“We usually have it from here to the hospital is five to six weeks,” Mahlay said.
He estimated they send out a container a month, but with a wave of recent donations, they’ve got nearly three container’s worth of supplies ready to go. In addition to medical equipment, they ship food, household supplies and clothing. Mahlay points out big trash bags packed to bursting from recent coat drives by local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops.
But for some bigger ticket donations, like vehicles and tires, Mahlay explained they send money to organizations in Ukraine.
“There is no helicopter evacuation there,” he said. “It is by car or by truck, and they’re getting shot at. So, if you took your car out, and driving on bad roads, and getting bullet holes in it, the car doesn’t last that long.”
Mahlay visited Ukraine over the summer to visit hospitals and rehab facilities, and he said they’ve set up exchange programs to help train their doctors.
“My wife actually, this morning had a virtual (class) — she’s a vascular medicine specialist in Cleveland Clinic — and well, it’s daytime there, so she had to start her lecture at six o’clock in the morning.”
Looking ahead, though, he worries about the long-term health impact on Ukraine’s population. Pointing to missed preventative care, infections, rehab for war casualties and PTSD, he said the country will be facing a long-term medical crisis “even if the war ends tomorrow.”
The prospects
Despite Vance’s outspoken opposition, Portman expressed confidence that a deal can be reached. “If there was a vote tomorrow in the United States Senate,” he insisted, “there would be a majority of Republican senators who would support continuing the funding to Ukraine.” He admitted he wasn’t completely sure about the House, but argued in past votes, GOP majorities have voted for aid.
That, of course, was under a different U.S. House Speaker. And although Portman noted new Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed support for ongoing Ukraine funding, he has also carved up Biden administration’s proposal. The U.S. House advanced aid for Israel on its own and paid for the funding by cutting an equivalent amount from the IRS. The idea appears to be a nonstarter in the U.S. Senate.
Speaking after the city club event, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-OH, sounded optimistic about landing a deal. The co-chair and founder of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus was on hand to introduce Portman, who co-chaired the Senate’s Ukraine caucus while he was in office. Kaptur argued support for Ukraine is strong in both chambers, but “the problem is the process we’re stuck in now.” She blamed a “small band of extremists” who want to stall almost everything.
“So, I think we’re gonna see it bump along here for a few more weeks, and then hopefully we can get something done before January,” she said, “It’d be a great Christmas present for the country and world if we could finish this before the end of the year.”
Back at the warehouse, Jim Reddy is putting the debate out of his mind. “I can’t sit around thinking about what’s going (to happen),” he said, “because I really can’t affect it.” He’s retired, after more than 20 years as a police officer. He heard about Cleveland Maidan’s efforts and started volunteering because Mahlay was his doctor.
As he was getting ready to start opening bags of coats to inventory and repackage them, Reddy said, “My personal belief is I don’t think they’re going to stop. As far as Russia. I don’t think they’re going to stop. I don’t think it stops at Ukraine.”
“So, you can stop them now or stop them later,” he said. “It’s gonna be a lot bigger problem later.”
