Last year, here in Ukraine, we had something like that. A couple of times, I saw those alerts on my phone. At some point, they stopped doing it. Maybe it didn't work out as the government planned.
I’m paying for my service and also covering monthly cost for a terminal that I donated to friends who are in military now fighting. I also know lots of volunteers who do the same. So its strange to read here comments that ukrainians got their service for free.
Here in Ukraine people who enlist to army also get basic stuff from government, but everything advanced people get by themselves: from good hiking socks and base layer to thermal imagers and off-road cars and drones (either by paying from their salaries and families and friends or by getting help from private donors and volunteers).
Learning Rust, I use these 2:
1. Command-Line Rust: A Project-Based Primer for Writing Rust CLIs
2. Zero To Production In Rust (it's actually one project)
Basically there several options in EU zone:
1. There are drivers (mostly Ukrainians) on small shuttles that regularly carry passengers and packages from Belgium through Germany and Romania to Western Ukraine. When they come to Ukraine drivers send packages through local post services (Nova Poshta or Meest Express) to people around Ukraine. There are lots of such shuttles. The problem is to find someone reliable. My relatives in Belgium claim to know reliable driver. Not sure which cities he goes through in Germany when going to Ukraine.
2. There is Meest Express, which has warehouses in Germany and Poland. You can order something from say Amazon to their warehouse and they will deliver it to any place in Ukraine. It’s a more expensive options.
3. Lot’s of people going between EU and Ukraine, but it’s not an option for you, because you have to know people. You can ask your employee - most probably some of her relatives and friends went to EU as refugees. Some people return, some are volunteers that go back and forth carrying humanitarian and military air.
Ukrainian here staying in Ukraine the whole time. Not a developer, working in a senior management role, but still heavily relied on the internet and electricity. Totally understand the reasons why your employee doesn't want to move out of the country.
I assume that she lives not in Enerhodar (which is occupied). Then only 2 possible locations, and they are pretty safe. According to western and Ukrainian analysts, massive scale attack from Belarus is impossible right now. And the possibility of Russians moving to the right bank of Dnipro is very-very distant right now. The only 2 problems are: missile strikes and infrastructure failures. So the comments here that generators or satellite internet will make her a target is nonsense. Missiles are too expensive to target each household with a generator.
So next I share what I did and what works for me:
1. Moved with my family to a distant small village in central Ukraine (Vinnytsia region), where we don’t rely on central heating and water supply. The only network we are connected to is eletricity. Life here is very cheap. We bought a house for $3000 and paid around $10k to make it convenient for us (shower / toilet, water, heating). Today there were 5 strikes heard - the attack was on Ladyzhyn electricity station 30 minutes drive from us. Living in even small city makes people dependent on central heating systems and water supply. Living in private house makes you more independent. If your employee doesn’t want to move somewhere to Europe or western Ukraine maybe she can rent a house in a village near her city like 20—40 minutes drive. It will give her flexibility not to rely on central systems, visit friends and family in the city, and no sirens heard here, never! And event in such a village we have access to quite good healthcare / dentists / and buying local food.
2. We use our own heating
3. Ordered starlink. For Ukrainians it’s very long to wait it, so my relatives from Belgium helped ordered to their address and sent it here. Maybe you can help your employee with logistics delivering satellite kit to her. Again starlink in remote village works better than in the city because sky is clear. In the city if she lives in apartments it will be hard to install it.
4. I bought a portable power station. It’s enough for me to work for a couple of days and to power refrigerator. But during the war there was never more than 4 hours without electricity here. I bought it before massive strikes on infrastructure. Nowadays they are in deficit. So again you can help her with logistics buying somewhere in Europe and delivering to Ukraine. My friend from Sweden helped me to buy power station for my parents and sent it in Ukraine.
5. What I need right now is a generator. They are in deficit here. But my relatives in Belgium are helping with it delivering it here. Moreover Ukrainian government cancelled all taxes / customs on generators and power stations, so it became even more accessible in terms of price. The only problem is logistics.
Sorry for bad English.
Edit:
Even today after massive strike we didn’t had electricity for like 4 hours. My parents live in Kyiv and it’s much worse there - no electricity and water and even cell connection for the whole day. So my point is basically to stay away from large cities, because they are more vilnerable
I live in Ukraine. From 2015 till 2022 I didn’t read or watched news and no social media or blogs or analytics. Then war started. Now I follow news everyday, because I have to take care of my family’s security. I follow analytics of battlefields progress so if I see warning signs I would have to take decisions to move my family further to the western part.
I follow news on volunteers who help military so I can take action and donate help.
I follow politics, because corruption is still an issue and during war it’s like enemy inside.
I follow local authorities media so that I get info on local issues, warnings or even when humanitarian aid is available, so I can notify my neighbors-refugees from southern part to go get mattresses and pillows or diapers (thanks unicef).
I follow economic news so I can take action on my still little assets.
Seems too much. I have to dose and follow rules I set for myself. Some days I go off. Some are more filled with information.
People in Belgium watched news and decided to host my wife with infant during attack on Kyiv. Some journalists investigated that one judge had russian passport and citizenship. It created tensions and people pushed to president to solve the issue. Drop in an ocean and no guarantees of results, but it’s better than nothing.
I don’t praise media, but in my specific circumstances I need it.
I work for a media company that works with YouTube creators. From my experience you should add following items to your list:
- new uploaded videos drive traffic to old videos of the same channel
- schedule consistency and calendar: 2-3 videos at least each week. It's very important
- links from other channels: it helps when other channels promote your videos.
- live streams help boost views (see https://gyre.pro/ - I'm not affiliated with this, but I know creators use it and get good results)
Generally services like vidiq or tubebuddy help you. Many creators use them.
The algorithm that you talk about changes quite often. Most of creators make lots of experiments to find their algorithms.
Make sure to stick to YouTube community guidelines. Seriously, YouTube can ban you forever if something in their view goes wrong.