The Estonian startup community, operating under a brand of ‘shitposting’ cartoon dogs, continues to serve as the largest international private donor to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. If you’ve been sensible enough not to have spent much of the last few years on Twitter (or ‘X’ as it’s now supposed to be known) then you might not be familiar with the NAFO fellas and their “brigade” based in Estonia.

In a nutshell, NAFO is a movement dedicated to Ukrainian victory that has been built online around memes involving a breed of dogs known as shiba inu, which has somehow proven effective at disrupting Russian propaganda while raising many millions for the defence of Ukraine.

“Ukrainians are always thanking us for continuing these supplies but it is us who should be thanking them. Fundraising is very easy compared to the unimaginable physical and mental battles that Ukrainian soldiers, and wider Ukrainian society, is going through while defending our freedom too.”
Anna-Liisa Palatu, CEO of Woola

Here’s where things get particularly topsy-turvy. Volunteers in Estonia then created their own offline NAFO brigade in order to build on the movement’s momentum and more effectively source and deliver supplies to where they are most needed. Yes, the Estonians undigitalised something for a change.

NAFO volunteers have bought hundreds of (mostly high-end SUV) trucks, painted them in some unconventional camouflage, stuffed them with vital supplies including drones, generators, and anti-jamming systems, and driven them to defenders on the frontlines in Ukraine.

These privately financed convoys have departed regularly from Tallinn ever since Russia began its full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. Three years later, their efforts are only intensifying with more volunteers, better coordination, and a deeper understanding what Ukraine needs to defeat Russia’s aggression.

Wool, war, and shiba trucks

The volunteers in Estonia who make this possible are a wide cross section of the startup sector, from IT specialists and freelancers to founders and CEOs of billion-dollar startups like Pipedrive and Bolt, working alongside an international network of like-minded activists.

“I plan to keep fundraising until Ukraine wins the war and Russia is conclusively defeated,” explains NAFO volunteer Anna-Liisa Palatu.

In her day job, Anna-Liisa is the founder and CEO of Woola, an Estonian company that turns waste wool into sustainable packaging, eliminating plastic wrap. It’s won design awards and is currently on display at the United Nations headquarters in New York as part of an exhibition on the best examples of circular economy.

Despite the busy demands of startup life, Anna-Lisa uses her spare time to drive medical evacuation trucks into Ukraine, camouflaged in shiba inu dog patterns and with “One truck closer to victory” emblazoned across the side.

Record scratch. Freeze frame. You’re probably wondering how she ended up in this situation. (It’s a meme reference).

What NAFO doing?

The story of NAFO all started with a Polish artist named Kamil. In the early days of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Kamil began posting memes that featured shiba inu mocking Russian invaders. For those not terminally online, shiba inu have long been a favourite dog breed for memes ever since a photo of one reclining on a couch went viral in the early 2010s. Alongside his memes, Kamil encouraged people to donate to Ukraine’s Georgian Legion. It proved to be a surprisingly effective fundraising tactic. People even began asking if they could get their own custom shiba inu “fella” to use as a profile photo and show their support.

It began a snowball effect. Volunteers formed a “fella forgery” to keep creating these custom memes around the clock to thank each donor, which only further increased demand as the images proliferated across the web. “You’re like NATO”, one person tweeted. “NAFO”, Kamil suggested in response, “The North Atlantic Fellas Organisation”.

The NAFO community in Estonia has raised more than €13 million and delivered more than 600 trucks with around 2000 drones and more than 600 anti-drone jammers to Ukraine. By the time you read this, these numbers will be higher and rising still. 

When not donating, a lot of fellas started engaging Russian propagandists, filling up their replies with mocking comments and memes.

Autocratic regimes have long invested in troll factories that aim to undermine free societies with confusion and division. The fellas were turning the tables by deploying their own brand of internet humour. None of Russia’s usual infowar tactics worked against them as the fellas would turn any interaction into yet more memes, particularly enjoying accusations that they were created by the CIA.

NAFO’s bottom-up revolution against Russian propaganda

“You pronounced this nonsense,” one exasperated senior Russian diplomat tweeted at a cartoon dog, instantly making the phrase a new NAFO slogan, alongside other classics like “NAFO expansion is non-negotiable” and “What airdefence doing?” The “soup-centric” NAFO community has developed such a rich variety of lingo and in-jokes that trying to explain all these would take up a whole nother article.

By using engagement with Russian propagandists as entertainment, the fellas could then use their growing influence to elevate the voices of Ukrainians and other long ignored perspectives of people who have experienced Russian imperialism, including in Estonia and the Baltic countries.

With the help of the fellas, more people around the world were understanding Russia’s war within this context and learning, often for the first time, about topics ranging from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to the Singing Revolution. They were better understanding both the horror of occupation and the fact it can be defeated.

NAFO was upturning a lot of thinking (and criticism) of existing counter disinformation approaches across the EU. Critics sometimes say these efforts aren’t joined up enough as there’s too many different groups doing overlapping work. This criticism effectively calls for a more unified, top-down approach. But NAFO is effective exactly because it involves so many different people doing their own thing in their own way and reaching across different online communities in a way that’s genuinely entertaining, not just lecturing.

No government could create a movement like NAFO if it tried, but democracies don’t always need a top-down approach. Our strength comes from our civic society and our diversity of voices. Everyone has a role in countering disinformation and safeguarding freedoms, even those shitposting as cartoon dogs. “NAFO is a living example of how to disarm Russian disinformation with humour, intelligence and enthusiasm,” explained Kaja Kallas, then Estonian Prime Minister and now EU foreign policy chief while addressing a NAFO summit in Lithuania. “Behind every Fella is a real person who believes in Ukraine’s victory.”

Taking NAFO offline

When the NAFO movement first began growing online, Estonian civic society was already working overtime in a myriad of ways to support Ukraine. Among them, Anna-Liisa and her whole team of Woola employees were searching for ever more creative ways to fundraise and deliver supplies. They first raised funds to buy a medical evacuation truck and then realised that they could also use their waste wool to make mattresses to deliver with it. To get to Ukraine, she drove in convoy with other volunteers based at Tallinn’s Lift99 coworking space.

Lift99, created by Pipedrive cofounder Ragnar Sass, has launched a vast number of successful companies and expanded to Kyiv in 2019. At the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war, the Tallinn and Kyiv hubs immediately transformed into a supply network. Entrepreneurs in Estonia vowed to keep donating to Ukraine until victory and to keep investing in Ukraine beyond that.

“NAFO is a living example of how to disarm Russian disinformation with humour, intelligence and enthusiasm.”
Kaja Kallas, former Estonian Prime Minister and now EU foreign policy chief

The Lift99 community harnessed its international network and its in-house skills to build an online platform at Help99.co where anyone can easily donate online. They also have the advantage of being closely connected to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and volunteers across Ukraine, and the volunteers involved are donating their own money and are well known in the startup world globally. This all provides significant assurance to international donors that every cent will be spent wisely on supplies, in contrast to bigger aid organisations often criticised for slow distribution, admin costs, and sometimes limited understanding of realities on the ground.

Over time, other efforts to fundraise and supply Ukraine from across Estonia – such as Adopt A Drone – began coalescing through Help99.”The Help99 volunteers first delivered drones for us, but then it made sense to fully merge,” explains Arnaud Castaignet who runs the Adopt A Drone initiative and also serves as VP at Skeleton Technologies, which has also makes significant contributions to support Ukraine. “Help99 eliminated the admin of raising funds so we could focus on getting more donations to where they are most needed.”

NAFO turns online activism into lifesaving convoys

As the fast-growing group of volunteers shared NAFO memes between themselves on supply missions, the online and offline activists also merged. It meant NAFO fundraising efforts could be directed toward a credible and effective network able to deliver their donations. NAFO’s 69th Sniffing Brigade was born.

The convoys are no easy ride. Volunteers take shifts driving to reach Ukraine in around 24 hours then endure the mundane hassle of cross-border paperwork before facing the risks of Russian terror attacks that Ukrainians endure daily. Getting there is the easy bit. After dropping off the vehicle with its supplies, volunteers must then return using whatever public transport is available at the time, although Ukrainians have done an incredible job keeping it functioning as smoothly as possible amid a war to annihilate them.

Many of the factors that made NAFO effective online also proved to be effective offline. In place of memes, the NAFO brigade posts (in the old-fashioned sense) patches to donors.

As diverse influencers and groups can take responsibility for individual fundraising campaigns, including by creatively designing the patches and choosing the decals on the trucks, this enables the NAFO brigade to reach across different countries and different niche communities. There are patches for NAFO volunteers representing Canada, France, the UK, even the Faroe Islands. E-residents of Estonia also have their own patch.

D&D community mobilized for Ukraine

Maria Magdaleena Lamp works in marketing at Enterprise Estonia and, in her spare time, is a dedicated game master and influencer (“nano-influencer,” she insists) in the Dungeons and Dragons community. She’s now launched a NAFO fundraising campaign for the global D&D community to join her in supporting Ukraine.

“Beyond anything, I love this game because it allows us to imagine a world where good can ultimately triumph over evil,” says Maria. “But that doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s up to us to act, and to inspire others to act.”

When it is pointed out to Maria that NAFO members already refer to Russian invaders as orcs, including on the decals of many NAFO trucks, she is not so pleased. Maria insists this is deeply unfair to orcs and won’t be included on her truck. Apparently, not all orcs are inherently evil in the D&D universe. #NotAllOrcs.

One thing all NAFO volunteers do agree on though is that the real heroes are the Ukrainians.   “Ukrainians are always thanking us for continuing these supplies but it is us who should be thanking them,” says Anna-Liisa after returning from her fifth convoy to Ukraine. “Fundraising is very easy compared to the unimaginable physical and mental battles that Ukrainian soldiers, and wider Ukrainian society, is going through while defending our freedom too.”

Estonia’s NAFO movement fuels Ukraine’s frontline with drones, trucks, and tech

The team at Woola has so far raised more than €160 000 and donated 8 medical evacuation trucks, as well as 500 mattresses and other supplies. For their next campaign, Anna-Liisa is auctioning custom artwork and has designed a patch highlighting Ukraine’s “Real Statue of Liberty”.

In total, the NAFO community in Estonia has raised more than €13 million and delivered more than 600 trucks with around 2000 drones and more than 600 anti-drone jammers. By the time you read this, these numbers will be higher and rising still.

The nature of the supplies is constantly evolving. Instead of  Chinese-made DJI drones, for example, donations now support the production of Wild Hornet drones by volunteers inside Ukraine. They’re lower cost, more secure, more effective, and help support the rise of local defence tech production so crucial for long term regional security.

The legacy of these convoys will be vast. Some of the key volunteers are joining forces in other ways. Ragnar Sass now also leads Darkstar, a coalition of entrepreneurs, investors, tech and military experts seeking to develop a next generation defence industry to rearm Europe.

For now, wherever in the world you are reading this article, you can visit Help99.co and get involved with NAFO to help bring Ukraine one truck closer to defeating Russia’s aggression.

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