Important Announcement: I Am Going Back To Ukraine

Hi,

This is Jussi.

I am going back to Ukraine and I am again asking for your help.

They desperately need more cars and generators and I am raising money to bring them as many as I can in early February.

If you have followed my work for a while, you probably know that I stand strongly with Ukraine. It really hits home for me because I come from Finland and we share a similar history of unprovoked Russian aggression and terror. 

If things escalate from here, my country, Finland, could also be next-in-line and as an intelligence officer in reserve, I would be one of the first people to get called back into duty.

Russia has threatened Finland with "military consequences" and invaded our airspace several times over the past months.

We also have members in Ukraine who need our help and you may be talking with some of them on the chat without even knowing it. One of them is even fighting on the front lines in Bakhmut as far as I know! 

So early in this war, I decided to take matters into my own hands and joined a group of people in Estonia that organizes "freedom convoys":

• We buy cars. 

• We redesign them for military use. 

• We then fill them up with important supplies like drones and generators. 

• And we then drive them to Kyiv, Ukraine, where we donate them to the soldiers who need them the most: 

At first, these efforts were fully funded with our own money and I myself bought a few cars on which I added the Finnish and Ukrainian flags side-by-side: 

But there is only so much that we can do with our personal money so we eventually began to also raise donations from friends and family, and I am so proud to say that the members of the 'High Yield Landlord' community have played a major role in these crowdfunding efforts. 

In total, members of High Yield Landlord have donated ~$70,000 to these efforts. One member donated a total of $30,000, a few donated $10,000, some donated $1,000-$2,000, and we also received many smaller $100-500 donations.  

Just wow! 

It is really mind-blowing to me that so many of you were willing to donate such large sums of money without even knowing me in real life.

I am very thankful for your trust and generosity because I know that it makes a big difference for the brave Ukrainian defenders who put their lives on the line to defend not just themselves, but also the rest of the free world. 

Today, I am posting this update to announce that I am headed back to Ukraine for the third time, and I am again asking for your help as we try to raise donations to buy additional cars and supplies. I will once more make the trip because it has gotten harder to find drivers following the recent missile attacks on Kyiv and I will share an update with pictures as I return from the trip.

I have said this before, but I'll repeat again: for most of us, it makes no real difference whether we have an extra $1,000 in our account or not, but it could make a huge difference for the people in Ukraine.

This is the best kind of charity in my mind because all the volunteers work for free, take all the risks, and top up the projects with their own cash. Typically, if you donate $1,000 to a charity, you would be happy if half of that actually goes into helping people. Here, it is the opposite. We supercharge your donation with our own money and our work - a real value investment. 

We already bought the first car for the trip and our goal is to have at least 5 of them before we get going. You can make donations in USD and EUR and I put all the details below. If you make a donation, please feel free to send me a direct message here on Seeking Alpha or via email at jaskola@leonbergcapital.com

I would be happy to thank you and if your donation is substantial enough, we may also be able to add your company logo, country flag, or anything else you may want on the car (More on that at the end of the article).

Paypal: ragnar.sass@gmail.com

Here are the banking details to make a transfer:

• Bank account holder: Freedom Convoy

• BIC/SWIFT: LHVBEE22

• IBAN: EE937700771008695704

• Bank name: AS LHV Pank

• Bank address: Tartu mnt 2, 10145 Tallinn

• Reference: Help Ukraine Cars

Below I answer some important questions that you might have:

1) What is the name of the group? Do they have a website to learn more?

The name of our group is "help99" and we operate under the company Lift99, which is a startup incubator located in Estonia.

Here is what we have achieved so far: 

You can learn more by visiting our website by clicking here. 

2) Can you trust this group? Who is its founder?

This whole effort is organized by one of Estonia's most successful entrepreneurs, Ragnar Sass. He is the co-founder of the Estonian unicorn, Pipedrive, and he is a bit of a local celebrity in the start-up scene. 

I know him personally because I work at his start-up incubator, Lift99, and my desk is next to his:

So yes, this group is trustworthy. They are a bunch of Estonian entrepreneurs who want to make a difference by taking action. Ragnar's wife is Ukrainian so this is personal for him. His initiative to help Ukraine was featured in Estonia's biggest media outlook early in the war. You can read it by clicking here. 

3) How long will be the trip? Will you be able to work?

This coming trip will last 4 to 5 days and we will drive the cars from Tallinn, Estonia to Kyiv, Ukraine:

The drive will be about 30 hours including breaks and we will stay 2 nights in Kyiv to help with other efforts before taking a train back to Poland. I will have my laptop with me and continue to work on HYL-related things during the trip.

4) Is there a minimum donation? Can we get a souvenir?

No, there isn't. Anything helps, but the larger, the better of course. 

Anyone who donates will get a souvenir of the trip with pictures and videos. 

In addition to that, we now have our own badge and I will send one to anyone who donates over $1,000:

Finally, the biggest donors who donate $10k or more will receive a picture of their own car with any desired customization (country flag, company logo, text, etc.), a picture/video of it being given to the Ukrainian army as well as a badge of a Ukrainian soldier (They typically give us one as a gift in exchange of the cars). 

Here is an example with the US and Ukrainian flags. This car was paid for by one of our US-based members and given to an artillery unit that helped liberate Kherson:

Here are also some of the badges that Ragnar has already received:

5) How can you donate?

You can donate via Paypal or by making a transfer:

Paypal: ragnar.sass@gmail.com

Here are the banking details to make a transfer:

Here are the banking details to make a transfer:

• Bank account holder: Freedom Convoy

• BIC/SWIFT: LHVBEE22

• IBAN: EE937700771008695704

• Bank name: AS LHV Pank

• Bank address: Tartu mnt 2, 10145 Tallinn

• Reference: Help Ukraine Cars

If you make a donation, please feel free to send me a direct message here on Seeking Alpha or via email at jaskola@leonbergcapital.com

I would be happy to thank you and send you pictures/videos of the trip.

Thank you for your consideration!