In May 2022, just months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a disparate group of people from across the globe decided that they wanted to fight back.
This turned into the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO), a decentralized online activist network designed to combat pro-Kremlin propaganda, primarily focusing on the platform then known as Twitter. The members, identified by cartoon Shiba Inu avatars, mocked Russian government accounts and used meme warfare to disrupt Moscow’s propaganda over the invasion.
But in November 2022, Elon Musk took control of the platform, changed its name to X, and effectively allowed Russia’s propagandists free rein to do whatever they wanted.
While NAFO members continued to push back, posting memes in response to any posts from official Russian accounts, they knew they had to do something else to alter the course of the war. And so, over the course of the past two years, they have helped to raise tens of millions of dollars for Ukrainian frontline forces, funding weapons, ammunition, medical equipment, and vehicles—many of them branded with the distinctive NAFO livery.
Among the items funded by these shitposting cartoon dogs is a $250,000 marine drone dubbed “Raccoon’s Revenge” that the Ukrainian government says was used to take out a Russian warship. The group has also funded thousands of drones that have become an increasingly important weapon in pushing back Russian forces. Those on the front line say that NAFO’s efforts are vital in combating Russia’s assault.
“This is our only way to win, because the Russian army is bigger than us. We need more drones. It is very, very important,” Oleksandr Sokolenko, a commander of the drone unit in the 79th Air Assault Brigade, tells WIRED. When he spoke to WIRED earlier this month, Sokolenko said he was in a trench between Vuhledar and Kurakhove in the Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.
Sokolenko first heard about NAFO’s work from a friend who was also in the Ukrainian army, and now believes the work they are doing to fund drones for his brigade is vital to their chances of winning the war.
“In the beginning, when I joined the army, I was in the infantry. But I recognized that drones are really very critical,” Sokolenko says. “So I decided to work with drones. My first time [flying a drone] it was a DJI Mavic, I dropped grenades from it. Now, it’s my main work.”
Sokolenko, who joined the Ukrainian military when the war broke out, previously worked as an actor, appearing onstage and in movies. “It’s like Shakespeare said, all the world’s a stage,” Sokolenko joked, flagging that Ukrainian president Vlodomyr Zelensky had also been an actor before becoming a politician.
Because of NAFO’s decentralized structure, it’s impossible to get specific figures on how many people identify as members of the movement—fellas, in NAFO parlance—but one member believes it has to be in the thousands at least.
“You can’t just fundraise $250,000 for a naval drone if there’s not thousands of people [involved],” a UK-based fella, who did not want to be named over fears of threats from Russia, tells WIRED. That was funded in direct collaboration with United24, the Ukrainian government organization that was set up to allow people to help the Ukrainian war effort.
“It all started in November 2022, when United24 launched the first fleet of naval drones, a project that would later change the course of the maritime war,” a spokesperson for United24 tells WIRED. “Fellas were eager to help and to encourage their initiative. We made a special offer: to fundraise a NAFO drone and brand it with a name of their choice.”
The incentive worked, and in the space of just two months, NAFO had raised $276,429, and decided to call the drone Raccoon’s Revenge, a reference to the raccoons stolen by Russian zookeeper Oleg Zubkov during the Russian retreat from Kherson in November 2022.
In total, NAFO has raised close to $1 million across four fundraising campaigns in collaboration with United24. Their current campaign—dubbed Fellas Fury—is seeking to raise funds for remote control combat robots. Beyond official fundraising efforts in conjunction with the Ukrainian government, NAFO members have also launched numerous separate campaigns conducted in close collaboration with troops on the ground.
Because NAFO does not have a central leader, the fundraising efforts are organized on the basis of brigades or divisions, typically led by one person who has a connection to a particular unit or soldier in the Ukrainian army. These brigades and divisions usually focus on one specific item, whether its vehicles, rifles, drones, or medical equipment, and part of their fundraising efforts is the sale of patches, which have become a huge collectors item.
The fundraising drives are organized on Discord, Signal, and Telegram—but not on X, the platform that the NAFO movement has thrived on for years.
“People are being forced away from X, just because Russia basically bought the platform,” the UK-based fella tells WIRED, citing the prevalence of Russian bots and pro-Kremlin accounts allowed on the platform under Musk’s stewardship. X did not respond to a request for comment.
One of the most successful and prolific NAFO fundraisers has been Ragnar Sass, who runs the NAFO 69th Sniffing Brigade, which has raised more than $10 million to date for Ukrainian troops. That money has allowed Sass and his brigade to send more than 460 vehicles to Ukrainian troops, as well as more than 1,000 drones and other equipment to soldiers on the ground. They have even rescued 32 Ukrainian pets.
Sass’s brigade not only supplies the trucks, but also kits them out with custom technology designed specifically for combat such as jammers and night vision cameras. The trucks and jeeps are then painted, including NAFO lettering, and driven in convoys to the front lines in Ukraine.
“What makes us different, is that we are analyzing every week what are the most effective electronic warfare solutions,” Sass tells WIRED while coordinating his brigade’s 33rd convoy to the Ukrainian front lines.
Sass is an Estonian entrepreneur and cofounder of cloud-based software company Pipedrive, which was valued at more than $1 billion in 2020. He has been operating in Ukraine for more than a decade, and in 2019 launched a startup incubator in Kiev called Lift99.
When the war broke out in early 2022, Sass donated $20,000 to the Ukrainian army. “Many people followed, and by the end of day, we collected $200,000,” Sass says. By March 2022, Sass had organized his first convoy of 14 cars, and by June of that year, he joined with NAFO.
Sass’ operation incentivizes donations by offering a patch to anyone who donates more than €100 ($110), and he says to date they have sent out more than 10,000 patches to donors in more than 50 countries.
The NAFO fundraisers are needed, Sass says, because of the glacial pace that organizations like NATO operate in response to wartime situations.
“We are the fastest and most effective,” Sass says. “We can fundraise and deliver help in a matter of days. Like we did with Kursk: We started a campaign on Thursday evening. Next week, car and drones were handed over to units in Kursk. This war will be won by drones, and NATO procurement is from the stone age.”
Recently, British lawmaker David Taylor joined Sass on one of his delivery missions. “You are doing incredible work and I was proud to have joined you,” Taylor wrote in response to a post by the 69th Sniffing Brigade on X.
Taylor is far from the only high-profile figure who has publicly thanked NAFO for their efforts.
“A massive shoutout to the incredible NAFO Fellas for your unwavering support of Ukraine,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, wrote on X earlier this month. “Your ongoing fight for truth and against disinformation is of immense importance.” General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukraine ambassador to the UK and former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, has a NAFO patch.
US congressman Adam Kinzinger is a NAFO member, and Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, was recently presented with his very own framed Shibu Inu cartoon dog.
Ukrainian troops also regularly share their thanks to NAFO donors on social media, posting pictures of the vehicles or weapons funded by the group and how they were used in combating Russia.
“While carrying out some special tasks, I came across a vehicle that helps partially destroy Russian UAV every day,” Bohdan Patel, a 21-year-old Ukrainian soldier, posted on X alongside a picture of a truck with a NAFO patch emblazoned on the side. “Thank you to the NAFO community for the support, it is priceless.”