TAMPA, Fla. – Five pregnant Ukrainian surrogates bearing American children were among 60 people who were successfully rescued from the Ukrainian war zone in the past few days by Project DYNAMO, a Florida-based non-profit rescue organization.  

The 60 evacuees included surrogate mothers, their children and family members, and others desperate to escape attacks by Russian forces and occupied areas of Ukraine. 

The surrogates were rescued by Project DYNAMO team members near Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, Nickolaev, and Kakhovka before being transported to a Project DYNAMO safe location within Ukraine, code-named Club DYNAMO. Club DYNAMO is one of the DYNAMO facilities, which has been used as a secure lay-over location before moving evacuees out of the country established during the opening hours of the war. It is also being used as a safe site where surrogates can remain until they are either able to deliver their babies or be transported to other safe locations far from the Russian offensive and Ukrainian counter-offensives which has displaced millions of civilians.  Surrogate mothers are legally unable to leave Ukraine prior to giving birth.   

Along with the surrogate mothers, Project DYNAMO rescued 40 children and 15 adults from other war-torn areas of Ukraine this weekend, one of whom required emergency medical transportation via a Project DYNAMO ambulance. In all, Project DYNAMO says these evacuations took approximately 30 hours to complete these latest rescue operations.

“We’re just relieved these missions were successful and with all involved safely out of harm’s way,” said Bryan Stern, co-founder of Project DYNAMO. “As indiscriminate attacks injuring and killing scores of civilians are increasing, these rescues of civilians, including pregnant surrogates, are becoming even more imperative and more difficult given the dynamic threat environment.”

This evacuation of surrogate mothers marks Project DYNAMO’s fifth successful rescue operation of pregnant Ukrainian surrogate mothers and over a dozen surrogate babies with biological parents from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. during the GEMINI and AQUARIUS programs. 

Currently, Project DYNAMO has more than 100 additional surrogate mothers who have applied for evacuation still stuck in cities throughout Ukraine including Mariupol, which has recently seen atrocities inflicted on Ukrainian civilians by Russian soldiers, including an alleged chemical weapons attack and the use of mobile crematoriums to cover up alleged war crimes, according to eyewitness accounts detailed to the Mariupol City Council. 

In early March, Project DYNAMO conducted a rescue mission of three premature babies, American twins and a British girl, from Kyiv born from Ukrainian surrogate mothers. It was during this evacuation that Project DYNAMO discovered the need to not only rescue infants from war-torn areas in Ukraine, but pregnant surrogate mothers awaiting birth, as well. Because two of the infants were twins, Project DYNAMO referred to this rescue and subsequent rescues of babies as Operation GEMINI.  The rescue of pregnant surrogate mothers is named Operation AQUARIUS.

Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Project DYNAMO has received more than 15,000 requests for evacuation from American, British, Canadian, French, Romanian, Ukrainian, Nigerian, Mexican, Israeli, and Afghan citizens and residents, as well as citizens and residents from other European nations.

To date, Project DYNAMO has rescued more than 400 people from the most war-torn, contested, and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine and transported them safely to neighboring countries.

Anyone in need of evacuation is urged to register at projectdynamo.org and register for the U.S. State Department’s STEP program. 

In mid-January, Project DYNAMO began inserting team members into Ukraine to begin planning and setting conditions for potential rescue operations of Americans after the U.S. government made it clear that the U.S. government would not rescue American citizens stuck in the region.  Project DYNAMO executed its first rescue of civilians, including American Citizens, within the first hour of the Russian invasion on 24 February from Kyiv and has been operating in Ukraine daily.  

Those interested in donating to or learning more about Project DYNAMO can do so by visiting www.projectdynamo.org.