Straddling the debate in Washington and the needs of Ukrainians, Moore also uses his vantage point for problem-solving on behalf of a nation desperately fighting for its survival.
Last year, Ukraine faced a dire need for body armor to suit up volunteer and conscripted soldiers surging into its ranks after the 2022 invasion. The price for a full set sometimes reached an inflated $1,500 — beyond the means of many largely self-funded units that frequently provide their own supplies.
Moore connected with a Ukrainian manufacturer who could produce vests for just $220 each, but the pipelines for steel plate were unreliable. He made some calls and found a lobbyist in D.C. who referred him to a Swedish steel provider that agreed to prioritize timely shipments.
A more complex problem followed the Ukrainian liberation of the Kharkiv region last September, when it became apparent that widespread torture, rape and murder of the civilian population took place under Russian occupation. Local law authorities routinely investigate small-time offenses, not the kind of widespread, systemic war crimes by an invading army that may soon be tried before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Moore stepped in and helped Ukrainians set up a database of the crimes. Then, through his connections in D.C., he coaxed retired investigators to help advise them. He is tight-lipped about who he recruited. After all, he is an insider.
“What I do is try to solve our problems that no one else is solving, whether it’s getting medicine to the front, getting food to places like Kharkiv while they’re under a siege or making connections with people,” he says.
Even before the war, Moore had many friends and contacts in Ukraine after spending a year doing public opinion research in 2018 for a local news organization. Later, his network of friends grew during a Beltway governmental affairs gig with the artificial intelligence and data startup DataRobot (valued at $6 billion in 2022, according to Forbes). DataRobot intentionally sought out talented Ukrainian engineers and other workers and employed some 500 in the country.
After parting ways with DataRobot in 2022, Moore found himself planning a few months of skiing just when Russia launched its full-scale invasion with a massive bombardment of civilian targets. Moore flew from his home in Tulsa to Romania and then drove overland to Kyiv.
There, he set up what he calls a “safe house” for Ukrainian refugees swarming into the city from all directions. All in all, his efforts helped 110 people, he claims. Within a few weeks, “the number of people looking to leave began fading,” Moore recalls, so he began supplying medical supplies to a clinic north of Kyiv.
Later, he organized food shipments to Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. A five-hour drive east from Kyiv and just 30 miles from the Russian border, the city of 1.5 million was under siege for months and continues to be a constant target for Russian missiles and drones.
The first clinic he helped was located around Bucha and Irpin, where some of the fiercest fighting, civilian murder and destruction took place, but the medical center was stocked and equipped for peacetime, not the traumatic, bloody injuries of war. Moore suggested the clinic contact the International Red Cross, but the IRC was nowhere to be found. “So, I went to Romania and bought several thousand dollars of medical supplies and put it on my credit card,” he recalls.
As of June, the Ukraine Freedom Project and affiliated partners have provided medical supplies to more than 30 hospitals, but it hasn’t been easy, Moore claims.