As the storm clouds of war gathered over Ukraine in early 2022, Canadian Christian Borys found himself glued to his phone and expecting the worst. A former journalist with ancestral ties to Eastern Europe, he had worked as a Ukrainian correspondent for the international media from 2015 to 2018, an experience that he says left him with a clear understanding of Russia’s brutality toward Ukraine and a sense of dread as invasion fears mounted.
Already a prolific meme poster, Borys decided to go one step further and try to raise some funds for Ukraine by selling stickers of a popular meme that was circulating at the time. “When Saint Javelin first appeared, it was an extremely niche meme joke that floated around a small community of journalists, analysts, soldiers, bureaucrats, and military contractors. It only gained steam in early 2022 when a friend reminded me that he had made stickers of Saint Javelin so people could show their support for Ukraine. That idea inspired me, because by that point I was convinced Russia was about to invade and wanted to do anything I could to help,” he recalls.
Borys printed off the first one hundred Saint Javelin stickers on 14 February 2022, less than two weeks before the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The rest, as they say, is history. His simple fundraising initiative captured the public imagination and rapidly went viral. From these humble beginnings, Saint Javelin has become part of Ukraine’s wartime folklore and has grown into a major brand producing everything from tote bags and clothing lines to novelty lamps and Christmas decorations. For Borys personally, it has been a barely believable three-year roller coaster that he likens to an “out of body experience.”
When did the iconic Saint Javelin design first appear?
That’s a good question. The original artwork was created by an American artist named Chris Shaw and it featured an AK-47 rifle, not a Javelin missile. It was genuinely a beautiful piece of artwork, and it was featured in galleries. I think he released it in 2012, if my memory serves me correctly. Then, somewhere along the line, the internet replaced the AK-47 with a Javelin, as a signal that Ukraine wanted to receive Javelin anti-tank systems from the US. The theory was that if Russia invaded, they would do so with masses of tanks, and Ukraine would need the world’s most advanced anti-tank weapon, the Javelin. So the design was around well before I became associated with it.
At what point did you realize that your Saint Javelin stickers were more than just another social media meme?
Honestly it was pretty obvious to me right away, or at least by the second day, that something special was happening. Ironically, as a former journalist, I knew this was becoming a story, but I was so focused on doing the work that I neglected to document what was happening right from the start. I now wish I’d recorded my thoughts on video from the beginning. As soon as I noticed names I didn’t recognize ordering from the very simple site I had set up and saw that these were people from all around the world, I knew I’d struck a chord. I had no idea just how big it would become, but I definitely knew it was special. I remember being overwhelmed with the amount of orders and having zero idea how to actually pack them all and get them out the door to people.
Why do you think Saint Javelin resonated with so many people during the initial months of the full-scale Russian invasion?
War is usually very difficult to understand, especially when it comes to figuring out who is wrong and who is right. I think that the big difference with this war is that it was blatantly obvious to everyone that Russia was the evil aggressor and Ukraine was the innocent victim. It was very black and white, so I think it was easy for people to understand that Ukraine needed support, and easy to see the scale of the problem facing all Ukrainians. And as much as people wanted to donate and help, they also wanted to literally show their support for Ukraine. Saint Javelin was one way to do that. It was an easy thing you could put on a laptop, or on a car, or wherever, to show people that you cared about Ukraine and what was unfolding.
The Saint Javelin brand has evolved dramatically since the early days in 2022, with an ever-expanding range of merchandise. What have been your most popular items to date?
It feels like we’ve just done so many different things. Everything from the original stickers to hats, T-shirts, sweaters, socks, and so on. We even made a HIMARS salt and pepper shaker this year. Some of our stuff is really hilarious and out there, but we have made a very conscious decision to focus on producing quality items, and purposeful items, which is why we came out with our whole Defender collection. Thankfully, that’s been the strongest collection we’ve ever produced. We launched it last year and donated thousands of fleeces, socks, beanies, and other clothing items from the collection to Ukrainian soldiers. We did it again this year, and improved each garment quite dramatically. Our fleeces and our new backpack have been really popular. The bamboo t-shirts were incredibly popular. Most recently, Christmas sweaters that we produced were a big hit, and we totally underestimated the demand.
Thankfully, people seem to really like the direction we’re going in. The reviews for our products are pretty amazing. The best part is that we’re doing it all in Ukraine, so we can have a genuine impact. We’ve had some of our manufacturing partners tell us that our orders have helped them stay in business or avoid layoffs because the economy has obviously taken a huge hit in Ukraine, so that part is special.
What is the most unusual request you have received?
Ha. We used to get flooded with slightly odd requests, but less so now. We’ve had lots of people submit designs and ask us to put them up for sale. Some of them were great, but we cannot put everything on a shirt or make it into a sticker. The logistics of that are so complicated. There was a very crazy early period where people wanted anything with a Saint Javelin symbol. I remember people messaging us about Saint Javelin sex toys. There were some weird ones for sure.
Saint Javelin first emerged as a fundraising initiative. How have you been able to scale up your fundraising efforts and get money to worthy causes in Ukraine?
Well, we are no longer at quite the scale we reached during the first year of the war, unfortunately. We work really hard to make great things and we make them all in Ukraine, but the amount of attention we received in the early days of the invasion through some of our viral initiatives, like painting a mural or giving a T-shirt to President Zelenskyy, has been unmatched.
Early on, I recognized that attention was fleeting and understood that eventually the media would move on, so we would have to evolve or flame out. In order to keep the Saint Javelin brand alive, the direction we went was to produce everything in Ukraine. That’s what makes our work special, and it’s what can keep us around for the long term. I think people have responded really positively to the style of Saint Javelin, the humor of our products, and the fact that we’re doing it in Ukraine.
We just made a USD 10,000 donation to the Ukrainian World Congress and their Unite with Ukraine campaign, which is where we’ve been donating for over two years now. Through all our investments in Ukraine and spending on production in Ukraine, in combination with our donations, we’re at over USD 500,000 this year, so we still make a significant contribution I think.
Being “Made in Ukraine” is now a big part of the Saint Javelin brand. What can you tell us about the current Saint Javelin team and your partners in Ukraine?
We’re a really small team that runs the site and the social media, so we’ve spent a huge amount of time vetting different manufacturing partners across Ukraine to help us produce our items. We’ve made so many samples and tested so many items with companies across Ukraine. There is so much incredible talent in the country, and that’s part of what I want people to see from what we do. I want them to understand that you can make excellent products in Ukraine, working with tremendously hard working, talented people. I can see that so clearly, and I want others to equate Ukrainian design and manufacturing with the same high levels of quality that people typically associate with Scandinavian, German, or any other well known and well regarded region you can think of. Ukraine’s fashion industry, especially women’s fashion, has become globally renowned. I think we can do the same with garments that are inspired by the men and women on the front lines and that are durable enough for them but also cool enough to wear on the street anywhere in the world.
How challenging is it to run an expanding international business in wartime Ukraine?
There are definitely tremendous challenges. For one, many of our staff or partners are seriously struggling with access to electricity. That’s the most basic thing that we all take for granted around the world, and you don’t realize how difficult it is to do anything without it until you don’t have it.
Looking back over the past three years, what have been the most memorable moments in the Saint Javelin story for you personally?
Quite honestly, it’s still hard to really understand it all. For a long time, it felt like an out of body experience, like it was happening but I was so busy I couldn’t grasp what was really going on. I was just trying to solve a hundred different problems and get the work done. I think as I get older, I’ll step back and think more about the specific experiences and moments, but in general, I’m just grateful that I could do something for Ukraine when the country really needed it.
I remember the first huge donations we were able to make. I remember depositing donations for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I remember buying an entire transport truck full of generators in the winter of 2022. I remember the first photos of people getting Saint Javelin tattoos. I remember when someone sent me a picture of a Saint Javelin sticker on an actual Javelin anti-tank system. I remember putting a Saint Javelin sticker on a destroyed Russian tank outside Kyiv. Of course, I’ll never forget the whole sequence of events when President Zelenskyy received a Saint Javelin T-shirt. It was early spring 2022 and the Russian army had only recently retreated from Kyiv. I’d been in Bucha the day before to see what the Russians had done. Then the President was pictured with a Saint Javelin shirt. The resulting wave of attention was surreal.
I’ll always remember the people who helped from the very beginning. There were so many people who gave their support from the start, and even though we’re now a totally different thing than we were back then, we would never exist in this way without the effort they put in.
I just hope we can build this to a point where it can really last. My dream has been to build something like Patagonia [outdoor clothing brand] but one hundred percent made in Ukraine. I know that’s a crazy idea, but I think it would be a great story and I’d be proud for that to be my life’s work. Whenever this war ends, I want to be part of the rebuilding. There are so many problems resulting from ten years of war that will need to be addressed, and are being addressed, but cannot be fully resourced when you have serious needs on the front lines, as is the case right now. I think we can build an engine that continues to grow, continues to invest in Ukraine, spreads awareness about Ukraine, and continues giving back to Ukraine.