March 12, 2025
After 2,500 km, it’s high time our dependable Mercedes Sprinter freezer van had a good wash, so we pull into a busy car wash on Kyiv’s busy ring-road. Kyiv may be subjected to drone and missile attacks each night but its citizens continue to keep their standards up, so we have to queue for a short time. Car washes are good fun in Ukraine and whilst on my last trip, James Gaselee & I made such a hash of it that the lady attendant had to take over, this time Paul and I mastered the water and shampoo jet sprayers like old timers! It needs to be cleaned as this evening the van will be adorned with logo stickers of the Mercy & Health Foundation and one of the army brigades in preparation for its handover near Chernihiv tomorrow (140 km to the Northeast).
Soon after we arrive at the Foundation’s warehouse where we are warmly greeted by the team and help unload our precious cargo. I suspect the van is over its weight limit as we are completely full with two brand new large treadmills, two large rehabilitation beds (came from Italy), walking bars, wheelchairs, medical supplies, crutches, clothes and pet food. Paul has led the fundraising operation, and I have been supported by several family charities. For this trip, we raised over £24,000 to buy the sprinter van and also a 110 Landrover which the Foundation is already using to move its volunteers & doctors across the vastness of Ukraine.
This, my fourth trip, has once again been focusing on helping the Mercy & Health Foundation who are based in Kyiv. Under the leadership of Dr Oleksandr Yatsyna, a cancer surgeon & his gynecologist wife Katia, the Foundation has been supporting both civilian & military hospitals since 2016 with a new focus on establishing rehabilitation clinics.
For Ukraine, this has been a total war affecting every person, every day. It’s easy to forget that the conflict with Russia has been going on since 2014, 20% of the country is now occupied, families have been divided, thousands killed or injuried, schools disrupted, daily air-raid sirens followed by aerial attacks and endless power cuts. There is not a cemetery across the country without the distinctive Ukraine & Bandera flags marking a fallen soldier & every night Russia launches approximately 150 drones and missiles with civilian deaths each day. Of note, speaking to Katia, she says she is much more frightened in her flat in Kyiv than working in the Donbas Oblast. It’s the distinctive sound of the clattering engines of Iranian Shahed drones passing overhead, not knowing if like the V1s over London, you will be their victim. Oleksandr opened his first clinic 2 years ago, initially 3 days a week to help both the mentally and physically injured. Now it’s open 7 days a week, such is the demand
Our drive out from the UK had been relatively uneventful aside from being ‘blue lighted’ and pulled over by German Zoll (Customs) patrol on the Autobahn & by the Polish police for not having our headlights on. Paul was led off to their van only to come back beaming 15 minutes later, aside from a gentle ticking off, they had spent most of the time chatting about motorbikes! The Polish/Ukraine border was a breeze and on the afternoon of our third day we were in Lviv, a beautiful historical city in the West of Ukraine. Our first port of call was the tragic site of the Field of Mars, Lviv’s military cemetery which has inevitably grown since my last visit there in mid-May. Then I had joined the cortege of 3,000 mourners taking the coffin of Lt Irena Tsybrukh, a renowned video blogger and combat medic. Then her grave was at the top of field, now there are perhaps 200 graves above her and another 6 new rows have emerged to her left each with another 100 or so graves. Just a sea of lost young lives due to Russia’s barbaric aggression. Currently Ukrainian casualties are running at around 500 per day. And about 3 x that on the Russian side.
Once the stores are unloaded, we head into central Kyiv to look at the site where Oleksandr hopes to establish his next rehabilitation clinic. The building is now controlled by the army having been confiscated from a Russian Bank. The large floor space will be able to cater for up to 200 patients a day. Paul and I are given a tour of the building and then, along with Oleksandr and his assistant Dasha, we meet General Sergei who ploughs us with whiskey as we discuss the war and the needs of Ukraine. Oleksandr hopes to gain possession of the floor within the next 6 weeks and then will fit out the site with some of the equipment we have bought although this is perhaps only 20% of the equipment that will be required to care for the physically wounded. Oleksandr reminds me that it is assessed that over 41,000 people have lost limbs since 2022. I and others are in the process of registering a UK charity through which we plan to assist the Foundation in its development of this and other clinics.
Next, it’s time for dinner with Olexandr’s team in a traditional Ukrainian restaurant. The air-raid alarms go off during the main course but the app everyone has on their phone tells us that the 16 projectiles heading to Kyiv are still some way off. As they get closer, the app then shows that most are being taken down by the air defenses. So, we continue our meal. Back at the hotel later, we hear the sound of anti-missile fire and the rumble of explosions shake the windows.
The following day Paul must return to the UK, but not before Oleksandr picks him up at 05:00 to give him another tour of Kyiv prior to the very reliable Ukraine train pulling out of Pasazhyrskyi station at exactly 06:19 heading for Lviv. Dasha, Julia (another member of the Foundation) and I are then reunited with the Mercedes Sprinter, now full of medical equipment donated by a supportive Belgium charity and we head off to Chernihiv.
Our destination is the central fire brigade station where the commander shows us a film of the very hazardous work the emergency services had to perform in the early days of the war, extinguishing huge chemical fires, rescuing civilians from bombed buildings and removing unexploded Russian bombs. A few hours later we find Oleksandr asleep in his ambulance beside the road and the two vehicles head off to meet up with the army to hand over the sprinter van. Beside a picturesque lake and away from any buildings that might give away our location. we hand over the vehicle. The soldiers seem delighted with their new addition, especially noting the new winter tyres as there is more snow here. The sadness is that the van’s primary role will be moving the bodies of fallen comrades. Oleksandr & I then bid farewell to Dasha & Julia and head off to Kyiv’s second city Kharkiv and then onto Kramatorsk in his ambulance full of aid parcels.
We spend the night in a small hotel outside Poltava but not before we have supper in a specialist dumpling restaurant. Poltava is eerie this evening. It’s snowing gently, the power is off in most of the city, the darkened streets are largely deserted bar a few souls wrapped up against the biting cold and in the distance an air raid siren is going through its rhythmic oscillating wailing.
Getting about is a bit of a nightmare as all the GPS are jammed, so we eventually resort to that old trick of just asking for directions. Finally, we find our restaurant, emerging from the apocalyptic gloom, to find a 21st birthday party in full swing. Life must go on.
Throughout the trip it’s very clear that the Ukrainians we meet, civilian and military, are incredibly grateful that so many ordinary people in the UK think about them and try to help where they can. With all the recent political headlines, this moral support is even more important, and Paul and I are very touched by the treatment we’ve received and the certificates of gratitude we are given by the Foundation and the military.
Over the next day we head into the Donbas, speeding along on the excellent roads, blue lights flashing which eases our way through the frequent military checkpoints. I play Oleksandr the latest podcast installment of ‘Ukraine the latest’, he is impressed by the pithy summary given by Francis and Dom and of note since my return he now listens to the Ukrainian language version. The recipients of the contents of the ambulance are either hospitals, the emergency services or military units.
In Kharkiv, I have the privilege of meeting the head of the city emergency services and then see the central control station. Each ambulance, tracked by GPS and monitored by a team of perhaps 20 operatives are plotted on an enormous digital screen. We head south-east, past scores of destroyed villages and then onto Kramatorsk and spend the night with the army. Although still some 30 kms from the frontline, we can still hear the almost continuous sound of artillery. Later the next day we are back in Kyiv and Oleksandr proudly shows off his 110 Landrover. He loves it, Katia doesn’t which he is delighted about - no danger of her borrowing it! His only complaint is that is judders at 130 kph. The surgeon asks “Charlie, why is this” – “Oleksandr, because it's a Landrover not a Lamborghini”.
Until next time…
Slava Ukraini - Heroyam Slava