No . 134 The Trusty Servant
The response to the appeal was immense . We raised $ 30,000 , more than double our original target , enabling us to also buy a variety of high value items in California that were in short supply in Europe . I arrived in the UK with 250lbs of luggage , including various medical supplies , water filtration devices , a drone , and 10 sets of body armor . On the ground in the UK , we were able to pack the ambulance with a further two tons of food and clothing donations that KHARPP collected in London and Cardiff .
Into the Valley of Death I do not want to exaggerate the danger my co-pilot Oliver and I were in relative to that which Alex subsequently endured in Kharkiv . Lviv is nowhere near the fighting , and missile strikes have been infrequent since the early days of the war .
Nonetheless , as we left the Krościenko-Smilnytsya border crossing , passing under an enormous blue and yellow sign saying ‘ Ukraine ’, I could not help but feel the weight of the situation . We passed multiple armed checkpoints as Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters criss-crossed overhead in a frenetic aerial display . Combined with the dreary grey clouds gathering into a storm overhead , it called to mind those famous words from Tennyson ’ s Charge of the Light Brigade .
The mood sobered further upon our arrival at a cluster of tired Soviet-era apartment blocks on the outskirts of Lviv , where we met Alex ’ s friend and civilian resistance contact , Nadia . Given her lack of English we communicated in my broken Russian , and she told us follow her in her car . We pulled up outside an enormous white Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , topped with gleaming gilded cupolas . Minutes later several clergymen in floor-length black robes
Blessing the ambulance before being sent east to the front
came out and met us . We stood quietly as they conducted a ceremony with incense and holy water , their prayers blessing the ambulance before its trip to the eastern front lines .
Nadia explained that both vehicles and soldiers en route to the frontlines are blessed in this way before departure , with shockingly high numbers expected never to return . It was a grim and moving reminder that the scale and ferocity of the bloodshed of this war is like nothing Europe has experienced since the 1940s .
By this point it was too late in the day to attempt a crossing back to Poland , with the 11pm – 5am national curfew imminent . We found lodging and ate supper in the central square of Lviv , built in beautiful Austro- Hungarian style . As we talked over beers at a lively roof bar , it would have been easy to forget that we were in a country at war - were it not for the elevated platform next to us harboring an anti-aircraft gun .
Early the next morning , in drizzling rain , we visited an exhibition of destroyed Russian tanks , captured in Moschun in March during the desperate Battle of Kyiv . Their mangled forms suggested an unpleasant demise for their former occupants . We then caught a lift to the border , where we crossed back into Poland on foot with a long line of refugees .
That afternoon we spent our last useful hours volunteering carrying suitcases for arriving refugees at the Przemyśl train station . Nearly all of them were young women and children in states of total exhaustion . We did what we could ; I never thought it would be possible to feel so useful for simply carrying a few bags .
An Appeal Alex and the KHARPP team continue to do remarkable work , filling the gaps missed by formal foreign aid .
KHARPP recently received hundreds of direct messages from residents of a village called Druzhivka in the Donbas region asking for help . One visiting reporter described the village as ‘ like a horror film ’. By the time this article goes to print , Alex and his team will be on the ground delivering 300 aid boxes , with escorted by a security detail given the risk of kidnap in an area so close to the shifting front lines .
I end this piece with an appeal . Many in Britain have given generously in cash or by housing refugees . If any readers are inspired to support KHARPP , please donate at www . KHARRP . com . The stoicism of the Ukrainian people is reminiscent of our own national struggle during the Battle of Britain . As once Churchill said , now does Zelensky : ' Give us the tools and we will finish the job .'
5