Andy’s 25th Run – The New Van Project

Going back in time, you may recall the issue of my old van breaking down in Ukraine and its subsequent conversion and donation as an ambulance! That is now saving lives in the front line and inspired a new project to provide further vehicles. Following a conversation with Michael Kobarenko, Anna Pukas James and Roman Kyrnycky, we formed a project to locate and deliver another van!
After a lengthy search, a suitable vehicle was purchased!

The original plan was for Mike to join Andy on his last run but for various reasons, we had to delay and so Mike and Andy went separately just over a week after Andy had returned from that run – I wouldn’t normally do such a quick turnaround but we felt it was important to get this out there now that we had it!

As Mike is based in Scunthorpe, the aid that we were taking was sourced there – our thanks to Hull for Ukraine, Anna & Kristina Pukas, W.A.P Army Combat plus other local donors via Mike Kobarenko, we were able to easily fill the van,

All of the above was donated by W.A.P – huge thanks to them!

Before we left for the overnight ferry from Hull, he team met at the best fish and chip shop in Scunthorpe!

Although Mike’s father was Ukrainian, this was to be his first ever trip to his homeland – with the van all ready to go, we set off!

Apologies for the background wind!

After a very good crossing, and a good run through, it was time for Mike’s first experience of Border Bingo!

Our first night was at a different hotel than normal – we moved to the normal one the following day.

First up was our regular visit to the Orphanage – a very moving experience for Mike to meet some of these kids for the first time.

On the way back, we called in to introduce Mike to our good friend “Mr. Air Defence” where he had prepared Borsch for us! As well as getting an opportunity to see their location, Mike’s experience as a Radio operator led to some great discussions on future help we can deliver to them.

Next stop was to Anton’s yard to offload the items for the front line in Kherson region- we weren’t able to deliver these personally but Anton had them all in place before we arrived back in the UK!

The final delivery of the day was to forward some items from Hull for Ukraine via the Nova Poshta service.

We had some great downtime with Anton & Liza during our stay – here’s a few pictures from a tour around Kropyvnytskyi:

The next day, we were up early to drive down to Zaporizhia. It was a nice sunny drive down and we stopped to switch drivers at the border marker for the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Mike also recorded the occassion:

Our first call was to Nataly at the Himars Charity – a regular drop off for us.

Nataly also invited us to help deliver some aid, including some items that were on our van, to a shelter in the City where a family we are familiar with are now living.

From here, we went to visit James Kaprini – Both Mike and Anna have been supporting Jimmy from a distance so this was an opportunity for Mike to finally meet him. We also had some aid for him too. Jimmy and Anna kindly offered to take us out into the front line area near to Orikhiv so that Mike could experience what it was like there.
This was the first time on this run that we needed to wear body armour and our sincere thanks to Jimmy and Anna for making this happen – any visit outside the City can be dangerous and Jimmy does this pretty much daily, going a lot further towards zero line to deliver aid where it is most needed. He had cleared our trip, checked on known threats before we left and gave us both a thorough briefing on what to do. (and what NOT to do!). He carries a drone detector which enabled us safely to visit towns and villages that have been wantonly destroyed by the Russians – just ordinary people, getting on with their lives, lived in these places before they were destroyed. The following clips and photos were taken during this trip – once again, we can’t thank Jimmy enough for putting himself and Anna at risk so that Mike could see this first hand for the first time.

Back at Jimmy’s HQ, it was time for the final video of our Zaporizhzhia visit.

We also made a summary video of the day.

And this specific video about our front line visit – this is just a collection of the raw video.

On the way down to Zaporizhzhia, we started to get warnings of an issue with the Ad Blue system – whilst this cleared after topping that up, on setting off to return to Krop, the messages returned. As one of them suggested the vehicle would not start after 800km driving, this left us with a problem for our planned trip to Odessa the following day.

Whilst waiting for the call from Anton to handover the van, we spent some time in the city. I took the opportunity to interview Mike on a street corner – this video gives a real insight to how he is feeling about his homeland right now and the impact on him of this first trip.

The final act was to handover the van to the volunteers – first, Anton ran some diagnostics on it to resolve the Ad Blue issue:

We then spent the rest of the day in the City with Anton followed by a meal at their home. With our first train at just before Midnight, we started the long journey home. 5-6 hours to Kyiv with another couple of hours layover before our direct train to the Border which was 12 hrs plus on the train as well! The long distance trains in Ukraine all have couchettes so it is possible to sleep but with a daytime second leg, that wasn’t so easy. Once across the border, it was another wait for the final train to Krakow – and a 12 hour wait for our flights home! Some of the time was passed chatting to a fellow aid runner that we met who by coincidence, was from the same regiment as Andy back in the day|!

Final thoughts on the trip.