Run 15 – April 2023

This will be a milestone run as it is the first time that we go with an additional van and with that, our capacity has now doubled! Huge thanks to Mike and Karl who prepared Andy’s new van for its maiden run into Ukraine! We will update this post as the run gets underway!

Between the 2 vans, we successfully delivered around 200k of aid to our partners in Brovary! Scroll through the images to see just some of the aid at the Brovary HQ of “Future of the Children of Ukraine”: (It started raining heavily as we were unloading so much of the aid was covered until it could be sported)

Sadly, both vans suffered with mechanical faults whilst we were there – fortunately, Mike knows what he is doing and the water pump on the new van was replaced whilst the gearbox on the other was being fixed by one of our local contacts, Here’s Mike at work on one of them!

Whilst Andy returned to the UK on Wednesday, Mike took advantage of the enforced stay to drive some of the aid in a local van down to the Donetsk region where he also helped with the construction of new mobile facilities to enable soldiers to wash, eat and wash their clothes. This is an awesome project from Maryna and her team! Here’s Mike on his way to a hospital down there:

Here are some thoughts from him on what is everyday life in the Donetsk region at this time:

Mike took a real shine to one of the trucks down there but no, you can’t have it Mike! (Think of the fuel bill for this beast!)

Some other pictures/video of his time there:

For Mike & Annie, the run continues a while – more updates will be posted here as we get them.
For Andy, the aid collection has already started for Run 16!

Here’s a more detailed video of Mike’s tip – Konstantinivka hospital is only 15km from Bakhmut and the army depot at New York was 3km from the front line. Also the drive between the two places took him as close as a few hundred metres from the front line hence the breakneck speed of the journey.