December 2025 – Kropyvnytskyi, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa

Andy was very pleased to be joined by Tony again – these runs can be very brutal with just one driver!

Prior to any run, there’s a lot of work to do to locate and load up the donated aid! Delighted to meet Norman Hunter Rose of The Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem who kindly passed on knitted blankets and dolls for our next run.

We are very grateful to Bob Lewis and Stuart at Medi Tech Trust for their continued support – Stuart always has everything ready, weighed and numbered for us which saves a lot of time!

Also, huge thanks to James Slaney and his family for kindly donating a number of medical items:

Andy visited our dear friend Valentyna to pick up aid destined for front line soldiers – these items will save lives! Valentyna has also once again paid for a hotel stay in Vinnitsya for us – we are so grateful for this!

The other thing we have to do for each run is to raise funds! Thanks to another dear friend, Rick Bonner, who allowed us to have a stall at his recent fundraiser in Eastbourne.

Many thanks to Eastbourne Silver Band for an excellent Remembrance event . A well thought out program which was performed excellently – a special mention for a flawless Last Post and Reveille from MD Marcus Plant. We are hugely grateful to all who donated on the day – half of the collection will be helped to fund our this aid run. Both Andy and Tony attended the concert.

All that was left to do was to go!

After a smooth run through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Poland, it was time for our favourite game of “Border Bingo”!

The border crossing took just 2 1/2 hours mainly due to the extra time on biometrics. Fortunately, both of us had already done the initial scan so just fingerprinting and we were through. We arrived at our hotel stop in Vinnitsya – huge thanks once again to Valentyna Skoromets for supporting us with this, we really appreciated it!
A last minute change saw us getting up early to head out to the Orphanage where we were now to meet up with another dear fried, Wozza and his team – they also had Father Christmas with them!
Both teams visiting at the same time made this even more special: The video below gives a flavour of our time there:

We joined Wozza’s team as they visited other children in temporary foster homes – the pictures don’t do justice to this part of the day. These children stay with the families until new permanent foster parents have been found. They all dressed in traditional costume and recited poems for us. Oner particularly touching moment can be seen in the middle picture on the bottom row – we were told that this was the first time that the young girl in pink had not cried when picked up by a man.

Back at our hotel in Krop there was time for a meal together with Anton & his family, Wozza’s team and our friend “Mr. Air Defence”. We had visited his location prior to this – the only time during our stay when we had to go underground:

The following day, we joined or host, Anton, who took us down to Kherson to deliver medical aid to a front line drone unit. A fascinating insight into the technology they have available, we watched live footage of drones seeking out Russian targets – we were around 15-20km away from the nearest Russians. This was also the first time we experienced anti-drone netting above the road.

When visiting military folks, I do try to make sure I have a flag with me and today was no exception!

Next up was a trip down to Zaporizhzhia. The city has become increasingly under attack and rather than stay overnight, this was a quick day trip.

First up, we met up with Jimmy & Alena at checkpoint 1 – we only had a short time with them but were able to we share a few items including bubbles for their bubble machine, a small chain saw, a big box of Ibuprofen and Christmas Puddings!

Next up, we delivered aid to Nataly and the Himars Charity.

A lot of the aid we brought was donated by Henrietta, a volunteer at Age UK which consisted of items they are not allowed to sell in their charity shops. This includes used sleeping bags which are much in demand here! Additional items came from Dee Johnson, The Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem and various supporters of Brass Band Aid for Ukraine.

Nataly doesn’t waste time getting aid distributed – we received these pictures before we even left the country!

Further pictures including aid from this run came later:

It was then back to Krop for a take away pizza with Anton and his family. I took a Lego set of a London Bus for the children which I hope to see completed on the next run! I also left them with a promise that when the war is over, we’ll all go on one for real!

The next day, we headed out to Odesa where the bulk of our aid was going. This video gives a brief flavour of our run down to Odesa.

I am very grateful to Tony for funding the 2 nights in an apartment – in an earlier life, Tony worked in a Michelin rated restaurant to cooked breakfast as well! (I was of course assigned KP duties!).
Whilst Tony had other meetings, I spent the evening with the President of the “I Will Help” Foundation, Olexander and his wife Julia. A really lovely evening with some great Borsch and a lot of Bushmills!
During the evening, Olexander presented me with Certificates of Appreciation from military unit A3880 for myself and Medi Tech Trust.

The following day, it was time to unload:.

The Odesa team provide us with a lot of proof of delivery to the end recipients – here are some of those videos which include items from our last run:

After another of Tony’s excellent breakfasts, it was time to head back to the border at Medyka – a 13+ hour drive away! Just one more delivery task to do on the way – we had a couple of parcels for Taras the Priest with items to support soldiers in military hospitals with some base hygiene items. These were sent using the wonderful Nova Poshta service.