What a fine trip with some adventures on the way…
The day of any recent trip starts at about 4 a.m. in order to be on the road by five. I’d start off earlier, but the current curfew in Kyiv is from 23:00 to 05:00. Plus, if the trip involves more than one person then time frames inevitably change.
My good old buddy “Johnny Cage” arrived with his girlfriend “Kitana” at my house at about 05:05, parked his car, boarded my van and by 05:15 we were in the city center of Kyiv right next to Independence Square to pick up the international crew for a ride to the Polish border.
These guys, including my buddy, are actually world renowned drone racers and are active in supplying real nice flying goodies – our army’s eyes in the skies that save the good guys’ lives (and help exterminate ruZZian terrorist cockroaches).
And off we went direction west. About four hours later, as we were going about 120 km/h the right rear tire exploded. It literally disintegrated. It was a delayed aftermath of an event that cost me money and time on the previous trip to Sumy, when the leaf spring broke. That same pot hole damaged the rear right wheel, too.
But it’s been the fastest change of tires the planet has ever seen (besides Formula 1). I’m telling you, it’s great to have technically agile folks in the ride with you, when you encounter such a situation. One guy has put out the warning sign, another has unscrewed the spare wheel, the third set up the car jack and raised the van. A few moments later the wheel was in place and we were rolling again. And I didn’t even get my hands dirty. Wow!
So we made it to the border safely, dropped them off and got on the way to a humanitarian aid base located nearby.
We were welcomed by a few friendly folks there, of course. It turned out to be an international initiative called UAid that had a shipment planned for Kramatorsk, but no one to deliver it. The perfect case for me.
We’ve loaded the ride as much as we could (up to two tons) with meds, hygiene products, food, child care stuff, some toys, diapers. Coincidentally, a local activist has just dropped off a set of tires just the size that I needed to restore spare wheel and they’ve donated one tire to support us 🙏
On the road back to Kyiv the van almost ran out of fuel once, but we made it to a gas station that actually had diesel. Currently there are really big problems with fuel in Ukraine – besides the double price we pay, availability of any type of fuel is very limited. This is due to ruZZian terrorist cockroaches – they have fully destroyed a refinery in Lysychansk and 17 fuel bases around the country. This has completely upended downstream logistics and led to a situation, where one needs to drive three hundred miles without any possibility to refuel – so better be prepared.
But we made it. Got to Kyiv before the curfew plus I was able to load more aid and medical supplies that same night! Here in Kyiv the volunteer organization called “Dobri Lyudy” helped with extra goods. It was a productive day that went into the night that promised to be short, though. Going to sleep at 23:00 and waking up at 04:00 isn’t enough usually, but a meditation does wonders…
The next morning, after a good cup of coffee I went off to the eastern towns of Mirnograd, Kramatorsk and Yasnogorka with a goal to deliver AND to get back same day in time before curfew.
The ride there is quite nice, the roads are mostly good with a few exceptionally bad spots that I know already. And it went smooth.
All deliveries were successful and very appreciated…
But as I am writing this I’m listening to air raid sirens in Kyiv and for some reason they aren’t as intimidating as the ones I hear in Kramatorsk or Bakhmut. There one gets a feeling of higher probability of death, when the siren sounds. That’s off topic, I guess…
In any case the people in the cities, where I’ve delivered live in this deadly reality like we all do in Ukraine, but their probability of being killed is quite high. Some of them are already refugees, whose homes have been completely destroyed by the ruZZian terrorists but the war follows in their foot steps, it may seem…
These are a few of the people and families we’ve helped… They all have rather dramatic stories.
A rather young girl steps in the door. She’s around 15 or 16 years old, was born into a large family with a half a dozen siblings. Her own first born baby is a couple of months old by now and “daddy” is nowhere in sight. She’s pretty much stuck in the town of Yasnogorka, because she doesn’t know anyone outside of town. In her family everyone lost their jobs because of the total economic collapse in the region caused by ruZZian terrorist warfare.
Another woman among those pictured comes in… She has nine kids. However she’s got no more running water or gas in her house, because the ruZZian terrorist cockroaches heavily damaged the town’s infrastructure recently. Considering the circumstances, now it’s really difficult to feed the family and humanitarian aid really helps. She doesn’t evacuate, although the possibilities are there. Delving into the unknown with such a huge number of kids seems more scary for her than being at home and hearing explosions. Here the neighbors help, as well as, her family, plus some humanitarian aid and with reasonable hope that the Ukrainian Army will prevail in the region – everything may turn out ok.
As a kind elderly couple steps inside, we find out that they are refugees from the nearby town of Liman. Their home has been shelled and burned to the ground like most buildings there. They’ve lost pretty much everything they ever had except for their lives and hope that peace will be back in the region as soon as ruZZian mass murderers, rapists, war criminals are hunted out of Ukraine.
Absolutely all of the people that come in are victims of the ruZZian terrorist warfare. Some have lost loved ones, others lost their homes and were forced to flee, they’ve got no more economic footing for now and are mostly taking care of three, four or even more kids. The humanitarian situation is not a catastrophe, just yet, but with the continuing onslaught the number of refugees rises even in this town, where people are urged to evacuate daily…
All these people and families have major reasons that prevent them from leaving, while many consider the towns of Kramatorsk and Yasnogorka a comparably safe refuge considering that nearby Liman, Severodonetsk, Lisichansk and many others are uninhabitable due to the ruZZian terrorists bombing, invading, murdering, raping, stealing everything.
Although it’s very sad in general, the aid that we all deliver really helps people survive and keep the quality of life from falling into an intolerable abyss. There are quite a few Ukrainian and international initiatives, both independent volunteers and larger organizations do the job of taking care of civilians fairly well, as far as I can see.
To keep doing this it’s vital for us together to at least fuel the vehicle and service it to keep it running and to deliver aid to such places, where without it life would literally be difficult. I thank everyone who has helped already and is continuously supporting my endeavour with contributions. Every dollar helps materially and morally, as it reflects the truly global unity and willingness to support the good, peace and freedom in this world.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
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