UK – Ukraine Convoy: Short Story One – the people of Ukraine

Having landed back in the UK overnight, I wanted to share some short stories of my experiences of driving rescue vehicles and aid from the UK to Ukraine.

I will break this down into three or four short stories. I wanted to start at the beginning of the convoy. However, with Ukraine dominating the news agenda I wanted to start with my experience in Ukraine, the people and the men and women of the armed forces who I had the honour to meet.

On Saturday afternoon we crossed the border from Poland into Ukraine. This was a remarkably pain-free experience thanks to the brilliant pre-organisation of Jacob (the convoy lead from Driving Ukraine). From this crossing point, it was roughly a two-hour drive to our end point in Lviv.

Driving from the border to Lviv was heartwarming. Countless Ukrainian’s waved, beeped and flashed their lights at us when they saw our UK, Greek, French, Italian and Norwegian flags on our vehicles.

When we arrived at the drop off point, the engineers took our vehicles and started to prepare them for immediate transportation to the front lines where they would be passed onto medics. This work was a service to make sure the vehicles were in tip top condition and a spray paint to get the right camouflage patterns onto them.  Whilst we were at the garage, we had the immense privilege of meeting some of the medics who were going to use our vehicles.

One of those amazing people I met was Victoria. Victoria is a Ukrainian / American combat medic volunteer. Her studies are paused as she works to save lives on the front line. Victoria shared some of her stories with me and she is truly one of the most impressive, softly spoken young people I have ever met.

Whilst we were handing the vehicles over, we heard from several other members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who thanked us and thanked everyone who donated to purchase these vehicles and crucial medical aid for standing firm alongside Ukraine. This was the day after the ‘leaders’ of the United States attempted to humiliate President Zelensky. Being alongside volunteers from the UK, Norway, Italy, France, Greece and Ireland at this moment in history felt like an important moment in all our lives which we will never forget.

I cannot state enough how many times the Ukrainian’s thanked us.

They have nothing to thank us for. We should be thanking them for standing up for the free world. Every person we met, including individuals in the high street and in restaurants. When they heard our foreign accents, they asked why we were here and what we had done – when we had shared our story, they just wanted to thank us.

Following the drop off of the vehicles, we had a team dinner to regroup after a crazy busy few days. After dinner and before the curfew, I and a few others ended up having a few too many drinks with some Ukrainian’s we got talking too. They shared their stories; we shared our photos of the last few days. They were incredibly kind people and wanted to show off that Tyson Fury was beaten not once but twice by Oleksandr Usyk.

The following day we gathered as a team and headed off to Fields of Mars. This is a memorial for everyone who has been killed in action from the city of Lviv.

Nothing could have prepared me for the scale of what I saw. When we drove around the corner, I just remember saying to myself ‘oh my god’. There was row after row of graves for the men and women who had scarified everything for their country. A few of the gentlemen I was traveling with had visited the Field of Mars a little over 12 months ago and they showed me their photos from that time – and the scale of how this memorial had increased in that short period of time was heartbreaking.

I had the opportunity to spend a large amount of time here and four things really stood out to me.

The first was the pure scale of this one memorial. It was horrifying.

The second was the breadth of ages of those who had been killed fighting for their country. Many were my age, and many much younger - including teenagers.

The third was how fresh some of the graves were. The most recent fallen had been killed in action only a few days before we had arrived in their country.

Fourth and finally, and the hardest part of this visit, was the parents, brothers and sisters I saw quietly tending to the graves of their fathers, sons and daughters.

This was one of the most challenging and powerful experiences of my life to date. It was an honour to stand alongside the other volunteers from across Europe as we showed our respects to the fallen.

After this we went into the centre of Lviv, to see their beautiful city. Whilst walking around some Ukrainian soldiers heard our accents and stopped us for a chat. When they heard about the vehicles we had dropped off - they wanted to again, thank us. They took us to the Local Government building in Lviv which has a beautiful old tower. This tower has been closed to tourists since Covid – but they took us to the top for a bird’s eye view of their home. After this, they took us to the oldest coffee shop in Lviv (around 300 years old) where we had a traditional coffee (with plenty of rum) and we listened to their stories.

After this morning, I had to travel back over the border to Poland. I have never walked across a border before, so I was a little nervous about the experience. The first thing that hit me as Matt and I made our way across the border was the number of Ukrainian soldiers crossing the border. As we walked through ‘no man’s land’, there must have been over 1,000 men in uniform waiting to get back into their country. They had been training in Europe and were coming into Ukraine and heading to the front line.

When we visited the graves, I knew this was going to be emotional, but you were mentally prepared for this. However, I found this moment the hardest thing I saw whilst on our travels. The faces of these young and old men – from Ukraine, Germany and Poland (from the flags I could see on their uniform) will never leave me. There was no small talk between them, no laughter just men sharing cigarettes and waiting. I cannot imagine how they felt and cannot being to imagine what they were thinking about – but watching hundreds of men cross the border and get onto their buses and head off to war really brought the reality of war home to me.

Then, and as with the whole of this journey – the mixture of highs and lows came again. As we joined the queue to cross the border we got chatting to some Ukrainian’s. After trying and failing badly to both teach English and learn Ukrainian – we bonded over some vodka. Where we did one too many shots whilst waiting in the five-hour queue. They shared their drink, food and offered cigarettes and everything they had with us. They made us feel incredibly relaxed and welcome.

And this final experience summed up the people I had the chance to meet in Ukraine. Yes, they are tired of war, but they are determined to keep fighting to protect their country. Yes, they were worried about continued international support, but this was not wavering their commitment to ensuring that Ukraine remains a free, sovereign country. They have a great sense of humour (they are also excellent at arm wrestling) and they are incredibly generous hosts. I have never felt more welcome in any country I have been too before. And they were grateful for the small show of international support which we were able to show.

So, whatever you read in the papers from politicians and commentators about the Ukrainian people, just remember – many of these people have not only never been to Ukraine but have never actually talked to a Ukrainian. I think it’s time we stop telling Ukraine what is good for them and start listening to them as we work together to create a lasting peace.