The first blog of 2025!
This is going to be a long one, so please, grab a coffee, make yourself comfortable and enjoy!
Our last mission of 2024 was back in October. We made a decision then to wait until March before we drove more cars over. The reasons are many, but what with the weather it seemed to be the right thing to do. However that little voice in my head was whispering, its a long time from October until March, so I hatched a cunning plan.
How about a small holiday to Ulaniv, see Nick, spend a few days with him and immerse myself in Ukraine for the first time since 2019.
Plans were made, flights and trains were booked, and I do want to be absolutely clear about this, everything is paid for out of my own pocket. The money we raise from the store is only ever used for aid, never for flights, hotels, trains or anything else personal.
There is a saying that any plan never survives first contact with the enemy and this was the perfect example, starting a few days before I left. I was standing in front of my suitcase, and all I could see was a huge pile of donated socks, hats, hand warmers and sleeping bags.
So a plan formed in my head, lets take this to Olena, but then how to get there, we were taking a flight to Krakow, and a train to Ukraine, so we had no car.
A quick call to Nick and this was resolved as we could hire a car once we got off the train in Ukraine, another achievement unlocked!
Let’s talk about the journey first, as my original plan was to quickly get to Ukraine, but that is next to impossible, as the flight and train times just did not mesh well. I arrived in Krakow at 11am, and my train from Poland to Ukraine did not leave until Midnight! I still had to get to the train station on the Polish border, which was several hours away, and the train from Poland to Ukraine arrived at 8AM the following day.
This train is not a sleeper, so an uncomfortable night beckoned.
The arrangement once off the train in Ukraine was that I was to meet up with two Ukrainian men who would give me the hire car in exchange for money. Sounds like something out of a spy movie, but in fact the truth was far stranger and way more pleasant!
Picture this if you will, the train arrives at Vinnytsia train station, I am weighed down with a 10KG rucksack that is starting to to fall apart and a suitcase that is north of 20kg with tiny wheels that are failing to do what wheels do. I am tired, hungry and in need of coffee before I start the long and complicated negotiations with the hire car men that I am sure will be way more difficult than needs to be. Welcome to Ukraine!
I find a small Coffee shop, order my first Americano of the day, with plenty of sugar, and my phone rings! Nick tells me the men are waiting for us at the front of the station, so with a painful sigh, I load up the rucksack and start pulling my hateful suitcase, wondering if in fact I have made the right decision about a holiday in Ukraine when to my amazement I see the most incredible sight.
Our lovely bastard, Andriy had come all the way to Vinnytsia from Kyiv just to meet me. And best of all was holding up a Lovely Bastards sign, like some sort of angelic taxi driver waiting at the airport for his fare!
The reason I am spending so much time and effort to paint this picture in your head is simple. For the past 2 months, I have wished to meet him again. The last time in October, we had but a few hours to spend with him, before he headed back to the front and combat duties.
I do not need to spell out in black and white why this is so difficult.
At this point, for your imagination, my tiredness vanished, any doubts I had evaporated and after many hugs and smiles we sorted out the hire car and got on the road.
A few hours later, we arrive in Ulaniv, meet up with Nick and again, the emotions are hard to write down in words.
Of course, we talked and talked, about life on the front line, what is needed, how we can help. In fact we talked so much, before we realised, it was nearly daylight! I had been up for nearly 50 hours without any real sleep and now some rest was needed.
The second thing that happened was even more incredible. Again unbeknown to us, Andriy had arranged with his Mum who works in the local school as a teacher for both myself and Andriy to do a small presentation to a group of students of the school.
The work started as we needed to create a presentation to show the students, think about what to say and what message we wanted to pass on to them.
The classroom reminds me very much of my school days from the 1970’s. I hope you do not think I am being rude for saying this, but it is the truth. Ulaniv is not a huge place, and it is clear that there is little investment in education here. Of course the teachers try their best, but without money there is only so much they can do. And as we walk into the classroom, you get a feeling of sadness from the students. They are aged between 13 and 17, and from what I can gather, most have never met a foreigner before.
I will not tell you in detail what we did, that is for another time, but we spoke to the students about Ukraine UK Aid and what we have achieved so far, followed by Andriy telling them about his life as a combat soldier.
I wanted to give them something to inspire them to help, so I stood up at the end of the presentation, and with Nick translating, told them this.
“My Message to you all is very simple
You are not alone
You are not forgotten
The Free World sees your struggles
You will not give up
Neither will we
Slava Ukraine”
This message came from my heart, it was not rehearsed, and I hope it changed some minds. The fact that some ordinary guy from the UK can make this journey to come see them in Ulaniv must mean something. And I hope that it made a difference.
A few days later, we were told by many of the teachers that the whole school was still buzzing about our visit, and we have plans to repeat this in March when we return on the next mission.
I am telling you this, and also reading my words back to myself and I am worried this may sound a little egotistical, perhaps even that I am showing off, and really this is not my intention.
It is more to explain that supporting Ukraine is multilayered. Sometimes it is about cars, gloves, drones and medical supplies. But actually, it is often more that they know they are not alone. It is a very human frailty to fear being alone, and a beacon in the darkness is to know that you are not alone, that you have people looking after you, people who will not abandon you.
Often Andriy tells me, in his darkest moments, that knowing we are there for him is one of the most important things to him. A note or a packet of sweets from the UK is all it takes to lift him out of hell and make him feel human again.
And this is the most important lesson we have learned over these past nearly three years. Support comes in many forms.
Our next piece of work to do was to prepare for the Flag raffle, I hope by now, most of you have watched it, and hopefully enjoyed it.
It was an honour to have both Nick and Andriy sit beside me whist I rambled on.
And congratulations to Gerald Kingston for winning the Flag. I will be seeing him next week to present his prize to him, and for those who do not know him, he has contributed massively to Ukraine UK Aid, finding and fixing many of the X-Trails we have taken over.
A more worthy winner I cannot imagine!
For those of you who have made it this far, congratulations! Take a few minutes, stretch your legs and maybe have a comfort break, I am nearly finished!
Our last day of work was fast approaching. On Friday, we left Ulaniv early to drive to see our friends Olena and Anna. They live in the North of the Country, very near to the Belarus border, and on the flight path for the many Shahed drones that every day bring terror and death to Ukraine.
For months now, they have lived with the noise of the shahed mopeds flying directly over their houses, followed by the banging of the guns of the sky defenders who try valiantly to hold them back.
But they never give up, they are always helping the Army and we help them as much as we can.
It takes nearly 5 hour to get there, and we know we can only stay for a few hours, before we must leave to get back to Ulaniv before the Curfew starts. We do not have the protection of driving a UK car, so must be very careful around the many checkpoints that exist in that area.
Before we arrive in Olyzarivka, we stop off at Borodyanka to visit our friend Olena (another one!), who runs a small Army Shop. We buy up her entire stock of winter jackets and fleeces! My guess is she shut up the shop after we left.
If you remember from a previous blog, this is the same shop I purchased my famous sunglasses from during our mission last August, and we always make a point of going there now, to say hi and support her business. She suffered greatly in the initial days of the full scale invasion back in 2022, and her original shop was destroyed, so now she works out of her stock room. This is another example of how we are helping the people of Ukraine.
Our visit with Olena and Anna was both emotional and very short. But is is always good to see them, many productive discussions were had, and of course we always leave with a full car of new items for the store.
Some are already available to buy, and we have a delivery coming to the UK next week, so please keep checking the store.
It is also worth talking about our Store, V2 update, which is huge. All of us have spent an enormous amount of time and effort working on this the past few months, and we would really appreciate your feedback on it. Let us know what you like, more importantly what you do not like, and how we can make things better for you.
The store is our life, and the contents are the only reason we can continue to help Ukraine.
And whilst talking to Olena, she said something that stopped me in my tracks. Up until that point, I had still considered this a holiday. Certainly not easy, nor relaxing or even pleasant, but still a holiday. She looked me in my eyes and told me that this is a Mission, In fact Mission Tactical! So let it be so. What has just passed shall now be known as Mission 15 Operation Tactical!
Which leads me nicely onto the future and what I like to think of as the evolution of Ukraine UK Aid.
Mission 16 is going to happen at the end of March, and it will probably be the last two cars we take over.
So plans are being made to make this the best mission yet.
However, I feel you deserve an explanation as to why we are not going to regularly take cars anymore.
There are many reasons why and all of them are complex and hard to explain, but it boils down to two simple reasons.
1. The cars needed by the Army have changed, they need pickup trucks and more importantly they need reliable and good quality trucks. Realistically this prices us out of the Market as these types of cars are 4 to 5 times more expensive than the X-Trails we have been donating. Even if we could afford them, the help we can do would be limited to once every couple of months at best. And this leads me onto the second reason.
2. There is a huge need for immediate help and this is something we can do effectively. The list of equipment that most soldiers need comes down to a few types, specific types of generators, charging stations, special types of combat medical supplies and comms such as Starlinks. The usual way of a soldier getting these item is via Olena and Anna setting up a collection and then via various means raising the money locally. Sometimes we also get a request for something more expensive such as Night Vision Googles or thermal scope and again this is something we can help with. The advantages of working this way are huge, as a collection that may take Olena and Anna weeks or even months to complete, we can close in a matter of hours. The difference this makes is huge on the ground. A soldier who needs something can get it in days rather than weeks, and this can mean the matter between life and death for them. I will not go into specific details but we have seen this with our own eyes, that sometimes when a collection isn’t closed quickly enough, the results can be tragic.
And this is how we are going to help moving forward.
The simple fact is that we do help, we help specific needs, and we help straight away.
And this makes the biggest difference.
Of course, we will still go to Ukraine, as I have explained already, support comes in many forms, so of which are not obvious, but are just as important to the people of Ukraine
And we may still drive cars over, as and when the need arises, but for now, our goal is to help a select group of trusted soldiers with whatever it is that they need.
Congratulations!
This blog has been a long one, and honestly quite a tough one for me to write. When we started this in 2022 the mood was very different. Fight hard and victory was assured was the cry we often heard.
Nowadays, the mood has changed, the people of Ukraine are very tired of this war, and we owe it to them to not give up.
Life is a struggle for all of us, but for our lovely supporters we just have to dig a little deeper and help a little more.
We owe it to Ukraine,
They are our shield from this terrible evil.
They are the reason we sleep peacefully at night.
And I thank each and every person serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine for this.
Elliott Svatos
08/02/2025
Lovely Pizza restaurant in Przemyśl, one last meal before a long ride on the overnight train to Ukraine.
And finally being greeted by Andriy at Vinnytsia train station was all the reward we needed.
Three good men in Ulaniv! Finally together for the first time since October 2024.
Ulaniv Middle School presentation. This was an emotional day for sure.
Nick telling the story of Ukraine UK Aid.
So this is what being a celebrity is like, many of the students wanted their picture taken with us!
Some of the many beautiful paintings done by the students of the school.
We certainly left our mark!
We were given a painting as a gift. This beautiful picture will be available to purchase from our store very soon.
Constant reminders of war. Even in School, they remember the fallen heroes of Ulaniv. Each child walks past this memorial many times each day.
The patch board in the Army Shop in Borodyanka. The UK/UA patch was given to Olena by us on our last visit.
Many beautiful items donated to us by the people of Ivankiv area. The obligatory Flag picture with Olena and Anna, in the secret room of surprises!
The largest and best Gas station in Ukraine.
Seems like Cush wants to go back to the UK!
Waiting for the train home, Vinnytsia Station. Always a sad moment.