Emma Richards salutes the Teddington volunteers taking transport and supplies to Ukraine...
My husband Brendan isn’t a risk taker. So imagine my astonishment when he casually lets slip that he has just signed up to drive 36 hours across Europe to war-torn Ukraine.
He is doing this with Mighty Convoy, a Teddington-based charity that raises funds to buy second-hand vehicles and drive them out to the war zone loaded with humanitarian aid. Working in partnership with the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine (CMAU), as well as the International Christian Medical and Dental Association (ICMDA), it delivers ambulances and 4x4 pick-up trucks straight to medical teams on the ground.
Its founder is Simon Brake. Inspired by an advertisement from a Ukrainian expat seeking volunteer drivers, which appeared on the neighbourhood app Nextdoor, Brake first set off for the Polish-Ukrainian border with a pick-up truck in April 2022. The bug bit.
By the summer, Brake and three friends had set up Mighty Convoy to keep the aid flowing, and in August of that year the first full convoy – three ambulances sourced in the West Midlands – was ready to hit the road.
But while the trip was successful, Brake soon found that his strategy – crowdfunding to purchase vehicles and then looking for volunteers to transport them – left finances seriously stretched. Cue the switch to a ‘pay-to-drive’ model: volunteers raise £7,000 to cover the cost of a second-hand vehicle, insurance and fuel and then drive in pairs to Ukraine.
It is for precisely this intrepid form of philanthropy that my hitherto risk-averse husband heads over to Simon’s house, ready for a 7am start.
The trip is a landmark affair: one of the vehicles in the convoy will be the 100th that the charity has delivered. Quite some achievement, given that Brake had only ever planned on a single mission back in the embryonic days of the war.
The mood is buoyant. “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine!) shout the seven departing men at the neighbours, waving and tooting their horns. The Blitz spirit is upon us.
Left behind in tranquil Teddington, however, I am somewhat less sanguine about the days ahead. What will it be like for Brendan to enter a war zone? Admittedly, Lviv, the convoy’s destination, is relatively safe. Though subject to regular aerial attacks, it is nevertheless far from the front line and easily accessible by car. But still...
Nor do the despatches from the border allay my fears. They tell of stiff backs, bureaucratic hold-ups and – rather more ominously – the sound of sirens.
“You’re told this will happen, but nothing can prepare you for it,” messages Brendan, whose air raid app goes off for the next three nights.
The convoy continues, snaking through a landscape of small Ukrainian villages and allotments, before entering the handsome baroque masterpiece of Lviv.
Here are gold-domed churches gleaming in the sunshine, Hapsburg coffee houses and cobbled streets. Cosy French bistros, cool wine bars and top restaurants all rival their equivalents in London or Paris – at a fraction of the price. Life is strangely normal, reports Brendan: a functioning world filled with people shopping, walking their dogs or sipping wine at pavement cafes in the sun.
Yet all is not well. The front line may be 600 miles away – the distance from London to Berlin – but signs of the war abound. Monuments are covered with scaffolding; a curfew runs from midnight to 5am; people in uniform are everywhere.
And then there is the Field of Mars, a memorial to fallen soldiers in Lychakiv Cemetery. A vast sea of billowing blue and yellow flags spills out from more than 1,000 graves, all adorned with the names and pictures of loved ones. An inscription running across the cemetery wall bears the words of a young Ukrainian poet who was killed last year. “When they ask me what war is,” it reads, “I answer without hesitation: names.”
Even in war, however, joy can coexist with grief. There’s sheer exhilaration when the team meet their Ukrainian contacts from the CMAU, who will ensure that the vehicles and aid are sent to where they’re needed most. The medics are deeply grateful.
Surgeon Andriy Telezhnyi, of the First Separate Medical Battalion, highlights the life-saving importance of the vehicles.
“A wounded person’s life depends not only on the care they receive, but also on whether they can be transported to a medical facility in time,’’ he explains.
It’s an ongoing battle. A few of Mighty Convoy’s ambulances have already been deliberately targeted by Russian forces.
“To the enemy, one medic is worth 10 soldiers,” says Uliana Kovalyshyn, Director of the CMAU.
And while the aid is vital, so too is showing the Ukrainians that they are not forgotten. Handing over the convoy keys to Military Commander Arkopan is a moment of deep connection, for which Brendan receives a certificate for “loyalty to the Ukrainian people”.
Later, with missiles in the air, the group heads for Kryivka, a bunker-style restaurant honouring WWII partisans and offering safety from the eerie thrum of drones. A knock on the heavy wooden door is greeted by a stern-looking soldier armed with a gun and shots of honey vodka. Brendan shouts the password, “Slava Ukraini!”, to reassure the young man that he isn’t an enemy spy.
In this cavernous space, chefs specialise in no-frills dishes that the partisans used to eat, like pivmetra kovbasa (half a metre of spicy sausage) or varenyky (dumplings stuffed with potatoes and onion, or mince).
In the East the war rages on; but here, deep underground, there is eating, drinking and laughing at the Russians. Satire is a weapon of survival: in Lviv gift shops, toilet paper bears the face of President Putin, while T-shirts worn by CMAU staff are emblazoned with the wry exhortation to “make Russia small again”.
Mission complete, Brendan takes the night train to Kamianets-Podilskyi, western Ukraine, to meet some inspiring social entrepreneurs. Like Svetlana, who devotes the profits from her vineyard to a centre for children suffering the trauma of war. Or the headteacher who raises funds by breeding catfish in the school swimming pool.
With or without peace, this country will need aid for years to come. In the meantime, with a quiet dignity, Ukrainians carry on. At 9am today, the city of Lviv stopped – cars, pedestrians, trams. All across the land, a minute of silence honoured the military personnel and civilians who have died in this interminable war. It happened yesterday too and will happen again tomorrow.
And then the city will go about its business. Wearily and warily perhaps, but with its spirit unbroken still.
For more on Mighty Convoy visit: mightyconvoy.org
