Fiona4Ukraine

 Last month I spent a couple of weeks in the UK, visiting family and friends, including volunteers in Trawden, who remain as supportive as ever of Ukraine. Before returning to Kharkiv, my friend, Jos (also a Hell's Kitchen volunteer), and I organised a week's holiday in the Carpathian Mountains for some volunteers from Hell's Kitchen and Lviv. The idea was to give people, particularly in Kharkiv, a break from sirens and bombs, in a place that is about as safe as can be in Ukraine. We stayed in an apartment complex in beautiful, if rather touristy, surroundings.  We made the place our own. We had a lot of fun and did some things we definitely couldn't do in Kharkiv... ....including the world's best swing. There was plenty of eating, of course,  although we weren't prepared for how cold it got at night! We played some games... We all got to know people we didn't know before. My friends, Igor and Svetlana, are refugees from Mariupol, now living and working, as ...

I've been in England for a little over a week. I miss Kharkiv - not the sirens, the drones and the bombs, of course, but the city, the people and, especially, Hell's Kitchen. Ukraine is never far from my mind. I keep up to date with news regarding the war, and also the day-to-day happenings in Hell's Kitchen. I've had two lovely experiences of ongoing support for Ukraine in the UK. The first was in Trawden village, northern England, where I lived for some years, which has always been incredibly supportive of all I've tried to do to help Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full invasion, including hosting and supporting Ukrainians in the local area. I met with three of the volunteers in Trawden community shop and library, where we drank tea and ate fresh-baked cakes. I was presented with the generous proceeds from the Ukraine collection box in the shop and from hand-crafted items that are sold in the library and at craft fairs. The monies will be divided amon...

  This photo (thank you, Mark) is an illustration of how beautiful Kharkiv is and how peaceful it felt for a couple of days during the so-called truce last weekend, whilst attacks continued elsewhere. As expected, because Putin is not interested in peace without capitulation, Russian attacks have ramped up again. Yesterday nine people were killed in a Russian drone attack on a minibus that was evacuating civilians, mostly elderly women, from Bilopillya, a town about 6 miles (10 km) from the frontline, in our neighbouring Sumy region. Residents in Bilopillya were urged to relocate on 5 May because of continued Russian shelling, and daily bus evacuations have been continuing since then. The attack, which also injured four other passengers, came just hours after the first direct (and inconclusive) peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow since 2022. It's sometimes hard to retain hope but we do; people continue with their daily lives and a few do a lot more. Yesterday we visited a kitchen p...

One year ago I drove into Kharkiv on a day much the same as in the photo above, taken this evening, with a clear blue sky. My co-driver had to try to direct me because there was an air raid alert, during which satellite navigation often does not function. I remember driving across impossibly huge squares, having no idea in which direction traffic was supposed to go! Today the air raids continue, day and night, and now those huge squares are familiar and beautiful to me. Kharkiv felt very different from Lviv and Odesa, where I lived previously - the enormity of the spaces, the Soviet-style architecture - but it soon grew on me and has become my favourite city in Ukraine. Of course, it's always people who make the difference and, in Kharkiv, I've felt the welcome and friendliness of people more than anywhere else. There's also a slightly crazy, anarchic feel to this city that I think has always been present, and may have been enhanced by people's experience of trying to l...