The latest from Kharkiv

Originally posted June 01, 2024

Kharkiv is a really beautiful city, with parks, churches, riverside walks, huge boulevards and some amazing buildings. You need to explore it properly as it's spread over a large area. Walking is best to fully appreciate it, and also to understand the level of destruction since the beginning of the full Russian invasion in February 2022. You don't walk down many streets without seeing the scars of destroyed buildings, many of them once beautiful.

It's a city which grows on you...

Unfortunately, the peace and beauty is too often shattered.

On the night of May 31, shortly after midnight, there was another missile attack on Kharkiv, which hit a five-storey (as many are here) residential building, a shop and a sewing workshop.

The Russians used their renowned double-strike tactic, thus targetting medics, police and other rescuers. Seven people are known to have been killed (two more women are thought to be under the rubble), including the security guard of the sewing shop and a 39-year-old woman who was staying the night with her mother, who lived on the fifth floor, of which there was nothing left.

On the same night Russian troops attacked Kyiv with cruise missiles. Their superior air defence forces destroyed all targets.

At least, President Biden has allowed Ukraine to use some US-made weapons over one part of the Russian border, to allow the Ukrainian army to defend itself against an offensive aimed at the city of Kharkiv.

The number of dead as a result of the Russian missile strikes on the "Epicenter" store had increased to 19, the number of injured to 54, 

The World Bank published a report on May 29, which said that, due to the full-scale war, the number of Ukrainians living in poverty has increased by 1.8 million since 2020: 9 million Ukrainians, out of a population of 32 million, live in poverty. Despite the dire situation, the World Bank stated that it would be much worse if Ukraine did not receive foreign aid to pay pensions and salaries.

I've got to know a local volunteer who works, tirelessly, for the "Adults for Children" charity in Kharkiv. I want to support this project as much as I can, because it helps those who are displaced, vulnerable and/or lacking the means to support themselves, in Kharkiv and the region, including people in villages that are being targetted in the current Russian incursion near the border.

With one donation of £50, life-prolonging medication was purchased for a woman with 3rd stage cancer, who has already had a mastectomy. Some of this medication is very difficult to buy here, and the volunteers had to go from one pharmacy to another. But £50 goes a long way in Ukraine, where the monthly pension is the equivalent of about £40.

To end with Hell's Kitchen...Many of the foreign volunteers are ordinary working people, who choose to spend their holidays volunteering in a war zone. The Ukrainian volunteers, too, are, mostly, either working or still at school. The oldest, one of our bakers, is aged 75. The youngest is 10. Inevitably, volunteers come and go... some I really miss and some I know will return...

In a week's time I need to leave Kharkiv for about 3 weeks, which will be hard. When I return I've been given the honour of taking over the role of volunteer coordinator. It will definitely be challenging and interesting!

Today we celebrated the 15th birthday of a boy who is here, as a volunteer, every day, as far as I can tell. 

To make a donation, please:

Open PayPal and, when asked for email, enter sunflower_house@hotmail.com