Fiona4Ukraine

Children across Ukraine have experienced death, injury and deprivation over nearly 4 years of war. As of late 2025, estimates from Save the Children, based on “new United Nations figures,” cite 733 children killed and 2,285 injured since February 2022. The real numbers are likely to be higher, due to undercounting or lack of verification, especially in occupied areas or active-combat zones. April 2025 marked the month in which the most children - 97 -  were killed or injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine . On 4 April, a missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of  Kryvyi   Rih  was the deadliest, single attack on children since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to UN-verified data. The missile hit a residential neighbourhood, striking a playground and nearby apartment buildings, killing 18 people,  including nine children, and injuring 75 others, among them 12 children. Many of the casualties were in the playground. ( https://www.savethechildre...

Thank you, Fiona, for giving me the opportunity to write in this blog. My name is Thomas and I reside in Guernsey. I am also the recent supplier, as mentioned in Fiona’s last blog, of her Yorkshire Tea!  Recently, I returned to Kharkiv to volunteer at Hell’s Kitchen for the third time. I have always been involved in the Kitchen’s food preparation but, on this occasion, I joined one of the Ukrainian volunteer drivers one morning, to deliver food to the hospitals the Kitchen supplies. It was a chance to see the places where the food we make goes. Fiona wrote about her experience earlier this year of joining one of the delivery drivers to the hospitals and I thought it would be good to share mine. I joined Kirill, one of the Kitchen’s delivery drivers, and visited three hospitals that the Kitchen serves, in different parts of the city. We split this into two journeys: two hospitals in the first load and, in the second load, one larger hospital. The Kitchen supplies food to other hospi...

On Thursday morning an exhausted young mother and child landed at Manchester Airport in Northern England, having made the long journey from Chernihiv, Northern Ukraine. They are guests of wonderful sponsors (under the UK's Homes For Ukraine scheme)  in Trawden , the village where I lived before moving to Ukraine. Chernihiv, like Kharkiv, is close to the Russian border and experiences frequent bombings. As well, its inhabitants have the collective traumatic memory of surviving Russian occupation at the beginning of the full invasion, in 2022. Myroslava ( Myro for short) was born during this terrifying period, in a basement. Her mother has made the difficult decision to leave home and family behind so that Myro can have a life of peace, stability and relative normality, until there is peace in Ukraine. Мир ( Myr ) means peace in Ukrainian. I try to imagine how strange and different it will feel to experience, not only the peace and quiet, but a tiny village with steep, narrow r...

  In writing to us about the Hell's Kitchen Halloween party last Friday, Liuda gave us a little history. In 2022 (the first year of Russia's full invasion), the Hell's Kitchen Team didn't celebrate any holidays until the fall (autumn) because they simply didn't feel like it. Then, unexpectedly, volunteers got together for Halloween and had such a fantastic time that, in the years that followed, people started asking, in advance, " A re we celebrating Halloween this year?" So , for "Hell's Kitchen, Halloween became a symbolic event, as well as an opportunity to take a few hours off from everyday problems and have fun. The time, attention and care that went into the decorations and themed food were incredible. The party lived up to my expectations, having attended last year's, and my costume (much the same as last year) showed that witches don't age! Recently, my volunteer friend, Jos, and I had the privilege and fun of being members of a j...

  This blog was going to be entitled, Autumn in Kharkiv, but today's events make that title inadequate. Mid-morning, Kharkiv came under a drone attack; three hit a private kindergarten not far from the city centre and set it on fire. Fortunately, teachers managed to get children to safety and all 48 children were evacuated. But a utility worker, who was cleaning the street, was killed. Ten were injured, including a five-year-old girl.  The last few weeks have felt like a relatively quiet period in Kharkiv, whilst attacks have centred on Kyiv and elsewhere, frequently targeting energy infrastructure; e.g. the whole of the left bank in Kyiv was without electricity after a Russian attack on the night of 9 - 10 October. It's colder than usual this year, already close to freezing at night, a harbinger of what could be a difficult winter. There have been attacks here, too, including on our power supplies, leading to these trams in Saltivka district being at a standstill... But the m...