A DRIVE TO UKRAINE. PART 2

 7th - 9th May 2024

'Field of Mars' cemetery in Lviv.

A day (7th May) had been well planned to include several visits and events around Lviv. At 8.30am we got back into our 'trucks' and sallied forth; first to the 'Field of Mars' which is the military cemetery in the north-east of the city. I had visited this site back in August, together with the vast 'civilian' graveyard next door. Yes, it had grown a bit!

These graves (left) are meticulously maintained and I met a lady (and her daughter) visiting the grave of her husband, who was buried next to his best friend. Both 'killed in action' on the eastern front. Conversation was somewhat limited due to the language problem but she came across as very charming and resolute.

Right: A somewhat 'iconic' photo taken on leaving.

The next port of call was at a park, and I really can't remember where all the following places were as I was, as normal, too preoccupied with following one of our cars in front!

Left: We were met by two ladies dressed in national costume, together with Iryna our local 'fixer' and 'translator'. These ladies described how, for the past two years, they have been part of a local voluntary organisation which supplements the rations of soldiers at the 'front' and on their withdrawal to rest areas behind the front lines, by making and supplying more 'luxury' foodstuffs, such as home made cakes and other home cooking. It is much appreciated. Iryna kept talking about how much of these extra rations were delivered by 'drunks', which had me confused. She meant 'drones' but her accent was not perfect.

Cakes! I never got cakes when I was serving, but then I didn't have to live in a trench for months!

Right: At the end of their presentation each of us in turn (all 15) was presented with a banner, with our individual name on it, thanking us for our 'assistance'. That must have taken some extraordinary organisation and foresight!

The aforementioned 'translator' Iryna on the left.

Next on to a church. This was another elaborate pre-planned event. On the way there my 'so far' trusty steed caught fire! At least clouds of smoke erupted from under the bonnet and I had to make an 'emergency' stop. Luckily another vehicle, with Oleh on board, stopped with us. A rapid evacuation was made, but at least I had the presence of mind to take all the vehicle documents and other things of value out. Apparently the alternator had caught fire and was duly extinguished. We pushed the vehicle to the side of the road....and left it there. No doubt it will be recovered somehow. I went on as a passenger in the other SUV.

Left: Our destination, the Rizdava Presviatoyi Bohorodytsi (what a tongue twister) Parish Church. Several of our vehicles got lost getting there but we all made it eventually.

There was a very 'high church' service going on inside with much chanting, praying and a large congregation bowing and crossing themselves. We stood at the back.

I had not realised that this elaborate 'service' was being put on for our benefit by the well known (to Oleh and others at least) Chief Priest, Father Orest, and his sidekick Father Vasil. Vasil was a most amusing chap. He was 6'6" tall, had played basketball for his university and had worked on a fruit farm near Hereford (UK) in his younger days. He spoke good English and was, understandably, very religious. I am not, and we engaged in some amusing 'banter'!

Right: Our gathering outside the church. Father Vasil towers above us on the left. 'Nearer to God' by far!

This was followed by a 'blessing' of the vehicles which had been lined up (without mine of course) for the occasion. There was quite a large crowd present. I hope the video, below, works.

Then on to the Parish Church Hall where a delicious lunch had been prepared in our honour by two ladies. Some locals were present. I sat next to a charming young lady, Tanya, who was engaged to a local and spoke fluent English. She was studying to be a 'simultaneous translator'.

Right: For some unknown reason someone produced this weapon. An 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless anti-tank weapon by my reckoning. Right: Kate getting the feel for it.

Left: A young lad also posed. These, I believe, do not make an appearance very often in many UK Parish Church Halls.

Next we went to a small factory which makes soldiers' combat uniforms. This is run by a lady who is a fashion designer and this place, before the war, used to produce her 'designer' clothes. Right: Examples of some of the finished product. I can't imagine anyone flouncing onto the battlefield and 'fighting' in the 'dress' on the right, but in this day and age who knows!

Left: I think Ed was trying to chat her up....or maybe thinking of trying it on for size!

Left: One of the many seamstresses at work. The 'disruptive pattern' material is of specific Ukrainian design.

Onwards to a garage complex where imported/donated vehicles are renovated and repainted. Right: This young man, Flynn Watt, is English and was a university student. He gave up his studies to set up funding, and acquire vehicles of all sorts, plus other kit, to be brought out to Ukraine. He now runs this garage full time, organising vehicle imports and then licking them into shape before their onward delivery to whomever needs them. There were some odd 'imported from UK' vehicles parked outside including an old school bus and a fire engine! Interestingly, he told us that sort-after items include off-shore fishing nets. He had a pile of them. They can be strung up over defensive positions and used, quite effectively apparently, as 'anti-kamikaze drone' protection. So if you know any local trawlermen please let them know that their old nets would be most welcome in Ukraine!

Left: The spray paint shop next door. This is manned by, seemingly, ex-graffiti artists and other 'arty' types who can get out of being conscripted and sent to the front by offering to do this work. They are kept very busy.

Below: This was one of our cars driven by the two ladies, Ruth and Kate. It was originally a bright white.

Right: That evening we were given a talk by an engineer who works in the Ukraine drone industry. Ukraine now manufactures most of its own drones and they are increasingly sophisticated, with ever evolving 'counter measures' to protect their own and disable the enemy ones. They are probably now one of the world's biggest and  most technically advanced manufacturers of these things and prefer their own to taking in 'unknown' equipment from abroad. 

There are basically four types of drone; surveillance ('eye in the sky'), attack/bomb droppers, kamikaze and resupply versions. Much of the resupply to the front and across the Dnipro river, such as ammo and even rations, is delivered by drone (like Amazon I suppose). This is increasingly a 'drone war' fought by both sides. It was an interesting talk.

We were then given a talk by two lady 'psychotherapists' who described how traumatised soldiers are treated. They have 'rest and recuperation' accommodation and treatment at several quiet places in the Carpathians. They place great store in a fairly new treatment for PTSD called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). It had me baffled and desensitised!

Finally a most interesting description of life on the front line. This was given by an 'invalided' soldier called Ihor who had served with an armoured infantry battalion. He had been badly injured in action about a year ago and spent a long time in hospital. Now mostly recovered, he works with the drone teams. 

Left: Ihor, meeting us outside after the talk. He is a fairly 'punchy' character.

It is interesting to note that the Ukrainians we met, including Oleh (our fixer/liaison guy), seem to have a very poor opinion of Volodymyr Zelensky. He is not regarded as such a 'hero' as he seems to be by our Western leaders. I forget all the reasons!

Following another merry supper gathering that evening, later that night or early morning there were, apparently, air raid warning sirens sounded. Those in the Leopolis heard them because they were woken by loudspeakers to tell them to go down to the air raid shelter in the hotel cellars. Some did, some didn't! Apparently it was quite comfortable down there. Right: I think some of our group in the shelter

I meanwhile, in my hotel, heard absolutely nothing and slept soundly. From my experience last year and the year before, the locals pay scant heed to these alarms. They have got rather bored with them!

There had indeed been a couple of missile or bomb or drone attacks somewhere but these, I think, were on the far outskirts of the city, maybe attacking electricity generating stations, a common target. I don't think there was much damage or any loss of life. It didn't seem a big deal to the locals.

Right: This was the diagram published the next day which showed where Russian strikes had hit.

Below: Video taken by one of our group in the Leopolis Hotel.

The next day, 8th May, some of our party, Paul, Archie, Rob and Oleh together with Ihor, plus another Ukrainian took three vehicles on further east. They were to travel another 600 miles eastwards to the Dnipro river and beyond to deliver the vehicles to various military organisations near the front line. Phew, a long trip!

Right: Oleh ready to go east in a freshly sprayed vehicle. Hope his V5 registration form was in order!

The two ladies, Ruth and Kate, stayed in Lviv to do a bit of sightseeing, and it is a great place to do so. It is a really charming and pleasant place and, for obvious reasons, delightfully free of the tourist masses! I had done this in August last year as well as Kyiv the year before and have blogs to describe the sights which you might be interested to view, or re-view. I had no need to do it again.

So the remaining nine of us left in a minibus (efficiently organised by Anthony) on the morning of the 8th to drive back to the Polish border. Here we were expecting some hassle but we walked through without much delay. The Polish officials just X-rayed our baggage. Then a short, 10 minute, taxi ride to Przemysl (never know how to pronounce that!) and a comfortable 1st Class train ride to Krakow. We arrived in Krakow at about 2.00pm.

Right: A fond farewell from Lviv.

Some chose to stay in Krakow for a couple of days to see the sights. Again, I had done this comprehensively on a previous occasion in May 2022, and a bit more in August last year so I only stayed one night in a cheap but decent 'receptionless' hotel near the Old Town. This city, as previously, was rammed with tourists including many British. It is a 'tourist magnet'! I left for the airport the following afternoon for a departure at 6.55pm to Luton. This was planned to coincide with Nick and Martin who were on the same flight because Nick's wife was to pick them, and me, up and take all of us to his house which is close to where we started near Towcester. I was then kindly given a lift to where my car had been left, and drove home. A very interesting and enjoyable week!

I print below the report written by Rob on their journey to the east. Fascinating stuff:

After two nights in Lviv we were waved off by the rest of the team to head east and deliver three pickups and supplies to brigades based out there. The team for this leg of the trip was our leader Paul, young Archie, Oleh our fixer and Ihor the hardened warrior.

Our first day consisted of a very long drive to a city called Kropyvnytskyi. It was straight forward driving just heading east on pretty much the same road all the way. As a farmer I was fascinated by the scale of the arable fields which seemed to go on for ever and were enormous in size. The land looked to be very productive but interestingly, despite the scale of the fields, the machinery and tractors operating were small and quite outdated. It was also interesting to see the army pickup trucks (similar to those we were delivering) in the fields outside towns with large Browning machine guns mounted on the back ready to shoot down potential Russian drones.

We arrived at about 6.30 and went out for a meal. It was a good chance to talk and catch up with Ihor, a veteran soldier who has fought in the Ukrainian army since the invasion of Crimea in 2014, and more recently had been off active duties to a leg injury. Fundamentally Ihor was not optimistic about the war. He was frustrated with the segment of the population leading normal lives whilst circa 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers were both giving and risking their lives on the front line, unable to rotate enough and take leave due to the lack of other men volunteering. He had a deep disliking of President Zelensky who he felt had been elected on a promise to prevent a large-scale war with Russia and who had completely failed to be ready for what Ihor felt was the inevitable full-scale invasion in 2022, following on from the 2014 invasion of Crimea. He was also despondent about the lack of western support and the need for the west to decide whether they actually wanted Ukraine to win the war or just to give enough to prevent them from losing the war. This was a common theme and one we heard several times.

We left Kropyvnytskyi fairly early on the Thursday and headed to Zaporizhzhia a large city on the Dnipro River. We headed over the Dnipro and met with Archil and Irakli, two battle hardened Georgian soldiers, in their digs on the edge of the city. The first interesting key point was that these were Georgian soldiers fighting for Ukraine. Why were they fighting for Ukraine? Simply because the Russians invaded Georgia in 2008, (Russia still occupies 20% of Georgia - do you see a theme developing here??) and Ukrainian soldiers came and helped them, As such they felt it’s now their duty to help Ukraine.

Left: Archie, the two Georgians, Paul

The Georgians were in charge of flying drones over enemy territory to identify targets and give coordinates for the artillery to then shell the targets. Typically, the targets would be command systems, anti-aircraft systems and tanks. The drones they used were part of a sophisticated weapon system and had a 3.5m wing span, could fly up to 50km away and cost about $350k for a system which would typically include three drones. The Georgian soldiers currently didn't have a drone to send out as the last one had been shot down and they were waiting for a new one.

We had lunch with the Georgians and again it was great to hear their insight on the war. I was struck by the following:

➢ The Ukrainian army is fighting with a real mixed bag of equipment such as RPG’s from the

70’s, modern Mavic drones which anyone can buy and which are retrofitted with home-made

bombs to attack nearby enemy positions and also act as eyes in the sky. Finally, it was also interesting how circa 40% of soldiers were fighting with rifles and/or ammunition they had bought themselves.

➢ The front line is actually made up of trenches which run along the majority of the eastern front. The Ukraine and Russian front line could be anywhere between 200m and 2km apart from each other. Gains are very marginal with it costing a huge loss of life. The Russians to date have some 500,000 killed, injured or missing soldiers and are incurring deaths at a rate of over 900 per day. We were told that in Russian battalions if their troops were sent forward and then turned back, then they would be shot by their own ‘blocking’ troops!! Over lunch Archil and Irakli explained what was needed for Ukraine to win the war. We were told the West needed to decide if they actually want Ukraine to win. All the West is currently doing is ensuring that Ukraine doesn’t lose. Ultimately this stance will lead to a very very long war which will cost a huge amount of money and lives. They feel that if the West fully got behind Ukraine and gave them the right tools which enabled them to gain control of the air and allowed them to launch missile attacks inside Russian territory and they had enough ammunition to push forward on the front line then they could prevail.

After lunch we headed to Dnipro a lovely city which straddles the Dnipro River. Here we delivered a further pick-up to the 43rd Artillery Brigade. Both they and Ihor then left us for the front.

Right: Ihor, Archie, ?, Paul, ?, Rob, ? in Dnipro.

Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia were busy vibrant cities where superficially life was continuing pretty much as normal if you ignored the recent missile damage near the station. We headed onto the sleeper train from Dnipro back to Lviv and enjoyed one last night in Lviv before a long final day crossing the Polish border, getting a train from Przemysl to Katowice and flying back home. Przemysl is a lovely Polish town, tidy, smart buildings and very pleasant, much like the cities in Ukraine. One of my thoughts was that I’m not sure the UK is any more developed than some of the countries we still perceive to be as more developing, rather than developed countries.

Right: Rob, the ex-big pig farmer, posing next to the River Dnipro.

All in all, the trip was a great success. Much needed pickups and supplies were successfully

delivered and although only a drop in the ocean, our Ukrainian friends were hugely appreciative and the totality of Western voluntary aid will make a difference to what I believe is a vitally significant war which must see Ukraine prevail against a hostile state which does threaten the security of Europe.

Right: I'm not sure where this was taken but is a display of donated drones, hundreds of them, in a town square. Presumably on the trip east. Not my photo!

Rob Mercer

Our next trips to Ukraine are on the 7th of September and then again in February 2025.

If you are interested in joining us on one of these do please contact me on

paul@southfieldshouse.co.uk - the Ukrainians continue to need our support.

Thank you. Paul Parsons

ukraineaidmission2024.co