August 8th, 2024
63,667 people evacuated from danger to date
217 people evacuated from danger this week
42 trips into deoccupied and frontline territories this week
Another Donbas stronghold is in danger. In the last week, Russian forces have advanced four miles West toward the city of Pokrovsk. This new breach, along with other difficult segments of the frontline near Chasiv Yar and Toretsk, has become a focus for our teams. The volunteers we support managed to make 20 evacuation round trips last week. Dnipro-based Pomahaem Foundation had planned a series of deliveries to Kostyantynivka and surrounding areas, but had to redirect their activity as people started to evacuate.
In 12 of the Donbas villages which Anastasia had planned to support in the coming weeks, mandatory evacuation was declared. However, our teams have not stopped their work. They are coordinating their actions with local military authorities and village administrations, improvising and making the necessary adjustments to provide help as close to the frontline as possible.
Destroyed church near the town on Novoekonomichne
Stories
Escape from Novohrodivka
Our Dobra Sprava volunteers have witnessed the mass flight of frightened people from Hrodivka and Novohrodivka as the Russian troops advance to within 1-2.5 miles of the towns. Svitlana, escaping from Nonvohrodivka, tells this story about the situation there.
I am currently on my way to meet my husband and five-year-old son in Dnipro. You evacuated them three days ago, but I’ve just now quit my job. You could say we all “quit.” I worked as an ambulance paramedic, but that’s over — the ambulance service in town stopped working. The hospital isn’t working either, and all the doctors have left. The State Emergency Service (rescuers) are all gone. At least they managed to evacuate the fire trucks.
The town is just dying out. People are fleeing any way they can, even on foot — everyone wants to stay alive! They’re in tears, escaping and leaving everything they can’t carry with them. Only the looters remain. Now they can do their dirty work in broad daylight — pillaging everything they find. Even the hospital and the city administration have been looted.
…There are no police or local authorities left either. Just like that, they’re gone! People are left alone, face to face with the horrors of war. But a big thanks to our soldiers. Despite their main task of defending the town, they find the time to help civilians evacuate.
Helping Ukrainian Hospitals
Vitaliy and his Kharkiv-based team fulfilled a long-standing request from the Kharkiv Urology Hospital on July 31st. A truck from Ireland was delivered, bringing 30 dialysis machines and supplementary medications to aid people with severe neurological diseases. Meanwhile, our Odesa volunteers helped arrange and sponsor repairs for an artificial lung machine at a hospital in Odesa.
Kherson Playbook
Skhidny is one among the many Kherson neighborhoods supported by Oleksandr Ushkan and his team. This is one of the most shelled locations in the city. Electricity is not available most of the day here, which causes water supply issues and strangles local grocery stores and pharmacies. Recently, Russian drones have started dropping grenades on the streets. But people continue to live here.
Oleksandr has developed a playbook for moving through this territory. His team noticed that shellings are less likely to take place in the morning, when the enemy sleeps. During this time, our volunteers come to fuel the generators that help charge people’s phones. They install generators for those who want them and help refuel them.
“Of course, our main goal is to save people,” writes Oleksandr. “We try to convince them to move to safer parts of the city, help them with transportation and even with finding apartments, but some people still stay. So, we visit them regularly and help them feel that light shines even in the darkness.”
Operations in Occupied Areas
150 people received help in three occupied cities in Ukraine and nine people were successfully evacuated from the Russian-occupied left bank. The anonymous volunteers who coordinate this evacuation effort have reported that the situation in left-bank occupied towns and villages has been getting markedly worse. Shellings are intensifying, and conditions have become so dangerous that people who had previously refused to leave are now contacting the volunteers for help in evacuating. The steadily growing number of applicants include individuals with no documentation for whom evacuation is impossible. At the same time, more evacuees are being turned away at the border. This week, two people who tried to leave were sadly turned back.
Team Summaries
Alina’s Team – Dobra sprava (Good Deeds)
Made 20 trips and evacuated 205 people from the Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Hrodivka, and Novohrodivka areas.
Inna’s Team – Krok z nadiyeyu (Step with Hope)
8,050 people received help.
21.5 tons of aid distributed.
Bread given to 9,500 people.
Kherson operations:
Insect and rodent exterminations in 17 buildings.
Disinfection in 5 locations.
Delivered aid to Nikopol.
Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks
Oleksandr S (Boyarka): Oleksandr’s volunteer Andriy V and his team provided 200 families in Kherson with food and clothing. Oleksandr’s team also delivered food, milk, muesli, clothing, books and a multimedia player for use in school to 302 families in the Mykolaiv Region villages of Lymany, Mayak, and Ochakiv. Altogether the teams distributed 2,500 kg of aid.
Vladyslav K (Mykolaiv): delivered 35 tons of drinking water to Mykolaiv and 14 tons of water to Kherson.
Sandra S (Odesa): kitchen fed more than 1,200 people.
Yuri S (Vinnytsia): took 3 disabled people to rehabilitation, brought 50 kg of clothes and fruit to the Harmony rehabilitation center and helped the mother of a fallen soldier with pouring concrete on her son’s graveside.
Vitaliy Z (Kharkiv): delivered 3 tons of clothes, medicine, aid packages, walkers for the elderly, and animal feed to the village of Kolesnykivka (Kharkiv Region), located only 3 kilometers from the hostilities. The village is inaccessible by regular roads, so access to it requires long detours. Delivered 2 tons of aid to other Kharkiv Region locations. Brought 30 dialysis machines and auxiliary medicines from Ireland to the Kharkiv Urological Hospital to help people with severe neurological diseases.
Natalia B (Kherson): during the month of July made 4 deliveries of dairy products to 9 families with children, children with disabilities, and elderly people with disabilities.
Oleksandr D (Lutsk): Oleksandr’s German partner Benjamin from the German charity Gebetshaus Genthin e.V. delivered 500 kg of energy bars, muesli, a generator, batteries, wheelchairs, walkers and mattresses to Lutsk. Oleksandr’s team has already distributed some of these to Oksana K, the NGO Rokada and Oleksandr’s church. Other distributions pending. The team also helped their volunteer Vadym with medicine.
Oksana K (Lutsk): Brought adult diapers and 550 kg of food aid from Poland. Diapers were distributed to disabled people in Lutsk. Handed off 300-400 kg of food and hygiene products to partners for distribution to the east. Provided a wheelchair for a seriously ill person in Lutsk. Sent 1,800 liters of water to Kharkiv. Handed out hygiene products to families of fallen soldiers. Received 120 kg of sweets from Germany. Sent a 30 kg package to Sumy.
Oleksandr Z (Lutsk): provided therapeutic interventions for internally displaced (IDP) children, children with disabilities, and children from military families:
Offered art therapy to 70 children and adults (total of 3 art therapy sessions held).
Exhibited artwork of 18 children with cancer.
Organized activities for 38 children at summer camps.
Visited a museum with 36 children.
Helped 40 children and 230 IDPs at shelter with bread and food.
Helped 58 people with clothes and shoes.
Kseniia’s Team – Livyj bereh (Left Bank)
Darya, based in Kharkiv, delivered 92 aid packages to 4 villages: Kasianivka, Monachynivka, Kutkivka, and Kindrashivka.
Sponsored repairs for artificial lung machine in Odesa hospital.
Svitlana, based in Kherson delivered 161 packages to Ulyanivka and Fedorivka, rural communities near Kherson.
Karina’s Team – My ryatuyemo Ukrayinu (We Save Ukraine)
97 people living in the shelter.
Tetiana’s Team – Dopomoha poruch (Help Is Near)
Distributed 415 food aid packages and 270 packages with cleaning/hygiene products in villages of Shevchenkove and Verkhn'ozoryans'ke near Kup’yans’k, Kharkiv Region.
Timur’s Team – Komanda Teymura Alyeva (Timur Alyev’s Team)
Distributed aid to 350 people in Saltivka, Kharkiv Region.
Another 30 special deliveries to families with babies and 20 for elderly with disabilities.
Delivered aid to Kup’yans’k and evacuated several people.
Pavel and Olena’s Teams – Dotyk sertsya (Touch of Heart) & Svitanok mriy (Dawn of Dreams)
Mykolaiv office provided help to 1,589 people.
Delivered aid to Kvitneve and Partyzanske, 210 packages total.
Delivered 3 tons of water to Novohryhorivka and Novopavlivka.
Distributed clothing and toys to 90 low-income families.
Pomahaem Foundation (We Help Foundation)
31.5 tons of water delivered to Nikopol.
260 packages from World Vision delivered to Kostyantynivka in Donbas.
Two trips to Zaporizhzhia to get cash aid recipients from Mercy Corps.
Marina’s Team – Daruy dobro Ukrayina (Give Good Ukraine)
135 packages were distributed in Piatyhatky.
15 packages were sent to families with sick children to different parts of Ukraine.
Dina’s Team – Vilʹni lyudy, vilʹna krayina (Free People, Free Country)
Distributed 360 packages of aid in Kremenchuk, Poltava, and Kanev.
Bohdan’s Team – Vse robymo sami (We Do Everything Ourselves)
42 families received food and hygiene kits in Zhytomyr.
Club for children with disabilities: children learned how to cook Greek salad and visited theater play with their parents.
Alena’s Team – Diva (Virgo)
Completed installation of 58 windows in 27 homes in the towns of Nadezhdivka and Chereshen’ky in the Kherson Region.
Anastasia’s Team - LoveUA
Delivered 460 packages of food and 460 packages of hygiene products to Novoekonomichne.
How to Help
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