A Scots man who travelled to Ukraine to deliver aid has told how he visited a village so badly shelled it had just one building left.
David Sharkey, 26, visited the war-torn country in November with Edinburgh charity, Sunflower Scotland. Despite landing into what seemed like a country 'that didn't feel at war, he soon realised the reality of the situation when he visited a neighbourhood with just one building left.
Reflecting on the harrowing account, David told Edinburgh Live, David said: "People make the assumption that all of Ukraine is kind of in the same sort of state. That's not the case, when I first stopped in Ukraine we got to the hotel and it was quite a nice hotel, nothing super fancy, but the whole restaurant was still fully operational. It didn't feel like a place that was actually at war.
"That was the really strange first impression I got. It's important to recognise that all parts of Ukraine have actually been affected, but to varying degrees."
David soon saw a different side to the war when he was exposed to a village that had was left in ruin.
He said: "There was one house standing in the whole village. Everything else was down to its foundations."
The charity then visited tenements in the north of Kharkiv, where David said 'tens of thousands' of people had lived.
He added: "It was completely in ruin. Some of them so badly you could see from one side to the other. The destruction was the thing that got me. Ukraine is a huge country, and we didn't even cover much compared to the actual level of disruption."
David has written a book about his experience with the war in Ukraine. David's book, Remember, is out now with all proceeds going to Sunflower Scotland. In it, he hopes to 'challenge the perception of Ukraine'.
The book is available here.
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