Among Holland Park’s grand Victorian mansions, London’s Ukrainian community has built a nerve centre for its humanitarian effort helping relatives and friends under bombardment from Russian forces over 1,000 miles away.
Painkillers, tourniquets, torches, helmets and new socks are among items desperately needed for dispatch via lorry across Europe to the war zone.
The Standard was granted access to the London headquarters of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, where ex-pats and the second generation gather for a catch-up and a game of pool, or enjoy home-cooked dishes from the old country.
Now, the pool table’s been covered to become a makeshift logistics office and boxes are piled high for processing and transportation eastward.
Join the Leader to meet the volunteers among the diaspora of tens of thousands British-Ukrainians, including Londoners whose families are still trapped inside some of the country’s most under-siege cities.
We speak with association members Vlodko Pawluk and Iryna Terlecky about how the invasion has galvanised the capital to help out.
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