A Swansea couple who found their house piled high with donations for people in Ukraine are now travelling out to the country for the first time to deliver aid. Clare-Anna and Dai Mitchell are part of a group taking three ambulances to Ukraine to deliver generators, as well as other aid.
Last year, Clare-Anna found herself overwhelmed with parcels after she arranged for more than £300,000 worth of aid to be sent from her West Cross home to Ukraine. Shortly after the country was invaded by Russia, she became inspired by a donation centre in Neath collecting items for Ukrainian refugees and decided she wanted to do the same in Swansea.
After her efforts "snowballed" - seeing the couple's house filled with parcels - they arranged for all the donated items to be transported to Ukraine. Now, six months later, Clare-Anna and Dai, both 40, are travelling to Ukraine for the first time to deliver the aid themselves.
For Clare-Anna, her desire to fundraise for those in Ukraine was a "knee-jerk reaction". She had previously fundraised for people in Syria, sending some trucks with aid over to the country. "I just think it's part of my personality to want to help people. The injustice of things like this, I find it hard to deal with. I think you can't just sit back and moan about it and think, 'Well, that's not right.' Go and do something about it. If we all helped just a little bit, I think the world would be a better place to live in."
The couple are accompanied by four others from Mission Ukraine - a group set up by British and Ukrainian nationals to deliver aid to the country - and are taking three ambulances full of aid to the country. With 21 missions already completed by the organisation, their latest challenge is 'Mission Power Up'.
With temperatures reaching well below freezing in Ukrianian winters and attacks leaving cities in blackouts, generators have become a much-needed item in the country. Mission Power Up aims to deliver generators and warm clothing, having fundraised through their GoFundMe page. Clare-Anna says there is a need for continued donations.
"The winters are brutal when they kick in," Clare-Anna said. "There's actually been a bit of a warm front over there for a while but it's starting to get cold over there now. So, we thought, we'll try and power the villages with generators. That's what we've been doing for the last two months, is collecting generators [through] our GoFundMe page, purchasing generators and all the cables to go with them."
Approximately 40% of Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure has been damaged in Russian attacks and electricians have been fighting to restore power to liberated villages. By delivering the generators, Clare-Anna says she hopes to help people stay connected and give them heat and light.
"We're putting in boosters for WiFi signal because, even though connectivity is not a life-saving thing, it is incredibly important to the people that are trying to survive in those villages, when a lot of their relatives have moved away or some of them aren't even in the country anymore, to know that they're safe or alive," Clare-Anna said. The team are also looking into assisting with water supplies in the country.
Clare-Anna and Dai decided to make the trip to Ukraine themselves this time, praising the support they have had from the community in West Cross and Mumbles. "We've got loads of relationships locally with people who have donated things and money as well. They've done fundraisers, or they've sold art, they've had a music concerts and they've raised money."
Clare-Anna says that Mission Ukraine has sent over £1 million worth of aid since the end of February last year, but that she has mainly been on the organisational side of fundraising. In order to keep fundraising going, the couple decided that they would make the trip to Ukraine this time. "It's just another idea that we're sort of clinging on to, to try and keep raising funds because the work that we're doing is really important and it's saved countless lives throughout the last 10 months," Clare-Anna said.
They hope that, through delivering the generators, they can help people - particularly the elderly - who are struggling to keep warm in the villages affected by blackouts. "I've got a sense of no borders," Clare-Anna said. "It doesn't matter where they live, if people are in trouble, I think we should all help, if we've got the ability."
The couple are travelling with "a big Welsh contingency", with members from Porthcawl, West Cross, and Pembrokeshire. Stopping at an orphanage in Western Ukraine as their first port of call to deliver toys, sweets, and clothes, the group will also be dropping off generators and medical kit to villages and hospitals.
"These villages are very remote. Places like Kyiv and Odessa - big cities - are powered back up very quickly but the little villages do get missed out. Some of them have only got 20 or 50 people," Clare-Anna said of the villages where the generators will be set up. The organisation has already spoken to the governors of the villages they will be visiting to ascertain their needs.
With this being their first trip to Ukraine, Clare-Anna says the couple are prepared to accept any changes that need to be made. "You just never know if tomorrow we're going to hear of a shelling where we're going and then it all changes. You've just got to be really prepared for things to be changing," she said.
A Russian mercenary group fighting in Ukraine has recently claimed that it has found the body of a British aid worker reported missing over the weekend. Two British aid workers, Andrew Bagshaw and Chris Parry, were last seen heading to Soledar on January 6. The Foreign Office has not confirmed the claim, and said it was supporting the families of the two men.
The pro-Kremlin Wagner group claimed a body had been found on Wednesday, posting a statement on the messaging platform Telegram that claimed the body was found in eastern Ukraine, the BBC reported. Earlier this week, the family of 28-year-old Chris Parry said they were "very worried" about his whereabouts.
Clare-Anna said Chris is a contact of the organisation and described him as a "wonderful person". "I really hope that he's okay and that this is all rubbish coming from [the] Wagner [group]. But it's not a bad thing to to remember to be on high alert because even we get numb to the things that are happening and you do edge a little bit closer to danger each time," Clare-Anna said.
The couple are documenting their trip through a video diary posted on a YouTube channel to give an insight into the current situation in the places they are visiting in Ukraine. "It's a senseless war, it's, horrific. It is terrorism. The civilians are suffering. It's not just the armies fighting, the whole country is getting terrorised with the infrastructure getting destroyed, and children get killed. I don't think any decent human could sit back knowing what's happening and just let it happen," Clare-Anna said.
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