YOUR food boxes reach the hungry
Clutching the first of 500,000 food parcels funded by kind-hearted Mail readers, the desperate families battling to feed children and the elderly amid Putin’s brutal onslaught
the Russian border, was one of the most ambitious newspaper campaigns ever undertaken and was a joint operation with the Ukrainian embassy in London and the Confederation of British Industry.
The 2,000-mile journey took three weeks, hampered by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s rail network. Mail on Sunday reporters joined the convoy of minibuses on the final leg of the journey, passing burned-out tanks and weaponry, and navigating the bomb craters and chewed-up roads which bear witness to the barbarity of Putin’s invasion.
Smiling villagers, mostly poor farm workers earning as little as £175 a month, greeted us in Mezenivka, then waited patiently as volunteers handed out 300 of our boxes at a community hall. Each contains enough food to last someone a week, with 14 items including pasta, pureed tomato, rice, biscuits, porridge and canned tuna.
‘I thank everyone who helps us today,’ beamed Lyudmyla, 24, as
THEY have shown incredible resilience and bravery in facing the horrors and hardships of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion. And yesterday, villagers in one of the most ravaged regions of Ukraine expressed their heartfelt thanks as they took delivery of the first of 500,000 vital food aid parcels funded by generous Mail readers.
Weeks of heavy shelling and occupation by Russian forces had left the frontline village of Mezenivka in a desperate situation.
‘There was nothing to eat,’ 20-year-old Kateryna told The Mail on Sunday as our convoy arrived. ‘No products at the grocery store at all. So thank you so much for your help – it is very important.’
Locals have gone weeks without a proper meal, sheltering from the hell of war in their basements and scraping together what limited sustenance they could find.
Invading troops have only just withdrawn, although a menace still hangs in the air – punctured by the villagers’ palpable relief at receiving the desperately needed supplies, and the gratitude that it had been made possible by the kindness of strangers thousands of miles away.
‘Thank you for bringing us help, thank you to all the readers of the newspaper who raised money. Thank you to all those who protect us from the enemy,’ said Maryna, 23, cradling her 21-month-old daughter after receiving one of the Mail Force parcels.
Getting the aid to this beleaguered community, just three miles from
‘Thank you so much... there was nothing to eat’
she clutched a food parcel in one hand and her two-year-old daughter Polina with the other.
She said her family had lived in their basement for weeks, adding: ‘Our own garden and home-grown potatoes saved us from starvation but it was close to running out.’
The occupying Russian troops also stole food. Another villager, Victoria, 24, told how soldiers would offer meat to locals in exchange for vodka. She said: ‘There is a pig farm nearby. They slaughtered pigs there and wanted us to pay with vodka. The Russian soldiers went around drunk all day. There were constant threats and shootings from them.’
The Mail Force packages started their journey in the Oakland International distribution centre near
Leicester, before being driven by lorry across Europe to a secret depot in Poland.
There, the first shipment of 2,400 boxes was loaded into a shipping container and sent 1,000 miles across Ukraine on a freight train. Its treacherous journey took almost two weeks as Russia carried out air strikes on the country’s railway network, a vital artery for humanitarian aid. The cargo was unloaded at a clandestine government-run aid hub in the north of the country, before being packed on to a military Kamaz truck and driven to Krasnopillia, near the Russian border, in the dead of night to avoid enemy rockets.
From there, the boxes were placed on to minibuses and taken to surrounding villages such as Mezenivka.
Hundreds of thousands more Mail Force boxes were making similar journeys across Ukraine last night.
Our mercy mission was made possible thanks to the astonishing generosity of Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail readers who helped raise £11million for our Mail Force Ukraine Appeal, in an initiative hailed by Boris Johnson and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The fund was kickstarted by a £500,000 donation from the
Mail’s parent company, the Daily Mail and General Trust, at the request of DMGT chairman
Lord Rothermere, and Lady Rothermere. Our readers’
donations paid for half of the £8million joint project to send food to civilians in the war zone with the Ukrainian embassy and the CBI. The Mail Force appeal has also handed millions of pounds to charities helping refugees.
The convoy to Mezenivka was led by Serhiy Myronov, 54, a local baker who kept his villagers fed for weeks by delivering bread in his battered 4x4 Chevrolet. When flour ran out three days into the war, he heroically drove 25 miles to the city of Sumy, sweet-talking his way through several Russian checkpoints to restock. ‘You do what you have to do to survive,’ he said modestly before proudly showing off a Soviet-era Makarov pistol he had been given by the Ukrainian territorial defence.
Despite the Russian withdrawal last month, after Putin realised he could not take Kyiv, tensions remain high in the area. Just a few days ago, a band of armed Russian thugs in civilian clothes crossed the border looking to stir up trouble and intimidate local people. However, happy smiles greeted our food convoy. The villagers left their bicycles propped up outside against a blue picket fence as they formed an orderly queue and got their identity documents out, ready to be checked over by local officials in charge of distributing the supplies.
With all their papers in order, they were handed the 8kg (17lb) food boxes. Some balanced the boxes on the handlebars or on the back of their bikes as they wobbled off home to prepare the first proper meal they’ve cooked in weeks. During the occupation, many villagers made do by eating garden vegetables. But as supplies started to run scarce they had to ration what they had left. Some worried food would run out entirely.
Ruslan Sirenko, head of the Sumy district administration, praised Mail readers for their help, saying: ‘Your support and care is very important. They give us the strength to defend our territory from the Russian invader.
‘Thanks to the joint efforts and support of civilians in this difficult time for the country, our victory over the enemy will be ensured.’