Andy Barnes, a retired international rescue worker from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, first agreed to help deliver vehicles to Ukraine out of a visceral impulse to “help friends in need.”
The week after the Russia invasion of February 24, 2023, he met up with his old friend, Alex Daletskii, a Kyiv-born reader in mathematics at the University of York.
“Alex was feeling hopeless,” Andy recalls. “I said, ‘Look, Alex, I’ll try to help you because every time I’ve gone to Ukraine, everyone has looked after me.’ The next day, Alex rang and said, ‘We’ve got some money. Do you want to drive a pickup truck to Ukraine?'"
Sixteen deliveries later -- their 75,000 kilometers of trains, planes and automobiles put Steve Martin and John Candy to shame -- Barnes has made good on his word.
Thirty-Five Years Ago, in Armenia . . .
Andy befriended Alex and his climbing team in Armenia in 1988, when they were thrown together, doing rescue work following the earthquake. Andy subsequently joined them for mountaineering in Kyiv and Crimea, and remained in touch as Alex moved to Bonn and then, the U.K.
Superficially, Andy's jovial demeanour seems an odd match for Alex's serious intensity. But they share an unflinching commitment and a pragmatic approach. Across sixteen deliveries, Alex [right] has come to depend on Andy's knack for mechanics and his moral support as much as Andy [left] trusts Alex's "spot on" planning and strategic decision making.
UK Trucks Save Ukrainian Lives
They have chosen to focus their energies on sourcing and delivering vehicles because they are uniquely situated, connected and equipped to fill this need.
Ukrainian military units prize jeeps and pickup trucks for reconnaissance, extracting the wounded from battlefield, emergency services and military work. Due to demand, these vehicles are increasingly difficult to procure in continental Europe. There is greater (though dwindling) supply in the UK. What's more, "UK right-hand drives are popular," Alex explained, "because it is believed that they are safer from sniper bullets. A [Russian] sniper will try and shoot the driver, who is supposedly on the left," where Ukrainians have learned to put a dummy, beside the driver on the right.
Andy and Alex drive their vehicles to Lviv, in Western Ukraine, where mechanics inspect them, paint them in camouflage and prepare them for transport to the frontline -- sometimes, to units commanded by Alex's erstwhile university colleagues.
They seek used vehicles that are old enough to be affordable but in good enough condition to tolerate the demands of transit and service. The pair fund some of the purchases with donations from an international network of friends and colleagues, and fundraising events such as paragliding and climbing competitions. A supporter who learned of their work through mutual friends also raised nearly £5,500 for a delivery by running her first marathon. If their donation chest runs low, they purchase the vehicles themselves and provide them to charitable groups in Ukraine for the purchase price, at no profit.
Each vehicle costs about £5,500 pounds, plus roughly £1,000 in transport costs. The round trip takes about five days.
The team pares expenses and maintains the motivation to continue thanks to the contribution of a dedicated support group, including:
- Alex's wife, Natalie, -- "who has been fully engaged with our activities from the very beginning" searching for vehicles, driving several laps to Ukraine and "valet[ing] those cars in crappy conditions."
- Leeds-based mechanics who volunteer to prepare the cars for departure.
- A retired P&O captain who arranged several free Hull-Rotterdam ferry crossings.
- York-based Ukrainian psychologist, Victoria Allen, who maintains the team's JustGiving page.
Long Drives to Freedom
Collectively, their dedication and resourcefulness has enabled Andy and Alex to make a delivery roughly every six weeks — a pace that Andy acknowledges can get tiring. But after contributing to a range of NGO projects, he finds this model “refreshing” because of the freedom from red tape. Raising funds without institutional backing can be challenging, as donations are not eligible for Gift Aid or employer matches but the payoff is efficiency, agility and confidence that their funds reach their designated purpose.
“We pay for our own flights and food, and we deliver at the point of need,” Andy said. “The money comes in and nothing is wasted.”
Delivering the vehicles in person has also given Andy the opportunity to observe firsthand, “the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the level of resolve that they’ve got to defend their freedom and way of life. On one of our trips, we delivered a vehicle to two young girls and a guy, about 25 years old. They raised money and were driving the vehicle to the front. I thought — Wow! Look at those young people. That passion and that level of resilience stuck in my mind. I thought, sometimes, the human race is absolutely fantastic.”
Does Grassroots Support Win Wars?
How much impact can their initiative have? Alex is the first to acknowledge that, "you won't win a war by donating a couple of vehicles."
However, from the first, grassroots engagement has played a critical role in Ukraine's struggle to repel the Russian invasion and it continues to do so.
Alex points out that the war would have been lost within days but for "the volunteers and self-organization of the Ukrainian people." On the first day of the war, volunteer territorial defense groups started forming in Kyiv and elsewhere. There were groups patrolling the city, manning block posts, delivering ammunition and supplies, extracting the wounded and participating in direct combat."
Alex recounts how in the first months of the war, one of the Ukrainian volunteers to whom he delivers vehicles, Technical Ecology Professor Iryna Patseva of Zhytomyr Polytechnic, made 11 runs from Zhytomyr to Poland with her husband Igor, a veteran severely wounded in action in Eastern Ukraine.
"They drove a two-story bus, evacuating people and ferrying supplies. You can imagine the chaos on the roads at that time," he said. "There are many examples of such heroism."
Plugging the Gaps in Government Aid
Though media coverage has flagged -- particularly in light of developments in the Middle East -- the ethic of volunteerism continues to fuel the war effort. Domestic and international contributions continue to supplement government aid, plugging significant gaps. Registered international charities such as President Zelensky's platform, United24, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the giants coexist with more modest crowdfunding efforts, which also supply vital assistance.
With the military, "it's very difficult to imagine how underfunded they are," Alex said. "Here in the West, everybody assumes the military gets the best equipment and clothing. But that's not so there."
Commanders often use their army salaries to clothe and equip their units. Donations ease their overdrawn budgets.
A Truckload of Hope . . .
Furthermore, in a war where the spirit of the people will prove determinative, Andy feels that by delivering human-to-human aid, he also delivers hope.
"Hope can go a long way," he said. "When you give those communities hope, they become empowered and creative and can achieve great things. When we meet with Iryna [featured below with Andy, left and husband, Igor, behind], I can see the spark in her eye and she's ready for the next fight."
. . . Delivered to a Land Not So Far Away
For his part, the deliveries have given Andy a stark perspective on the global importance of a war with which he initially engaged from personal motives of friendship.
"When people ask me why I do this, I point east and tell them, 'Ukraine is only two days' drive away,' he said. "It's right on our doorstep. Their problems are our problems. If this doesn't go well for the West, I think that in 2030, we'll be asking ourselves why we didn't do everything we could in 2022 and 2023."
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Andy and Alex have just procured a pickup truck for their seventeenth delivery. You can support them by making a contribution to their JustGiving page, administered by their team mate, Victoria Allen.
