Phones to play on but nothing to eat, the helpless children on front line of hell: Refugees in besieged towns in eastern Ukraine will be first to receive Mail Force food parcels
- Children in Ukraine have smartphones to play – but no food to stave off hunger
- The hours tick by slowly as Russian artillery shells pound their neighbourhood
- Refugees in eastern Ukraine will be the first to receive Mail Force food parcels
Staring into smartphones, but with nothing to eat, desperately hungry Ukrainian children cower in a bomb shelter waiting for food to arrive.
On the front line of war, the minutes and hours tick by slowly as Russian artillery shells pound their neighbourhood in yet another relentless onslaught, destroying everything they once held dear.
To pass the time there is little else but the games and videos on their mobile devices – one of the few possessions they have left, and much-needed escapism from a hellish existence that was almost unimaginable until Vladimir Putin invaded nearly two months ago. But when the batteries run down, it is pot luck whether there will be electricity to recharge their phones.
Staring into smartphones, but with nothing to eat, desperately hungry Ukrainian children cower in a bomb shelter waiting for food to arrive
Meanwhile, their parents fret about if and when the next aid parcel and bottles of water may be delivered by heavily-armoured police vehicles or brave local government officials and emergency workers who dodge enemy fire to deliver food using their own cars.
It is here, in the eastern Ukraine strongholds still under the control of Ukrainian military, where thousands of boxes of food funded by donations from kind-hearted Mail readers will be delivered in coming weeks.
Without this lifeline, residents in Severodonetsk – one of Ukraine’s easternmost cities – are at serious risk of starvation. Severodonetsk is in Luhansk, a region of around 400,000 people which has been part-occupied by Russia since Putin first invaded in 2014. Now the whole area is in Putin’s crosshairs as he attempts to spin his bungled invasion to his people as a mighty victory.
‘We’re hungry and helpless on the front line of hell,’ says Zoya, 69, a retired nurse who spends all her days and nights hiding in a deep cellar as Putin’s forces fight a war of attrition to creep forward into the part of Luhansk still controlled by Ukraine.
When aid workers dropped off a rare parcel of meat last week, Zoya said she and six others waited for the shelling to stop so they could scurry outside and hurriedly cook a shashlik – traditional skewers of meat – next to the makeshift graves of friends and relatives they had to bury in front of their block of flats. It is a grim existence that has seen seven in ten residents flee Luhansk.
But Zoya says she is staying put, adding: ‘I’ve no idea why in God’s name Putin is trying to take over our land in Ukraine.
‘He says we’re oppressed by Nazis, but I’ve never met one and I’ve lived here all my life, which is why I don’t want to leave.
‘If he wishes to see how fascists behave, look in the mirror.’
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Putin of trying to starve his countrymen by using ‘hunger as a weapon against ordinary people’.
According to Western intelligence reports, Russian forces have been targeting agricultural machinery, fields and grain stores. Civilians are being prevented from leaving besieged towns and cities, or killed whilst fleeing. Even supermarkets have been bombed.
More than 20,000 civilians are feared dead in the besieged port city of Mariupol in the south of the country which is unreachable by aid convoys. Other areas suffering severe food shortages are the devastated northern cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv.
There have also been reports of starvation in Bucha and Borodyanka, satellite towns around Kyiv that were the scene of fierce fighting as Ukrainian forces repelled Putin’s advance on the capital last month.
This is why Mail Force has teamed up with the Ukrainian embassy in London to send 500,000 food boxes to the country to feed those most in need. There are ten million refugees inside Ukraine who have fled their homes. Another four million have fled the country.
In Luhansk, many have fled to the West in fear of becoming forced into Russia – where there are stories of ‘filtration camps’, in which Ukrainians are being interrogated and then shipped off around Russia – or dragooned across half a dozen time zones to Siberia.
What is left is a humanitarian calamity with locals unable to access food or essentials because the shops cannot function and power supplies and goods distribution networks are crippled.
More than 20,000 civilians are feared dead in the besieged port city of Mariupol in the south of the country which is unreachable by aid convoys
Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are dependent on the next parcel of food. Unless this lifeline arrives, these frontline settlements will fall into Putin’s hands.
‘The Russians want to start a famine,’ said regional governor Serhiy Haidai. But he is determined not to let it happen.
Each day several lorries of humanitarian aid are delivered to the Luhansk region carrying food, medicines, and hygiene products. ‘There will be no famine, no matter how much the Orcs want it,’ he declared, comparing the Russians to the evil invaders in The Lord of The Rings.
Another regional official, Svetlana Popova, warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the towns of Rubizhne, Popasna and Gorsk.
‘No single food shop is working,’ she said.
‘Only private bakeries are left – volunteers bring flour, and they bake bread, but there are only a few such places.
‘People remain in bomb shelters and cellars that can be used as hideouts. Those whose flats are intact sometimes take the risk and go and grab some belongings: clothes, mattresses and blankets, so they can equip cellars where they now live.’
However, supplies are running out after more than 50 days of war and getting food to them is getting harder by the day.
She said: ‘Because of constant shooting, big vehicles are no use. So the head of Gorsk military and civil council takes it all in his car under fire.’
Ms Popova fears for the fate of those trapped inside the city of Rubizhne which was recently captured by Russian troops. ‘They can neither be evacuated to us nor can humanitarian aid be brought to them,’ she said, mournfully. Nastya Kashuba, 21, a psychology student, fears her parents have been killed in the city, where bloodthirsty Chechen fighters chillingly roam the streets.
She said: ‘There is horror in the city, total hell. There are so many corpses, corpses are buried under benches, I am not exaggerating.’ Last night, Putin’s artillery shells continued to rain down on civilian populations. Olga, a volunteer in Luhansk, said an aid store had been hit eight times, adding: ‘We’ve worked really hard to hide the location on social media, and didn’t reveal it. We knew that the occupiers deliberately aimed to destroy food stores so that people stayed hungry.’
Mykola Nadulichny, who works with the disabled, said a food depot in Severodonetsk came under ‘massive shelling’ last Monday. Another volunteer, Ekaterina, said: ‘The Russian troops intentionally fire at locations where people are handed humanitarian aid. It has happened three times lately.’
Ekaterina warned that Severodonetsk was in a critical state and that people were hiding in shelters that volunteers are not aware of.
She said: ‘People stay there without connection and power, they have no connection to the outside world. They don’t know either about humanitarian aid, nor the chances to evacuate.
‘Sometimes we find them accidentally. Or we learn about them too late, when the person has died and we need to bury them.’
Here’s how YOU can help: Donate here to the Mail Force Ukraine Appeal
Readers of Mail Newspapers and MailOnline have always shown immense generosity at times of crisis.
Calling upon that human spirit, we are supporting a huge push to raise money for refugees from Ukraine.
For, surely, no one can fail to be moved by the heartbreaking images and stories of families – mostly women, children, the infirm and elderly – fleeing from the bombs and guns.
As this tally of misery increases over the coming days and months, these innocent victims of this conflict will require accommodation, schools and medical support.
Donations to the Mail Force Ukraine Appeal will be used to help charities and aid organisations providing such essential services.
In the name of charity and compassion, we urge all our readers to give swiftly and generously.
TO MAKE A DONATION ONLINE
Donate at www.mailforcecharity.co.uk/donate
To add Gift Aid to a donation – even one already made – complete an online form found here: mymail.co.uk/ukraine
Via bank transfer, please use these details:
Account name: Mail Force Charity
Account number: 48867365
Sort code: 60-00-01
TO MAKE A DONATION VIA CHEQUE
Make your cheque payable to ‘Mail Force’ and post it to: Mail Newspapers Ukraine Appeal, GFM, 42 Phoenix Court, Hawkins Road, Colchester, Essex CO2 8JY
TO MAKE A DONATION IN THE US
You can donate via CAF America at: https://donations.cafamerica.org/mail-force/
Or
US readers can send checks to dailymail.com HQ at 51 Astor Place (9th floor), New York, NY 10003
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