Two volunteers travel 5,000 kilometers in a van, over and over again, bringing aid from Spain to Ukraine

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, two Ukrainian volunteers repeat the round trip almost non-stop about 5,000 kilometers by van from Madrid to Poland or Romania with tons of humanitarian aid for their compatriots.

It all started with the idea of ​​a small Madrid supermarket of Ukrainian products to collect donations to send them to the country at war, an initiative that caused a wave of solidarity in the capital, where people of all nationalities come to make their deliveries.

The tons of products (food, clothing, flashlights, sleeping bags, etc.) leave in two vans from Madrid to the Polish or Romanian customs, where the Ukrainian military is responsible for distributing the products in the safest way to different cities in the country.

This is how Maxi, one of the workers at the Ucramarket store, which has become an improvised NGO with the flood of donations they received these days, tells EFE, and now asks someone who has a similar vehicle for help, since the two who have not they are enough.

It was not among the initial plans of this small store to make massive donations, but “it has gone further”, says its assistant, Katerina, a 26-year-old Ukrainian who, although she lives in Spain with her husband and her 9-month-old baby, has in Ukraine to his father and other relatives.

The objective was to take a single truck, but since the association “Culture without Borders” contacted them went to more Katerina expects to exceed 100 tons of basic products.

donations

Now what they need most is medicines and clothing with military print, as well as tents, sleeping bags, canned food -but not in glass jars-, or fast food, also flashlights, batteries, headphones…

The boxes are piled up on the narrow sidewalk of the street, where the cars form a double line to wait their turn and deliver their donations.

There are dozens of volunteers of all nationalities: Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Mexican, Cuban…

Solidarity without nationality

“I am very proud of how they understand the situation, many people come crying, a Russian girl started crying yesterday, and I was very proud of how she understands it, how much she suffers with us”, says Katerina, with a broken voice of emotion because “when you think about it more deeply, there are no words to explain the pain we feel”.

Ana and her husband have been volunteering for four days. She knew the store, although she found out about the initiative from a niece, and when they went to ask, they stayed as volunteers: “People collaborate in an impressive way (…). We collect tons of food a day,” she says.

Many volunteers are Ukrainian or have family in the country, like María, who has been living in Madrid for four years, where her family is, or Cristina, who, although she was born in Spain, her parents are Ukrainian.

This 17-year-old girl comments that her mother went to the store to buy a Ukrainian flag to go to the demonstration against the war, but when she saw that they began to collect products, she decided that, instead of going to the protest, the whole family got down to work to help.

“Now we come here every day,” says the young woman, who is very grateful for the help of so many people. She remembers a lot about her grandparents, her cousins, her uncles, who are “anguished and afraid in case we won’t be able to see each other again” and with the “impotence of not being able to do anything”.

A few meters away is Alfredo, who gets out of his car and hands a bag of medicine to one of the volunteers. “I’ve taken something I had and I’ve also stopped at the pharmacy, it’s not much, but it’s something,” he explains as he looks at the pile of boxes in front of the door: “This is impressive,” he says.

Ana, accompanied by her husband and her young son, comes with a good load of diapers, thermal clothing, medicines and even a travel cot. “We had stuff at home and we haven’t thought about it,” she says.

The work of the volunteers is incessantas they are well aware that a war is raging 3,635 kilometers away. (I)