Braving air raids and bomb craters, Kilkenny man Jim brings aid to help Ukraine

Above: A bombed building in Kyiv

It’s hard to think of two more different settings than peaceful Gowran and today’s war-torn Ukraine, but a brave local man has swapped one for the other, in recent days.

Jim Harding has travelled from Kilkenny to Kyiv, bringing with him four wheel drive vehicles and medical aid for the people of Ukraine.

Amid air-raid warning sirens, and surrounded by bullet-riddled buildings and vehicles, Jim sends home pictures and videos from a country, and people, he has come to love.

The pictures alone are heartbreaking, but also starkly show the daily reality for people in Ukraine, continuing 15 months after their homeland was invaded.

Back home in Gowran, children are looking forward to summer holidays, playing with friends, summer camps. In Kyiv Jim visits what, from the distance, looks like a pile of rusty, old vehicles. But he explains these vehicles were destroyed in the battle for Irpin bridge, where the Russian assault was stopped before it reached Kyiv.

If you look closely, some of the rusty heaps contain contrasting cuddly toys and colourful dolls - they were placed in the cars where children died.

ABOVE: A pile of burned out cars following the battle for Irpin Bridge. 

BELOW: Toys are placed in the remains of war damaged cars in which children died.

One of the videos Jim sent home, last week, showed school children running to a bomb shelter, their frightened cries mingling with the background warning siren.

Another video shows Jim walking through a building beside Irpin bridge - the walls pockmarked by missiles and the roof broken apart with craters.

He saw roads north of Kyiv that are “totally cut up” from all the armoured vehicles that have travelled them. He described how the bad condition meant “a lot of very slow driving with a lot of manoeuvring to avoid huge holes in the road, which remain irreparable in case of another assault from this direction.

“Anyone travelling the main roads to Lviv, Kyiv etc would think this was a very prosperous country, but a few miles into the countryside quickly dispels this opinion and reveals a very, very poor country but with a people who are stunningly generous and welcoming,” he said.

“Cars are old and worn out. Tractors and farm machinery are old and with multiple repairs. A far cry from the John Deere models hauling broken down enemy tanks into UAF (Ukrainian Armed Forces) bases on our television screens last year.

“An interesting observation for anyone thinking these people do not need help would be the fact that we were able to get a normally €250 per night (hotel) on Kyiv’s main square, less than 200 metres from the President’s Palace, for as little as €35 per night. In short, anyone who can in any way help these people has a moral and humanitarian obligation to do so.

“If they want or are brave enough to have their minds changed by truth let them put their hands in their pockets to pay their way and travel with us on the next convoy, which we will make as soon as funds allow,” Jim said.

Jim, and members of his travelling group, left their city-centre hotel in Kyiv to stay in the countryside, after a night of air raid warnings. Some of the group stayed and the next night witnessed what they described as “a heavy attack.”

On the journey to Kyiv the group stayed in the city of Lviv. Jim said the city seemed very normal, with people going about their business, despite it being “lightly bombed.”

The hope and strength of the Ukrainian people is also on display in Jim’s photographic record. A field of Ukrainian flags in a city square, water fountains spraying happily into the sunshine, families and friends going about their daily lives, meeting for meals. Click NEXT to continue reading and see more photographs.