Kilkenny aid leader hits out at 'ignorant comments' from online 'mouthpieces'

A local man who has just returned from war-torn Ukraine has challenged ‘mouthpieces’ who are ‘commenting out of ignorance’ to join him on his next aid mission.

Jim Harding, from Gowran, was one of a group of drivers from across Ireland who brought donated ambulances to Ukraine in recent weeks. It’s his fourth aid trip to the country since the war began.
Speaking on his return, Mr Harding hit out at the ‘giving out’ about the Ukrainian people coming here after fleeing their own country.

“I’m sick to my teeth of people giving out about foreigners and Ukrainians coming here. One, we need them, and two, you know nothing unless you go there, go out into the country and you realise what a tough job is ahead of them. We should be a lot kinder to them.”

“What annoys me the most is people commenting out of ignorance. I invite any of them to come with me, travel on roads where we meet military barricades all along the way.

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“I would challenge any of them to come with me. Any of the mouthpieces around Kilkenny. Go to https://kilkennyukraine.com/ and see the video of an air raid warning siren going off. Would you like to be standing there when that is going off?”

Giving an example of Kilkenny’s close links to the war zone, Jim said a woman from Ukraine, now living in Kilkenny, told him recently she is going back to home - because her son was fighting on the frontline and had his leg blown off.

The reason most Ukrainian people are here is not because they don’t have houses in Ukraine, he said, it’s because their economy is shattered. Small industry can still operate but the general economy has been devastated by the lack of reliable power.

Poor agricultural areas are basically operating with horses and carts. “They are living like we did in the 50s or 60s.” There is a dependence on generators, but fuel costs are ‘through the roof.’

The convoy of ambulances on its way across Europe

Travels
Mr Harding travelled by ferry and overland to Ukraine on this trip. The group left on Saturday, November 4, sailing to Holyhead. The convoy drove through Britain before catching a ferry from Dover to Calais. They drove north out of France into Belgium and Netherlands, through Germany and Poland, staying close to the Ukrainian border, crossing Tuesday, November 7.
The ambulances were driven to the delivery point, a government compound in the city of Uman, where they were handed over.
The Irish group then travelled on to Kyiv to meet members of the humanitarian organisation, and flew home from Warsaw on Sunday, November 12.
All in the travelling group paid their own costs to get the vehicles there.

Rebuilding
Mr Harding paints a picture of a country battling more than just air-raids.
While rebuilding is continuing, he says, the bombing of electrical infrastructure is devastating industry which depends on a constant power supply.
Some areas only have power for short intervals.
Bigger food processing plants and storage units for cannot operate efficiently with interrupted power.
Many restaurants and other businesses can only operate with the use of standby generators, even so, in parts of some cities it is difficult to find warm food.
All at a time of year when the temperatures drop and the cold rain starts.

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He plans to go back and already has vehicles ready to go. The vehicles currently most in need are quad bikes, which are used to take soldiers away from the front line before being transferred by four wheel drive vehicles to first aid centres, and four axle (small) trucks that can cross the many pontoon bridges that are being used in place of the road bridges that have been destroyed in the war.
Donated vehicles can be older as long as the engines are in good order. Vehicles without a CVRT, can be transported by low-loader to Ukraine. You can donate on https://kilkennyukraine.com/