Humanitarian runs to Ivankiv and villages after liberation.

The Ivankiv district was under occupation for more than a month. That was where we went first: we had lost contact with some of our people. A road that usually takes an hour took thirteen on the first run - one way. The bridges were blown up, with pontoons in their place and detours across fields and old dams. On that same road, two cars of other volunteers hit mines at the time. We brought medicines to the Ivankiv town hospital.

Then we drove through Ivankiv and the villages - Sukachi, Pyrohovychi, Shpyli, Rusaky, Fedorivka, Makarivka, Stepanivka, Pisky, Berezivka, Bolotnia, Zaprudka, Prybirsk, Orane, Dytiatky. We brought medicines, food, hygiene supplies and pet food. Those who asked, we drove out.

And we brought communications. The operators' towers were smashed, there had been no power for weeks, and phones, even charged, found no network. Our friend Tymofii urgently found a Starlink terminal and went himself to set it up.

An elderly man came up to the terminal and asked for help calling his son. He was afraid to dial: he thought his son had been killed. It took him a long time to work up the courage. The son answered. Everyone was alive and well and had managed to get out of the occupation. And while the father was under the invaders, his son had had a baby boy.

There were many calls like that that day. "How are you? Where are you? How is Dad? Tell everyone we are alive. Grandpa is alive too, and the neighbors are fine." We cried and rejoiced together with these people. What a person feels on hearing a familiar voice for the first time after a long occupation cannot be put into words.

We carried about a hundred addresses from people who could not find their relatives. For several days we drove down that list: searching, recording videos, passing on news.