Preparation
This transport was the largest so far, with 8 vehicles. In the run-up to the trip, we had our hands full preparing it: it started with the first Mitsubishi L200, which Dani and Dave were able to buy in Heidelberg in December, while Michael and Annette were still in Kyiv assisted remotely. Over several weeks, donations amassed, which enabled us to have Andreas to procure two vehicles (a Nissan Navara and a VW T5) in the Cologne/Bonn area. Another L200 came from the nearby Kraichgau region, an old but wished-for VW T4 from Frankfurt and another three VW T5 vans from Karlsruhe, Brühl and Hemsbach, some with seats, some without, but all with four-wheel drive. With financial support from Lawyers’ Move, we purchased the final VW T5 (as the second evacuation vehicle) on the Saturday before departure. The friendly seller gave us a discount for our good cause and delivered it to us personally the next morning.
Together with our friend Kati, we sorted and packed a lot of surgical consumables and loaded them into the VW vans in Walldorf. Hard-working Ukrainians in Walldorf had produced and packed an incredible number of homemade trench candles. We took them, too, and their weight helped provide solid grip for the VW buses. There was enough room to fit in several boxes of chocolate and nuts, donated by choirs from Knielingen, Eggenstein and Neuburg, among others. The local newspaper, Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, reported on the loading operation and later on the delivery to Ukraine.
This time, we checked the tires of all the vehicles with special care and bought several sets of winter tires due to the expected bad weather. A few cars exhibited problems after we got them, which we could only partially fix. We assigned the cars we suspected might be troublesome to the more experienced drivers.
Fortunately, we managed to find the sixteen drivers we needed to drive in the transport. Sixteen drivers and an adorable dog that. We had several preparatory calls as orientation to first-time drivers. We would like to take this opportunity to thank:
Christian, Dani, Dave, Dietmar, Frank, Georg, Johannes, Nils, Olaf, Olena, Rainer, Stefan, Stephan and Tetyana.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
On Thursday, we set off good and early from various locations in the Rhine-Neckar region and gathered shortly before five o’clock – as usual – at a rest stop on Autobahn A6. We placed the two vehicles we considered potentially unreliable in first and second place in the convoy, driven by Annette and Michael. Things turned out differently than we expected. Dave and Dani’s L200 had engine trouble before reaching Nuremberg and had to be left behind. Stephan Wlotzka graciously stayed behind to go with the tow truck and later reported the mechanic’s diagnosis: “broken camshaft.” We are very glad that nothing happened to Dave and Dani. They rode in other cars, and Stephan drove back home later that day.
The journey was otherwise unspectacular. Michael’s bus needed a couple of jump starts, but he had anticipated problems and brought along a jump-start battery. We also made good time through Poland and the first day ended, as always, in Radymno. By evening, Rainer had located a friend with a powerful SUV who was able to pick up the broken-down L200 using our friend Heinz’s trailer two days later. There moment of panic when the keys were locked inside one car at the gas station in Radymno. We didn’t have a second key, but a friendly Polish locksmith was able to help.
Dinner together in the Dwór Kresowy rounded off the day.
The customs agent initially gave Michael and Annette only six of the seven necessary documents by the agency at 10:30 PM, with the information that a customs officer would be coming in about an hour to inspect one of the cars and its contents. Annette then back returned to the agency at 11:30 PM. The Polish-Ukrainian question: “De Tselnik?” was met with a shrug and the advice to wait another five minutes. After five minutes, there was still no customs officer to be seen anywhere. Then it was clear: “Hey, here’s is the 7th document. The customs officer wouldn’t be coming after all, and Annette could go to sleep. After being awake for 20 hours, that was really needed.
Friday, January 24, 2025
On the second day, we met for breakfast in the morning and took group photo outside in front of our assembled fleet.
Then the group split into those returning home who took the train back to Krakow and those who headed towards the border. We tried to have the convoy processed all at once, but the Polish border guards explained that a maximum of four vehicles could enter the facilities at once, so we were split into two groups. In the end, however, the processing on both sides of the border facilities went smoothly with no problems, with a new record time. We stayed in phone contact so that the drivers ahead were able to explain to the drivers behind what to look out for.
As we had done on earlier trips, we split the onward journey to Kyiv over two days, but did not stop in Lviv, but instead headed for Rivne, about halfway to Kyiv. To prevent the convoy from being torn apart in Lviv’s city traffic, we decided to try an alternative route suggested by Google bypassing Lviv to the north. The route started on a good country road we had also taken on the second trip , with Miss Sonja, the Mercedes bus along the lake that, but in the opposite direction. While we were driving, the GPS stopped working and Google tried to direct us in circles. It’s good to note the route beforehand. The landscape, the villages we drove through, and everything was very picturesque. Fresh air. The country road then became a village lane, and finally an unpaved track sown with potholes. Everyone managed to keep cool at the wheel and bumped through and around the holes at walking pace—just keep going. At some point the track led up a steep hill and ended abruptly at the top at the edge of the forest and turning into a single-lane forest trail leading steeply downhill. We stopped briefly. Turning back was not an option, so we took the risk. All the vehicles turned into the forest one after the other, and luckily no one was coming towards us, so after a short stretch downhill (obviously a real shortcut) we were back on a paved road. We stayed there, even when Google Maps told us to turn left onto a side road. Shortly afterwards we were at a gas station and were able to fill up, get coffee, and clean the windows of the cars.
We then continued east on highway E40. On previous trips, we had seen a castle on a small hill just off the highway. Since we had gotten over the border so quickly, we wanted take the chance to see it up close. We were lucky and were allowed to join a guided tour of the interior.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/bXWXspRkJ1TMVgp49 – Rating: worth a visit.
After we explained why we were traveling in Ukraine with so many vehicles, we were given free VIP tickets. We got into conversation with some of the women who had booked the tour. They came from Dnipro and had traveled to the west of Ukraine to relax, and particularly to visit the castles in the area. They were very pleased that three vehicles were to be handed over in their hometown of Dnipro and thanked us and the donors for their support.
Michael had booked 8 rooms for us in a hotel right off highway E40 in Rivne that evening. When we arrived, though, we were told that the rooms had unfortunately been given to “another group of Americans.” With a lot of patience and negotiating skills, Michael and Olena were able to get a representative of the “other American group,” probably from the U.S. government, to come to reception desk. Then the hotel agreed to a room swap, and we got the other group’s eight rooms. Unfortunately, we did not find out from the woman why her delegation was in Ukraine. She was super professional and polite, but she really did not want to talk to us….We had a quiet night.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
On Saturday we drove to Kyiv very well rested. We had a lot to do.
In anticipation of the city traffic, we divided the convoy into groups of two, each led by an experienced driver. We all arrived at our partner organizations’ volunteer hub and first sorted the hospital supplies with Mariia, head of Ukraine’s Frontline Hospitals. Then we split up. Mariia, Olaf, Dietmar, Annette and Nils drove to Nova Poshta to send off a few bags and boxes full of material. Dani, Dave, Michael, and a friend of Mariia drove to Sviatoslav to drop off one of the VW buses for repainting. Sviatoslav’s regular job is as an artist who paints sets for a major theater. He supports the army by repainting vehicles in camouflage; our VW was his 354thpaint job.
When we met again at the Hub that evening, there was an air raid warning. We saw searchlights crisscrossing the sky, looking for drones. After just a few minutes, the all-clear sounded.
Afterwards we all met at Mariia’s and ate the delicious borscht she had prepared. She had invited other members of her newly founded charity “UFH – Ukraine Frontline Hospitals”.
Among them was a young woman, Anya, who had fled from eastern Ukraine. Her brother fled to Belgium, and her mother now lives in Russia. She explained: “My mother and I, we talk on the phone every now and then. You have to talk to your mother on the phone sometimes. But we don’t talk about politics.” The war is tearing this family apart, and you could see and hear that. Another young woman, Anastasia, said that planning your life for the next 5 years makes no sense if you don’t know what the next day will bring.
Mariia told us about the recent morning attack on Kyiv, in which a metro station near Mariia’s apartment was hit. Her boyfriend had actually planned to take the metro that morning to go to an appointment. However, he decided to stay in bed and cancel the appointment. He wanted to sleep in – despite Mariia’s warning. The attack happened just at the moment when he would have taken the subway there. He would have at the subway station at the moment the missile hit. At this point in the story, Mariia couldn’t continue.
In the evening, we met Nadia, Ruslan, and his partner for pizza at Ruslan’s place. Nadia kindly took Olaf to the train station for his return to Germany. Luckily, we had another quiet night.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
On Sunday morning, we set off again very early. We drove to the hub, picked up three more cars and drove all four vehicles to Kyiv Central Station. There, we met Serhiy from the unit to which employees of a hotel in Lviv had introduced us last year and presented him a VW bus. He was overjoyed and drove straight back south to Odessa, where they are currently, as they put it, working.
Dietmar, Dani, and Dave stayed in Kyiv while Nils, Michael, and Annette set off for Dnipro with two pickups and a VW bus. Dani and Dave had a lot to do: First, together with Ruslan, they took two VW buses to the workshop that converts them into evacuation vehicles. The people at the workshop took some time to show them around the workshop. They were busy at that moment cutting out the windows of an ambulance donated from Austria and replacing them with aluminum panels. They had just finished converting a Mazda pickup truck from the UK. This video from Lawyers Move gives an impression of the how the conversion work looks.
Ruslan showed them some of the suburbs that Michael and Annette had visited with Serhiy in May 2023, including Bucha. Afterwards, Dani and Dave picked up the camouflaged VW Transporter from the day before together with Mariia.
During the drive through Kyiv, Mariia talked about the area and told what it was like in early 2022 when the Russian invasion was stopped just a few kilometers from Kyiv.
Meanwhile, the drive to Dnipro was smooth. We drove east again, towards Poltava, stopped briefly at the “U Sester” restaurant and then – following Google Maps – turned south onto, as you might suspect, a back road. We stopped after a few hundred meters, checked and compared the route planning in various navigation apps, found no alternatives, and continued. Fortunately, after a few kilometers we saw a real highway off to the left, turned onto a paved agricultural path, ignoring what GPS told us, and got on the main road. It was still under construction in some parts, but overall, it was a lot better than the country roads.
In Dnipro, we saw the teachers to whom we had donated a pickup truck that had been repainted with green fence paint in Kharkiv in August 2023–we called it “the Frog.” Olena and Volodymyr volunteered for the Territorial Defense Forces when the war started. Olena refused to let her husband go alone. She has now completed her paramedic training, and last year we were able to send her a lot of donation-funded material, such as a tactical medical backpack including refills, and then, in the fall, infusion fluid used to compensate temporarily for high blood loss. Their children are currently living with their grandparents. Olena explained her motivation to us: “If we parents don’t fight now, our children will have to do it later.” With the pickup truck they are getting now, they will, among other things, evacuate wounded people directly from the front line. Without a pickup truck, the injured would have to be carried four to eight kilometers by their comrades. Volodymyr said that he had already had to drive cross-country at 170 km/h with “the Frog” near the front – avoiding drone attacks. This pickup truck is still in use, but has required many repairs. Now, her unit has a second one. Olena presented us with a Ukrainian flag with the emblem of her unit. She had decorated it with traditional painting. Olena explained that painting relaxes her and distracts her from her experiences in everyday life as a paramedic.
We also met representatives of the “Iron Bulls” unit, to whom we were also able to hand over a vehicle in October 2024. They were in a hurry, so we handed over the keys, took a quick photo, gave them a short briefing, and they were done. Back to work.
We had one more handover, which took a little longer than expected. When we arrived in Dnipro, our contact from the 93rd Brigade called with the news that he had received orders to deploy and could no longer come himself. His deputy was on the way. We drank coffee and ate hot dogs until Serhiy (another one!) arrived. Serhiy is a staff officer, originally from Sievierodonetsk in the Donbas, which is now occupied by Russia. Serhiy moved to Dnipro with his wife. Both worked in the police before the war—he for many years in the criminal investigation department, then in the traffic police; she in the investigation of economic crimes. Serhiy expressed his gratitude for the new pickup. Without small vehicles, it would be impossible to supply the army. He reported that large military vehicles such as tank trucks cannot get closer than 50 km to the front line because they are quickly spotted by reconnaissance drones and immediately attacked as high-value targets. By contrast, smaller, less conspicuous vehicles are much safer. He said that another van of theirs had, over the last two years, carried a total 20 tons of fuel. A large number of vans supplies the soldiers with just about everything: fuel, food, ammunition, and they also transport people.
Serhiy took us to the train station in the evening. We locked our luggage at the station and then spent some time in a cafe. When we returned to the station, there was an air raid alarm. We waited for a while in the baggage room, where extra benches had been set up.
The train then left on time. Taking sleeping cars in overnight trains is very pleasant. We were back in Kyiv early Monday morning.
Monday, January 26, 2025
On Monday, Nils, Michael and Annette grabbed a quick shower in Dani and Dave’s hotel room. Then breakfast. Afterwards, Michael and Dave took care of the repainted T4, whose battery had died overnight. Dani, Nils and Annette had time to walk around Kyiv a bit. At lunchtime, we met Nadia for dinner and Michael could give her the various customs documents we had collected.In the afternoon, we had time to visit St. Sophia Cathedral.
That evening, we met SAP colleagues for dinner. Our colleague Elena Busha had invited everyone and selected the restaurant. Professor, Ihor Zhaloba, who was to give lectures in Heilbronn and Wiesloch later in February, also stopped by briefly. Later, Mariia came to pick up the documents and keys for the repainted VW bus. She reported that her day had been complete chaos. That morning, Trump had halted funding for USAID for 90 days “in order to conduct audits.” This meant that international aid workers with whom Mariia works suddenly had no more money and were ordered to return home. Mariia’s helpers decided to finish the projects in Kyiv, in defiance of these instructions. Mariia therefore took in two now homeless volunteers in her home…. Since then, aid workers financed with European Union have been able to rent an apartment, where the workers supported by American funds could now also stay.Our SAP colleagues presented us with some special gifts: for large donors, we were given airplane models made using 3D printers. Usually, they produce other things for the “Druk Armia” initiative, but now they had “printed” F-16s and SU-27s and painted them with traditional floral patterns—beautiful, but at the same time bitter when you consider that so many people are dying at the front because they have no air cover.
The handover of the repainted vehicle planned for Monday had not worked out. The representatives of the receiving army unit were “delayed” by a day because they still had urgent work to do.
Our night train to Poland left Kyiv on time, to the minute. Surprisingly, it was not full.
The border clearance on both sides was just as quick. The return flight from Krakow was also on time, Nils took the train to Heidelberg, and Adrian brought Michael, Annette, Dani and Dave home. Many thanks to Adrian!
It was a packed, eventful and intensive transport, our biggest yet.
