More than 3,600 kilometres on the road. And at the end of it, an ambulance that starts saving lives in Kramatorsk this weekend.

This is the story of a wonderful chain of solidarity.

A donation from SDIS 16

It all starts in Angoulême, in the Charente, where we were able to collect a magnificent ambulance, handed over by Ms Émilie Richaud, president of SDIS 16.

This donation was made possible thanks to Nadia Sollogoub, Senator for the Nièvre and chair of the Senate’s France-Ukraine friendship group. For several months, she has been mobilising her colleagues to collect ambulances, which we deliver to Ukraine, to associations we choose for the importance of their impact.

François Bonneau, Senator for the Charente, approached by Nadia Sollogoub, passed on our request to SDIS 16 with enthusiasm and efficiency.

To the Nièvre, then Paris

The ambulance then travelled to the Nièvre. There, the association Fraternité Nièvre Ukraine (AFNU), led by Nadia Sollogoub and Frédéric Lajeunesse, filled it with medical equipment and computers collected from private donors.

Then came Paris. We presented the ambulance to His Excellency the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to France, Vadym Omelchenko, at a small key-handover ceremony. Surrounded by some twenty members of the embassy, we were joined by Nadia Sollogoub, François Bonneau, Member of Parliament Frédéric Petit and our friend and benefactor Olivier Mitterrand.

Paris – Lviv – Dnipro – Kramatorsk

Then it was off to Ukraine. Two humanitarian workers from the association ULIS (Unité Légère d’Intervention et de Secours), based in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, volunteered to drive the ambulance from Paris to Lviv.

And in Lviv, for the long crossing of the country towards the eastern front, Member of Parliament Frédéric Petit took over. He drove across Ukraine from west to east as far as Dnipro. There, he handed the ambulance over to our friends from the Kramatorsk Organisation of Volunteers (KOV).

From Dnipro, the ambulance continued on to Kramatorsk, where it is already in service. It will be used for vital medical evacuations, in an extremely dangerous context. Sadly, the life of an ambulance in Kramatorsk is often short. We hope this one lasts.

Our friend, the British journalist Anna Bowles, wrote an article about the KOV on her Substack. She describes how these volunteers evacuate civilians from areas where other teams no longer dare to go.

Its founder, Bohdan, shares their daily life on instagram.

Thank you to everyone who made this journey possible. Everyone did their part of the road.

And it isn’t over

By the end of the year, we are expecting three more ambulances. The next one will leave from the Bouches-du-Rhône at the end of November. We will tell you more very soon.

Getting an ambulance to the people who need it takes time, organisation and, above all, volunteers ready to take the road. We are a 100% volunteer team, with no overhead. Every euro donated goes directly to our work on the ground.