Devon to Dnipro: How a small aid group delivers 70 vehicles to Ukraine.
“To actually do something physical and hand over the vehicle to these people, it's actually quite emotional."
The lush green of Stoke Gabriel rolls past the window of our van as we drive down the narrow roadways of the old English town. The topic of conversation is nowhere near as sunny, though - I am with Adam Steward, a group leader of Ukrainian Action Team Devon. This volunteer-run aid group has donated around 70 vehicles to Ukraine since 2022. We are discussing the rare but very real threat of Russian partisans operating against European-based Ukraine assistance, notably when a warehouse full of communications equipment was burnt down in London earlier this year, suspected to be the work of paid saboteurs on behalf of Russia. Whilst the risk is small, Adam is very aware that they could always be a target and takes the safety of his team very seriously.
25 September, 2025 - Stoke Gabriel, Devon, United Kingdom: A Ukrainian Action volunteer goes to check one of the many donated ambulances. Licence plates must be obscured to protect the drivers.
The conversation is cut short, however, as through the winding roads, we are suddenly greeted by a Ukrainian flag at the entrance of a compound like something out of a spy film. This is no lair, however, this is the base of operations for Team Devon - their various vehicles destined for the 2000-mile journey proudly lined up, cleaned, fixed and ready to go. We are some of the first to arrive, but it doesn't take long for the volunteers to start pouring in, their friends and families also coming to see them off. Some are serving coffee, others have camping chairs set up to watch the team do their work. Despite the frantic nature, it is clear this has been done many times before - the team are quick to work, conducting oil, tyre pressure and radio checks, making sure everything is ready for the trip.
In between the various rapid-fire checks and a brief battery scare, I spoke with Phil Bolt, team leader of this mission, and asked him how difficult it is to drive second hand, often quite old, vehicles across Europe on such a long trip, "You’ve got to take into account their age, but we take all the vehicles for a very extensive checks - we look a the service history of the vehicles and if there is not a recent service history we will have them fully serviced. We get Kwik Fit to do a full safety inspection of all the tyres - you know, it’s amazing, you look at the vehicles with lovely tread on the tyre, and then you look at the date code on there and it’s 15 years old and starting to perish." I then asked Phil, who has been to Ukraine before, how it felt knowing he and the team were having a physical impact on the delivery of aid, "We had four work sessions just preparing these vehicles. It's one thing to put some money in the charity, toward a vehicle, but to actually do something physical and hand over the vehicle to these people, it's actually quite emotional."
25 September, 2025 - Stoke Gabriel, Devon, United Kingdom: Phil Bolt (Middle) checks over the teams pre-mission briefing notes.
Shortly after talking with Phil, all of the drivers gathered for a final safety brief and outline of the route. The key topic is always the safety of the drivers, as even with the second-hand vehicles being fixed up, many still have a lot of miles on them, and there is always a risk of something going wrong. From my time with Ukrainian Action, though, they are very adaptable to these kinds of problems, and it rarely poses an issue. After the final briefing, the volunteer drivers pose for a photo with a British-Ukrainian flag, something of a tradition now with every convoy that departs. With the coffees and teas finished and radios double checked, the drivers say a warm but emotional goodbye to their families. Whilst many won’t be making the full journey into Ukraine, its still a long way to Poland to hand them over, and it takes a tremendous amount of work and planning to get them all there together. The convoy departs the compound for a victory lap of the village to much celebration, Ukrainian flags are waving, and people are popping out of their homes and shops to wave goodbye. It’s quite a moving moment to see such a small village come together for a cause significantly bigger and thousands of miles away, but that feeling is quickly replaced with the weight of how impressive it is to deliver the number of vehicles that they have. After the lap of the village, the convoy then starts its journey, where I will next meet them in Krakow, Poland, three days later.
25 September, 2025 - Stoke Gabriel, Devon, United Kingdom: Adam Steward (Left) holds a flag during the teams victory lap of the town, before heading on their long journey to Ukraine. Adam and I would fly to meet them three days later.
Several days and some 1200 miles later, I'm at a sunny petrol station with Adam Steward outside of Krakow airport staring at a Soviet-era missile transporter with a replica Proton rocket mounted on it, wondering why it was there, when a man named Oleg pulls up in a van and ushers us to get in. We are a bit ahead of the convoy, and half an hour later, we pull into a much larger petrol station - and the reason soon becomes clear - as one by one, more and more Ukrainian Action vehicles pull up, and not just the ones from Team Devon, but Team London as well. Nine vehicles in total, all full to the brim with aid. The teams get out and we go to greet them, with only one driver from Team Devon, Brian, staying on until Ukraine with Adam and myself, the rest have returned home and swapped with other Polish & Ukrainian volunteers. After further checks of the vehicles, we are once again underway to the border.
28 September, 2025 - Małopolskie Voivodeship, Poland: Oleg (Left) & Adam (Right) watch on as the nine vehicle convoy parks up.
The sun is quickly setting as we cut through the Polish countryside, which, as we get closer and closer, becomes increasingly quiet - one of the many signs of what we are heading into. Among other signs include the city of Rzeszow, which, even if we weren't looking at road signs, the large empty military transport convoys driving away from it remind us of its significant logistical importance for international military aid to Ukraine. Phil Bolt had once flown into Rzeszów, and had remarked to me on the intense security presence of Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries around the airport to protect it, which stuck with me, given the airspace violation by Russian drones several weeks before this trip. It only emphasised the need for them.
28 September, 2025 - Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland: A volunteer secures tarp straps holding donated spare tyres during another quick stop to distribute the weight.
After several hours of driving, and an agonisingly repeating voice yelling "communications battery low, start engine immediately" due to a fault in the dashboard, we arrive at the border with Ukraine. It’s completely dark now and we're parked on a quiet side road away from the queue, saying goodbye to the 2nd team of drivers who are setting off home. After 20 minutes of discussing what we are going to do for food, as Adam, Brian and myself are already set to arrive late after curfew in Lviv, we are stopped from making a decision to go to a nearby McDonalds when the third and final team of volunteers arrive from the Ukrainian side of the border after walking a whole six hours to get to us. One by one, like they have done countless times, the volunteers get in their assigned vehicles and we join the queue to the border.
I am now with Max, a Ukrainian who has, despite being exempted from service, works as a volunteer and has completed this journey several hundred times to get these vehicles and their aid over the border. Max struck me as someone very put together, he spoke softly yet his quiet determination and meticulous planning for delivering these convoys really stuck with me. All I could do is sit in admiration as he did his pre-border checks. Occasionally, we'd get chatting about politics, but I was mostly invested in watching how he and his team handled the crossing, even despite my crushing tiredness from being awake so long. It took several hours, a lot of paperwork, manifests and waiting around. For them it was second nature, for us Brits I was excruciating, but at around 2 am, we finally handed a gate guard a stamped piece of paper and that was it, we were in Ukraine.
29 September, 2025 - Shehyni Border Checkpoint, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine: A quick photo taken on my phone due to avoid raising suspicion with a chunky DSLR. Last thing I wanted was to be arrested for espionage on my first visit.
After leaving the border station, Max and I drove with Adam, Brian and several others to a nearby petrol station. The scenery was now very different, and yet somewhat charming. I stumbled out of the vehicle and gathered some essentials my sleep-deprived mind thought to get, beef jerky and Coca-Cola. The team and I stood in almost near silence in this dim petrol station, chomping on food for about 20 minutes. I think we were all glad to just eat something. Outside, I followed Adam to a small booth to exchange some currency and got my first Ukrainian notes. The girl inside was quiet and seemingly very bored, but I couldn’t blame her; at this time of night, there was little activity here. I soon moved across my bags to yet another donated ambulance, and said goodbye to the Ukrainian volunteers whom I wished I had more time to get to know, and in a less fatigued mood. Adam, Brian and I then set off on the bumpy, winding and dark roads to Lviv. I chuckled to myself as we left the petrol station, as the currency exchange girl was fast asleep with a blanket draped over her now. How jealous I was.
I may have been hallucinating at this point, seeing odd light streaks in the trees occasionally separated by large, beautiful churches and the occasional statue of the Virgin Mary staring at me, dimly lit by LED lights, but, eventually we made it into Lviv, and it was time to say goodbye to Adam and Brian, who still had many miles to go. I could not accompany them for the rest of the trip as I would be heading to Kyiv, but Adam, like he has amazingly done several times before, would be making his way across the country to places like Dnipro and eventually Zaporizhzhia to deliver aid and the ambulance itself. I could tell how deeply these trips mean to Adam; he feels profoundly close to the Ukrainian people and has met a great deal of them, and learned many of their experiences. He has also been a tremendous source of help and advice for getting here. I wished him well with a limp wave before slumping through the doors into my hotel. I have never slept so well in my life.
It was a long, long journey, and even longer for Brian and Adam still, but Ukrainian Action impressed me from start to finish. Between the family and friends back in Stoke Gabriel handing out tea and coffee for the drivers, to the final leg volunteers from Ukraine walking six hours over the border just to spend another four crossing back over it again, I was very moved by the groups commitment to supporting Ukraine - it is an emotional thing to see so long into a horrible war, at a time where it is getting less and less attention, while seemingly getting worse and worse, yet they keep going, doing what they do best - action, not words.
25 September, 2025 - Stoke Gabriel, Devon, United Kingdom: The team of Mission 12 pose for a photo before their journey.