A SCOUTING couple from Usk have travelled to the Ukrainian border and back to deliver supplies vital to driving back the Russian invasion – even kitting out fellow scouts.

Ceri and David Carlyon have in recent weeks packed 4x4 vehicles with items donated by the public, before driving the vehicles all the way to Ukraine’s western border and then flying home to do it all again.

“We drove to Stafford on Friday to pick up two more,” Mr Carlyon said.

“We drove them straight back to Usk and then to Dover. Jumped on the ferry and went across at about 4am on Saturday.”

The convoy reached the Ukrainian border in Poland at about 11am on Sunday morning.

“The vehicles are now helping people in Ukraine,” Mr Carlyon said.

“We’ve just sent another crew of volunteers out this morning to pick up four more cars so we can load them up ready for the next stint across.”

He explained that 4x4 vehicles are now the only way to get aid around the country.

“We’re working with a company over there to make them as safe as possible,” he added.

The vehicles are being used to transport supplies to Ukraine but then they themselves are being donated.

Among the items delivered to Ukraine were:

  • Medical supplies;
  • Humanitarian aid such as nappies, baby food, long-life food, sanitary products;
  • Some clothes;
  • Even some defensive military equipment – helmets, vests, torches, rangefinders.

“This was all donated. It’s coming from all over the place,” Mr Carlyon explained.

“What we need people to donate at the moment is money.”

Mr Carlyon said that he didn’t want to come across as ungrateful, but that acquiring specific items such as tourniquets, helmets and trauma packs – “things they need to keep themselves alive” – were the top priority.

Such items, he said, were not things people were likely to have and were getting “more and more expensive”.

The couple also have a crowdfunding page which is running alongside their physical donation drive – to support their efforts, visit crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-ukrainians-buy-essentials

Ukrainians living in the UK have been among those to donate funds to the Carlyons’ campaign – with some going even further.

Mr Carlyon explained: “In the early hours of Saturday morning we picked up a Ukrainian man - a biologist at a British university – who was desperate to get back to his wife who was refusing to leave Ukraine.

“Somebody managed to get him to the services in London so that we could just sweep him up on the way through.

“He was going back in. I don’t know what he must be dealing with right now.”

Mr Carlyon is County Scouting Commissioner and met fellow scouts Yaroslav and Viktoria Kolodiy through his Cwmbran business Welsh Connection.

Mr and Mrs Kolodiy became good friends with the Carlyons and have since taken up the fight in Ukraine.

“They’re scouters like we are,” Mr Carlyon said.

“They’re leaders and their children are all involved in scouting.

“This sounds so weird to say, but they’re scouters who are fighting for their lives.

“As scouters over here, if we put out a flag for help from the scouting community, we like to think they’d come to our aid.

“That’s why we felt we had to do something.

“This isn’t a hero mission.”

Mr Carlyon said the campaign had been “a very weird experience, but it’s gathering so much momentum now”.

“Even this morning, we purchased another vehicle and when we told the guy why he knocked £250 off the price and even went to fill it up with petrol,” she said.

“We’re doing it all again within the next week.”