Sasha's Story.

An image, to you looking at this it has no meaning but to me and those of us who battled to get to this image it means everything.

This photo was taken in a church yard in Kramatorsk by a New Zealand Journalist who was documenting the dropping point of evacuees from Soledar and Bahkmut.

'Sasha' - Sasha was a kid we found, with his mother and older sister in a basement where everything around them had been hit. Buildings were destroyed including the one above the basement and evidence of Phosphorus and Cluster munitions were everywhere. The dad 'app not a good person' had run off and left them in the contested town weeks prior. Dead or Free, nobody knows (but what kind of bloke does that anyway). The trauma they'd witnessed was evident on both children's faces from the moment myself and my oppo met them. Dirty, hungry, scared, unsure as to what was going on. We immediately asked them to evacuate to which neighbours they shared a basement with and shouted they aren't leaving in Ukrainian/Russian.

We offered the whole basement evacuation, but the whole basement refused. They wanted to stay. Russian Military if you know the Bahkmut/Soledar area literally sit overseeing the town and probing it nightly to take. They blow it up through the day with Artillery.

We returned several times over the space of a week, each time we showed up we would be met by shouts of nobody here is leaving. It's a story we often find, a story which often confuses me as there isn't much of the buildings left in that area and Russia's PMC group Wagner are knocking on the door. Eventually though, we managed to win some of them over, which eventually led to winning Sasha's mum over...

There was some stuff in between which I will leave out because to be honest, it still stuns me and it would stun you too but let's just say some not all basements have a chain of command and they tend to be manipulative men. (we reported it to the people we needed to I.E Ukrainian Army).

The family, which had now decided to leave, was being called all sorts of names upon leaving with one item each. My oppo speaks fluent Ukrainian and our terp speaks both Ukrainian and Russian and none could make out what was being shouted. In my mind, I knew the next day we pass this place whatever stuff was left of theres would be stolen or burned, sadly this is also common in the Donbas when people leave the people who don't leave break in and steal the items left behind, I assume and hope it's just desperation of them and it's not just the norm.

On the ride out of the town, all three were situated in my vehicle. Sasha stood between me and my oppo in front, seeing the war and destruction very different to how we were seeing it, and this would come in random outbursts of 'ohhh' 'wowwwww' 'tank, tank' if only everybody could see war in the eyes of sasha, I wondered if it would look pretty and trust me the ride out wasn't pretty. 80% of buildings were damaged, two artillery strikes happened on our extraction nearby and Ukrainian tanks were firing their turrets like it was a 105mm gun.

Arriving into Kramatorsk, the emotion of the intensity of rescues overwhelmed some of us, the reporter who took this photo said he'd never seen us look like that and he'd seen us several times over the last few weeks. For me, I just broke down and had a moment before I went into the church compound. The picture was just after the local babushkas ushered Sasha to the food, a hungry boy, scared by war, now free.

I don't know how the war ends, but I hope one day. I hope they think back and remember the crazy brits that rescued them under fire and brought them to safety.

Sasha's family have been moved out of Ukraine to a monastery and have been offered a new life in Austria once they go through a counselling procedure and get better after suffering from malnourishment on top of everything else they'd seen.

There are hundreds of stories over the last few months like this and we will share them in the lead up to Christmas as we raise funds for winter packages for our team and the vehicles along with the places we operate.?

You can donate to us if you'd like here: www.thespearheadfoundation.com/donate

or if you are a business and would like to sponsor the foundation, please reach out to me via email: [email protected]