October 23rd, 2025
69,355 people evacuated from danger to date
47 people evacuated from danger this week
28 trips into deoccupied and frontline territories this week
Last week, Anastasia returned from the Donbas village of Starovarvarivka disheartened and exhausted. What affected her most was the news that a nearby village, which is located more than 20 miles away from the frontline, had suffered an FPV drone attack. In the past, villages that far away from the fighting were relatively safe, but, with ongoing technological advances, grayzones around combat lines have continued to expand. This unfortunate development has enabled the Russians to more effectively destroy civilian infrastructure, putting more and more people in mortal danger.
Stories
It’s Difficult to Leave Your Home
Dobra sprava’s volunteer Ihor recently conducted a particularly tense evacuation from Oleksijevo-Druzhkivka. The drones in the area were so active that he had to hide the car under the cover of trees, while he and the evacuees hid in the basement of a building for half an hour, waiting for the moment when they could make their escape more safely. While hiding, Ihor asked Nelia, a 67-year-old woman, why she had waited so long to leave, knowing that the longer she waited, the more dangerous the situation would become. Ihor understands very well that there is a psychological component to the choice to stay or leave and Nelia’s response touched him. She explained:
It’s very hard to leave your home, your town — the place where your parents lived, where you grew up and built your adult life, where your children were born, took their first steps, and spoke their first words, where you’ve had so many beautiful moments. It hurts to realize that you have to take only food and clothing, and the most basic survival necessities for the first few days, while leaving behind the most precious memories — your children’s first drawings made by their tiny hands, their New Year’s gifts, their school notebooks and diaries… And it’s unbearably painful to know that you might never return, never visit your loved ones’ graves again, never bring them flowers or sit beside them with your memories.
Nelia and the other evacuees made it out of Oleksijevo-Druzhkivka safely. Nelia wept when she reunited with her youngest daughter in Dnipro.
Launch of the Firewood Project
For the fourth year in a row, our teams are launching the firewood delivery project, which aims to keep tens of thousands of Ukrainians residing in wartorn frontline areas warm through the winter months. Inna’s team is starting the project in Shevchenkove, Kharkiv Region. The wood is being loaded into trucks as this report is being written and will be directed to the most vulnerable Shevchenkove residents this week. The teams is prioritizing the most dangerous locations first, as these areas will become extremely difficult to navigate once the leaf cover disappears, due to the the proliferation of FPV drones.
Help in Occupied Territories
Five families received firewood; several bedridden people received a heater and heated sheets (four total); two other people also received heaters, 19 people received household chemicals, and 84 people received various aid in the occupied territories.
Team Summaries
Alina’s Team – Dobra sprava (Good Deeds)
10 trips, evacuating 45 people, 7 of them children.
Inna’s Team – Krok z nadiyeyu (Step with Hope)
20.3 tons of aid delivered to 8,050 people.
6,600 people received bread.
Aid delivered to 33 locations, 12 of them high-risk frontline areas.
Firewood project kicked off with initial load heading for Shevchenkove, Kharkiv Region.
Closed-up windows, which were blown out by explosions, in one building in Kherson.
Conducted 4 pest exterminations in 4 buildings.
Kherson team completed 29 other humanitarian missions.
Once again Donbas team reached Druzhkivka.
Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks
Oleksandr S. (Boyarka): Kyiv and Chernihiv Region: delivered 2 tons of baby food and 40 tons of other food products to the team’s warehouse in Ukrainka for further distribution in the Sumy, Kherson, and Donetsk regions.Delivered 5 tons of furniture to the team’s bases in Kyiv and Chernihiv regions for further distribution to internally displaced people (IDPs) and other victims of war. Delivered 500 kg of baby food to the team’s Boyarka headquarters for further distribution to IDPs and other vulnerable groups. Provided summer shoes to 25 IDP families in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions. Odesa Region:delivered 100 kg of baby food to Illinka. Sumy Region: delivered 400 kg of baby food, clothing, and shoes to a local penitentiary. Delivered 1,200 kg of food aid to be distributed in Romny, Nedryhailiv, and Lypova Dolyna. Delivered 200 kg of baby food to families affected by war.
Vladyslav K. (Mykolaiv): delivered 35 tons of water to Mykolaiv.
Yuri S. (Vinnytsia): brought food for 34 people staying at the “Safe Space” homeless night shelter in Vinnytsia. Delivered humanitarian aid to a large family and distributed vegetables to IDPs in the village of Bruslyniv. Brought vegetables and fruits to a single woman with a disability in Vinnytsia.
Sandra S. (Odesa): the kitchen’s work was slowed down but not stopped by the heavy rain and flooding in Odesa. Over 2 weeks the team served more than 800 meals to those in need.
Vitaliy Z. (Kharkiv): finished drilling a well in the village of Lisnyy, in the Kramatorsk community. The 700 residents now have drinking water for the first time since 2022. Delivered 4 tons of humanitarian kits, “Victory” bread, clothes, medicine, and animal feed to Kramatorsk. Brought almost 500 loaves of “Victory” bread for the pensioners, displaced, and disabled people in Ivanivka, near Kramatorsk. Evacuated a disabled woman and her 15-year-old child from Lyman. In this dangerous place there is always a risk from FPV drones, so the team has to wait for drizzle, or overcast weather, when drone visibility is impeded to perform evacuations. Visited an orphanage in Savyntsi, Izium District. The team is planning to build a water reservoir, which can be used to provide ice for a skating rink for the children.
WeCare Centers (Lviv): delivered tiles; couches, gynecological chairs, rice,pasta, barley porridge, and baby puree to cities across Ukraine, including Ternopil, Obukhiv, Pereyaslav, Cherkasy, and Nikopol’.
Oleksandr D. (Lutsk):volunteer Vadym brought 1.2 tons of aid from Bad Bergzabern, Germany, including washing machines, dryers, a freezer, a heating stove, a microwave, a wheelchair, a walker, a vacuum cleaner, instant food, fire extinguishers, and other aid. Part of this delivery was shipped to Oksana K.’s team, and.the household appliances were sent to Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kaniv, and Ukrainka.
Oksana K. (Lutsk): donated pasta to a local school – Lutsk Gymnasium 16. Distributed 28 kg of adult diapers and urological pads, and 18 kg of clothing, shoes, toys, and bedspreads to 8 visitors at the team’s aid distribution point. Distributed 500-700 kg of adult diapers and urological pads, disposable diapers, food, and beds for a rehabilitation center, in the village of Lytovezh, Volyn Region.
Oleksandr Z. (Lutsk): provided therapeutic interventions and aid to IDP children and families, children with disabilities, orphans, military service members, and amputees in Lutsk, Pidhaitsi, and villages of the Rivne Region. 753 children and adults received help, including art therapy classes, help with bread and other food, a “public cafe” that serves fresh lunches every day, theater and concert outings, help with glasses, medical and preventive procedures – including a “medical mobile trailer,” which traveled to remote locations in the Rivne Region to conduct physiotherapeutic procedures for IDPs – and help with the manufacture of prostheses and rehabilitation.
Sandra’s Kitchen: lunch in the bomb shelter
Karina’s Team – My ryatuyemo Ukrayinu (We Save Ukraine)
113 people in the shelter.
Tetiana’s Team – Dopomoha poruch (Help Is Near)
Delivered 120 aid packages to the village of Krutoyarivka, on the border of the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Distributed 100 aid packages to recently internally displaced refugees in Smila.
Natasha’s Team – Volontersʹkyy tsentr Vyshnya (Cherry Volunteer Center)
Tetiana, from Kryvyi Rih, traveled to Lyubymivka, delivering 211 packages with hygienic products and 74 packages for children.
Timur’s Team – Komanda Teymura Alyeva (Timur Alyev’s Team)
Delivered 287 aid packages to refugees from Kup’yans’k and other parts of the Donbas, who are staying in Kharkiv.
Special deliveries to 18 families with babies and 16 disabled elderly.
Pavel and Olena’s Teams – Dotyk sertsya (Touch of Heart) & Svitanok mriy (Dawn of Dreams)
235 packages delivered to Zasillya, Dobrokam’yanka and the IDP community in Novohryhorivka.
Held 3 events for children in the Mykolaiv office.
Pomahaem Foundation (We Help Foundation)
170 packages delivered to Derhachi, Kharkiv Region.
64 packages delivered to Dnipro shelter.
Marina’s Team – Daruy dobro Ukrayina (Give Good Ukraine)
150 food and hygiene packages distributed to internally displaced people in P'yatykhatky.
Dina’s Team – Vilʹni lyudy, vilʹna krayina (Free People, Free Country)
Distributed 264 packages in Poltava, Kanev, and Kremenchuk.
Served 1,250 meals in Kharkiv soup kitchen.
Distributed 200 packages in Kharkiv.
Bohdan’s Team — Vse robymo sami (We Do Everything Ourselves)
Food and hygiene kits were distributed to 42 families in Zhytomyr.
Children at the club for children with disabilities attended art and cooking classes. They also participated as a team in the national children’s dancing festival, and won.
Alena’s Team – Diva (Virgo)
Helped 32 wounded in the hospital.
Anastasia’s Team – LoveUA
Delivered 141 packages of food and 141 hygiene products to Starovarvarivka.
How to Help
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