As the war in Ukraine has
shifted east, so too have the
efforts to aid millions of
civilians stuck between warring
armies with nowhere to hide.
They lack the basics, but some
of their fellow Ukrainians are
risking everything to help them.
Homegrown heroes delivering
food, formula, and sometimes, a
ride out of the warzone.
Special correspondent willem
Marx and videographer Ed Kiernan
traveled the fraught life lines
in eastern Ukraine.
Willem: The grocery stores in
dnipro, just two hours from the
frontline, remain full of food.
And Karina bakholdina may well
be their best customer.
Every day she fills carts with
baby formula, diapers, and
yogurt, yet not for her own
family -- for total strangers.
On this Monday, the bill around
$750, just a fraction of what
this real estate developer's
spent in the past two months.
Working with other local
volunteers to load up vans and
cars with crucial supplies, be
start of a long, difficult and
complex journey.
>> [Translated] This is done by
a large number of people who got
word that help is needed.
This is not done by one person.
This is done by a huge team.
Lisa: Among them, kyrylo
chemizov, a former furniture
maker, driving north the next
morning toward the city of
kharkiv.
>> Very dangerous.
Lisa: With a brief pit stop to
put on his protective equipment.
A courageous courier on the road
to frontline fighting some 40
hours each week.
Today in a city center where
many stores are shuttered or
shut up -- shot up, delivering a
payload that earns him no pay.
It is transferred once more
before coming to a stop inside
this shed.
So the products that we saw
being purchased in dnipro are
now being sorted for families in
a small village on the outskirts
of kharkiv, called Buda, where
600 refugees are in desperate
need of these supplies.
Back in kharkiv, a more precious
cargo picked up for the journey
home, including liubov, aged 73,
and 76 year old aksayneeya.
For the past month, they've been
sleeping rough in a city metro
station.
>> Our house essentially was
ruined.
Lisa: Liubov's younger son died
recently, revisiting his
abandoned apartment.
She's been told she can bury him
one day after the war.
>> They cremated him.
Nobody was allowed in the
cemetery because of the shelling
that started everywhere.
His brother left his urn in the
garage.
Willem: As shells kept falling
on the city's outskirts, a
handful more hitched a ride to
relative safety in dnipro, where
Karina established a refugee
shelter earlier this month in
just two days.
>> They don't want to leave
their homes.
They are afraid they will not
return.
They fear their apartment will
be looted.
They are very afraid of this.
Willem: Toddlers, tween's,
worried women, calling friends
and family watching news of the
war.
>> [Translated] They only start
feeling better when they have
some warm food, some tea.
They all are scared and they all
want to go home.
Willem: This converted office
block now houses almost 200
hundred, Ukrainians helping
Ukrainians.
But there's only so much one
person can do, and burning
through funds, Karina needed
cash to continue.
It came from Chicago and daniel
cherkasskiy.
>> When you meet Karina, I don't
think you have any doubts about
supporting her and seeing the
work that she does so
selflessly.
Willem: He founded a group,
Ukraine trustchain, that's
deployed more than half a
million dollars, he told us,
thanks to thousands of donors.
>> I think people that are
generous and have resources have
responsibility to help
Ukrainians right now.
Governments direct help in a
very specific way.
And I think it's important for
private citizens to use their
networks to find the vacuum and
the gaps where help is needed.
Willem: Baby Sasha seems to need
no help sleeping, but his mother
does feeding him and Karina has
stepped in.
>> [Translated] This is the most
excruciating, the most difficult
, because you talk to every
person.
You talk to every one of them
and each person has their own
story.
Willem: Karina has told us that
each story has been difficult
for her to hear.
Yesterday she welcomed another
dozen people into her shelter,
all of them no doubt with tales
to tell of shattered homes and
destroyed lives in towns to the
north, east, and south of dnipro
, currently darkened by a 19 --
a nighttime curfew.
Don't forget the other people
displaced around the country
with around 5 million now
outside Ukraine's borders too.
Amna: That is willem mark
reporting.
Thank you.
And the newshour's coverage of
the war in Ukraine is supported
in partnership with the pulitzer