On a cold day at the end of February 2025, the police evacuation squad known as the White Angels is on their mission to evacuate civilian residents of Pokrovsk. With the continuing Russian assault on the city, more residents decide to leave their lives behind and search safety in another regions of Ukraine. At the petrol station about 20 kilometres from Pokrovsk the police are joined by the civilian volunteers, who came in their own van equipped with a radio jamming device. For respective months now the White Angels unit has been cooperating with civilian volunteer groups to pull in scarce resources and besides to be able to supervise the work of the civilians in the areas of advanced risk. That day the police group is joined on their mission by the 2 volunteers working with the Volunteer Rescue Service, a charity run by the Ukrainian Evangelical Pastor Leonid Nomerchuk. The NGO became 1 of the church-associated organizations that form the support network for the civilians evacuated from the front lines.
At the petrol station the police group splits, 1 of the policemen Viktor Kovovko joins the volunteers in their van while Kostyantyn Tunytskyi and Evhen Afendikov stay their vehicle. The newly-formed mini convoy starts towards Pokrovsk in full velocity hoping to avoid the gathering with the Russian drones. The danger of the gathering with the drones has long become a part of the regular work for the team. Between January 29th and February 19th this year the squad vans had been straight targeted by the drones 3 times. On January 29th the team’s vehicles were hit by a Russian drone in Pokrovsk, injuring 1 individual and destroying the van. On February 16th the Russian drone exploded metres distant from the vehicle and on February 19th another drone hit damaged yet another evacuation vehicle.
In Pokrovsk the points specifically targeted by the Russian military are the main entry points to the city by road. As the convoy reaches a road into the city we see a fresh reminder of these tactics. A civilian car that was clearly hit by the drone any minutes ago stands at the side of the road. There are no people in sight and the evacuation squad assumes that they managed to escape the drone and proceed into the city. Of course, remaining on the place for any dimension of time carries the hazard of a drone hit. Later that day we learn that the driver of the car had survived the hit, sustaining insignificant injuries and managing to get to the nearest infirmary in the town of Dobropillia.
The road outside Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa
In Pokrovsk the evacuation teams divided to collect the people at different addresses. The Volunteer Rescue Service pulls up at 1 of the residential blocks and enters a ground level apartment. The man who opened the doors is named Vyacheslav. He is 55 and has speech difficulties caused by cerebral palsy. He says he yet decided to evacuate from Pokrovsk due to the fact that his father who lives with him has a kidney disorder and Vyacheslav himself is not able to take care of him alone. He wants the police to take them to the nearest hospital.
With the aid of the evacuation squad Vyacheslav tries to get his father Vitaliy dressed for the trip. The man’s feet are swollen and do not fit into his boots. After a short discussion it is decided that Vitaliy will travel wearing slippers and will cover his feet with a blanket as to not get besides cold on the way. The slippers and the blanket are damp, as are all of the items in the apartment. There has not been central heating, electricity, moving water or gas supplies in Pokrovsk for respective months and to conserve warmth in the flat it had not been aired for a very long time. This helped to keep the temperature above freezing point but besides kept moisture inside. 1 of Vitaliy’s hats that has not been utilized in a while is covered in mold. There is besides mold on the walls in respective another spots.
The father and son’s packing does not take besides much time. Assisted by the Volunteer Rescue Service volunteers, the father and boy get into the van and start towards Dobropillia, a town about 20 kilometres from Pokrovsk, where father and boy will be admitted to the hospital.
While the van is navigating its way from Pokrovsk, the policeman Viktor Korovko gives the driver directions in Ukrainian and the driver responds without any noticeable accent. It is only him speaking in English to his partner that indicates that the driver is not Ukrainian. After the mission is complete we chat about his experience in Ukraine, with his command of Ukrainian being the conversation starter.
The driver’s name is Whesley but for the intent of communication with the locals Whesley has adopted the name Vasya, as it is easier for his interlocutors to remember. He first came to Ukraine in 2019 and has been active in volunteer activities in Ukraine always since. He initially worked with a church organization called Masters global Ministries, an Evangelical church and charitable organization that established their mission in Ukraine in the early 1990s. He worked in Zhytomyr Oblast. “We have a church there and scope out to people in our tiny village, helping older grandmas in their gardens, and cutting wood for the aged and just helping people, giving out seeds and so forth, my parents inactive are part of that and inactive actively aid there,” he says. At the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion he joined Plain Compassion Crisis Response, another American charity that helped with evacuations and humanitarian aid for people along the front line. The charity initially worked in Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts and later moved their base to Dnipro and works along the front lines in Donetsk Oblast.
While working there the charity has started cooperation with the Ukrainian Evangelical Pastor Leonid Nomerchuk and his Volunteer Rescue Service. Nomerchuk frequently goes on evacuation missions himself and tries to persuade any reluctant civilians to evacuate. But occasionally the volunteers go on the missions without him. Evan, Whesley’s colleague, has only been in Ukraine for 3 months and needs aid with translation. However, Whesley’s command of Ukrainian allows him to operate mostly without the aid of the locals.
Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa
Volunteer Rescue Service is not the only church-affiliated charity the White Angels have been working with. Among their partners are besides the evacuation groups run by the Evangelical Minister Ihor Pilipushka and the Evangelical church Ludy Dorozhche Zolota (The People are More Precious than Gold). Most commonly the charity vans come to collect the people evacuated by the White Angels from the front line areas at meet up points at a comparatively safe distance from the front line. They then drive people to the nearest biggest cities – Dnipro or Zaporizhzhia. In any cases, the evacuation teams join the police on their missions in the front-line towns themselves.
Ihor Pilipushka and his squad are based in Zaporizhzhia and apart from his church activity run a tiny shelter where the evacuees from Donetsk Oblast can stay for free while searching for accommodation and work. Ludy Dorozhche Zolota run a akin shelter in Dnipro. A native of Luhansk Oblast, Pilipushka was forced to leave his hometown in 2014 erstwhile the city was occupied in the first stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And among the squad members working on evacuations for Ludy Dorozhche Zolota are locals mostly from Donetsk Oblast.
The rescue teams frequently work with abroad volunteers who usually come to Ukraine for a period of respective months. Among them Whesley stands out. respective days after our first meeting, I texted him to ask if he thinks the war in Ukraine might end shortly and what would his plans be in case it does. I received an extended reply. Like me and many others, Whesley had been following the news coming from the US and was not very optimistic about any US contribution in achieving the fast part in Ukraine. “I don’t know how long the war will go, I don’t see it personally ending soon. And if it does, I don’t see it being favorable for Ukraine…,” Whesley texted back.
Regardless of that, he intends to stay in Ukraine. I ask Whesley if going home anytime shortly means the US. He replies that home now is in Zhytomyr Oblast. He says that he inactive goes to the US for a fewer months each year, to gain adequate money to sustain himself for the remainder of the year while volunteering. However, he is now a Ukrainian permanent residency card holder, meaning that he is counting on staying for any years at least. “The war has changed me, I want to stay and help, and even let’s say the war does end it doesn’t mean the work will end. Demining will go on for 50 to 100 years, there will be veterans who request our support and so much more rebuilding. The war might end but it goes on inside of most of us who’ve seen it,” he said.
New east Europe has been following the work of the White Angels since April 2024. This reportage was prepared with the financial support of the Documenting Ukraine programme run by the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.
Kateryna Pryshchepa is simply a Ukrainian writer and a contributing editor with New east Europe.
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