Evangelical charities assisting civilian evacuations in Pokrovsk

Evacuations in Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa

On a cold day at the end of February 2025, the police evacuation team 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 seek safety in other 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 several months now the White Angels unit has been cooperating with civilian volunteer groups to pull in scarce resources and also to be able to supervise the work of the civilians in the areas of high risk. That day the police group is joined on their mission by the two volunteers working with the Volunteer Rescue Service, a charity run by the Ukrainian Evangelical Pastor Leonid Nomerchuk. The NGO became one 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, one of the policemen Viktor Kovovko joins the volunteers in their van while Kostyantyn Tunytskyi and Evhen Afendikov remain their vehicle. The newly-formed mini convoy starts towards Pokrovsk in full speed hoping to avoid the meeting with the Russian drones. The danger of the meeting with the drones has long become a part of the daily work for the team. Between January 29th and February 19th this year the team vans had been directly targeted by the drones three times. On January 29th the team’s vehicles were hit by a Russian drone in Pokrovsk, injuring one person and destroying the van. On February 16th the Russian drone exploded metres away 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 some minutes ago stands at the side of the road. There are no people in sight and the evacuation team assumes that they managed to escape the drone and continue into the city. Of course, remaining on the spot for any length of time carries the risk of a drone hit. Later that day we learn that the driver of the car had survived the hit, sustaining minor injuries and managing to get to the nearest hospital in the town of Dobropillia.

The road outside Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa

In Pokrovsk the evacuation teams split to collect the people at different addresses. The Volunteer Rescue Service pulls up at one of the residential blocks and enters a ground floor apartment. The man who opened the doors is named Vyacheslav. He is 55 and has speech difficulties caused by cerebral palsy. He says he finally decided to evacuate from Pokrovsk because 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 help of the evacuation team 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 too 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, running water or gas supplies in Pokrovsk for several months and to conserve warmth in the apartment it had not been aired for a very long time. This helped to keep the temperature above freezing point but also kept moisture inside. One of Vitaliy’s hats that has not been used in a while is covered in mold. There is also mold on the walls in several other spots.

The father and son’s packing does not take too much time. Assisted by the Volunteer Rescue Service volunteers, the father and son get into the van and start towards Dobropillia, a town about 20 kilometres from Pokrovsk, where father and son 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 purpose 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 involved in volunteer activities in Ukraine ever since. He initially worked with a church organization called Masters International 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 reach out to people in our small village, helping older grandmas in their gardens, and cutting wood for the elderly and just helping people, giving out seeds and so forth, my parents still are part of that and still actively help 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 often goes on evacuation missions himself and tries to persuade some reluctant civilians to evacuate. But occasionally the volunteers go on the missions without him. Evan, Whesley’s colleague, has only been in Ukraine for three months and needs help with translation. However, Whesley’s command of Ukrainian allows him to operate mostly without the help 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 also 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 relatively safe distance from the front line. They then drive people to the nearest biggest cities – Dnipro or Zaporizhzhia. In some cases, the evacuation teams join the police on their missions in the front-line towns themselves.

Ihor Pilipushka and his team are based in Zaporizhzhia and apart from his church activity run a small shelter where the evacuees from Donetsk Oblast can stay for free while searching for accommodation and work. Ludy Dorozhche Zolota run a similar shelter in Dnipro. A native of Luhansk Oblast, Pilipushka was forced to leave his hometown in 2014 when the city was occupied in the initial stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And among the team members working on evacuations for Ludy Dorozhche Zolota are locals mostly from Donetsk Oblast.

The rescue teams often work with foreign volunteers who usually come to Ukraine for a period of several months. Among them Whesley stands out. Several days after our first meeting, I texted him to ask if he thinks the war in Ukraine might end soon 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 piece 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 soon means the US. He replies that home now is in Zhytomyr Oblast. He says that he still goes to the US for a few months each year, to earn enough money to sustain himself for the rest of the year while volunteering. However, he is now a Ukrainian permanent residency card holder, meaning that he is counting on staying for some 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 need 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 Eastern 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 a Ukrainian journalist and a contributing editor with New Eastern Europe.

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eastern Ukraine, humanitarian assistance, Russian invasion of Ukraine, USA