Edo

Before 24 February 2022 I lived an entirely ordinary life. I had a family, a job, and in my free time I flew a hang glider. I began paying more attention to Ukraine from the start of the occupation in 2014. I followed the situation and felt anger, helplessness and dismay at the way some people and some politicians saw it. But I certainly never imagined that this war would become such a fundamental part of my life.

On 24 February 2022 I was at home with my family, and I learned that the invasion had begun from the morning news. It was a shock. I kept thinking about what would come next if Russia really did take Ukraine.

When the Russian units stalled and it became clear they would not take Kyiv in three days, I understood that Ukrainians had decided to fight.

The first thing I did was go to help at the railway station. Gradually it became clear to me that we needed to help the families of men who had taken their families to safety and stayed behind to fight the occupiers.

That was when a completely simple thought occurred to me: they are defending us too, so we will look after their families in the meantime.

Out of that natural need to help, long-term volunteer work gradually grew.

I am still a volunteer today. I give my free time to helping Ukraine, and I am not paid for it. I am the statutory representative of the civic association Spletinia, but I see that role mainly as a formal and administrative necessity.

At the same time I help my friends — the pilots I spent some twenty years meeting at competitions across Europe. It was through them that I came, step by step, to helping Ukraine in concrete ways.

I am not someone who needs to call himself a hero or to be at the centre of attention. I am simply a man who understood, at a certain moment, that he could not stand aside.

My help never followed any plan prepared in advance. Everything came gradually, as the situation changed.

When fewer people were arriving in Slovakia and my help at the railway station was no longer so needed, I started driving humanitarian aid directly to Ukraine.

Later Spletinia appeared in Košice. I began going there to weave camouflage nets and help with logistics, while continuing to transport humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Then came the work with Pilots Help Ukraine, and the first concrete request for a car and other help. More requests for vehicles gradually followed.

So one thing gradually turned into the next. When the situation changed, so did the way I helped.

There is far more of it today — from humanitarian aid and camouflage nets to sourcing vehicles and other equipment for the people fighting in Ukraine.

I never told myself at the start that I would be doing this for four years. I always dealt first with whatever needed doing at that moment.

“I am a volunteer. Helping Ukraine has gradually become a personal matter for me. It is not my job or an obligation, but something that has become a natural part of my life and can easily take up 25 hours a day today.”