Bath residents asked to help power war torn Ukrainian city
Meet the "group of mums" helping supply a Ukrainian city with electricity
A collective, describing themselves as just "a group of mums from Bath", who for months have been helping power a war torn city in Ukraine, are asking for public support to continue their efforts.
The Friends of Oleksandriya group has been quietly fundraising since last year to help the city.
Oleksandriya is a similar size to Bath but is dealing with tens of thousands of internal refugees in Ukraine and has almost no electricity, because of regular Russian attacks on the country's civilian infrastructure.
The Friends of Oleksandriya group has now gone public with a fundraising appeal, saying it wants to send 25 electric generators to the city so it can sufficiently power its hospital and schools.
Zhenya Shkill, who is originally from Kyiv in Ukraine but now lives in Bathford, tells us how the scheme came together.
An unofficial twin
Zhenya tells us the scheme was born out of an idea to "twin" Bath with a similar city in Ukraine.
"After the war started on the 24th February I was part of the activist group known as 'Bath stands with Ukraine' and we had an initiative to find a twin city in Ukraine for Bath," she said.
"We started working on this initiative (but) unfortunately this group fell apart because it was mostly represented by the students of the University of Bath and some lecturers and people just finished their education and left.
"I was the only one who ended up working on this."
Zhenya says she initially came up with three options; one which was too big, one she now can't remember and the third, Oleksandryia.
"We approached the council (Bath and North East Somerset Council)...when I came and spoke about this idea of finding a twin city for Bath, or maybe BANES as a whole and it got really good support from the members of the committee (the council leadership)."
After that Zhenya made contact with the Mayor of Oleksandriya and the partnership was born.
Where is Oleksandriya?
Oleksandriya is situated in central Ukraine, around an hour's drive from the Dnipro River and two and a half hours from Dnipro itself, which has come under heavy bombardment from the Russian military during the war.
It has a population of a little under 100,000 people in normal times, similar to Bath and, like Bath, it is surrounded by lots of smaller towns and villages.
The city is also home to a famous Ukrainian theatre not unlike Bath's Theatre Royal and is the base of Oleksandriya Football Club, which, like Bath Rugby, plays in the county's top league.
The state of the city
According to Zhenya, Oleksandriya itself has only come under attack from Russian missiles once since the war began and it is more than 500 kilometres from the current front line in the far East of Ukraine.
However, the fighting over the past 11 months has forced millions of Ukrainians from their homes and rather than leaving the country entirely as many have, others have ended up in safer Ukrainian cities like Oleksandriya.
The city is said to be dealing with tens of thousands of these refugees, while at the same time regular Russian shelling of Ukraine's civilian infrastructure means it has almost no electricity.
That is why the Friends of Oleksandriya group is raising money for generators, to send to Oleksandriya.
Rachael Hushon is another trustee of the group.
"They have significant power cuts at both the children's hospital and the general hospital as well as schools having no power as well for significant periods of time," she said.
The fundraising campaign
The Friends of Oleksandriya group has only gone public with its campaign within the last few weeks, but it has quietly been ongoing for much longer.
"At the beginning of December the group that was originally formed tried to connect to some other members of the community...to say 'can we now accelerate this and can we try to get these generators over to this city while the need is there," Rachael said.
"The temperatures are so cold in Ukraine, in this city, last week the temperatures were minus 11 overnight and people are living without power.
"Children are going to bed at night without light."
Rachael tells us a group formed very quickly, is now a formal charitable association and has its own website, which you can find via this link.
It has also partnered with The Rotary Club which has people on the group in Ukraine who can check that the generators reach their destination.
The White Eagle Appeal is doing the shipping.
Zhenya says they are buying the generators themselves and sending them to Ukraine rather than just sending the money, because there is a severe shortage of generators in the country, caused by the war.
"We spoke to Oleksandriya straight away and they said, 'there are no generators in Ukraine'," Zhenya told us.
"What happened is, businesses in Ukraine reacted quickly (to the war) so they bought generators, and local administrations of various cities and areas, they needed time to sit together, you know how slowly it can go, and by the time they could actually budget for the generators, there were no generators left in the country."
Going forward
In just over a month's time, on February 24, Ukraine and the rest of the world will mark one year since Russia's invasion of Ukraine sparked the first major war in Europe since 1945.
In Bath on that day, to mark the occasion and as part of the Friends of Oleksandriya campaign, a special fundraising concert will be held at Bath Abbey.
You can buy tickets for that event here.
You can donate to the wider Generators for Ukraine scheme here.