Submitted by Ben Stott
Ben Stott has once again embarked on a journey to Ukraine to document current conditions in several regions across the war torn country and visits planned to four sister cities. His vivid descriptions and documentation are shared in real time to update the community through his Whats App channel.
We share the following dispatches unedited and as much as possible in chronological order.
Ben: This is my third trip to Ukraine. Previously I drove all over the country delivering food and medical supplies to villages recently liberated from Russian occupation and offering acupuncture to soldiers and civilians suffering from PTSD from the ravages of constant shelling and the oppression of occupation. This trip I’m participating in visiting and filming 5 towns in Donetsk Oblast that are in sister city projects with US cities and focusing on Sviatohirsk, Ashland’s partner.
Afterwards, I’ll be going south to Zaporizha and Odessa to work for a short while with NGOs I connected with last time. So I’ll be able to see and report on conditions in a lot of the areas where Ukraine is actively fighting (but not too close). It’s hard to really get what it’s like here reading the news. I hope I’ll be able to offer some insights, pictures and videos to provide another viewpoint to help you understand and feel what it’s really like here.
Ben began his journey in Kiev, where he took the following photos.
October 14: Today we are preparing to head south into Donetsk Oblast to visit and film in four sister cities. One other we can’t reach because the bombing is too intense. I visited a friend in Kharkiv and the city seemed somber this year with many buildings boarded up and damage visible every few blocks. Over 100 schools alone have been destroyed and new ones built underground. The garage where my friend Paul Hughes works repairing cars for relief workers had shrapnel that came through its roof last week. He said I was wrong about the power situation in my comments yesterday. The Russians can and do target the transformers more often than they can be repaired and at least in Kharkiv they are girding themselves for a bleak, cold winter. There are 300,000 children here…
October 15: It’s raining and cold now. I pity the soldiers trying to sleep in their trenches. I wish everyone recognized that they are fighting and dying for us. If Ukraine falls, Putin will try to break NATO unity by incrementally chipping away at the Baltic States next, seeing what he can get away with without provoking an Article 5 infraction. He will use his disinformation skills to promote the line: do you really want to start World War 3 to defend Kalingrad or Estonia or Moldova?
Of course many will answer “no” in Congress, not understanding that will be the end of NATO, which has protected Europe for 75 years. If NATO doesn’t keep its treaty obligations it is finished. And if Russia is allowed to conquer Ukraine and continue its expansion into the Baltics and NATO does intervene, we will have a full fledged war. Imagine the cost of that? So supporting Ukraine fully and curtailing Putin’s messianic ambitions will save us enormous amounts of money, lives, economic and political stability as well as honoring Ukraines right to choose their own sovereignty. Don’t ever buy the argument that we are wasting money protecting Ukraine. We saw the results of appeasement in 1939. Let Ukraine win so we don’t get dragged into war.
As an acupuncturist on his trips to Ukraine, Ben has treated people with psychological trauma and physical pain with the application of needles to support nerve system regeneration. In this account, he recalls his experiences from a previous trip and offers a glimpse into the daily reality for people on the front lines in Ukraine.
October 15: Last trip I did a lot of acupuncture on soldiers on leave from the front lines. I’d never seen so much trauma in my whole career and felt pretty useless. Since they were all going back, getting them back into something like parasympathetic was impossibly destabilizing and many were in a “Freeze” state where they kept functioning somehow with everything shut down and lights turned off.
Guys driving trucks on potholed mine infested dirt roads, chased by drones with bilateral sciatica, dropped feet, etc, taking handfuls of ibuprofen cause there aren’t any pain meds available and praying needles will help. I had a bit more success treating civilians, but my last patient described sitting at the dinner table and watching her husband get evaporated by a tank round sitting on the couch 20 feet away.
Ukrainians are unbelievably tough, resilient and brave but they’re not invulnerable. One task I set myself here is to try and get us comfortable Americans, who stress not getting almond milk for their lattes, what life is like here and that moral relativism is wrong. I got involved here because the right and wrong of it is so clear- no grey zone unlike other places like Gaza. Come work here for a while. It’s good for the soul. I can set things up to open a free clinic in Lviv or Kyiv where it’s safe.”
October 16: Passing thru Izium which was 100 percent destroyed 2 years ago and still is covered with mines. Still, there are signs of people moving back but farming is impossible. I see de-mining machines working in some fields. It’s too rainy and foggy to take pictures…
We are driving south to Zaporizhzha along back roads to avoid getting too close to Pokrovsk where the fighting is ongoing and intense with drones targeting all civilian traffic. Still there is so much gratuitous destruction everywhere. It’s mostly just poor farmers’ homes. What do the Russians gain from such wanton violence. I will be spending the next week helping a friend Gregory from the NGO Aquaducks deliver water on a water purification truck my family donated to them.
Stay tuned next week for another round of dispatches from Ukraine.
