What does it mean to be a volunteer in Ukraine? What challenges do humanitarian workers face in practice? How does humanitarian aid function in a country under relentless attack where no one, soldier, civilian or aid worker, is spared? In this insightful conversation, our Associate Editor Alicja spoke with Maria Botcharova. Alongside her professional career, Maria co-directs Medical Life Lines Ukraine, a non-profit organisation that has delivered more than 100 ambulances and medical vehicles to hospitals and emergency services across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Lviv.
AW – To begin with, could you share a little about yourself, your Ukrainian roots and your life between Kyiv and London?
MB – I think I have always been Ukrainian and never quite Ukrainian. I was born in Kyiv but moved to London as a child because my mother joined the newly created BBC World Service when Ukraine became an independent country in 1992. I remember during the 1990s and early 2000s, I spent every summer holiday in Ukraine with my grandmother at her small country dacha and fell in love with a dreamy distant cousin. I still cherish fond memories of these summers, spent among mulberry trees, yellow flowers, and pickled vegetables.
As I grew older, went to university and established myself with a group of friends, I largely forgot about all that. I was too busy working and trying to live a life in London. But then, the 2022 full-scale invasion affected me deeply and personally. After many restless nights, I decided to channel my energy into something more constructive and was extremely grateful to find a place as a volunteer with the incredible team at Medical Life Lines Ukraine.
I have a full-time role in strategy at a leading academic publishing and analytics company, but I try to spend as much time as my work will allow me in Kyiv. Aside from the intermittent and horrific attacks, I find it inspiring to see how normally life continues in Kyiv. I buy a matcha latte every morning from a café on my street, the internet works much more quickly than in London and the evenings buzz with music and cocktails. During a war, as during any catastrophe, and as we did during COVID, people try very hard to stick to the familiar and the ordinary.
AW – I find your connection to Ukraine really interesting. When war breaks out, the instinct is often to flee and seek safety elsewhere. In that sense, war can create distance from home. But for you, despite having spent most of your life in London and, as you’ve said, gradually moving away from your earlier memories of Ukraine, it seems to have reawakened a stronger connection to it. Would you agree with that? Can you talk me through your decision to return, and what drew you back at that particular moment?
MB – I think that’s right but I don’t necessarily have a rational response to this one. It’s certainly true that the full-scale invasion knocked me sideways. I remember waking up at three during the night of the 24th of February and immediately checking Twitter to see that the full-scale invasion had started. This became a habit for days and then months and my sleep was badly interrupted. I found it very hard to process the continuing London life around me. So it was really a very selfish act, but I found that the only thing I could do to make things feel even slightly better was to turn worry into action. I went to Warsaw to guide people who were moving across Europe, then volunteered at the Ukrainian Welcome Centre to translate for new arrivals who were trying to find college courses, GPs or schools for their children. As migrants settled in the UK, the need for this gradually diminished but I still felt like I wasn’t quite doing enough. I still really wanted to go out there and do something on the ground, which is why I was so excited to be introduced to Medical Life Lines Ukraine through a friend who knew a previous driver.
I’m sure that a psychoanalyst would have many good ideas about why it felt so essential for me to go back. Could it be a sense of guilt about having a life abroad through no effort of my own, while others were now struggling to get out? Or because I had not visited Ukraine quite so often as an adult? Or a sense of loss for my childhood memories and family gatherings? Perhaps I needed to go back to find out what I would have been like if I had never left. As I say, all selfish reasons.
AW – I can understand what you mean when you say the impulse came from a personal need to turn anxiety and helplessness into action, and I imagine that’s true for a lot of people who volunteer in times of crisis. But once that impulse is translated into helping people on the ground, supporting refugees, and now contributing to medical aid efforts, it’s difficult to see that as a selfish act. Which brings me to Medical Life Lines Ukraine. What does your work involve exactly, and can you talk us through the main challenges that you face?
MB – Thank you for your kind words. This is something I think about a lot – how we balance the act of volunteering and helping, with the benefits that we ourselves get from it, whether it be assuaging some sort of guilt or whether it’s recognition that falls out of trying to promote a cause.
Medical Life Lines Ukraine delivers ambulances into Ukraine. Our focus is really ambulances, medical vehicles with a stretcher inside them, rather than jeeps or pick-up trucks or minibuses, which I know are all also super valuable and needed at the moment. I believe this is where we can have the most value because this is our expertise. We have delivered 130 vehicles since 2022, of which 73 have gone to the Ministry of Health in Ukraine, making us the fourth largest overall and largest non-government organisation by volume*. Other ambulances have gone to the State Emergency Services of Ukraine (rescue services) and other hospitals, not necessarily through the Ministry of Health.
I think the main challenges are at the three ends of the process:
Finding fundraising drivers. Ukraine has certainly fallen off the news list, especially since Iran, and this is something we continuously have to work on. At the same time, our drivers fundraise for something very tangible and real, which they then drive themselves, so there is a very clear story for them to tell.
Customs processes and forms for transporting vehicles and aid. The paperwork required to bring aid to Ukraine has become increasingly complicated. The latest innovation is something called an ELO form, required by France, which necessitates a GMR form and a T1 transit form at the UK side. All of these cost a lot, of course, which as a non-profit we have no means to pay other than from fundraising.
People often ask me about corruption in Ukraine, but is this any different, if money that’s meant to be going to charity isn’t actually going towards its intended purpose…? Even having these forms isn’t the end of the story because different border crossings allow different types of things to be transported across and it’s tough to find out what’s right other than from word of mouth of other volunteers or border guards shouting and occasionally threatening to fine us. Earlier in the conflict humanitarian aid could bypass some of these restrictions informally but this is getting increasingly difficult
Finally, ensuring that the vehicles go to locations with the greatest need. This is a constant and ever-evolving question. We have great contacts on the ground in Ukraine, so we are always checking with them on where the needs lie, but it’s always difficult to have a truly complete picture. UK charity law forbids us to deliver aid that interferes with military activity of a foreign country, so we need to be quite careful about what we deliver and to whom, for example to civilian hospitals and items that are used only after some sort of injury.
At any given time, I would say that these challenges oscillate in their magnitude relative to each other. At the moment, I would say the greatest issue we face are customs, followed by ensuring vehicles go to locations where they are most needed and lastly drivers because we have drivers booked in until November, and because of the new ELO form, but these can shift on any given day.
AW – Building on that, I wanted to zoom out a little from the logistics and focus on the term ‘volunteer’ itself. In many countries, the word ‘volunteer’ refers to someone who helps out informally or through charitable work. But in Ukraine during this war, the status of a volunteer is very unique and has taken on a much broader and more serious meaning. A volunteer appears to now be more than just a civilian who wants to help. Can you tell us what this term means in Ukraine at the moment, and what being a volunteer involves day to day?
MB – One thing that’s been quite different in this war is that many of the larger, global, humanitarian organisations were less present at the start of the full-scale invasion. As I understand it, many were not set up to help in a country fully at war. In contrast, they are often helping in disaster zones, where there is no continuing danger to their employees, or in countries such as Afghanistan or Iraq, where the UK or US typically had a designated safe zone. As a result, much of the initial humanitarian response came from home-grown, small outfits, initiated by one or two people who were simply trying to do something to help someone they knew of. I’ve seen in a report from 2022 that there were 1700 such organisations, compared to 150 large, Ukrainian humanitarian aid ones, compared to just a handful of global ones, working with local teams. Many of these people have continued in such roles, adapting to the changing needs of the war.
From what I see, from the UK, the work they do can be quite varied. Many receive and distribute aid from Ukraine and abroad and drive it to the frontline. This can include food and aid for civilians still living near the frontline, or vehicles and tactical medicine for the military. Continuing to receive such aid depends on maintaining trust and means of funding with their sponsors, of course.
Many others are currently working with veterans, who are a large (over one million and counting) population that has had a very different experience of the war to civilians and need to be reintegrated into society, with jobs and family life and help with everyday tasks. Many have come from manual jobs, but return having lost a limb. Wheelchair and disabled access in Ukraine isn’t great and they may need help getting in and out of their home. Typically separation and divorce rates are quite high among veterans because of the different and often traumatic experiences they have had and because many spouses have moved, some abroad. It’s also often quite hard to navigate the various medical and social support networks to understand what a veteran is entitled to and where the best treatment is. There are various groups working to support this, and others simply providing community and recovery hubs, such as fishing trips, gyms, social centres.
All of this is effectively a full time role, although I know of some volunteers who have gone back to a part-time job, simply because they have no other means to support themselves.
AW – It’s interesting, because when people think of volunteers in a country at war, they often picture the more visible work: delivering food, water and other forms of aid. But listening to you, what really stands out is just how many other dimensions there are to this. I think your answer serves as an important reminder that war doesn’t only affect people on the battlefield or through immediate physical hardship, but it also affects family life, personal relationships, employment and long-term wellbeing. Circling back to something you mentioned earlier, you spoke about those sleepless nights after the full-scale invasion and the need to find something constructive to do with the anxiety and helplessness you were feeling. Would you say that volunteering with Medical Life Lines Ukraine changed the way you processed the war? And if so, in what ways?
MB – Thank you for this question, it’s a very meaningful one for me. I have found that working with MLLU has helped me personally a huge amount to deal with the full scale invasion. When I went back to Kyiv last summer, I found that I was able to sleep regularly and soundly in a way that I hadn’t since that first February night when I opened Twitter at three in the morning. Even when I was sleeping in a shelter, to my surprise, I found I was able to block everything out and sleep through the night. It was something to do with being home and something to do with feeling useful. Psychology works in extraordinary ways.
AW – You contribute to magazines and are active as a writer. With your field experience and your ongoing analytical perspective, how do you see the future of Ukraine? What recent events do you consider the most decisive in shaping the current situation? And what personal reasons do you have to remain optimistic despite everything the country is going through?
MB – Thank you, this is also a lovely question. I personally feel that there has been a substantial shift in Ukraine’s outlook in this war, which began more or less around the start of Trump’s war on Iran. Firstly, Ukraine’s extraordinary advances in the technological military space became starkly obvious for the first time and it has even been able to make some financial gains from various international partnerships. Secondly, while Trump and the world turned its attention to the Middle East, Ukraine has been given more or less a free reign in hitting Russia’s energy infrastructure and therefore its means at making money to support this war. This has always previously been restricted, including under Biden. Ukraine has been able to hit the barely breathing Russian economy, which it relies on to fund the war, sustain army recruitment and keep its population from an outright revolt. For the first time, it feels to me like Putin has months and not years left. I believe that if such a change of leader occurs in a dictatorial state like Russia, the fall-out results in a power-struggle for top dog position and the chaos that ensues requires an army to be present to keep order. It doesn’t leave much room for sustaining an invasion or being on foreign soil.
But I do want to caveat this. Even if this is true, it still means months of soldiers and innocent civilians dying every day and every night. Ukraine and Ukrainians are tired. Make no mistake, as Russia self-destructs, it will, like a wounded bear, only get more brutal, more arbitrary and more deadly in its attacks. Dwindling Patriots leave Ukraine more exposed than ever. This is no time to stop helping.
Interview conducted on 7 June 2026.
The cover photo was kindly provided by Philippe Lecourtier.
If you would like to find out more about Maria and her team, you can visit the MLLU page here.
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