As the war in Ukraine grinds toward another unforgiving winter, efforts continue to provide aid to civilians that remain in the high-risk ‘red zones’ close to the frontline – and are coming from unexpected quarters.
It is telling that the outrage that greeted Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was not confined to Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, nor was it limited to Ukraine’s closest neighbors. As images of advancing tanks flashed around the globe, a sense of collective dread gripped the planet. Seventeen thousand kilometers from Kyiv, that same horror was being felt in New Zealand.
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“Like millions of people, I watched aghast,” says Tenby Powell, a former colonel in the New Zealand Defence Force, and ex-mayor of New Zealand city of Tauranga. “Looking at the news, I felt like I couldn’t just sit back and watch something that had the potential to change the world order.”
Motivated to make a difference, Powell jetted to Poland where he met with Guy Pinsent, a Warsaw-based expat businessman who had sprung to Ukraine’s aid by running humanitarian convoys.
“At one point, the inevitable happened and one of the van drivers fell ill,” Powell tells TVP World. Asked to undertake the journey himself, Powell did so without hesitation. What he saw left him stunned.
“Out in Ukraine, I saw a level of humanitarian need the likes of which I’d never seen,” he says. “Immediately, I felt a burning desire to create a New Zealand flagged operation.”
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Profoundly moved by the devastation, Powell launched Kiwi K.A.R.E, an NGO seeking to provide critical aid to those most in need. “In short, we bring humanitarian aid forward to the red zones, and take people back,” he says.
This explanation, however, only hints at the wider picture. Since beginning operations in May 2022, Powell’s foundation has been shipping ambulances from New Zealand and delivering them to Ukraine. “By February of next year, we’ll have delivered 33 ambulances in all, and seven support vehicles,” he says.
Taking three months to ship across the world, of these ambulances four remain in Kiwi K.A.R.E’s possession and form the backbone of their ‘Road of Life’ program. “In essence, we use these ambulances to provide medical services in the red zone,” says Powell. “There’s some people we come across that haven’t seen a medical professional in years.”
Rarely returning empty, these same ambulances are then also used to evacuate people to safer regions in the rear.
“We would never force anyone that wants to stay to leave, but the situation is very dynamic and the frontline continues to ebb and flow,” says Powell. “We’ve found that some people who had no intention of leaving before now find themselves in untenable positions.”
Powell, though, remains acutely aware that for some evacuation simply isn’t an option. “We respect the fact that many people, especially the elderly, are living in the only home they’ve ever known. More to the point, they literally have nowhere else to go. For them, there is no fallback option.”
In these cases, all Powell’s team can do is alleviate the hardships endured by the civilians that remain. Using recycled materials, so far over 2,700 wood-burning stoves and water boilers have been built at Kiwi K.A.R.E’s manufacturing plant in Kyiv before being sent onwards to settlements cut off from the power grid – pleasingly, all come embossed with a message reading ‘from New Zealand with love.’
The sincerity of these words should not be in doubt. “While the media has switched off from Ukraine, I think the awareness back in New Zealand is as high as it can possibly get given that we’re practically at polar opposites of the world,” says Powell. “But maybe it’s the fact that we are so geographically isolated that makes us so interested in world affairs as well as such prolific travelers,” he adds.
Commendable as Powell’s actions have been, he is quick to emphasize that he is not the only Kiwi to respond to the war. “None of what we do would be possible without the support of the New Zealand government,” he says. “And in Ukraine itself, you’ve got to remember that three Kiwis have died – two people who volunteered to fight, and one aid worker.”
Where this instinctive urge to help has come from is difficult to define, but Powell himself sees a distinct parallel between his fellow New Zealanders and the Ukrainians he’s met. “Like us, they’re friendly and helpful, pragmatic and practical, hardworking and resourceful, innovative and with an unconquerable ‘can-do-attitude’, outdoorsy and sports mad,” he says.
This last point feels particularly pertinent given Powell’s burning ambition to boost the profile of Ukrainian rugby. “That’s a future focus for us,” he says, “we want to say to Ukrainians, look, we know there’s a war on, but let’s look ahead; let’s keep the level of energy around sport going.”
Working alongside luminaries from New Zealand’s legendary rugby scene – among them Brent Impey, the former chairman of New Zealand Rugby, and Sir Graham Henry, a former coach of the all-conquering All Blacks rugby side – a plan has already been set in motion to allow Ukrainian rugby to flourish once the war ends.
“The hope is to see Ukraine compete in the 2028 Olympics,” says Powell. “We’ve seen for time eternal that sport has the ability to lift morale, even in war, and it’s just as important to look ahead as well – I’m sure if we can get support from the New Zealand government we can really help the Ukrainian team become competitive internationally.”
This optimism for the future is sharply offset by the brutal reality of the present day. Though having previously served in hotspots such as southern Lebanon, Powell has been left stupefied by the level of barbarism that the Russians have unleashed.
“The war crimes that have been committed against Ukraine are at such a volume that I can’t even begin to imagine that even a small fraction of these will ever be prosecuted,” he says.
Especially hard to bear has been witnessing first-hand the effects of Russia’s continued targeting of civilian infrastructure. “I used to keep track of how many hospitals have been hit, but now I’ve lost count,” says Powell. “It’s about 800 I think, and around 300 of these have been completely destroyed. There is no justification for this, it’s just completely horrific.”
With anything, and anyone, considered fair game, the hazards that Powell’s team faces on a daily basis are very real – precautions are a must. “When entering red zones, we make sure we have an understanding of what’s happening in the area,” he says. “We’re not going to take undue risks, so we go to areas where we know we can make a meaningful difference, but not to areas that we’re unequipped to be in.”
Good communication, not just in the red zone, has been key across the board and Powell is quick to credit not just his team members, but all who have helped Kiwi K.A.R.E’s mission along the way. “Our work is divided between three teams,” he says. “We’ve got one in New Zealand, one in Ukraine, and then an international team managed out of Poland that is absolutely critical to our operations.”
Tightly-knit, these teams work seamlessly to ensure everything goes exactly where it should. “We don’t use third-party storage spaces, and we put everything directly into the hands of those we know,” he says. Working as a wider whole with the shipping company, government officials, and the Ukrainian military, Powell is confident that all the aid that Kiwi K.A.R.E provides ends up precisely where it should.
Still, he is under no illusion that more must be done given the war’s relentless, punishing pace. “The support we’ve had across all levels has been incredible,” he says, “but at the end of the day it is donations that are the lifeblood that keeps the wheel rolling.”
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