"Help is very much needed here": Rinat Akhmetov Foundation delivers food packages to Zhelanne village on the contact line

Zhelanne village is located in the Avdiyivka direction. More than 100 people still live here, 8 km from the contact line. Each of them has their own difficult story and reason for staying in the area. It is dangerous to come to this area, but people need help. Recently, Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has delivered food packages for them. 

"If not for the humanitarian aid... We have nothing to buy, no one works. What we are given is a great benefit for us. We are sincerely grateful for the help," says Nataliia, who was forced to move here from another village.

In one of the basements, people have set up a kind of dormitory. They admit that it is easier to live together. 

"It's hard to live here because we can't buy anything and our pensions are small. We really need help," says Vira Cheremysova, the head of Zhelanne village.

On the way to a neighbouring village, a volunteer group that brought food from the Foundation was hit by an enemy drone. Despite the risks, the locals are not left to face the war alone. 

"We will continue to deliver the aid to those places where it is needed. Unfortunately, there are a lot of such places in my native Donetsk region," summarises volunteer Mykola Osychenka, ambassador of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation and head of Mariupol TV.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Foundation has provided more than 350,000 food packages to residents of Donetsk region and those who have temporarily evacuated from the region.

Since 2014, the Foundation has donated 13 million food packages to the people of Ukraine. The assistance is provided under Rinat Akhmetov Saving Lives programme.

For advice on the terms of receiving the aid, please call the Foundation's toll-free hotline 0 (800) 509 001 or write to the Foundation's messenger http://m.me/AkhmetovFDU