300 missions in, this Canadian volunteer says he'll stay in Ukraine until he's asked to leave
Paul Hughes left his Calgary home in March 2022 to provide humanitarian aid
Paul Hughes, a Canadian volunteer providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine, has a rule: never turn down a request for help.
With more than 300 missions under his belt, the Calgary man's organization, Helping Ukraine Grassroots Support (HUGS), has provided food and supplies, fixed military trucks, delivered musical instruments to students and recovered the body of a Canadian soldier who fought alongside Ukrainian troops.
"There's a lot of suffering here, and anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves and is ignoring the very harsh reality of this attack on a sovereign country. There's misery everywhere," he told CBC Radio from Kharkiv, where he works out of a garage.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Soon after, Canadians began travelling to Ukraine to support the war effort.
Global Affairs Canada says it doesn't track the number of Canadians providing volunteer assistance in Ukraine, but notes it has advised against travel to the region since Feb. 1, 2022.
Tyler Wentzell, a doctoral candidate of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and historian who has been researching volunteerism in Ukraine, says most information about the flow of Canadian volunteers to Ukraine has been anecdotal. But since the start of the war, the number seems to have decreased, he said.
"Most of the people who have a predilection towards volunteering will have already gone, and there are just so many other ways that a Canadian can assist the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian armed forces through pretty well-established programs," he said.
Into occupied territory
Hughes, who left the Alberta farm where he was living for Ukraine in March 2022, has been in the country for more than 700 consecutive days.
Of the more than 300 missions he's been on, the one that stands out most in his mind was the riskiest.
In July 2022, Hughes received a call from a woman in the Netherlands who found him through a group of volunteers.
"I never talked to her before, and she told me the story about a six-year-old girl that was down in Zaporizhzhia that needed to be picked up and evacuated to her mother, who was in Holland," he said.
When Hughes received the girl's location, it was well within Russian-occupied territory. "But there was no stopping me at that point," he said.
He crossed into the area and was greeted by Russian soldiers pointing weapons at him. They pulled him into a makeshift command centre, and searched his van and belongings.
"I was being accused of being a spy. Lots of guys with guns, knives, lots of threatening gestures," he said.
"That's the most terrified I've been in my entire life."
While Paul was detained, Yuliana Lapianova, the mother of six-year-old Katya, was waiting to hear from Hughes.
"It was a very emotionally difficult day because I didn't know if my child was OK. I was very depressed and emotional," said Lapianova, through a translator.
At the command centre, a soldier entered — a man Hughes says he thought would be his "executioner" — and the two began to speak. Both realized they were farmers. They also shared a love of hockey.
The conversation continued over a cigarette, Hughes said, and eventually he was free to go. Hughes gathered the documents he needed to cross into the occupied territory and set off in his van to find Katya.
Within 10 minutes, Lapianova said, Hughes had gathered her daughter and ex-husband. They drove back to Kyiv and, the next day, into Poland where Lapianova was waiting for them.
"When I saw her, I hugged her for a really long time. I just couldn't let her go," Lapianova said. "Paul is a person with a very big heart who helped me and my child, and we are very grateful to him."
Lapianova currently lives with Katya, who is now eight, in the Netherlands.
Father-and-son mission
It's not only strangers Hughes worries about in Ukraine; his 21-year-old son, Mac, also joined the humanitarian mission in August 2022.
"Growing up, we had, not strangers per se, but people that are in need coming and going, and we've had people stay at our house," Mac said.
Hughes admits that there's a selfish part of him that's glad his son came to Ukraine, but joining the war effort isn't something he wanted him to do.
And although Mac has seen his share of the war, he says Ukraine has become his new home.
"I don't think I'll ever move back to Canada full time," he said. "Nobody's going to understand what I'm talking about. You know, they'll think it's cool or I did this or I did that, but they won't understand some of this stuff that I've seen, some of the stuff that I've dealt with."
Hughes, who will soon turn 60, says his time in Ukraine has weighed on him. "I'm kind of feeling my age," he said.
He says he's starting to think of returning to Canada more often, but he says he committed to staying put until he's asked to leave.
"I don't know how it's going to unfold, but we're here, and we're going to keep helping."