Tenby Powell is leading charity Kiwi KARE's drive to get ambulances and other relief into Ukraine. Here he gives an update from Poland on his preparations to get vital supplies to the war-torn country.
We are now the proud owners of a 12-tonne truck, purchased in Kraków, Poland. This will add significantly to our logistics capability.
Meanwhile, the seven former St John ambulances we are bringing from New Zealand to Ukraine are on the water and due to arrive in Antwerp, Belgium, in early August. Yes, it's taking some time.
While we focus on the logistics, across the border the blowing up of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in the Kherson region and the apparent launch of Ukraine's counter-offensive ratchets the conflict up even further.
The mode here in Warsaw is still one of concern. Obviously they have given stellar support to Ukraine, both militarily and massive amounts of humanitarian aid, and they are pleased the counter-offensive has started.
However the Poles also recognise how things can change and that this war could still spill into other parts of Eastern Europe.
Poland has also taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees and, while they have been mostly very well looked after, there is a feeling of exhaustion around the war and everyone wants it to end.
While anticipated to some degree, the purposeful destruction of the NovaKakhovka hydroelectric dam is a very significant humanitarian and environmental disaster.
It is also a war crime. Yet another one — to add to a volume so great one wonders how they can possibly all be prosecuted.
And no, I do not believe for a second that it is part of a Reserve Demolition plan — to cause chaos and allow the occupying Russian forces to tactically withdraw amidst a formidable Ukrainian counter-offensive.
There is absolutely no military compulsion, or excuse, for this grievous act of wanton destruction.
Some 80 villages will likely be destroyed and many more thousands of people in southern Ukraine, and potentially Crimea, will be without water and power.
The Dnipro River also serves as the cooling source for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe.
The plant was placed in a cold shutdown in September 2022. But operators have since restarted two reactors in hot shutdown mode producing low levels of power to keep the plant operational.
One can only assume — because hope is not a plan — that Ukrainian engineers have a contingency for this horrific outcome and can manage cooling by other means.
A huge team of very able humanitarian aid workers have converged on the area to assist with much needed evacuations.
Second best military in Ukraine
All this comes as Russia, once considered the second best military in the world, is now considered to be merely the second best military in Ukraine.
We're learning here in Poland, as people are around the world, that the counter-offensive has started. Not the 'cross-the-start-line', main effort version, but the 'shaping-the-battlefield' version, with cross-border raids in the Belgorod Oblast, maritime attacks in the Black Sea, and of course drone attacks directed towards the outskirts of Moscow.
All this probing identifies surfaces and gaps. Surfaces are the hard areas of resistance to be avoided if possible. Gaps are the soft mushy areas where attacks, even probing hit and runs, are exploited as part of reconnaissance and battlefield shaping. And it seems the information gathered to date suggests there is lot of soft mushy areas and very few hard nuts.
The Ukrainians will encounter hard nuts that need cracking, and a counter-offensive, particularly one of this scale, relies on speed, agility, and dexterous coordination of combined arms operations. Unlike their adversaries, the Ukrainians excel at combined-arms ops, effectively integrating long-range drones, artillery, armour, infantry fighting vehicles and dismounted infantry.
And this is all without air superiority. Once the F16s arrive — and they will — they will enable a more strategic shaping of the battlefield for ground forces, specifically in the FGA (Fighter Ground Attack) role and a big step-up in bombing runs.
If air superiority can be maintained at a high level of security, we may even see air logistics come into play with cargo planes and helicopters flying materiel, weapons, ammo and possibly even troops forward — time will tell.
In any case it's all about speed, agility, and the creation of battle space (freedom to act) to effectively deploy combined arms operations.
Medical aid
Against this fast-moving backdrop, at Kiwi KARE we're staying focused on the logistics. What we hope will be four containers will soon leave Tauranga for Gdańsk filled with much needed medical aid.
Our other vehicles have been fully serviced by our Ukrainian partners and are working hard each day delivering medical and humanitarian aid.
This all means Kiwi KARE is a bigger organisation to run nowadays, and will be bigger still when the ambulances arrive - we intend to keep two to run mobile health clinics in red zones.
Thank you for your continued support, New Zealand and our friends around the world.
* Tenby Powell, founder of Kiwi KARE, had a lengthy career in the New Zealand Defence Force. He will provide regular updates from Ukraine for 1News.co.nz in coming months. Donations can be made via this Givealittle link.
SHARE ME