Scots aid worker rescues victims of Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine as bombs drop around her

24.07.2022 - 18:21 / dailyrecord.co.uk

When hundreds of Russian bombs whistle overhead, Martha Aitken said it is only when they get really close that she flinches.

One of only a handful of aid workers willing to head to the most dangerous spots on the Ukrainian frontline to rescue families stuck among the fighting, she’s too focused to feel fear.

Martha, 30, from Abernethy in Perthshire, regularly drives to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, to pick up desperate people caught in the aerial bombardment as the war against Ukraine shows no sign of letting up.

She said: “I don’t know how many evacuations I’ve been on now. We take out 80 to 100 people each day.

“My first evacuation was two months ago and they haven’t stopped – we will do another tomorrow.

“The sound of bombs around Kharkiv is so common I barely lift my head. But when the 40th went off one day, a little eyebrow was raised.

“There were a lot more than 40 bombs that day but the 40th went off far too close to us, which caused damage to some cars with shrapnel. It wasn’t the amount that was the issue – it was that it was close to the convoy.”

The sheer scale of the bombing on July 4 was so great volunteers and other aid workers – who were queuing up in vehicles waiting for access to the frontline evacuation zone – were turned away due to safety concerns.

Martha said: “It was the only one we had to stop but by no means the only one with bombs – all have. Driving around Kharkiv they go off regularly.”

More than 10,000 deaths have been reported in the war to date and thousands of buildings around Kharkiv have been damaged or destroyed.

The future remains uncertain but the evacuations by brave volunteers working for international aid groups continue.

Martha, who usually works on a marine research vessel, has no