“I’m tired of feeling useless” because of Ukraine

Ron Mark says he decided to take matters into his own hands and travel to Ukraine after he was “tired of feeling useless” after Russia invaded the country.

Mark served in the New Zealand Army and became a NZ First MP and Secretary of Defense.

He was recently involved in a mission that delivered aid to some of Ukraine’s hardest-hit areas.

It has now been almost three months since Russia invaded its neighbor and more than 3,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict, according to the United Nations.

Mark says his initial efforts to gather supplies for the Great Commission Society, an evangelist group, were unsuccessful, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

“I don’t like failure and failure is not what Ukraine needs right now,” Mark told Breakfast. “Ukraine needs the help and support of the people.”

He says the only way to do something positive is to raise some money yourself and travel to Ukraine yourself to hear from the authorities how he can help.

Mark describes it as one of the most valuable things he’s done in his life, but when asked how the situation was on the ground, he said it was “worse than you can imagine”.

“We drove through a village outside of Bucha – absolutely, totally destroyed.”

“It just leaves you pretty cold and pretty numb because you know what happened to those people.”

Many atrocities in the war perpetrated by Russia were brought to light last month, including in the city of Bucha near Kyiv.

Mark says he has “no time” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but feels for the Russian soldiers and their mothers who were “vaporized” in tanks.

“You know that Mr. Putin’s mothers will never know that they died, how they died, the fact that there are no remains to bring home.”

“That’s just the human tragedy in this whole horrific adventure of Mr. Putin, that’s just absolutely disgusting.”

Mark says the operation he is involved in involves seven different convoys coming from different countries including Hungary and Romania.

However, in order for them to continue providing vital supplies, the team needs equipment such as satellite phones, body armor and helmets.

Mark says money can be given for this through the Great Commission Society, details of which can be found on his social media profiles.