Many of the gloomy, dingy, and dilapidated buildings constructed in Ukraine during the Soviet era contain basement dwellings originally built to protect people from possible attacks. But one such bunker, below a supermarket in Kharkiv, now contains a pristine white room and is the only bunker of its kind in the country. It stores drugs worth around six million euros ($6.56 million) under strictly maintained conditions. Almost all of these are intended for cancer patients, who continue to receive attention even in the midst of the war. Behind the initiative is Rostislav Filippenko, a 32-year-old Ukrainian mathematician residing in Spain. The war caught up with him in his hometown, where he was preparing his final project for his master’s degree at the Autonomous University of Madrid by the warm fireplace of his grandparents.
Moved by the tsunami of solidarity towards Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, Filippenko went to a hospital to ask what was needed. In just four days, encouraged by his friends and contacts in Spain, he founded the NGO Mission Kharkiv to facilitate the distribution of medicines. Behind the dead, the wounded, the homeless, the hungry, thirsty and displaced are a number of forgotten victims: those who, as a result of armed conflict, have received the medical treatment their lives depend on. on interrupted. “Some don’t even have their papers because a rocket destroyed their houses,” says Filippenko.
In the city of Kharkiv, the second largest city in the country, 30 cancer patients can be treated every day from Monday to Friday. Everyone comes to their appointment with an insulated bag so that the medicine’s cold chain is not interrupted. Distribution is at the National Institute of Medical Radiography. From there, patients go to other hospitals for treatment. “All of our country’s resources are being channeled to the army because we want to survive,” confirms Arman Kacharian, head of cancer control at Ukraine’s Health Ministry, in statements released by HealthDay on Friday during a visit to the United States.
Rostislav Filippenko leaves the former Soviet bunker where a refrigerated bunker for medicines was set up in Kharkiv.Luis de Vega
Since February of last year, Mission Kharkiv has delivered more than 180 tons of medicines, mainly from Spain, and has helped over 60,000 people directly. Their database includes more than 1,200 cancer patients. “This box right here is equivalent to one person’s salary,” says Filippenko, holding up a container of rituximab, a cancer drug that’s stored in one of the refrigerated chambers at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius.
Some of the program’s beneficiaries live in areas far from Kharkiv, and in some cases close to the front lines. In total, Filippenko calculates, there are around 70 patients distributed in these rural areas. “This is the most difficult thing for us because we are an NGO that takes care of the patient directly. The hardest part is finding someone in town with medical knowledge.” Established protocol, he explains, requires them to prepare individual packets with the patient’s name on them, who must handle the medication themselves. Coordinating this process in a war zone is not easy. “In oncology we need eight documents, seven from the patient and one from the doctor,” he explains.
The soul of his mathematician – he had no experience in medicine or pharmaceuticals – led Filippenko to collect the data of cancer patients in the Kharkiv region, which was occupied by the Russian army at the beginning of the invasion and is still one of the main battlefronts of the war. He says he has better information than the government itself, but the organization’s goal is to work with the authorities and never replace them “to save as many lives as possible”.
One of the goals is to improve cooperation, expand beyond Kharkiv and develop long-term plans. Filippenko does not hide the fact that he currently has no plans to complete his master’s degree or to work as a mathematician. The NGO now consists of a team of a dozen people, some of whom work from abroad.
Filippenko shows the cooling bunker, which has four independent chambers. Luis de Vega
“We have worked with other NGOs like Doctors Without Borders, Doctors of the World and others from the United States. We will see if we can repeat this in other countries after the end of the war,” he says. “Although we need to reproduce it in other Ukrainian cities first, and for that we need financial resources.” Before the arrival of patients from other cities in the country, Kharkiv Mission staff had driven an ambulance full of cancer drugs to Lviv, about 1,100 kilometers from Kharkiv . “It would be ideal to have another bunker there. With $30,000 we can do it in any city,” he adds, pointing to the growing need in the capital Kiev and in other cities like Lviv, Odessa and Zaporizhia.
He emphasizes that their primary need is cancer medicine, because “there were problems in this area before the war and there will be problems after the war.” But he keeps thinking about new needs that need to be met. The organization has developed a program to distribute bleeding first aid kits to workers in critical infrastructure areas, such as power plants, which are frequently bombed by the Russians. “Surprisingly, they also need emergency services. We already cover the three most important power plants in Kharkiv and have needs from Kiev and Zaporizhia. They have their first-aid kits, but they are not suitable for war,” says Filippenko while closing the door of the cooling bunker.
In stark contrast to the facilities he just left, his shadow wanders the hallways of the unrenovated old basement, and the narrow hallways amplify his voice. Most of these shelters today have huge rusty iron gates and locks with a large wheel that barely turns. In the event of a nuclear emergency, they do not provide adequate isolation. Nevertheless, many of them served and still serve as shelters for the population in the current Russian bombing raid.
The founder of Mission Kharkiv prefers not to mention the high level of corruption in Ukraine, which is often seen as one of the obstacles to integration into the European institutions. At the same time, however, he emphasizes that transparency and a good reputation are two essential pillars that have contributed to the growth of the NGO. “Transparency is one of the most important aspects in the humanitarian world,” he stresses. He has set up a system where donors can access information at any time, except for each patient’s personal information, which requires special permissions. “We are a very small organization, but they trust us because we raise the standards of other Ukrainian NGOs,” he adds.
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