A cafe owner who has carried out nine aid missions to Ukraine says he is regularly shot at by Russian soldiers.
Pete Masters, who runs The Sacred Brew in Hereford, said: “I was terrified at first, but you are desensitized to these things.”
He recently returned from a month-long visit to Kramatorsk, in the east of the country, and described seeing Russian troops just 1km from his location.
Mr Masters said it wouldn’t put him off, however, adding: “I love helping people and I feel like this is what I need to do at this point in my life.”
During his visits to Ukraine, he said water, electricity and food were in short supply.
He described his latest visit as “pretty hairy” and said his group had tried to get some women to safety in their van.
The women insisted on staying and he said, although he could understand their determination, “Russia doesn’t care about stubbornness, it’s a rocket through your window.”
“Two days later it looked like a car had driven through their apartment where the missile had just gone straight in,” he said.
Mr Masters has previously been to Iraq to take photographs of the conflict there and his work hangs on the walls of his cafe.
He started traveling to Ukraine when Russia invaded to document the war, but decided he had to help the people there and began providing aid in the summer of 2022.
He has no military background and it was his faith that inspired him to go, with church leaders helping him connect with ordinary Ukrainians.
He usually spends his visits to Ukraine alone, but sometimes he travels with two friends from London.
The relief missions have regularly taken him to the front line and on the most recent occasion missiles were fired at his vehicle, but he said he was “not aware of it now”, adding: “You just have to live with a little going along by faith.”
Despite this, he is aware of the dangers and said he was aware of a French aid worker who was killed in the same area when a rocket hit her car.
When asked if he had thought about staying away from danger, he said, “I don’t think I’m ready. I found peace there and what I’m doing there is good.”
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