Days start early for SOS Vostok driver Vlad Savchenko, 48, of Slovyansk. He is one of several drivers for SOS, a Czech based NGO, risking his life in war torn Ukraine to help evacuate the elderly and disabled and those unable to flee hard hit areas. As fighting rages in southern Ukraine, volunteer medics are helping to evacuate the last civilians in the Donbass region as a new offensive from Russian forces looms. Millions of elderly and disabled Ukrainians are ‘at high risk’ because they are unable to flee the fighting. There are more than 7 million people age 60 or older in Ukraine and 2.7 million people with disabilities, according to the EU Disability Forum. Ukraine is trying to evacuate as many trapped civilians as possible, as Russia seeks to entrench a land passage between two separatist, self-proclaimed people’s republics in Donbas and the southern region of Crimea that Russia seized in 2014. Welcome to ‘The LAST to LEAVE’
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