How To Support A Ukrainian Beekeeper - Come Back Alive

In this video, I'm going to tell you how you can support a Ukrainian beekeeper and help support the war against Russia. 6 months ago, I was approached by a beekeeper in Ukraine called Vitaly Guchenko. He emailed me completely randomly and asked me if I wanted to import some of his queens into the UK. We had a little bit of a back and forth, and we agreed that in the upcoming season, so 2022, he would send me 10 queens over here. I'll run them for the 2022 season, see what they were like, and then potentially look to offer them on a commercial basis going into 2023. Now, up until a few weeks ago, I'd completely forgotten about this agreement. I woke up in the middle of the night and I just had to email Vitaly just out of nowhere because I just wanted to check that he was okay. Within a couple of hours, Vitaly got back to me, and thankfully him and his family are okay, but they are trapped in the middle of a terrible battle in their hometown of Sumy. The Battle of Sumy is taking place really close to the Ukraine-Russia border, and many, many lives have been lost. I wanted to help Vitaly, as I'm sure everybody in the UK does. You really want to help out all of the Ukrainian people. And because I've got a link with Vitaly through the queen rearing operation, I asked him if there was anything I could do to kind of help him financially. Was there actually even an avenue available for me to send him some money, to offer some financial support? And it turns out that they can receive donations through PayPal. I managed to get hold of Vitaly's son's PayPal address, and I've donated a small amount, which amazingly Vitaly has donated to a charity called Come Back Alive. Now at the end of this video, I'll stick up the links for Vitaly's son PayPal account if you want to donate directly. And Vitaly has pledged that all money that's donated via that route will be donated to Come Back Alive, which is a Ukrainian-based charity that directly funds the Ukrainian army. So I've been in close contact with Vitaly over the last 3 weeks, just kind of stopping in, seeing how he's getting on. I wanted to do more though, so what I said to him is I'm going to do this video here, talk to you a little bit about what's going on in Vitaly's life, how it's impacted his business, and put those links up for anyone who does want to make a donation. So I asked Vitaly, would he draft just a few words just to talk about what's going on in Ukraine, the impact it's having on him and his family and his business. Here's what he said. Good day, we are from Ukraine. On the 24th of February 2022, our war began. Russia attacked us. We are a small company from Ukraine that exports beekeeping products to the international market. A few years ago, we started exporting queens to Europe and Canada. This terrible war has destroyed our homes, lives, and plans for the future. Part of our business is occupied by an army of invaders. Once a prosperous city, it has turned into ruins. There is no access to our apiary within the Sumy region. Without care and attendance, our bees will perish along with our livelihoods. We have queens in Transcarpathia. Some airports have been bombed and some are being fought. We can't pick up the products because there are no flights. And it is impossible to take out by land transport as during the long time of transportation the bees can perish. This is a great tragedy for our people. People have left their homes, farmland, and property. Russia is ruthlessly destroying our people, our cities, our history. All of the people of Ukraine are fighting for their freedom. The British government supports Ukraine in this struggle. We thank everyone for their support during this difficult time. Now, I just can't begin to imagine what Vitaly and all of the people in Ukraine are kind of going through at the moment. Sitting here in the apiary, like what we have in the UK is we have our freedom, and the people in Ukraine, they're having to fight for their continued freedom and independence of their country. Now when I speak to people in the UK, everybody is so willing to help. Huge donations have been given to support Ukrainian charities. People are offering up their homes for refugees. People want to help in any possible way they can. In this video, I'm offering you 2 ways that you can personally help the people of Ukraine. Detailed in the description of this video is Vitaly's son's PayPal address. That is a completely free and secure way to transport money into Ukraine to help Vitaly, his village, his community. And like I said, he's pledged to donate that money to this Come Back Alive charity, and I'll stick the link up for that in the description as well. Now you can donate directly to that charity, but obviously with all of the restrictions and sanctions on international payments, it can be quite difficult to navigate that website. But you can donate on it. You can donate in Bitcoin, various different cryptocurrencies. It is a little bit more difficult though. But the access route through that PayPal account that I'm going to give there, that will find its way to the Ukrainian army and help support the war against Russia. I feel a real connection with Vitaly, having emailed him over the past 6 months. Started off as a very commercial conversation talking about the genetics of bees and the logistics of importing queens into the country and how the bees would perform within this climate. And within 6 months, it's transformed into what we can do to help someone who's living in the middle of a terrible, terrible war. If you want to maximize the amount of money that's going to go to Vitaly and to the Come Back Alive charity, please hit the like button, watch this video to the end. In addition to any money that's transferred through the PayPal account or directly to Come Back Alive, I'm also pledging to donate any money that's generated through this video through adverts or Super Stickers. Come the end of the year, whatever revenue is created on this video, I will donate to the Come Back Alive charity. Thanks for watching. Thanks for your support.