Circles of life: meet the kilted volunteer serving pizza to hungry Ukrainians

Tom Hughes brings a taste of joy and a powerful message to communities devastated by Putin’s war, says Harry Stourton in Dnipro, Ukraine

Tom Hughes is bringing a smile to the faces of children in eastern Ukraine (Tom Hughes)

I just thought it was the right thing to do, to come and help,” says Tom Hughes, the raffish, unshaven 42-year-old head of the Ukrainian operation run by Scottish charity Siobhan’s Trust, which serves up hope in the shape of a pizza.

“Having spent so much time living under this level of terror, it’s become a moral obligation to help as much as possible. When the missiles come in, we just turn up the music and keep cooking.”

Wearing a distinctive kilt in Ukraine’s national colours of yellow and blue, Hughes has proudly led a band of international volunteers on a mission to bring hope, joy and sustenance to civilians in eastern Ukraine.

Tom and his team have spent more than a year a few miles behind Ukraine’s front line against invading Russian forces. Dodging a constant barrage of missiles, shells and drones, they have visited hundreds of towns and villages – some only hours after liberation – to cook for the traumatised residents and the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.

Serving up to 4,000 pizzas a day, the volunteers have cooked more than a million margheritas for grateful Ukrainians living in a disrupted world on the edge of conflict.

A pizza production line in eastern Ukraine (Tom Hughes)

In spite of the risk of incoming assaults, they start the trucks every day and head out to areas recovering from attack. Their presence is a rare ray of light in the daily lives of people who have lived for 18 months under daily existential threat. From the ruins of recently recaptured Kharkiv to the city of Kherson under daily bombardment, the specially adapted trucks of Siobhan’s Trust have covered the entire 600-mile front line.

At each location, the caravan of charity workers quickly circles the wagons, rolling up the sides of their bespoke trucks to reveal a string of pizza ovens. With the warm aroma of rising dough and melting cheese, and a playlist of upbeat music, they have become a beacon of hope in devastated communities.

Emerging from tower blocks, ruins and shelters, crowds begin to gather. Mainly women and children and the elderly, there are people coping with the loss of loved ones, their homes, and relatives fighting at the front. Not one family is untouched by this war. Everyone has a family member at the front, while many have lost everything to occupying Russian forces.

As well as pizza, Tom and his international group also bring sweets, face-painting for children, music and dancing. Strangers to celebration in recent times, many residents are confused at the arrival of this colourful ensemble. Gradually, they feel its powerful message: that they are not forgotten by the outside world.

For Tom, the past 17 months have marked a radical change in his own life. The 42-year-old, originally from Wiltshire, had never been to a war zone or done humanitarian work before, but decided he wanted to help when the war began. The former yacht skipper and property developer went to the border between Ukraine and Poland in early March last year to help with the refugee crisis.

It was there that he made contact with the Siobhan Trust charity, through his friend Harry Scrymgeour, one of the charity’s trustees and the son of Siobhan Dundee, after whom the charity is named. By April, when fewer refugees were crossing the border, the two decided to buy a lorry and move their efforts into Ukraine.

“We started working in the west, based in Lviv,” says Tom. “We gradually worked our way east, forging connections and learning how to deal with the more challenging conditions near the front line. We now have a western team based in Lviv and a mobile eastern team that works with communities suffering the Russian bombardment.”

Sometimes, breaking through is not easy. “It depends where they’re from,” says Tom. “How brutal their experience has been. For instance, anyone who has survived the horrors of Mariupol is deeply traumatised.

Hundreds queue for food in areas hit by Russian missiles (Tom Hughes)

“First, it’s the children, with smirks and smiles, then they start to laugh, and when the children start the mothers and grandparents relax,” he says. “I know we’ve achieved what we set out to do when even the babushkas are dancing.”

Wearing a traditional Ukrainian national dress shirt combined with his bright kilt and sporran, Tom attracts attention and admiration wherever he goes. But it’s not just the pizza and music, it’s the simple act of human contact. Tom and his crew have been a sympathetic ear to thousands since their arrival.

“Most places we go to, the kids will come and help. They appear really jolly to start with,” he says. “Then when they trust you, they will sit you down in a quiet corner and say, my dad is on the front line, I can’t bear it anymore. Can I make pizza with you?”

Tom Hughes cuts a distinctive figure in his bright kilt (Tom Hughes)

With no flights in or out of Ukraine, the journey from London takes at least three days – even longer for those coming from outside Europe. It means only the most dedicated come to volunteer, and many stay. Several volunteers have been helping for more than a year.

This work is not without personal cost: “We get some weeks when not much happens, and then we will get weeks where you’ve multiple incoming overnight for weeks on end,” says Tom. “My own team is suffering from trauma. It sucks having missiles coming into your town on a nightly basis; it’s impossible to understand what it must be like for it to be happening to your own country.”

How long will this pizza mission continue? “What we are doing helps,” says Tom. “I believe in it, it helps combat the trauma of the civilian missile strikes every day, it helps bring hope to the many people that just don’t have any. It works, so I feel very compelled to continue it.”

https://siobhanstrust.uk