A former Irish rugby player has travelled to Kherson, Ukraine to facilitate the delivery of medical supplies.
Businessman Shane Leahy is helping co-ordinate the distribution at the front line of Russian hostilities.
Leahy, chief executive of the global tech company Oxygen8, has co-ordinated the distribution of more than €200 million in medical aid since the war in Ukraine began in 2022, travelling to Ukraine more than 40 times.
The aid is provided by the US charity Heart to Heart International and then delivered by One4Humanity, the charity Leahy set up with risk consultant Norman Sheehan.
READ MORE
Deliveries are carried out with the help of Cemark, Ukraine’s biggest cement company, which is owned by Irish firm CRH.
Speaking to The Irish Times from Ukraine on Tuesday, Leahy said he was personally delivering aid elsewhere when he diverted to Kherson after the ministry of health asked for help.
“We supply medicines to the Ukraine ministry of health, and they had a problem with a warehouse over here, so they asked us to deliver directly to the hospitals instead of bringing it to their distribution point ... I loaded up the truck,” Leahy said.
“I was heading to Odesa ... but obviously got the call from Kherson – they needed it more so we went with it to Kherson.”
The former Munster player said he had done “a lot of travelling” in recent days, “I’d say 4,000 or 5,000km.”
One4Humanity distributes close to €10 million worth of medical aid to Ukraine every month, he said.
Leahy said the charity delivered a “wide variety” of medicines including “antibiotics, heart medicines, chemotherapy medicines, literally everything that you can think of, antipsychotic, depression, anxiety [medication]”.
“The ones today were largely heart antibiotics and some painkilling medicines, but it’s literally right across the board,” he added.
In March, an Irish Times investigation, carried out in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, found that Aughinish Alumina, a plant based in Limerick, was shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia. The product is used to make aluminium, which is then sold to a trading company, ASK, that supplies dozens of Russian arms manufacturers.
This has prompted calls among EU politicians for alumina to be added to the bloc’s sanctions lists. Irish Government Ministers have responded that such a move would damage Europe more than Russia.
The Central Statistics Office on Tuesday said it is working to clarify figures provided by Aughinish Alumina relating to the company’s exports to Russia.
Leahy described the situation as “horrific” and called on the Government to “shut down” exports of alumina to Russia.
“I’m from Adare, Co Limerick, myself, so I know the plant very well,” he said.
Leahy acknowledged the company made “a large contribution to the Irish economy” but said “you have to take a stand at some point”.
“I think anything going into Russia should be shut down – whether that shuts the plant down or not, I don’t know.”
On Tuesday, Leahy met the governor of Kherson Oblast, Oleksandr Prokudin, who is expected to visit Dublin later this month.
Kherson is located just across the Dnipro river from where Russian troops launch shells and drones each day, facing daily and indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population.
Kherson has been called the most dangerous large city in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded more than four years ago. Because of the level of attacks, observers have described journeys within Kherson as a “human safari”.
Leahy said tens of thousands of people on both banks of the Dnipro are directly impacted by the destruction of the dams and electricity grids on top of 15 months of intense shelling and military hostilities.
Leahy has been to Ukraine dozens of times and Kherson about six times, he said. Things are “incredibly different” now compared to when he first visited.
He witnessed drones flying overhead while in Kherson and said the war “has become a technology war”.
“In that sense, the manpower, while it matters, doesn’t matter as much because it’s the technology that matters more in terms of the drones.”
One4Humanity has delivered 19 hospital units made from shipping containers to Ukraine, working with a range of medical professionals and charities in the field. The 20ft mobile surgical theatres facilitate urgent medical surgeries including limb reconstruction, amputations, skin grafts and other operations necessitated due to injuries caused by explosives and shelling.
The charity also works with the UCD Ukraine Trauma Project, the Garda and the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Ireland, co-ordinating supplies and the deployment of specialist medical personnel to Ukraine.
