REACT Disaster Response<\/a>, was part of a three-person team working in the high-risk cities of Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia.<\/p>\n![\"Back](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg)
Back in the Highlands, Hannah Cameron-Ross (24) is an emergency planning officer with Highland Council. Picture: Daniel Forsyth.<\/p>\n
While she was there, she experienced the reality of working in a country under sustained attack and saw constant reminders of the impact on ordinary people.<\/p>\n
Her role involved helping people build the skills and confidence to respond when professional help may be delayed, overstretched or working under dangerous conditions – from how to evacuate a building to applying a tourniquet or checking someone\u2019s airway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are parts of this deployment that I am still processing,\u201d Hannah reflected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Kharkiv, seeing the aftermath of a double tap strike on medics was a stark reminder that the people running towards danger to help others are themselves being targeted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Dnipro, passing the hospital brought home the human cost of this war.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day, people are arriving through doors like those changed for life. Their families are changed with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is why this training matters. It is not theoretical. It is the difference between freezing and being able to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives people the confidence to do something useful in those first few minutes when it can really matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteers Hannah Cameron-Ross and Tim Owen demonstrate wound packing. Photo: Matt Ladbrook.<\/p>\n
REACT Disaster aims to deliver rapid humanitarian action for the hardest to reach and most vulnerable communities, relying on a highly-trained volunteer force of emergency services, veterans, and skilled civilians operating in the UK and internationally.<\/p>\n
They are selected not just for what they know but for their ability to operate calmly, decisively and responsibly in uncertain, high-risk environments.<\/p>\n
The charity has now completed 15 deployments to Ukraine where non-military sites are being targeted almost every night with ballistic missiles and drone attacks from Russia.<\/p>\n
It was Hannah\u2019s second deployment to Ukraine, the first being in March 2025, while her first deployment with the charity was to Morocco in 2023 in the aftermath of an earthquake.<\/p>\n
This latest deployment to Ukraine, part of Operation Pace, also involved a second three-person REACT team delivering training in Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson.<\/p>\n
The teams worked with people including community volunteers, psychologists, social workers, teachers, telecommunications workers and others who may find themselves first on scene when someone is seriously injured.<\/p>\n
Hannah, who said her family, partner and boss have been supportive of her voluntary work in Ukraine, acknowledged that being in a war zone could be scary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are not scared, you should not be doing it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need a certain level of risk aversion and to stay calm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get a lot of sleep, for sure!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to be able to look at a situation with a level head and make the best choice at the right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do a lot of training but that doesn\u2019t stop you being in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she also pointed out, she was only there for a limited time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ukrainians are with it every single day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
REACT often begins training specific groups of civilians such as journalists or charity workers but the closer to the Ukrainian front line, the more likely the participants are to include grandparents and parents because useful training is available for free.<\/p>\n
Before leaving, the charity equips them with trauma packs before they leave.<\/p>\n
Hannah recalled one woman on the course at Dnripo passing around a piece of shrapnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told us everyone thinks it\u2019s not going to happen to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut she was waiting for a bus and got hit by a strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat piece of shrapnel was pulled out of her back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukrainian civilians practise life-saving skills.<\/p>\n
Some people on the course described not knowing what to do when previous emergencies happened while others spoke about the fear of attacks, injuries to friends and colleagues and the pressure of continuing to support others while living through war.<\/p>\n
For Hannah, the most powerful part of the deployment was seeing the change in confidence as people realised they could use simple, practical skills to help others.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain and again, people told us that they now felt more prepared,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the strongest messages was, \u2018Now I know what to do.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat matters to the mother protecting her children, the psychologist supporting traumatised families, the person working in contaminated areas, and the volunteer who may be first on scene before help arrives.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs someone from Inverness, and as someone who works in emergency planning, I know how important preparedness is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Highlands, we talk about community resilience because we know that local people are often the first to respond when something happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Ukraine, that need is immediate, personal and constant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis deployment reinforced for me that emergency planning is ultimately about people: giving communities the knowledge, confidence and practical skills to act when it matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was also struck by the sense of determination among the Ukrainian people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ukrainian sense of hope and positivity is contagious,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all my experiences with the Ukrainians, it isn\u2019t a question of if they win the war – it is when.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really have a strong sense of community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are working together to get this over the line with absolute determination.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Ukrainian war having slipped down the international news agenda, many organisations thanked the REACT team for not forgetting them.<\/p>\n
Despite the ongoing war, Hannah also observed ordinary everyday events such as a high school graduation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are people trying their best to live their lives as best they can,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes you reflect how you would be able to deal with that situation in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hannah Cameron-Ross gives instructions on patient transfer.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe cannot compare everyday emergencies in the Highlands with the reality of war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Ukrainians have demonstrated something universally important – communities cope better when people know each other, understand their risks, have practised what to do and are empowered to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Ukraine, we have seen trained volunteers, local authorities, emergency services and ordinary residents working as one system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Highlands, our risks are different, but the principle is the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities should identify their local capabilities now, rather than trying to discover them during an emergency.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities are force multipliers, not substitutes for properly resourced public services.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity resilience is not about everybody becoming an emergency responder.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is about everybody understanding that they may have something useful to contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is already a great deal of strength, knowledge and community spirit across the Highlands.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut resilience is never finished. Plans need relationships, regular updates and opportunities to practise.<\/p>\n
\u201cA document sitting on a shelf is not resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cResilience is not about expecting communities to cope alone. It is about making sure nobody has to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here<\/b><\/a> to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hannah Cameron-Ross was part of a team teaching life-saving techniques to Ukrainian civilians. As an emergency planning officer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1153516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,609,1501,657,5900],"class_list":["post-1153515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-human-interest","tag-latest-news","tag-ukraine","tag-update-me"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117110491679786044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1153516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}