The renovation of the intensive therapy room is complete. They were financed with the proceeds from the sale of the 2024 calendar.
30 August 2024 – Vorzel Hospital Therapy Room
17 July 2024 – Vorzel Hospital
Natalya visits the hospital in Vorzel. On this day, the medicines needed for the therapies and purchased shortly beforehand were handed over. All the medicines purchased were paid for with the proceeds from the sale of the 2024 calendar.
This was followed by a tour of the intensive therapy room, the renovation of which is being financed entirely by Ad Pacem.The work had not yet been completed by mid-July.
15 and 16 July 2024 : Concentration camp “Izolyaziya” in Donetsk
Over these two days, our vice-president Natalya has met three former inmates of the ‘Izolyaziya’ concentration camp in Donetzk, Andrij Kochmuradov, Vitalij Sokolov and Valerij Matjuschenko. This camp is run by the Russian occupation forces in the occupied Donbas. Regular torture is commonplace. Valerij Matjushenko was only released at the beginning of July 2024 as part of the prisoner exchange. As a result of the torture, all three, along with Andrij Kochmuradov’s wife Olena Lazareva, suffer from serious health problems including joint, dental, heart and circulatory problems. They receive financial support from Ad Pacem for medical treatment and the purchase of medicines.
Kochmuradov and Sokolov said that having been in prison caused them major problems when looking for work. Employers are discouraged and resent the fact that they were political prisoners, even though they were later found innocent by Ukrainian courts. Sokolov is now working as a guard, while Kochmuradov is still unemployed.
Letter from Valerij Matjuschenko:
On 15 July 2017, Mr Valeriy Mykolayovych Matyushenko was abducted by agents of the ‘Ministry of State Security’ (FSB) of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and spent 7 years in captivity. He was released in an exchange on 28 June 2024. Here is his story:
‘I, Valeriy Mykolayovych Matyushenko, born in 1965, Ukrainian, resident of Komsomolske, Starobeshevo district, Donetsk region, am married and have one son.
On 15 July 2017, I left my flat to join my wife, who was at the school where our son was enrolled, preparing the class for the next school year.
I opened my car and at that moment I saw a white Volkswagen minibus with a few people inside. As I was about to leave, four men came up to me, handcuffed me and put a plastic bag over my head. They dragged me into the minibus and took me somewhere.
I found myself in a room and was told that I was suspected of spying for Ukraine.
I was in the ‘DPR MGB’ (FSB).
The IZOLYATSIA torture chamber in Donezk. There were many other people in this prison or concentration camp.
I was first thrown into a small room. It had no windows and measured about one metre by two metres. I can’t say how long I was there. There was a light on all the time and there was a surveillance camera. Then I was transferred to the basement. It was cold in the basement. I was given food twice a day, at 7am and 7pm. They gave me boiled cereals without bread.
About three days later, at 2am, I was taken out of the cell and three men started beating me.
I can’t say how long they beat me. Then they dragged me to another basement. There they hooked me up to electric wires and started torturing me with electric shocks. After that, they took me back to the cell. My teeth were knocked out, three ribs were broken and I slept sitting up for over a month.
The beatings continued almost every day. I’ve had an illness since childhood:
I suffer from Tourette’s syndrome, which worsened after the torture. On the nervous side, I developed thyroid problems. Hard work caused an inguinal hernia, which was operated on after my return.
I needed dentures.
After torture and interrogation, I was sentenced by the ‘DPR military court’ to 10 years of strict confinement for spying for Ukraine.
I remained in this ‘isolation’ for ten months. Then I was transferred to the Donetsk pre-trial detention centre. After three weeks in the pre-trial detention centre, I was transferred to high-regime colony no. 32 in Minsk, where I was held until 28 June 2024, when I was released.
On 28 June 2024, I arrived in Kiev by helicopter. I was immediately taken from the airport to the regional hospital, where I stayed for a fortnight. I’ve now been in another hospital for a month to get my disability certificate. I have a lot of problems, including financial problems. I’m asking your association if it’s possible to help me financially to get back into shape and to buy the medicines I need.
Yours sincerely’.
Valery Matyushenko
Andrij Kochmuradov 
Valery Sokolov 
Valery Matuschenko
Newsletter 34
90 shipments of aid to Ukraine
Dear members of Ad Pacem,
This newsletter gives an overview of our aid to the victims in Ukraine of the Russian military aggression which, since 22 February 2022, has put the east and south of the country (20% of Ukrainian territory) to fire and blood.
In the first few weeks, we were inundated with spontaneous aid from members and neighbours who were sending supplies (medicines, clothes, blankets, linen, etc.) that Ukrainians, fleeing with their children in the face of the advancing barbarism, might need. In April and May 2022, refugees arrived on our doorstep and we tried to accommodate them.
Many of the donations we received throughout 2022 paid for all our shipments to the hospitals in Stryj, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Vorzel (psychiatric clinic for traumatised civilians and soldiers) and to the internal refugee centres in Dnipro, Pidgorodne, Berezhane and Chernovitz in Ukraine. Some of this money was sent directly by Western Union to trusted development workers who bought equipment, medicines and food on the spot.
Some of the donations were used to fund emergency operations for injured civilians and refugees who could not pay for them themselves.
From the outset, our approach has been to be transparent, with photos of our aid taken when it was sent and when it was received. For each item of aid, you will find on the website the date, the place where it was sent and received, the content of the aid sent and, in most cases, the people who were helped and/or who received it. This is also the case when money has been sent: the photos document the purchases made and distributed to those in need.
To date, ninety items have been sent to Ukraine.
See the direct link: Russia’s war against Ukraine
All the proceeds from the sale of the Ad Pacem 2023 calendar have been used to fund a field hospital that a dozen doctors decided to set up behind the Ukrainian front lines. It enables them to intervene quickly with seriously injured soldiers. We bought them sleeping bags, inflatable mattresses, bullet-proof waistcoats, medical equipment, medicines, dressings, etc.
A doctor and a nurse from this team wrote to us saying that they had been wounded by Russian bullets when they went out to recover wounded soldiers. From their hospitals Oleg (December 2023) and Oleksander (January 2024) texted us that it was thanks to the bullet-proof waistcoats we had bought them that their lives were saved. A ray of light in this horrible war!
I would like to thank all our members who, through their subscriptions and donations, are making it possible to help the victims of the war in Ukraine.
Special thanks go to our vice-president Natalya Pantaleoni, who organises all this aid.
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman
15 July 2024
Mrs Ponomarenko, head of the psychiatric hospital in Vorzel (Ukraine), receives the medicines purchased thanks to a donation from a Kiwanis club in Luxembourg.
9 July 2024 : Misto dobra
Visit of our Vice President Natalya to ‘Misto dobra’ – City of goodness in Chernivtzi.
The pre-planned meeting with the founder of ‘Misto Dobra’ was unfortunately cancelled. The previous day, the ‘Ochmadit’ children’s hospital in Kyiv was hit by a Russian missile. Two children from the ‘Misto Dobra’ home were in there at the time and were about to undergo an oncological operation. The founder, Mrs Marta Levchenko, therefore had to travel urgently to Kyiv. Natalya was able to visit the entire ‘Misto Dobra’ centre with one of Mrs Levchenko’s employees. Many children from evacuated children’s homes in Odessa and Mykolayiv (southern Ukraine) are housed here. The home has rehabilitation rooms for sick and disabled children and a palliative care unit. With financial help from Ad Pacem, tracheostomy and gastrostomy tubes and catheters were purchased here. A computer and monitor were also purchased to monitor the condition of a seriously ill child during transport to hospital.
8 july 2024 – Ivano-Frankivsk Shelter
Visit by our Vice President Natalya to a shelter for mothers and children in Ivano-Frankivsk (Western Ukraine).
Of the 37 women and children currently living in the shelter, three quarters are internal refugees from eastern and southern Ukraine. Among them are also victims of rape by Russian soldiers.
The home mainly provides a home for women who have small children and are unable to pay rent. The women are given work in a chicken farm and the children can go to school and kindergarten. Smaller children are looked after in the home. As soon as the women are financially better off, they rent a flat on their own.. In cases where women and/or their children have illnesses, disabilities or war trauma, their stay in the home is not limited in time.
Due to the constant Russian missile strikes, the Ukrainian energy grid functions very poorly. Electricity is switched off for many hours a day as planned. The purchase of an electric battery station for this home was therefore of paramount importance. Ad Pacem financed the purchase of such a battery station. This was installed in the home at the end of August 2024.
From FLAMES to LIGHT
On Friday 28 June 2024, twenty-four members of Ad Pacem met up at around 9pm at the entrance to the Carrières d’Haudainville, near the town of Verdun (F), to watch Europe’s largest Sound and Light show on the 14-18 war.
The scenic representation of major historical events in the Battle of Verdun (F) began at dusk and ended around midnight. Through the intersecting destinies of Germans and Frenchmen, the audience witnessed the relentless chain of events that led to the First World War. Thanks to a good sound system and professional staging, spectators had the impression of plunging right into the heart of the fighting, into the “Hell of Verdun”, with the evocation of the suffering and anguish of the soldiers and their families. Whether in the French or German trenches, the soldiers suffered the same fate: the cold, the mud, the lice and the rats… with, sometimes, a little respite at the back despite the nights full of anxiety about the fighting to come.
All the scenes are designed to shock with their truth: gripping battle scenes, stabbing attacks, death awaiting the attackers, firemen in a burning Verdun, a funfair in a back-front town, the first air battle in history… At the same time, the show is characterised by a concern to educate: through the narrative, the portrayal of the characters and the alternation of frenetic and calm tableaux or sequences, audiences of all ages can witness this painful chapter in humanity and keep a vivid memory alive.
The technical resources deployed to achieve this feat are extensive: special effects, giant image projections on the quarry walls and impressive sets. All this was achieved with 200 actors, most of them volunteers, 800 costumes, hundreds of spotlights and floats, a period train, etc.
The show ends with a German and French soldier shaking hands under the light of a torch held by a civilian. Yesterday’s enemies have become today’s friends.
12 and 28 June 2024
Shipment from Luxembourg of 2 toilet chairs, 1 wheelchair and several pairs of crutches for the internal refugee centre in Dnipro.
The equipment was received on 28 June.
8 and 18 June 2024
Shipment from Luxembourg of medicines and equipment (enteral food for the war-wounded, catheters, antiseptic dressings, post-operative kits, masks and jackets for surgeons) for the Kharkiv hospital.Our shipment was received by the hospital on 18 June.
6th Bike for climate – bike for peace
Cycling around Arlon (B)
On Saturday morning, 15 June 2024, a small group of eight Ad Pacem members met in the car park of Clairefontaine Abbey on the Belgian-Luxembourg border. This was the start of the second Bike for Future of the season, during which the team explored the cycle paths and stretches of national road around Arlon. It was a closed course (signposted loop) of 40 km, with the finish, at around 5 p.m., at the start car park.
After cycling through a number of villages and along country roads and tracks, taking in some lovely views, the group had their lunch break in a meadow with a packed lunch.
On the final stage, the group passed through Toenig and Sterpenich before a long descent, giving the legs a chance to relax, to the finish.
The sun, clouds and wind made for a pleasant cycling outing.
Everyone agreed that this outing was an opportunity to spend a good time together, discovering beautiful landscapes in good weather. Before loading up the bikes and setting off again, there was an hour-long visit to the Clairefontaine abbey site, including the ruins of the old structure dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, the medicinal garden redone in the old-fashioned way (as it was in those days), and the spring that (still) runs through the underground galleries which, in the Middle Ages, were a place of pilgrimage where believers sought healing for their ailments.
8 and 12 June 2024
Dispatch from Luxembourg on 8 June and receipt in Dnipro on 12 June of clothing, footwear and hygiene products for the Internal Refugee Centre.
11 June 2024: The Kharkiv hospital received 44 sets of Certofix Mono single-channel venous catheters purchased by the Ad Pacem association.
5th Bike for climate – bike for peace
On the cycle paths near the three borders (tripoint)
Eight young and not-so-young members of the Ad Pacem association met up on Saturday 18 May 2024 for their Bike for Climate in the car park next to the church in Elvange (L). Although it had rained on the previous days, it stayed dry for the entire 45km route. With overcast skies and ideal temperatures, it was a pleasure to pedal through fields, vineyards and villages. But when the cyclists arrived in Remerschen, on the promenade along the Moselle, they were surprised to have to pedal for several hundred metres on a track flooded with twenty centimetres of water from the overflowing Moselle.
Schengen Museum
Our first stop was at the Schengen European Museum (L), which traces the progress of European integration and the establishment of the Schengen area of free movement from its earliest days. On 18 December 2007, the former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bronislaw Geremek, described this process in these words:
‘The abolition of the EU’s internal borders is a sign of recognition that all the citizens of the States concerned belong to the same area, and that they share a common identity’.
The museum’s permanent trilingual exhibition shows that the abolition of internal border controls represents an important step in the process of European integration. A 200 m2 exhibition area offers visitors a range of different themes, together with background information. Visitors can see the various customs and border symbols that characterised border posts between states before the creation of the EU. They were all abolished to allow free communication and movement between the different nations and populations of the EU.
Roman villa Borg
The cyclists then crossed the bridge over the Moselle to begin the long climb, on the German side, through the vineyards to the Roman Villa Borg near Nennig (D). On the way up, the cyclists passed a bunker that forms part of the Westwall built by the Nazis between 1939 and 1940. There are 75 bunkers along this 10.9 km stretch between the east of the town of Perl and the loop in the river Saar near the village of Orscholz.
Once they had reached the Roman villa, it was time for a lunch break and a packed lunch.
After lunch, it was time to visit the impressive villa. This complex has been completely rebuilt from its foundation walls. A visit to the residences of the Villa Borg gives an idea of the life of the privileged Romans two thousand years ago. The open-air museum with artefacts found during archaeological excavations, the villa’s magnificent baths, the harmonious gardens, the banqueting rooms, the gatehouse, the Roman kitchen and the Roman tavern invite you to linger a while.
Roman villa with the largest mosaic north of the Alps
After passing through more vineyards and woods, the next stop was the Roman villa near Nennig (D). It houses the largest mosaic from the Roman era north of the Alps.
The villa’s magnificent mosaic floor is one of the most important finds of its kind north of the Alps, and one of the few that can still be visited today at the original discovery site. Protected by a structure built around 150 years ago, the site is one of the oldest museum displays of archaeological finds in Germany.
The carefully structured mosaic spreads like a carpet over an imitation of black and white marble tiles. The mosaic was created at the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. It measures around 160 m2 on the floor and incorporates a well decorated with marble slabs. The mosaic was made using around 3 million small stones.
Just before visiting the mosaic, the group had stopped for a few moments in front of a mound forming a Roman burial complex dating from the 2nd century AD.
For the last 10km, the group was forced to make a slight diversions and take the main road. Heavy rain the previous day had caused a landslide that swept away several trees, completely blocking the way.
It was a very nice cycling trip to the ‘Luxembourg, France and Germany’ tripoint.
9 June 2024 : Kharkiv hospital receives 26 sets of Certofix Duo central venous catheters purchased by the Ad Pacem association.
