The following medical aid was sent from Luxembourg on 31 January and received on 4 February at the military hospital in Kyiv:
dressings, bandages, orthoses, surgical masks, catheters, urinary catheters, painkillers, antiseptics, syringes, post-operative kits, warm clothing and bed linen.
17 and 24 January 2026: The following medical aid was sent from Luxembourg on 17 January and received on 24 January at the military hospital in Kyiv:
dressings, bandages, orthoses, surgical masks, catheters, urinary catheters, painkillers, antiseptics, syringes, post-operative kits, bed linen, various items of clothing.
As 2025 draws to a close, our Ad Pacem committee wishes you a wonderful festive season with your family and friends.
This is only possible for us Europeans because we live in peace with our neighbours.
From this past year, our committee would like to highlight an event that had a profound impact on us and that we would like to commemorate here. It is the story of two former prisoners of the Russian concentration camp ‘Izolyatsia’ in Donetsk, Valery Sokolov and Valery Matjushenko, who were released during a prisoner exchange. Thanks to a fundraising appeal, we were able to finance their dental operations and implants so that they could get new teeth to replace those they lost during Russian torture. In two short videos, you can listen to their stories and their words of thanks, with a written transcript below.
=> Videos Matjushenko and Sokolov
This is an abject consequence of this horrific war waged by Russian state officials. One day, an international tribunal will try them for crimes against humanity, if not for genocide against the Ukrainian people.
We close this Newsletter 45 with a photo sent to us from the Art Therapy Centre in Kropyvnytskyj, Ukraine, where children from refugee families thank Ad Pacem donors.
These young people give hope for a better future!
Best wishes for the New Year!
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman Ad Pacem servandam
Every year, members of the Ad Pacem Committee visit a place in Europe where an important war or conflict took place in the past. In museums and memorials, they compile images and up-to-date information about the conflict. The most beautiful pictures of these places are picked out to feature the twelve months of the calendar.
The 2026 calendar is themed around the Gothic Line, also known as the Green Line by the Nazis. In 1944-1945, German soldiers built this defensive line in northern and central Italy to halt the advance of the Allies. Along this line, which stretched over 320 km from the Adriatic Sea to the Tyrrhenian Sea, there were fierce fights and cruel massacres of the civilian population.
This front remained less well known because the Normandy landings took place at the same time, followed shortly afterwards by the landings in Provence.
The profit from the sale of the 2026 calendar will be donated to the non-governmental organisation SEMA in Ukraine. This organisation supports women who were abused, tortured and raped by Russian soldiers during the war.
The 2026 calendar is available in French, German, Italian and Ukrainian. QR codes come with the pictures for each month, providing access to interviews, additional photographs and the history of the conflict.
Knowledge of past wars is important for understanding the value of peace today.
You can order this calendar by transferring 16 € (calendar + shipping costs) to our current account:
Pour la Paix et contre la Guerre
LU28 0099 7800 0064 0276 (IBAN)
CCRALULL (BIC)
Please also provide your surname, first name and postal address, as well as your preferred language for the calendar. The calendar will be sent to you by post.
You can view the cover of the calendar here:
=> Calendrier Ad Pacem 2026 (preview)
With kind regards,
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman Ad Pacem servandam
Sent on 15 November from Luxembourg, our aid arrived on 18 November 2025 at the military hospital in Kyiv. It consisted of burn dressings, bandages, ostomy bags and accessories, urinary catheters, vitamins, antiseptics and painkillers. Some of the aid was transferred directly to medical posts on the front line.
On 17 November 2025, our association Ad Pacem purchased one hundred (100) kilograms of paraffin wax for the manufacture of candles, which are of great help to soldiers in the trenches. These candles were made by pupils at the school in Kropyvnytskyj (western Ukraine), most of whom come from families of internally displaced persons from the Donetsk region.
Education and training in living together in diversity remain underdeveloped in the European Union, despite what politicians claim. Having invested too little in these areas, the leaders of the various political parties rarely speak out on these issues. And if they do, they rarely openly endorse the societal and mindset changes that are taking place.
The political consequences have been noticeable for years, particularly through the development of nationalist and fundamentalist theories and ideologies, as well as the decline of solidarity towards the poor, marginalised groups and the environment.
In order to counter this trend, the Ad Pacem committee recently organised two visits aimed at personal and collective training.
Guided tour of Fort Fermont (Maginot Line, France)
=> Click here to see the report.
Visit to Neunkirchen (Germany) at the invitation of a group of citizens from the town
=> Click here to see the report.
With kind regards,
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman Ad Pacem servandam
From Luxembourg, our aid was sent on 11 October to the refugee centre in Dnipro. It consisted of clothing for men, women and children.
This aid was received at the centre on 17 October.
Twenty members of the Ad Pacem association met at 9:30 a.m. at the entrance to Fort Fermont for a guided tour lasting about three hours, which allowed them to see and understand this military defence structure, built between 1931 and 1935.
Thanks to the electric train and the good maintenance of the site, the tour was easy to follow: the group travelled thirty metres underground through the galleries connecting the living quarters, storage areas (warehouses) and defence posts occupied by soldiers in the huge concrete structure of Fort Fermont. The Maginot Line is a line of defence named after André Maginot, a native of Lorraine (F), who succeeded Paul Painlevé as Minister of War at the end of 1929. Painlevé had opted, as early as 1925, for a defence policy in the event of a new war with Germany. He had set up a special commission which defined the route and components of a line of defence to fortify the borders with Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and part of Belgium. The Maginot Line stretches from Dunkirk to the south of Nice with around fifty small and large structures and, at regular intervals, casemates and observation points.
From 1936 onwards, Fort Fermont was regularly occupied by its full complement (580 soldiers, 75 non-commissioned officers and 21 officers) ready for combat.
From 10 May 1940, German troops went on the offensive and fighting continued until 27 June 1940, when all French soldiers evacuated the fort, five days after the armistice.
Fermont remained undefeated during the hostilities and was occupied by the Germans until September 1944. The fort was then used by American soldiers during the winter of 1944-1945 as a rear base for troops engaged on the Ardennes and Luxembourg fronts.
The Fermont fortification is still owned by the Ministry of Defence, which has made it available to the Association des Amis de l’Ouvrage de Fermont et de la Ligne Maginot (Friends of the Fermont Fortification and Maginot Line Association). This association maintains it and makes it accessible to the public in order to preserve its memory.
Our medical aid was sent from Luxembourg: bed linen, various orthoses, bandages, dressings, syringes, post-operative kits, urine bags and catheters for bedridden patients. Everything was received on 18 September at the military hospital in Kyiv.
🗓 Date: Sunday, 5 October 2025
🕘 Meeting time: 9:15 a.m.
📍 Meeting place: Fort de Fermont car park (20 minutes from Longwy, France)
The Ad Pacem servandam association is organising an excursion to one of the sites of the Maginot Line, a series of fortifications built between 1929 and 1936 that played an important role at the beginning of the Second World War.
🔹 Duration: approximately 2 hours 30 minutes
🔹 Format: guided tour, partly underground, with electric train ride
🔹 On foot: approximately 1.5 km
🔹 Temperature: approximately 13°C – bring warm clothing
🔹 End of the tour: around 12:30 p.m.
🔹 After the tour:
Those who wish to do so can stay for lunch together in Crusnes – everyone brings something (potluck style). The gathering will end around 3:00 p.m.
💶 Cost:
📩 Registration:
Please confirm your participation by email: [email protected]
The association Ad Pacem servandam – For Peace and Against War exists thanks to the annual membership fees of its members and receives no public funding.
We warmly thank all those who have already paid their membership fees for 2025!
If you have not yet done so, we invite you to pay €15 with the reference ‘Ad Pacem 2025 membership fee’ to the following account:
You can also use Payconiq (for residents of Luxembourg and Belgium).
With best regards,
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman Ad Pacem servandam
Three wheelchairs, three commode chairs and one walking frame were sent from Luxembourg on 24 July. They were received in Ivano-Frankivsk on 26 July at a shelter for women and children, most of whom are refugees from war-torn areas. This equipment is intended for people in need and victims of war in this region.
1. Guided tour of Fort Fermont (Maginot Line) on Sunday 5 October at 9.15 a.m.
As it does every year, the Ad Pacem servandam association is organising a cultural outing for its members to a place of remembrance of a past war. This is an opportunity to see and learn on site how human societies and states organised wars, their defences and everything related to conflict management (armament, strategies, occupations, hospitals, information, deaths, commemorations, etc.).
This year, the visit will take place on Sunday 5 October. The meeting point is at 9.15 a.m. in the car park near Fort Fermont, which is about 20 minutes from Longwy (F). This guided tour, which must be booked in advance, will last approximately 2½ hours and will take place mostly underground, including a section by electric train. Participants will walk 1½ kilometres to see up close how soldiers lived in the Maginot Line. Please bring a jumper as the temperature is always around 13 degrees. At the exit, there will be a shop selling souvenirs and books, as well as a refreshment bar. The tour will end at around 12.30pm. Those who wish to stay for lunch can meet in Crusnes, where we will share whatever everyone has brought with them, on a potluck basis. The meeting will end at around 3pm.
Each member will be asked for a contribution of 5 €, with the rest being paid by the association. For children under 12, the visit is free, with the association covering the costs. Please let us know if you plan to attend by emailing [email protected].
2. The proceeds from the sale of the 2025 calendar will go to the ‘Hospitallers’ in Ukraine
Every year, our association ‘Ad Pacem servandam – For Peace and Against War’ sends the proceeds from the sale of the Ad Pacem calendar to individuals or associations that help war victims. This year, the proceeds were donated in full to the Ukrainian volunteer association ‘Hospitallers’, which works near the Russian front.
Under the motto of the Hospitallers, ‘Save every life’, tactical paramedics and doctors have come together to provide first aid to seriously injured soldiers and civilians, risking their own lives, directly on the front line.
The money was used to purchase an infusion pump (Infusiomat), an important and expensive piece of equipment, as well as four batteries for Saros oxygen devices.
All of these devices have been in use since March 2025.
The Hospitallers would like to thank all purchasers of the 2025 calendar and the Ad Pacem association for purchasing this essential equipment, which enables them to save lives every day.
You can find more information and photos of the Infusiomat being used by the Hospitallers to treat seriously injured soldiers by clicking on the following link. Other photos show the handover of the four batteries.
Many thanks to everyone for your help.
The Ad Pacem Board of Directors wishes you a happy summer holiday.
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman Ad Pacem servandam
On 13 July, three boxes of women’s and children’s clothing, two toilet seats for disabled people and three walking frames were sent from Luxembourg. Everything was received in Ivano-Frankivsk the following day.
This equipment and clothing will be distributed by the director of the women’s and children’s shelter, Ms Valeria Kushnirenko, to people in need and war victims in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
1. Appeal for donations for Valerij SOKOLOV and Valerij MATJUSCHENKO
Since 2015, Russia has occupied Ukrainian territories and set up concentration camps modelled on those of the Soviet Union. Prisoner exchanges have been taking place for several years between the two warring countries, and among the Ukrainians released, there are those who have spent years in concentration camps such as ‘Izolyazia’, located in the Donetsk region.
Our association, Ad Pacem Servandam, supports several former prisoners of the Russian concentration camp ‘Izolyazia’. They are mainly civilians who suffer from serious after-effects of regular torture. After their release, we help them by covering their medical expenses, which are often costly for people who cannot afford to pay for treatment. They have lost everything or had to leave everything behind in the occupied areas. This is the case for Valerij Sokolov and Valerij Matjuschenko.
=> To learn more about their stories, click here.
We are making an APPEAL to help them.
You can help by making a donation to the bank account
IBAN LU28 0099 7800 0064 0276 (CCRALULL)
of our association Pour la Paix et contre la Guerre asbl
with the reference ‘Help for Sokolov and Matjuschenko’
or via Payconiq (Benelux States only)
2. Report on the 8th General Assembly
On Saturday 29 March 2025, from 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon, the 8th General Assembly was held in Bascharage (L). Here is a report on the activities and assistance provided by the association during 2024, as well as its plans for the future.
=> Click here to read the details.
With best regards,
Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman Ad Pacem servandam
