WAR GAMES
Brave kids play with burnt-out Russian tank as war rages on in Ukraine
A LITTLE boy and girl playfully clamber through a wrecked Russian armoured car — proving that innocent fun can be had in the grimmest of places.
Another child, perches on a burnt-out military hulk in the liberated Ukrainian village of Lukashivka near Chernihiv in a long-awaited sign of normal life.
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Russian troops were forced to retreat from Kyiv after defenders destroyed tanks and 2,500 armoured vehicles.
It looks like the kids won’t be short of climbing frames.
Meanwhile, frantic efforts were under way last night to secure the release of captured aid workers Paul Urey and Dylan Healey.
The pair were on a rescue mission to evacuate civilians when they were held on suspicion of spying, 30 miles from a nuclear power plant.
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Paul, 45, from Manchester, and Dylan, 22, from Cambridgeshire, travelled to Ukraine alone and were working as volunteers, according to the UK non-profit organisation Presidium Network.
Paul’s mum Linda described his capture as her “worst nightmare”.
She said her son, a Type 1 diabetic who could die without access to insulin, had travelled to Ukraine about ten days ago. She said: “I begged him not to because Russia’s bad.
“I was on FaceTime with him up to 4am on Monday morning and that was it — gone.”
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Asked how she was feeling, she replied: “Like I want to die, like I don’t know what to do any more. I don’t know. It’s horrible.”
She said her son was “too caring” and “too kind”.
Sophie Goldring, who went to college with Dylan, said she was in contact with him on Snapchat. She said: “He wanted to go to Ukraine to help.”
Another friend, Allan Moore, 29, said Dylan was “just a kid from a council estate who went out there to help”.
Dylan had been sharing fundraising appeals on Facebook.
In his last message on April 16 he wrote: “At the moment fundraising is for another vehicle to enable us to evacuate more people at a time but the fundraiser will continue and will be updated to what the needs would require at that stage.”
Dylan is believed to have been in Ukraine for at least six weeks.
The Presidium Network, which has been organising relief for civilians in Kyiv, said the men were driving to help a woman and two kids evacuate.
Dominik Byrne, one of the network’s founders, said: “We want to tell the Russians that these aren’t spies. These aren’t military people.
“These are just humanitarian workers who got caught in a bad situation.”
He said the men were mostly helping with the distribution of medical aid and also helping terrified civilians flee to safety.
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International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “The Foreign Office is doing all it can to support and identify these two people.”
The Foreign Office said earlier that it is urgently seeking more information following the reports of British nationals being detained in Ukraine.
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