A dad-of-four is working 50 hours a week and three jobs to raise enough money to head to the front line in Ukraine for the ninth time to deliver aid and bread.
Photographer Pete Masters, 55, has spent the last two years delivering more than £35,000 of aid from fundraisers in the UK to towns and villages in the path of Putin’s war machine.
In March Mr Masters, from Hereford, travelled to Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, to help local chaplain Alexander take life-saving supplies to Ukrainian civilians living less than a mile from Russian forces.
During his daring trips, he was given unprecedented access to the front line, embedded himself with Ukrainian troops, and come under rocket and mortar fire from the invading Kremlin military.
Mr Masters has also recently delivered medical aid and vehicles, helped repair houses, and even delivered a batch of frozen Cornish pasties.
Mr Masters, who has set up a JustGiving page to purchase aid, has sold his tattoo business and given up many of his possessions in Britain in preparation to head to Ukraine once more.
He is now working 40 hours a week in a café, several hours for a cleaning company and 10 hours at a local vet to fund his next trip to the war-torn country where he feels “at home”.
Once he has raised enough money, Mr Masters will be travelling once more to the east of Ukraine to work with the local chaplain delivering aid.
He told Express.co.uk: “I am now actively working three jobs to get back to the Ukraine front line.
“I don’t take any money from donations, there’s no costs coming out of there. Alex the chaplain will get it all to help buy food and medical supplies for the people living in a warzone.
“I don’t want to go over there with nothing, I want to be a significant help, and I’ll buy the aid myself if I have to, that’s the whole point. Ukraine seems to have gone out of the window in the UK at the moment, so I am really struggling to raise funds.”
Speaking about the recent horrendous attack on Kyiv’s Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital, Mr Masters said it brought back memories of horrible similar sights he’d seen himself.
He said: “I’ve seen hospitals targeted in eastern Ukraine on the front line, and to me it almost seems deliberate, which is an atrocity. This attack on the children’s hospital was an atrocity.
“I’ve walked through completely bombed-out hospitals taking aid to them. There will be no windows left and bits of the roof missing, but the remarkable thing is the doctors and nurses are still operating.
“There seems to be a pattern to me from what I have seen near the front line. It seems like Putin and the Russians are targeting these places deliberately. It’s a war crime.
“The Kremlin just seems to keep attacking civilians in Ukraine, trying to wear them down, but I know they won’t be beaten.”
Recalling one of the most disturbing moments of his own work in Ukraine, Pete said he had been into a children’s ward in one hospital after it had been bombed.
He said: “It was unbelievable. The hospital was only two years old, and it was destroyed. There were holes in the walls, all over the place. It was unspeakable.
“A hospital is meant to be safe even in a war. It’s the one place a shred of humanity should still exist, and where people should think it won’t get taken out.
“The Ukrainians won’t be disheartened though, for all the nightmares they endure, I’ve seen doctors and nurses still treating people in horrendous conditions.
“The Ukrainians are hardcore and inspire me every time I go there, from the little old woman to the smallest kid, the women of that country are especially strong, I’ve never met people like them.”
For his next trip, Mr Masters will be going straight to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk – close to where Russian forces recently made a large push against the defending Ukrainians. He could also be heading to Kharkiv further to the north.
He said: “I’ll hook up with the chaplain and just every day we are in and out delivering aid to people who are literally living under threat of death every day.
“We feed and help whoever we can. The reality of it is, every bit of money given makes a difference, even if it means a loaf of bread for someone who hasn’t eaten in a week.
“I talk to Ukrainians on the front line every day and there have been some heavy losses recently, but they won’t ever give up.
“My friend the chaplain has had his house hit by a drone, their car has been hit, and he’s said to his wife she should head to the west of the country, but she said no.
“They have a mentality where they will not be moved, they are all staying.”
To donate to Mr Master’s JustGiving page visit it here.