Close Call for Port Hope Man Helping In Ukraine After Missile Strike

Pete Fisher
3 years ago
• Categories: Local, National

A Port Hope man who left his young family to help the Ukrainian people said he is safe after a close call.

Twenty-nine-year-old Anthony Walker travelled to Ukraine in early March.

When he first arrived he worked on supplies for the Ukrainian refugees crossing into Poland.

Other Canadian veterans flew over a short time later and the group went into Ukraine to help in anyway possible including taking up arms against the Russian invasion.

“The base I was stationed at no longer exisits,” Walker texted Today’s Northumberland on Sunday, March 13, 2022.

“A missile strike woke me up at 5 a.m.”

It was Walker’s first night at a Ukrainian Military Training base approximately 10-miles from the Polish border.

The first missile hit the building next to his.

“It was fuckin hell.”

Walker said there were eight missiles that landed in and around the base in the first salvo along with two military aircraft that dropped bombs.

“The second attack a few hours later levelled the place.”

Ironically, Walker had just signed the papers worked as a combat medic with the Ukrainian army just hours before the attack he said.

Walker was put on a bus with other soldiers, just five minutes before the second attack. Presently he is in Poland, but is planning on going back to Ukraine on Monday with the soldiers.

During the attacks, Walker said there was no air raid siren and the radar defence system failed.

The first attack left two dead. Thirty-three people were killed during the second attack.