Laois GAA club groundskeeper returns to Ukraine to fight

A Laois GAA groundskeeper is among the Irish Ukrainian men who have taken the brave decision to return to their home country to defend it from Russian onslaught.

Vadym Binko has the backing of Rosenallis GAA Club and the wider community, with a collection underway.

He was interviewed by RTE News in Dublin airport as he left last Sunday February 28, in a video shared by his club.

"I live in Ireland over 20 years. I love Ireland too. My kids Irish, my wife as well," he said.

A Rosenallis transport company has undertaken to bring supplies from Laois to Ukraine.

Rosenallis GAA club is asking the community to show solaridity with Vadym Binko and his family.

"Hyland Transport have arranged a Ukrainian Relief Appeal and Rosenallis GAA along with all other local clubs have come on board to show our support for the people of Ukraine and especially to our own Vadym Binko and his family, if you have any items you can spare please drop them to Hyland Transports yard R32 E264 on Saturday the 19th March from 10am - 4pm we will also be asking our own players and committee to help out on the day."

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Vadym's wife Maryna told national press that he is ringing her every two hours to let her know he is ok. He is posted in an abandoned building in Kyiv with other volunteers, waiting for battle.

“I am good as long as I get the text messages every two hours,” Ms Binko told the Irish Independent.

“I know then that Vadym is alive, that he is OK. But I don’t know exactly where they are, what they are doing. I don’t need to know this information because it’s not safe for him for me to know this information.

I sit all day and night waiting on the messages to come in." 

The couple have two children, Ben, 15 and Veronica, 7, while Vadym has an older daughter living in Kyiv, which is part of the reason her father chose to leave Ireland.

“Ben is very close to her, and since last Thursday he has found things very difficult. Then when his dad left it was even harder. After the war started, Vadym’s daughter moved to [the] north with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend’s mother lives in a small village and they decided it was safer there. They are safe so far.”

“We did not expect war,” she said. “Although we had been watching how things were developing, Vadym and I did not believe this would happen.

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“My father lives in a small village in Ukraine and we had been getting messages from him about what was going on. I have friends that I grew up with sending information and pictures of their kids sleeping in shelters.

“Vadym couldn’t look at this. Then his daughter is over there and he said, ‘I will never forgive myself if I just sit here and watch all this on the news’.

“I didn’t try and stop him. If it wasn’t for the kids, I would go there myself and try to help. You can help in the hospitals, or cooking, helping make Molotov cocktails, there would be many ways I could help,” she told the Irish Independent. 

Laois people are being asked to help fill the truck for Hyland Transport to bring to refugee camps in Poland and Romania. 

Items required include nappies and baby formula, dried food, bottles of water, powerbanks, medical bandages, yoga mats and sleeping bags, raincoats, disposable cutlery, torches and batteries, masks and disposable gloves. 

The collection takes place on March 19 from Hyland Transport in Rosenallis, eircode R32EC64

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