'I'm oblivious to being shot at by Russians'

A cafe owner who has been on nine aid missions to Ukraine has said he regularly gets fired on by Russian soldiers.

Pete Masters, who runs The Sacred Brew in Hereford, said: "In the beginning I was terrified, but you callous up to these things."

He has recently returned from a one month visit to Kramatorsk, in the east of the country, and described seeing Russian troops just 1km (0.6 miles) from his location.

Mr Masters said it would not put him off though, adding: "I like helping people and I feel it's what I'm meant to be doing at this time in my life."

On his visits to Ukraine he said he found water, electricity and food to be scarce.

He described his last visit as "pretty hairy" and said his group had tried to transport some women to safety in their van.

The women insisted on staying and he said while he could understand their determination, "Russia doesn't care about stubbornness, it's a rocket through your window."

"Two days letter it looked like a car had driven through their apartment where the rocket had just gone straight in," he said.

Mr Masters has previously been to Iraq to take photos of the conflict there and his work is displayed on the walls of his cafe.

He started travelling to Ukraine when Russia invaded, to document the war, but decided he needed to help the people there and started delivering aid in the summer of 2022.

He has no military background and it was his faith which inspired him to go, with church leaders helping to put him in touch with ordinary Ukrainians.

His visits to Ukraine are usually undertaken alone, but he sometimes travels with two friends from London.

The aid missions have regularly taken him to the front line and on the most recent occasion rockets were fired at his vehicle, but he said he was "oblivious to it now", adding: "You've just got to go with a little bit of faith."

Despite this, he is aware of the dangers and said he knew of a French aid worker who was killed in the same area when a rocket hit her car.

When asked if he had thought about staying away from danger, he said: "I don't think I'm finished yet, I've found peace out there and what I'm doing there is good."

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