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1 Mar
On Sunday evening a small group of Ukrainians based in Ireland met in Dublin Airport.
They squeezed family members tightly, touched foreheads, and shed tears before boarding a flight to Kracow knowing uncertainty awaited at their final destination.
From Poland the brave men crossed the border on foot, with most making their way to the country's capital Kyiv.
The RTE camera was on hand in Dublin, it picked up Maksym Savych, a Laois-based Kyiv man handing out supplies from his car boot.
They spoke to Vadkym Binko, whose wife Maryna and young daughter could be seen in the background.
Then there was Pavlo Serdiuk, an apprentice plumber for Trevor Hill in Cork who was mobilising people here to come and help.
The 23-year-old admitted that he's fearful but felt it's his "duty" to head home and do what he can.
He's since made it to Lutsk, a city in the northwest of the country that's a few hours from both the Polish and Belarusian borders.
He said a man back in Cork, Jason Blessing, is among those in Ireland helping to kit out Ukrainian soldiers with equipment.
Pavlo is with his dad Roman, an Irish citizen who'd been in Cork for twenty years. Their family is finding shelter for the women and children who are fleeing Kyiv.
Pavlo told CorkBeo he wants to say thank you to everyone in Ireland who has shown support, and added that they greatly appreciate medical supplies being sent over.
He said: "We’ve been reunited with my mother and sister, they are good they were so happy to see us, we are together now at last
"Last night we woke up three times as alerts went out for missile attacks.
"I am trying to contact all the volunteers we have in Ireland, lots of my friends contacted me to contact me with money, but there’s no point we can’t buy medical supplies here.
"We just got contact from army and they want to organise getting medical supplies from Ireland so that’s what I’m trying to do.
"Money isn’t in value right now. We really need medical supplies. We are going to organise people in Ireland to gather all the help we can get. I want to say thank you to all Irish people that are helping us during this difficult time."
As Pavlo and Roman are in Lutsk, Maksym went to Kyiv, where he told us there are "many fights".
Maksym is one of the men with previous military experience, and on Tuesday morning he sets out on his first mission.
These moments will prove a nervous time for his family and friends as he's uncontactable during those hours.
Russian forces have been making their way towards the capital city, but so far have been met with huge resistance.
On Tuesday news came in that a 40 mile military convoy was coming again as the Russian's renewed their attempt to take the capital, about five hours away in the city of Okhtyrka 70 Ukraine troops were killed after an artillery attack on military base.
Maksym says he one day hopes to get back for a beer, and plans on moving his home from Laois to Dublin when he does.
Before going back to the military this week he had been working as a forklift driver with Dawn Meats.
In Ireland there's been no shortage of support, and big efforts are being made to get more supplies shipped.
Sergiy Adamenko, who was in Dublin Airport seeing them off Sunday, is part of that effort.
The 56-year-old widowed dad of four, who now lives in North Dublin, previously fought for Ukraine in his home region of Donbas which is controlled by pro-Russia rebels.
His situation is a little different from others in the country, as he says the "majority" of his relatives were pro-Russia when rebels moved to take control there in 2014.
He returned home to fight in 2017.
He told the CorkBeo: "The majority of my relatives were supporting Russia in that region in 2013. Now they're feeling very upset.
"My cousin was taken to the Russian army by force. He was living in the occupied territory and had been pro-Russia but he was told he was obliged to fight against Ukrainians and at the moment we don't know where he is.
"There's no contact with him since army men came to his work and told him he had to join. His father was supporting Russians but after that they felt it was a big mistake.
"Not all of my family were supporting Russia, but the majority of them were. Our town is 30km from the border and although they were ethnically Ukrainian they followed a lot of Russian media.
"In 2017 I went to Donbas and fought for three months."
Sergiy, whose battlefield codename was 'Patrick', hasn't travelled to Ukraine this time, but is looking into filling up a vehicle with supplies that he'll then drive over.
The Ukrainians have created pages on social media in a bid to try coordinate these sort of efforts from Ireland.
When asked about the group who left Dublin on Sunday, he said his biggest concern is that they don't have a lot of time to train.
"We all want to defend the country, we all want to get rid of the occupiers. Even elderly people and kids are throwing Molotov cocktails at Russian soldiers.
"So I just hope they all come back safe and unharmed.
"We knew that the invasion would happen. I knew from 2014 and even earlier as when I lived in Donbas they were always proclaiming that Ukraine would become part of Russia.
"They've been preparing for this since Putin came into power. So I'm not surprised that this is happening.
"What I was shocked by is their cruelty."
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