In Hungary, volunteers have raised thousands of dollars to buy ambulances and medical equipment to help save lives on the frontline in Ukraine.

A refurbished ambulance from Hungary, purchased with small individual donations, has recently made its way through the war-torn Ukrainian countryside. It was driven by Hungarian volunteers, who are braving these dangerous roads to get to the front line.

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It's not the first emergency vehicle these Hungarian fund-raisers have bought and delivered since the conflict began. Gabor Prokaj rushed to the border when the conflict started, planning to help refugees. But after hearing a tragic story about a family caught up in the bombing in Ukraine, he started raising funds for ambulances instead.

"The evacuation team tried to evacuate them with a civilian car because they didn't have a proper ambulance because it was damaged or destroyed, and the four and five-year-old children died in their mother's arms in the back seat," said Prokaj, Organizer of the Carpathian Foundation in Hungary.

Within 10 days, Prokaj and his team had raised enough money to buy the first ambulance; since then, they have bought and delivered five emergency vehicles to the conflict zone, with two more currently being prepared for the journey to the front line.

Ivan Bojar, a volunteer with the group who has delivered medical supplies to Ukraine, says these vehicles have become targets of Russian attacks.

 "This vehicle will have a green cover because if it has a red cross, they will shoot it," said Ivan Bojar, another volunteer with the Carpathian Foundation in Hungary.  Bojar has delivered medical supplies to Ukraine. He says he has seen first-hand how these emergency vehicles have become targets of Russian attacks.

Russia says it does not deliberately target civilians or healthcare workers and in February three ambulance workers trying to evacuate people from their homes in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk were killed by Ukrainian shelling, a Russian-installed official in the region said.

According to the World Health Organization, since the conflict began 442 Ukrainian ambulances and 218 hospitals have been destroyed.

Members of the Carpathian Foundation in Hungary have recently purchased another ambulance that will be sent to Ukraine in the next few weeks; activists say it will assist with the relief efforts in Bakhmut, where intense fighting is raging. The vehicle will be fitted with two generators and all the medical equipment needed to perform emergency surgery.

Other European groups, like Tour de Ambulance, have taken shot-up Ukrainian emergency vehicles onto the streets of cities across Europe to raise awareness about the pressing need for medical equipment and ambulances to help shore up Ukraine's damaged health system. Moscow insists it is not targeting civilians.

"The third and fifth ambulances we sent went to Kharkiv Oblast region and they are using them there; one more was sent to a city near there, and I know that the town is shelled almost every day," said Prokaj.

Volunteers say they will invite Ukrainian children living in Hungary to write messages of peace inside the new ambulance that will be sent soon to the war zone. 

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