Friday 20 May 2022 02:31 AM The joy YOU helped bring to a besieged Ukrainian village trends now

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They spent weeks under the menacing occupation of Russian soldiers who sealed off their village to the outside world, looted the grocery store and would not let them leave home even to buy food.

Russians also cut the power supply, making life extremely tough for even the hardiest residents of Shybene during the freezing winter.

But grateful villagers were finally looking forward to cooking a hearty dinner last night after the Daily Mail handed over food boxes – thanks to donations from our kind-hearted readers. 

The Mail Force mission to deliver 500,000 of our food parcels to the warzone – in a joint-operation with the Ukrainian embassy in London – rolled into the village yesterday.

Shybene – 40 miles north of Kyiv – was occupied by Russian troops during the first days of the war and was the scene of fierce fighting. A few miles up the road is the town of Borodyanka, which remains a scene of utter devastation.

There were long queues outside Shybene’s community centre, where volunteers handed out food aid to people who until a few weeks ago were swamped by hundreds of enemy soldiers and tank units preparing for an all-out assault on Ukraine’s capital.

Such was the speed of Vladimir Putin’s shock invasion that many of the villagers had not been able to flee, and were forced to live hermit-like inside their homes as war raged around them. It is a poor area where the locals live hand-to-mouth at the best of times, so they were overjoyed when they received boxes full of pasta, tomato sauce, porridge, beans and tortilla wraps.