I've got Ukrainian blood...14 litres of it in fact!

British aid worker Eddy Scott on losing two limbs in a devastating Russian drone strike and why he's staying put in his adopted country despite those life-changing injuries

- By Lord Ashcroft in Kyiv

DESPITE having no family links to Ukraine, Eddy Scott speaks with pride about his Ukrainian blood all 14 litres of it to be precise. That is how much he required from anonymous donors when the van that he was driving was targeted by a Russian drone at the front line of Ukraine's war with Russia.

When he came around from lifesaving surgery, his best friend was at his hospital bedside, informing him he had lost his left leg and left arm at the age of just 28. He had not, however, lost his dry British sense of humour.

Still sleepy from the anaesthetic, he replied, "I guess I am all right then," and even forced a smile. That willingness to see the bright side of everything has resulted in Eddy, 29, transforming a near-death experience eight months ago into a resounding positive.

To describe him as "selfless" does not begin to do justice to his aid work in Ukraine for the past three years and, if his plans come to fruition, for long into the future

Eddy, from Shaftesbury, Dorset, began to follow the events in Ukraine in the months before and after the all-out invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24 2022. "I was shocked but not surprised by the invasion and my first thought was, 'I want to help in some way'," he recalls today. Although he briefly considered trying to join the Ukrainian armed forces, he had no military experience so switched his thoughts to becoming a humanitarian aid worker.

"So I made the decision to go," says Eddy, who up to that point, as a keen sailor, had been working on superyachts after leaving Sherborne School aged 18.

He used his savings to buy a secondhand Toyota 4x4 pickup truck for £4,500 and headed off in a five-vehicle aid convoy for Ukraine in October 2022. The drive to Lviv in western Ukraine took three days and Eddy and others then drove on to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and, eventually, on to Mykolaiv, a city in southeastern Ukraine.