Paul Hughs, a farmer and former serviceman from Canada, together with his son, have created a volunteer NGO in Ukraine, HUGS (Helping Ukraine grassroots support) — they left their home and came to help with the war effort and humanitarian initiatives.

The duo pulled together what was needed for a car repair garage in Kharkiv, and in the first two years they fixed over 300 military and volunteer vehicles. HUGS is now in Kherson as well. One critical support was driving and evacuating people to safety.

In late July 2022, as Paul headed into Russian-occupied territory to retrieve a little girl and her family, he learned a cold hard lesson. The Russians aren't fooling around.

He was pulled over and grilled for over 7 hours with guards walking around threatening him with a knife and cocked gun the whole time. It was a narrow escape. Thankfully, the Russian interrogator was also a farmer and they both like hockey!

Paul at that moment understood, the game of him being invincible was over. And still, he made a personal commitment to stay in Ukraine until this war is over.

"This is not the time to leave. We're just getting good at what we're doing. We're effective, we can help people, and the job is not done... It's sort of like talking to a fireman who's fighting a fire and you say, hey when are you going to go home? And the fireman says, well when the fire is out I will go home when the fire is out."

WATCH PAUL TELL HIS STORY FROM THE VIDEO LINK.