From the first missions between Mykolaiv and Kherson to the evacuation of civilians in Kharkiv, to the project of a solidarity food truck: an Italian association on the side of Ukrainian civilians.

“If solidarity is a threat, we respond with an association.”

In this sentence there is already the whole story of Rescue Team: a community created to bring concrete help in humanitarian crises, in Ukraine as in Syria, combining relief, evacuation, reconstruction support and volunteer training to build strong bonds with threatened communities.

We talk about this with Ludovico Gualano, 31, President of the Rescue Team association. His first missions date back to 2023, between Mykolaiv and Kherson, where he is already involved in supporting civilians and reconstruction. Then in 2024, the focus is on evacuations around Kharkiv, where they complete hundreds of operations.

It is then that solidarity also becomes exposure. On his return from Ukraine, Ludovico discovers that he has been served with an arrest warrant issued by a self-styled Russian Federation authority in the Kharkiv region for his evacuation activities. Not only that, photographs taken in Italy of a public meeting to present the project appear on Russian channels. Thus Rescue Team was born: an organised, community-based response to those who try to treat aid to civilians as a threat.

Today the association is based in Cassina de’ Pecchi, in the Milan area, and continues to present itself as an open network, built together with volunteers, citizens and local realities. Into this fabric also comes the support of the local community, including the La Spilleria brewery, which has chosen to support them by producing Rescue Beer.

But the story of Rescue Team is not only made up of good news. “We lost two boys,” says Ludovico. Marharyta, one of the first girls to work with them in Kherson, enlists in 2025 and falls in battle in April in the Lyman area. Again Slava, a Kharkiv volunteer involved in evacuations, is hit by a drone near Kostyantynivka on 25 December.

In the meantime, Ludovico goes on to explain, public attention on the war in Ukraine has waned. For an organisation that lives on spontaneous donations, this means fewer resources and an increasing difficulty in keeping together field presence and fundraising in Italy.

Their work aspires to be a continuous response to the most urgent needs produced by the war. Out of this need comes the project of a social oven for Kharkiv, a city hosting at least 200,000 IDPs and living under constant attack.

The initial idea is simple: to offer bread, meals, work and a meeting point capable of keeping people together. But it is the reality of Kharkiv that forces a rethink: if bakeries find themselves interrupting production due to a lack of electricity caused by constant attacks on the grid, tying the project to a physical space becomes a limitation rather than a solution.

So the social oven project adapts, changes shape, and becomes a food truck. A mobile field kitchen capable of going where it is needed. A shared table that becomes material support, employment opportunity and community space.

Today you can support Rescue Team with a one-off donation or by signing up for a recurring donation. Directly on their website

Rescue Team was born here: at the point where war tries to break ties and someone decides to organise them instead. From evacuation missions to food trucks for a wounded city, the association carries out a concrete form of civil resistance. When the attention wanes and the available funds thin out, solidarity stops being a proclamation and becomes a daily choice again, made by people like Ludovico and the other Rescue Team members.