In January 2023, the City of Kherson, Ukraine, approached the City of Bonn with a request for support and the desire to establish twinning relations. The Council of the City of Bonn unanimously decided at its meeting on February 9, 2023, to establish a solidarity partnership with Kherson.
The solidarity partnership format was launched in 2022 by the Service Agency Communities in One World in response to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The goal is to provide humanitarian support to the people of Ukraine and help rebuild municipal administrative structures.
The solidarity partnership between Bonn and Kherson is based on broad support from the city's society. Even before the partnership was established, aid deliveries from Bonn to Kherson had been organized.
A special focus of the partnership support is the fundraising project "Bonn helps Kherson".
Fundraising project "Bonn helps Kherson”
With the support of the Bonn aid organization "Help - Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe" (Help for Self-Help), the City of Bonn is launching the fundraising project "Bonn hilft Cherson" (Bonn helps Kherson) as part of its solidarity partnership with the Ukrainian city of Kherson.
The City of Kherson
The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson with its approximately 290,000 inhabitants (as of 2021) was subjected to heavy fighting right at the beginning of Russia's war of aggression and was captured by the Russian military in March 2022. Thousands of people fled Kherson as a result. In September 2022, the Ukrainian military launched a counteroffensive - and succeeded in freeing the city from Russian occupation. The Russian attack led to severe destruction of infrastructure such as schools, kindergartens, hospitals, energy supply, among others. Kherson is currently under military administration.
First aid shipments have arrived in Kherson
A fire department personnel carrier was delivered, as well as a water truck, which can be used to clean streets or transport firefighting and drinking water, and a waste collection vehicle, which can transport around 20 cubic meters of waste, from Bonnorange. The waste truck is already in use. The transport of the three decommissioned vehicles was carried out with the financial and logistical support of the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). A forwarding company successfully transferred the wagons to the south of Ukraine.
