High-risk extraction / April 2022 – September 2023
Operation Winter Shadow
More than 120 days inside occupied territory. More than 168 civilians brought out. Zero casualties and zero operational losses.
- 168+civilians extracted
- 120+days in occupied territory
- 0casualties
- 0operational losses
Figures from HARP Rescue’s impact report for Operation Winter Shadow.
A / The situation
Civilians trapped behind the line.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with the capital, Kyiv, as its main target.1 Towns around the city spent weeks under occupation — Bucha for 33 days.2 When Ukrainian forces retook the Kyiv region in early April, the scale of what civilians had endured there came into view.2
On April 10, 2022, eight days after the Kyiv region was declared liberated, HARP Rescue deployed to Ukraine with one mission: help rescue civilians trapped in territory occupied by Russian forces.
B / The call
Where only soldiers had gone.
Requests arrived from organization after organization. The people who needed help were injured or trapped in areas that, until then, no one but military personnel had been able to reach.
HARP took the mission on knowing what it meant: working inside occupied territory, where the line could move overnight.
C / The plan
Verify everything. Then move.
Government and military sources gave HARP access to the requests and the information behind them: real-time satellite maps, force movements, weaponry, road closures, risks already identified by military and government officials, and where food, water, shelter and medical care could be found.
Every piece was acquired, verified and analyzed before a plan was set. Each plan had two aims at once: reach the people who needed extraction, and limit the risk to the team carrying it out.
D / In the field
Roads, mines, armor and ambush.
Conflict zones change by the hour. The team contended with damaged roads, rapid force advances, tank movements, aerial scout planes, mines and the constant risk of ambush.
Each extraction depended on meticulous planning, adaptability and close coordination with intelligence teams. Operations reached from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mariupol, Kherson and Odesa.
- Damaged roads
- Rapid force advances
- Tank movements
- Aerial scout planes
- Mines
- Risk of ambush
E / The outcome
168 people out. Zero lost.
Across more than 120 days inside occupied territory, HARP Rescue extracted more than 168 civilians from highly volatile areas, with zero casualties and zero operational losses.
The work earned recognition from Ukraine’s military, government and police forces. For every person brought out, a family had been waiting — and the relief reached them too.
Situational awareness, built for the specific ground and updated constantly, is what keeps people alive — in war and in disaster alike.
From the operation’s conclusion
Sources
HARP Rescue’s actions and figures come from its own impact report for this operation. Background on the event comes from the public sources below.
Every extraction starts long before the first mile.
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