Former R4GV councillors John Rigg and John Redpath have both been actively supporting Ukraine through the delivery of vehicles and humanitarian aid.
Following the Residents for Guildford and Villages success in the 2019 local elections, both later served as Executive members of Guildford Borough Council. Since then, both have made journeys to Ukraine in support of the country’s war effort and civilian communities. John Rigg had already been assisting Ukraine through a number of previous trips, helping to provide humanitarian aid, generators, power boats and vehicles used for casualty evacuation.
The December 2025 trip was a demanding ten-day round journey, carried out with the support of Mission Ukraine. (Link) It involved the delivery of four 4×4 vehicles, generators, batteries and humanitarian supplies.
A particularly remarkable part of that trip was a local campaign which persuaded Guildford residents to donate more than 600 Christmas shoeboxes for people in Kherson and nearby communities close to the front line. Most of the shoeboxes were intended for children, and such was the extraordinary generosity of local people that Guildford volunteer David Toplas had to organise 400 separately to be distributed by the United Nations on arrival. The impact of these Christmas boxes on the children close to the Frontline has been reported as enormous considering they feel to have an uncertain future and no one seemingly cares about their situation.
The trip in March trip 2026 was organised at short notice. Five volunteers travelled to Lviv, delivering three Mitsubishi Shoguns.
These 4×4 vehicles are essential not only for transporting supplies towards the front line, but even more critically for the rapid evacuation of wounded civilians and soldiers. The relentless
demands of the war mean such vehicles are heavily used and frequently targeted by Russian forces, resulting in the loss of both vehicles and, tragically, the lives of those driving them.
John Rigg commented:
“The local Guildford people I meet are keen to support Ukraine — a struggling democracy holding the line in Europe against an obsessive Russian dictator who seems sadly left over from the 1930s. We must keep helping the people of Ukraine.”
