Russia-Ukraine war: Why Aussies are booking Airbnb trips to Ukraine

Aussie families are booking holidays in war-torn Ukraine, to the shock of locals. Here’s how the heartfelt trend is changing lives.

Australian families are booking holidays in war-torn Ukraine but with no intention of ever visiting.

In a trend being noted across the country, the bookings come with personal heartfelt notes and full payment and requests the money be shared among the millions of refugees fleeing the war.

The gesture has stunned Ukrainians with the phenomena happening from all over the world to Ukraine homes and hotels.

When Iryna Stetskiv was told by her mother Raisa Makogon that people in Australia had started making Airbnb bookings for her home in central Ukraine she couldn’t believe it. She wondered if it was possible the war had not made news in the southern hemisphere.

Iryna Stetskiv and her mother Raisa Makogon couldn’t believe when Airbnb reservations starting coming through from Australia. Supplied

“I thought maybe Austria we couldn’t understand Australia how is this so far, why they care,” Iryna said yesterday. “ I said ‘mother maybe you mean Austria and she was ‘no no’ it was Australia. Then another booking from the United States for one day, then another from Australia for two days then another from for four.

“We read the messages and understood they would not come at all … we looked for information on the internet and saw it was not just us, but everywhere.”

Iryna, who herself had to flee her Kyiv home with her husband and two sons to stay with her parents, has now got together with other local business to expand operations for refugees in Khmelnytskyi, a halfway point city between east and west.

Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said guest bookings in Ukraine had generated another $20 million in donations to hosts in Ukraine.

The money is being used for food, clothing and other essentials for many who had fled with nothing but clothes on their back.

In Kyiv a hotel is using its bookings to buy and serve food to those who had decided to stay and also the military.

The Campus Community A-Hotel in the city centre has used the $50,000 it had received to keep staff and operations running.

One of the hotel’s owners, Artur Gabovich, said he was “very grateful” for the donations from people around the world and that the hotel staff will “never give up” working to provide the city with food.

“It shows big support for our country, for our people, and for what is going on,” he said.

“People are booking rooms, and they consider it a donation because nobody will come to a hotel right now – of course, we’re in the centre of a war.”

According to Airbnb, more than AUD$7 million had been donated to Airbnb.org by more than 50,000 individual donors from 92 countries.

Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said guest bookings in Ukraine had generated another AUD$20 million in donations to hosts in Ukraine, with 434,000 nights booked.

SURROGATE BABIES GO UNDERGROUND AS RUSSIA STRIKES

More than 20 surrogate newborns have been pictured in a makeshift basement bomb shelter in Ukraine’s capital, as they wait for their parents to collect them.

Some were born just a few days ago, their parents are either unable to travel or not willing to risk a journey in the war-torn country.

The babies, who rely on nurses who care for them as their own, are sheltered in a basement in a location which must remain undisclosed for safety concerns, one carer told the Associated Press.

Some parents are European, others from Latin America or from China. Few have so far come to claim their child since the war started.

Iryna, a nurse, feeds a baby. Picture: Getty Images

Nannies can be seen cradling yawning babies and rocking them while they lie in prams and bouncers in the Kyiv basement.

The photographs taken also show sleeping babies in cots, mattresses and cushions laid on the floor.

One holds a yawning baby on her lap as the group shelters from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s missile strikes above them.

Another worker is seen feeding a baby as he sits next to breakfast items and a coffee machine for those sheltering in the basement.

Other babies have their nappies changed while they are cared for in the makeshift nursery.

Security workers prepare to leave for the railway station with the surrogate-born babies to deliver them to their parents. Picture: Getty Images

Ihor prepares to make his way to bring a surrogate-born baby boy to his parents. Picture: Getty Images

Bottles are also laid out so that they can be given to the babies by volunteers caring for them around the clock.

Ukraine is home to a global surrogacy hub where parents from around the world travel to the country before the births to complete relevant paperwork and then take their children home.

According to estimates, 2,500 to 3,000 children are born in Ukraine every year for clients outside the country, including China, the United States and EU.

Concerns are growing for the babies and the embryos that couples have in storage as the war in Ukraine continues.

Antonina, the nurse, gives Ihor the documents and baby boxes before sending the baby to meet with the intended parents. Picture: Getty Images

It has led one EU official to call for the evacuation of babies from surrogate mothers in Ukraine.

The commissioner for internal affairs, Yiva Johansson, also spoke of her concern for children from surrogate mothers who were later put in orphanages.

Speaking to members of the European parliament, she said that parents in the EU member states and US had struggled to get their babies out of Ukraine even before the invasion.

“During the pandemic many of those newborn babies have not been picked up, so they have been stuck and are now being taken care of in orphanages,” she said.

However, some orphanages have been emptied during the invasion and it is unknown where the children are.

“Surrogate mothers that gave birth to babies right now, these babies cannot be picked up either and they are a bit in a limbo,” Ms Johansson said.

“She stressed the importance of evacuating newborn babies from Ukraine.”