The Governor George Pataki Leadership Center helped New York rebuild after 9/11 and now it is refocusing its efforts to help feed and rebuild Ukraine amid massive devastation by Russia's invasion.
"There's never been devastation like this," Pataki told Newsmax's "America Right Now" on Saturday. "After Sept. 11, lower Manhattan, ground zero was devastated, thousands of lives lost. It's nothing like this. Here you have millions – literally millions probably more than 10 million people now – who have had their homes destroyed, apartments destroyed, families torn apart.
"The devastation I don't think anybody's seen since World War II."
Pataki stressed the worldwide effort needs to focus on arming Ukraine to defend itself against Vladimir Putin's invasion, but Pataki said his foundation is going to get the repair going now.
"Certainly we need to help the Ukrainians win this war with more advanced weaponry, and that's the most important message, but at the same time what my team is doing is humanitarian aid, bringing in food, bringing housing."
Pataki's group is supplying shelter in the form of modular homes for Ukrainians who have had to flee war-torn communities but have been unable to get out of the country.
"We started taking 10 housing units into Bucha itself, the scene of that horrific war crime," Pataki told host Tom Basile. "The Ukrainian government wants to put these units up to show the world that they're coming back, and we're going to do everything in our power to help them do that."
The International Organization for Migration estimates more than 7.1 million Ukrainians have been displaced in the country, while more than 4.2 million refugees have left Ukraine since the invasion began Feb. 24, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Everyone knows about the refugees in Poland and Hungary and Moldova, but there were over six million displaced people in Ukraine itself, who can't get across that border," Pataki told Basile. "So what we're doing is taking its supplies, food medicine, and now we're building houses."
Pataki added his foundation has delivered 70 tons of food.
"And just on Monday, we built the first of 20 housing units to take people from the floor of a factory into a unit," he continued. "They have heat, light, and comfort. So there's a lot to be done.
"You don't see any western aid agencies inside Ukraine itself. So we're going to keep going back and looking to do more to help the these really, really, poor, suffering people who have gotten such little help."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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