Ukrainian food writer Olia Hercules has joined forces with fellow chefs and foodies to launch #CookforUkraine, a campaign to raise awareness and funds to support the people of Ukraine. Its JustGiving page raised more than £50,000 for Unicef within four days of its launch on Sunday.

Olia has joined forces in the campaign with food writers Alissa Timoshkina, who grew up in Siberia with Russian and Ukrainian descent, and Zuza Zak from Poland. Also on board is blogger Clerkenwell Boy, veteran of the Cook For Syria campaign in 2016 which raised more than £1 million.

Restaurants and bars are encouraged to add a voluntary donation between £1 and £5 to each bill during March, with dozens of venues signing up. Home cooks are encouraged to organise bake sales or supper clubs, following recipes from the region posted on the Cook for Ukraine website.

Interviewed in The Times this week, Olia said her parents celebrated New Year with her in London before returning to Ukraine. “They live in our home where I was born in Kakhovka, 80 miles from the Crimean border. Now they are surrounded. Tanks have taken over the dam, the hydroelectric station and the bridge over the River Dnipro where I used to play. I can hear the gunfire and the shells around them on the phone. My mother was crying yesterday, but she has armed herself with her cast-iron frying pan. My father is being stoic, he has four rifles.”

Meanwhile, other figures in the industry are contributing in various ways. Jan Woroniecke of Ognisko restaurant at the Polish Hearth Club in South Kensington is hosting a Solidarity with Ukraine event with Ukrainian music and dinner on Saturday night, and the ambassadors of both Ukraine and Poland will be in attendance. Tickets cost £80 a head, with proceeds going to the charity Caritas for its work in Ukraine. Ognisko is also serving a Polish vodka cocktail the Zelenskyy in honour of the embattled Ukrainian president.

The following Sunday, March 13, City luxury joint Bob Bob Ricard is hosting a ‘Bob Bob Ricard Supports Ukraine’ dinner at £195 a head including drinks, featuring four courses of Ukrainian classics including borsch, black truffle potato verenki and chicken Kyiv. Proceeds will go the the Ukrainian Red Cross. Founder/owner Leonid Shutov was chief executive of Ogilvie in Moscow before moving to London in 2007.