A former Orkney Council employee who was stuck in Ukraine as Russian tanks approached Kyiv has escaped to Germany – and helped to evacuate a mother and her two children on the way.
Ian Ward, who previously worked as a leisure assistant at Kirkwall Grammar School Sports Centre, was trapped on the eastern side of the Dnipro river at the start of this month.
He and his wife Svetlana had fled their home in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary on February 24, hours after hearing the first explosions ring out close to the city.
Two weeks ago, the couple were staying in a private gated village south of the capital where Mr Ward was able to watch missiles flying overhead from the garden.
Earlier this week, they started the long journey out of the country after their circumstances reached an unbearable point.
Mr Ward said: “We needed to leave our relatively safe place in Ukraine as the shelling was getting closer by the day, the information we were getting was looking worse.”
On the three-day journey, they picked up two small children and their mother who were distant relatives of Svetlana.
They all had to wait for 12 hours at Ukrainian border control, as they formed part of the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Since the invasion, more than 3.1million people have fled the country.
However, the group has now made it to Hamburg – a trip of roughly 1,500 miles – and are assessing their options for next moves.
Mr Ward, who also worked on the night shift at Tesco and as a senior meat hygiene inspector for the Food Standards Agency at Orkney Meat, said: “Internet roaming is not much good, so completing the necessary visa application is difficult.
“Today we are resting. Tomorrow we will try and overcome our problems with the visa, accommodation and other things.
“We don’t have a clear idea of what we’re going to do next. But our plans have been fluid, sometimes changing by the hour for the last couple of weeks.
“I need to get a visa application for my wife. Once we get this sorted, we’ll head to relatives in Carlisle area and take the next step.
“As you can appreciate the situation is unclear.”
