Boris Johnson has applauded big-hearted Aberdeenshire as the number one place in the UK for welcoming Ukrainian refugees.
We can reveal 1,019 families from the area had signed up to the Homes for Ukraine scheme as of Thursday.
A Scottish Tory source said the number is now significantly higher heading into the weekend, and was described as “well over a thousand”.
The scheme was launched on Monday allowing people to sponsor Ukrainian refugees to come and stay with them.
It is hoped tens of thousands of people displaced from Ukraine will be able to find refuge in homes across the UK.
Prime Minister hails response
Nearly 150,000 people have already signed up to Homes for Ukraine, with the UK Government providing £350 a month to those housing refugees.
Speaking at the Scottish Conservative party conference in Aberdeen on Friday, Mr Johnson said Putin will “fail” while the UK and other countries act.
“He will fail because he fatally underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainians to fight.
“He underestimated western unity and among other things, he underestimated the passionate commitment of the people of this country to help.
“Since that great Aberdonian Michael Gove announced the scheme on Monday, we have seen 147,000 people and families across the UK open their homes to the evacuees – many of them here in Scotland, and Aberdeenshire has the highest number of people to sign up so far.”
Mr Johnson’s remarks followed a moving speech from Ukrainian Scot Zhenya Dove.
On stage with Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, she said she is grateful for the help her adoptive country has offered Ukraine.
“We don’t want to live in a country where journalists fall out of windows, where traitors get poisoned with chemical weapons, where labs forged the results to win medals and where grannies get beaten up for holding an empty placard,” she said.