Ukraine: Kent and Sussex Ukrainians relate family accounts of war

Oksana Styles' friends spend the nights sheltering in their basement

Oksana Styles Ukrainian civilians sheltering in basement — Oksana Styles' friends spend the nights sheltering in their basement

Ukrainians living in the South East have described the escalating violence faced by their friends and relatives in their homeland.

They told of civilians sheltering in basements and underground stations from shelling by Russian troops.

Oksana Styles, who lives in Canterbury, Kent, has family in Western Ukraine and friends in Kyiv.

She said: "Children, babies, old people, young people they're all there, they hear the explosions.

"It's very hard for me because my heart is there and I speak to my family every day, several times a day."

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She said her friends live in a tower block in the centre of Kyiv but spend their nights sleeping on the floor of their unheated basement.

Nevertheless, she said they had turned down assistance to evacuate them.

"I offered my help to shelter them or to help them to get from Poland to Europe, they refuse, they say: 'We want to stay, we want to be in our city, we are staying'."

Ukrainians in the UK are still able to speak directly with their families in Kyiv

In Crawley Down, West Sussex, Nataliya De Kremer has been staying in touch with her aunt in Kyiv.

Ms De Kremer said: "There hasn't been a single day that I haven't cried because I've seen what's going on in Ukraine, how many civilians are injured, how many children are injured. What have they done?"

"Last night it was twice that the sirens went off and they go to the cellar."

Her aunt's husband and son have joined the Ukrainian army, as has the husband of one of her cousins.

Her cousin has fled to Poland with her six year-old son, and Ms De Kremer has called on the UK government to make it easier for her to come to the UK and stay with her.