Ukraine: Couple fleeing country 'overwhelmed' by support

A British man fleeing Ukraine with his girlfriend has described being "moved to tears" by the "generosity" they have experienced on reaching Poland.

Jez Myers, from Manchester, and Maria Romanenko crossed the border after leaving Kyiv for a "horrific" 40-hour journey by car and on foot.

"We'd been driving for 16 hours and standing in line for over 23," he said.

"When we were met by volunteers offering free food, free drinks and free transport, I just sat and cried."

The couple travelled to the country last week and later admitted they "underestimated the threat" of invasion by Russia.

"The whole thing has been horrific," he said.

"It was chaos at the border. There was no control. There wasn't a queue, it was just a group of people pushing and getting tighter and causing a crush."

He explained how when Maria became faint she was helped by a group of women who took her to the front, but this meant the pair became separated.

"For three hours I didn't know where she was, if she had got through, if she was ok," he said.

"My phone stopped working and I had no way of contacting her."

After finally crossing the border he was able to find his partner, who had been lying down after fainting.

Mr Myers explained how things were "much better organised" and how they were able to get through the final queues on the Polish side "within minutes".

The 44-year-old business consultant said "hundreds" of local people had arrived to offer help.

"It had been so stressful and so tense and then we were greeted by maybe 200 Polish volunteers offering us so much help," he said.

"There were the cardboard signs saying 'I will take you to Krakow no charge', 'I have a mini-bus with 16 places for Warsaw no charge', 'I have space for you to stay in Warsaw no charge'.

"These were ordinary people offering strangers a room for the night. The generosity was incredible, we literally sat on a bench and cried, it was overwhelming."

The couple were able to arrange a lift in a car with two Ukrainians who were already living in Poland who took them to rooms.

"We offered to pay for the petrol, they refused. We arrived at the Air BnB and they even carried our bags for us. We never even caught their names," Mr Myers said.

The couple now plan to travel by train to Warsaw where they will stay with a local Polish person who contacted Maria through social media and offered to put them up.

"Maria is able to get free travel by train as a Ukrainian national and now a stranger is putting us up for free in Warsaw. I cannot stress enough how wonderful the people of Poland have been to us," he said.

The couple are making ongoing plans to travel to the UK.

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