Ukraine: Steve Lucas drives 1,300 miles to get wife out

A man has told how he drove more than 1,300 miles from Wales to Ukraine to collect his wife after she tried to flee the Russian invasion.

Steve Lucas, from Magor, Monmouthshire, said he was offered a gun as he drove into the war zone to collect Anastasia.

He said she fled the capital Kyiv with her cat Lucky and they made it by train to Lviv where they were reunited.

Their 31-hour van journey into Poland was "probably the worst couple of days in my life", he said.

Mr Lucas told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast it was as if his Ukrainian wife had been "dropped into hell" on her journey to safety, while he also had a "surreal" experience driving to her.

He described how he picked a "fella up" who was going to Lviv to fight in defence of the country prior to them being stopped at a checkpoint.

"He had a conversation with this guy and then he was smirking, and I said: 'What's funny?' " Mr Lucas recalled.

"He said: 'He's just said do you two want guns?'"

"He told the fella: 'This guy is going to get his wife and I'm going to join the defence regiment, so no, I will have a gun anyway.'

He added: "I had too much on my mind to be scared to be honest. I just wanted to get down there and pick her up."

Describing how his wife left Kyiv, he said: "It took a very brave man to drive up and down road blocks - and there's bombs going off - and this guy took my wife to the station.

"She was actually dropped into hell... people crammed into a railway station.

"I'm familiar with Kyiv, especially because I spend a lot of time there, but when you actually see it, it's actually far worse than what you see on the news."

He described their reunion in Lviv as "quite casual", adding: "She said: 'I couldn't cry because I'm all cried out'.

"She's been crying for two weeks."

Mr Lucas described long queues to get to the Polish border, with the journey taking 31 hours to leave compared with nine hours to travel the same 60 miles (97km) to reach his wife.

"We were lucky," he said.

"I took the van to get the cat and so we had a bed and toilet in the back and stuff like that.

"But being in that freezing cold van for 31 hours, it was -3[C]. We weren't moving.

"We were in the queue from 5km to the border. Some people were 15 to 20km from the border.

"There's no way to get food. I mean, I was a little naïve.

"I took two sandwiches and we ended up living on biscuits and chocolate bars and stuff like that."

Mr Lucas said the visa application for his wife had been confusing and hindered by poor phone and internet connections.

"Doing things online is impossible unless you're in an area where you've got all the facilities," he said.

"When I told my wife that we had another hiccup, another hurdle, she broke down.

"These people have literally walked away from their lives. They've got nothing.

"They're in the clothes that they wear, possibly a little handbag.

"My wife's best friend has just lost their home completely - it's flattened."

Ukrainian mother and daughter Tetyana, 40, and Alena, 22, from Kyiv, have been hoping to find safety with friends in Powys.

But they said their 1,500 mile journey was blocked at the UK border control in France because they did not have visas to make the crossing from Calais.

Countries within the European Union have granted Ukrainians ability to freely travel between states.

But under a current scheme, only close family members of British citizens may be allowed entry to the country.

However, they have been offered sanctuary with Alena's godparents, Graham and Alla Blackledge, in Glasbury, near Brecon.

Alena said she was constantly checking the UK government website for news that Ukrainians without family in the country can apply for a visa.

"I am very upset and depressed," Alena told the PA news agency.

Mr Blackledge married Ukrainian wife Alla in Kyiv in 2016 and she has a number family members who remain in the country.

He said: "Despite all the bravado from the MPs, whether it's English or Welsh ones, it's just talk, and talk's cheap.

"Nobody's turned around, as far as I am aware and said: 'Here's two people who've already suffered enough. I'm going to do something about it and get them over here'."

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Last week we announced a new sponsorship route which will allow Ukrainians with no family ties to the UK to be sponsored to come to the UK.

"This is a rapidly moving and complex picture and as the situation develops we will continue to keep our support under constant review."

Mr Lucas added: "I'm ashamed to be British at the moment.

"People have come into Poland and yet Britain was so proud of letting 300 in.

"I just think this is something that can be sorted out inside the British borders.

"You've got these people that suffered all this trauma and then to be turned away at Calais, I find it endlessly inhumane, and cruel."

Welsh Conservatives Member of the Senedd (MS) Sam Kurtz said on Wednesday he wanted to see the UK government go "further and faster" to help Ukrainian refugees.

The Home Office said: "Anyone wishing to make an application under the Ukraine Family Scheme should apply online and then travel to their nearest visa application centre."