Refugee mother can RETURN to Ukrainian war zone after UK visa delays

A frustrated refugee mother is considering returning to war-torn eastern Ukraine after UK immigration delays left her stranded in Poland for weeks.

Katarina Tymashov, 34, said her sister-in-law Elena Hrybanov felt “beyond fear” after the Interior Ministry took more than a month to approve her visa.

While Ms Hrybanov’s nine-year-old daughter Anna had her application accepted in just five days, her seven-month-old son Yehor is still waiting.

Until Yehor receives one, they cannot join another family in London – so she plans to return to Ukraine, to be with her husband Olexandr.

Ms Tymashov said: “She lives with a nice family in Poland who try to support her, but she has two young children and she is tired.”

Ms Tymashov’s husband Vladimir, 34, added: ‘Right now she feels frustrated.

“She applied at the very beginning of the program and she had high hopes that maybe in a week she could join us. She even considered returning to Ukraine. The war is far from over but sometimes it’s easier to be with your family.

Mr and Mrs Tymashov, who work in IT, moved to Wimbledon, south-west London, from Ukraine last July with their two sons Bohdan, 11, and Alyosha, six.

While Ms Hrybanov’s nine-year-old daughter Anna had her application accepted in just five days, her seven-month-old son Yehor is still waiting

Mr Tymashov said they could not contact anyone in the Interior Ministry who could update them on visas.

“For Elena, they are now technically safer than they were in Ukraine, but they are struggling with the conditions,” Tymashov said Saturday at a Vigil for Visas protest outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Interior.

The family fled their home near Dnipro in eastern Ukraine during the second week of the war.

Once in Poland, they had to travel over 300 miles just to get to a visa application center because Yehor did not have a passport.

Despite their exhausting journey, the baby’s visa has yet to be approved.