Ex-mayor's mission to bring Viktoriya back from war-torn Ukraine

Jane Mackenzie, ex-mayor of Shrewsbury, is trying to get her friend Viktoriya Dolinska and her son Rafael, aged 14, to safety in the UK as war rages following Vladimir Putin's invasion.

The family are currently staying in a basement at a block of flats in Kyiv, the capital city which has been besieged by missile blasts from Russia as Ukrainians fight back for control of the city.

Viktoriya, aged 49, visited Shropshire and stayed with Jane while learning English in 2015, and she loved it so much she returned with her daughter Sofia, 22, in 2017. Sofia is now studying in Germany.

Jane is hoping to give Viktoriya and Rafael refuge in Shropshire, but they have been struggling to fill in complicated forms, and even after that they don't know how much longer it will take to be processed. Meanwhile the family must try and stay safe in a city under siege.

Asked whether she was worried about Viktoriya's safety, Jane said: "I am. When you know someone there it makes it more personal. It makes it seem more real.

"She's in Kiev with her son, but she's trying to come and stay with me in the UK. The forms are so complicated and difficult to fill out. They need so much detail and I've had to share a lot of personal information. She sometimes has wi-fi and sometimes not. You should see the stuff they need to know to fill out these forms. They need all my history and background.

"She's been filling it out all week. I have no idea how long it will be after the forms are sent off.

"They're asking too many questions. It's pages and pages. There's a lot of information that they ask for that is just not needed. It feels like it's made to keep people out. We need to narrow it down and so it similar to how they do it in the EU."

Jane added: "Viktoriya stayed with me and her daughter came over to Concord College. She loved it here. She loved Shrewsbury. I took her to south Shropshire and she visited Powis Castle as well. We became friends.

"She came to stay with me in around 2015 for about 12 weeks. She was learning English at Severnvale. She liked it so much she brought her daughter over to do her A-levels. She studied here and went back to Ukraine."

Viktoriya is Ukrainian, but ethnically Russian, and Jane told how the impact of the war has affected her view on her own heritage.

"She spoke a bit about her Russian heritage." said Jane. "She's Jewish, and I'm quite interested in that because of my grandfather's history. There are not a lot of Jewish people left there because most were killed in the Second World War. She said she used to be proud of her Russian heritage, but now she's ashamed."