A Ukrainian-born woman who has lived and worked in Perthshire for the past seven and a half years watches with horror as her native city of Kyiv is encircled and bombarded by Putin's troops.
Daria Bosa (34) last stood beside her parents and brother at their family home in Shpyt’ky in January. She was over for New Year, Orthodox Christmas celebrations on January 7 and her mum’s 58th birthday.
The village house where she and her brother Anton (36) grew up in, lovingly maintained by her parents and grandparents before, is fatefully located in a suburb 20 minutes drive from Ukraine’s capital city.
It is 10km from the hotspot of Hostomel, site of the military air base and where the biggest cargo plane in the world was destroyed last week.
Other places – Irpin and Bucha – which were very badly damaged, are about 20 minutes away from Shpyt’ky, across the E40 motorway.
Most of that strip of motorway entering the outskirts of Kyiv is controlled by Russians and whoever crosses it gets attacked.
Then, not far away, Stoyanka village – where the Sky News TV crew came under fire last week.
Daria’s home is standing but it is badly placed as bombardment after bombardment rattles Kyiv.
Her dad Andrii is 58-years-old. He is just young enough to be required to fight on the Ukrainian territorial defence force.
He is alone now at the family home, a location Daria is painfully aware is right in the cross hairs of the Russian military.
Her mum, Tetiana, was with him until recently, reluctant to leave her husband, their home of many years and family pets.
The couple, lucky to have a private water supply, have been eating homegrown food – pickles and preserves Tetiana has made from garden produce – and dad Andrii baked bread from stores of flour.
They also had the bulk buys they had made before the stores were emptied.
But just last week an opportunity to get out arose and Tetiana is now in Austria.
Daria’s older brother Anton has a wife, a little girl of two and a step-son of 14. He had been living close to Shpyt’ky and managed to move his young family west to Lviv, but he too is destined to stay and fight for Ukraine with the territorial defence force.
All this comes pressing into Daria’s world in Auchterarder, Perthshire.
The British citizen – she got her citizenship papers last November – has worked all over Perthshire. Work has taken her into hospitality in Pitlochry, handling activity bookings for a five-star resort, a stint with a major bottled water company and now Daria works for a local company manufacturing and supplying bottle caps for the luxury drinks industry.
Daria shared a happy family photo from January where she stood beneath a gigantic Christmas tree in Kontraktova Square, one of the oldest squares in Kyiv.
Beside her are her smiling parents – it was mum Tetiana’s birthday on January 7, the same day that Ukrainian’s celebrate Christmas.
“The square is in Podil, one of the oldest districts of Kyiv and it dates back to the ninth century,” explained Daria.
It goes without saying the significance of that family snap, everyone together, happy, unaware of the monumental upheaval coming six weeks in the future.
“That trip I did normal things, walked the streets of Kyiv, met friends, dropped into cafes,” she added. “It breaks my heart Russian blasts are destroying my beautiful city.”
Daria told the PA how just over a week ago, when one space came up in a friend’s private car, her mum was going to leave Ukraine’s western side, escaping with them into Slovakia.
Daria was planning to fly to Budapest visa application centre to assist with Tetiana’s biometric tests. She was told it would be two weeks, not until March 22, when the first appointment would come up. Mum and daughter were then to return to Scotland.
But Tetiana’s journey plans changed on the hoof and suddenly she was travelling in a totally different direction, with women she met on the bus journey out of Ukraine, to a safe address in Austria.
Then last Thursday the British Government made it easier for Ukrainians to get visas. Daria believes now her mum can now travel directly to the UK and complete the visa application process from Scotland. But it wasn’t clear and Daria sounded fretful about what would happen next.
She explained: “In close to eight years that I’ve lived in Scotland my parents were not able to visit me once.
“They were refused a short-term visitor visa, so they never came. Why? It was so horrible, so disappointing. I pay my taxes. I’m now a British citizen.
“Now my mother’s visa application to come and live with me is critical. I started applying under the Ukrainian Family Scheme on March 8.
“But even with this emergency facing Ukrainian nationals, it took 40 minutes for me – who is young and knows something about the application process – to fill in online.
“It was all in English, requiring English translations of her identity documents.
“Luckily we had those for the previous visitor visa attempt. But not everybody will have translations in their hand.
“Without my help, there’s absolutely no way she would ever have been able to fill out the online form.
“If it took all that time for one person travelling alone, imagine if you had to complete the form for a whole family, each member separately, it would take all day.
“It’s frustrating. I don’t know yet if it has been accepted, when she can move out of Austria.
“My mum has a heart condition and a problem with her thyroid. She left Kyiv with enough medicine for a short while, but her health is a worry.”
Daria was incredibly calm sounding as she revealed the distressing situations faced by her mum, dad and brother. But she admitted it was affecting her emotionally.
She said: “It feels like when I describe my mother – alone, somewhere in Austria, in a stranger’s house, just with the clothes she left in – that I’m speaking about something on TV, not a real person, not my mum.
“Since February 24 when the invasion began, it feels like a lifetime ago. I follow the news, updates on my phone, it is everywhere.
“I’m really struggling to concentrate. The company I work for has been really kind and I’m getting counselling.
“It helps I am working from home. I had to drop in to the office and I could not wait to get away, all the background noise. And people asked me about Ukraine, I wanted to escape, it became overwhelming.”
“I can just about manage if I keep everything that’s happening to myself.
“Answering questions brings it on like a wave, I break apart talking to strangers.
“I can’t believe what I have to tell people, that this whole thing is really
happening.”
