A man drove thousands of miles from County Durham in the UK to Ukraine to rescue his girlfriend and her children from war.
Mike Farrell, 60, made the epic 3,400 mile return trip in seven days and has now returned home while his girlfriend Svetlana Yanyk, 45 and her son, 12, and daughter, 11, wait in the Netherlands for UK visas.
The couple met 18 months ago as Mike stopped in Ukraine during a drive across Europe.
And as war continued to rage across Ukraine, Mike, a driving instructor, told how he was determined to rescue Svetlana and bring her to safety.
He said: "I just said to Svetlana that I am going to come and I am going to bring you to the UK.
"I started telling my pupils that you have no lessons next week.
"I love the woman and I just wanted to save them. I'm no hero. It's about saving a family."
Mike told the BBC air raid sirens signalled across cities each night, prompting crowds to gather in basements, adding: "I stayed there for two nights, one of them was six hours in the basement."
He described how Svetlana's daughter was "frightened" and other children had panic in their eyes as cars backfired on the street above and Russian missiles continued to fall.
Svetlana and her children are now waiting to receive visas after completing paperwork which would allow them entry to the UK.
Ms Yanyk and her children are now waiting in a hotel after completing paperwork to receive their visas.
"I honestly thought I could just drive up to there and they they would let me through and we would get into England and they would then start sorting everything out," Mr Farrell continued.
The UN said 3 million people have fled the fighting so far - and officials believe the total could rise to 4 million before the conflict is resolved.
The UK launched the "Homes for Ukraine " scheme this week, with the formal application process set to begin on Friday.
Under the plans, people can volunteer to put up a refugee in their spare room or an empty property for at least six months.
But despite the avalanche of support from warm-hearted Brits, there are still plenty of unanswered questions about how the scheme will work.
And some critics have suggested the move was rushed out after the Government face criticism over the chaotic roll-out of its separate family visa scheme.
Research shared exclusively with the Mirror by campaign group 38 Degrees shows the British public back an expansion of the visa programme and think Rishi Sunak should fully fund a proper resettlement programme.
The Survation poll found a majority (53%) of the public - including 51% of Conservative voters - think the existing visa schemes don’t go far enough, and that the government should introduce a humanitarian visa scheme for people fleeing persecution.
