Ukrainian Natalya Fisher has been reunited with her husband after a nine day nightmare trapped in her war torn homeland.
The pharmacist was scandalously advised by the Home Office to seek a spouse visa in Ukraine despite Russia being on the point of invasion.
The Daily Record has told how Natalya travelled from Boddam, in Aberdeenshire, to Ukraine two days before Putin attacked.
Since then she has fled from her home town of Dnipro, where she joined in making Molotov cocktails, to gridlocked Lviv and finally to the Hungarian border crossing.
She was yesterday reunited with husband Peter in the capital, Budapest, where they were last night finalising applications for a visa to enable them to travel home to Scotland.
Speaking from their Budapest hotel, Natalya said she was balancing the joy of seeing Peter again with the heartache of leaving her family behind.
She said: “I am very relieved to be out of the Ukraine for now but although I’m running from war I can’t run from myself and my worries.
“My mother is stubborn and she says she won’t go anywhere, no matter what.”
Natalya, 38, said she had to flee with anything she could fit into one bag.
She said: “I just took my passport and a few things like the clothes I’m standing in. It does not seem real and I do not know when I will see my family again but I am praying that it will not be too long.
“I spent almost 40 years in Ukraine so it’s my life - my friends, my family, so of course I’m worried about it.”
Natalya said she was distressed to see the university buildings in Kharkiv, where she studied pharmacy, ablaze.
She said: “Today, I looked at the city hall in Kharkiv, where I studied pharmacy. I know the city and I have a lot of friends there and I see it on fire with smoke everywhere. It is terrible to see.”
While in Dnipro, Natalya joined with family and other citizens making Molotov cocktails. She said: “We all helped. This was a contribution to help our Army. Everyone will do something to help Ukraine.”
Natalya thanked the people of Scotland and the UK for supporting Ukrainians.
She said: “I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and I also want people in Scotland and all other countries to pray for my country.”
Autoglass fitter Peter, 50 said he was overjoyed to be reunited with his wife.
He said: “Seeing her at the hotel today I felt a sense of relief, as much as anything else. Knowing that she was safe was the main thing. We both had a tear in our eye because you know what we’ve been through.
“But there’s still that worry in the back of your mind. You worry about her family. Obviously Natalya would want to go back and see her family and there’s concerns over that when that will ever happen.
“So you know, I think it’s a difficult time ahead. But at least we’re together. We got through Covid and we can get through this.”
Peter added: “It has been a really gruelling time for us, mentally and physically.
“Natalya had thought she would be another full day on the road but she was incredibly lucky in meeting a group of people to share a mini-bus with to get her to Uzhhorod to the Hungary border.
“The driver was Hungarian and he was clued up about the best way to do it, so he knew which border crossing would be the least busy.
‘By the time I woke up this morning she was in a shelter, safe from harm and having tea and sandwiches. She is exhausted and probably a bit traumatised, like everyone else, but we are aware that things could be so much worse.”
The UK Home Office has recently announced that Ukrainians who are immediate and extended family members of British nationals can gain access to the UK during the current conflict.
But the Record previously told how the Home Office told Natalya she needed a spouse visa from her home country if she wanted to stay in Britain.
She was advised to fly there from her home in Boddam, near Peterhead, two days before the invasion despite PM Boris Johnson saying disaster was looming.
Natalya was warned in a letter that if she did not get the visa from the Ukraine she would be regarded as an “overstayer” and that would damage any further bid for a spouse visa to enable her to live her life in Scotland.
Natalya was forced to use cash raised by her parents selling their jewellery while Peter is using up the £3300 set aside for a full spouse visa for his travel costs.
Peter boarded a flight from Aberdeen to Gatwick on Tuesday before making the connection to Budapest.
He had not expected to see Natalya until Thursday and was terrified that something might happen to her before she crossed the border.
He said: “Natalya has been very resourceful and I don’t think many people would have been able to plot a course the way she did. She’s had a lot of hardship but it could have been tougher if she’d just got into the worst of the queues to get into Poland at Lviv.”
Natalya and Peter’s constituency MSP Karen Adam said the Home Office must learn lessons after sending Natalya into obvious danger.
She has written to Home Secretary Priti Patel specifically about Natalya’s case.
Adam said: “I am incredibly relieved to hear the news that Natalya, with the help of her partner Peter, has managed to cross the Ukrainian border to reach Budapest.
“Questions have been asked of the Home Office and lessons must be learned from the UK government. This has only highlighted how the visa system is entirely unfit for purpose to the point it endangered the safety of my constituent, Natalya.
“I have today written to the UK government’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to demand action is taken to ensure that the safety and wellbeing of my constituents are never endangered in this way again.”
