An Edinburgh dad living in Ukraine has shared his devastation after missing a visa application to get home to Scotland.
Watching an airbase just a few miles from his house be attacked on Thursday afternoon, Ken Stewart had hoped to get his young family out as soon as possible.
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Living 40 miles out of Kiev, Ken and his wife Tania had expressed previous concerns that the situation would escalate with Russia while she was heavily pregnant with their second child.
Now, just two weeks after welcoming their second son, Douglas, Ken shared they are unable to get back to Scotland due to a delay with Tania's visa.
Speaking to the Daily Record, Ken shared that a visa appointment had been booked at the British Embassy for Friday.
However, with the family now forced to seek shelter in Western Ukraine, Tania will miss the appointment.
With military planes flying overhead as he spoke, Mr Stewart said: "I can hear military jets in the distance and you can hear gunfire as well, like large calibre - tanks, helicopters, it's pretty heavy.
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"We just heard that our local airfield here, the Antonov airfield, which is the home to the biggest aircraft in the world, has been attacked, just in the last hour.
"That's pretty near us, about a 20-minute drive from here.
"So it's getting closer."
He is making plans to flee and booking accommodation in the west of Ukraine where the family could shelter temporarily.
But the visa appointment will be missed.
Mr Stewart, originally from Edinburgh, said: "That's not going to happen now and it's extremely stressful.
"We're only concerned for the children's safety and I'm concerned for my wife's safety.
"That's the thing that's worrying me - what do we do? Do we stay here? Or do we get out and get the children to safety?
"The fact is, I'd like to get my children away from this.
"I'd like them to be safe.
"It's a difficult situation. I'm torn because I don't want to leave this country. I've lived here for 15 years.
"It's my wife's country. My kids have dual nationality, it's their birthplace.
"We don't want to go, but we don't want them to be in any danger."
Mr Stewart's brother in Scotland has written to the family's MP, Richard Thomson, again to push for an emergency visa to be granted.
If able to travel, Mr Stewart is considering taking his young family on a six-hour drive to Poland, where they could fly home to Scotland.
Mr Stewart says: "We just don't know what's going to happen in the next hour or even two hours, three hours, the next day.
"We don't know if it's going to be full scale, like World War Two style, or how they are going to behave towards civilians.
"This kind of thing we just don't know.
"At the moment, they're supposedly keeping it to military targets, but they don't seem to care about the perception of the world.
"So that's quite dangerous."
