Like so many of Manchester's Ukranian community, Stefan Jajecznyk watched in horror as President Vladimir Putin launched his all-out invasion on Thursday.
The 32-year-old journalist from Salford was born in the UK but feels proudly Ukrainian.
He flew out to the capital Kyiv to take part in the 2014 revolution and in later years followed a band of volunteers bringing supplies to soldiers who were fighting Russian-backed separatists in the east.
For Stefan and so many others, Putin is not just a war-mongering thug who has to be stopped - he is the latest manifestation of Russian expansionism which has blighted Europe since the Second World War.
Stefan's grandparents, from the village of Hajvoronka in the Ternopil region of west Ukraine, settled here after World War II.
Grandad Mychailo had served in a Ukrainian army unit which fought the Russians and which was co-opted by the Nazis - he and it surrendered to the British, and he ended up making a life for himself here, from 1948, working on farms and in factories.
Grandmother Maria came here in the 1950s, her father executed in the middle of the night by Stalin's secret police. One of her brothers was sent to a gulag in Siberia.
Like many Ukrainians, the Jajecznyk family - settled and thriving in Britain - had plenty of reason to fear the Russians.
From afar, they watched in hope when the 2014 Revolution of Dignity saw the government of the day ousted and the nation started to lean towards Europe, as many other central European nations had already done.
Stefan, who worked in a call centre at the time, said he 'pulled a sickie' and went to take part in the revolution, joining demonstrations and helping with the movement of supplies to the barricades.
But that hope turned to despair, later that year, when the civil war started in the east of the country.
The fighting between Ukrainians and Russia-backed separatists has claimed an estimated 14,000 lives so far, a bloody conflict which shows war had been raging in Europe long before President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning.
When Stefan went to visit friends in the capital Kyiv in November, everything seemed normal.
"I hadn't been for a couple of years because of the pandemic," he said. "It was good for the soul but not good for the liver!
"It's a city that feels like home to me even though I have never lived there. Even after a little time away, it was brilliant. I've got friends there. It will always hold a special place in my heart, even more so now seeing how people of the city defend it.
"It's a beautiful, vibrant city. It's got a great social and art scene. It has that crazy multicultural feel that any capital has. It has that buzz. It's a special place."
Stefan also visited in 2016, two years into the bloody conflict in the east, and spent some time with a band of civilians who saw the poor state of the nation's 250,000-strong army and became volunteers. Each volunter gave up their jobs to travel the 700 kilometres to the the Donbas region, the front line in the east.
The army regulars had grown resentful of the perceived lack of support from their commanders, and the volunteers put that right, bringing sniper scopes and night vision technology as well as food, uniforms and their best wishes.
Stefan wrote a story about these volunteers.
He said: "The Ukranian army then was very different to the current one fighting right now. For years, it had been underfunded. It had essentially been a bit of a wreck. A lot of money had been stolen from it. It had not been modernised. A lot of basic equipment was lacking. A lot of different groups started raising money to buy equipment.
"They collected uniforms from other parts of Europe, Canada and America. At one point they were going twice a week on trips to the east to deliver supplies, uniforms, boots, food and various pieces of kit. They raised money to buy vehicles that could be used as field ambulances.
"They would drive out there and quite often put themselves in danger to deliver these supplies to the front line."
After years of skirmishes, Stefan said he knew a full-scale invasion was imminent when he saw the hour-long speech President Putin made on the eve of the latest attack.
"You could see the hatred in his face. You could see it in his body language and obviously in the words that he was saying. It was then I realised. I always knew a further Russian invasion was possible but didn't really believe he was crazy enough to do it," said Stefan.
"I was pretty sure that by the morning I would be waking up to news of a Russian invasion, and that's exactly what happened. There were air strikes all over the country.
"When I woke up to see that, it was shock, anger, despair. I spent time with members of the Ukrainian community here. There was a sense of helplessness. It was heart-breaking."
Of Putin, he said: "He's obviously a war-monger. I believe he's a war criminal. I'm not a lawyer but I believe some of the actions he's taken over the last 24 hours amount to war crimes.
"I believe Putin holds particularly racist, xenophobic attitudes towards Ukraine. He doesn't believe they are a people with their own nationality, language and culture.
"What's going now is almost the logical conclusion of Putin's attempt to regain what he considers lost Russian lands following the break up of the Soviet Union. Putin is a KGB man through and through. He's a thug.
"But I think he has under-estimated Ukrainian resistance so far. I think the army are holding their own against what is - and let's not play it down - an overwhelming Russian invasion force coming from the north, the south and the east.
"The next two, three or four days is critical. There have been key battles that have been won by the Ukrainian army particularly for certain airfields.
"The desire of the Ukrainians to repel the invasion is high. I don't have the technical expertise to say where this is going but I think the Ukrainians are putting up a mighty good fight. If they can continue that, it might start to cause problems for Putin. If the capital can withstand the next phase, then Ukraine has a hope. But what it desperately needs is help."
The country needs cash and military supplies from the west as well as a 'no fly zone' over Ukraine, Stefan believes.
But he accepts that the West providing 'boots on the ground' might tempt President Putin to make good on a thinly-veiled threat use nuclear weapons.
Putin has said: "Whoever tries to hinder us... should know that Russia's response will be immediate. And it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history."
Stefan reasoned: "Boots on the ground would turn the tide - but as things stand we need to be realistic about other countries' priorities."
Helpless as they might feel, the Ukrainian community in Manchester is trying to do everything possible to help compatriots back home.
Stefan said: "The man thing the community here is doing, aside from demonstrating and raising awareness is sharing links for a humanitarian aid fund which people can donate to, and Ukrainian banks have set up an open fund where donations can go straight to the army
"So if people want donate to the army, then can, and if they want to contribute to the humanitarian effort they can as well."
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