Ukraine: bombs and bureaucracy thwart couple’s quest for UK spousal visa

Fozan and Iryna Dar, who took a midnight train to Kyiv for a biometric registration just as Russian rockets began targeting the city, then had to make their way back to Dnipro empty-handed. Photograph: Anton Skyba

A British man and his Ukrainian wife spent 12 hours shuttling between cities targeted by Russian bombs on Thursday in a desperate but failed bid to complete her biometric registration for a UK spousal visa.

Fozan and Iryna Dar left the central city of Dnipro, where they live, on a midnight train on Wednesday, in a last-ditch attempt to reach the processing centre in Kyiv. Soon after, the city’s airport closed and bombing began, there and in other cities.