Ukraine refugees flock to Germany after being put off by UK red tape

Refugees with Hamburg resident Andreas Ahrens and volunteer Antje Darboven, at Ahrens’s late father’s house. From left: Ruslan, 15, Veorika, 38, Sergey, five, Antje, 58, Andreas, 73, Ivan, eight, Karolina, eight, Armia, 34, Sophia, seven and Nadja, 32. Photograph: Stefan Volk/The Observer

When it became clear to Liliia Fomina that the war raging outside her hometown of Zaporizhzhia would continue not just for days, but months or even years, she decided that she wanted to flee to the UK. A sponsor in Windsor was found, and on 18 March the 29-year-old applied for a British visa for herself and her five-year-old son Lev.

The pair sheltered with friends of friends in a village near Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, and waited: one week, two weeks, three weeks. By the time her visa finally came through, after almost a month of uncertainty, the lawyer had changed her mind.