A Ukrainian scientist who works for a top British university says she feels “profoundly let down” by the UK government after waiting seven weeks for a visa while Russians bombed the area near her home in Odesa.
Olena Said, who manages clinical trials at King’s College London, applied to move to the UK days before the Russian invasion but her application has been tied up in red tape.
She applied on 17 February under a priority scheme meant to fast track skilled workers under the UK’s post-Brexit points-based immigration system. However, she is still waiting for a decision.
Said, 38, and her 74-year-old mother fled to neighbouring Moldova six weeks ago after their region of Odesa was one of the first places bombed by the Russians. She said: “I feel profoundly let down by the whole system. It just feels like it is stuck in limbo somewhere and there’s no way to know what is the truth any more.”
Said, who has a PhD in clinical pharmacology, manages a clinical trial on the treatment of eating disorders at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, where she has worked since August 2021.
Dr Hubertus Himmerich, a clinical senior lecturer who works with Said at KCL, said the trial she was running “might lead to a scientific and medical breakthrough” in the pharmacological treatment of anorexia nervosa.
He added: “It is heartbreaking that a highly qualified medical researcher like Lena is currently not allowed to enter the UK and is prevented from continuing research that might save young lives.
Said came to the UK in September 2020 on a student visa to complete a master’s at University College London. She had to return temporarily to Ukraine in January when her student visa expired. She then applied for a skilled worker visa, sponsored by King’s College, to move to the UK permanently.
Now stuck in the Moldovan capital, Chișinău, Said said she was “trying to survive day to day”. She and her British partner, Richard Beenham, have tried to find out the status of her visa but have been given conflicting responses from junior UK visas and immigration officials.
She said: “It’s a massive disgrace. I’m checking my emails probably thousands of times a day just in the hope that I can go back to the place where I have what resembles a normal life and not stuck in a country where there is nothing for me, no work, no family. It feels incredibly isolating and devastating that [there is a] lack of caring from people who have the power to direct how someone’s life goes.”
Official figures show that, as of last Thursday, the UK has issued visas to 45% of the 65,000 Ukrainians who have applied under two schemes. However, under the much-vaunted Homes for Ukraine scheme, which matches strangers in the UK with people in Ukraine, only 4,700 visas have been issued of the 32,200 applications.
Leading charities have called on the government to waive visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees as a short-term measure to bring the UK in line with the EU.
More than 4.2 million Ukrainians have fled to neighbouring countries since the invasion, according to the UN’s refugee agency. About 6.5 million people are displaced internally within Ukraine.
Kate Larmer, who co-founded Farnham Homes for Ukraine to match those fleeing war with homes in Surrey, said the UK’s “heinous” visa requirements were adding to people’s emotional distress. Her group has submitted 136 visa applications on behalf of Ukrainians, including dozens of children, but only six have been issued, she said. Most of the 136 have been waiting for more than two weeks, and a “significant proportion” for more than three weeks.
A government spokesperson said it was “moving as quickly as possible” to get Ukrainians to the UK. He added: “We have streamlined the process so valid passport holders do not have to attend in-person appointments before arriving in the UK, simplified our forms and boosted caseworker numbers, while ensuring vital security checks are carried out.
“We continue to speed up visa processing across both schemes, with almost 30,000 visas issued in the last three weeks alone and thousands more expected to come through these uncapped routes.”
