They were forced to leave their homes in Ukraine as Russian troops prepared to invade.
Now Manchester University graduates who moved to the Eastern European country are desperately trying to help the loved ones they left behind.
Jacob Williams, 28, moved to the Ukraine in 2019 after falling in love with a Ukraine woman while visiting friend and fellow graduate John Green, who was living and working there.
Now the pair have joined forces with friend Lewis Edwards to do all they can to support people in need during the war.
John, 26, from Hampshire, who studied History and Russian at Manchester University, says he and girlfriend Yulia Scherbyna, 23, took heed of government advice and left Ukraine on February 16, before the war broke.
John, who was teaching English and Yulia, who works in IT, are now in Georgia and both John and Jacob are doing all they can to support friends who have been working around the clock to organise shelter and aid for Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border into Slovakia.
He said: "The pair of us are doing what we can to support them from afar but they need all the help they can get from donations and spreading the word."
John says his girlfriend is growing ever fearful as Russians get closer to the village where her family live.
He said: "On Thursday we were jolted out of bed as Yulia's phone was going off.
"She looked at me and said: "It's War."
"We felt panic, terror and shock.
"Nobody anticipated anything like this.
"Yulia's family are there to the end - her dad is helping the military and her mum is a political head of 13 villages.
"She is very, very scared.
"Russians are now in the nearest city to her village where her parents are."
Friend Jacob and copywriter girlfriend, Alina Kulyk married on January 27 and went to Athens in Greece for their honeymoon, but while enjoying their trip, war broke out in Ukraine and they have been unable to return.
Now, Jacob, from Stoke, who studied Mathematics at Manchester University and his wife, who is from Chorobai in the Cherkasy region, are travelling to Poland to spend time with loved ones who managed to flee there.
Jacob said: "It is incredibly frustrating hearing about friends and family stuck in cellars and bunkers.
"We feel so helpless being away.
"We are fearful about what seems to be increased aggression towards civilians."
Friend Lewis Edwards, 32, who ran a summer camp in East Slovakia, called Point Camp is now using the location as an information centre.
John said: "The organisation is focusing everything on working as an information centre for refugees who don't know where to go, and finding other locations and available transport options to facilitate the transport of refugees to other places."
A Go Fund Me page has been set up.
Click here to donate.
