A Ukrainian woman desperate to bring her family to safety in Scotland claims they have been left “in limbo” amid a vast Home Office backlog of visa applications.
Olena Hutchison said sister Nataliia Polushvaiko, niece, Daryna, and nephew, Artemiy, were told they could be on a plane to join her in West Lothian within 24 hours of handing over “biometric information” in Poland on March 8 after fleeing the Russian invasion.
However the 43-year-old explained they had been left at a “dead end” days later as the UK government failed to rubber stamp their application in time.
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Plans to move the family to Germany until the process was completed were also foiled when it emerged they would have to remain in Warsaw until the form was ratified.
Olena admitted she was now worried about the “traumatising” effect on her niece and nephew without being able to bring them to her home in East Calder.
She told Edinburgh Live: “We applied for the visa on March 4 and did biometrics on the 8th.
“They were initially told they would get a decision within 24 hours, but then it was 48 and then it was 72. Now it’s coming up to day five and the applications still haven’t had a decision.
“My nephew is only 13. There were sirens every day, they had to leave when they started to hear explosions.
“My sister just wants to get her kids to safety and we can give them that here. I have a house, I have a car, I have a job. I have somewhere for them to sleep, I can look after them, but they are stuck there for now and I don’t know when they will be able to come here.”
Nataliia, 46, drove for two days to reach the crossing with Poland, but spent a further three sleeping in her vehicle alongside Artemiy and Daryna, 16, without food or water.
Olena, who works in digital marketing for a medical company, managed to secure accommodation for the trio through a work contact, but the temporary arrangement has been repeatedly extended.
She added phone calls to the Home Office had been ‘unhelpful’ and provided little in the way of a timeline on when the application may be approved.
“Nataliia and the kids are OK, but some people are actually sleeping on the floor of train stations in Warsaw because they just have nowhere else to go,” she said.
“People need to start moving out of these places because they don’t have any space, but they are all stuck.
“We wanted to start moving them to Germany because we have people there who can maybe help, but they can’t leave because they have given their biometrics in Warsaw and they need to wait for a reply.
“I keep phoning and asking how long it will take for a decision, and they don’t know. They can do or say nothing. They just tell me to wait.”
Almost 18,000 ‘family visa’ requests have been received by the Home Office since the Kremlin-backed invasion of the country began late last month - however thousands more are thought to have been submitted since the latest figures were published on March 7.
Olena has lived in Scotland since 2004, but grew up in Lubny, near Poltava, where her parents remain.
She said they are “safe for now” but admitted she does not know “how long that will last,” adding future plans to relocate them to Scotland were being held up by the current delay surrounding her sister’s status.
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Olena added: “I have cried all of my tears at this point. I’ve been speaking to my friends in Kyiv where I went to university, but some of them are already not answering calls.
“I wanted to get my sister and her kids here as soon as possible so we can start working on mum and dad because they are still OK where they are at the moment.
“I hope they will not be targeted, but I just don’t know."
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians which is why we’ve made it easier for those with Ukrainian passports to come here.
“We have expanded our visa application capacity to 13,000 a week, deployed additional staff across the EU, with a 24/7 helpline in place to ensure those who need appointments can get them to come here.
"We will keep our support under constant review.”
