‘Visa bureaucracy’ preventing 91-year-old Ukrainian woman from joining granddaughter in Kent

  • Watch: ITV News Meridian's Kit Bradshaw reports on the families in the UK working to be reunited with their Ukrainian relatives

A Ukrainian woman living in Kent says “bureaucracy” is preventing her grandmother from being granted a UK visa.

The 91-year-old managed to leave her home in Dnipro to the safety of Lublin in Poland, in recent days, thanks to the help of volunteers and other family members. 

But Svitlana Smelianska says her grandmother then had to travel to a visa centre in Warsaw to get biometric information taken, and is still waiting for a decision on her visa application under the Ukraine Family Scheme.

“I feel helpless. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I’m just thinking; I’m here, I have my own house, I can sponsor them, but I can’t have them here,” Ms Smelianska said. “I ask [the government] to make this process less painful.”

Ms Smelianska, who goes to university in Canterbury, had previously told ITV News Meridian about her fears for her grandmother’s safety, because her mobility issues meant she couldn’t reach a bomb shelter at her home in Dnipro, eastern Ukraine, following the Russian invasion. 

  • Watch: Svitlana Smelianska, from Kent, urges ministers to make visa scheme "less stressful"

Home Secretary Priti Patel has been urged to do more to make it easier for those coming to the UK through the existing family route.

On Thursday, Ms Patel announced that from Tuesday next week people will be able to apply online for a visa and will no longer have to go to a processing centre to give their biometrics.

It followed criticism that the UK’s response has been painfully slow in the face of the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War with around 2.2 million people having fled the country.

Svitlana Smelianska’s grandmother, 91, and her mother waiting at a UK visa centre in Warsaw, Poland. Credit: Family handout

Meanwhile, voluntary groups and individuals continue to set off from the UK to the Ukrainian border with aid donated by the public. 

In Ardingly, West Sussex, a tailor left this morning on a five-day round-trip to deliver donated toiletries and clothing to refugees in Poland. 

Igor Srzic-Cartledge told ITV News Meridian: “Twenty-five years ago, when I came to the UK, the same things were happening in Serbia. Serbia was bombed. It brings back memories – I know what those people are going through.”

  • Watch: Igor Srzic-Cartledge, tailor

Mr Srzic-Cartledge has arranged to deliver the goods to an aid charity helping Ukrainian refugees in Przemysl, Poland. Fuel and vehicle hire costs have been crowdfunded, with a friend sharing the driving duties.