Uprooted by war, Ukrainians in Inverness ponder the future of their homeland
As Ukrainian refugees in the Highlands follow events in their homeland from a distance, there is a sense of disbelief at last month's destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Maryna Kudriavtseva voices her shock at the deliberate blowing up of the dam – blamed on the Russians – which caused widespread flooding and is predicted to have catastrophic ecological and humanitarian consequences for years to come.
Maryana, an administrative worker from Donetsk, says the conflict actually started in Ukraine in 2014.
She and her husband and three children subsequently moved to the town of Yuzhny, near Odessa, and not very far from Kherson which has been the scene of heavy fighting.
After leaving Ukraine, they went to Aberdeen but by chance found themselves offered the use of a house in Inverness.
"It is like a fairytale for us," said Maryna who is keen to improve her English so she can find a job.
She has family in Ukraine although her elderly parents had to move to Russia after finding themselves in the middle of a war zone.
"My parents cannot return to Ukraine because Donetsk is very dangerous now," she said.
"Donetsk has been under Russian control since 2014, but it's still Ukraine for us."
Like Maryna and Halyna Toran – another refugee who has come to Inverness with her husband and young son – Ruslan Lytuynonv (18) has found his family has been uprooted and separated as a result of the war.
Although rumours were circulating before the Russian invasion, he did not believe it would happen.
"My belief was that in the 21st century there cannot be a big war - there had not been one for more than 70 years," he said.
But as it became apparent invasion was imminent, he faced a difficult choice – whether to take the advice of his older brother, an IT specialist, and head to the west of Ukraine, or to go with his father and stepmother and their three children to Belarus which they thought would be safer than being in Ukraine and being captured.
He took the latter option, crossing the border on February 23 before it closed the following day.
After finishing school, Ruslan came to the UK on a sponsorship programme with his father and is studying for an HNC in business at UHI Inverness.
He plans to do a degree in economics and finance and says he is grateful to Scotland for the opportunity to live here and study.
"We appreciate that very much," he said.
He hopes to put his studies to good use in a future Ukraine but acknowledged it could take a few years.
"I will definitely go to Ukraine when the war ends and the elections come – it will be my first election," he said.
"I want to see and visit my relations and friends."
* Living with a phone in her hand and waiting for the latest news, Halyna Toran describes how she has been displaced twice due to war in the third of our series about Ukrainians who have found refuge in Inverness which appears on Sunday at 7.30pm.
