Hundreds of Ukrainian children stranded after visa scheme scrapped

But only days after Sergievskaya had finally earned enough money for her and her daughter, the Home Office announced it was closing the scheme without notice on February 19.

Mariia and her mother are among hundreds of refugee families who have been left separated by the decision.

Their hopes of being united in the UK were dampened further by new restrictions to the second Ukrainian visa scheme, Homes for Ukraine. The Home Office changed the eligibility criteria for being a sponsor so that only British and Irish citizens, or foreign citizens with settled status, could act as sponsors.

Previously, any Ukrainian refugee qualified as a sponsor. A survey carried out by the Work Rights Centre, an organisation that offers free, confidential and multilingual advice to migrants in the UK, has found hundreds of Ukrainians have been affected by the rule changes with many separated from their own children.

The Home Office said it was right to adapt and develop the visa routes to ensure they kept pace with the rapidly shifting situation in Ukraine and remained as efficient and sustainable as possible. Labour, which opposed the changes in February, has not confirmed whether it will relax the rules if it wins the general election.

The sudden tightening of the rules cut off the prospect of Sergievskaya acting as her daughter’s sponsor. To bring her to the UK, she now needs to find a household willing to sponsor her, a process made harder by the extra safeguarding precautions required to sponsor a seven-year-old girl.

Sergievskaya, one of many Ukrainians who have spoken to The Times about how she has been affected by the changes, said: “I think about my daughter all the time, I worked with one day off to earn money and rent a house.

“I didn’t see my daughter go to first grade, I didn’t see her holidays at school, I wasn’t with her when she experienced new emotions. I can’t do it anymore. Every day she asks me when I’ll pick her up.

“I just didn’t make it before February 19.”

She knows that she is not alone in being separated from her children and says her gratitude to Britain is “boundless” given the help it has given Ukraine since the war broke out. But she cannot escape the feeling that she has been let down by the specific visa schemes that the Home Office shut down so suddenly and without exception.

She said: “My daughter and I are now on different shores and it’s difficult and unbearable.”

Her desperation is shared by many other families affected by sudden changes to the Ukrainian refugee schemes.

The changes coincided with a worsening situation for Ukrainians hoping to return to their homeland as Russia made advances north and east of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, and intensified attacks along the eastern front.

Moscow has also increased its attacks on key Ukrainian infrastructure, causing more frequent blackouts and increasing the likelihood of a bleak winter ahead.

“Desperation” was the one word Serhii Shakun used to sum up his feelings following the closure of the schemes.

He applied to temporarily move his wife Natalia and two young sons, Platon and Andrew, to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and to find a job himself as work became scarcer. But before they could move, their sons were taken to hospital after developing pneumonia in both lungs.

The couple decided that he should continue with his move to the UK and they would follow when their sons were better. He moved to Edinburgh where he found work in the construction industry.

But by the time their children were discharged from hospital, the Ukraine Family Scheme had closed and he could no longer be a sponsor under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

The family is now separated by 1,600 miles and facing a choice of whether Shakun, 44, stays and hopes to find a way of bringing his family to the country, or returning home where work is scarce and the threat of war is constant.

He said: “To describe our life simply, living in a country with 18-hour daily sirens, explosions, lack of work and electricity and now also facing issues with crime and weapons in the hands of civilians and former soldiers is not life, it’s survival.

“My parents cannot leave Ukraine, but they want to visit here and are also worried about how this winter will go. But the main issue is the children. They are growing up in abnormal conditions and it is greatly affecting them.”

Yulia Hryshchenko and her children, Karolina, five, Oleksandr, 13, and Polina, seven. She had hopes of bringing her orphaned brother to the UK

ROBERT PERRY/TIMES MEDIA LTD

The sudden change in rules in February left Julia Hryshchenko, 37, who has three young children, “crying for days” because it meant she would no longer be able to bring her 13-year-old orphan brother Bogdan to the UK. Their mother died of Covid-19 in 2020 and their father died a month before war broke out with Russia from heart problems caused by his time serving in the Ukrainian military.

Bogdan is living with their elderly grandmother in a village in the Kyiv area not far from the military training centre in Chernihiv which was attacked early on in the war.

Hryshchenko said: “This is the third year I see my family only through my phone. I can’t hug them, can’t support my grandmother, sometimes I cry. So when the rules were changed so Ukrainians with our status can’t be a sponsor, I was stressed and I was crying for a few days, because my dream to see and hug my brother was broken, my heart was broken.”

Olga Babich, centre, is planning to return to Ukraine because she can no longer bear being separated from her family

For Olga Babich, the closure of the schemes left her so devastated that she is now planning to return to Ukraine despite the increasingly dangerous conditions in Kharkiv, where she is from and where its inhabitants are sitting ducks from the daily glide bombs used by Russia to terrorise the population.

“I may have to consider returning to the danger, as I can no longer bear living apart from my family. It is unbearably difficult,” she said. “I have been in the UK for two years, and this country has done so much for us, for which we are deeply grateful. However, if there is no possibility to reunite with my family, I see no point in staying.”

This continuing gratitude towards Britain is a sentiment shared almost unanimously among those who The Times spoke to despite the sudden tightening of rules.

Elena Sergievskaya says she will always be grateful to Britain for the help given to Ukrainians but hopes that somehow she can still be reunited with her daughter

ANDREW MCCAREN

And it is that generosity that the British government and population showed following the outbreak of war in February 2022 that gives many of them hope that the Home Office will review the rules, regardless of who wins the election. Labour was highly critical of the changes when they were introduced and Luke Piper, head of immigration at the Work Rights Centre, said he hoped the “wave of heartbroken Ukrainian families unable to reunite with their loved ones” will persuade the next government to act. He said: “The next government must commit to reopening, or establishing, a route for Ukrainians already in the UK to reunite with their loved ones.”

For Sergievskaya, the resilience and optimism that runs through so many of her compatriots is still driving them on. “Has my opinion and view of Britain changed? No, I will always be grateful for help for Ukrainians,” she said. “I hope that my problem will be solved, I am sure that I am not alone and that in the near future all children will be with their parents.”

A Labour party spokesperson committed to urgently reviewing the schemes, saying: “Labour raised serious concerns when the rules were suddenly changed at a time of ongoing threat. The numbers for the scheme are now much smaller than they were, but war in Ukraine is still continuing, the Ukrainian people are still having to deal with desperate and devastating circumstances, and we need to ensure that Ukrainian families aren’t left facing even greater hardship or heartbreak because of the way the system is working.

“If Labour forms a government, we will urgently review the functioning and operation of the scheme to ensure that Britain continues to stand with and support the people of Ukraine.”