When the phone call came from his younger brother, it was a moment 51-year-old Stuart McKenzie had been nervously waiting for.
After four days of travelling from their hometown of Kyiv to the Polish border with his family – including his Ukrainian wife, their two kids and grandmother – his sibling, Robert, had finally reached safety.
It was a journey Scottish businessman Stuart had already made himself, having been one of the fortunate few to leave Ukraine within hours of the invasion.
However, in comparison to the nine hours it took him, his Ukrainian wife of 25 years, Lena, and their two kids to cross the border, it has taken his brother four days.
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It was, Stuart has been told, a hazardous journey involving endless queues of cars, lengthy paperwork checks, the trauma of seeing an old lady die in the cold and nights sleeping in the freezing cold of their car.
‘You have no idea how relieved I was to be reunited with him,’ Stuart tells Metro.co.uk from a hotel room in Krakow where his family are now based.
His voice is a mixture of emotions, mainly calm and strong but fuelled with an enormous passion to help other refugees like his brother get settled.
‘I was lucky that I managed to get out of Kyiv so early, before the evacuation and panic set in,’ he says. ‘I’d already done a practice run when I thought this may possibly happen – although I never actually truly believed it would – and it was a move only made possible because I live close to the motorway, got up early and had already packed the car with food and fuel.’
Having been in and out of touch with 43-year-old Robert during his journey via WhatsApp and phone when there was signal, Stuart tells of the conditions his brother and family had faced.
‘It was really tough for them. They had to turn off their engines to preserve fuel so it was very cold,’ he explains. ‘There’s obviously no toilets so people were having to go at the side of the road.
‘An old lady died in front of my brother’s car the other day – of old age in the cold. There’s no medicines, things like this – it’s very hard.’
Robert also told how people were making homemade bombs on the roadside.
Obviously joyful that his brother has made the journey, Stuart – who runs a health business with his HQ based in Kyiv – tells us that he often cries about what their families and the people of Ukraine are going through.
‘I have no words to describe the feelings of emotions for what’s going on,’ he says. ‘I have lived in Kyiv for 28 years – part of my team has fled to Poland, some are in Western Ukraine and some have stayed in Kyiv. It is utterly heart-breaking.’
When he arrived at the hotel, Stuart recalls how his car was one of very few in the carpark; now it is understandably overflowing.
‘I see every day more and more cars with Ukrainian number plates. Families are arriving with nowhere to go and so I am trying to do everything in my power to help.’
With many of his staff still stuck in the country, Stuart’s focus is now to help his team get out. One of them – his PR manager Olga Kearley – has fortunately finally escaped the city after a 31-hour journey from Kyiv. Despite the hours she had been travelling, the 28-year-old remained at the border to help other older people cross.
‘The journey was brutal – checkpoints, sirens, no phone signal but the strength of the Ukrainians and the love for our country kept us going,’ she told metro.co.uk. ‘We remain strong for one another. Our one hope is that it is over quickly and we can then drive back to Kyiv and return to our home.
‘Although the journey was so stressful and I was scared, we tried to stay calm. We laughed, we cried and we listened to Ukrainian songs. That helped lift our spirits a lot.’
For brothers Stuart and Robert, their plan is simply to take one day at a time, especially with a future so uncertain.
And despite the horrors they have endured, they say they will never forget the joy in seeing their children reunited with their cousins.
Now, Stuart says, the family’s focus will be on helping other refugees and doing whatever they can to support the Ukrainian people.
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