A Brighton-born English teacher has told how he and his Ukrainian family came within minutes of being caught up in Russian bombing raids as they fled the capital Kyiv by road.
Dan Baker has lived in the capital with his Ukrainian wife Victoria, 34, and 12-year-old stepdaughter Veronica, for more than five years.
The 41-year-old had vowed to stay put despite bitter fighting in the outer suburbs and nightly air raids, but decided it was time to leave that after hearing claims Russian soldiers were “raping” women in occupied areas.
“I was quite happy to die to support my family, I wasn’t scared of the fighting, wasn’t scared of the war or the bombs or anything,” he said.
“The one thing that swung it for me and I said, ‘That’s it, I’ve got to get out of here’, is when I heard reports that the Russian soldiers were raping the wives and the daughters of the men they had killed.
“That was enough for me because what’s the point of me dying to protect my family and then, when I’m dead, that happens?”
Mr Baker spoke of getting used to the wail of daily air raid sirens, and of ordinary Ukrainians’ “resilience” in the face of death and destruction.
The family, together with cat Pumpkin, had all been staying in the school they run, in the basement of a brick building.
However, on Friday evening the family “made quite an emotional decision” to leave, joining more than two million refugees.
“It went against everything,” he said.
“Honestly, I felt like I was letting people down by not staying because I had promised to stay.
“But the status quo of danger had changed – it was now more dangerous to stay than leave.”
The family were ready to go as soon as Kyiv’s curfew lifted at 7am but were unable to take their car directly westwards because the road was “unsafe”.
Instead, they took what is normally a four-hour drive south to Vinnytsia – though it took 15-and-a-half hours with detours, heavy traffic and hours of petrol station queues.
Gridlock of the roads in Ukraine as thousands flee heavy fighting (Dan Baker/PA)
Despite accommodation being at a premium, an acquaintance generously offered them use of a “granny annexe in the garden of a big mansion”.
