British-based Ukrainian woman flies to Poland to try to secure visa so her relatives can come to UK

A British-based Ukrainian woman has flown to Poland to try to secure a visa so her elderly relatives can come to the UK.

Desperate Nataliya Tkachuk, 39, was pictured at a visa application centre in Rzezsow, Poland.

She is trying to help her mother Mariia and her husband's parents Nataliya and Tom, all in their 70s and 80s.

They are still in Ukraine just near the border after fleeing home.

Nataliya, who lives in Newcastle, says she will stay with her relatives until they get a visa approved.

Her family joins a growing list of applicants at the visa centre.

Nataliya, who runs a silver jewellery business with her husband, said that she took days to convince her family to leave the country.

She said: "I don't know how many hours I spent explaining to them that they should leave because they are elderly.

"My mother is 75 and my husband's parents are 77 and 81.

''They've lived in Ukraine all their lives and they just cannot imagine going somewhere else.

"On the first day of the war the airport next to our town was bombarded.

"After that I said they had to go, and eventually they agreed to leave".