Our home in Ukraine has been destroyed
Father safely reunited with daughter in Ayrshire
Ukrainian refugees living in Troon say they have no home to return to after their city was shelled to the ground.
War survivors who have escaped to the town have told of their harrowing experience after fleeing the city of Mariupol which has been left in ruins.
Ukrainian-born Olga Drover (Grechukha), 39, has been reunited with her mum and dad, Olga Grechukha, 64, and Yuiry Grechukha, 63, after fearing they’d never see each other again.
The Ayrshire Post first told how Olga was put through hell after she lost all contact with her parents amidst the devastating onslaught by Russian troops back in March.
Now dad Yuiry has revealed how he went a whole month without being able to speak to his daughter, with Olga not knowing if her father was alive or not.
Yuiry said: “I spoke with my daughter just one or two days before the invasion. She told me then to come here to Scotland because something very bad was coming to my city.
“After that, we never spoke for one month. She did not know about me and there was no way she could find out.
“When we spoke again, I can’t even remember what we said. It was very much, ‘how are you?’ ‘I am alive’, that was all that mattered.”
Yuiry fled to Poland with a neighbour’s car after conditions in Mariupol had become desperate.
Residents were forced to drink dirty water and cook using fires in the street as hospitals and homes came under intense attack.
Yuiry was eventually reunited with his family in May after a flight from Poznan to Edinburgh signalled the end of an horrific ordeal.
He added: “When my son-in-law met me, we were all very happy.
“It is difficult, though, to really explain my feelings.
“Sometimes I feel like this is all a bad dream. I can wake up and go to Mariupol, go to the shop.
“But I was so grateful to see my daughter again.
“I thought I will never see a normal
shop or a normal flat because mine was destroyed.
“You get so used to bombs going off around you, you still expect it to happen again.
“But I feel much safer in Troon. It feels like home now.”
Olga and husband Kenton Drover have taken in Yuiry and a friend from Mariupol, Anna Kyryzliieva, with her mum Olga and mum’s partner Slavic staying at a separate address in Troon.
Anna, 38,said: “Troon is a very safe place to be, it is very beautiful, people here are really really kind.
“It is lovely how they have been with us, but for us we really miss our country, our city.
“Mariupol is destroyed completely. It is impossible to recognise my home - when I see the pictures it hurts me a lot. My city is beautiful, but there is nothing left.
“After the Russian invasion, I have no apartment, it is destroyed.
“All my stuff, everything I worked for, is gone. I owned an opticians, it is also destroyed. It is heartbreaking.”