The brave mum of Strictly star Oksana Platero has told of her horrific ordeal fleeing her home in Ukraine.
When a shell hit Inna Dmytrenko’s 10-year-old son Kirill’s school and the air strikes intensified in Kharkiv, she made the heartbreaking decision to leave on March 2, with Kirill and her vulnerable niece Elena, 30.
Inna, 53, said: “The explosions became more and more frequent, and Oksana called me and said, ‘Mum you must leave now’.
“It is terrifying during an air raid, but the greatest fear of all is that your child would be killed.
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“I would just cover him with my body in the shelter so that even if we were shelled, god willing, he wouldn’t die.”
After a 29-hour train trip to Lviv in western Ukraine, the three of them then travelled to the border with Hungary by BlaBlaCar.
Inna said: “The train was like nothing I had seen before, except in movies about the Second World War.”
Barrister Rob Rinder, 43, who was 33-year-old Oksana’s Strictly partner, is heading to Ukraine to help other members of her family.
“Rob is a good man,” said Inna.
