Downing Street has criticised a Conservative MP for travelling to Ukraine, despite government guidance warning against anyone visiting the country that is under siege by Vladimir Putin’s troops.
Adam Holloway said he was in a town about 80 miles east of the border with Poland and had witnessed queues outside military conscription centres and volunteers packaging up medical kits for Ukrainian soldiers trying to hold off the Russian advance.
As he crossed into Ukraine, he described seeing a queue of people trying to flee that stretched for 20 miles, with many of them corralled together and forced to wait for four days in the cold.
“The McDonald’s near the border was packed with women and children and a few elderly people,” Holloway said.
The Gravesham MP, who is a member of the Commons home affairs select committee and a former soldier, said he believed that unlike in Russia, Ukrainian citizens were offering to join the military voluntarily.
Speaking to GB News on Monday night, Holloway said: “I’ve only been on the ground for just over 12 hours but it seems to me that these people here are absolutely determined to fight.
“If you look at the moral component of warfare – and as you know I used to be a soldier – that is the decisive thing.
“We can’t know what’s going to happen over the next few days and months. But one thing I can absolutely tell you is that these people here – certainly where I am right now and I think right across Ukraine – it does feel to me as if they’re going to fight.”
Holloway said that while on his travels he had also run into “Ukraine’s top concert pianist”.
He added: “It was fascinating talking to him, because so many people are volunteering for the military that they’re only taking people with actual military experience – there just aren’t enough guns.”
Downing Street said it was unaware of Holloway’s trip beforehand.
A spokesperson for the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said the advice not to travel to Ukraine “applies to everyone”.
Asked if Holloway should return home, the spokesperson said: “He should certainly not travel to Ukraine.”
Travel advice issued by the Foreign Office says all British nationals should “leave Ukraine immediately if you judge it is safe to do so”.
Those who need assistance are told to contact the government, but the advice said: “British nationals should not expect increased consular support or help with evacuating in these circumstances.”
