A Welsh man has driven over 1,000 miles in a battered old Citroen van from Wales to Ukraine to help his wife flee the Russian invasion.
Floor-fitter Steve Lucas, 65, drove the 31-hour journey from his home in Magor, south-east Wales, to pick up his wife, Anastasia, and her cat Lucky from Lviv in Ukraine.
His 51-year-old wife, who he calls Nancy, had attempted to stay in her home as long as possible, but was "dropped into hell", Steve told BBC Radio Wales. She fled her home in Kyiv by train to reach western city of Lviv where she was reunited with Steve.
Read more: Find all the latest news from Ukraine here
The pair met five years ago while he was working in Ukraine and tied the knot in Anastasia's hometown. Before they were married, she had struggled to get a visa and before Covid Steve had been travelling out to Ukraine to see her regularly.
Speaking from Poland, which took him 31 hours to reach without stopping, he described the journey to Ukraine as "surreal", and said, "It's basically seeing a country that I love turned into a battleground."
The journey through checkpoints was long and tough, he explained. "I was stopped probably about five or six times before I actually got to Lviv."
Along the way he also picked up a gentleman who was going to Lviv to fight in defence of the country.
At one checkpoint, the gentleman began smirking in conversation with a man at the checkpoint.
"He said: 'He's just said do you two want guns?'"
"He told the fella: 'This guy is going to get his wife and I'm going to join the defence regiment, so no, I will have a gun anyway."
Despite the war, Steve said he had "too much on my mind to be scared."
Thankfully, Anastasia was able to get to Lviv thanks to "a very brave man" who drove "up and down roadblocks - and there's bombs going off - and this guy took my wife to the station."
"She was actually dropped into hell, 20,000 people crammed into a railway station.
"I'm familiar with Kyiv, especially because I spend a lot of time there, but when you actually see it, it's actually far worse than what you see on the news."
When the pair finally reunited, there were no tears left to cry.
"She said: 'I couldn't cry because I'm all cried out'."
"She's been crying for two weeks."
The pair and Lucky the cat then spent 31 hours in Steve's "freezing cold van" trying to get back to the Polish border, compared to the nine hour trip on his way into Ukraine.
Steve acknowledged the difficulties families were facing: "There were families there with three of four children, and dogs and cats.
"How do you pacify three children for possibly two and a half days in the car?"
There was no access to food, and Steve says he was a little naive. He said: "I took two sandwiches and we ended up living on biscuits and chocolate bars and stuff like that."
The couple then hit another hurdle with visa applications, as they didn't have access to suitable internet or phone connections to complete the service online.
"Doing things online is impossible unless you're in an area where you've got all the facilities."
"There people have literally walked away from their lives, they've got nothing."
Steve said the UK needs to do more to support the refugees and share the responsibility to support those who have lost everything.
He told the Daily Mail that the pair now planned to drive back across Europe and to try and get a visa for Anastasia so he could bring her back to the UK.
Get stories like this straight to your inbox with our newsletters.
