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Viktoria Koval lives in Vinnytsia, southwest of Kyiv – not far from an airport last week “destroyed” by eight Russian missiles. Reverend Jenny Kilgour, who has hosted Viktoria at their home near Exeter, Devon, on a series of language exchange scheme visits, fears her life is at risk and say with a “humanitarian crisis on this scale” visa red tape should be lifted and checks could be carried out retrospectively. 

Mrs Kilgour has been in contact with her local MP, Neil Parish, Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton, and her 15-year-old granddaughter Sophia even wrote to Boris Johnson, pleading with him to step in. 

Viktoria tried to apply for a visitors visa to the UK online but initial attempts failed because the application system kept crashing. 

She was eventually accepted for an appointment at her nearest visa application centre over the border in Chisinău, Moldova, on Tuesday 8 March which was cancelled. She has since been given another date – 17th March – for a biometric check. 

She said: “We are in contact with Viktoria on a daily basis except during air raids when she has to switch her phone off.”

In one recent text, Viktoria wrote: “Everything is suspended….When the air raid sirens sound we rush to the basement. The sirens sound three or four times a day and two or three times during the night.” 

Mrs Kilgour said: “During these times she has to sit or sleep in a cold basement where there is no electricity, no water and no heating. It’s such a terrifying situation. She’s only a child.”

“Her parents want her to come here. Our family is all desperate to have her, but we are having to do so many checks. These visas should be waived given the circumstances. We are trying not to panic. But there are hundreds of thousands of people in this situation.”

Mrs Kilgour, a former army nurse, added: “In the past, we hosted children from Eastern Europe to help with language skills. We got to know Viktoria very well. She is an absolute delight, her English is very good and she wants to be a lawyer. We were told as soon as this war started the government would be offering generous schemes for getting refugees over. I’ve been regularly phoning different organisations, the Home Office visa department and refugee agencies to progress Viktoria’s visa urgently.”

She added: “Women and children are being targeted and slaughtered. It is so barbaric.”

Mrs Kilgour, a minister in the United Reformed Church, who lives with her son, his wife and their two children, aged 15 and 12, added: “My grandchildren have been very badly affected by this and are worrying about Viktoria. They are not eating or sleeping properly and wake anxiously wondering if Viktoria is safe.”

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