A Scottish philanthropist ventured into war-torn Ukraine on Thursday in an attempt to evacuate children from two small orphanages that he and his fellow Hibernian soccer club supporters have sponsored for nearly two decades.
Steven Carr, who heads the DniproKids charity, crossed into Ukraine from Poland by bus en route to Lviv, hoping to reach the city of Dnipro before it is besieged by invading Russian troops.
About 30 of the 50 children – aged 5-15 – housed at the Odinkovk and Hasanskaya orphanages in the city of Dnipro already have made it safely to Lviv, but fears are that Russian forces will soon turn north. Russian troops captured the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya – about 50 miles south – last weekend.
"There would be no escape route if it was left too late," Carr said. "They're very worried, very scared."
With help from two locals in Ukraine, Peter Chernyshov and Lisa Chernyshova, Carr is trying to get the children safely out, funded by his soccer buddies back in Scotland, who have sponsored the orphanages since 2005.
With commercial air travel in and around Ukraine suspended, Carr and his friends had to fly to Krakow in Poland and then organize transportation to Lviv.
"The people that support the charity, the people that give regular support to the charity, people that help with fundraising – the same people that supported us 16 years ago are still here. They're still going," Carr said.
Carr, however, is critical of the British government, telling Newsmax that while promising to take 200,000 refugees, it has issued visas for only 300 and is using a complex, bureaucratic process that many refugees have neither the time nor energy for.
"The U.K. is shutting the door in their face," he said
The First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has called Britain's process for refugees fleeing the invasion "indefensible."
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