A father from Sandhurst in Kent is desperately waiting to hear when he might be re-united with his Ukranian-born wife Natalia and his two new step-children.

Lee Greaves, 60, is at home in England looking after the couple's twin sons, four-year-olds Jacob and Joseph, while his wife is stuck in Paris with her two nephews Mykola, eight, and Heorhii, two.

Although Natalia, 52, has dual Ukrainian and British nationality, they are waiting for refugee visas to be issued for the two boys so that she can bring them to the UK.

Mr Greaves explained the story that began long before the start of the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Mycola and Heohyi are Mrs Greaves' nephews, her brother's children, but they had been taken into care and made wards of court in Ukraine because of their parents' addiction problems.

In October last year, Mrs Greaves completed a lengthy process to be made their legal guardian, and she and her husband had applied for a visit visa to bring the smallest child to Britain and an educational visa for the elder one.

There was a delay. The day they were told the visas would be issued turned out to be the first day of the Russian invasion and all the Ukrainian visa offices were shut.

Mr Greaves said: "My wife was literally at Luton airport about to fly out to pick up the visa, when she was told that all flights were cancelled because of the war."

A worrying period ensued with the couple relying on friends and neighbours in Ukraine, where Mr Greaves owns a house, to look out for the welfare of the children.

Shortly after, the area where the boys lived near Kyiv became the subject of Russian attacks. Mr Greaves said: "A bomb fell in the street and destroyed a number of houses."

But then came the good news that the Ukrainian social services were laying on special trains to take hundreds of children in care, people with disabilities and the elderly, to safety across the Polish border.

Leaving their own twins in the care of Mr Greaves' adult daughter from a previous marriage, the couple set off by car, travelling across Europe on a rescue mission.

Mr Greaves said: "Initially the authorities couldn't say exactly where the train would arrive or when, it was diverted because of the fighting. And there was a frightening moment when we learnt while driving across Europe that our children had been left of the list of those to be boarded.

"But my wife yelled repeatedly at them down the phone and managed to persuade them to load our children too."

Eventually, the couple arrived at Chelm in Poland almost simultaneously with the refugee train.

Mr Greaves said it was an emotional moment when his wife and her nephews were finally re-united, but he had nothing but praise for the Polish authorities and people.

He said: "The Poles were absolutely brilliant, so kind to everyone on the train. It seemed like everyone turned out to help."

The couple drove the children initially to Holland where they stayed with friends, while they tried to sort out the legal paperwork. He said: "All we had for one of the boys was a birth certificate, no passport or ID card."

He said attempts to obtain a British visa for the children online where repeatedly unsuccessful, but they were eventually able to book a slot for an interview with British Immigration authorities in Paris.

The family drove five hours and attended the interview, only to be told there would be a five-day delay while the application was processed, as that included a weekend, it would effectively be a seven-day delay.

Mr Greaves said: "At that point I installed my wife and the children in a hotel in Paris while they wait, and I came home to look after our own twins.

"The whole process has been so frustrating, and we don't really know if the visas will be issued on Tuesday as they say."

Mr Greaves said: "We've been relatively fortunate. I've been able to pay for my wife to stay in a hotel. Other people waiting for visas are in hostels, camping out in their cars or just on the streets.

"The process of trying to book a visa interview online was extraordinarily complicated and impossible to do on a mobile phone. I eventually had to ask my daughter in England to try from her computer, even she was soon in tears of frustration over the difficulty.

"And now we have to wait seven days.

"You would have thought in circumstance like this, that perhaps someone would go that extra mile, open the office at weekends, ask staff to work overtime, but no."

Mr and Mrs Greaves had planned to legally adopt the two Ukrainian boys, but Mr Greaves said: "That requires an adoption process both in Ukraine and in England, and with the situation in Ukraine now, there is no prospect of that being achievable."

He said: "So we are hoping there will be another way, having ourselves declared 'de facto parents' once we have looked after them for a certain amount of time."

Meanwhile, Mr Greaves has no idea whether his home in Ukraine is still in one piece.