Sarah Ockelton, an NHS assistant dietitian whose Ukrainian refugee sponsor Nataliya Nikolaienko faced homelessness in Poland when her free stay ended on Tuesday, said: “What a kind man. I’m shocked. It ‘s fantastic news. “ Mr Chernyshov, from Yekaterinburg in the Urals, said he and his family had acquired Ukrainian citizenship after Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. He first came to Ukraine on a contract with Carlsberg in 2006. He said the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February, was “absolutely unprovoked” and “irrational”, adding: “It’s like a war between two cultures – the brutal medieval against the modern democratic and the European. “And from the Ukrainian side it is now a big patriotic war where everyone is involved. I have not yet seen anyone over the age of 15 who is not involved in any way in the war effort.” Mr Chernyshov is helping five Ukrainian families connect with British donors in Edinburgh, where he has another home, as part of Homes For Ukraine. He was also closely involved in the transfer of 52 children from orphanages in Dnipro to temporary shelters in Scotland. His son, Kirill, attended Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh before graduating from Cornell University. His eldest daughter, Kate, attended Fettes College in Edinburgh. He said he believed that while it was right to carry out security checks on host families, he believed that checks on refugee families and children could be carried out upon arrival. “Most of these families are in Poland in very difficult conditions and they are scared,” he added. “It is a typical bureaucratic problem when no one wants to take personal responsibility.”
