Ukraine: Couple's escape like something 'you would only see in a movie'

Chris York fled Kyiv with his girlfriend Yarnya

A British man who has fled to Poland from Ukraine said he had experienced sounds and sights that "normally you would only see in a movie".

Chris York, from Alnwick in Northumberland, said the atmosphere was "very panicky", but also peculiar.

As the invasion started some people hurried to a shelter carrying their belongings while "on the other side of the stairs there was a stream of people just going to work as normal", he said.

"It was really bizarre," he added.

Mr York, who had been living in Kyiv, escaped to Warsaw with his girlfriend, Yarnya.

They had to leave her parents behind because her father is still of an age where he might be required to fight.

"We had this really awful farewell on the side of the road," Mr York said.

"It was heartbreaking, but then you looked up the road and it's just being repeated over and over again.

"Men had driven their wives and children as far as they could and then they couldn't leave the country, they had to go back to fight."

Chris York said it was "awful" to leave Yarnya's parents behind

Mr York said they passed gridlocked buses and cars on the way to the border, with "people pushing prams and dragging their suitcases behind them for miles and miles and miles".

A huge queue of women and children waiting to cross became "a bit scary" at night when groups of foreign men who had been staying in the country started a crush, he said.

"There were kids screaming and old women who were being pushed out of the way by these groups of men who were trying to push forwards to the front to get through," he said.

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A fundraising account set up by Mr York now has more than £25,000 in donations, which he is using to buy food, water, toiletries and medication for those fleeing the war.

"It's really sad," he said.

"All those young people who were trying really hard to build a democratic country that was free and an example to people in authoritarian countries like Russia and now, if they haven't already fled, they're on the front line because they have to fight now."