Ukraine: Student 'guilty and sad' to flee Ukraine for NI

Anna Korolinska said there was a huge tension building in Kyiv before she left

A woman who fled war-torn Ukraine to join her mother in Newtownards, County Down, has said she feels "guilty and sad" about leaving her homeland.

Anna Korolinska, who is 23, left Kyiv last Sunday, travelling to Poland before reaching the UK.

She told BBC News NI she still does not feel safe and even "going for a walk is difficult".

Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, has been under attack as a key target for Russia's forces.

Anna, who has been in Northern Ireland since Tuesday, said the sound of aeroplanes remind her about the war.

"I just have bad emotions about it," she said.

'Relieved'

The chemistry post-graduate student, who had been working in a laboratory in Kyiv, said the train journey to Lviv presented a "huge moral challenge to handle all the emotions".

She spoke of seeing women and children who are in "shock and panic".

"They're exhausted and tired and hungry and even frozen because it was minus temperature outside and we spent about 15 hours standing on the street while slowly moving to the border," she recalled.

Anna's mother, Stanislava, has lived in Newtownards for a number of years and is married to a man from Northern Ireland.

Stanislava said she was relieved when her daughter left Ukraine

Stanislava said she was "relieved" when her daughter reached Poland and again when she made it to the UK.

It meant an end to checking her phone to see if her daughter was online, she recounted.

'Huge tension'

Anna said Kyiv had not experienced a "big amount of rockets and bombs" and was "as safe as it can be".

However, she said there had been a "feeling in the air" developing and a "huge tension" in the city.

• Civilians try to flee cities amid Russian shelling

Reports on Saturday suggest Russian forces are about 15 miles outside of Kyiv.

"I feel even a bit guilty and sad because many of my friends (are) still there," said Anna.

"I don't know if I'm going to see them and my family and my father."

Stanislava said: "It was difficult for me to make her leave Kyiv because she felt there safe and protected, but when I saw what happened to my mother's city, Kharkiv, I wasn't sure that another city would be as much protected."

Anna said it was her "dream" that she could return to Ukraine and continue with her studies.

"Nobody knows when it will end," she said.

"My dream is to see a peaceful sky in Ukraine and to see the spring again in Kyiv and Kharkiv and just be back home."