A Hartford man has spoken candidly about his fears for his family in Ukraine.

Roman Pasika, 63, is Ukrainian on his father's side of the family and has two cousins who are currently still in Ukraine near the Polish border.

The cousins each have a daughter, who have had children of their own, and he says they are concerned, living in trepidation and unsure what the next move from Russia will be.

Speaking to The Hunts Post, Roman said: “When it first kicked off, I think myself and everyone who I was speaking to were all saying the same thing, nobody was getting any sleep, and nobody knew what was going on.

"Contact with relatives was difficult. I thought I lost contact with a lot of them, but, thankfully, I found an old Christmas card with an active phone number on it because a lot of the numbers I had were irrelevant and just not working."

Roman has since managed to contact them through Facebook messenger, and although it is still difficult to gain any regular communication, he is told they haven't yet left Ukraine.

"Unfortunately, the children were not well enough to travel at the time, and they didn’t want to put them through anything that could be a little bit stressful for them.

"I’m looking forward to giving them a shout later and finding out if that situation has changed as we did offer them the use of our homes over there. They have got good contacts over there, so we’re pretty confident that things are okay for the moment."

Roman owns a house in Poland with his wife, who is also Ukrainian.

Fortunately, Roman's family live in a small rural community near Sokal and not a major city, of which Roman said there is reasonable safety for now.

In contrast, Roman has had friends forced to flee Kyiv to places such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

“It’s very difficult. I’m one of these people who, during the working day, I have the TV on normally, and I’ve got something playing away meaninglessly in the background.

"Of course, of late, it's just been news channels, and when one TV station finishes, I move over to the other to just try and get an idea of what’s actually going on there."

Roman is also chairman of the Waltham Cross Branch for the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, who he said, of course, have been very busy.

He has helped the club set up collections for Ukraine, performing humanitarian work and doing his utmost to help support those in Ukraine.