'Daddy, I'm really scared, we can hear explosions'

When the Russian attack on Ukraine began early on Thursday morning, Alexei Achkasov received a text from his 10-year-old daughter, Alisa.

"Daddy, I'm really scared," she wrote. "I don't know what to do because we can hear explosions. What do I do?"

Alisa was at home in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, near the Russian border. Her father, a Ukrainian-British national, was in Carnoustie, Angus.

"Obviously when a 10-year-old is asking you such questions, well that's it, you can't sleep after that," he told BBC Scotland.

As first reported by The Ferret, he immediately started making calls to the British Embassy in Ukraine to secure her safe passage to the UK.

Officials told him that, as Alisa is his daughter, she is a British citizen but she would need a passport to travel to Scotland - a process which can take weeks.

They suggested a visitor's visa, but that would require the family travelling to the embassy in Lviv, something they are reluctant to do while the bombing continues.

Travelling to Poland - a journey of 700 miles while shelling is taking place - is an "unrealistic scenario", he added.

"We are hoping it calms down in the next few days," Mr Achkasov said. "If it does, then maybe it will be safer to travel. Even when they come out to do shopping, to buy food, there's always shelling nearby."

He said Alisa and her mum - who normally live in a top floor flat - were taking shelter with his parents, who live on the second floor of a building, which he believed was safer.

"Five minutes ago I was speaking to them," he said. "They were sitting right in middle of apartment looking absolutely terrified because they can hear bombing everywhere."

He said Russia's President Putin had only succeeded in uniting the Ukrainian people.

"There is total disbelief about what is happening at the moment," he said. "Nobody expected it from Putin. The only thing he achieved is he united the Ukrainian-speaking and the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.

"Basically we're all united in hate of him at the moment. There is not really much we can do. We don't know what's in his head, or what's his next step."