‘We’re just so worried’: Hull man’s fears for wife in Ukraine
‘TRAUMATISED’: John Holmes
EXCLUSIVE
By Kevin Shoesmith
In his Hull city centre flat, John Holmes watches the latest breaking news from Ukraine, knowing his wife of 26 years is somewhere among the bombs and bullets.
Ukraine, the country that has been his home for nearly 30 years - the once-safe, friendly sanctuary where he and his wife raised a family - is fighting for its very survival following the Russian invasion.
John, 69, says he pleaded with his Ukrainian wife to join him on a UK-bound flight on February 13 as the threat of invasion loomed. She declined; the pull of her homeland simply too strong and the threat of an incursion by their once-friendly neighbours seen as too unlikely to warrant fleeing.
Even as tensions rose and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s army massed on the border, with repeated warnings from Western leaders that an invasion was imminent, his wife, who John has asked The Hull Story not to name for fear of putting her at even further risk, refused to take heed.
Today, shipping company owner John, who has spent nearly half his life in the former Soviet state, is praying his wife will survive the unfolding tragedy.
“She refused to come with me,” he says, anxiety etched into his voice. “I had to come back to tie up some loose ends in the UK because I also run a company here.
“She said to me, ‘Russia will not invade Ukraine. They are our brothers’. She felt that the Western media, when it was talking about Russian invasions, were living in fantasyland.”
It seems that it is this sense of betrayal at the hands of a country that shares so much with Ukraine, that is hardest of all for Ukrainians to stomach.
“I don’t speak Ukrainian, so I get all my news from the Western media,” says John. “My wife would say that the Western media were living in fantasyland. I thought it looked serious, but I must admit I really didn’t think Russia would invade.
“I think it actually came as a massive shock to most Ukrainians. When they [the Russians] did go in last Thursday, I think everyone was just in shock and traumatised. It’s just crazy.”
John and his wife have a son, Christian, 21, who enjoys British and Ukrainian dual nationality. He left the country of his birth to study at the University of Plymouth and, having now graduated, has followed in his father’s footsteps and works for a shipping container company in Croydon, south London.
PRAYING HIS WIFE WILL SURVIVE: John Holmes is angry about what is happening in Ukraine
“Don’t even go there,” John replies when asked how his son feels about his mother’s predicament in the Ukraine. “We’re all just so worried. Traumatised.”
John has asked The Hull Story to only state that the couple live in a city in the south of Ukraine, scene of much of the bitter clashes between Ukrainian defence forces and the invaders. The couple are in contact with each other and are now deciding what her next move will be.
John, an alumni of Hull’s Boulevard Nautical School, admits he has been surprised by the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
“Nearly 30 years I have lived there and it turns out I am still learning about the Slav people,” he says. “There are young kids, some barely old enough to legally drive cars, picking up weapons and arming themselves with Molotov cocktails ready to defend the country.”
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor who made the unorthodox switch to politics, has reportedly declined an offer of evacuation by US officials, electing to stay with his people instead even though he fears being at the top of the President Putin’s hit list.
“This guy is an actor and is obviously using his skills to rally the people,” says John. “He is leading from the front. He is doing an incredible job. I take my hat off to him.”
John says is proud of the “political entity” that is now in danger amid fears Mr Putin is planning to install a pro-Moscow puppet regime in the capital Kyiv.
“I’m very angry about what has happened and is happening in the country,” says John, who has no idea when, or if, he will be able to return to the Ukraine.
John’s father, Frank Holmes, who spent his twilight years at Rowans Care Home in Kirk Ella, died in 2014 just weeks after receiving his long-overdue Arctic Star medal - awarded to Second World War sailors involved in the Arctic convoys.
These journeys - described by British wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Church as “the worst in the world” - kept Russia supplied with armaments and its people fed.
British sailors, both Royal Navy and Merchant Navy, faced overwhelming odds and the ever-resent threat from Hitler’s feared U-boats.
“Like me, I think my father would be very angry at what’s happening now,” says John.