Volunteers escort hundreds of Ukrainian refugees to safety in the UK

British community groups and volunteers have successfully united hundreds of Ukrainian refugees with host families in the UK, by organising coaches to safely transport them from eastern Europe.

Harriet Asher, 39, from Hampshire, has so far helped to resettle up to 500 refugees by organising coaches from Ukraine to Poland, from where they were brought to the UK by volunteers from Coaches 2 Ukraine. She has also helped some travel by plane.

Last week, she accompanied 128 Ukrainians from Lviv to the Polish border, from where the group Coaches 2 Ukraine brought them to Hartley, Kent, to meet their British host families.

Coaches 2 Ukraine was started by UK-based accountant Malcolm Palmer and mostly funded by the UK business community.

The group had initially hoped to run a trip earlier in April with one coach - but that had to be postponed after they were unable to find enough refugees with valid visas allowing them to travel to Britain.

Ms Asher, who had been working on the ground in Ukraine/Poland, teamed up with Coaches 2 Ukraine to fund a second coach with £6,687 she had raised on her GoFundMe page.

Together the two coaches last week brought 128 Ukrainian women and children to Britain to be united with host families in Britain who offered to take them into their homes.

The mother-of-three said seeing the reunion on Friday after five weeks of planning and applying for visas was "incredible" and "like seeing a long-lost family reunite".

"Everyone is so relieved and everyone has gone to a home where they will have a better life," she told The Telegraph.

"When we arrived, some hosts had sunflowers for the refugees. A lot of people have been waiting a very long time for visas.

"They've been video calling the families regularly. And they're almost family before they have even met."

Ms Asher first visited Ukraine when the war broke out and was stunned at the lack of transport links to help people cross the border.

She posted on social media to see if there was any interest in her organising links between Ukraine and the UK. She was shocked at the "absolutely ballistic" response she received.

"There are so many people in England who want to help," she said. "I think Ukrainians are very, very blown away by how many British people do want to help them".

Ms Asher has raised around £25,000 on her GoFundMe Page towards the cost of helping to bring Ukrainian refugees to Britain since the start of the war.

She has visited Ukraine twice since the war broke out and said that witnessing the displacement of families was "unbearable".

She said: "We picked up a 20-year-old in Lviv, whose parents are both medics and in Mariupol and unlikely to get out.

"I will never be able to forget the faces of the women and their children we brought out of Ukraine as they said their goodbyes to their husbands and fathers. It was unbearable.".

She added that the short success of her initiative shows that more could be done. "There are lots of people still displaced in Europe, having left Ukraine,” she said. “Potentially, there is a huge opportunity to get them out of refugee camps."

Since setting up Coaches 2 Ukraine, Mr Palmer’s goal has been to transport £15 million of essential supplies to the Polish border refugee camps, create a network of groups who will bring 28,000 people to the UK and help relevant charities and government schemes to match UK sponsors and Ukrainian refugees.

Mr Palmer said: “It should not require private groups such as ours to have to organise transport. It just needs a co-ordinated plan, perhaps in conjunction with one of the main charities such as the British Red Cross with resources dedicated to weak spots in the journey.”

He added: “From May 26 1940 to June 4 1940, 338,228 British and French soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk whilst coming under fire from the German air force.

“This was all achieved without the aid of mobile phones, Google, Facebook, Eurotunnel or Ryanair. It is a national embarrassment that after 41 days since the launch of Homes 4 Ukraine only 27,000 refugees have made it to the UK so far, and that there are 59,000 with visas and hosts ready to welcome them yet to reach our shores.”