Terry’s mates had a whip-round to help fund his flights to Warsaw.

With refugees flooding into the Polish capital, prices are going up and Terry is running out of money.

He’s now reunited with his Ukrainian wife Yana and 17-month-old son Lenny, but they can’t travel to Essex until they get the right documents from the Home Office.

“If I don’t get it by Friday, then I’m strapped for cash for hotels,” says Terry Jolley, a driver’s mate from Harlow.

He says Yana and Lenny only have what they are wearing and a spare set of clothes.

“I have got people in the UK I can call, but I’m not that type of person,” he adds.

Ukraine war latest – Former PM David Cameron delivering aid to Ukraine border

Anastasiia and Liubov Malook are also struggling with accommodation. When we meet them, they’ve just checked out of a hotel which has doubled its price overnight and are waiting to switch to another one.

Dragging along their suitcases, they’re also killing time waiting for a visa.

Liubov says she’s tired. It’s actually the second time, in her short life, she’s run from the invading Russians.

As a child, she fled to western Ukraine with the sisters’ parents when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Now, 28-year-old Anastasiia, who has worked in IT in London for a year-and-a-half, has come to Warsaw to look after her younger sister.

They’re trying to get a visa for Liubov to go to the UK under the family scheme, although their parents have stayed in Ukraine.

Latest developments:

• Putin celebrates ‘special military operation’ in front of packed World Cup stadium
• Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko warns of a ‘war on civilians’ after 60 killed in the capital
• Battleships are lurking off the coast of port city Odesa and families are preparing for attack
• Boris Johnson told Sky News Putin is modelling himself on brutal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin
• China’s Xi told of ‘consequences’ if he backs Russia in call with Biden

But Anastasiia is watchful of her younger sister, who only turned 18 a couple of days after the war started. Wary because of warnings on social media and reports of refugees going missing.

She says: “That’s why I’m staying here with her right now because there’s no way I’m leaving my 18-year-old sister in Warsaw for hell-knows how long.”

The city is chaotic – and it’s not surprising given the incessant arrival of refugees coming over the border from Ukraine.

But three weeks after the Russian invasion and NGOs are calling for improved steps to register the women and children in a bid to keep them safe.

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Deb Barry, Save the Children’s humanitarian response team leader in Poland, told Sky News this is the most concerning crisis for children the world has ever known.

She says: “Who do you trust? Who’s actually offering you the right service? Who’s actually offering you the right support? It is such a worry.

“It’s great that people have opened up their homes around the world – but how do we know that those are really in good intentions? And it’s really sad for us to have to say, but we don’t know the intentions of everybody who’s going to be trying to help these families at this time.

“And that is a real concern. So how do we safeguard for these children?”

The UNHCR has raised concern about possible exploitation of refugees and the potential for human trafficking, so women are being told to take the car details of people who give them lifts and register the information.

“We have heard stories of children that are going missing,” said Ms Barry. “There has to be regulation. But when people are so desperate to make some of these decisions, how do we protect them?”

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