Government urged to reopen family reunion route for Ukrainian refugees as children kept from parents

The government has been urged to reconsider changes to its Ukraine refugee schemes that are keeping families apart – as more cases emerge of parents unable to bring their children to the UK.

When the decision to close the Ukraine Family Scheme was implemented days before the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, officials dismissed widespread warnings the move would keep families apart as “cynical scaremongering”.

But these warnings have now come to pass, with the case of parents who arrived under the Homes for Ukraine scheme in April 2022 now left unable to bring their two-year-old daughter from Kyiv, having finally secured suitable accommodation and set