Anzhelika Samuilova, chief executive of immigration and resettlement organisation, Time to Move Ireland, and her former classmate, Olga Shevchenko, both studied law at University College Cork.

Over the past few days, the women, both Irish citizens, have barely slept.

Olga’s husband stayed in her war-torn country to fight while Anzhelika also has many friends in the country who are now ringing the air raid sirens.

“I am devastated by the whole situation,” Ms Samuilova said. “It’s surreal. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

“It’s not my war, I’ve lived in Ireland for 13 or 14 years.”

I haven’t even been to Russia for seven years. We all feel the devastation, even those who support Putin.

Although she loves her country, she does not “identify as a supporter of Putin and I do not support the war”.

Over the past few days, lawyers have offered their services to Ukrainians in Ireland to extend their permits or apply for new ones on a voluntary basis.

“I run my own immigration company and we help people from different countries, not just Russia, to migrate around the world,” Ms Samuilova said.

“We have a student at Griffith College in Limerick and his parents were due to come from Ukraine for his birthday, they are now at the shelter and their town is bombed.

“I spoke to him yesterday and he said it was the first time in 10 years he had cried, he felt helpless. He wanted to know if they could come here now.

She was encouraged by the generosity of the Irish after hearing a couple tip €100 at a restaurant to the chef, as they knew he was Ukrainian, while others offered rooms in their homes to those fleeing the war.

While Olga makes phone call after phone call to help her compatriots in distress, her husband is in Ukraine to defend his country against the Russian invasion.

“Olga’s husband is in Lvov right now, fighting for his country,” Ms Samuilova said.

“Her schoolmate, a Ukrainian national, was trying to cross the border today into Poland with her 20-year-old daughter, who is of Irish nationality, and was denied departure by Ukraine.”

He is in his 40s and lived in Ireland. He is an adult and has been called to arms.

“For 48 hours we have been looking for people who can take them by car to Poland, Romania and Moldova, we are giving all possible support to these people.”

With planes grounded, people have to drive out of the country, but many gas stations are out of fuel.

She welcomed Justice Minister Helen McEntee announcing the immediate lifting of visa requirements between Ukraine and Ireland, but added: “There are still questions about what they are supposed to do after 90 days, are they considered eligible for subsidiary protection because their country is at war despite the five-day rule.

Following the invasion, she was increasingly troubled by reports of racist incidents against Russian speakers living in Ireland.

“My friend, a Russian national, went to the embassy yesterday to renew her passport and there was red paint on the emblem of the embassy in Dublin.

“While she was walking there with her daughter, they were shouting, ‘Murderers, Russians are murderers’.

“She didn’t kill anyone. She lives in Ireland. On the way back she was in shock, she took a bus and the bus driver heard her accent, asked her where she was from and she said she was from Russia.

“He said, ‘Why are you killing Ukrainians? “”

In another incident, she said an eight-year-old Estonian girl who spoke Russian but lived in Cork was called a “fucking Russian” and told to “stop killing Ukrainians”. .

It made her fear the hate speech was being directed at her own children after seeing reports on social media from her Russian friends in countries like New Zealand and the UK that children are being victimized. intimidation for their nationality.

The lawyer said Russians in other countries also feared deportation due to Putin’s actions, especially in light of Belgium’s recent days in favor of the removal by the EU issuing visas to all Russians, even students, workers and tourists.

“We have 30 Russian students currently studying here in Ireland. How can you send these people from Ireland to Russia because some Kremlin guy decided to invade Ukraine? How does this make sense and who does it help? »

She said Putin would be happy if all the highly educated people who fled his regime were sent back to the country.

She also said that the Russian people are receiving a very different version of events about the conflict from the country’s pro-Russian state media, which presents the conflict as an operation to save the people of the Donbass region, in eastern Ukraine, torture.

If you look at Russian news, it’s never called war, it’s called a military operation.

“They say people in Donetsk and Lugansk are struggling, they are being bombed, they are being tortured and these people came to Russia, came to Putin and said ‘help us’.”

She doesn’t think support for Putin will change among his supporters until the country has a free media, but has seen many neutrals turn against the Russian leader on social media since the invasion.

• If Ukrainians wish to contact Anzhelika Samuilova and Olga Shevchenko for assistance, they can contact [email protected]