Jason Marrable, from the Gold Coast, said his connecting flight from Singapore to Warsaw in Poland saw him surrounded by men in military gear, many of them ex-Canadian servicemen and all heading to Ukraine to help fight Russians.

Unlike his traveling companions, Mr. Marrable was not going to fight, he was on a rescue mission. He flew from Brisbane last Saturday to escort his Ukrainian sister-in-law Iryna and nine-month-old baby Maksym to safety in Australia.

Their trip out of Ukraine had been devastating. Iryna had left with her husband Vadym and their young son, with all their belongings in a plastic bag. In the end, only two of them arrived in Poland.

Iryna, Vadym and Maksym were in the Ukrainian capital of kyiv when the bombs started falling. Initially, they didn’t have enough money to get out, so the family spent three days hiding in an underground bunker. They were finally able to escape by taking a train to Lviv, the city closest to the Polish border.

The family had almost arrived when their train stopped and the Ukrainian army rode up, kidnapping all the men between the ages of 18 and 65 to fight on the front line. Vadym was one of these men.

Iryna and her baby were left to fend for themselves as they made their way through the war-torn city. After finally reaching Lviv, mother and child faced another 30-hour journey across the border and into Poland.

Without a pram, stroller or nappies, Iryna had to hold Maksym the entire time. There was also no food or formula.

In -5 degree temperatures, Iryna and some of the other mothers had no choice but to go up to the farms, where the animals were all indoors due to the freezing weather, to beg for milk and chew pieces of food to give to their babies.

It was after this horrible journey that mother and child finally arrived in Warsaw. Polish mothers had left prams and children‘s clothes at the station to help the refugees. Thanks to this kindness, Iryna was able to obtain a pram and spare clothes for her son.

Mr Marrable recounted the moment he finally saw his sister-in-law and nephew.

“It was quite an emotional experience. She has very limited English and all she could say over and over through tears was, ‘We’re safe, we’re safe, we’re safe.’

With the first part of their journey complete, the next step is to bring them to Australia. This is no small feat in itself. To come to Australia, Ukrainian refugees need visas, documents and money to apply. Plane tickets must also be purchased.

Since many Ukrainians left their homes with nothing, the financial costs are extremely difficult to overcome and it is difficult to provide documents.

On top of that they must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to be allowed to enter Australia. This has become a problem as many Ukrainians are still unvaccinated.

Just before the February 24 invasion, only 34% of the country’s population had been vaccinated. Mr. Marrable and Iryna spent their first day in Warsaw trying to find him a vaccine.

On Wednesday, they travel to Germany to wait for visas. Once in Australia, the nature of the visa means that Iryna will not be able to work or access Medicare.

As a result, Mr. Marrable and his family will need to support her continuously for the duration of her 12-month visa. To help defray the costs, he and his wife Nataliya, who is Iryna’s sister in Australia, set up a GoFundMe page.

They hope to use the money so that Iryna and Maksym don’t have to start from scratch and can afford proper psychological and medical help after seeing the horrors of war as well as English lessons and supplies for babies.

“What does the future look like?” asked M. Marrable. “I don’t know. The building they lived in has now been bombed.

“What do they have to go back to?” Her husband is in dire straits, there’s just no sweetening. He will either fight and live or fight and die. In the meantime, they need medical care, child care, normality for both of them.

Jason and Nataliya Marrable aren’t the only Australians fighting to get their loved ones to safety. Sydney-based photographer Vladimir Kravchenko is eager to get his family out of Ukraine and has raised funds to help his cousin Anna get safely to Australia.

Anna, a computer scientist, is no stranger to war, having lived in Crimea when the Russians annexed the province in 2014. She fled to Lviv where she has lived for nearly eight years. Now her one-bedroom apartment is packed with people, as she shelters those fleeing the fighting in the east.

“It’s very stressful [for Anna]. There have been sirens and air raid procedures several times a day, but lately there have been a lot more as Russia seems to have started trying to bomb everything,” Kravchenko said.

As Anna tries to leave Ukraine, she still has the perilous journey across the Polish border and worries about what will happen to those left behind in her apartment.

Mr Kravchenko hopes the money he raises will help him cross the border safely and catch a plane to Australia.

Most of the money, however, will go towards supporting her once she arrives in the country, as she will not be able to work.

Although she would stay with Mr Kravchenko’s parents on the central coast, the family fears they will not be able to support her without help.

“It would be a good thing if the government could change the conditions of these visas for refugees to allow them to work while they are here,” he said. “So they wouldn’t depend on other people’s charity and would contribute to the economy.”

Iain Jones, from the South Coast of New South Wales, knows firsthand the financial stress of supporting loved ones in Ukraine.

So far, he has spent more than $3,500 helping his girlfriend Svitlana and daughter Marina flee their home in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa. Marina is five months pregnant and her fiancé is fighting on the front lines. She doesn’t know if she will ever see him again.

Mr Jones helped the two get a car to take them across the border to Moldova and put them in a temporary apartment. Although he works full time, he struggles to afford the cost of protecting his loved ones. Visas and the cost of a migration agent alone were $956.

In addition, plane tickets must be paid for. All of Marina’s medical bills will also come out of her own pocket as she will not have access to Medicare.

As a result, he, like the Marrable family and Mr. Kravcheko, set up a GoFundMe page to help defray some of the costs.

“It’s a fight, I’m just a normal Aussie who cares about two people and their situation. I can’t help everyone, but I can help these two,” he said.

“I’m worried because there are a lot of people getting visas who actually have no means of support in Australia.”