A BUSINESSMAN who travelled to Ukraine to deliver donations says the situation was "worse than what you see on the news".

Adi Bartosiewicz, the managing director of Adi Paint Spraying, set up a collection point in Winterslow for donations to support refugees.

Two vans, including a larger Luton van, were filled with around 4.5 tonnes of donations.

Salisbury Journal:

Adi and his friend Marius Zurauskas, of Margo Interiors Ltd, set off on their journey on Monday March 7 and arrived at the Polish border on the Wednesday morning. They had to contend with the weather with snow and cold temperatures.

They then travelled into Lviv in Ukraine, near the Polish border.

"It is worse than what you see on the news. There are many more people waiting to get over the border, people laying trying to get a few hours kip on the street like in laybys and lots of stranded cars on the way that are running out of diesel," said Adi.

"Also travelling from the border to Lviv there's a lot of military check points checking vans and passports and lots of soldiers on the roads."

A lot of the donations were given to the Red Cross.

"We managed to give a lot of sweets and drawing books to the children. We gave a lot of donations to the Red Cross in Lviv. They had a small camp set up next to the main train station so we gave a lot to them as well so they can hand it out," he added. "It is a very sad picture up there."

"It is very sad, you try to help but you just hand out the food to the first 20/30 people coming over the border and all of sudden you get another 50/60 people waiting in the queue," continued Adi.

"We took a lot of donations but realistically it's not much at all. What is there is probably gone in a couple of days or three days or probably even sooner."

Describing what it was like, Adi said: "We knew roughly what was coming but when we arrived it is much worse especially when you see people trying to get a couple of hours sleep somewhere with their child on their arm trying to keep them warm it is awful."

"We would like to do another trip but obviously it is getting quite dangerous now."

To all those who supported his appeal, including Malthouse Kitchens and Interiors in Salisbury who donated the use of a larger van and the Lord Nelson Arms in Winterslow who made a donation to help towards the fuel costs and his friend who gave up his time to make the drive, Adi said: "I want to thank you massively.

"The support was great. But I believe there is much more everyone of us can do. I hope everyone can do something or donate something somewhere to help."