Ukrainian community in the West Midlands tell of fears for families and homeland

"People living in a free country like Britain won't have lived with the surveillance that people lived under in the old USSR," he says.

All that 49-year-old care home maintenance manager Mr Kowalczuk can do is watch and wait for news from Ukraine, as Russia has sent its troops into Crimea.

He remembers what it was like for his family and friends trying to communicate with Ukraine in the days of the old Soviet Union.

"We couldn't even send presents or letters without them being opened en route," he says. "That's what people are afraid of now. Vladimir Putin is from the old Soviet era. And he wants his empire back."

Mr Kowalczuk, of Broad Lane in Bradmore, Wolverhampton, is better known for the exquisite garden he has created with partner Bob Parker that they occasionally open to the public than he is for his views on Ukraine.

But he has more reason than most to be keeping a watchful eye on the news.

His father Gregor, aged 87, was born in Kolomiya and lived through Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's forced famine in Ukraine, that killed up to 7.5 million people in 1932 and 1933.

Gregor, who now lives in Padstow, Cornwall, with daughter Patricia Ellis, came to the UK after the Second World War to a displaced people's camp near Wolverhampton. He got a job near Manchester, where he met his wife Brenda, and then returned to Wolverhampton where he raised a family, including Greg, Patricia and their older sister Tykiana.

The younger Mr Kowalczuk wants a boycott of Russian brands to force President Putin to re-think military action.

Many Ukrainians in the West Midlands are demanding that Russia is hit with the toughest possible economic sanctions for sending in its troops.

As Moscow has effectively 'taken control' of Crimea, the mood 2,071 miles away in the Black Country is one of deep concern that Russia's president Vladimir Putin is flexing old Soviet muscle.

Now, all that many ex-pat Ukrainians and their families can do is watch and wait. Mr Kowalczuk says: "It's terrible. When you see it somewhere else like Libya or Syria you don't understand it. It's only when it's a country you're connected to by family that it hits home.

"No-one wants to hurt the Russian people. But their Government is doing something very wrong and has to be told that it is not acceptable to treat another country this way."

The Ukrainian Club in Wolverhampton has come up with its own small version of a sanction. It has taken Russian Standard vodka off sale.

Instead, when it opens tonight for a darts tournament it will be selling Wyborowa, a Polish Vodka. Andrew Duda, aged 51, the chairman of the Wolverhampton branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, says: "The Russian vodka is going in the cellar for the time being.

"And we believe there should be full sanctions imposed on Russia.

"It is a very tense time and we believe that what Russia's government has been saying are lies."

The word 'fascism' has been used by Russian politicians during debates ahead of their decision to send in the troops.

"The suggestion that what has happened in Ukraine is down to fascism is laughable," says Mr Duda. At least it is if the organisation he chairs is anything to go by. Around 25 per cent of the membership of the Ukrainian Club in Merridale Street West is Asian, he says, and it is open to anyone. Mr Duda's late father Ivan was from Bereska in western Ukraine, now part of Poland. His mother was born in Lviv. "Our concerns are not directed at the Russian people," Mr Duda says. "It's their government."

There are roughly100 Ukrainians living in Wolverhampton. In January, a group stood in Queen Square and sang protest songs over the changes in Ukraine to impose criminal sanctions on those who were demanding that President Putin let Ukraine handle its own affairs.

Mr Duda says: "We have been watching Ukrainian TV channels and people are very concerned about their relatives. We're trying to stay in touch with families. We love Ukraine and we are devastated."

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