Butenko was aboard a German vessel when the Russian invasion started. “I had to work by phone and Internet to help my wife and daughter, who was just four months old, to find their way to safety,” he says.

That journey involved his family escaping to neighbouring Moldova, traveling next to Bulgaria, followed by Cyprus, then Italy to complete the necessary identity biometrics for Canada, and his wife and daughter returning again to Cyprus to stay with her sister while he made his way here to begin his new job and find a place for them to live.

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