A farmer from Fife who lives in Ukraine with his family has told how he is preparing Molotov cocktails to fight invading Russian forces.
Peter Thomson, from St Andrews, has lived in southern Ukraine since March 1993 where he runs a company which farms around 50,000 acres of land.
He said his world has “turned 180 degrees” in the past four days after the Russian attack, but he is not planning to return to Scotland.
Instead, he is preparing to take up arms to defend his new home and protect his family and business.
Ms Thomson and his family have left their home in Odesa and are now living south of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, as a result of the war.
READ MORE: Scots eager to help Ukrainians with donations
Speaking on the Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics podcast, the farmer said he had spent time with his daughter making deadly petrol bombs.
“We are all preparing to fight, one way or another.
“My daughter and I spent an hour or two this morning making Molotov cocktails from the petrol that’s usually used for the lawnmower, and took them down to the local territorial defence people,” he said.
Molotov cocktails
Mr Thomson and his daughter turned 20 wine bottles into petrol bombs, passing them to defence groups who have set up a roadblock on the way into the village where they are living.
“We took down our contribution in Molotov cocktails which are very effective against the armoured vehicles.
“In happier times I make quite a lot of cider at home, so we use those bottles which are quite a good vessel for keeping Molotov cocktails,” he said.
Four of Mr Thomson’s farms are now in territory newly occupied by the Russians, he told the podcast, with around 400 of his employees affected.
Asked what he would do if he came across Russian tanks, he said he would be willing to fight.
“I don’t have any firearms, I’ve started carrying a fairly big hunting knife with me. I don’t know what use that is against a tank, but it’s there anyway,” he added.
READ MORE: Ukrainian ambassador given standing ovation as Blackford brands Putin 'war criminal'
He is still currently working to keep his farms, saying: “I need to be available pretty much 24 hours a day as long as there’s something there to work for.
“There may come a time when that all goes and we need to go and fight and we will do it.”
Mr Thomson has not joind other refugees fleeing the country
The Fife farmer, who still has a British passport, would be entitled to return to Scotland but said he would struggle to leave behind his friends and employees who couldn’t come with him.
“I don’t know if I could live with myself for doing that.
“I’d rather be somewhere else, but here we are. It’s not pleasant – it's quite, quite unsettling,” he added.
He urged anyone willing to help to support the national bank of Ukraine with donations, and said that they should sign a petition calling on NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here