Australian friends Roger Scott and Daniel Russell use a minivan to save desperate Ukrainian families

Melburnian Roger Scott and Daniel Russell are using their minivan to drive into Ukraine and save desperate families fleeing the country. See the incredible footage.

Two Australians living in Poland are on a daring mission to drive civilians out of Ukraine in their minivan as the country continues to be bombarded by Russian military.

Roger Scott, who has lived in Poland for the past four years, and his friend, Daniel Russell, have been doing regular runs to the border and into Ukraine as they drive families to safety.

They have so far made several trips and transported more than two dozen people across the Polish border, the latest trip on Thursday.

Daniel Russell and Roger Scott.

When Mr Scott spoke to News Corp on Friday morning, he was driving back to Poland after delivering supplies and transporting refugees wanting to to make their way to Warsaw.

He said he and Mr Russell while one of the their main focuses was to help displaced civilians fleeing the bombings, the other was to ensure Ukrainian men left behind were equipped to defend themselves.

“So essentially they’re stuck there and have to defend themselves against Russia,” Mr Scott said.

“And they are very ill-equipped to do so.”

Mr Scott, originally from Melbourne, has lived in Poland since 2018 and before that had lived in Moscow for 12 years.

He said refugees were waiting up to six hours on a good day and 24 hours on a bad day to find transport, with Europe in the middle of an icy winter.

“The situation with refugees and also on the ground inside Ukraine seems to change daily. The concern is that some of the help we intend to provide may longer be needed or relevant from one day to the next,” he said.

“Our plans are constantly in flux and adapting. Also, in Lviv, the strictness of the martial law and presence of armed Civil Defense personnel seems to be increasing.”

The UNHCR estimates three millions refugees have fled the war-torn nation.

Roger Scott and Daniel Russell pictured with a Ukrainian family they helped save. Supplied,

Mr Scott said their efforts were being assisted by an Australian crowd-funding campaign and the biggest challenge had been the Polish logistics and lack of funds raised.

“The plan for the coming days is to keep up the work we’re doing with refugees. Also we have a few organisations willing to partner with us on various humanitarian topics,” he said.

“So we’ll be looking into new ways to help also. Plus, we will continue to work on sourcing supplies for our civil defence guys and send that stuff to Ukraine.

“We’ll also consider another trip to Ukraine in the coming week.”