Ukrainian refugee who tempted ex-Wonga boss Haakon Overli to leave wife and children was a model

This is the gorgeous Ukrainian amateur model who seduced former Wonga boss Haakon Overli to leave his wife and kids after taking her in as a refugee.

These exclusive photos of Mariia Polonchuk, 39, show a very different side to the mother of three who once co-authored a Ukrainian cookbook and until now only featured in photos at a village festival.

Earlier this month, MailOnline revealed that the stunning Mariia began dating 52-year-old multimillionaire Overli after she fled the war in Ukraine with her sons and moved into the £3 million Surrey mansion in Overlis.

Shortly after arriving in the UK, Mariia was featured in a photo tweeted by local MP and former Health Minister Jeremy Hunt, who wrote: ‘It was great to meet a Ukrainian hosted by a local family. … nothing more English than the village festival to welcome them.’

But Mariia’s former partner Andrey Sheldunov, father of her three sons, is a Kiev photographer who specializes in portraits and nudes, and Mariia has modeled sensational swimwear shoots for him in the past.

Her seductive social media portfolio shows she’s a natural for the camera, whether she’s sleek and sexy frolicking in the surf, jumping out of the water or draped on the beach.

And in portraits, her piercing blue eyes captivate the viewer, in serious or smiling poses.

While it is not clear whether she and Andrey married, they were apparently long-term partners, with all of her sons, Hrihhorii [Ukrainian for Grigory]18, teenage Maxim and 12-year-old Korney take his last name.

Andrey also co-authored a Ukrainian cookbook with Mariia, and the couple was co-directors of a Kiev company called Kontakt Media from 2006 to June this year.

They seemed to be living a comfortable life before the war, taking holidays abroad and Korney, a violin prodigy, was sent to a specialist music boarding school at the age of six.

His skills have seen him perform and win awards all over Europe and two years ago he even played for world leaders in Davos at the World Economic Forum.

He won a major music award in Kiev in February – just a few weeks before Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border.

Mariia, Andrey and their family originally lived in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkhiv, but recently moved to Kiev.

Mr Overli, the former boss of the disgraced company Wonga, is valued at £5million and is said to have lobbied the government to bring refugees from Ukraine to the UK since the invasion.

He reportedly began lobbying former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Home Secretary Priti Patel for weeks in March to speed up the process of bringing his current girlfriend to Britain.

Mrs Polonchuk’s arrival in the UK earlier this year with her boys may have spared her eldest son, now 18, from being called to join the brutal war against the Russian invaders, which has claimed thousands of lives.

The family was able to join 52-year-old Norwegian-born Mr Overli, his wife and children at their sprawling estate in Surrey.

But just a few months after the Ukrainian family was granted a visa, Ms Polonchuk and Mr Overli left the conjugal home in Surrey, with her children, leaving behind his wife Imogen, 46, and his school-aged children.

Mrs. Overli herself shares a love for classical music and is president of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, whose members are specialized in playing period instruments.

Other photos and social media posts from Ukraine discovered by MailOnline provide a poignant glimpse into the Sheldunov/Polonchuk family’s happy existence there before Putin’s cynical war turned their lives upside down.

Around 2007 and 2010, Andrey took beautiful photographic portraits of his partner Mariia, affectionately calling her Manya or Masha in the caption.

And in 2015, the couple collaborated on a book about Ukrainian culture, history and cooking.

Translated into German as Das große Buch der Ukrainischen Küche [The big book of Ukrainian cuisine]it received dozens of rave five-star reviews from readers on Amazon.

One said of the 2015 hardcover edition: ‘An absolutely authentic, really good cookbook with a very good selection of recipes. The best Ukrainian cookbook I know.’

Mariia and Andrey’s eldest son, Hrihorii, appears to have inherited his father’s gift behind the lens and now describes himself on social media as a London-based photographer, who seems to specialize in lifestyle and portraiture.

Mariia’s other two sons are Maxim and Korney Sheldunov. Korney has already played the violin in international concerts and is expected to perform in Oxford soon.

Remarkably mature and articulate social media updates from Korney from April 2022 tell his followers that he has moved to London.

Born in Kharkhiv in 2010, Korney started playing the piano at the age of four, attended a specialist music school in the city at the age of six, before switching to violin.

A touching 2017 home video posted to social media shows father Andrey in pajamas on electric guitar, with Hrihhorii on acoustic guitar, taking off American singer’s 2016 hit Lost on You LP (Laura Pergolizzi), with Korney joining in. with a violin solo.