Ukrainians do not want to flee. They do not want to pack their lives into a suitcase. They do not want to crowd aboard packed trains that carry them away from their homes, or trudge for days with their children. They do not want to leave behind husbands and sons and parents. They do not want to begin again in a foreign country where they have nothing, far from those they love.
They go because they are under attack. They go because missiles are falling. They go because their sisters call to say that Russian soldiers have entered their towns. They go because they see what Vladimir Putin’s war machine is already doing in Ukraine, and because they know what it has done before. They go because if they do not go now, tomorrow may be too late. They go because they must.
Despite the bravery and resolve of Ukrainians, the reality of what is happening and the enormity of the approaching horror is coming home. “They all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all,” the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Wednesday.
Russia claimed to have taken the city of Kherson, though local authorities disputed that, and airborne troops have landed near the centre of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. The mayor of Mariupol said the wounded could not be evacuated because of heavy shelling. Konotop’s mayor told residents that the invaders had given them an ultimatum: “If we start resisting, they’ll wipe out the town using artillery.” (The crowd appears to have backed resistance nonetheless.) This is a war so calamitous that 141 countries voted to denounce it at the UN general assembly – where the only nations siding with Russia were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria.
In less than one week following the invasion, at least 660,000 people fled Ukraine. Many more are trying to do so. The UN refugee agency warns that 4 million could leave the country. Poland is not even requiring passports from arrivals. The EU plans to grant temporary protection, including a residence permit and access to employment and social welfare, for up to three years. Countries long hostile to refugees have made an exception for their neighbours. (“It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,” was the bald explanation from Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer.)
The British response, in contrast, has been callous and grudging. Under growing pressure, the government now plans to allow a further 100,000 relatives of Ukrainian nationals to enter, and to create a new visa sponsorship route allowing businesses to bring Ukrainians here. The prime minister had the gall to describe the arrangements as “already … very generous indeed”.
That he could even claim it to be so reflects the inhumanity of his government’s broader policies. The Home Office boast of a “bespoke” sponsor route means, as immigration barrister Colin Yeo points out, a rejection of the existing international framework for the protection of refugees. When politically expedient, the government creates exemptions for those it deems worthy while seeking new ways to shut others out. Even as it claims benevolence towards Ukrainians, it tries to criminalise seeking asylum through an irregular route via its nationality and borders bill, while closing down safe alternatives. Only rejection by the Lords this week has stood in its way. The UK should extend its hand not because those in need are Ukrainian, but because of the scale of the tragedy that is befalling them.
