the times | Monday April 4 2022 11
News
Boris Johnson will urge the German
chancellor to go further on Russian
sanctions this week amid concerns that
Ukraine will be pushed by Nato allies
to “settle”.
Olaf Scholz is due to make his first
visit to London since being appointed
chancellor last year and will hold a
meeting with Johnson on Friday. The
prime minister is expected to tell him to
intensify diplomatic, economic and
military pressure on Russia.
A senior government source told The
Times last week there were concerns
that allies were “over eager” to secure a
peace deal, adding that a settlement
should be reached only when Ukraine
is in the strongest possible position.
Johnson yesterday condemned
Russia’s “despicable attacks” against
Ukrainian civilians in Irpin and Bucha,
adding that “we will not rest until jus-
tice is served”.
He said “no denial or disinformation
from the Kremlin” could conceal that
President Putin was “desperate” and his
invasion was “failing”. He added that
the UK was “stepping up” its sanctions
and military support.
A Ukrainian member of parliament
has said his country would find it “hard
to trust” a Russian commitment to
peace without outside guarantors.
Rustem Umerov, who is holding
negotiations with the heavily sanc-
tioned oligarch Roman Abramovich,
said Ukraine was ready to sign an
agreement on security guarantees with
the United Nations Security Council
and other countries but Russia was
stalling on a meeting between Putin
and President Zelensky.
Sources said Russia was keen to be
included as a guarantor in any peace
deal. Kyiv was pushing for countries
such as Poland, Turkey and Israel to
play a guarantor role. “We are not talk-
ing about collective security guaran-
tees,” Umerov said. “But security guar-
antees specifically for Ukraine.”Medicine shortages across
Russia amid panic buying
Panic buying and sanctions have led to
a shortage of common medications in
Russian pharmacies.
“Not a single pharmacy in the city
has it now,” a resident of Kazan, in the
southwest of the country, told Asso-
ciated Press about a blood thinner her
father needs. Experts and health
authorities say that the shortages are
temporary but some people are worried
that medicines will keep disappearing.
“Most likely there will be shortages.
How catastrophic it will be, I don’t
know,” said Dr Alexey Erlikh, a heart
specialist and professor at Pirogov
National Research Medical University.
Reports that people could not find
certain medications in pharmacies
started surfacing early last month,
shortly after the invasion of Ukraine
and the imposition of western
sanctions.
Patients’ Monitor, a rights group in
Dagestan on the Caspian Sea, began
getting complaints in the second week
of March. Ziyautdin Uvaysov, head of
the group, said that several state-run
pharmacies had few of the ten most
sought-after medications.
Uvaysov said that he was told that“there aren’t any [deliveries due] and it’s
unclear when there will be”.
Vrachi.rf, one of the country’s biggest
online communities for medical staff,
held a survey among more than 3,
doctors and reported finding shortages
of more than 80 medications.
They included anti-inflammatory,
gastrointestinal, antiepileptic and
anticonvulsant drugs, as well as
antidepressants and antipsychotics.
About a dozen people in different
cities said that they had spent days
searching for certain thyroid
medications, types of insulin and a pop-
ular pain-relieving syrup for children.
Some said that they were unable to find
them.
“Patients I treat have lost some blood
pressure medications,” Erlikh said.
“And some doctors I know are report-
ing problems with certain very expen-
sive, very important medications [used
in] certain surgical procedures.”
Nikolay Bespalov, of RNC Pharma,
an analytical company, said: “People
rushed to stock up and in some cases
supplies that were supposed to last a
year or a year and a half were bought up
within a month.”apartment building destroyed by shelling in Kharkiv
Rebels in
Belarus hit
supply lines
Tom Ball
Defectors from Belarus’s armed forces
and security apparatus are co-ordinat-
ing attacks on the country’s railways,
which have crippled Russian supply
lines, The Times has learnt.
Setting fire to electric relay cabinets,
which control signal crossings and
gates, has proved the most common
method of disruption. The cabinets are
often found on remote stretches of
track, making them an easy target.
At least 52 people, including more
than 30 railway workers, have been
detained on charges including treason,
terrorism and spying, according to
Belarusian investigators and Viasna, a
human rights group in the country.
Several of those arrested have been
forced to make public confessions.
Last week, Alexander Kamyshin, the
head of Ukrainian railways, confirmed
there was, for a time, no rail connection
between Belarus and Ukraine.
The attacks are being co-ordinated
from Warsaw by a group of exiled
former security service officers, mili-
tary commanders and public officials.
Under the name Bypol, the group was
formed after President Lukashenko
won the 2020 election, a vote which was
widely accepted to have been rigged.
Bypol works closely with Svetlana
Tikhanovskaya, the exiled opposition
leader, who has called on Belarusians to
“cripple the infrastructure that is help-
ing the regime to support the war”.
Aliaksandr Azarau, 45, president of
Bypol and a former lieutenant colonel
in the ministry of internal affairs, said
the group was sending instructions to
activists inside Belarus on how to sabo-
tage a railway line. The group has been
disseminating leaked intelligence
detailing the lines used by Russia.
“Most Belarusians do not support
this war and do not want Belarus to be
helping Putin’s army,” Azarau told The
Times. “This is an effective way for
people to show their defiance.”
Bypol, which has thousands of active
members operating covertly in Belarus,
also uses online platforms such as Tele-
gram and YouTube to publish exposés
of criminal activity allegedly perpetrat-
ed by the government.
Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian jour-
nalist, said Lukashenko’s reluctance to
send forces to Ukraine may reflect con-
cerns over mutinies. She said: “He rec-
ognises that losing the support of the
military could further undermine his
already vulnerable position.”News
No settlement until
Ukraine holds whip
hand, says Johnson
Hannah Lucinda Smith Istanbul Vladimir Medinsky, 51, Russia’s chief
negotiator, said yesterday that the draft
negotiation was “not ready for a sub-
mission to a meeting at the top”.
Dmitry Peskov, 54, the Kremlin’s
spokesman, claimed that a meeting
between the presidents was “hypo-
thetically possible” but would require a
draft deal to be agreed by both sides.
“Not a set of ideas,” he added. “But a
specific written document.”
Medinsky said the sticking point was
the status of Crimea, annexed by Russia
in 2014, and the Donbas, which is held
by Russian-backed separatists.
David Arakhamia, 42, a Ukrainian
negotiator, told local television that
Russia had “verbally” accepted most of
Kyiv’s proposals — except on the issue
of Crimea. Among the points agreed
was that a referendum on Ukraine’s
neutral status was “the only way out of
this situation”, Arakhamia said.
Negotiators in Istanbul have shaped
a proposal by which Russia would hold
the territories under a long-term lease.
In a written interview, Umerov told
The Times that negotiations were pro-
gressing, particularly on the issue of
prisoner exchanges and humanitarian
corridors from Mariupol, the Ukrain-
ian city besieged by Russian forces.
Kyiv is demanding the release of 122
political prisoners, many of them
Crimean Tatars who opposed Russia’s
annexation.
Turkey’s links to the Tatars, who are
Muslim and speak a Turkic language,
lie at the root of Ankara’s support for
Ukraine. It does not recognise the
annexation of Crimea and has provided
Bayraktar TB2 drones to Kyiv forces.
Sources say both sides regard President
Erdogan to be a reliable broker.
Umerov, a Crimean Tatar, said
Ukraine contacted Turkey on the first
day of the Russian invasion. Meetings
were continuing “non-stop”, he added.
On March 3, Umerov was with
Abramovich in Kyiv when it was re-
ported that they were poisoned. He de-
clined to comment on the incident.$50m help
for Moldova
The United States will give
Moldova $50 million to help it
cope with the impact of Russia’s
war in Ukraine.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the
US ambassador to the United
Nations, said during a visit to the
former Soviet republic yesterday
that the funding would support
programmes, training and
equipment for border
management. It will also go
towards efforts to counter human
trafficking, help to improve
accountability and transparency in
the justice sector and combat
corruption and cybercrime.
Nearly 400,000 refugees have
fled Ukraine through Moldova,
with a quarter staying, since Russia
invaded on February 24.
Irina Rygik, 30, who worked as a
cleaner in Kharkiv, travelled to
Moldova on March 27 with her
three-year-old daughter. She said
her apartment building had been
bombed and they had sheltered in
the basement until a neighbour
offered to take them to Moldova.
The US pledged $30 million last
month to support refugee relief
efforts in Moldova. In between
Ukraine and Romania, it is one of
Europe’s poorest countries.Pilot ‘taken prisoner’
A Russian fighter jet was reduced
to a smouldering wreck and its
pilot reportedly taken prisoner
after being shot down in eastern
Ukraine.
The country’s general staff
published pictures of the jet,
above, which crashed near the city
of Izium and was identified by
analysts as a single-seat Sukhoi
Su-35 fighter. The pilot apparently
survived by using an ejector seat.
Anton Gerashchenko, a
Ukrainian government adviser,
said the pilot had tried to escape,
but a Russian attempt to rescue
him by helicopter had failed.
Ukraine claims to have shot
down 143 Russian aircraft and 134
helicopters since the start of the
invasion, although these figures
have not been verified.German car factories hit
BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen
are either stopping or reducing
production at factories in
Germany because they are unable
to get electrical wiring that is
made in Ukraine.
Companies that make wiring
harnesses — bundles of wires and
connectors unique to each model
— have managed to reopen
factories sporadically in western
Ukraine. However, one of the
companies, Aptiv, is trying to shift
production to Poland, Romania,
Serbia and Morocco. The process
will take up to six weeks and the
harnesses cannot easily be sourced
from elsewhere.
BMW, Mercedes and VW are
trying to co-ordinate with
Ukrainian suppliers and are
looking further afield for parts.ukraine in brief
PHOTOGRAPH: ANDREW MARIENKO/AP