The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-22)

16

WORLD NEWS

From a ferry on

the Bosphorus,

the ship-spotter

on the lookout

for Russian

sanction-busters

invasion of Ukraine began,

Turkey shocked the world by

announcing a ban on all

military vessels through the

Bosphorus for the first time

since the Second World War.

Since then it has trodden

an extremely delicate path:

expressing sympathies and

support to the Ukrainian

people, and selling them

Bayraktar TB2 armed drones,

while at the same time trying

not to antagonise the

Kremlin. Unlike many of its

Nato allies, Turkey has

declined to impose sanctions

on Russia, and has attempted

to position itself as an

interlocutor between the two

warring sides.

The last round of

discussions, held in Istanbul,

didn’t result in any lasting

agreements, but did end with

the Russian oligarch Roman

Abramovich — a member of

the negotiating team —

apparently having been

poisoned.

Turkey has also fallen out

with its fellow Nato states

over its refusal to allow

Finland and Sweden to enter

the alliance. Last week,

western and Turkish

diplomats appeared to

believe that the issue would

soon be resolved. Publicly,

however, President Recep

CHRISTINA

LAMB

Chief Foreign Correspondent

The sun was casting a late afternoon
shadow across the Soviet-era Lazar Globa
Park in central Dnipro when the air raid
siren went off.
I looked for cover amid the murky
duck pond and rickety Ferris wheel. Next
to me three ping-pong games were under
way. The players did not even pause. The
wail grew louder. Two lovers deep in con-
versation on a bench, a bunch of yellow
flowers by the girl’s side, did not look up.
A little further on children ran around
the playground. “We used to go to the
bunker the first month,” shrugged Denis,
an IT worker, out with his wife and tod-
dler. “Now we just get on with life.”
Three months into the war, more than
six million Ukrainians have fled their
homes. But those left behind have
adjusted with remarkable resilience, par-
ticularly in the east where, as people

In spring

the city

returns

to life

Shops

had craft

beer and

oysters

Isik, who is also a geopolitical

analyst with the Middle East

Institute. “It’s capitalism par

excellence.”

Meanwhile, Russia is

maintaining a full naval

blockade of Ukraine,

strangling its economy and

preventing exports of vital

commodities like grain and

oil amid fears of rising global

hunger. None of this violates

the 1936 Montreux

Convention, the agreement

which governs the straits and

allows complete freedom of

passage of all civilian vessels

in peacetime — as well as

giving Turkey the power to

restrict the passage of navies

that are not part of the Black

Sea states.

It does, however, highlight

the increasingly difficult bind

that Turkey finds itself in:

attempting to navigate its way

around a war without being

drawn into it.

A few days after Russia’s

Squinting into the salt-tinged

breeze, Yoruk Isik looked out

over the Bosphorus from the

passenger deck of an Istanbul

ferry. Each day, the veteran

ship-spotter obsessively

tracks the vessels that pass

through this narrow

waterway, carrying iron ore

from South America, vehicle

parts from Romania, oil from

the Black Sea port of

Novorossiysk.

Since the war in Ukraine

began, however, his

observations have taken a

different turn.

These straits, where the

warships of Alexander the

Great and Suleiman the

Magnificent once sailed to

battle, have now become a

vital artery for Russia’s

invasion of Ukraine.

Despite western sanctions

and arms embargoes,

Moscow is continuing to trade

and resupply through the

straits — putting Turkey, a

Nato member that sold arms

to Kyiv but has tried to keep

in with the Kremlin, in a

decidedly awkward position.

“The entire commercial

activity of southern Russia,

imports and exports, passes

through here,” said Isik, 55, as

a seagull coasted past,

hanging in the breeze. “It

puts it into perspective a bit.

Not everything is so dire for

Russia. Some of their

business continues.”

Each week, from his

observation spots on the

straits, he sees something

new: grain stolen by Russia

from the occupied Ukrainian

territories and shipped to

Syria; millions of litres of

Russian oil sent to India;

mysterious supplies ferried on

Russian-flagged civilian ships

that are part of an auxiliary

arm of the Russian navy.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said

Louise Callaghan Istanbul Yoruk Isik has tracked Russian

vessels from his

observation spot

on the Bosphorus

LOUISE CALLAGHAN

I was chased by a tank, says the barista.

But now I’m back here making lattes

keep telling you, war has been under way

for eight years, if not on this scale.

Reporting on it over the past month,

however, I never quite shook off the sur-

real realisation that this was happening in

the 21st century in the centre of Europe,

in a place with coffee shops, 4G wifi and

an enormous number of friendly cats.

“Should I bring food with me?” I had

asked Paula, a photographer friend

already in Ukraine, before setting off. We

had worked together in Afghanistan

where cereal bars, coffee sachets and

Hobnobs are crucial sustenance. “Put it

this way, I just bought duck pâté in the

supermarket,” she replied.

I was baffled. Even more so when I

arrived in Kyiv after a seven-hour drive

from Lviv, and joined Paula in the super-

market to see tanks of oysters and crabs,

aisles full of teas, handmade chocolate

and craft beer, and more varieties of

hummus than I have ever come across.

The Russians had been gone from the

outskirts of the city for only two weeks

but that evening at my hotel a Spanish

chef and his team, in Ukraine to help pro-

vide food in war-torn places, were order-

ing champagne, caviar and sushi. I felt

like I had walked into a scene from Casa-

blanca.

“What do you do in real life?” I asked

one of them, an American. He told me he

was a film-maker. “Anything I would have

heard of ?” I asked. “The latest Bond

movie,” he replied.

That night in bed I was woken three

times by air raid sirens. This was war but

not like any I had reported before.

Driving to Bucha, Irpin and Borody-

anka the next morning soon brought

home the grim reality. It was a cold driz-

zly day and the journey was long because

of checkpoints and detours round

bridges blown up to stop the Russians

reaching the capital.

The names of those small dormitory

towns northwest of Kyiv are etched into

history as synonymous with Russian

atrocities and I steeled myself as we drove

in, passing billboards advertising luxury

developments. Then there it was, the

blackened twisted wreckage and shat-

tered glass of what had been homes,

shops and lives.

Yet to my surprise there were also men

in orange overalls up ladders trying to fix

frayed power lines. A few people with

pinched grey faces had just returned and

were wandering in a state of shock. Lud-

mila was sitting on a bench, staring at a

crane picking among the debris. “My sis-

Despite the horrors of war, resilient Ukrainians are dining out, playing ping-pong and going to the opera — while air raid sirens blare

ter and nephew lived there,” she told me

blankly, holding a school exercise book—

all she had found.

Weeks after the Russians had been

driven out, forensic police were still col-

lecting bodies, but that day they had

stopped because there was no room in

the morgues or refrigerated trucks.

My fixer was photographing and vid-

eoing everything — everyone in Ukraine

seems to be either volunteering or docu-

menting war crimes — many for the

so-called 5am Coalition, named after the

time the Russian invasion attack started

on February 24.

A tent had been set up at the Bucha

morgue for people looking for relatives.

Among them was Tatiana whose husband

and five-year-old son had been killed in a

missile strike when they had gone to the

garage to cook some food and warm

themselves by the stove. “I had waited 12

years to conceive,” she said. Even the psy-

chologist was in tears. Her own son was

on the front lines, she told me.

Round the back a forklift was moving

corpses to a small overflow building up

the hill. They had run out of body bags so

were using black bin bags, the feet stick-

ing out of the bottom. That night I could

not get the image out of my head.

Kyiv still looked like a place under lock-

down. The streets were almost empty —

half its three-million population had fled,

according to the mayor, and most shops

and restaurants were closed. Going out

for dinner focused the mind with last

orders at 7.30pm for everyone to be

home by the 10pm curfew.

Yet the trains continued running, cash

machines still gave out money, old peo-

ple told me their pensions were being

paid, the post arrived and children had

lessons even if they were online.

Over the following weeks as the spring

sun came out and with it the blossoms,

the city returned to life.

The transformation started on Ortho-

dox Easter Sunday — a glorious sunny day

where people lined up outside churches

with baskets containing eggs, ham, wine

and Easter cake topped with white icing

and multicoloured sprinkles. They

waited for the priest to come out and

sprinkle them with holy water as bells

rang out. He sprinkled me too, rather

enthusiastically, much to the amusement

of those gathered near by.

In the park across the road people

were out walking, many carrying pets,

and taking selfies amid the magnolia blos-

soms. It looked normal, except for the

WORLD NEWS