The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-03)

travel alone and to photograph number-

plates of cars.

Tymur is the son of Ukraine’s leading

war correspondent, Andriy Tsaplienko,

who is in hospital in Kyiv after being

wounded covering the shelling of a vil-

lage near Chernihiv. He is worried about

his father, who took him and his mother

to Poland on the first day of war before

heading back, but wanted to help other

refugees. “I went to the station and saw

the chaos, people in stressful situations

and very vulnerable and I’d seen what my

dad did setting up networks to free traf-

ficked Ukrainian women from Liberia a

few years ago, so was aware of the risks.”

It is easy to see how it happens. War-

saw is the centre of the refugee crisis. Not

only has it taken in 300,000 refugees (a

huge stretch on resources in a city of just

1.7 million) but millions more have

passed through.

At Warsaw Central, every few hours

another train arrives from Kyiv or Lviv or

eastern Poland and disgorges dazed-

looking people, almost all women clutch-

ing wheelie bags and children, some with

cats or dogs, one little girl with a white rat

peeking out from inside her pink hood.

It’s grey and cold, snow falling thinly.

Their numbers are fewer than at the

beginning of the war but these people are

more desperate than those in the initial

rush. “More are coming who have no idea

where to go, what to do next and don’t

have any connections or resources — and

of course that makes them much more

vulnerable,” says Joanna Nahorska from

Norwegian Refugee Council.

Some head straight to the ticket office

to move onto Berlin, Vienna or Prague —

Poland is offering free train travel to all

Ukrainians. Others look in despair at the

Poland desk which warns that most cities

are full and suggests heading to towns.

Among them is Viktoria Zinchuk, 28,

an English teacher from central Ukraine

with two children of five and three run-

ning round and a two-month-old baby in

a pushchair. “I don’t know anyone here,”

she says. “But there were explosions

every day. I left to save the lives of my chil-

dren — I had no other choice.”

They took a series of trains and lifts

and arrived exhausted. She was lucky to

find a family to stay with for a month

through a Facebook link she was given on

arrival. “After that I don’t know,” she

shrugs. “I don’t have anywhere to go.

Maybe I can come to London?”

She was waiting for her mother who

had refused to leave until a missile hit her

neighbour’s house a few days ago. She

was supposed to be on a train from Kra-

kow but was not answering her phone.

Her children come running back with

big smiles and a bag of chocolate and toys

someone has given them.

Nearby is Leda Shevchenko, 31, on her

own, pale and wan. She came from Kyiv

in the first week after a missile hit her

neighbour’s home. “Everyone was run-

ning,” she says, “we had nothing but the

clothes on our backs and didn’t know

where we were going.”

Less than half the people know where

they are going, says British volunteer

Edward Pinkney, 35. Last week one

approached him with a letter from an

uncle in the UK. When he looked at it, it

was from the 1990s — they did not know if

he was still alive. “I felt a chill that people

could be so desperate they would pull out

a letter from someone they haven’t had

contact with for 25 years,” he says. “I goo-

gled him but nothing popped up.”

He and others help those wanting to

apply to the UK scheme with forms

mostly still in English and “so convo-

luted”, he says, “like a jigsaw puzzle with

no picture”. “We are still waiting to hear

nine days on from submitting them and

people are very vulnerable while they

wait.” No one from the British embassy or

Home Office has been seen.

The scheme has also come in for criti-

cism for being left up to individuals to

match with Ukrainians, prompting some

to dub it “Tinder for sex traffickers”.

Back at Warsaw Central, Viktoria gets a

call. A man has found her mother Gud-

wina, 57. There is a tearful reunion with

her grandchildren. She opens her bag

where instead of clothes there are sweets

and toys for the children. “Oh Mum,”

despairs Viktoria. Her mother tells her

she has signed up to go on a bus to Switz-

erland. “I don’t know anything about it,”

she says. “But I can do cleaning, what-

ever. We Ukrainians are hard workers.”

@ChristinaLamb

CHRISTINA

LAMB

Warsaw

Shady

people

hang

around

A Ukrainian photojournalist and

documentary-maker missing for

more than two weeks has been found

dead near Kyiv. The body of Maks

Levin, 40, a father of four who

worked with Ukrainian and

international media, was found on

Friday. A local prosecutor’s office

said he was killed by two shots fired

by Russian forces, the AFP news

agency reported. Three Ukrainian

journalists and three foreign

journalists have now been killed

since the war began on February 24,

Reporters sans Frontières said.

“Targeting journalists is a war crime,”

the organisation tweeted, adding

that Levin had been unarmed and

wearing a press jacket.

BODY OF MISSING

JOURNALIST FOUND

FELIPE DANA/AP; MACIEK JAZWIECKI FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

Predators exploit lack of checks to drag

women and children into a new hell

Traffickers pretending to be doctors and Good Samaritans are taking advantage of border chaos to deceive evacuees

15 The Sunday Times April 3, 2022

WAR IN UKRAINE

The Sunday Times April 3, 2022 15

Ukrainian soldiers have been able

to fortify their defensive positions

It is difficult to form an objective view of

the war. Ministry of Defence and

Pentagon briefings are presumably

based on their vast intelligence

apparatus, but both nations are

understandably tight-lipped in their

assessment of Ukraine’s forces and

tactics.

Nevertheless, it is possible for military

experts to sift out a general sense of how

the war’s character is changing.

CHANGING DYNAMICS

Ukrainian forces have put up an

unexpectedly effective defence and still

hold the northern city of Kharkiv and

the capital, Kyiv. Russian advances have

been hampered by poor tactics,

leadership and logistics, with forward

units running out of ammunition, fuel,

food and water. Russia has not achieved

air superiority — key for success. And the

Ukrainian military’s ability to command

and control its forces appears intact.

At this stage both sides are seeking to

convert military success into leverage in

the peace talks.

The statement by Moscow’s general

staff that efforts would focus on securing

those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk not

controlled by pro-Moscow rebels was

evidence that Russia has adjusted its

campaign. We can expect it to devote

ammunition and fuel on forces attacking

the Ukrainian brigades defending

Donbas. It is likely that strikes will

intensify in this region.

Over the past five years in Donbas, the

Ukrainian army has fortified its

defensive positions. Successfully

attacking this zone will require heavy

firepower led by competent tactical

commanders.

Russian forces have had their greatest

successes in the south. This may reflect

better logistics, drawing on a fuel and

ammunition stockpile in Crimea, or use

of more competent military formations.

The terrain is far less wooded, making it

more suitable for armoured forces.

These Russian southern forces may

attack northwards to threaten Ukrainian

forces in Donbas with encirclement.

Should the siege of Mariupol succeed,

the besieging forces could be reassigned

northwards. Russian troops are also

attacking towards Donbas from the

north. Should these threats materialise,

they could force a hard choice on the

Ukrainian general staff: to stand and

fight, at the risk of being encircled, or to

attempt to withdraw to the west, which

would be difficult.

Russia also said it would reduce the

intensity of its attacks around Kyiv,

Chernihiv and Kharkiv. But the Russian

army will probably still mount attacks

there, using the guns and rocket-

launchers it retains to weaken

counterattacks. Such strikes may make it

more difficult for Ukraine to redeploy

forces to Donbas.

We can expect that in areas where the

Russian offensive has run out of steam,

the Ukrainian army will continue to

mount counterattacks. These are likely

to be limited, as Ukraine needs to

husband its resources for Donbas.

THE OTHER WARS

There is an international campaign to

prevent a Russian victory: diplomacy,

information, intelligence, sanctions and

supply of military material.

The supply of weaponry depends on

transfer, presumably on the western

border. Reports also point to Ukrainian

aircraft collecting supplies throughout

Europe. Russia is attempting to disrupt

this, probably using signals intelligence,

reconnaissance satellites, long-range

drones, special forces, agents and

informers.

There is evidence of the Russian air

force increasing the number of its radar

surveillance aircraft deployed. Should

the Ukrainian air force be overwhelmed,

Russian fighters, bombers and attack

helicopters would be able to operate

much more freely. Some would be

directed to support the effort over

Donbas. But Russia would also be able to

deploy more surveillance,

reconnaissance and strike aircraft in the

west. This would increase its ability to

identify how supplies enter Ukraine and

flow to the front line and then attack

supply convoys and storage areas.

ASSET AND VULNERABILITY

Kyiv’s military strategy is of defence —

including using diplomacy and a

modern information campaign. In this,

President Zelensky is the greatest asset.

Russia is unlikely to attempt to shut all

the video links out of Kyiv: it needs at

least one channel to conduct peace

negotiations. But no one should think

that Russia would pass over an

opportunity to kill Zelensky.

So far Ukraine has frustrated all

Russia’s strategic aims but

commentators who predict a Ukrainian

victory may be over-optimistic. The

vulnerable supply lines are essential to

Ukraine’s ability to prevail on land.

At the height of the Battle of Waterloo,

the Duke of Wellington reportedly said:

“Hard pounding this, gentlemen, but we

will see who can pound the longest.”

Brigadier Ben Barry (retired) is senior

fellow for land warfare at the

International Institute for Strategic

Studies. He is the author of Blood, Metal

and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat

in Afghanistan and Iraq

Ukraine

continues

to frustrate

Russia, but

Putin will

keep on

pounding

Zelensky

needs to

husband his

resources

for Donbas

H

e described himself as a Danish

doctor so moved by the stories

he had heard from his Ukrain-

ian cleaner that he had jumped

in his Tesla and driven 1,

miles from Copenhagen to the

Polish-Ukrainian border to res-

cue people fleeing from war.

They happened to be two attractive

young women with young children who

were scared and exhausted, knew no one

and were delighted to find a free ride.

The women soon realised it was a ride

with strings attached, and by the time the

man had stopped at the Blue Diamond

spa hotel in the Polish town of Rzeszow to

recharge his car, they were terrified.

When he disappeared to get a coffee,

they begged the manager for help. “I

could see there was something wrong,”

says Tomasz Filipek. “The man looked

more like a gangster than a doctor and

the girls were scared.”

When he told him, “Those girls are not

going anywhere with you”, the man

became aggressive and Filipek called the

police. The man fled.

Those women had a lucky escape.

Filipek and the owner took them into

their own families and arranged for them

to go to Germany, where they are now.

Five weeks into the war, it is becoming

clear that among the outpouring of gen-

erosity that has received international

acclaim — all those holding placards at

borders and stations offering free rides

and rooms — are some trying to take

advantage

More and more stories have been

emerging of indecent proposals like the

“Danish doctor”, the men at Berlin sta-

tion offering money to go with them, or

the minibus to France which stopped in

the middle of nowhere and demanded

refugees pay $1,000 to continue. One vol-

unteer at the border told how he received

a phone call ordering “a female Ukrain-

ian and a 12-year-old boy”. Others have

been asking for babies to adopt.

“The way I see it, this is a war on

women and children,” says Tatiana

Kotlyarenko, an adviser on anti-traffick-

ing, “and we may be sending them from

one hell to another.”

Unprecedented numbers of refugees

pouring into Europe — more than four

million in five weeks — means unprece-

dented risks, particularly as almost all are

women and children and from a country

which already had one of the highest traf-

ficking flows in Europe. There is no catch-

all registering process for the new arriv-

als and no means of keeping track. Nor is

there a record of who is picking them up.

Many observers fear that having

escaped war, these refugees face being

trafficked and forced into sexual

exploitation, prostitution or labour

exploitation. For a global trafficking

industry estimated to rack up $

billion per year, rarely has there been

such an opportunity.

Within days of the war starting,

there was such a surge in online

searches for “Ukrainian women and

sex” that it alerted security agencies.

“The vast majority of those leaving

Ukraine are women and girls and the vast

majority of those trafficked are women

and girls so you can see the math is not

good,” warns Val Richey, a special repre-

sentative for combating human traffick-

ing at the Organisation for Security and

Co-operation in Europe. “It’s a toxic

cocktail of risk.”

His office will hold an international

conference in Vienna this week which

will call for urgent measures on traffick-

ing. The US Senate committee on foreign

relations will hear testimony on the issue

from Kotlyarenko this week and Interpol

has sent a mission to Moldova.

“The whole NGO world is very con-

cerned,” says Aagje Leven, secretary gen-

eral at Missing Children Europe. “This

level of chaos and mass of people is a

huge opportunity for traffickers to get in

touch far faster than governments will

take measures.”

She is particularly concerned about

children and large numbers arriving

unaccompanied and points out that at

least 10,000 children disappeared in

Europe’s last refugee crisis in 2015. This

time round the refugee numbers are

much higher and checks are fewer — in

trying to facilitate Ukrainians by offer-

ing visa-free movement through the

EU, it is harder to monitor.

Some young Ukrainians are taking

matters into their own hands. Every

day after online lessons, Tymur Tsapli-

enko and his best friend Dasha Griban,

both 16, head to Warsaw Central sta-

tion where they don hi-vis jackets and

hand out blue and yellow leaflets to

arriving refugees, warning them not to

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Women and children wait for

help after fleeing besieged

Mariupol; Tymur Tsaplienko,

below left, and Dasha Griban

are warning refugees at Warsaw

Central station about trafficking

ANALYSIS

BEN

BARRY