4 2GN The Sunday Times April 3, 2022NEWS
I still worry about
getting facts wrong,
says BBC’s Doucet
‘Some of them had their ears cut
off. Others had teeth pulled out’
16 years old; some adults. They just took
the bodies away yesterday.”
As the Russians withdrew in what
seems part rout, part strategic pullback
after failing to take Kyiv, they destroyed
everything they could on the way. Along
the highways and winding forest roads
that link holiday cottage communities
outside Kyiv, soldiers and civilians spoke
of seeing the bodies of humans and ani-
mals strewn on the sides of the road.
Shops are flattened; the entire sides of
houses smashed open. Abandoned troop
carriers and tanks are found stuffed with
refrigerators, clothes and toys looted
from Ukrainian houses. Mines are hidden
in houses and parks and in corpses laid
out on the road.
“It’ll take months to clear,” said Denys,
who was deploying his Ukrainian mine-
clearance team to freshly retaken areas.
“Years,” one of his colleagues interjected.
“They’ve hidden them everywhere. And
some of them are so old, they’re from the
First World War.”
On the woodland road to Bucha, a sub-
urb where some of the fiercest fighting in
the area took place, an army medic stoodWAR IN UKRAINE
Reports, pages 15-waiting to pass a checkpoint. Two days
earlier he and his unit had helped push
the Russians from this area.
“I can’t say the Russians are weak or
anything like that — they’re warriors, as
are we,” he said. “When they were with-
drawing, one part of the unit would be fir-
ing and the others would pull back...
they left a lot of bodies. Civilians too.”
Yet the successes of the past few days
have not yet brought safety to the area.
“This place is liberated, but it’s not clear
yet. A friend was ambushed yesterday, so
even if it’s a ‘green’ road like this, itdoesn’t mean it’s always clear,” he said.
“And artillery can hit you here too.”
Across the road stood a Russian tank,
blackened and broken. An armoured per-
sonnel carrier abandoned a little further
along was still smoking.
As they pulled back, or were pushed,
the Russians abandoned and lost an
extraordinary amount of equipment, a
lot of it rusted, in bad condition and from
the Soviet era. Everything they left
behind is being used for the next stage in
the war. On the side of a main road out-
side Kyiv, a group of soldiers from the ter-
ritorial defence was stripping a Russian
tank for parts. “It’s so old, it’s useless,”
one of them, Ivan, complained. “And one
of our guys hit it with an NLAW.”
They would take off the gun, the sol-
diers said, and set it up in the back of a
pick-up. “We’re going to need it,” Ivan
said. “We’re going to keep fighting. We
know this isn’t the end.”
Additional reporting: Anna Mosinianhis home town of Stoyanka, just outside
Kyiv, where he had helped to push the
Russians out three days earlier. Before
joining up a month ago he had been a gar-
dener. As the Russians withdrew, and
Ukrainian forces advanced, he fought his
way back to his home.
But now he was guarding a ruin. The
petrol station was splayed open, black-
ened and twisted like a great metal
insect. Russian tanks, burnt out and
broken, littered the highway. Around
them were civilian cars, windscreens
blown out, pockmarked with bullet
holes. One, a white Citroën, had a dark
smear on the shrapnel-studded headrest.
“There are a lot of mines here,”
Torovik said. “Everywhere. In people’s
houses; in the back yards; on the roads.”
Two days earlier, Torovik said, he had
seen a dog eating a woman’s body that
had been left on the ground. Yet the worst
was in the basement of the dacha.
“We found 18 bodies in there,” he said.
“They had been torturing people. Some
of them had their ears cut off. Others had
teeth pulled out. There were kids, like 14,→Continued from page 1Britain wants to send anti-ship
missiles to protect Odesa
Britain is pushing to arm
Ukraine with anti-ship
missiles to sink Russian
warships and relieve coastal
cities being bombarded from
the sea as part of a “gear
change” in the West’s
approach.
Boris Johnson has told
ministers he wants to supply
the weapons to prevent the
Russians advancing on
Odesa, just as British anti-
tank missiles have been used
to stall President Putin’s
efforts to take Kyiv.
A senior government
source said: “We anticipated
this mass column of tanks
coming across what is a very
flat expanse of landscape and
that Kyiv would be taken in
three days. The NLAWs [next-
generation light anti-tank
weapons] stopped that.
“They’re now
concentrating on the south.
The next target is Odesa. It’s
not tanks which are going to
come at Odesa. It’s going to
be ships. NLAWs don’t work
against ships, so what does?
They want the kind of stuff
that can take out ships.
“The PM is eager and
determined to help find that.
We don’t have everything
they need for the next stage
but we have become the
default co-ordinator of other
countries.”
A second source said: “The
Ukrainians have been asking
for lethal aid on the Black
Sea. We have probably the
most mature relationship
with the Ukrainians of
anyone. We have a live list of
what they require and we try
and meet it where we can.
The PM is committed to
helping Ukraine defend itself
and he will support that
need.”
Over the past fortnight
four Russian warships are
reported to have joined in a
bombardment of Mariupol
that has reduced 80 per cent
of its buildings to rubble. Its
capture is a key objective forCaroline Wheeler
and Harry YorkeA Ukrainian soldier in Odesa on the Black Sea, where a Russian assault is feared
Russia as it would allow Putin
to establish a land bridge
between Crimea and the
breakaway separatist regions
of Donetsk and Luhansk in
the east.
There are fears that Odesa,
which has so far been spared
Mariupol’s fate, could soon
come under assault from the
Russian navy in the Black Sea
as the Kremlin seeks to
refocus its forces on securing
the east and southern coastal
areas of Ukraine.
It is seen as a strategically
vital port for Ukraine as half
its imports and exports move
through it. It is also the last
major city standing betweenthe Russian advance in the
east from Kherson and the
border with Romania in the
west. Taking the city would
bring Moscow one step closer
to controlling the entire
southern coastline.
While some allies,
including America, Germany
and France, are said to want
to wait for a provocation by
Russia before providing more
deadly lethal aid, Johnson has
made clear that he believes it
should be made available
immediately.
“Boris says we don’t need
another trigger,” the senior
government source added.
“He [Putin] has already
crossed the line ... Whatever
Zelensky asks for he will get,
if we have it.”
President Zelensky has
called for the West to supply
Ukraine with anti-ship
missiles, including Harpoons,
which are used by the Royal
Navy. US officials last week
signalled that the issue was
being discussed by Nato
members.
It is understood that
escalating the UK’s supply of
lethal aid was discussed at a
meeting of the NationalSecurity Council on Friday
morning. The weaponry
could include missiles with
sensors that can target ships
stationed off the Ukrainian
coast, as well as anti-battery
capabilities to destroy
incoming artillery shells fired
from Russian guns.
Before the invasion, the UK
was preparing to provide
Brimstone missiles to Ukraine
to counter the Russian navy.
The surface-to-surface
maritime missiles, designed
by MBDA UK, can hit
“swarms” of targets
simultaneously and would be
deployed on vessels that the
Ukrainian navy has in service.
These are not thought to
be on the table now, with a
government source
indicating the UK was more
likely to facilitate the supply
of anti-ship missiles from
other western partners.
Where Britain does not have
the requested weaponry, it is
providing an “Amazon-style
delivery” service to help to
co-ordinate the efforts with
other countries.
Feeling the heat,
pages 10-LOUAI BARAKAT/SHUTTERSTOCKWe have
a list of
what
they
requireRONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/GETTY IMAGESJOHN BECK FOR THE SUNDAY TIMESafforded the same generosity
as those from Ukraine.
“Everyone is paying
attention to Ukraine and nine
million Afghans are starving,”
she said. “The Ukrainian war
started before the thousands
of Afghans stuck in
displacement camps and
third countries had the
chance to have their cases
looked at, so they now feel
that the spaces that would be
allocated for Afghans are
being given to Ukrainians. It’s
a big injustice.”
She noted, however, that
the war in Ukraine has the
most “far-reaching
consequences” of any conflict
she has covered. “Politicians,
generals and diplomats are
saying: ‘We can’t have World
War Three’, but African
families will be tipped into
starvation because Russian
and Ukrainian wheat supplies
go down, so in some ways it
already is World War Three
because the implications areShe was holed up in an
underground bunker in Kyiv
as Russian troops were
approaching the Ukrainian
capital, but Lyse Doucet says
she fretted more about
making a mistake on air than
her safety.
The BBC’s chief
international correspondent,
who has just returned after
six weeks in Ukraine, said
that she never stops worrying
about “getting things wrong”.
“Even more than worrying
about Russians coming into
Kyiv, I worried about my next
word, my next answer, my
next comment,” she said. “I
live in fear of someone
[correcting me], sending me a
message saying, ‘It wasn’t
1946, it was 1949 [for
example]’. As journalists,
trust and respect are the most
important things.”
Doucet, 63, born in
Canada, started freelancing
for the BBC from west Africa
in 1983 and became its chief
international correspondent
a decade ago, covering
conflicts, revolutions and
natural disasters.
The only drawback of the
job, she believes, is “letting
people down” when she
suddenly finds herself sent
away at short notice. “It is the
worst thing,” she said. “I
sometimes joke that
journalism is an excuse for
bad manners, but that isn’t
really a joke. You say: ‘I can’t
go to your dinner party, I
have to be the national
treasure covering this!’”
Doucet said that not having
children made her peripatetic
lifestyle easier. “I would find
it very hard if I had to make
the choice between children
at home and being here,” she
said. “[Having children]
hasn’t been the evolution of
my life and I am happy about
that. I have lots of children in
my life with nieces and
nephews.”
Doucet had planned to be
in Afghanistan, a country she
considers one of her homes,
in March. She expresses
frustration that Afghan
refugees have not beenRosamund Urwin
Media EditorLyse Doucet: trust is the
most important thing
so far-reaching.” What she
will remember from Ukraine
is the “pride and burst of
patriotism” from its citizens.
She recalled an elderly
couple who lived near where
the BBC team were staying in
Kyiv. “They were sitting on
their porch... [and] were
stoic, saying everything was
fine, that they were going to
the bomb shelter, and
suddenly he [the man]
started to cry because that’s
not normal,” Doucet said.
“He then recovered and said:
‘Would you like to have some
brandy with us, some coffee?’”
@RosamundUrwinAt least 20 men
dressed as
civilians were
found dead in a
street in Bucha
yesterday after
Ukrainian forces
retook the town.
Below, Maria
Dabizhe, 80. Her
neighbours were
found dead, tied
head and foot