Tag: Ukrainian

Thousands of Ukrainian children put through Russian ‘re-education’ camps, US report finds

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At least 6,000 children from Ukraine have attended Russian “re-education” camps in the past year, with several hundred held there for weeks or months beyond their scheduled return date, according to a new report published in the US.
Russia has also unnecessarily expedited the adoption and fostering of children from Ukraine in what could constitute a war crime, the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab report found. The report was funded by the US state department.
Since the start of the war nearly a year ago, children as young as four months living in the occupied areas have been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in Moscow-annexed Crimea and Siberia, for “pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education”, said the report.
In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by weeks, while at two other camps, the return of some children was postponed indefinitely.
Russian authorities sought to provide a pro-Moscow viewpoint to children through school curricula as well as through field trips to patriotic sites and talks from veterans, the report found.
Videos published from the camps by the occupying regional authorities show children in the camps singing the Russian national anthem and carrying the Russian flag. In separate videos, teachers, employed to teach the children, talk about the need to correct their understanding of Russian and Soviet history.
Children were also given training in firearms, although Nathaniel Raymond, a Yale researcher who oversaw the report, said there was no evidence they were being sent back to fight.
“Mounting evidence of Russia’s actions lays bare the Kremlin’s aims to deny and suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture,” the US state department said in a statement. “The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations.”

US state department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters the report “details Russia’s systematic, government-wide efforts to permanently relocate thousands of Ukraine’s children to areas under Russian government control via a network of 43 camps and other facilities.
“In many cases, Russia purported to temporarily evacuate children from Ukraine under the guise of a free summer camp, only to later refuse to return the children and to cut off all contact with their families.”
The report called for a neutral body to be granted access to the camps and for Russia immediately to stop adoptions of Ukrainian children. The report said that Putin aides have been closely involved in the operation, especially Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights. It quoted her as saying that 350 children had been adopted by Russian families and that more than 1,000 were awaiting adoption.
Russia’s embassy in Washington responded to the report’s findings on Telegram, saying, “Russia accepted children who were forced to flee with their families from the shelling,” and, “We do our best to keep underage people in families, and in cases of absence or death of parents and relatives – to transfer orphans under guardianship.”
The report said some parents were pressured to give consent to send away their children, sometimes in the hope they would return. Others, the report said, “are sent with the consent of their parents for an agreed duration of days or weeks and returned to their parents as originally scheduled”.
The report -which was compiled with the help of satellite imagery and public accounts – said that the number of children sent to the camps is “likely significantly higher” than the 6,000 confirmed.
Researchers spoke to the parents of children who had attended the camps or were being kept there, as well as to children who had attended. “After calling the camp director, one mother was allegedly told that children could not be returned because, ‘There is war there.’
There is little information on the explanation given to children regarding delays in their return. An official at the Medvezhonok camp told a boy from Ukraine that his return was conditional: the children would be returned only if Russia recaptured the town of Izium, the report said. Another boy was told he wouldn’t be returning home due to his “pro-Ukrainian views”, the report said.
Some parents were told that their children will be released only if they physically come to pick them up. Relatives or people given power of attorney were not allowed to pick up the children. Travel from Ukraine to Russia is difficult and expensive, and men between the ages of 18 and 60 are forbidden from leaving the country, in effect meaning only the mothers of the children may retrieve them.
“A significant portion of these families are low-income and have not been able to afford to make the trip. Some families were forced to sell belongings and travel through four countries to be reunited with their child,” the report found.
One of the camps is located in Magadan oblast, roughly 6,230km (3,900 miles) from Ukraine. This puts it “roughly three times closer to the United States than it is to the border of Ukraine,” the report said.
Raymond said that Russia was in “clear violation” of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the treatment of civilians during war and called the report a “gigantic Amber alert” – referring to US public notices of child abductions.
The Russian activity “in some cases may constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity”, he told reporters.
Ukraine’s government recently claimed that more than 14,700 children had been deported to Russia, where some had been sexually exploited.
Additional reporting by Isobel Koshiw and AFP

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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 15, 2023
U.S. focuses on training Ukrainian troops to use less ammo

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As the U.S. and Europe look for ways to increase their output of shells to keep their own warehouses stocked and supply Ukraine for its warm weather offensives, they are looking at the current training efforts in England and Germany to change how Ukraine moves on the battlefield. Part of that means figuring out ways to fend off Russia without expending too much ammo.
“We are working with the Ukrainian soldiers in various places throughout Europe to emphasize additional training on maneuver,” Austin said, “so that as they place more emphasis on maneuver, and shaping the battlefield with fires and then maneuvering, there’s a good chance that they’ll require less artillery munitions.”
The U.K., which has already trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers in infantry tactics, has pledged to train another 20,000 this year with the help of Norway, the Netherlands and other NATO trainers on the ground.
There was some movement on the artillery issue in Tuesday’s Ukraine Defense Contract Group meeting in Brussels, a gathering of defense leaders from over 50 countries who meet once a month to coordinate military aid for Kyiv.
France and Australia have agreed to work together to produce more 155mm munitions, which are the backbone of Ukraine’s newly-acquired Western artillery arsenal.
The U.S. has also scrambled over the past year to increase its own output of 155mm shells, as Ukraine continues to fire thousands of rounds a day, burning through the one million-plus 155mm munitions the U.S. and allies have sent.
The U.S. Army has pledged to triple its monthly output of shells from the prewar total of about 14,000 a month to up to 90,000 a month by 2025.
The dwindling of ammunition stocks aren’t limited to cannon artillery. In recent meetings at the Pentagon, U.S. officials have informed the Kyiv’s representatives that it doesn’t have enough Army Tactical Missile Systems in its warehouses to spare for the Ukrainian military, POLITICO reported Monday.

Transferring the ATACMS, which would more than double the range of current Ukrainian rocket artillery to about 190 miles, would dwindle America’s stockpiles and harm the U.S. military’s readiness for a future fight, the Pentagon has told them.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 14, 2023
UK to train Ukrainian pilots as ‘first step’ toward sending fighter jets

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WAREHAM, Dorset — Ukrainian fighter pilots will soon be trained in Britain — but Kyiv will have to wait a little longer for the modern combat jets it craves.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the U.K. Wednesday with a firm British commitment to train fighter jet pilots on NATO-standard aircraft, along with an offer of longer-range missiles.
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has now been tasked with investigating which jets the U.K. might be able to supply to Ukraine, Downing Street announced — but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fell short of making actual promises on their supply, which his spokesman said would only ever be a “long-term” option.

Speaking at a joint press conference at the Lulworth military camp in Wareham, southern England, Sunak said the priority must be to “arm Ukraine in the short-term” to ensure the country is not vulnerable to a fresh wave of Russian attacks this spring.
Standing alongside Zelenskyy in front of a British-made Challenger 2 tank, Sunak restated that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to provision of military assistance to Ukraine, and said fourth-generation fighter jets were part of his conversation with the Ukrainian president “today, and have been previously.”
These talks also covered the supply chains required to support such sophisticated aircraft, Sunak said.
But he cautioned a decision to deliver jets would only be taken in coalition with allies, and said training pilots must come first and could take “some time.”
“That’s why we have announced today that we will be training Ukrainian air force on NATO-standard platforms, because the first step in being able to provide advanced aircrafts is to have soldiers or aviators who are capable of using them,” Sunak said. “We need to make sure they are able to operate the aircraft they might eventually be using.”
The first Challenger 2 tanks pledged by Britain will arrive in Ukraine by next month, Sunak added.
President Zelenskyy ramped up the pressure on Rishi Sunak joking that he had left parliament two years earlier grateful for “delicious English tea”, but this time he would be “thanking all of you in advance for powerful English planes” | Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
Describing his private conversations with Sunak as “fruitful,” Zelenskyy said he was “very grateful” that Britain had finally heard Kyiv’s call for longer-range missiles.
But he warned that without fighter jets, there is a risk of “stagnation” in his country’s battle against Russian occupation.
“Without the weapons that we are discussing now, and the weapons that we just discussed with Rishi earlier today, and how Britain is going to help us, you know, all of this is very important,” he said. “Without this, there would be stagnation, which will not bring anything good.”
Rolling out the red carpet
The U.K. had rolled out the red carpet for Zelenskyy’s surprise day-long visit, which alongside the visit to the military base included talks with Sunak at Downing Street, a meeting with King Charles at Buckingham Palace and a historic address to the U.K. parliament in Westminster.
Only a handful of leaders have made such an address in Westminster Hall over the past 30 years, including Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.
“We have freedom. Give us wings to protect it,” Zelenskyy told British lawmakers, after symbolically handing House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle a helmet used by one of Ukraine’s fighter pilots. The message written upon it stated: “Combat aircraft for Ukraine, wings for freedom.”
Zelenskyy’s call was backed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who urged Sunak to meet his request.
“We have more than 100 Typhoon jets. We have more than 100 Challenger 2 tanks,” he said. “The best single use for any of these items is to deploy them now for the protection of the Ukrainians — not least because that is how we guarantee our own long-term security.”
Western defense ministers will gather to discuss further military aid to Ukraine on February 14, at a meeting at the U.S. base of Ramstein in southwest Germany.
Sunak’s spokesman said that while Britain has made no decision on whether to send its own jets, “there is an ongoing discussion among other countries about their own fighter jets, some of which are more akin to what Ukrainian pilots are used to.”
Training day
Britain’s announcement marks the first public declaration by a European country on the training of Ukrainian pilots, and could spur other European nations into following suit. France is already considering a similar request from Kyiv.
Yuriyy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov, praised the U.K.’s decision and said allies “know very well that in order to defeat Russia in 2023, Ukraine needs all types of weaponry,” short of nuclear.
“A few weeks ago, the U.K. showed leadership in the issue of providing tanks to Ukraine, and then other allies have followed their example,” he said. “Now the U.K. is again showing leadership in the pilot training issue. Hopefully other countries will follow.”
The British scheme is likely to run in parallel to an American program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S. fighters, for which the U.S. House of Representatives approved $100 million last summer. In October Ukraine announced a group of several dozen pilots had been selected for training on Western fighter jets.
The first Ukrainian pilots are expected to arrive in Britain in the spring, with Downing Street warning the instruction program could last up to five years. Military analysts, however, say the length of any such scheme could vary significantly depending on the pilots’ previous expertise and the type of fighter they learn to operate.
The U.K. announcement is therefore of “significant value” but “does not suggest the provision of fighter jets is imminent,” said Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower at the British think tank RUSI.
The British program is likely to involve simulators and focus on providing training on NATO tactics and basic cockpit procedures to Ukrainian pilots who already have expertise in flying Soviet-era jets, Bronk said.
The new training programs come in addition to the expansion in the numbers of Ukrainian early recruits being trained on basic tactics in the U.K., from 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers this year.
‘Unimaginable hardships’
Wednesday’s visit marked Zelenskyy’s first trip to the U.K. since Russia’s invasion almost a year ago and only his second confirmed journey outside Ukraine during the war, following a visit to the United States last December.
The Ukrainian president arrived on a Royal Air Force plane at an airport north of London Wednesday morning, the entire trip a closely guarded secret until he landed.
Recounting his first visit to London back in 2020, when he sat in British wartime leader Winston Churchill’s armchair, Zelenskyy said: “I certainly felt something — but it is only now that I know what the feeling was. It is a feeling of how bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.”
Zelenskyy travelled to Paris Wednesday evening for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In a short statement, Zelenskyy said France and Germany “can be game-changers,” adding: “The earlier we get heavy weapons, long-range missiles, aircraft, alongside tanks, the sooner the war will end.”
Macron said Ukraine “can count on France and Europe to [help] win the war,” while Scholz added that Zelenskyy expected attendance at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels Thursday “is a sign of solidarity.”
Dan Bloom and Clea Caulcutt provided additional reporting.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 8, 2023
Ukrainian Defence minister meets French Prez on Kiev’s defence needs

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Kiev: Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov has said that he met French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss Ukraine’s defence needs.
Describing the conversation as “frank and productive,” he tweeted on Wednesday that the urgent operational needs of the Ukrainian Army were on the agenda.
Reznikov, who arrived in France on Tuesday for a two-day visit, thanked Macron and the French people for their support for Ukraine, Xinhua news agency reported.
In a separate tweet, the Minister said he signed a memorandum with French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu and the Thales Group on the supply of MG-200 radars for Ukrainian air defenders.
The radars, Reznikov added, will help the Ukrainian military to spot enemy drones and missiles, including ballistic missiles.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 2, 2023
Reporting corruption in a time of war: The Ukrainian journalists’ dilemma

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When a major corruption scandal broke in Ukraine last weekend, reporters faced an excruciating dilemma between professional duty and patriotism. The first thought that came to my mind was: “Should I write about this for foreigners? Will it make them stop supporting us?”
There was no doubting the severity of the cases that were erupting into the public sphere. They cut to the heart of the war economy. In one instance, investigators were examining whether the deputy infrastructure minister had profited from a deal to supply electrical generators at an inflated price, while the defense ministry was being probed over an overpriced contract to supply food and catering services to the troops.
Huge stories, but in a sign of our life-or-death times in Ukraine, even my colleague Yuriy Nikolov, who got the scoop on the inflated military contract, admitted he had done everything he could not to publish his investigation. He took his findings to public officials hoping that they might be able to resolve the matter, before he finally felt compelled to run it on the ZN.UA website.

Getting a scoop that shocks your country, forces your government to start investigations and reform military procurement, and triggers the resignation of top officials is ordinarily something that makes other journalists jealous. But I fully understand how Nikolov feels about wanting to hold back when your nation is at war. Russia (and Ukraine’s other critics abroad) are, after all, looking to leap upon any opportunity to undermine trust in our authorities.
A journalist is meant to stay a little distant from the situation he or she covers. It helps to stay impartial and to stick to the facts, not emotions. But what if staying impartial is impossible as you have to cover the invasion of your own country? Naturally, you have to keep holding your government to account, but you are also painfully aware that the enemy is out there looking to exploit any opportunity to erode faith in the leadership and undermine national security.
That is exactly what Ukrainian journalists have to deal with every day. In the first six months of the invasion, Ukrainian journalists and watchdogs decided to put their public criticism of the Ukrainian government on pause and focus on documenting Russian war crimes.
But that has backfired.
“This pause led to a rapid loss of accountability for many Ukrainian officials,” Mykhailo Tkach, one of Ukraine’s top investigative journalists, wrote in a column for Ukrainska Pravda.
His investigations about Ukrainian officials leaving the country during the war for lavish vacations in Europe led to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposing a ban on officials traveling abroad during the war for non-work-related issues. It also sparked the dismissal of the powerful deputy prosecutor general.
The Ukrainian government was forced to react to corruption and make a major reshuffle almost immediately. Would that happen if Ukrainian journalists decided to sit on their findings until victory? I doubt it.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended up imposing a ban on officials traveling abroad during the war for non-work-related issues | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Is it still painful when you have to write about your own government’s officials’ flops when overwhelming enemy forces are trying to erase your nation from the planet, using every opportunity they can get to shake your international partners’ faith? Of course it is.
But in this case, there was definite room for optimism. Things are changing in Ukraine. The government had to react very quickly, under intense pressure from civil society and the independent press. Memes and social media posts immediately appeared, mocking the government’s pledge to buy eggs at massively inflated prices. Ultimately, the deputy infrastructure minister was fired and the deputy defense minister resigned.
This speedy response was praised by the European Commission and showed how far we really are from Russia, where authorities hunt down not the officials accused of corruption, but the journalists who report it.
As Tkach said, many believe that the war with the internal enemy will begin immediately after the victory over the external one.
However, we can’t really wait that long. It is important to understand that the sooner we win the battle with the internal enemy — high-profile corruption — the sooner we win the war against Russia.
“Destruction of corruption means getting additional funds for the defense capability of the country. And it means more military and civilian lives saved,” Tkach said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

January 24, 2023
‘It’s a farce’: the giant Brexit border control site now used to inspect Ukrainian pets

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It is built on a vast 230-acre site, with a total cost put at more than £100m, and has space for 1,700 heavy goods vehicles. Security staff are on patrol at several checkpoints around its 12-foot-high perimeter fence. Inside are new state-of-the-art buildings and equipment for inspecting imports from Europe.
But more than six months after completion, this heavily guarded supposed showpiece of a newly independent Britain lies all but deserted. It is labelled by people who live nearby as the great white elephant of Brexit, spanking new but largely redundant. The only imports being inspected are a few pets from Ukraine.
Talk to local people about the Sevington inland border facility (IBF) in Kent, and they are beyond despair. No one knows when, or even if, this giant testament to the UK’s increasingly costly and chaotic exit from the EU will ever be used for its intended purpose.
Locally, the word is that the IBF will soon be turned over for development into warehouses or housing. Rachel Brown, who lives a stone’s throw from the perimeter, said what had happened was “horrendous”: “If they are not using it what is the point? It will be a housing estate in a few years. It is a complete disgrace.” Another Sevington resident, Terry, who did not want to give his surname, added: “It is a farce, a white elephant. It is quite obvious no one knew how Brexit was going to turn out or what to do. The result is we are left with this on the doorstep.” IBFs at Ebbsfleet and Warrington have already been closed.
Empty lorry parking spaces at the Sevington inland border facility, built to accommodate 1,700 HGVs. Photograph: Antonio Olmos
On Friday the odd lorry trundled in for HMRC customs checks which are now handled in a small section of the site.
Sevington was built in little over two years mainly to conduct import inspections on goods of plant and animal original from the EU, a responsibility of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
But the regime of rules it was built to administer has never come into force because of U-turns forced on government by the dawning realisation that trade operates better without friction.
The Kent site, just off the M20 near Ashford, is the biggest of seven such depots constructed across the country away from busy ports – in this case Dover.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, when minister for Brexit opportunities, delayed the start of checks on EU imports. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
But when building work was nearing completion in 2021, ministers started having doubts about the effect of burdensome checks, as trade with the EU declined. Last spring Jacob Rees-Mogg, then minister for Brexit opportunities, delayed the start of checks for the fourth time, fearing they would be too bureaucratic and costly for businesses, and cause more tailbacks on Kent’s roads.
An announcement on what regime will now be introduced is scheduled for early this year. A government spokesperson said Sevington would still play a key role in “creating a seamless, digital border”. But it is certain to be a lighter touch one than that previously envisaged, putting Sevington’s suitability for purpose further in doubt.
Defra told the Observer on Friday that it now had “no current operations” at Sevington “except a small presence” which “was temporarily available for holding pets during the Ukraine response”.
Richard Ballantyne, chief executive of the British Ports Association, said the Sevington site was a costly mistake caused by the rush to “get Brexit done” and a failure to foresee what it would entail.
He and other industry experts had been warning about problems of operating a hard border for years before Brexit. “The reason for building these places was that policymakers wanted to leave (the EU) quickly to get something done but the actual arrangements, the nuts and bolts we needed, were not clear. Policymakers have now realised there are some consequences to having a hard border which we don’t like, which are costly inspections and delays, which harm business. I think they have realised we probably don’t need to have these checks because we have very similar standards to the EU. We simply don’t need to do these things. But there is a big cost to the exchequer.”
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He added: “I think it would have been better for us if we had decided what our departure would look like. You have got to understand what the costs and consequences are. There has been a lot of wasted money.”
Defra says it will announce a new programme of controls and inspections in the next few weeks. But the tune has changed. There is less talk now of hard borders, more of reducing friction – the whole idea of the EU single market.
Industry experts say the change of mind runs deeper, and suggest ministers are even considering moving back to closer alignment with EU rules for certain traded products, including those of plant and animal origin.
Sevington is just one piece – albeit probably the biggest – in a post-Brexit jigsaw of new inland and port infrastructure, much of which may never be used. In July 2020, the government announced a £705m funding package for border facilities, jobs and technology. About £200m of this was made available for ports to develop their own facilities, which they did, but many now find they cannot use what they’ve built.
Loading bays at Portsmouth’s border control post, built to carry out import checks which are no longer required. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
Next to the container terminal at Portsmouth International Port, is a new hi-tech £25m border control post, the cost of which was met jointly by Portsmouth city council and the taxpayer. Like Sevington, it was supposed to carry out checks on imports of animal and plant products arriving from the EU.
Ballantyne says places such as Portsmouth now have their own “white elephants”. They had hoped to fund the running and staff costs from charging for inspections which they now cannot do. “They are stuck. Government will not compensate the sector for the operating costs. They will not finance the demolishing of such infrastructure. We are very frustrated by this,” he said.
Meanwhile, the port of Dover received a £45m investment last week from the government’s levelling up fund (originally envisaged to help deprived parts of the UK) to improve the flow of traffic from the UK to the EU and reduce congestion on local roads post-Brexit. The levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, who, like Rees-Mogg, had insisted that Brexit would be all good news for the UK economy, has found that in reality it comes at a very heavy cost to his own budget as well as to British taxpayers.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 21, 2023
Ukrainian families vent frustration at struggle to find own homes in UK

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Maria, 22, came to the UK from Ukraine in March last year shortly after the war broke out. She and her mother travelled using the Ukraine family scheme visa to stay with her aunt. But when her aunt was evicted, they became homeless. For five months, Maria and her mother have been living in temporary accommodation in south London.
“It’s horrible actually, the corridors are so old and so dirty,” Maria says. “The council haven’t been very helpful. The room is so small and it’s hard with two adults in one room.”
Maria is hoping to find private accommodation, but it is unaffordable when living on universal credit. “You have to pay a deposit, and have a lot of savings but we don’t have that right now,” Maria adds.
Maria, pictured with her mother Liudmyla: ‘It’s horrible actually, the corridors are so old and so dirty.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
The position Maria finds herself in is one shared by many of the more than 150,000 Ukrainians who came to the UK under the sponsorship scheme or to stay with relatives. In August, it was reported that more than 50,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK could be made homeless in 2023 as initial six-month placements with hosts end without further accommodation in place.
Anastasia Salnikova is the founder of the community interest group J&C Soul CIC, and has been supporting Ukrainian refugees as their sponsorship schemes come to an end. Difficulties in finding accommodation has been a recurring theme for Salnikova.
“The problems people are facing are that some are becoming homeless when the sponsorship agreement comes to an end,” Salnikova says. “People are finding it so difficult to find private accommodation too. There are lots of single parents, or people on universal credit, and even those who have full-time jobs are struggling to find accommodation. So what is going to happen is that we are going to have lots more people facing homelessness as the scheme ends”.
Anastasia Salnikova: ‘There are lots of single parents, or people on universal credit, and even those who have full-time jobs are struggling to find accommodation.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Despite having a relatively well-paying, full-time job as a chef, Oksana, who’s a single parent to her 12-year-old son, is struggling to find a place to live once the sponsorship scheme comes to an end. Since December, Oksana has enquired after at least seven properties but hasn’t been successful in finding somewhere for herself and her son to live.
“The scheme is coming to an end and I’m trying to find private accommodation, but even though I’m earning good money and have a good job in central London, I can’t find accommodation because many places are too expensive or need a guarantor, which I don’t have.”

“My sponsor is well-connected, and has been helping me to find somewhere too. But even with all the connections we have, and having a good job, it’s still a challenge,” Oksana says. “And so for the people without, it’s even harder”.
Natalia Platonova and her partner, Andreyy Palatov, feel as if they’re in limbo. Their current sponsorship is due to end in the next few months, and although there is the possibility that it may be extended, this hasn’t been confirmed.
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Natalia Platonova and husband Andreyy: ‘No matter how wonderful our sponsors are, we want to be independent.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
They are from Mariupol, which has been completely destroyed by bombing, so it is not an option for them to return. They want to build a life here.
“On one hand, we’re extremely grateful that we’re here and that we were able to escape and survive, our sponsors have been wonderful,” the couple say, through an interpreter.
“No matter how wonderful our sponsors are, we want to be independent but we don’t speak English and we’re middle-aged. It’s frustrating because we don’t see the prospect of having our own private accommodation, not because we don’t want to but because we don’t speak English it’s more difficult to find a job or a landlord who would rent to us,” they add.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “Homes for Ukraine has seen 112,000 Ukrainians welcomed to the UK, thanks to the generosity of sponsors.
“We’ve provided councils with extensive funding including an addition £150m to support Ukrainian guests move into their own homes, as well as £500m to acquire housing for those fleeing conflict.
“All Ukrainian arrivals can work or study and access benefits from day one and we have increased ‘thank you’ payments for sponsors to £500 a month once a guest has been here for a year.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 21, 2023