London Diary: Over-the-top solidarity

Over-the-top solidarity

The hostility towards Russia risks descending into a farce. Indeed, it already has —judging from some of the more extreme gestures of solidarity with Ukrainians such as banning Russian cats from taking part in a European feline competition. The Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe), which styles itself as the United Nations of cat federations representing 40 countries, has banned Russian cats from its cat competitions for three months as a protest against Russian actions in Ukraine.

In a statement it said it could not “just witness these atrocities and do nothing”. Not to be left behind, Britain’s Kennel Club has banned Russian dogs from participating in its annual Crufts competition. And Sainsbury’s is to change Chicken Kiev to Chicken Kyiv because Kyiv is how Ukrainians originally spelt the name of their capital city. And a London restaurant in Britain is donating £5 to charity from every order for ‘Chicken Kyiv’!

Pull of racial affinity?

The unprecedented outpouring of emotions for Ukrainian refugees in stark contrast to the hostility that greeted those from Syria and other Muslim countries has prompted a debate whether this has to do with the fact that Brits and other Europeans see Ukrainians as one of their “own” because of their faith and skin colour. As one commentator pointed out nobody stopped selling Syrian hamsters in protest against Bashar al-Assad’s “unspeakable atrocities against his people for a decade”.

“My inbox is full of emails from friends and acquaintances about fundraising for Ukraine. There are dinners, events, cake sales, sponsored things, auctions. People are driving vans full of donated goods to the Polish border...A niggly little part of me wonders why the scale hasn’t been this vast before. What I’m really saying is, do we care more because fair-skinned, recognisably European Ukrainians are closer to home in more ways than one?” asked the Sunday Times columnist, India Knight. Yes, and true.

Paid to host refugees

Britons are being offered financial incentives by the government to offer shelter to Ukrainian refugees. Under the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme designed to get round the problem of finding accommodation for thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war, those willing to accept them will be given £350 a month.

They will be able to nominate a named individual or a family to stay with them rent-free, or in another property, for at least six months. The government is also looking at using the properties of Russian oligarchs sanctioned by it for “humanitarian purposes”.

But the Refugee Council said the measure didn’t go far enough to help those traumatised by war, echoing the Opposition Labour Party’s criticism of the government’s response. The party accused the government of “dragging its feet” over the crisis.

Media reports, however, suggest that many would be too happy to help, incentive or no incentive. Most of them are those who themselves or their ancestors came to Britain as refugees and benefited from British hospitality. The BBC found a couple, John Rutherford and his wife Sue, who are set to open up their London house to a refugee for the third time in a year. Within 24 hours of the announcement of the placement scheme, some 150,000 Brits had registered and the number was rising by the day.

....And making it to the books

Meanwhile, a crop of new books on subjects ranging from the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to refugees has hit the market within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As many as six, including an unusually flattering biography of Leonid Brezhnev (‘Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman’ by German historian Susanne Schattenberg) and American Cold War historian Mary Elise Sarotte’s ‘Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate’) featured in The Times Literary Supplement.

It’s safe to assume that the surge is coincidental and not contrived to monetise the Ukrainian crisis for the simple reason that books can’t be written and published overnight. But monetisation is coming. Brace yourself for a plethora of war memoirs by journalists reporting from Ukraine. I’m sure everyone of them think they already have a book in the bag. Or what’s the point of risking your life.

And, lastly, while the British Government is working overtime to sanction high-profile Russian oligarchs to show solidarity with Ukraine, Boris Johnson apparently went out of his way to confer peerage on the Russian media magnate Evgeny Lebedev—son of a former KGB agent—overriding objections of intelligence services calling them “anti-Putin”. Lebedev owns The Independent newspaper and has an extensive portfolio of properties in Britain. He is reported to be extremely close to Johnson who has attended his exclusive parties and spent holidays with him. Johnson’s denial that he favoured Lebedev has been challenged by his former top aide Dominic Cummings. “I was in the room when the PM was told that the intelligence services had serious reservations about the PM’s plan...I supported these concerns...He was very cross.”

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)