Fulco Treffers landed at Schiphol on Sunday afternoon, with a flight of Ukraine International Airlines from Kiev. Actually, he wasn’t supposed to fly back until Thursday. As an architect and urban planner, he is involved in a new vocational training course for architecture in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. He has been coming to Ukraine a lot since 2015, he traveled through the east in December.
On Saturday afternoon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued new advice for Dutch people in Ukraine: “Leave the country as soon as possible”. The whole country went from orange to red: all trips are discouraged. Treffers (48) and his wife decided to follow the advice.
Not very much, says Treffers a few hours after returning to the Netherlands. “The main question for me was: what signal am I sending to the people I work with? Do I help Ukrainians with my departure? But also: what will I saddle my colleagues with if I stay and get into trouble?” The decisive factor was the realization that in an emergency they would be unable to take care of themselves. “We are too dependent there, too little self-reliant. My Dutch bank card would soon be unusable, just to name a few.”
The Dutch in Ukraine, permanently or temporarily staying in the country, suddenly faced a difficult choice this weekend. After a few weeks in which the Netherlands was more reserved than other countries with regard to the threat of war in Ukraine, there was a turning point on Saturday. In addition to calling on citizens to leave the country, part of the embassy staff is going home. In Kiev, the ambassador remains active with a few people. In the western city of Lviv, close to the Polish border, a consular center will be established. A few hours after the changed advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, KLM, as the first airline, decided to discontinue flights to and from Kiev.
Bring blankets and fuel
Ambassador Jennes de Mol made no mistake about it during a digital session for about fifty Dutch people in Ukraine. “If the airspace closes, you will have to leave the country yourself and with your own transport. We will not pick you up or organize a central evacuation.” Leaving the country in an emergency is no fun, warned De Mol. “There will probably be long lines at the border. Bring plenty of food and drink, blankets and fuel.”
On Sunday afternoon, 148 Dutch people in Ukraine had registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Not all those people follow the advice of the ministry. Sometimes they are too attached to the land to leave. One of them calls himself “half a Ukrainian” and speaks of “flag flight”. Or they see a great contrast between the alarming message from The Hague and the reality in their environment. They wonder what the Hague appeal is based on.
Minister Wopke Hoekstra (Foreign Affairs, CDA) implicitly referred to information from foreign security services as an explanation for the change of course. “Given the information we have, given our contact with allies, now is the right step.” A spokesperson for the ministry does not want to say what that information entails. “The minister has said what can be said about it.”
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VVD MP Ruben Brekelmans, who has been arguing for a more active role for the Netherlands in Ukraine for weeks, is happy with the new line. Until now, the Netherlands has been hiding behind Germany and France. I think it is good that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now making this decision itself.”
Brekelmans sees three factors that can explain Hoekstra’s heightened alarm. “Russia now has military equipment and soldiers on all sides of Ukraine, including Belarus, for an immediate raid. It is also clear that the diplomatic track is yielding nothing. The phone calls between Biden and Putin and between Macron and Putin on Saturday were a repeat of moves. And then of course there are the warnings from the US.”
Ski holiday in Carpathians
The Dutch decision followed shortly after a press conference by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. He said on Friday that the US government is seriously considering a Russian military action before the end of the Olympic Games on February 20. His statement differed little from earlier American warnings (President Biden’s expression ‘imminent threat’ even sparked a linguistic debate), but sparked excitement in US media because the tone would now be much more urgent. Sullivan called on Americans to leave Ukraine within 48 hours.
The Netherlands is blindly following the United States and the United Kingdom, according to agricultural entrepreneur René Kremers. “The ministry has now turned the whole country red, but they could have kept the western districts of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk orange for a while.”
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Kremers has just finished a week of skiing in that region – the Carpathians. He flew with Ryanair from Lviv to Weeze on Sunday morning and calls from the car on the way to Friesland. With his company Difco International he sells services and products (young cows, bull semen) to livestock farmers in Russia and Ukraine. He comes to both countries a lot. “Last night we went out in Lviv. You only see the war in the media.”
Prime Minister Rutte and Minister Hoekstra would have been better off visiting Ukraine recently with a trade mission, Kremers believes. “They would have helped the country more with that. It is very sad what is happening now. The Ukrainian economy is going to hell: tourism is flat, the price is going down. Putin achieves his goal, he throws sand in the engine.”
Ukrainian tweeters are surprised and angry about the suspension of flights to Ukraine. It seems that Western countries are targeting their economic sanctions on Ukraine instead of on Russia, they write. President Zelensky again pointed this weekend to the damaging effects of Western ‘panic-mongering’: “The best friend of our enemies is panic in our country. This does not help us.”
Architect Fulco Treffers also fears broader consequences of isolating Ukraine. “This country is on the way to a mature democracy and has a European orientation. I am not saying that Ukraine is ready for the EU, but if you let go of the country now, it might move towards the Belarus model. Then we as Europe are even further from home.”
‘bomb on my head’
Arie van der Ent (65) is not thinking about leaving Ukraine. The Russian translator, known in Rotterdam for his literary activities, has been living in Ukraine for five years and with his Ukrainian wife for 2.5 years in the small town of Hermanivka, not far south of Kiev. He notices nothing of the threat of war, says Van der Ent on Sunday. “At the most, the news here is that there is a new store where you can buy Parmesan cheese.”
Van der Ent knows what is going on, but does not feel unsafe. “I do think we will get some thunder, but I think the chance that a bomb will fall on my head is very small. If Ukraine comes under Russian influence, including the accompanying restrictions on freedom, that’s terrible, I don’t want to live here. But for now it is clear: I have nothing in the Netherlands except friends and family, my wife is not allowed to stay there.” Panic doesn’t help, says Van der Ent. “It is better to work on a solution in silence.” The Slavist himself is quietly working on a new translation of Yevgeny Onegin from Pushkin.
Bob Wouda (72) also emphasizes that there is no question of panic. The former soldier from Limburg lives in the center of Kiev with his Ukrainian wife and children aged six and fourteen. His wife is a doctor and has volunteered to help on the front lines if needed. Until 2014, Wouda worked for an orphanage in the eastern city of Luhansk, now he does humanitarian work in the capital.
He keeps in touch with the Dutch embassy, but stays in Kiev. “We have been used to misery at the border for eight years, we are not fleeing.” Wouda did not find out where the nearest air raid shelter is. “Our building has solid walls and a good cellar. We have placed bottles with twenty liters of water there.” He is not concerned that KLM no longer flies. “Lufthansa still flies and my wife has a car.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 14, 2022
#misery #years #flee