Ukraine war: ‘There is only us and them – enemies’ – Ukrainians dug in trenches on Belarus and Russia frontline

Published

2 years ago

October 29, 2022

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They tell us to run, and so we run. Through the scrub, the mud and the undergrowth until we stop under the shelter of trees. Out of breath, out of sight and, for now, out of danger.

This is a place of mud, weapons and nervous energy. We are in the area where the borders of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia converge. What was once a novelty on a map is now a tangible military pinch point and Russia’s next assault on Ukraine might well come through this terrain.

We are with the Ukrainian Border Force, who monitor and guard the frontier. A year ago, these people worried about customs checks on the hundreds of lorries that came through every day, en route between Turkey and Russia. It was, says a smiling, broad-shouldered man guard called Barack, “good work – interesting, not too hard”.

Now, there are no lorries and the guards have become the first line of defence. If Russian troops do pour through this border once more – and there is a growing feeling that they will – then these men and women will be the ones to greet them; to try to repel the Russian army. And so, the border guards have adapted to a new and vastly more perilous world.

“I don’t want to do this,” one of them says to me. “But I do it because I love my land and my country. If I need to fight, I will do this without thinking. It’s just work.”

But of course, it isn’t really “just work”. Through the sights of a heavy machine gun, you can see Belarus, just a few kilometres away. The Russian border is not much further away, and shells are fired over regularly. We can hear the regular booms as they land.

Many people around here have left. Those who remain have become accustomed to violence raining down on them – they use bicycles instead of cars, because bikes don’t attract drones.

Bonhomie, determination and adrenaline

Not far away is a small village that stands right on the border, cut off from the world. It was once home to 100 people but has been almost completely demolished. Maybe ten people remain, and they are almost unreachable.

We are the first foreign journalists to come here and spend time with these guards. What we find is a blend of bonhomie, determination and adrenaline. They’ve already seen one Russian invasion here and they fear another.

Thousands of newly mobilised Russian troops have been sent to Belarus this month to create a so-called “regional force” to defend the border.

In theory, it is a collaboration between the two countries, but few, beyond the Kremlin or Minsk, take that at face value. Just about everyone else sees it as a device for strengthening the Russian presence ahead of a possible attack, designed to stretch Ukrainian resources by opening up another offensive.

There is a precedent, of course. Back in February, Russian troops came over this border and took over the area. They formed a long convoy of vehicles that set off in the direction of Kyiv, before eventually withdrawing in April.

Since then, the border guards have been preparing. They have dug long trenches, where you walk through mud in near darkness with thoughts of World War One in your mind. And yet, in one of these underground rooms, we see computer terminals linked to the Starlink satellite systems.

I talk to Barack in a room carved out from the trench. There are wooden boards on the floor and a crude bunk bed in the corner. He laughs when I say it feels like we’ve gone back a century, but agrees. I ask him about the Russian troop build-up a short distance away.

“They are becoming more aggressive, but our Ukrainian forces give them a bloody nose!” he laughs again.

‘We need more weapons’

They have a variety of weaponry – heavy machine guns, anti-tank missiles, rifles, ammunition and so on. There are minefields around us and a variety of concealed look-out posts. The job of preparing to resist a huge invading army is an intimidating one. It’s not one that they’re really trained for, but it’s one they’ve embraced.

The trouble is that while the spirit is boundless, the resources are not.

“We need more weapons because we don’t know the intensity of the possible attack. We do not know how long we will need to maintain the defence on the border,” says Halyna, the spokesperson for the Chernihiv border guard unit.

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“We are reacting to the raising of the risk by the invasion with more preparation, more fortification – we want to stop them at the border.

“We need heavy weapons. If they send infantry, you can use assault rifles and machine guns and it will all be contained. The problem begins when tanks and their armoured personnel carriers come from their side.”

What, I ask, were the lessons they learned from the February attack?

“That they are unpredictable. This is the first lesson. And they are not our friends.”

It is a lesson that came as a brutal shock to many people in this region, where Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians have mixed for so many years. The nearest town to this border is Horodnia, which was the first to be taken by the Russians and the last to be relinquished.

They have rebuilt and repainted, but you can still see scars. A little out of town, we came down a rough road and found burnt out trucks, craters, shell casing and even an unexplored rocket lying in the woods.

‘No more brotherly Belarus, no more good Russia’

The houses bear witness to the violence. Oleksander and Olga remember it well. An explosion shook their house so violently that the ceiling fell in on their heads. “There are relatives of ours in Russia and everywhere but now the situation is such that we cheer exclusively for our country,” says Oleksander.

“There is no longer a friendly, brotherly Belarus, or a good Russia. There is only us and them – enemies. This is it.”

It is tempting to be intoxicated by this bravado. Certainly, Ukraine is a nation where resilience is armoured by a sense of grievance and the support of so much of the world. But it is also a nation whose heart has broken.

There is a house at the end of the street that is burnt out. It was bombed, caught fire and was remorselessly wrecked. Nadia watched all this happen from over the road, terrified. She raised the alarm, brought as much water as she could and then cried.

Not long after, her mother died.

Nadia is Belarusian but came here many years ago. Now she is fragile and scared, prepared to hide from another Russian invasion in the outside cellar where she keeps potatoes for the winter. But she fears it would simply collapse and seal her in.

“There is no rest for us here. My nerves are completely gone. What has Ukraine done to them? We have such great people here. They are peaceful people.

“So many people were killed. So many kids. So much grief.” And she weeps.

World

How Trump changed his mind on tariffs

Published

10 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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“Liberation Day” just gave way to Capitulation Day.

US President Donald Trump pulled back on Wednesday on a series of harsh tariffs targeting friends and foes alike in an audacious bid to remake the global economic order.

Mr Trump’s early afternoon announcement followed a harrowing week in which Republican lawmakers and confidants privately warned him that the tariffs could wreck the economy.

His own aides had quietly raised alarms about the financial markets before he suspended a tariff regime that he had unveiled with a flourish just one week earlier in a Rose Garden ceremony.

Tariffs latest: Beijing takes fight to Trump

The stock market rose immediately after the about-face, ending days of losses that have forced older Americans who’ve been sinking their savings into 401(k)s to rethink their retirement plans.

Ahead of Mr Trump’s announcement, some of his advisers had been in a near panic about the bond markets, a senior administration official told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

Interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds had been rising, contrary to what normally happens when stock prices fall and investors seek safety in treasuries.

The unusual dynamic meant that at the same time the tariffs could push up prices, people would be paying more to buy homes or pay off credit card debt because of higher interest rates. Businesses looking to expand would pay more for new loans.

Two of Mr Trump’s most senior advisers, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, presented a united front on Wednesday, urging him to suspend the tariffs in light of the bond market, the administration official said.

In a social media post, Mr Trump announced a 90-day pause that he said he’ll use to negotiate deals with dozens of countries that have expressed openness to revising trade terms that he contends exploit American businesses and workers.

One exception is China. Mr Trump upped the tariff on the country’s biggest geopolitical rival to 125%, part of a tit-for-tat escalation in an evolving trade war.

Mr Trump reversed course one week after he appeared in the Rose Garden and unveiled his plan to bring jobs back to the United States. Displaying a chart showing the new, elevated tariffs that countries would face, Mr Trump proclaimed: “My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day.”

It proved short-lived. Markets plunged in anticipation of heightened trade wars, wiping out trillions of dollars in wealth.

Democrats seized on the issue, looking to undercut a source of Mr Trump’s popular appeal: the view that he can be trusted to steer the nation’s economy.

“Donald Trump’s market crash has vaporised a whopping $104,000 from the average retirement account,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday on the Senate floor, hours before the president’s reversal.

The episode laid bare the rifts within Mr Trump’s team of senior advisers as the White House struggled to offer a clear, consistent argument about the duration of the tariffs.

While Mr Bessent seemed open to negotiations, Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser, appeared to take a more hard-line posture.

Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla chief executive who has been advising Mr Trump on the government workforce, called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks,” while Mr Navarro described Mr Musk as someone who is merely “a car assembler, in many cases”.

But the weeklong drama also underscored the peril of a policymaking process that is often tied to the wishes and vagaries of one man: Donald Trump.

Asked about the dust-up between Mr Musk and Mr Navarro, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a golf partner of Mr Trump’s, said: “I don’t think it matters. The only one who matters is Trump.”

Markets tend to favour predictability, as do business leaders deciding where to build new plants. When Mr Trump sets a course, however, there are bound to be detours.

A friend of his who spoke to him in recent days said Mr Trump gave no sign he was about to “back down quickly on this stuff”.

Mr Trump believes other countries trade unfairly and sees tariffs as a tool to make the United States more competitive, the person said.

“He’s very confident it’s going to work for him,” the person added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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And yet in the run-up to Wednesday’s announcement, Mr Trump and his aides were also hearing from GOP lawmakers and outside allies urging an alternative path.

One was Larry Kudlow, who hosts a show on Fox Business Network and was a senior economic adviser in Mr Trump’s first term.

Mr Kudlow told NBC News that he has had “ongoing” talks with friends in the West Wing about the need to negotiate with other countries before the United States slaps them with tariffs that stand in perpetuity.

Describing Mr Trump’s move Wednesday as “fabulous,” Mr Kudlow added: “Dealmaking is the best thing to do. In the last 48 hours, Trump has gone from non-negotiating to negotiating.

“It’s very clear that Bessent is now the point man on trade. Very clear.”

Anxious GOP lawmakers also weighed in.

Mr Graham said he spoke to Mr Trump at length on Tuesday night and told him he had been hearing from car manufacturers who are worried about how the tariffs would affect their business. BMW operates a plant in Mr Graham’s home state and is one of the companies he said he had spoken to.

Senator John Kennedy, a Republican lawmaker who was also in touch with the administration, said on Tuesday that he planned to have lunch with Mr Bessent. On Wednesday, he told NBC News he was also talking to the White House.

Mr Kennedy likened Mr Trump to the “pit bull who caught the car”. Now, he said, the question becomes: “What are you going to do with the car?”

After more market losses this week, and with pressure mounting from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump began having second thoughts.

In his first term, he often viewed the ups and downs of the stock market as a kind of report card on his presidency, celebrating its rise. The downturn had got his attention.

“People were getting a little queasy,” he acknowledged Wednesday on an event with NASCAR racing champions.

“Over the last few days” he began to more seriously consider pausing the additional tariffs, he told reporters later in the day in an Oval Office appearance.

One prospect that intrigued him was personally negotiating new trade deals with the countries looking to get out from under the tariffs, the senior administration official said.

He’d made up his mind. Sitting with Mr Bessent and Mr Lutnick, he crafted the note announcing the 90-day postponement and ending, for the time being, the biggest economic crisis of his young presidency.

“We wrote it from our hearts, right?” Mr Trump said. “It was written as something that I think was very positive for the world and for us, and we don’t want to hurt countries that don’t need to be hurt, and they all want to negotiate.”

The day closed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up nearly 8%, erasing some – but not all – of the “post-Liberation Day” losses.

Messy as it all may have seemed, his administration insisted that all is unfolding as planned.

“You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American president in history,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on Wednesday afternoon.

World

Andrew Tate ‘pointed gun at woman’s face’, court documents claim

Published

10 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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Andrew Tate 'pointed gun at woman's face', court documents claim

Andrew Tate pointed a gun at a woman’s face and told her to do as he said, according to court documents seen by Sky News.

Warning: This article contains graphic details of alleged sexual abuse

The controversial social media influencer allegedly told her: “I’m a boss, you’re going to do as I say or there’ll be hell to pay.”

The woman, who worked for Tate on his online webcam business, alleges he threatened her daily.

She is one of four women who have launched a civil claim against Tate in the UK, with allegations including rape, assault and coercive control.

A spokesperson for Tate said he “categorically denies” the allegations.

In a statement, the spokesperson said: “Mr Tate categorically denies these unproven and untested allegations.

“Specifically, he denies ever threatening anyone with a firearm, engaging in non-consensual acts or subjecting any individual to physical or psychological harm.

“These are civil claims, brought years after the alleged events and following a CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) decision not to pursue criminal charges.

“It is deeply troubling that such graphic and one-sided accounts are being publicised before any judicial assessment has taken place.

“This type of reporting undermines the presumption of innocence and shapes public perception in a way that is fundamentally unjust.

“We have seen other high-profile cases where similarly serious allegations collapsed under scrutiny – but only after irreparable reputational harm had already been done.

“Mr Tate will defend himself vigorously and remains confident the truth will prevail.”

The civil action was launched in the High Court in London last week, and a preliminary hearing is to be held next week.

In the court documents, he describes the allegations as “a pack of lies”, and in a detailed response said: “There may have been a toy gun in the flat.”

The woman worked for Tate in Luton in 2015 and is claiming damages for “assault, battery and/or intentional infliction of harm, including rape”.

Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan, 35, are facing a trial in Romania, where they have been living for the past two years, on charges of sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

The Romanian authorities have agreed that after the completion of their own criminal justice process, the brothers can be extradited to the UK on allegations of rape and human trafficking.

The brothers, who have joint UK and US citizenship, are also under criminal investigation in Florida, where they visited recently after a Romanian judge lifted a travel ban on them.

They are currently in Dubai, but must return to Romania.

The four women claim Tate strangled them during sex, and two developed red spots from burst capillaries in their eyes from asphyxia.

In an interview with Sky News last year, one of the claimants said she had consensual sex with Tate during a normal relationship with him, but once lost consciousness when he strangled her.

She said: “We were having sex and he put his hands round my throat and strangled me until I lost consciousness. And when I came round he was still having sex with me, still on top of me.

“The next day, all the white had gone completely red in one of my eyes. I looked it up afterwards and it was just lack of oxygen to your brain where your blood vessels start bursting to try and get more oxygen into your brain. That was quite scary.”

She said she didn’t call police because she was young, inexperienced and didn’t realise how dangerous the encounter had been.

World

Inside a NATO base in Poland – as residents bordering Russia say ‘scare tactic’ is needed

Published

16 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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Inside a NATO base in Poland - as residents bordering Russia say 'scare tactic' is needed

Along the thin strip of beach and woodland known as the Vistula Spit which marks the northernmost demarcation between Poland and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, there is not much in the way of a border.

Just some torn wire fencing and a few rotten posts which seem to stagger drunkenly into the shallows of the Baltic Sea.

Beneath a sign barring entry, we find a couple of empty bottles of Russian cognac and vodka.

It doesn’t feel like the edge of NATO territory.

“I don’t see much protection. It’s not good,” says Krzysztof from Katowice, who has come to inspect the border himself.

“We have to have some kind of scare tactic, something to show that we are trying to strengthen our army,” says Grzegorz, who lives nearby.

“At the same time I think I would not base the defence of our country solely on our army. I am convinced that Europe or America, if anything were to happen, will help us 100%.”

Poland is investing massively in its defence, with military spending set to hit 4.7% of GDP in 2025, more than any other NATO country.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said he will introduce voluntary military training for men of any age, and women too should they wish, so the army has a competent reserve force in the event of war.

He is investing $2.5bn in stronger border fortifications between Russia and Belarus, a project called East Shield which will include anti-tank obstacles, bunkers and potentially minefields too.

Along with its Baltic neighbours, Poland is withdrawing from the Ottawa convention against the use of land mines. It hasn’t committed to using them, but it wants to have that option.

We’ve been granted access to one of the cornerstones of Polish, and European defence, which is a couple of hours drive from the Vistula spit at the Redowicze military base.

Aegis Ashore Poland, together with its sister site in Romania, are the land-based arms of NATO’s missile defence shield over Europe, which is run by the US navy.

They are symbols of the US commitment to NATO and to the protection of Europe.

And despite changes at the top of the Pentagon it is “business as usual”, says Captain Michael Dwan who oversees air and missile defence within the US Sixth Fleet.

“Our mission to work with NATO forces has been unchanged. And so our commitment from the United States perspective and what capability we bring to ballistic missile defence and the defence of NATO is championed here in Poland.”

As far as Russia is concerned, NATO’s two missile defence bases in Romania and Poland represent a NATO threat on their doorstep and are therefore a “priority target for potential neutralisation”, per Russia’s foreign ministry.

NATO says the installations are purely defensive and their SM-3 interceptor missiles are not armed and are not intended to carry warheads. Russia counters they could easily be adapted to threaten Russia.

Not the case, Captain Dwan says.

“It’s not a matter of moving offensive weapons here into the facility, the hardware and the infrastructure is simply not installed.

“It would take months or years to change the mission of this site and a significant amount of money and capability and design.”

With so much marked “secret” on the site, it seems amazing to be granted the access.

But for NATO, transparency is part of deterrence. They want potential adversaries to know how sophisticated their radar and interception systems are.

They know that if they carried warheads on site, that would make them a target so they don’t.

Deterrence also depends on whether potential adversaries believe in the US’s commitment to NATO and to Europe’s defence.

On an operational level, as far as the troops are concerned, that commitment may still be iron-clad.

But as far as its commander-in-chief goes, there is still – as with so much around Donald Trump’s presidency – a great deal of uncertainty.

In the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon President Trump suggested he might bundle a potential US troop drawdown in Europe together with the issue of EU trade and tariffs.

“Nice to wrap it up in one package,” he said, “it’s nice and clean”.

Probably not the way Europe sees it, not with a resurgent Russia on their doorstep, economic tailwinds breeding animosity and the notion of Pax Americana crumbling at their feet.