Sevastopol, Crimea, the Holy Russian Empire
I meet former British ambassador to Ukraine, Dennis Hayes, in a small café near Sevastopol harbour, the icy winter wind is blowing violently across the Black Sea, and the lack of central heating in most buildings here proves to be a cold experience. He explains he choose to remain in Crimea after the War as he met his wife here.
You think things were bad in your own country? Or any western country for that matter? Well, you'd be right of course but had you been in Ukraine during the Panic you would understand true chaos. It had been two weeks since the South African outbreak and a few days since the Paris Incident, and the Ukrainian government had placed its forces on alert, particularly their border guards. However, immigrants coming from Central Asia through Russia and into Ukraine brought the first cases into the country thanks to corrupt border guards accepting bribes. Donetsk was the first city in Ukraine – back when it was a Ukrainian city – to report an outbreak. British nationals in the city contacted the embassy in Kiev and we put our crisis team into full swing to evacuate our people in the city to Kiev where they could get a plane back to the UK.
But weren't the airports closed?
Unfortunately yes. By the time the hundred or so British nationals in Donetsk made it to Kiev ,the UK was no longer accepting civilian flights from mainland Europe, so we had to accommodate our people from Donetsk in the embassy compound. It was cramped but we managed. After a week or two the outbreak began to spread westwards from Donetsk and there were also had outbreaks in Lviv and Zhotimir. The Ukrainian President declared a national emergency and imposed martial law across the country. Checkpoints went up on the roads, airspace was closed to civil aircraft and ports were shut down. There was discussion with the Foreign Office about withdrawing the embassy personnel back to the UK on a military aircraft, but I personally insisted on remaining in Ukraine to support our citizens trapped in the country.
What happened after Kiev was overrun ?
We relocated to Crimea along with the Ukrainian government. The Russian Navy, which held basing rights in the city, provided support to the Ukrainian military in helping make sure no infected breached the peninsula. After three weeks, mainland Ukraine had all but fallen, and most of Europe had been declared a disaster area. What was left of the Ukrainian army outside Crimea had even resorted to chemical weapons for all the good that did them.
After the UN held their famous meeting and the Americans decided to go on the offensive, so did the Ukrainians. Moldovan and Polish forces also supported Ukraine's offensive to liberate the western sections of their country, whilst Tsar Putin's new Holy Russian Army launched a major offensive across eastern Ukraine sweeping all zombies before them. The rest I'm sure you know, western Ukraine from Lviv to the Dniper is under Ukrainian government control, whilst Crimea and the east has been annexed into the Holy Russian Empire along with Belarus, Estonia and much of Central Asia and Mongolia. There are rumours that the Russians plan to take the rest of Ukraine. Next month, next year? Who knows ? Ukraine's forces won't hold long if the Russians cross the river. There are skirmishes along the border most days, nothing major, but its coming to a head.
Russia and Ukraine. Brothers no more.