The government must urgently rectify its failed Ukrainian refugee response

There is no shortage of irony that it is clearly far easier to get a British prime minister into a foreign conflict zone than it is to get a normal Ukrainian citizen out of one.

Boris Johnson has taken a surprise visit to Ukraine, to be pictured walking around Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Pre-agreed words have been put on social media by various Ukrainian politicians, describing Johnson as “the leader”, in international terms, in Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression.

There’s no doubt that the UK is playing a pivotal role in arguably the most important aspect of the conflict. It has provided vast numbers of weapons; and, importantly, weapons that have achieved cult status among Ukrainian fighters. The firing of handheld anti-tank missiles has been accompanied by shouts of “God Save The Queen!”.

But the scale of the devastation in Ukraine and the ongoing outrageous murder of civilians only highlights the urgency of the need to provide sanctuary to the Ukrainian people, and it is here that the UK is anything but “the leader”.

A crossbench peer, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, is still trying to get through the refugee visa process so that a mother and two children, people who are known to her, can come and live in her family home.

She has said that there is “a failure of recognition that this uncertainty is adding to the trauma that these people have already experienced. These aren’t just pieces of paper, these are people… and these are people who have lost everything”.

Baroness Finlay’s experience is no different from anybody else’s. She is particularly concerned that the three visas have all had to be processed individually, suggesting that mothers and children may be separated from each other for a time.

When the UK opened its Ukrainian refugee scheme, almost half a million people had applied within the first 48 hours. Home Office minister Kit Malthouse said on Sunday morning that 40,000 visas had been approved, and up to 12,000 completed.

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The exact number of people who have fled Ukraine in terror is not known, but is quite possibly 10 million or more. Poland has received millions of Ukrainian refugees. For a country of the size and wealth of the UK, 12,000 is a pitiful number. When asked about this failure, Priti Patel, the home secretary, said: “I apologise with frustration.”

If Johnson wishes to trumpet his successes with regard to the assistance the UK has provided Ukraine, which he most certainly does, he must address the failure of the UK’s refugee policy as a matter of utmost urgency. It is not as if he doesn’t understand the mortal danger faced by the people of Ukraine. They need the security provided by a safe place to live, every bit as much as they need the security that comes out of the barrel of a gun.

Johnson, we must presume, is safely back from Kyiv. It is a right of passage that he must make open to hundreds of thousands more, without any further delay.

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here