No telephones or different units, strict reporting guidelines, bombed-out buildings, and a drone menace – Beth Rigby shares what it is like to hitch the prime minister Sir Keir Starmer in Ukraine.
Sky’s political editor stated “the whole experience was absolutely fascinating” on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, however added the character of Sir Keir’s go to to the war-ravaged nation meant the federal government “had to keep it very tight”.
“If it became known more widely than a very, very tight group of people that he was going to make the trip, the trip gets pulled for security reasons.”
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Sky cameras filmed Sir Keir laying a wreath with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after a Russian drone was shot down over the presidential palace whereas they held conferences.
In an interview, the prime minister instructed Ms Rigby that the UK would play its “full part” in peacekeeping in Ukraine and that the drone menace was “a reminder of what Ukraine is facing every day”.
The prime minister’s first cease whereas in Ukraine was at a hospital, the place he and reporters noticed a significant burns unit up shut.
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Watch Beth Rigby’s full interview with the PM right here
Ms Rigby stated: “There was an ICU you can go in… There have been two gents, two guys, they usually had been having physio remedy, they usually had been very joyful to be filmed, they usually… talked to the prime minister about their experiences and… their pores and skin was simply lined in burns, scars.
“After, I did the pool clip with him [Sir Keir], and I was like, ‘how was it?’ He just said, ‘it’s really hard to see this.’
“It actually hammers house what it’s, and I feel he stored referring to the hospital all through each go to of the day.”
Talking to Labour peer Harriet Harman and former Scottish Conservatives chief Baroness Davidson on the podcast, Ms Rigby stated that so as to make the journey, “we had to give in all our devices” as “for security reasons, you can’t take your devices into Ukraine”.
Whereas using trains throughout the nation, she stated “you get some basic food, and you get a little bunk”. Strict reporting guidelines additionally apply, so Sky couldn’t report on Sir Keir’s whereabouts “until after he’s left”.
“We went to a hospital, and I can’t tell you what hospital it was, but we weren’t allowed to report that until the prime minister left the location,” she stated.
“So, it just gives you a sense of the amount of security around these visits.”
Throughout a go to to a drone producer, Ms Rigby added that Ukrainians “brought the drones from where they’re actually manufactured” however didn’t permit cameras into the location.
“They placed them in a hall, which they made to look like an underground car park, right? You weren’t allowed to film outside. You couldn’t film the steps,” she stated.
“You couldn’t film anything that might allow anyone to understand where the location might have been… This is the extent to which they try and disguise the movement and what they’re doing.”
Ms Rigby then stated she and others had been taken on “a little tour where 100 yards or so down from where Zelenskyy’s offices in the centre of Ukraine is a bombed-out car and a building that has been bombed, and the top floor is destroyed”.
“That happened on 1 January,” she stated. “And the reason that they are showing him that is to reiterate to all of us that, yes, that Russia is not, you know, completely destroying the centre of Kyiv, but the threat that is ever-present.”
The prime minister is now in Poland, the place he’ll kickstart talks on a brand new safety pact to guard the UK’s nationwide safety.
Throughout his go to, Sir Keir can even meet Polish companies, together with the agency InPost which has introduced it’s going to make investments an additional £600m into the UK within the subsequent 5 years to develop its operations.
