Christmas Day in Ukraine...

... started with an air raid warning siren at breakfast. When the all-clear sounded we got on our way, on the first leg of another aid run. We stopped for lunch by a lake off the main road that was still frozen, but only in places as the weather has been getting gradually milder. So these crazy  guys were actually fishing on this semi-frozen lake, one right in the middle of it! Maybe they knew what they were doing.
When we were travelling there was another siren and the all clear sounded just as we were arriving in Khmelnytskyi, where we're staying for the night. There have been no reports of any Russian attacks in the country. There's a suggestion that the sirens may have been triggered after Russian jets took to the skies in Belarus.

So Putin chose not to bomb Ukraine on Christmas Day (but nor did he agree to a ceasefire). And yesterday (Christmas Eve)
at least 16 people were killed and 64 injured in Russia’s shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. Three Ukrainian emergency services workers were amongst the dead, when a mine exploded while they were demining parts of the Kherson region. As we know from our last visit to this recently liberated region, the retreating Russians heavily mined the bombed-out houses and the surrounding countryside, making it very difficult to collect firewood anywhere local.

It was really nice to catch up with family and friends, which give a bit of normality to Christmas Day, as did listening to "Junior Choice" (70 years old today) on catch-up radio. We hope everyone back home, and our friends here, had a good Christmas day.

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