Lviv

I have been in Lviv this week to finish some dental treatment and have a couple of hospital check ups. Amazingly, when people go to see medical consultants here, they just walk into their meetings to check if they're available!

As usual, at the hospitaI, I was welcomed like a friend, rather than a patient. Even the dinner lady (whose borshch and compote I couldn't eat or drink!) recognised me and came to say hello. All expressed gratitude for our work. 

Yesterday I was privileged to meet Jenny from the Penparcau Hub, Aberystwyth, who has been supporting Ukraine since the beginning of the full invasion, including driving over with vehicles of aid and raising funds for the military. She has also been a great supporter of Bob and me, particularly of our work with children, supplying us, e.g., with the comfort teddies and stationery packs. Jenny is staying with a family in western Ukraine and visited me in Lviv for the day. I showed her some of my favourite places in the old city, including the bookseller's square...

...and the fountains where children play, in front of the opera house...

There's a new art installment beside the opera house called "Myster Arbitrium" (title photo), donated by the Italian sculptor, Emanuele Giannelli. It was created as a symbol of the Ukrainian struggle and support for Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion.

This sculpture seemed very appropriate for the day, particularly because I had another privilege, thanks to Jenny - meeting UNICEF's education coordinator and her close friend, a young soldier, although he has been fighting against Russian aggression since 2014. He was in Lviv, his home city, away from the frontline, to make a presentation to the city council for funds for equipment for his unit, including drones and night vision binoculars. We knew that this happens and it doesn't seem right that he has, for want of a better word, to beg for the equipment he needs. As he said, he needs it quickly, without bureaucratic delay, for the men in his unit to be able to fight effectively and repel the Russian invaders, and minimise loss of life. He had lost a lot of friends.

Coming face to face with such bravery and absolute determination to win this war, makes the thoughtless words by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff to the Nato secretary general, even more galling. He said, publicly, that Ukraine could give up territory to Russia in exchange for Nato membership and an end to the war. 

As Mykhailo Podolyak, senior adviser to President Zelenskiy, said: “Trading territory for a Nato umbrella...means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law and passing the war on to other generations.”

Mostly, being in Lviv, far from the frontline, feels a very long way from the war. But this feeling was shattered early Tuesday morning with the largest air assault on the Lviv region since the start of Russia’s full invasion. Mercifully, there were no casualties, but more than 100 residential houses were damaged and a kindergarten playground was destroyed. Three people were killed in the neighbouring north-western region of Volyn.

This morning I re-visited Lychakiv Cemetery, which is so big it would take half a day to do it justice. It is the final resting place of the great and the famous...

(Ivan Franko, poet)

... the majority, more ordinary people, and the military burial ground...a reminder that the current fight to preserve the freedom of Ukraine is nearly into its tenth year.

It made me, a non-religious person, think about what gives meaning to life.

And, a hope...