Another message from Yara

This is a message of despair from a brave Ukrainian lady who deserves so much better. All Ukrainians deserve so much better. Yet I know the despair will be temporary.

Yara has an irrepressible nature and despite the terrible circumstances I know she will regain a measure of hope and want to share Ukrainian culture and art with her readers again quite soon.

Please do read her message for today. Below I’ve copied a reply to it that I posted there a few minutes ago. I think there is growing cause for hope, and that’s what I wrote about and want to emphasise.

But before I share that reply: What can you do to help? Visit Yara’s site and take a good look around, read some of her other, more upbeat, messages. Consider becoming a supporting member, buy her a coffee, leave her a reply to one or more of her posts. Contact your government representative asking them to do more. In the UK write to your MP. Hint: Write again after our upcoming elections, you might find you have a different MP.

My reply

Wanting better for you, Yara. Wanting better for Kharkiv. Wanting better for every part of Ukraine.

Sometimes the worst things are done when the perpetrators are most afraid; and right now I think Putin is very much afraid.

Everything in Russia is beginning to fall apart – in fact, more than ‘beginning’. The evidence is everywhere.

• There is a big shake up in the Russian Army, many senior officers are being arrested, perhaps because Putin fears a coup. Shaking things up does not make an army more effective. Just the opposite.
• Inflation is ‘under control’ according to Putin. He is ignoring something like 8% inflation per month. How long can he pretend?
• Crime rates are spiralling out of control.
• Buildings are collapsing (not bombed, just badly built and lacking maintenance).
• Roads and railways are broken, water supplies are broken, power supplies are broken, Ukraine is destroying oil refineries. Nothing is being repaired because so many skilled people either left Russia, or have been sent to die in Ukraine.
• Nearly half the Black Sea Fleet is on holiday, resting peacefully on the sea bed.
• Aircraft, air defence, airfields are being destroyed daily.
• The war is going badly, very badly in fact.

What will happen next?

Putin’s time is probably short now, everything is going wrong for him.

Ukraine’s nightmare might end very suddenly, though nobody knows when. It could be in a year’s time, or just a month, or a week, or it might be tomorrow.

None of this affects how you feel right now, so you (like so many in Ukraine) will have to suffer longer. But feelings change day by day, One day, hope will grow like a tree in the springtime. Hope will blossom and flourish. But perhaps not today.

I know you, like all Ukrainians, will cling to hope until it’s no longer needed. Then you will all be able to sing, and dance, and have parties in the street, and then start on the huge task of rebuilding your shattered lives and towns and cities.

Slava Ukraini! Heroyam slava! 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦