letter from Ukraine
‘Attention! Air raid alert!’ said Luke Skywalker...
Ryan Burton King
My phone went off with a loud siren. The voice of Mark Hamill – yes, of Luke Skywalker fame – spoke sternly: ‘Attention! Air raid alert! Proceed to the nearest shelter. Don’t be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness.’ I hastily moved to mute it and apologised. A large table full of Ukrainian men grinned back at me. ‘Now we can tell who is not local,’ one of them joked. We continued eating our pizza and talking.
I was in Odesa, a port city on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine - one of two other cities I visited this past month. Every day and night brought reminders of war, as Ukraine continues to defend itself against its Russian invader almost three years into a three day fight. In Odesa, my bedtime soundtrack was the mournful cry of air raid sirens, the infernal buzzing of Russian drones, the roar of explosions, and the reassuring rat-a-tat-tat of air defence guns. This is the daily lived reality of the 38 million people who still live in Ukraine, most of whom meet the threat with a weary but collective shrug and carry on with whatever they need to do.
Debunking 3 myths about the origins of Christmas
Ryan Burton King
Christmas. 'It's the most wonderful time of the year,' Andy Williams croons. Or, as a cast of characters from Jim Henson's Creature Shop sang in The Muppet Christmas Carol, it is 'the summer of the soul in December'.
But for others, it is a season of woe, an opportunity to blow a cold frost wind over the festivities with assorted dubious claims, doubtless well-intentioned but badly thought through and poorly communicated.
Reflecting on betrayal: Ukrainians mark three years of war
On 24 February 2025, thousands of Ukrainians and their families and friends crowded into London’s Trafalgar Square for an evening of prayers and protest, speeches and music, marking three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Particular excitement was caused by the appearance of the 'Iron General', the popular former commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhnyi, who took up a new post as ambassador to the United Kingdom last year. But the mood was inescapably sober, and reflected a new sentiment absent from previous gatherings: betrayal.