Svitlana Morenets

A crowded shopping mall in Kremenchuk has become the latest target for Russia’s missile attack. There were more than a thousand civilians’ in the mall, Volodymyr Zelensky said, ‘The mall is on fire, rescuers are fighting the fire. The number of victims is impossible to imagine’. X-22 missiles were fired from Tu-22 M3 long-range bombers, with launches made from the Kursk region, according to Ukrainian Air Force Command. The death toll so far is 13 with about 40 injured. An air raid siren sounding shortly before the blast may have allowed some to escape to safety, but rescuers are seeking to salvage bodies now.

Two months ago, I became one of the 80,000 Ukrainian refugees who have settled in Britain. The kindness I’ve been shown, by my host family and so many others, has been overwhelming. People are caring, but curious too. They ask how long Zelensky will really fight for. By which I suspect they mean: surely you guys don’t think you can actually win? Why prolong the bloodshed? It’s a good question. By some estimates, nearly 80 per cent of the Russian army is in my country right now. We’re tiny by comparison with Russia and fighting alone, though with donated weapons. Officially, up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are killed or wounded each day in eastern Ukraine. Unofficially, many more. My father, who is 53, could be called up any time.

A peculiar row has broken out in Kyiv over the role of one of Zelensky’s best-known advisers. Oleksiy Arestovych is a familiar figure in Ukraine due to his (now-lapsed) work as a spokesman and developed a profile abroad, described as a ‘sex symbol’ by no less a source than the Economist. But when it comes to sex, he has some clear views. ‘LGBT people are deviant,’ he said on 19 June. ‘I sympathise with them, but I am against propaganda’. Cue outrage, with KyivPride demanding Zelensky fire Arestovych for homophobic statements, ‘Such rhetoric from Ukrainian authorities is unacceptable if we want to be in the EU’. A reference to action that Brussels is taking against Hungary for its stance on LGBT rights.

When Russian troops started ‘military exercises’ on Ukraine’s borders, those of us living in Kyiv had grounds to worry. Putin operates by bluff, disinformation and false flags. He blows smoke, but sometimes his troops march through that smoke. That’s why we ought to pay attention to reports on Russian state media that there are to be military ‘manoeuvres in the Kaliningrad region,’ the Russian enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. ‘About 1,000 military personnel and more than 100 units of military and special equipment of artillery and missile units are involved’, says RIA News on its Telegram account.

The photo said it all. Zelensky’s face when embraced by Macron summed up how Ukrainians saw yesterday’s visit from the leaders of France, Italy and Germany – the Ukrainian media reaction today has varied from scepticism to ridicule. They had arrived to say that Ukraine should be given EU ‘candidate status’ – a goal that drove the 2014 Maidan revolution. This morning, the European Commission confirmed that it would back both Ukraine and Moldova in becoming members of the bloc – and excluded Georgia. After the news broke, President Zelensky said the decision was ‘the first step on the EU membership path that’ll certainly bring our victory closer’.