Birthday Girl

Yesterday's news of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces and reaction from the international community dominates every bulletin. As telecommunications have not been disrupted, reports from correspondents and interviews with government officials and ordinary citizens, hiding underground in Kyiv or on their way to border crossings bring what's happening right to where we are.

Fierce resistance encountered by the Russians, not only from the professional army but from hastily recruited citizen militia neighbourhood defence groups was being reported. It's said that Russian special forces groups in Ukrainian uniforms are infiltrating behind the front lines, targeting select government ministries for seizure. 

So far the Russian blitzkrieg type advance hasn't proceeded as expected according to plan. Possibly a heavy bombing campaign could be launched to subjugate Kyiv and force the government to surrender. A hundred thousand people are said to have fled to the border with neighbouring Poland already. The  number of displaced people could eventually run into several millions, according to UNHCR.

China has so far made little comment. It's presumed not to condemn Putin's initiative. Today, however a presidential spokesperson has said obliquely that violating national sovereignty isn't desirable. China has some investment projects in Ukraine it seems. Heaven knows what's happening behind the scenes in Moscow. What will happen when the true number of casualties is revealed?  There are deep historic and kinship ties between Russian and Ukraine. Nobody apart from the Kremlin leadership wanted this to happen. What will it take for Putin's government to lose public support?

In the Friday weekly news bulletin, Bishop June called for a peace prayer walk cum demonstration next Thursday, between St Mary's the Docks and St John's City Parish Church. A pity that it clashes with the licensing of Rufus to his new part time Ministry Area post in Blackwood. I'm already committed to attend that. West Cardiff Ministry Area is to be inaugurated at St Catherine's on St David's Day. I have a children's Mass and a funeral that day, so I don't think I'll be attending this either.

I spent the morning revising my Sunday sermon in the light of current affairs, and printing it off ready, so that I having nothing to prepare when we return from Kenilworth tomorrow night. We set off after lunch. There were a few traffic delays and a short stop. The journey took us nearly three hours. I'm not driving so fast these days, economising as best I can on fuel, as it costs £1.50 a litre. It's bound to rise more in coming months as a consequence of the Ukrainian affair. We checked into Kenilworth's Peacock Townhouse Hotel, as we did before, put on our party clothes and walked to Kath and Anto's for a family and friends' celebration of Rhiannon's eighteenth birthday. Her boyfriend Connor was there, being introduced to those who have known her all her life. His parents came over too. It was a lovely evening, with great buffet food and drink. We were pretty tired when we reached the hotel, gone half past eleven.

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We were both awake listening to the news at seven this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep. Foreign broadcasters and are being withdrawn from Ukraine now and fierce fighting is going on in suburbs around Kyiv, but the city hasn't yet been overrun. It seems that few other cities have yet fallen, not that they won't when even more Russian troops and heavier weapons are brought in, but this is proving more costly that Putin was gambling on. At what point will he decide to stop and return to negotiations? When he invaded Georgia, he only stopped the country's military capacity had been disabled, then he withdrew is troops. It seems his mindset is dominated by fear of western invaders, represented by NATO. Is he driven by the need to create a neutralised buffer zone of states incapable of threatening Russia, or is he genuinely ambitious to re-create a Russian empire? These are the questions occupying observers of the situation it seems. This and the fear of events spiralling out of control into a third world war. 

We'd eaten a cooked breakfast in the hotel by nine and knowing nobody would be up early in Albion Street, stayed in our room until gone ten thirty, when the cleaner arrived. In fact we both fell asleep on the bed. Rhiannon had kept present opening until this morning, so we went up to watch and have a cup of coffee. It was nearly one by the time we left for home. The roads were quiet but the return journey in good conditions still took us nearly three hours of leisurely motoring.

After supper I watched last night's episode of Rocco Schiavone, which was rather difficult to fathom, as solving a crime successfully only led to the killer not being arrested because he was a valued anti-mafia informer, whom the state couldn't risk losing to an assassin in the course of justice being done. Really?