💔🇺🇦 L’horreur. En ce moment-même, des civils tentent d’échapper aux flammes après l’explosion d’un drone en plein centre-ville de Kyiv. À 5 mins du lycée français où se trouve mon frère. Pendant ce temps, certains politiciens demandent un arrêt du soutien à l’Ukraine. Ils ont du sang sur leurs mains.

Today it’s 50 years since I first presented Playschool wearing my blue beads and silver heart. I adore bringing joy into the lives of my #Playschool Babies during the 12 years I was on the programme. @CBeebiesHQ ❤️

Today alone, and in Kyiv alone, Russian jet-powered drones “vanquished” two kindergartens and two schools, an ordinary residential building, an auto repair shop, several warehouses, and communications facilities. Anywhere in the world, this choice of targets would be called by one word – terrorism. Russia has no military objective whatsoever in doing this – it is purely an attempt to break people and inflict as much harm as possible on our society. Tragically, there are people killed… My condolences to their families and loved ones. Dozens of people were injured. Overall, since yesterday, the Russians have used 277 attack drones of various types, 155 of them jet-powered. Among the damaged sites is also a building used as the residence of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador. In the Dnipro region, a sports school is among the damaged facilities. In the Sumy region, the building of a regional children’s home was damaged. If Russia were truly preparing for any real steps toward de-escalation – as it claims, particularly to American negotiators – this wave of “shahed” terror would not be happening. And we need to take a sober view of the situation. Russia knows how to send the kind of encouraging diplomatic signals that the world simply wants to hear… It knows how to send such signals in order to delay tough steps by the world in response to the war. In America, the important Lindsey Graham sanctions and tariffs law has already reached the implementation stage. It is a law that can change a lot for the better if fully implemented. This law needs to be implemented – and everyone in the world can see that there is EVERY REASON to apply it and A CLEAR PURPOSE for doing so. We are counting on effective decisions from the world and stronger pressure from our partners, so that Russia sees that manipulating diplomatic signals will not allow it to keep winning more and more time for war and terror. It is important that our other partners in the G7 and G20 also take a principled stance. New sanctions packages are being prepared – specifically targeting financial networks, supply chains for components and equipment used in the production of Russian weapons, and specific companies and individuals primarily involved in the production of Russian ballistic missiles. The new sanctions must take effect as early as October to provide a stronger foundation for changing the situation and pushing Russia toward real diplomacy. Thank you to everyone who helps Ukraine! Thank you to everyone working 24/7 to provide greater protection for Ukrainians and our state!

As of now, the air raid alert in Kyiv has lasted almost 13 hours today. This is the reality.

A long journey home and it’s good to be back. Thinking of my friends & students in Kyiv who don’t have the privilege of having home as a safe space. Keeping my air alert app active for a while as a reminder of what they are living through. Here’s a snapshot from this Sunday afternoon. Slava Ukraini.

We understand that, tragically, the world is becoming numb to reports of children’s hospitals destroyed, maternity wards attacked, teenagers killed while doing their homework. That is why bringing politicians, diplomats, journalists and volunteers to Ukraine matters so much. Come. See this war with your own eyes. Meet the people living through it. Then go home and become an advocate for giving Ukraine the strength to end it. Some things cannot be understood from headlines alone.

In my element today at the National museum of history of Ukraine being shown the amazing results of a battlefield archaeology project. A 1630s showdown between Cossacks and Poles. Very impressive range of related objects and beatifully executed fieldwork. And for that piece of armour look no further than the Polish Hussar kit in the csse.

A rough day for the people of Kyiv, but we still gathered for the third of my lectures. We had to fight for a room though, and then scrounge a projector & manage withought wifi (knocked out on one of the raids). Today we explored Waterloo and then went for pizza. Slava Ukraini!

The timing might have been pretty much perfect, but having the musketry part of my lecture on Culloden momentarily interrupted by an air defence salvo is definitely going down as an unusually immersive teaching experience.

Day 3 in Kyiv. First of my short series of lectures at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy today. Delighted at the enthusiasm and engagement from students and look forward to our second session tomorrow. Thanks to my colleagues here for helping to make this happen.

Heavy Metal. Kyiv.

Starting out on the long train trip from Warsaw to Kyiv. Probably won’t be posting much over next week, but l am keeping a video diary which may or may not see the light of day. My latest entry, recorded on platform 1, is on still being a nervous traveller after all these years of doing just that - “Not quite Alan Whicker am l.”

Warsaw doesn’t hide its WW2 history. On my way to eat and there it is again.

If it’s Thursday it must be Warsaw! After leaving Glasgow this morning at 3.30am to fly from Edinburgh l’d thought of chilling in my hotel room this pm. Instead, l spent 3 hours in the amazing Warsaw Uprising Museum (Aug 1 - Oct 2 1944). So much to see that 3 hours wasn’t enough. Highly recommended.

Surprised to turn on Radio 4 and find a dramatisation of ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien. Even as fiction it’s one of the best books on the Vietnam War from the perspective of the ‘grunt’. Just last week l put it on a recommended reading list for clients on a Vietnam tour l’m co-leading in Oct-Nov.

#Trump 🥴

Home after an amazing few days at @CIESCA1 in Bilbao. Fantastic presentations on multiple aspects of conflict archaeology. Thanks to everyone who went out of their way to make the only non-Spanish speaker at the event feel one of the team. Told Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal his book will be the first I'll read in Spanish. A few days R&R and then time to pack the case again. @CarlistWars