If you walk down Holland Park Avenue, down the hill to Shepherd’s Bush, you’ll come across a statue wreathed with peonies, lit by a single candle. Two years ago, in February 2014, the flowers stretched almost to the street curb; the candles were myriad, ringing the statue in ever-widening concentric circles. This is the statue of St Volodymyr, founder king of the Ukrainian nation, set up in the old heart of the British Ukrainian community.
In the days around the fall of the Yanukovych government, and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, St Vlad was the site of nightly vigils, passionate and prayful protests, many of them led by orthodox priests. Gradually, the wreaths shrunk, the candles disappeared one by one. Someone still replaces the last cluster of flowers. But to those of us who walk past every day, it is a floral memorial to a wilted cause. The days when diaspora Ukrainians hoped that the West might challenge Putin in their homeland are long behind us.
Sir Robert Owen’s inquiry into the death of Litvinenko, published today, tells us what we already know.
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