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29 March: Over the last month, the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine has cost tens of thousands of lives, forced millions of Ukrainians to become refugees – and created a world crisis. As we go to press, there are reports that there may be a ceasefire soon.

That seems unlikely until after Russia has captured Mariupol. The besieged and much-battered coastal city is the key to the land corridor linking Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and parts of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists. Securing this land corridor may be the one remaining Russian war aim.

In 2015, I went with Peace News’ Emily Johns to the Hastings home of John Shaw, director of SeaChange, the ‘not for profit economic development company’ for East Sussex.

SeaChange – a private company – has been given millions of pounds of public money to ‘regenerate’ Hastings.

This ‘regeneration’ has included building the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road in the teeth of fierce local opposition (see PN 2658).

I have a postcard above my desk of a photo Lee Miller captured of the opera singer Irmgard Seefried. She is singing an aria from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly in the bombed-out remains of the Vienna opera house in 1945. The image embodies the words of the cellist of Sarajevo, Vedran Smailović, when asked how he could continue to play music when bombs are being dropped all around: ‘No, the question is how can people drop bombs when there is such beautiful music?’

‘There’s a segregation that’s happening at the borders,’ Tokunbo Koiki* told ITV News on 27 February. The Nigerian Londoner added: ‘White Ukrainians have been allowed in[to neighbouring countries] with open arms, and blankets. This is the anti-blackness that is global. So even within a war, even within being under siege, we still have racism.’

Among the millions who have been fleeing Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on 24 February have been international students from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

I seem to have fallen into a never-ending recruitment drive – not satisfied with the ongoing search for commune members, or the renewed need to fill vacancies in my housing co-op, nor even the unusual situation of shortlisting and interviewing for a Radical Routes contract, I’ve found myself accepting a job recruiting people into a new housing co-op. For many hours a week.

Just in case the craziness of that sentence didn’t sink in – I am being paid (paid!) to help set up a housing co-op, and I (a non-member) am recruiting the new members who will set it up.

I am a sixth-generation Londoner, on my father’s side. It is home, in every sense of the word. Yet London can be a lonely place; try and strike up a conversation on the bus or in most cafes and chances are, you’ll be rewarded with a funny look or a raised eyebrow 

(I personally favour the latter, for the record).

There are few places where this rule doesn’t hold true, and they are beyond precious.

Yeah, so: ‘whataboutery’; where people argue that we shouldn’t campaign on a certain issue by asking ‘What about the men?’ or ‘What about poor white people?’ and so on.

‘When’s it International Men’s Day?’ used to be a common complaint on 8 March. I hope by now most people know that’s on 19 November. And every other day of the year, of course.

It’s only certain issues of course. Nobody whines ‘What about those with heart disease?’ when people are fundraising for charities campaigning, and researching into, other diseases like cancer.