Ukrainian flags are still waiving in the breeze in my neighborhood, and in nearly all the places our family visited in Europe this summer. The flags are a remarkable display of solidarity and index of how much the Ukrainian war has stirred emotions in the Western world (though not, it has to be said, beyond it for many different reasons). Here’s a picture of one unexpected encounter I had with a Ukrainian flag memorial in Cathedral of Our Lady (Antwerp). Interesting there was a Russian language tour group in the cathedral at the time so they would have encountered this on their visit. The productive discomfort of that encounter is one of many arguments against the idea of a ban of Russians visiting Europe.

The war remains an incredibly dangerous one, with the potential for even greater escalation. I wrote about this in an overview article on the six months for the Irish Times here.