Barry Andrews: At the front, it's clear Ireland must continue to support Ukraine

If cuts to Ukrainian supports here are necessary, due to the accommodation crisis in Ireland, then we should make up that support in other ways, writes MEP Barry Andrews

Soldiers practise military skills on a training ground near Kharkiv, Ukraine, in August. Photo: Anatolii Lysianskyi/Ukraine's 127th Separate Brigade via AP

Driving six hours across Ukraine to the eastern city of Kharkiv last Saturday, the sheer vastness of the country is remarkable.

Thousands of hectares of farmland and forestry roll by barely inhabited at all. You start to feel small and fall silent. You are hypnotised by the horizons, imagining there must be enough space for a thousand cities.