Are nearly out of Life Saving Medicines as an economic crisis continues. The Sri Lanka Medical Association said hospitals no longer had access to imported medical equipment and vital drugs. Some have suspended routine surgeries. Now on bbc news, Dateline London. Hello, im shaun ley. Welcome to the programme, which brings together leading uk columnists and the Foreign Correspondents, who write, blog and broadcast to audiences in their own countries from the Dateline London. In the studio today are Agnes Poirier of the french News Magazine and website marianne, michael goldfarb, former Foreign Correspondent with us public radio, now host of the frdh podcast thats the first rough draft of history Catherine Pepinster who is a former editor of the catholic newspaper the tablet, and writes in british newspapers on politics, religion and ethics. A Fratricidal War is how a group of dissenting priests from the Russian Orthodox church describe their countrys invasion of ukraine. It could wreck the spiritual ambition of kirill, patriarch of moscow and all rus� , to reunite the church in the two countries, just as it could wreck the political ambition of his sponsor, vladimir putin. On the other side of the continent in france, a country which used the blade of a guillotine to eviscerate the Divine Right Of Kings along with the religion that sustained it, Political Parties broad churches during the 20th century lack believers. And what faith should the british place in a Prime Minister determined by the police to have broken his own covid law . Lots to talk about this easter weekend. Catherine, lets start with what is happening in ukraine. How big a strain is this putting on the Orthodox Church the Russian Orthodox church, in particular and those 90 odd million Orthodox Christians . It is a big strain. It is particularly putting strain on members of the Orthodox Church in ukraine itself. Already, there is an independent ukrainian Orthodox Church and now, we are seeing more and more priests who have felt so torn between their country and the Russian Orthodox church, led by patriarch kirill, they feel that what he has been doing endorsing the war, effectively blessing it, making it a holy war, is completely unacceptable and they too are talking about splitting. I read something today from a theologian in ukraine, he suggested that as many as half of the 12,000 parishes of the Russian Orthodox church in ukraine could break away, so this is really significant. There are also some orthodox priests in russia itself who have started to be more and more anxious about what is happening, but for them, you can imagine, its extremely tough to speak out, and we are also seeing breakaways as well elsewhere. The Russian Orthodox church in amsterdam, for example, has decided its got to break away from moscow. How important has Russian Orthodoxy been to the narrative that President Putin is trying to construct . Its a very interesting question. Despite the 50 years when stalin effectively made russia an atheist state, it doesnt go away. The Russian Orthodox church has always been a political player within russian society, going back into tsarist times. And unlike in france or in the us or even in the uk, the separation never really happened, and its really interesting. Vladimir putin was baptised as a boy and his dad was a member of the communist party, so that really is something, and the priest who officiated his baptism was kirills father, so they have a very close connection and they share a world view. For russians as i understand it, and i have actually gone during glasnost, to services in a cemetery where there is a wonderful monastery, and i want to tell you, this side of the holy City Of Mashhad in iran, i have never encountered faith of that intensity, but that said, those kinds of worshippers are thin on the ground, however, Russian Orthodoxy is like an Essential Strand of russian culture and political life and, essentially, always has been, and i think that this is why this combination of kirill and putin, with a very similar world view, has so much power at the moment and can motivate a country into this war. Its interesting that you mention how things used to be with stalin because, of course, he tried to really destroy orthodoxy, but then, he changed his mind and started to realise the usefulness of orthodoxy, and it is as if putin has spotted that earlier than stalin did. But in russia, the church and the Military Have always been hand in hand. I looked at an interview. Of putin a few years back when he said that Nuclear Weapons or armament. And orthodoxy were the two pillars of national russian. Identity and, of course, l he was secretly baptised and also, he built thousands of churches in the last ten. Years or so and not only in russia, but abroad. I mean, orthodoxy, the russian kind, is a tool of foreign policy. You only have to go to paris on the riverbank and there i is this beautiful. Orthodox church. So, its part of putins soft power . Completely, but also. I think its three quarters of russians who identify as orthodox. Its part of normally the national narrative, but its a very conservative | tool within russian society. Im struck when i visited moscow a few years ago, i was struck by the return of the tsarist icons to the church that almost felt like a political statement as well. That kind of strong, almost autocratic leadership is something of value politically. And if you go to saint petersburg, you can now visit the shrines to the romanovs, and they have been consecrated as saints by the Orthodox Church. It was really interesting, in going to that service at the monastery, the priests go into the back room, you could hear them singing and doing whatever they do and the ordinary people are just making a circuit of the icons and crossing themselves, and the actual heavy lifting is being done in secret, as if behind the kremlin walls, except its in the back room of this church. Its interesting, the power being used for propaganda purposes, but i double and triple checked, but its online, so who can be sure . A website two years ago, they noted that on the moskva, this cruiser whichjust sank on the black sea, they had a golden cross, and embedded in that golden cross was a sliver of the true cross. This was at the tass news website, so i will say take it with a rain of salt, but nevertheless, the idea that in the 21st century, you would put this forward to your people, that a piece of the true cross is on our flagship in the black sea is to me astonishing. The patriarch kirill, hes a nasty piece of work. He let his priests bless the bombs that went. To syria and crimea. So, obviously, their prayers were not Strong Enough for the flagship, moskva. That didnt save it. Catherine, its interesting that kirills title is the patriarch of moscow and all rus. He happens to be the cartographer both by training and profession, before he became a priest. Is there a kind of almost territorial claim built into that title . I think there is. I think theres a sense in which he and others in the Russian Orthodox church see ukraine, belarus, russia as part of one holy place and that they belong to one another. They talk sometimes about ukraine being a little russia, as if it is the little brother. And there is a way almost, the opponents of the war also talk about fraternity, they talk about the Fratricidal War, there is a closeness between the two countries, there is proximity, but it is how you express that, thats obviously so different. What is interesting is that my two reporting trips in ukraine were mostly focused in lviv and odesa, but this is the stronghold of the ukrainian catholic church, not aligned at all with orthodoxy but with the roman church. Before it was ever part of russia, it was part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and the austro hungarian empire. It is not so simple inside ukraine, it is not a unisectarian place where nationalism intervenes and the Russian Orthodox is a bigger brother. Its a much more complicated mix of Christian Churches really, sects. One last thought for all of you, we will leave the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth although if anyone is interested in that, bbc sounds has a Great Programme on exactly that subject and its a really interesting history for those who wonder about democratic powers and consent of the people going back into the middle ages but in terms of the Roman Catholic church, pope francis spoke out, this is easter weekend for the non orthodox. Easter weekend for the orthodox is next weekend. But he spoke out on good friday and made a pointed statement, catherine, about the right of people under threat to defend themselves. It cant be a coincidence that he should choose to deliver that message this weekend in the middle of the war in ukraine . Absolutely not, and im sure we will hear more from him this weekend during his annual statement he makes to the city and the world from the balcony of st peters. He will speak about ukraine, im sure, but what you have to remember about him is he will make statements to the world. He is trying to be, i guess, be seen as a peacemaker, but behind the scenes, theres also vatican diplomacy going on, and he has the Secretary Of State and another archbishop who will be working, i know that they have been talking to Russian Politicians russian ministers and also talking to kirill and his people, too, so its a two pronged thing, and there are various suggestions about the pope going to see kirill at some point. Theyve talked about him going to moscow and about him meeting injerusalem, about him going to poland, so there are discussions going on about an encounter. The churchs Diplomatic Network is very alive at the moment. Absolutely, this was an unprecedented thing pope francis went to the Russian Embassy early on in the war to express his displeasure at what was going on. Lets talk about the other big news this week, which was the french president ial election, round one, and Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron the obvious winners. The losers include the two parties that used to provide the president of the republic, certainly since the change of the constitution back in the early � 60s, the socialists and what they call the republicans. Their performance, not to put too fine a point on it, was pathetic less than 6 between them of those who voted. They were broad churches with huge numbers of faithful. What happened . They have collapsed and disappeared and i dont think they will come back. Why have they collapsed . Its a long story that started with the eruption on the political scene in france of the National Front, now known as rassemblement national, and jean marie le. Pen you may remember him, hes 95 was allowed, in a way, to have a voice because of the change in Voting System by the socialist president i remember it very well i was a teenager when i the National Front got 35 mps in the National Assembly i and instead of trying to find i out what it meant and perhaps grapple with the issue, because it was also the eruption of the secondl generation of North African immigrants who were french, who were not passing visitors | who wanted to talk about racism and multiculturalism, and jacques chirac, the right wing president , or Prime Minister with mitterrand. I not a marriage Made In Heaven you thought about changing no more proportional. He just wanted to sweep the far right problem i under the carpet. So, they havent really had a voice i mean, i very few mps. But the problem has not left, and it is the third time that we are faced with this. Very stark choice of electing a democrat, whether its on the right or left doesl not matter, hes. A democrat and. And a demagogue, would you say . Exactly. Is that unfair to her . No, its not unfair at all. And they all had the same surname, le pen. I mean, this is the fifth in 20 years president ial second round, and three of them have had somebody called le pen. 0h, oh, there are more. There are more and if she is elected, she has already said i to a belgian newspaper Thatjean Marie will be| at the elysee. And also, shes got a niece who is actually and also, shes got a niece who is actually much and also, shes got a niece who is actually much worse and also, shes got a niece who is actually much worse than and also, shes got a niece whoj is actually much worse than she is. And the whole clan of. Le pen will be in power i need to ask this question. If macron wins the second round next month, he cannot run again five years later. What happens then . Kind of successor. This 5 year timeline, sean, three years ago, it was covid and six months ago. Crosstalk. I think five years, that is the long run. Look, i dont know. We will all be dead. In my case, it is entirely possible. In my case, it is entirely possible, actually orally speaking. Look, i dont know. I think that parties do revive. And i dont follow socialist politics in france the way i did when i was going over at the very end of the mitterrands rule. Crosstalk. It happens, but they also provide a framework, starting something from scratch, which has happened now Emmanuel Macron came out of nothing and just invented a party, and thats unusual, and im not sure that is sustainable without a charismatic leader. Its not sustainable, i but the new generation of voters the ones putting macron opposite le pen, i saying, we dont actually want to go and vote. They have lost faith in the whole political system . Yes, and they are playing with fire, certainly, but they are not as interested in party politics, they are interested i in movements and de growth. And there is a long term tendency or trend, which started 30 years ago, and Emmanuel Macron is only in the face of that the convergence of the bourgeoisie, i educated bourgeoisie, from the right and left who are pro european and optimistic, and they want to adapt the model, social,. Welfare state to globalisation. But they have the extreme left and the extreme right and they have voters circling them. So, we have, in effect, something that is not i so democratic a one Party Government with Emmanuel Macron on top. So, it is completely a recomposition of the french political landscape, but i dont think the left and the right, the way we have known them, j are going to be back. Can i pick up one last thought on france, catherine, this Movement Idea . Kirill and putin has stylised the fight against ukraine its not about territory, but values and beliefs and the decadence of the west, so, presumably the drug takers that putin talked about are interchangeable with the gay rights demonstrators. Its interesting. They are the decadent ones you make a choice. We are seeing similar language from le pen. She has talked about the importance of french tradition, civilisation. It feels like there is some similar language there, this sense of people wanting to embrace some kind of past notion, some value that they feel is being lost. There seems to be a lot of othering and scapegoating going on, which is problematic. It is such a negative politics we are seeing. And there has been a bit of that in the attitudes towards those poorer, disaffected, particularly young muslim Men And Women who are french by birth and french citizens and all the rest of it but had been treated as the other in politics. Its very interesting how i the different religions have been voting, and we had the figures. Its interesting that the protestants and there are not that many in france, i think 2. 5 million i they voted massively for macron, much higher than the average. The catholics especially the practising catholics have voted more for le pen than the national| average and less for the far left. Mellonchon. And the muslims i the french muslims have voted on the first. Round 69 for the far left candidate, so this i is how religion plays out in french society. But, on the other hand, unlike russia, france is one of the top atheist countries in the world, you know . I sean cackles. And if you look at people who say they are not religious or simply atheist, well, | they are a bit on the left on the extreme left, and a bit on the extreme right, and a bit macron. Let me ask you, michael, in the last three or four minutes we have, about borisjohnson. Will the british have lost their faith in their Prime Minister as a result of him being fined for breaching his own law on covid . You know, its impossible to tell. And luckily, we have the may local elections and i think you just have to be patient and wait. I think, from what i can tell, what we talked about in france, most people who will sit around this table for any reason will think, you cant do that you cannot break the rules, the laws you just made, and in so brazen a fashion, even for a 50 quid fine, but i have a feeling there are a lot of people out in the country at large who think, 50 quid . i got caught speeding the other day and that was 95 quid and three points on my licence people will make their own decision about how bad that is. And as for the rest of it, my guess is its all priced in now, the way the country feels about boris, but i do think there is no election until 2024, so we will have to wait that long to find out. Catherine, the interesting thing about that fixed penalty fine, the analogy with speeding, when you look at the debates, part of the reason for that was them worried they would be so overwhelmed the police and the courts especially in the middle of a pandemic with prosecuting people who broke the rules, they thought this was the most efficient way of doing it, so it wasnt necessarily a judgement on how serious or not it was, but more an administrative decision. But im not sure that many people did break the rules in the end. People were stunned at quite how many parties there were in numberio. I mean, it was a remarkable number. You could say that boris has been lucky in that Something Else came along, i. E. Ukraine, to take the attention off him, but i wonder if his luck will run out because we now have a cost of living crisis in this country and we may well start to see the impact of that when we have the elections in may that is when people might vote according to their displeasure about that, and as is so often the case in politics, the economy plays so strongly. Agnes, we used to be rather snooty in this country about french politics on exactly this question, about rule breaking, and apparently indifference to some of the stricter rules on how you raise funds for election campaigns, who you give jobs to and all the rest of it. Is the boot now on the other foot . Well, i think you have i to distinguish the british and their government. And i think a lot ofi people in the world still highly regard the british. Their government is another story. I i mean, i have stopped making predictions. He should have been gone so many scandals. You only have to read the Ministerial Code to know that is not appalling propriety and integrity and everything i a british Prime Minister| is expected to be doing, so i have not lost faith in the british, ive lost complete faith in the l british Prime Minister. But as long as the tories back him, he is here. So, as you were saying, michael, another two years. They will back him unless they think they have a better candidate. And they dont at the moment. Well, surely, they must| have a better candidate crosstalk. If the war gets heavy and people get drawn in, they might have to find a much more serious person. Tom tugendhat. I dont want tojinx him. The chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, former soldier. But we are not there and its not likely that we will get drawn in. I have a feeling we will talk about this for weeks to come not least in a fortnight after those local election results. For now, though, thats it for Dateline London for this week. I hope you enjoy your easter, however you are celebrating. If you are celebrating watching this programme, then a happy easter to you. From all of us on the programme, goodbye. Hello. For most parts of the uk, Easter Sunday was another day of spring warmth, although out west across parts of Northern Ireland especially, it was cloudy and wet and cool. And for all of us, Easter Monday is set to be a slightly cooler day. No more temperatures up into the 20s as weve had so far this long weekend because weve got some cooler air working in around this area of low pressure. One frontal system that has been sliding eastwards, not much rain left on that as it clears the east coast. Some showers through the morning across parts of scotland and northern england. Plenty of sunshine, actually, to take us through the day but we will see some showers as well, especially in western parts, and more general showery rain in North West Scotland, where wind gusts will exceed a0 mph in fact, gusts of 50 or 55 mph in the most exposed places. Temperatures a little down on where they have been, 12 17 degrees, but if you see sunshine, its not going to feel too bad. Now, as we go through through monday night, well see some showers continuing but large areas of clear sky. Some rain into North West Scotland, maybe Northern Ireland later in the night. But under those clear skies, its actually going to turn really quite cold. A touch of frost for some to start tuesday morning. For tuesday, this area of low pressure will be retreating northwards but it leaves this little stray Weather Front behind, so that will generate some rain at times across parts of North West Scotland and Northern Ireland some of that quite potentially heavy into the afternoon. Elsewhere, sunny spells and scattered showers. Again, some of those showers could be heavy, and temperatures generally a little lower than they have been 13 15 degrees. We look ahead to wednesday and many places are going to have some fine weather, some spells of sunshine, a few showers popping up. There is a Weather Front out towards the west trying to push towards Northern Ireland but it looks like it will make very little progress. Temperatures again 11 to around 16 degrees. Now, that frontal system out towards the west is tied in with an area of low pressure but instead of sweeping across our shores, this low is set to retreat southwards, being fended off by this big area of High Pressure thats going to be building to the north of the uk, and that is going to generate quite a brisk easterly wind, so it will feel rather chilly, i think, as we head towards the end of the week along some north sea coasts with some shelter further north and west, some relative warmth, and it will be mostly dry. This is bbc news. Welcome, if youre watching here in the uk or around the globe, im david eades. Our top stories this hour ukrainian soldiers in the southeastern city of mariupol ignore russias deadline to surrender. The countrys Prime Minister says theyll fight to the end. In the east of the country, ukrainians prepare to counter the latest major russian offensive. Translation we live in ukraine, this is our land, donbas is the ukraine, and i was born in ukraine, and i will die in ukraine. A fourth day of clashes in parts of sweden, sparked by the plans of a far right group to burn copies of the koran. And doctors warn of an impending medical catastrophe in sri lanka amid a desperate shortage