"We understood in the first days of the war that Russia was killing civilians. The fact that Russia is doing this so cynically and consciously is still shocking. It is now safer for our children to be born in bomb shelters than in hospitals. After all, Russia is bombing maternity hospitals.

"You have probably seen the photos of a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol and the bloodied women who were victims of that attack.

"Half of Ukrainian children have become ‘internationally displaced persons’ due to the war. You will now see many of those children in your country — children with adult eyes, because they have seen death.

"If you see such children and such mothers, whose fathers remain here to defend the country, please help them to become warm again. Show them that there are safe places and decent people in the world: people who do not rejoice in someone else’s pain."

"But so far I have heard only a deafening silence from Russia’s mothers. Are they intimidated or indifferent? I don’t even want to imagine, because I don’t know which is worse.

"When people in Russia say that their troops are not hurting the civilian population, I ask you to show them the pictures of the children snatched from us.

"Show them the faces of Ukrainians who, having barely begun to breathe, have cruelly been denied the chance to grow up.

"How many more children must die to convince Russian troops to stop firing? How many more children must be killed by Russian soldiers before their mothers march against this war?"

Ireland’s tidiest and most littered towns have been revealed