Is Russia preparing to invade Ukraine?

I can still hear the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Just a mile or so from us, thousands of Russian troops were dug in; shells landed nearby. It was so cold my phone kept switching off. Seven years later, Ukraine is heading into another sub-zero winter. And the Russian troops have returned.

Moscow has now massed more than 90,000 troops on Ukraine’s eastern border. Washington is briefing that intelligence suggests an invasion. Moscow says this is ‘alarmist’ and — as usual — accuses Nato of inflaming things.

How did we get here? In truth the conflict never ended, it just froze. But it’s also true that the relationship between Kiev and Moscow has tanked this year. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a former TV comedian from the Russian-speaking south east who grew up in the post-Soviet tumult of the 1990s — and it is this, alongside his experiences in the entertainment industry and in media — that shaped him.