The reality of being ‘under siege’ in Kyiv

I’ve never commuted into a warzone by train before, but I can now recommend it. The express train to Kyiv from Lviv near Ukraine’s Polish border has several advantages over coming in by car. Firstly, it avoids a 14-hour motorway drive, where fuel is short and traffic jams are long. Plus, the online booking app still works far better than any in Britain.

Despite the risk of Russians-on-the-line, the train has been kept running to help Ukrainians flee Kyiv for the Polish border. But it returns to Kyiv largely empty, save for a few Ukrainians on mercy dashes to pick up relatives. We trundle through the night, the lights dimmed. Vodka is shared round. The only problem is that we arrive into Kyiv central station at 5am, three hours before curfew ends. I try to get some sleep on the floor in the terminal, looking like some stray gap-year backpacker.