Last week, inside the rabbit warren that is Kyiv’s presidential headquarters, I stumbled down spooky and deliberately darkened corridors. It was surreal, a bit like entering the film set for a thriller.
I was in Ukraine with a group of diplomats, economists, politicians and historians who, in recent years, have attended an annual meeting known as the Yalta European Strategy (YES).
I had presumed this year’s event would either be cancelled or held on Zoom, as it had been during Covid-19 lockdowns. Ukraine has been fighting off a brutal Russian invasion for the past seven months and Kyiv itself faced attack from Russian tanks and missiles.