'Their spirit is remarkable...I love working with them'

On an emotional visit to Kyiv, ex-veterans minister Johnny Mercer meets injured soldiers and amputees who provide a raw reminder of Ukraine's ongoing war

- Alex Ross

Dressed in a hoodie and sporting a mullet, former Tory MP Johnny Mercer did not want to be noticed when stepping onto the platform at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station after a gruelling 20-hour journey from Poland.

Despite Kyiv recovering from “The Living Dead scenes” witnessed in the weeks after the outbreak of the war, the father of three said he did not want to take any chances as he started a recent seven-day mission in the war-torn country.

The city may have “come alive again” since those early days of the war, the former veterans minister said, but the threat remained.

Sirens sounding every night served as a reminder of the danger to the 44-year-old, who stayed in a hotel in the curfewcontrolled capital, some 330 miles from the country’s front line with Russia.

“The alarm goes off and you’re supposed to go into the bomb shelter,” Mr Mercer told The Independent. “But there’s a bit of fatigue with all that, so you sort of pull the pillow over your head and hope it hasn’t got your number on it.”

One night, a drone landed in a garden close to the hotel, said the ex-army captain, who was quick to add that the Ukrainian military was doing a “great job” in shooting the drones down in the sky.