'My conscience is clear' Prince Harry on his family, the Ukraine war and the media

It's about midnight. It's raining. A small group is huddled around a lonely roadside cafe somewhere near the border between Poland and Ukraine, getting wet in the drizzle, sharing cartons of chips and bottles of beer.

- Nick Hopkins

One of the bedraggled men wonders out loud why on earth the owner of the cafe would choose to close now, when surely this must have been the busiest it has ever been, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, with a captive and hungry audience.

Everyone laughs. Prince Harry can be quite funny, it turns out.

It helps to keep things jolly as the security detail work out how to ferry everyone from here to the train that will take them on a secretly planned trip to Kyiv.

The aim of the visit is to promote the work of the Duke of Sussex's Invictus Games Foundation (IGF), and to celebrate the recovery and rehabilitation of the thousands of veterans there who have suffered life-changing injuries since the war with Russia began three years ago.

Because of the sheer numbers of wounded, Invictus has become increasingly well-known in Ukraine, and Harry, somewhat surprisingly, has achieved cult-hero status.

The Guardian accompanies him on the journey to the capital - something of a gamble for both sides, as Harry noted. He is suspicious of the media, and the Guardian has long been critical of the monarchy.

And over the next 36 hours, we learn a lot - big and small - about this complex, conflicted man.

He doesn't like posing for staged photographs, and he doesn't like cycling ("I have a bony ass"); he likes to box to relieve his frustration -"hitting the hell out of a bag", he says, helps him to decompress.

In private he is very informal, padding around in his socks on the train to and from Kyiv and making dad jokes.

In public he has a confident voice and an easy charm with strangers, but on his own he is softly spoken and asks questions about people, and about politics. He has views.

He is not, he says, the unhappy man some of the press like to portray him as, but yes, he wants to spend more time in the UK.