It’s 5:20 p.m., and I am boarding the train to Kyiv. I don’t yet know what to expect. Two weeks earlier, I accepted – without hesitation – an invitation to a study visit organised by the Mieroszewski Centre and the Ukrainian Institute. I checked the news before leaving: Kyiv is considered relatively safe, but the country is at war. Russian forces have been attacking the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, with reports of destruction and casualties appearing day after day, the number of attacks having almost doubled in early April. A stormy meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the White House has just taken place. It strikes me that although I know something about the war, I have no clear sense of how the attacks actually unfold. Could something happen to me on the train? Probably not – certainly not – there have been no such reports so far. But who knows…?