On the evening of November 2, in the fringe settlement of Petropavlivska Borshchahivka on the western edge of Kyiv, more than two hundred people massed outside a military holding compound. They had not come to stage a casual protest; many were relatives of men who had been conscripted, men who had disappeared from their homes or ended up on the wrong side of the draft system. For hours, social media and local Telegram channels had been carrying the same alarming story: inside those walls, Ukrainian soldiers were being held illegally, and worse, tortured. To a country already exhausted by war,…

It begins with a man you might think you’ve seen somewhere before: sunburnt, with cropped, gel-spiked, salt-and-pepper hair, squinting into a camera from what appears to be a sauna, a satellite poster pinned to the pine behind him. He is talking about the war in Ukraine, about how the west cannot win, and about how NATO’s “old dinosaurs” will be furious that Donald Trump is dealing with someone who has been demonised. In the corner of the screen sits a broadcaster’s logo: “RRN.” Where do you remember him from? Was it GB News, or the jungle of I’m A Celebrity……