The piercing screams of children mingled with the barking of traumatised dogs and the shouts of soldiers desperately trying to maintain order, as the 14.07 to Ivano-Frankivsk pulled into Kyiv’s central station.
There was a crowd of thousands on platform one, surging towards the blue carriages and desperate to secure a prized place on a ride westwards out of the Ukrainian capital. Most people would not be able to board.
