Boris Johnson had been in a running argument with his security detail about the feasibility of a visit to Kyiv for weeks, and on Saturday he finally won his battle.
It was more than a fortnight after the prime ministers of Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Poland took the train to Kyiv on 15 March, at a time when the capital was under greater assault from Russia; a week after the president of the European parliament, Roberta Metsola, spoke to the Ukrainian parliament; and a day after the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and her foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, stood horrified in Bucha. Borrell, clearly moved by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s bravery, said he had returned with a clear to-do list.
