On Monday morning Melinda Simmons was getting dressed when she heard an explosion. It was 7am. Russia was bombing Kyiv for the third time in a month. Simmons, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine, went to the shelter of her residence, as cruise missiles hit the capital and other cities. “My hands were shaking. It was the adrenaline,” she recounts. Safe underground, she spent the next 15 minutes painting her nails blue and yellow, the colours of Ukraine’s flag. “It was something to do with my hands. By the time I’d finished they had stopped shaking,” she says.
Since Vladimir Putin’s “murderous invasion” in February – her blunt words – the ambassador has taken cover on various occasions. She points out that her situation is no different from that of millions of Ukrainians, who are now enduring daily power cuts and life by candlelight as a consequence of the Kremlin’s cynical attacks. As part of her diplomatic job, she says, she has learned to tell the difference between booms and explosions. The first signifies Ukraine’s air defences at work in the skies; the second an incoming missile or deadly kamikaze drone.
