There are few experiences stranger than climbing into the back of a minibus and being blindfolded. Emblazoned across the front of each of our eye covers was a slogan: ‘Trust the Darkness.’ It was an appropriate motto.

For Shaun Pinner, the echoes were uncomfortable. He has driven blindfolded through Ukraine before. The last time as a prisoner of war when he was captured during the siege of Mariupol in 2022. He was driven into occupied Donetsk, uncertain whether he would ever see daylight again, and sentenced to death by a Russian-backed kangaroo court. Shaun spent months in captivity before being released in a prisoner exchange.

He was driven into occupied Donetsk, uncertain whether he would ever see daylight again, and sentenced to death by a Russian-backed kangaroo court

He was driven into occupied Donetsk, uncertain whether he would ever see daylight again, and sentenced to death by a Russian-backed kangaroo court

Most men, having survived all that, would never return to the place where they suffered so much. But Shaun is back in Ukraine.

This journey was very different. A busload of MPs and students cracked jokes, munched pastries smuggled from the breakfast buffet, and napped. While Shaun had spent a restful night in a King-size bed in the Hilton Kyiv, the students who formed part of a delegation of Brits who had travelled to Kyiv, spent the night six floors below, in the bomb shelter. Ballistic missile attacks and the shotgun thump of Patriot intercepts made for a restless night on camp beds and beanbags. Ukrainian espresso and the morning’s........

© The Spectator