The Ukrainian army has got better at fighting Russian-backed separatists

WHAT TO MAKE of the military analysts who calmly list the reasons why the most serious war in Europe since 1945 might begin in January? The flat, muddy terrain of south-eastern Ukraine will be frozen solid by then, allowing Russian tanks to roll in. It is in the middle of the deployment cycle for the conscripts who make up much of Russia’s ground forces. And Russia may find itself with a pretext for invasion, since the new year has in the past brought front-line flare-ups in Ukraine’s war against Russian-backed separatists. Besides, the 100,000 Russian troops massed near the border are more than mere theatre; Russia is setting up field hospitals and calling up its reserves.

Dima is unimpressed. A colonel in the Ukrainian army, he has watched the rapid transformation of his country’s armed forces from a bad joke to something approaching a modern army. And he thinks Russia has been watching, too. “They are afraid of us, because since 2014 we have shown what we can do,” says Dima, who prefers not to use his real name. “It would be a third world war, at a minimum,” he says, perhaps with a touch of hyperbole. In the corner of a café in Kyiv, fidgeting with cigarettes and coffee, he remembers how far Ukraine has travelled.