For much of the 20th century, Europe was filled with capital cities at war. As recently as the 1990s, places like Belgrade, Sarajevo and Zagreb all fell into this tragic category. But today there is only one: Kiev in Ukraine.

Thanks to the predatory ambitions of Vladimir Putin, Ukraine is the sole European country that is waging war on its own soil. And Kiev has a very 20th century ritual: the daily announcement of the communiqué from the front. At 12.30 precisely, Colonel Andriy Lysenko, a lantern-jawed military spokesman, reads out the latest news from the east, where Ukrainian troops are fighting battles of attrition with Russian forces and their local allies, who occupy about half of the neighbouring regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.