Any Western politician suffering from Ukraine fatigue could learn a lot from Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko.

“I know that I am tired. I’m really tired. I know that my people are also tired. A lot of them I took from assault units, so they are, like, extremely tired,” the 29-year-old philology graduate says.

“And we are also sort of ready for negotiations, but we are just asking that the West insists on our interests.”

Lt Mykytenko is composed, gently spoken, and quietly humorous. But she’s clearly mentally elsewhere. As we speak in London, where a new book is due out this week describing her decade-long war, she is constantly checking her phone. Giving orders, doing admin, simply staying in touch with her men.

The commander of a 25-man strong drone reconnaissance platoon in Ukraine’s 54th mechanised brigade, she has spent the past two-and-a-half years on the Donbas front.