Last November in Dublin, the second in command of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, Sergiy Kyslytsya, got an unexpected insight into delicate Irish sensitivities.

During a closed-door discussion with TDs, the Ukrainian suggested that geographical remoteness no longer protected countries such as Ireland and Portugal – upon which the Fianna Fáil TD and chair of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, John Lahart, interjected: “Stop. You have crossed a line”.

Kyslytsya was stunned. How was he to know that he was trampling on Irish neutrality? How many people would have known that?

In an interview with Lara Marlowe in Kyiv, Kyslytsya compared our sensitivities surrounding security to Irish nervousness about discussion around contraceptives years ago. “Several decades ago, the Irish were reluctant to speak about contraceptives. Security is something you need to discuss, but which makes you very nervous.”

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It’s an unsettling story. Ukraine is an European Union membership candidate, so a top insider’s candid views should be of particular interest. The country is fighting for its literal existence against an aggressor whose army continues to butcher, bomb and rape Ukrainian citizens and has abducted tens of thousands of their children while........

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