‘Europe must defend itself’: shadow of war in Ukraine looms over security conference

With ongoing US support far from guaranteed, Ukraine urges Europe to back fight against Russia, for its own sake

On the top floor of Literaturhaus in Munich, the Ukrainian veteran Yuliia Paievska was asked to speak to the elite of the transatlantic security and political establishment, including Hillary Clinton and the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, as they lunched on a three-course meal, served with military precision.

We are the dogs of war," Paievska said as she introduced herself, explaining how she had started out as a volunteer and then worked as the chief medic at a hospital on the frontline during the siege of Mariupol. I had children die in my hands, civilians, elderly. I do not know how you can forgive that. Thousands of soldiers have gone through my hands, thousands of civilians, streams of blood, rivers of suffering."