Doctors Henry Marsh, author of And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, and Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking, have worked in Ukraine during the war, visiting hospitals and helping local doctors treat their patients, and are now setting up a charity. Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian of 20th century East–Central Europe, specialising in Ukrainian history. They talk to Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s foreign affairs correspondent, about Ukraine and people’s day-to-day ordeal in a time of conflict.