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When a siren goes off in Kiev, people don't exactly freak out or even react all that much at all. They pause.

They assess. And then, sometimes, depending, they carry on. At the very end of my conversation

this week with the EU's ambassador to Ukraine, Katerina Materva, an air raid alarm began to sound outside her office.

She acknowledged it calmly and kept speaking.

She seemed more worried about the audio quality than anything else.

That tells you something about how people in Ukraine now live through this war.

This winter, people in Kiev have been enduring freezing temperatures while Russia targets energy infrastructure.

That means apartments without heat. Rolling blackouts. Families sleeping in one room, sometimes setting up tents indoors, just to keep warm.

And yet daily life continues.

Diplomatic work continues.

Political decisions continue.

The conversation about Ukraine's future continues, including EU membership.

As we approach another anniversary of the full-scale invasion next week, we wanted to understand these things better.

What does daily life in Kiev actually look like right now?

How resilient is Ukrainian morale?

What would peace talks mean from Keeves' perspective?

I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of EU Confidential.

Later in the episode, we'll turn to another debate, one shaped partly by Russia's war in Ukraine

and partly by growing uncertainty about the United States' long-term commitment to Europe.

It gained fresh urgency at the Munich Security Conference last weekend,

...