Some quotes do not age well. In October 2012, then incumbent president Barack Obama lambasted Governor Mitt Romney in a presidential debate after the latter claimed that Russia was America’s #1 geopolitical foe. Obama quipped “the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back”, adding that the Cold War had been dead for over 20 years. The bipartisan consensus in Washington at the time was emphatically in favour of a “reset” with Russia. Yet just 16 months later, Russia annexed Crimea and sent “little green men” to back separatists in eastern Ukraine. The result has locked large parts of that country into a permanent state of civil war. And while the international focus on Ukraine waned in the intervening years, the conflict has remained at boiling point: 13,000 have been killed and 30,000 wounded since 2013. Another 2 million have been displaced. Ukrainians have adapted to this horrific new normal by attempting to live their lives with carefree fatality. This month has see...