WHEN I was invited to war torn Ukraine by brave MP Kira Rudyk, during a chat on GMB, I wanted to take up the challenge and see the devastation in Kyiv at first hand.

What I saw in that beautiful city, ravished by Russian aggression, was brutal and will stay with me forever.

During my journey – filmed for a Channel 4 Dispatches special which airs tonight – I saw the body of a woman, shot by Russian soldiers as she ran for her life, and who could end up in a mass grave if efforts to find her family are in vain.

I met a distraught mother whose 13-year-old son was in hospital with seven gunshot wounds, sustained in an attack on the family car that killed her husband on the first night of the attack on Kyiv.

They were driving on a slip road onto one of the main roads when the vehicle was fired on by a 'technical' – a truck with a machine gun mounted on the back.

The boy hid behind the school bag, which saved his life, but he was left with bullets in his spine.

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I saw apartment buildings that had been destroyed by cruise missile strikes the night before, despite the narrative Putin and others put out that they are aiming for Ukrainian defence positions and clipping buildings by mistake, killing civilians.

Having spent ten years in the military, I can clearly see that apartment blocks had been targeted – the missiles had pretty much gone through the letterbox.

One lady told me she had been sweeping her home at 5am in the morning and a cruise missile came in through the window. She'd lost everything. She was in total shock.

This is deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of the civilian population of Kyiv.

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But what struck me most on my trip was the bravery and determination of the Ukrainian people.

They are obviously very scared. They are dealing with a genuine strategic threat to their homeland, which is not something we've seen in the UK for three generations.

But I've never seen a fighting force so committed to their defence and their job. In my own military career I worked with Afghans and they're great people, who fought hard, but they are riven by tribal differences. I was taken aback by the deep unity of purpose among the defenders of Kyiv.

They are grateful for the support the UK has shown them so far, with one badly wounded man telling me he wanted to say thank you to the people of Great Britain and adding, “I don’t feel abandoned and Ukraine doesn’t feel abandoned thanks to the work you’re doing.”

But they need more help.

We can close the sky without jets

Whilst other people begin to tire of this process, we should be redoubling our support to Ukraine. That way, they might break a pretty poor Russian army and put that part of the world on a pathway to peace.

NATO won’t enforce a no fly zone with planes, because that would be seen as an act of aggression, but there are other ways of closing the sky.

There are technical air defence systems we can give to Ukraine, purely for defensive purposes, which will help them hold out around Kyiv.

In the old days, when we supplied lethal aid to Afghanistan and other warzones, the stinger missiles were difficult to operate and would often miss.

Even in my day in the army, we would use a missile with a wire coming out in the back and struggle to hit the target.

The Javelin missiles we now supply are much more accurate, you can lock them on to the target, there's a much lower training burden and they've got a strike rate of around 93 percent. That is unheard of.

But what we always seem to get wrong in this country is that we view this war through the prism of previous wars.

This is not the cold war reheated, it’s not Afghanistan, it's not Iraq Technology has changed everything. We need to learn and adjust to that.

This is fifth generation warfare where you've got a smaller and lesser trained force in the Ukrainians over-matching Russian force because of technology, clever operations and unity of purpose that caught the Russians by surprise.

Biggest military mistake in a century

When he attacked Ukraine, Putin thought the Russians would take Kyiv on the first night.

But he made one of the most significant military misjudgments in the last 100 years.

People forget that Russia's got the GDP of Italy, so it’s not a rich country, but there’s also a lot of corruption among generals and brigade commanders who are empowered to buy military kit.

Putin has been lied to about Russian capabilities and preparedness.

So Putin has been lied to about Russian capabilities and preparedness. He’s surrounded himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear.

They only really get found out when things like this happen, and they've been truly found out.

In invading Ukraine, Putin has isolated and ruined his country. I can't see a way out for him at the moment and that in itself makes him dangerous.

To end this war requires total support, economically and militarily, to the Ukrainian people and to the Ukrainian government. As Moscow begins to pull back, my concern is that people think it's all over and let up on sanctions and military aid.

That couldn’t be more wrong for the people of Ukraine.

Ukraine: On The Front Line airs on Channel 4 on Sunday, at 5.30pm

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