Fiona Hill is the foreign affairs expert who started life as a former coal miner’s daughter in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, and became an adviser to Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. She came to public attention in 2019 when she testified against President Trump during his first impeachment and has been much in demand in recent weeks as an expert voice on the events unfolding in Ukraine.

She took part in an Intelligence Squared event earlier this year before Russia invaded Ukraine and in July she returned to share her insights into what drove Putin to launch the war, what might persuade him to back down and the likelihood of his using nuclear weapons. In conversation with author and Times journalist Edward Lucas, she also drew on her bestselling memoir There Is Nothing For You Here and talk about the link between the populist impulse and the desperation of people in forgotten heartlands – a desperation she has seen in her hometown, in Russia and the US.