'There wasn't an hour when we didn't come under attack' - MP reflects on trip to Ukraine

Coming under attack is nothing new for army veteran Stuart Anderson. Yet the "brutal" Russian drone and missile bombardment he experienced in Ukraine took him by surprise.

"It was like being back in the miliary," he told the BBC once back from a five-day trip to Kiev earlier this month.

"I never had more than an hour's sleep at any one time, and some nights were spent in a basement car park taking shelter," he said.

The Shropshire MP was in the Ukrainian capital as part of a NATO delegation along with other politicians within the alliance.

When he arrived by train in the early hours of Monday morning on 7 September, a ceasefire was in place between Ukraine and Russia due to the presence of a US peace envoy.

But when negotiators left at about lunchtime, the city came under heavy attack.

"When an air raid siren goes off, even if you're in a meeting, you've just got to get to the nearest shelter," he said.

"I've been in lots of conflict zones, in Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq, and I've been in these situations before, and you're mentally on edge the whole time.

"You don't know if a missile is going to come down and bury you in an underground car park."

Anderson's family in South Shropshire, where he is the MP, knew little of his whereabouts as he was not allowed to carry personal technology in case it was tracked or traced.

Throughout the trip, Anderson was afforded an increased level of close protection, due to his diplomatic and political status, including full police escorts wherever he went.

Despite that, the risk of being injured or killed by a drone or missile strike remained high.

"It doesn't matter how many people you have around you, the attacks come from the sky.

"From midday to early afternoon on my first day there, there were 60 cruise and ballistic missiles [launched by Russia] and most of them hit Kiev.

"They hit buildings around the area where I was staying, but the building I was in was not hit," he added.

"The Ukrainians are living this day in day out.

"And the Russians have switched their tactic where they're hitting main supply routes, trains, water plants, power plants… they're doing everything to make life a misery for people in Ukraine and it's absolutely brutal."

The most at-risk Anderson felt throughout the entire trip was on the train heading out of Ukraine towards the Polish border.

Just before boarding a train at Kiev's main station, he was informed that two other trains had been hit by drones and missiles two hours earlier, and one person had been killed.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson had a similar experience earlier this month when a train was hit near the Ukraine-Polish border 30 minutes after a train carrying top European security officials had passed through.

Anderson said: "When you're in a bunker, you've got a level of protection; when you're on a train, it's a very different scenario.

"Russian intelligence services would have picked up that a NATO delegation was going to Ukraine, so we were a significant target.

"When I got over to the Polish border, I was still mentally quite wired, and it took me a whole weekend to settle back down."

The Conservative MP, who held the Wolverhampton South West seat from 2019-2024, has been the UK's representative in the Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council since October 2025.

It was created in 1998 to foster collaboration between legislators from Ukraine and NATO member states.

Anderson is also the Conservative's Shadow Minister for War Readiness within Kemi Badenoch's shadow defence team.

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