When I was flying across Ukraine to the capital, Kyiv, from Odessa last month, I arrived at the airport to find a policewoman blocking an entrance to the terminal. A considerable crowd was gathered across the road. Apparently someone had called in a bomb threat.

Shocked at first, I looked around to see how the other passengers were reacting. Some people were on the phone, trying to rearrange their evening plans; others were just chatting among themselves or tapping away on their phones.

At that time, the Russian military presence on the border was growing, and the possibility of conflict was on people’s minds. But bomb threats have become routine.