Politics

Few Russians go willingly to fight in the ‘meat grinder’ of Ukraine, where Russia has faced as many as 100,000 casualties. With a lack of volunteers, the Wagner Mercenary Group – which has recruited from penal colonies to keep fighting numbers up – has come to Putin’s aid. The Kremlin has also rolled out a partial mobilisation of the Russian army. Officially, 300,000 men were called up, although the true figure is likely to be higher. Many more Russians – up to a million – chose instead to flee. New analysis of cases listed in Russian military courts has revealed that record numbers of soldiers have been going absent without leave (Awol) this year.  Data collected by the independent Russian investigative outlet Mediazona shows

By-election wins rarely presage great victories at a general election. If they did, the Liberal Democrats would enjoy perpetual government. But the fact they are not a forecast for national contests does not mean by-elections are always insignificant. In fact, they provide a good reflection of public mood at a given time and, particularly, sentiment towards the governing party. This has been true throughout recent history and remains true today – despite the excitement that will be generated by a Scottish Labour victory over the SNP at the coming by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West. The current MP, Margaret Ferrier, faces being removed by her constituents. She has been sentenced to 270 hours community

Throw a right-wing political shindig these days and you’re guaranteed to make a splash. Last week it was Suella Braverman at the National Conservatism conference; before that it was Priti Patel at the ‘Borisfest’ in Bournemouth. And now Mr S has two more dates pencilled in his diary for potential mischief-making: the Northern Research Group (NRG) conference in Doncaster on 9 June and the Margaret Thatcher conference at the Guildhall three days later. And it’s the line-up of the latter convention which has caught Steerpike’s eye. Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary and dark horse leadership candidate, is due to give the opening address – an opportunity to burnish her credentials

Something strange is happening to Yevgeny Prigozhin. The chief of Vladimir Putin’s mercenary army in Ukraine has begun withdrawing his forces from Bakhmut, has all but conceded defeat in one of his most bizarre interviews yet, and, to top it off, now the journalist who interviewed him has been fired. ‘We came in boorishly, trampling all over Ukraine’s territory in search of Nazis. And while we searched for Nazis, we fucked up everyone we could,’ Prigozhin told the pro-war political journalist Konstantin Dolgov in an interview on Tuesday. ‘The special military operation was done for the purpose of ‘denazification’…But we ended up legitimising Ukraine. We’ve made Ukraine into a nation