Ukraine

Saturday

Mary Kissel

Joe Biden’s new world disorder

The chaos abroad that has marked Joe Biden’s presidency is accelerating. Russia’s bloody war on Ukraine is rolling from winter into late spring; Iran and its proxies are launching missiles into Iraq and Saudi Arabia; China is menacing Taiwan and other Asian neighbours, and North Korea is preparing to revive its nuclear programme. Meanwhile, long-time US friends like Saudi Arabia and newer partners like India are starting to hedge their bets by cosying up to these regimes. Is the post-Cold War, US-led world order fracturing? It certainly looks like it. America’s enemies no longer fear her — and her friends don’t wholly trust her. Without a sea change in White

Phillips O'Brien

Could Russia lose the war in Donbas?

We face a serious dilemma as the Battle of the Donbas begins. The idea that the Russian army remains a powerful, effective force capable of breaking through Ukrainian lines and encircling forces in the Donbas remains widespread. It is regularly claimed that now the Russians have shortened their supply lines, concentrated and rebuilt their forces, and appointed a bloodthirsty war criminal as their commander they will show us what they are capable of. And, it is claimed that the Russians must seize the Donbas and have a major victory by May 9, so that Vladimir Putin can stage a victory day parade then in Moscow. But what if the Russian

Friday

Kate Andrews

Will economic pressures weaken the West’s alliance?

This morning’s retail sales update isn’t pretty. Sales volumes fell by 1.4 per cent last month, following a 0.5 per cent drop in February (revised, and worse, than the original estimate of 0.3 per cent). The biggest fall came in non-store retail shopping: almost an 8 per cent month-on-month fall. However, the Office for National Statistics points out that overall sales volumes are still roughly 20 per cent higher now than they were pre-pandemic. But the recent drop indicates that the cost-of-living crisis is already worsening, as inflation – now at 7 per cent – is taking its toll on real incomes and is already prompting changes in consumer behaviour.

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why Putin’s ‘Satanic’ missile launch matters

In some ways, it’s a headline-writer’s dream: Putin puts his faith in Satan. In reality, it’s actually Putin’s new RS-28 Sarmat (‘Sarmatian’) heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, which has become colloquially known in western circles as the ‘Satan II’. It is intended as a replacement for the R-36M, which in Nato parlance is known as the SS-18 ‘Satan.’ Following a successful test on Wednesday Putin asserted that the missile would not only ‘reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats’ but that it would ‘provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country.’ It is certainly true that it is a powerful,

Christopher Booth

Is Putin in pain?

Is Vladimir Putin in pain? Until now, there has been plenty of chatter about the wellbeing of his minister of defence, Sergei Shoigu. Before the war, this veteran political survivor from the Yeltsin era was famous for being photographed on manly Siberian expeditions with his new patron, the bare-chested saviour of ‘All the Russias’. Putin and Shoigu camped out together in the taiga, with moody fireside photos and a spot of fishing – ‘Brokeback Mountain 2’, jested Russian bloggers. Though in reality, the two looked a more like Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in a dreary remake: Frumpy Old Men. More than evidence of enduring affection, the staged video sequences

Francis Pike

Why does India get a free pass for supporting Russia?

When Russia invaded Ukraine the Indian government rapidly launched ‘Operation Ganga’. This was not a military operation, nor did it aim to supply Ukraine with weapons – it was an operation to extract the 500 Indian students stranded in Ukraine. After Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi’s video call with Putin, the Russian president ordered his invading army ‘to ensure the safe exit of Indian nationals from the armed conflict zone.’ The Indian government quickly dispatched civil servants, not weapons, to Poland, Hungary and Romania to assist their fleeing citizens. Since February more than 22,000 have been repatriated. Otherwise, Modi’s attitude to Ukraine has been decidedly non-committal. He proffered his ‘deep anguish

Thursday

Jade McGlynn

Why more and more Russians are backing the war

O, do the Russians long for war? Ask of the stillness evermore, Ask of the field, or ask the breeze, And ask the birch and poplar trees. So begins a famous Soviet-era song and poem, written by Yevgenii Yevtushenko during Khrushchev’s Thaw. Volodymyr Zelensky cited the poem in his eve-of-war address to Russians, hoping it would rekindle these pacifistic sentiments and encourage resistance against the Kremlin’s imminent invasion. Apart from a relatively few (very) brave souls, Russians did not rise up. Opinion polls in authoritarian states must be treated carefully, but the absence of large-scale protests, combined with polls suggesting that 71 to 81 per cent of Russians approve of military activity in

Saturday

Phillips O'Brien

Why the sinking of the Moskva matters

The sinking of the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva is both a reminder of the past and a marker for the future. It harkens back to a lesson learned forty years ago. It was in 1982, in the waters around the Falkland Islands, that the ability of anti-ship missiles to destroy modern warships was brought home to much of the world. It was a shock for many to see a not-first-rate military run by the oppressive Argentinian Junta being able to destroy a number of the newest British warships during the Falklands War. Most notably the destroyer HMS Sheffield, which had been commissioned only seven years before, was destroyed after being

Gabriel Gavin Gabriel Gavin

Why Russians celebrate monsters

Nobody knows how long people live in Dzerzhinsk – life expectancy statistics for the Russian city, 250 miles east of Moscow, aren’t released to the public. In the days of the Soviet Union, it was closed to outsiders and left off official maps, but those in neighbouring Nizhny Novgorod joked that residents must have purple skin and second heads because of the emissions from its secretive chemical weapons plants. In recent years, however, it has gained notoriety as one of the most polluted places on the planet, with a study after the fall of the Iron Curtain reporting locals usually died in their mid-forties. ‘You can make more money here

Friday

Harry J. Kazianis

The next phase of the Ukraine war will be bloody

The war in Ukraine is about to enter an even deadlier stage, one in which both Kyiv and Moscow will be tempted to apply more and more military might that could even draw in outside powers. The Battle for Donbas, with another battle raging for what is left of the city of Mariupol, will be a new hell that Europe has not seen since the second world war. It has the potential even to mutate into World War III unless the conflict is brought to a conclusion — and fast. Why the war in Ukraine is shifting to these critical regions is simple to understand. First, Putin knows he has

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris in Kyiv, Rishi in hot water and crystal meth in a cereal packet

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, travelled to Kyiv in secret and joined President Volodymyr Zelensky for the cameras in his office and in empty streets. He was given a pottery cock by local people. He said: ‘We are stepping up our own military and economic support.’ Mr Zelensky said: ‘It is time to impose a complete embargo on Russian energy resources.’ Britain would send 120 armoured vehicles, Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, 800 anti-tank missiles and anti-ship missile systems. Supporters of Extinction Rebellion sat down in the road at Oxford Circus in London. The tyres of 100 SUVs were let down in Edinburgh by campaigners who left notes saying ‘Your gas-guzzler

Niall Ferguson and David Petraeus

‘Putin still has a lot left to lose’: Niall Ferguson and David Petraeus in conversation

David Petraeus is a former CIA director who, as a four-star general, led US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He speaks to the historian Niall Ferguson about the war in Ukraine. NIALL FERGUSON: General, I wanted to ask you to give your assessments of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If you were grading Russia’s military performance and Ukraine’s, what grades would you give? DAVID PETRAEUS: Clearly Russia has failed. That’s the only way to describe the campaign thus far. And the Ukrainians, gosh, I think you have to give them an A at least and perhaps even more for just the sheer determination. But it’s much more than fighting

Owen Matthews

Putin’s war is a cross to bear for all Russians

‘The photographs of murdered civilians, their hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head and tossed like animals on to the street… we will not forget, and no one will let us forget,’ wrote Russian journalist and author Yevgenia Albats last week. ‘The guilt for this will lie on our children and grandchildren. Bucha, Irpin, Motyzhin – we will now have to live with them for ever.’ Powerful words and moving nostra culpa for Russian atrocities in Ukraine. But they raise a vital question. Who, exactly, is the ‘we’ who is to bear the blame, guilt and punishment? All Russians? The 70 per cent of Russians who official polls

David Abulafia

Bitter harvest – how Ukraine’s wheat has always been coveted

Publishers love books with ambitious subtitles such as ‘How Bubblegum Made the Modern World’, and this one’s, about American wheat remaking the world, was no doubt devised to appeal to readers in the United States. It is not really appropriate: for ‘American’, read ‘Ukrainian’. The focal point of Oceans of Grain lies very far from the vast wheat fields of North America. This is mainly a book about Ukraine and the Black Sea, and the importance of Ukrainian grain in world history. Its appearance during the current war is extraordinarily timely. Scott Reynolds Nelson insists that grain supplies have lain at the heart of millennia of conflict. He describes the

Taki

The age-old story of strongmen

The only good news, after the massacres in Ukraine, is that so many ugly behemoth super-yachts have been seized and will not be polluting the seas this summer. There is no more horrible sight than an oligarch’s super-yacht on the horizon, and that is before it disgorges its passengers, which is a horror show in itself. Arab boats, with their hookers on board, are even worse. The other good news is that Elon Musk has become the largest shareholder in Twitter, and in a Trojan War replication has challenged Putin to a duel. Oh, what a wonderful world this would be if those who started wars would duke it out

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The case against a European army

The end of the Cold War was used by the victors to unite Germany. To balance this, Europhiles created a single currency which, by replacing the deutschmark, would ‘hold Germany down’. The reverse occurred. The euro made Germany the most important power in the European Union, and so it remains. Today, the same Europhiles want to use the rebirth of the Cold War to encourage Germany to re-arm. To balance this, they want to create a truly ‘European’ defence, of which Germany would be a vital part. The EU would prevent Germany from using its force for national needs. For this purpose, they say, Nato would be no good because

Peter Pomerantsev

I can feel my heart hardening as the war goes on

Palm Sunday in Perugia. Umbrians were scuttling around with twigs and leaves, but I was in town to celebrate another faith. It was the annual International Journalism Festival, which hasn’t been ‘annual’ for the past two years due to Covid. Happy reunions were applauded with the sound of countless clinking glasses, but the mood was often mournful. In the first panel I was on, the moderator, Natalia Antelava, asked for a moment of silence for the 18 journalists already killed in Ukraine. Among them was Oksana Baulina, a former colleague of Natalia’s at Coda Story news platform, where I am also a contributing editor. Oksana was Russian. She had previously

Fredrik Erixon

Is this the birth of a Nordic Nato?

In the past six weeks, Finland and Sweden’s security policies have changed more than they have over the past six decades. In much of what they do, the two countries come as a couple and were militarily neutral during the Cold War – but their defence cooperation has only deepened since Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. Now, the two are about to break with their long history of non-alignment. Their applications to join Nato are likely to come in the next two months. At a press conference in Stockholm this week, the prime ministers of the two countries – Sanna Marin and Magdalena Andersson – came close to admitting they want

Wednesday

Mark Galeotti

Putin is devouring his children

Like the Greek titan Cronos devouring his own children, Vladimir Putin seems determined to turn against those he was once closest to – out of fear, anger and hubris. In the process, he is only further weakening his regime. The former deputy head of the infamous Federal Security Service (FSB), colonel general Sergei Beseda, has been moved from house arrest to the investigations wing of the equally infamous Lefortovo prison. Designed to break inmates’ wills, guards escorting prisoners through its corridors use clickers to announce their presence. This allows other prisoners to be placed face to the wall in niches along the way so that they don’t get to see

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Zelensky has snubbed Germany’s President

When Volodymyr Zelensky told the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier yesterday that he did not want to see him in Kyiv, it hit his delegation like a slap in the face. The political class in Berlin still underestimates the depths of mistrust caused by Germany’s Russia policy. Whether trust with Eastern Europe can be rebuilt will depend on Berlin’s support for Ukraine – and certainly not on empty words, gestures and visits. Steinmeier had been on a state visit to Poland when Zelensky’s message reached him. He had travelled there in order to meet with President Andrzej Duda – in itself no easy encounter. Tensions between the two countries run higher than many