Ukraine

Well it took two months, but the inevitable happened this week: Yevgeny Prigozhin, one time chef and later war-criminal extraordinaire for Vladimir Putin, was publicly executed in the most extraordinary way. While flying on his private jet with the upper echelon of his Wagner Group, he was shot down by a Russian military operated anti-air system. For a short period there were the weird but expected rumours circulating, asking if Prigozhin was faking his own death, or asking if the Ukrainians did it. The answer seems clear, however. Putin had Prigozhin executed for his armed mutiny two months ago. Always go with the simplest explanation. Not pressing Russia fully because

In the early hours of this morning, Ukraine launched 42 unmanned drones at the annexed territory of Crimea, the Russian ministry of defence has claimed. Announcing on Telegram that the attack had been ‘thwarted’, the Russian MoD said nine of the drones had been shot down, while the remaining 33 were electronically jammed and downed ‘before they reached their target’. If the number of drones Russia claims to have been attacked with is correct, this would amount to the largest Ukrainian air attack on Russian-held territory since the beginning of the war. This could amount to the largest Ukrainian air attack on Russian-held territory since the beginning of the war. Mikhail

President Zelensky has announced that he is dismissing the heads of all Ukraine’s regional military recruitment offices and replacing them with veterans who had served on the front line. He used a video address to say that a state investigation had turned up widespread corruption, including bribe-taking and help for draft dodgers to flee abroad.  As a war leader, he has, in effect, autocratic power, beyond anything he would enjoy as an elected leader in peacetime – and he has shown himself willing to use it Sounding a notably tough note, Zelensky said: ‘This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and

As a journalist, I’ve been on the periphery of quite a few wars: for example, I went to Bosnia as the war ended in 1995 (at a time when snipers were still a threat). I was in Egypt during its 2011 revolution, with its jubilant but scary air of lawlessness. And smouldering buildings in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.  Just once, before now, I have plunged into the heart of a war, when, with a photographer friend, we persuaded a reluctant cab driver to take us from Beirut to south Lebanon during one of the Israeli invasions. As soon as we arrived, in a small mountain town called Machgharah, we were seized

In the last few weeks, words like ‘slow’, ‘grinding’ and even ‘failure’ have been used to describe the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive. The fact that Ukrainian forces have not broken through Russian lines and indeed have only liberated a relatively small amount of Ukraine’s occupied territory after seven weeks (though to be fair, they’ve taken about as much as the Russians were able to seize in seven months), has led some to cast doubt on the course of the counteroffensive. It has been argued that the Ukrainians launched their main offensive in early June, failed, and since then have struggled mightily to deal with Russian defences, particularly dense Russian minefields.  Actually,

Although Western support to Ukraine’s defence effort continues unabated, the honeymoon between Kyiv and even its staunchest allies is decidedly over. In a recent interview, President Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, said that Ukraine sees Poland as its close friend ‘until the end of the war.’ Then, he added, ‘competition between the countries will begin.’ The quote, which was immediately seized upon by Russian propaganda as evidence of a fracture in Ukraine’s key relationship, came off the back of a spat between Warsaw and Kyiv over the ban on imports of Ukrainian grain to Poland. The policy is due to remain in place until at least mid-September, even as Ukraine’s maritime export infrastructure is

Alexei Navalny – the most high-profile figure of Russia’s political opposition – has just been sentenced to 19 years in a ‘special regime prison colony’. This was no surprise. Navalny himself predicted the ‘Stalinist’ sentence for a variety of criminal charges, some relating to ‘extremism’, in a blog post the day before the sentence was handed down: ‘The formula for calculating it is simple: the prosecution’s request minus 10–15 per cent. They asked for 20 years, so I’ll get 18 or something.’ This latest verdict adds prison time to the sentence he is already serving in the Melekhovo prison colony – around five hours east by car from Moscow – which also served as the location

Sir Richard Moore, head of the Secret Intelligence Service – MI6 – follows the tradition of only giving one public address a year, so it is inevitably scrutinised carefully for signs and portents. His speech at the UK embassy in Prague, inviting Russians to spy for Britain, required no particular reading between the lines. After a suitable preamble noting Britain’s strong relationship with the Czech Republic, he pivoted from Moscow’s brutal suppression of the liberal Prague Spring in 1968 to Soviets, the bravest of whom, seeing ‘the moral travesty of what was being done…acted on their convictions by throwing in their lot with us, as partners for freedom.’ This was

https://youtu.be/IlHA60tJx3Y The Kerch bridge, Russia’s only road link to Crimea, has been targeted once again in what seems to have been a drone attack. The damage appears to be extensive may take weeks, if not months, to repair. The Russian-installed head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstatinov, has blamed the ‘terrorist regime in Kyiv’ for a ‘new crime’ – but in Kyiv, it will be seen as an audacious attack on a legitimate military target. This attack underlines the vulnerability of Russia’s most important assets to a new wave of Ukrainian drones. The Ukrainian military has made no secret of the fact they consider the bridge to be a legitimate military

Despite the inevitable and performative expressions of anger, regret and dismay following this week’s Nato summit, Moscow feels it has reason to be moderately content with its outcome. It has seen Ukraine frustrated in its failure to secure Nato membership – and fractures emerge between Kyiv and the West. Moscow’s contentment, however, may well be misplaced. In fact, the summit’s inconclusiveness when it comes to Ukrainian membership has ensured a range of other initiatives which are rather less comfortable for the Kremlin.  The notion ahead of the summit that Ukraine would be invited to join the alliance before peace had been concluded – essentially forcing the rest of Nato into

Deciding whether Ukraine should eventually join Nato is hotly debated. There are good reasons to favour its inclusion, but not now, while the war is ongoing. It would transform the war into a conflict between nuclear-tipped Great Powers and vastly increase the danger. Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is not happy with the uncertainty over his country’s membership. Actually, that’s an understatement. He is furious, according to reports. But that’s the decision taken by the allies meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Joe Biden led the side urging delay.  In a tweet Tuesday morning, Zelensky said, ‘It’s unprecedented and absurd when [a] time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for