Ukraine

It is winter in Ukraine. The ground is frozen and hard. Groups of soldiers on both sides struggle in the cold. The Ukrainians insist they have one advantage over the Russians: their soldiers, unlike mobilised Russian troops, have some effective winter clothing.   Traditionally, armies stop moving in winter. They hunker down. It’s less true in Ukraine, where winter does not mean paralysis for civilian or army life. But in much of the country, the frontline does appear frozen – figuratively and literally. But winter ends quickly, especially in wartime.  Western intelligence agencies believe that a new Russian offensive is in the offing. They say a new attack will begin in either

The videos showed a typical summit: Volodymyr Zelensky next to Ukraine’s flag and Boris Johnson next to the Union Flag. But there’s a difference. Johnson is no longer the prime minister and was visiting Kyiv as a private citizen – yet was greeted and treated like he was still calling the shots. A video of the meeting, with rousingly patriotic music, has been released. ‘I will do whatever I can’ says BoJo: but with what? In what capacity did his summit with Zelensky take place? Some may see this in the context of an attempted Boris Johnson comeback, but in the leading article in this week’s Spectator we make the case

Is Vladimir Putin finally about to announce a second mobilisation wave? Ukraine has been warning for weeks that up to half-a-million more troops could be forced into the army. Jitters are growing in Russia that a call-up might be imminent: rumours are circulating that the Kremlin might shut Russia’s borders and resort to a second round of mobilisation. The Kremlin has denied these reports: but Putin is increasingly getting desperate. He needs to find a way to turn this war around. He also needs to fulfil defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s quota that an army of approximately 1.5 million is needed ‘to guarantee the fulfilment of tasks to ensure Russia’s security’ –

Moscow this morning hailed the ‘liberation’ of Soledar, a strategic point in the battle for control of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Wednesday that his mercenaries – who are spearheading the offensive – were in control of the salt-mining town (or what remains of it). It was denied at the time, but the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said it believes Russian forces have taken ‘most, if not all’ of the town. Ukraine insists that the fighting is ongoing and that its soldiers ‘are bravely trying to hold the defence’, but the institute says this probably refers to positions around Soledar and that it now seems

So, one granite-faced general has been replaced by another. The announcement that, after just three months in post, General Sergei Surovikin is being succeeded as overall commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine by Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov may sound like appointing a new captain for a hull-breached Titanic. But it is significant in what it says, not just about the war, but Putin’s relationship with his generals. Surovikin becomes one of Gerasimov’s three deputies, in what is being sold not as a demotion but simply a reflection of the need for an ‘increase in the level of leadership’ because of the ‘amplified range of tasks’ and the

As the fighting in Ukraine slows for the winter, three things stand out. The first is the most obvious: a small, highly motivated country, equipped with advanced weapons and intelligence, is slowly but inexorably defeating what used to be called the world’s second-most powerful military. We need to remind ourselves how stunning that is. The second is how Western political leaders have failed to explain to their citizens why the war matters. Taxpayers are naturally tiring of footing the bill for an unending flow of equipment and ammunition, and they need to be persuaded that their continued support is essential for their own countries’ interests. Popular support is already showing signs of cracking,

Bakhmut is not of immense strategic importance. It’s a backwater, empty of almost all civilian life, and largely in ruins. But the city is where Ukraine’s war of self-defence has been at its most intense for months.  The defenders are suffering, under a hail of artillery fire and under constant threat of attack. But the Russians are losing more. Almost daily, it seems, Putin’s forces advance without cover across a moonscape torn with shell-holes. They are cut down in their tens every time. The front line has barely moved in weeks. Russian bodies, uncollected in the cold, litter the surrounding fields.   To Ukrainians and their allies, these suicidal attacks are no longer simply foolish. They

Vladimir Putin’s 36 hour ceasefire in Ukraine, which came into effect at noon today, didn’t last long: less than two hours in, the Russian army broke it. The temporary truce had been announced yesterday by the Russian president to allow soldiers and civilians to celebrate Orthodox Christmas and attend church.  But shortly before 2pm local time, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine, including in the capital Kyiv. Artillery fire and shelling were reported in the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, later confirmed by the Ukrainian presidential administration. One unverified video quickly surfaced, showing two Ukrainian soldiers who claimed to be recording the sound of shelling

At one minute past midnight on 1 January, as Putin uttered the last words of his new year’s address, Ukraine sent six Himars rockets into the Russian-occupied territory of Donetsk. Four landed on a vocational school in the town of Makiivka, which had been acting as a temporary Russian military base, reducing its buildings to rubble. The domestic fallout for Russia is proving messy. From the moment they announced news of the strike, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has made considerable efforts to downplay the death toll and pin the blame for the incident on the dead Russian soldiers themselves. They, the MoD says, are the reason Ukraine knew where to find them. On 2 January,

We’re finishing the year by republishing our ten most popular articles from 2022. Here’s number six: Seth J. Frantzman’s piece from March about how Ukraine’s use of drones changed the war against Russia. The Ukrainian airforce has so far held out in the battle for the skies. Russia continues to rely on missiles for deep strikes into Ukrainian territory while the defenders have been able to contest the airspace by employing drones. Ukraine has proven a turning point in the age of drone warfare. The first great drone superpower, the United States, used its unmanned aerial vehicles in places like Afghanistan where few fighters had the technology to shoot them

This year, for the first time, millions of Ukrainians will celebrate Christmas on 25 December. The Orthodox Church had used the Julian calendar and marked the nativity on 7 January – but parishes are moving to a new ecclesiastical hierarchy, dropping ties with Moscow. The invasion has accelerated the forging of a distinct Ukrainian identity: a people united by spending winter without power or running water due to the Russian strategy of firing missiles at power stations and using the cold as a weapon against the general population. Moscow’s aim is to erode morale – and the will to fight. Like much of Vladimir Putin’s strategy, though, this isn’t working.