Ukraine

At a small army field clinic outside Bakhmut, I watched as the body of a dead soldier was carried in. Two more soldiers followed, this time seriously injured – and this was what troops described as a ‘quiet day’. Ukraine doesn’t talk about its military deaths much and refuses to reveal any figures. There’s little in the way of victim culture here; the emphasis is on how brave its troops are, not how many have perished. Most people know someone who’s died in action, but treat the collective trauma as something to worry about when the war is over. In the meantime, there’s vodka. While Russia has used the conflict

Days before Nato leaders descend on Vilnius for the alliance’s annual summit next month, things will be afoot just across the border in Belarus. In a meeting with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko at his summer residence in Sochi on Friday, Putin revealed that Russia will start deploying nuclear weapons to the country on the weekend of 7 and 8 July.  Putin’s decision to move nuclear weapons into Belarus just three days before the Nato summit begins in Lithuania is almost certainly no coincidence. As the alliance he regularly rages about prepares to sit down to discuss defence and deterrence, the Russian president is metaphorically puffing out his chest to remind

A young woman called Lyudmila walks into a cafe in Odessa, the southern Ukrainian city. Her phone is switched on and the camera set to record mode. She approaches the owner and asks for service in Ukrainian. He declines. He says his Ukrainian language skills are poor. When she insists he makes excuses, then tells her the cafe is closed, and finally asks her to leave. But unbeknownst to the owner, Lyudmila is a member of a small Ukrainian-language vigilante group. The group, who call themselves ‘Getting on your Nerves’, has made it their business to turn this Russophone city, founded in 1796 by Catherine the Great, into a Ukrainian-speaking

After his arrival in Moscow on Monday, President Xi Jinping said that China is ready, along with Russia, ‘to stand guard over the world order based on international law’. This statement came closer than ever before to articulating his view that a normative struggle is going on between a western-dominated order, and one more suited to Beijing’s interests. As he departed yesterday, he went further: ‘Right now there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together.’ Having positioned himself as a potential peacemaker, Xi clearly believes the war in Ukraine presents him with a win-win situation ­­­–

Russia’s winter offensive appears to have begun with a decidedly underwhelming series of operations in the Donbas. So far results have ranged from grinding and very costly victories in the towns of Krasna Hora and Soledar, to an outright disaster at Vuhledar where most of Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade was destroyed, and its commanding officer killed, after becoming stuck and then fixed by artillery fire in the middle of recently re-laid Ukrainian minefields.   Meanwhile, a long-running operation by Wagner mercenary troops to take the partially encircled town of Bakhmut continues, and Russian forces are making probing attacks as far north as the Russian border near Kharkiv oblast and as far south

Britons were keen to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. A month into the war, more than half thought we hadn’t gone far enough. That was after the government had frozen the assets of Russia’s banks, banned the Russian airline Aeroflot from landing in Britain, and sanctioned Putin and his cabinet. Voters wanted more sanctions, even if it hurt the economy. Now, though, it seems the public isn’t so sure. Only a quarter of Britons think we should give Ukraine more support, according to a YouGov poll this month. We’ve given it tanks. Should we now send jets? Democratic governments often find it hard to keep up support for war, especially when it entails sacrifices. But history shows

It’s been a tense couple of weeks for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman and founder the of Wagner Group of mercenaries. Russian troops and Prigozhin’s mercenaries have been closing in on the strategic town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, capturing territories around it. On 10 January, Prigozhin boasted that his forces had ‘taken control’ of Soledar, even as fighting continued inside the town and Ukraine disputed the claims. Two days later, Russia’s defence ministry announced that the ‘liberation’ of Soledar was complete. In a separate statement that same day, claiming to respond to various media inquiries, the ministry clarified that the urban territories of Soledar had been captured thanks to the