Good morning. Deadly attacks on Ukrainian territory are now priced into our understanding of Vladimir Putin’s war. That familiarity lies behind Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s bleakly trenchant response this week to three air raids on Kyiv within 24 hours: “This is what an ordinary weekday looks like.”
But in Moscow, weekdays have looked genuinely ordinary since the invasion began 15 months ago – and the Kremlin’s assurances that the war will not rebound on Russia’s civilians have largely held up. And so, even if the damage was merely to property, the news that a large-scale drone attack hit Moscow for the first time yesterday is a significant development. This morning, Russian officials have blamed Ukraine for a drone attack on an oil refinery in Krasnodar region and an artillery strike in Belgorod region. The question is whether there is more to come.
Yesterday’s attacks raise other questions, too: was Ukraine responsible? How will Moscow respond? And will ordinary Russians now fear the consequences of the “special military operation” at home? Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, explains what we know. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Covid inquiry | Rishi Sunak has been accused of attempting to cover up the actions of ministers during the pandemic as the Cabinet Office intensified its battle to withhold Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from the Covid inquiry. A deadline for the material to be submitted was extended to 4pm Thursday after the Cabinet Office said it did not have them in its possession. Read an explainer on the dispute.
Mortgages | Almost 800 residential and buy-to-let mortgage deals have been pulled during the past few days by UK banks and building societies amid concern surrounding future interest rate rises, data has revealed. The number of residential mortgage deals on sale has dropped by almost 7% in a week after inflation figures led to fears the Bank of England will further raise rates this year.
China | The former director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) has said the lab leak theory for the origins of Covid-19 should not be discounted. George Gao, an internationally respected virologist, also said another branch of the Chinese government had investigated the lab leak theory but that they had not found any wrongdoing.
Sexual violence | Nearly 70% of rape survivors dropped out of the justice system in the fourth quarter of last year, according to official government data. Amid court delays, low police conviction rates and fears over the trauma of reliving the crime in court, the figure rose from 66.9% in 2021.
Artificial intelligence | A group of leading technology experts from across the world have warned that artificial intelligence technology should be considered a societal risk and prioritised in the same class as pandemics and nuclear wars. Hundreds of signatories to the statement included the chief executives of Google’s DeepMind and the ChatGPT developer OpenAI.
In depth: ‘It’s the first time we’ve seen the terror that Russia has inflicted boomerang back in a large-scale way’
In Moscow’s wealthy Rublyovka neighbourhood, businessman Andrei was awakened by the sound of drones exploding on Tuesday morning. “It was like boom, boom, boom, in pretty quick succession,” he told Pjotr Sauer. “One of the blasts shook our house; it wasn’t something we have experienced before.”
By now, residents of Kyiv are inured to such incidents – but Muscovites have been able to go about their lives with no serious fear of retaliation. Even the recent attempted drone strike against the Kremlin looked more like a symbolic stunt than a serious threat, while other attacks on Russian soil have not hit major civilian centres.
Yesterday’s attack – which Russia’s defence ministry said involved eight drones, and Russian media close to the security services said involved more than 30 – changed that. All of the drones were intercepted, Russia claimed, but three hit residential buildings on the outskirts of the city nonetheless. While the only injuries inflicted were minor, footage of the unmanned aerial vehicles flying towards the city, and then of the impact of a few of them, was in circulation within hours. (You can see some of them in this thread on Twitter.)
“This is the first daylight mass drone attack that we’ve seen against Moscow since the start of the war,” Andrew Roth said. “It’s getting a lot of coverage. It’s the first time we’ve seen the terror that Russia has inflicted on Ukrainian cities boomeranging back towards the Russian side in a large-scale way.”
***
Is Ukraine responsible?
One key piece of evidence would be the type of drone used. Peter Beaumont wrote: “There has been speculation that at least one of the drones involved was a UJ-22 produced by the Ukrainian Ukrjet company, which Russia claims has been involved in at least one previous attack. Some other experts disagree, suggesting it is another model of drone.”
The drone does appear to have had the kind of range that could mean it originated in Ukraine. “We will also need to look at the evidence of the flight paths,” Andrew said. “They appear to have come from a south-western trajectory – the direction of Ukraine.”
Kyiv has denied launching the drones, with presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak saying: “Of course we are pleased to watch and predict an increase in the number of attacks. But of course we have nothing directly to do with this.”
That is consistent with Kyiv’s responses to previous attacks within Russia, which the US and its other allies would view as a dangerous departure. US intelligence agencies have already concluded that Ukraine was behind the Kremlin attack, though they did so with a low degree of confidence, the New York Times reported last week.
Ukrainian denials must be viewed through that prism. “It’s a political question,” Andrew said. “The US and others have explicitly talked about their weapons not being for use on Russian territory. And when we saw an attack by Russian volunteer corps in the south the other week, there were photographs of them with what looked like US-provided kit. So we can already see a point of tension in this very important partnership for Ukraine.”
The US is investigating the photos, and said it was investigating Tuesday’s strikes. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said yesterday: “We do not support attacks inside of Russia. That’s it. Period.”
There have also been claims – as there were with the attack on the Kremlin – that this might be a “false flag” incident designed as a pretext for a new Russian move, perhaps a second wave of civilian mobilisation. “There is no proof at this point,” Andrew said. “With the Kremlin attack, there has been no sign of using that politically. If this is by them, we need to see the evidence of the escalation.”
***
Why might Ukraine have done it?
Almost 24,000 Ukrainian civilians have died during the war so far, the UN says, a figure it views as a low estimate. A Russian drone strike on Sunday was the largest on Kyiv yet; there have been 17 such attacks this month. The Kyiv School of Economics estimated that 150,000 residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed across Ukraine as of December.
Meanwhile, Moscow has been almost completely unscathed. On Monday, mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko (above) said: “If the Russians can make Kyiv a nightmare, why do the people of Moscow rest?”
“There may be a desire to make Russians understand that the bombardment can have consequences for them,” Andrew said. “Even if nobody is killed, the sense that Moscow could be vulnerable is important.”
There is a more strategic possibility: with Ukraine’s long-trailed counteroffensive expected to start within the next few weeks, there could be merit in forcing Russia to divert air defences away from intended targets. “This could be a ‘shaping’ operation to improve the chances of Ukraine’s operations at the front,” Andrew said.
***
Is Moscow vulnerable?
Given the possibility that the drone attack was deliberately restrained in order to avoid alienating western allies, it is difficult to draw hard conclusions about Russian defences from the claim that all of the drones were intercepted. “Ukraine’s air defences have been tested repeatedly, but we know a lot less about the Russian system,” Andrew said.
In January, defence hardware including the S-400 surface-to-air system was erected on government buildings in Moscow. While those weapons are sophisticated, there are difficulties with their use in urban areas, where large quantities of satellite data confuse the picture.
Russian officials were dismissive of the threat posed by the raid: one politician, Andrey Gurulev, said that civilians in central Moscow were more likely to be hit by an electric scooter than a drone. Even so, any perception of jeopardy among Muscovites could be important on its own.
“There was a promise that this wouldn’t happen,” Andrew said. “The area where they came down includes some of the most prestigious postcodes in Moscow, and a lot of members of the government and military live there. Putin’s residence isn’t far away. But it’s another question whether that matters politically. We’ve already passed so many watersheds that it feels as if nothing will shock the Russian populace.”
But if yesterday’s attacks are part of a new pattern, it is not impossible that that could change. “We could get closer to the point where the elite population have to actually pay attention to what’s going on and accept they have a stake in it,” Andrew said.
***
Will Putin respond?
Initially, at least, there has been no visible tactical response to the attacks. Nor did the attack on the Kremlin lead to specific retaliation. “But we do see ‘war hawks’ going after the military leadership,” Andrew said. “These are people who are interested in escalating the war and persuading Putin to listen to them.”
The leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries that has been operating in Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin, responded to the attack yesterday by saying: “What are regular people meant to do when UAVs with explosives crash into their houses? As a citizen, I’m deeply outraged that these scumbags [in the Ministry of Defence] calmly sit on their fat asses smeared with expensive creams!”
Yesterday, Putin said that the people of Ukraine should understand that if Russia retaliated, but that the attack was a “response” because a Ukrainian “headquarters of military intelligence was struck two or three days ago”.
“He’s claiming that it was us who moved first,” Andrew said. “Putin doesn’t like being pressured into action: the Russians could still make a decision to escalate, but they’re not telegraphing it here. But it could change in a second. From what we’ve seen before, even if they don’t take a decision immediately, there could still be an incubation period, and then some kind of reaction.”
What else we’ve been reading
This week’s series on badly behaved Britain has been full of shockers, not least this instalment from a lifeguard who has been sworn at and dubbed a “killjoy” for doing their job. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
In 2021, Gareth Southgate said “someone good-looking” would have to play him in a movie; now a National Theatre production of a play by James Graham is about to go on with Joseph Fiennes as the England manager. David Hytner speaks to Graham, who says the question for his “Shakespearean” story is: “Can goodness fill a space rather than violence and rage?” Archie
Wiz Wharton has written a wonderful entry for the Guardian’s A moment that changed me series, on how being sectioned led her to greater understand herself and her mixed-race identity. Hannah
ICYMI: Succession writer Georgia Pritchett has written about being part of the cabal of “scruffy Brits” behind TV’s biggest drama – and how they kept that big season four twist under wraps. Hannah
Having a job but barely working sounds like a dream. Emily Stewart has a great piece in Vox, full of fun case studies, explaining how people get away with it, and how grim it can sometimes be in reality. Archie
Sport
French Open | The Kosova Tennis Federation has accused Novak Djokovic of contributing to rising tensions between Serbia and Kosovo after he wrote “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence” on a camera lens (above) after his first round victory. The statement was a reference to recent clashes in Kosovo, where Nato peacekeepers were injured in clashes with Serbian protesters on Monday.
Football | One year after Todd Boehly took ownership of Chelsea, Jacob Steinberg tells the story of a season that resulted in “widespread misery” at the training ground. Despite spending £600m, “there is no dressing it up,” he writes: “Boehly and his fellow co-controlling owner, Behdad Eghbali, have presided over a shambles.”
Cricket | In an exclusive interview with Simon Burnton, Australia’s world No 1 Test batsman Marnus Labuschagne has some ominous words for England about their swashbuckling style ahead of the Ashes: “The more they play a certain way, people are going to be able to read it.”
The front pages
“Government accused of cover-up over battle for Covid evidence” says our Guardian front-page splash headline this morning. The Daily Telegraph goes with “Cover-up row over ministers’ WhatsApps”, adding “Government is withholding messages to protect Sunak and MPs, says Johnson ally”. “Running & hiding” – the Daily Mirror shows Boris Johnson out for a jog and reports his notes and WhatsApp messages have gone missing in a “Johnson Covid cover-up”.
“AI pioneers fear extinction” – stark stuff in the Times, echoed by the Daily Mail – “AI ‘could wipe out humanity’” – and the i, which says “AI creators fear the extinction of humanity”. The Metro has “Teacher lost job for taking on teen yobs”. “Civil servants threaten to strike over migrants” – that’s the Daily Express, which reports the strikes would be in opposition to deportations to Rwanda. “Defiant Holly back on Monday” says the Sun, of ITV’s embattled This Morning programme. And today’s Financial Times leads with “Western nations raise pressure on Erdogan to admit Sweden into Nato”.
Today in Focus
Tracking down Ukraine’s abducted children
How did tens of thousands of Ukrainian children end up in Russian re-education camps? Peter Beaumont reports
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
North-east England has been hit hard by decades of industrial decline, austerity and, now, the cost of living crisis. It’s taken a toll on the mental health of many people, including men now facing underemployment and poverty.
One person devoted to helping this cohort is Earl John Charlton, who uses his experience of addiction and homelessness to help other men open up and share their stories through community walks and volunteering work. In this 13-minute video, the Guardian’s Maeve Shearlaw and Christopher Cherry join Charlton, hearing from men about their struggles with poverty and mental health, the friends they’ve lost to prison or worse, and how vital Charlton’s companionship has been to them.
Charlton has a rare gift for creating a safe place for men to share. As one man experiencing underemployment in Earl’s circle says of Charlton: “Earl’s one of the boys – rather than come to you in a suit and a tie and three or four letters after his name, you’re able to speak to him.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
