Every week we wrap up the must-reads from our coverage of the Ukraine war, from news and features to analysis, visual guides and opinion.
Six months of hell in Ukraine: how Putin’s war reached deadlock
This week, Ukraine celebrated 31 years of independence from Soviet rule and marked six months of fighting against Moscow’s forces. The Russian president’s hopes of a swift victory have come to nothing. Peace talks have stalled. Where do we go from here? asks Shaun Walker.
In the early hours of the morning of 24 February, the Russian assault began, with missiles raining down on targets across Ukraine and ground troops pouring into the country from three directions.
That fateful decision has changed Ukraine, Russia and the world irrevocably over the intervening six months. Thousands of Ukrainians are dead and millions displaced.
In the chaotic first days, events moved incredibly fast. By the end of the first week, the country had already settled into a new reality. Split-second decisions often meant life or death.
Throughout the occupied areas around Kyiv, Russian soldiers committed murder and other war crimes, leaving psychological wounds that are likely to fester for generations. In the southern city of Mariupol, stories of burying bodies in shallow courtyard graves, of sheltering in damp, freezing basements, of illness, miscarriages, starvation and deprivation, were reminiscent of the second world war.
However, amid all the horror and trauma, an uplifting story emerged of a newly united country where previous divisions evaporated in the face of the existential threat from the east.
Ukraine independence day overshadowed by fear
Isobel Koshiw and Emma Graham-Harrison reported from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, where the fear of escalating Russian attacks overshadowed a sombre independence day on Wednesday.
A display of destroyed Russian tanks and other military equipment on the main street replaced the usual military parade through the city centre, both a celebration of Ukraine’s military success and a trolling of Moscow’s expectations of a quick victory.
“I’m constantly worried and praying that our skies remain blue,” said Yana Pasychnyk, a choral singer in one of Ukraine’s national choirs. “People I know, my godson even, is fighting at the front. There’s no celebration today. I can’t even believe that this is happening”.
Many in the capital took stock of both their achievements and losses. Few outside Ukraine, even among its allies, expected the country to hold off Russia’s army so effectively, including in a decisive victory outside Kyiv.
Shortly before Zelenskiy was scheduled to appear before the UN security council, news of a Russian strike at a train station in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chaplyne surfaced. At least 25 people were killed and 50 wounded.
Shelling disconnects Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant from Ukraine grid
Fires caused by shelling cut the last remaining power line to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday, temporarily disconnecting it from Ukraine’s national grid for the first time in nearly 40 years of operation.
The plant was disconnected twice after a blaze at the ash pits of a nearby coal-fired power plant affected the fourth and last connection into the plant’s reactors, Isobel Koshiw explained.
Disconnecting the plant from the grid is dangerous because it raises the risk of catastrophic failure of the electricity-run cooling systems for its reactors and spent fuel rods.
“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster,” Zelenskiy claimed late on Thursday. “If the diesel generators had not turned on … if our station staff had not reacted after the blackout, then we would have already been forced to overcome the consequences of a radiation accident.”
Earlier in the week, the head of Ukraine’s atomic energy company shared a detailed plan drawn up by Russia to disconnect the plant with Emma Graham-Harrison.
Petro Kotin said Russian engineers had already drawn up a blueprint for a switch on the grounds of emergency planning should fighting sever remaining power connections. “The precondition for this plan was heavy damage of all lines which connect Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the Ukrainian system.”
The plant’s electricity connections were already in a critical situation, with three of the four main lines connecting it to Ukraine’s grid broken during the war, and two of the three back-up lines connecting it to a conventional power plant also downed, Kotin added.
Daughter of Putin ally killed by car bomb in Moscow
Andrew Roth covered the moment the daughter of an ultranationalist Russian ideologue and ally of Vladimir Putin was killed in a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow on Saturday night.
Darya Dugina, whose father is the Russian political commentator Alexander Dugin, died when the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving was ripped apart by a powerful explosion at about 9.30pm local time (1930 BST), according to investigators.
Prominent Russian hawks tried – without evidence – to quickly blame Kyiv for the attack, calling it an “assassination attempt” orchestrated by Ukraine’s intelligence services. Kyiv has strongly denied the allegations.
Shaun Walker mused how each new claim over the attack seemed to raise more questions than it answered.
Russia’s FSB security service claimed to have cracked the case, alleging a Ukrainian woman from the country’s Azov regiment entered Russia with her 12-year-old daughter in tow before moving around in her Mini Cooper, planting and detonating a professional explosive device and finally leaving the country undetected.
If the FSB’s version of events were true, it is a shocking agency failure and, if false, it is a strangely self-incriminating tale to invent.
Other versions of events floated also seemed far from watertight. The former Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev, now living in exile in Kyiv, claimed that partisans from a hitherto-unknown group called the National Republican Army were behind the attack. But Ponomarev did not provide any evidence, and many observers have dismissed the claim as a publicity stunt.
Officials in Ukraine suggested the killing was more likely to be a “false flag” operation, organised by the Russian state in order to frame Ukraine and provide a justification for further violence.
Five predictions for the next six months in the Ukraine war
Dan Sabbagh provides a rundown of what to expect for the next six months of Russia’s invasion.
1. The war will probably run on for a year at least but is essentially deadlocked and its intensity is lessening. Six months of war may have gone by, but neither Ukraine nor Russia are ready to stop fighting. There have been no recent negotiations and movement in the frontlines has been minimal since June. Both sides are struggling for momentum and increasingly appear combat-exhausted.
2. Ukraine has no means of effective conventional counterattack, while guerrilla raids are an optimistic way to precipitate a Russian collapse. Ukraine would like to retake Kherson in the south but has so far failed to do so, shifting its strategy to mounting long-range missile attacks and daring special forces raids on Russian bases deep behind the frontlines.
3. Russia is likely to be shifting to holding on its gains and annexing Ukraine territory. Russia has no new offensive plan but by holding large swathes of Ukrainian territory in the east and south, it is actively talking about holding annexation referendums. With cooler weather fast approaching, it is likely to focus on consolidating what it has.
4. Winter will precipitate a fresh refugee crisis and create an opportunity for whoever can best prepare. Ukraine has no gas heating available for many in frontline areas, and is concerned Russia will target its energy grid and even turn off the vast Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, precipitating what could be a fresh wave of migration abroad in the winter. Spring, though, could be the time for a renewed attack, with each side wanting to replenish and prepare for another fighting season.
5. The west needs to decide if it wants Ukraine to win or just hold on. Ukraine would have been defeated without western military aid. But at no point so far has the west supplied enough artillery or other weapons, such as fighter jets, that would allow Kyiv to drive the invaders back. At the same time, the west needs to match humanitarian help to the huge and growing need.
Our visual guide to the invasion is updated regularly and can be found here
