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.
Russia launches deadly wave of missile attacks
Russia launched a wave of missile attacks across many of Ukraine’s biggest cities before dawn on Friday, killing a mother and young child in the port city of Dnipro, and three people at a high-rise apartment building in the central city of Uman.
Air raid alarms were active across the country in the early hours of Friday morning, while explosions were heard in Kyiv, and southern Mykolaiv was targeted again.
The attack came less than 24 hours after four cruise missiles, apparently launched from the sea, hit civilian buildings in the city, killing at least one person and abruptly ending nearly four months of relative calm there. Emma Graham-Harrison reports.
Xi Jinping to send Chinese peace talks delegation to Ukraine
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will send a delegation to Ukraine to hold talks with all parties on resolving the conflict there, after his first phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, since Russia invaded in February 2022. According to Chinese state media, Xi made the offer during a telephone call on Wednesday with Zelenskiy and offered to help facilitate peace talks aimed at achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible.
Xi also appeared to pledge China would remain neutral in the conflict, saying Beijing “will neither watch the fire from the other side, nor add fuel to the fire, let alone take advantage of the crisis to profit”, according to CCTV. Zelenskiy described the phone call, said by aides to have lasted almost an hour, as “long and meaningful” and said the two had discussed “possible cooperation to reach a fair and sustainable peace”.
The call may have been prompted by undiplomatic and factually wrong comments made earlier in the week by a Chinese ambassador, Helen Davidson reported. Beijing insisted it respects the status of the independent nations that emerged from the USSR after the “totally unacceptable” remarks by China’s envoy to France questioning their sovereignty sparked outrage in EU capitals.
Is Russia spying more – or are more spies just being caught?
Since Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, hardly a week has gone by without news of Russian spies, agents or informants being unmasked somewhere in the world.
A security guard at the British embassy in Berlin sentenced to 13 years in prison. An alleged mole inside Germany’s intelligence service suspected of passing information to Moscow. Nine people arrested in Poland accused of tracking weapons deliveries to Ukraine and planning acts of sabotage.
No Russian illegal had been publicly unmasked in the west since 2011, but in the past year seven cases have come to light – involving Norway, Brazil, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Greece, Shaun Walker reported this week.
Ukraine’s Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church faces scrutiny
In the walled Lavra monastery on the riverbank in central Kyiv stand dozens of golden domed churches connected by winding cobbled streets. Since the eviction notice, priests, monks and seminarians dressed in the traditional long black Orthodox robes have been seen loading icons and items of furniture on to trucks.
The Ukrainian state’s investigation into the church – prompted by an undated video of congregants at the Lavra praying for “Mother Russia” – has sunk its already dwindling reputation, Isobel Koshiw reports. In wartime Ukraine, where at least 100 soldiers are injured or killed on the frontlines each day, collaboration with Russia is viewed as the ultimate sin.
In an editorial, the Guardian writes that “Mr Putin’s folly has made the prospect of a unified Ukrainian Orthodox church, free from any affiliation with Moscow, far more likely.”
Wagner convicts pardoned by Putin return to terrorise home towns
He strode up and down the central street of Tskhinvali on Monday, like he did most days, occasionally stopping to chat with passersby. Locals knew the man, Soslan Valiyev, 38, as an idiosyncratic but popular fixture in Tskhinvali, the tiny capital of the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia in Georgia.
Tsugri, as Valiyev was affectionately nicknamed by everyone in town, had a developmental disability. “As long as I could remember Tskhinvali, Tsugri was always there, greeting cars as they entered the city with his big smile,” said Alik Puhati, a journalist and South Ossetian native.
The shock was therefore palpable in Tskhinvali when the news broke out that Tsugri had been killed that evening, Pjotr Sauer reports. A harrowing video published on Telegram channels showed a man chasing and kicking Tsugri moments before he reportedly stabbed him to death.
New Ukraine positions near Kherson may signal spring offensive
Ukraine’s military has set up positions on the eastern side of the Dnieper River near Kherson city, the Institute for the Study of War cites Russian military bloggers as saying, Emma Graham-Harrison reports.
Infiltrating the area could be a first step towards trying to dislodge Russian forces from positions they are using to shell and shoot at Kherson. The constant attacks have made it impossible for residents to return to normal life months after Ukrainian troops liberated the city from occupation.
Ukrainian military forays across the river could also mark the first tentative steps towards launching a long-awaited spring offensive to reclaim more territory.
Brittney Griner on coping with Russian detention
Speaking to reporters for the first time since a nearly 10-month detainment in Russia on drug-related charges, Brittney Griner, the WNBA star, had to take a moment to compose herself after being asked about her resiliency through the ordeal.
“I’m no stranger to hard times,” Griner said from the lobby of the Footprint Center, home of her new team the Phoenix Mercury and the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. “Just digging deep. You’re going to be faced with adversities in life. This was a pretty big one. I just relied on my hard work to get through it.”
She said her abilities as an athlete helped her cope. “I know this sounds so small but dying in practice and just hard workouts, you find a way to just grind it out, just put your head down and keep going and keep moving forward,” she said.
Journalists who have worked in Moscow call for release of Evan Gershkovich
More than 300 foreign correspondents who have worked in Moscow have written to the Russian government to call for the immediate release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter being held on espionage charges, saying his arrest sends a “disturbing and dangerous signal” about the country’s attitude to independent media.
The 301 signatories of the letter include the BBC’s Orla Guerin; the former New York Times journalist Bill Keller; John Kampfner, the executive director of the Chatham House thinktank; and David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker. Between them, the journalists have worked for media outlets from 22 different countries. The earliest signatory arrived in Moscow in 1964, while the most recent left in the past few weeks.
