Every week we wrap up the must-reads from our coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and features to analysis, visual guides and opinion.
Ukraine is now the most heavily mined place on earth
Ukraine is the most heavily mined country in the world. Estimates vary, but the territory affected is said to be equivalent to twice the land mass of Portugal. Some have been laid by Ukrainian forces, but most are Russian.
Countless further mines are being dug into Ukraine’s soil, distributed across fields and forest from the air or blasted into position by rockets every hour of every day. Daniel Boffey joined a brigade of Ukrainian sappers in Donetsk as they worked to make progress through the fields.
Even as some might be cleared by detonation, often undertaken with tools no more sophisticated than a long metal rod to find them and a handful of TNT, a whole load more can float down from above.
The soldiers spearheading Ukraine’s counteroffensive face minefields that are 10 miles deep, a fact defence officials will press upon any commentator bemoaning the lack of progress in this summer’s counteroffensive.
Nato chief downplays idea Ukraine could give up land for membership
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said it would be up to Ukraine to decide when it wanted to negotiate peace with Russia, as he sought to downplay comments by a key aide about a land-for-Nato-membership agreement, Dan Sabbagh reported.
The head of the military alliance was speaking at the Arendal democracy festival where a couple of days earlier his chief of staff had caused controversy by suggesting that Ukraine could “give up territory” for peace and Nato membership.
Stoltenberg argued that the path to a settlement was “to support Ukraine militarily. If you want a lasting, just peace, then military support for Ukraine is the way to get there. There is no doubt about that.”
The Ukrainian men trying to avoid conscription
It is believed that tens of thousands of Ukrainian men have left the country illegally since the full-scale war with Russia started last February, many by paying bribes, Shaun Walker and Jamie Wilson reported.
In the first weeks after the invasion, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Ukrainians volunteered to serve at the front in an explosion of patriotism that helped keep the country independent and fight off the initial attack.
More than a year later, however, many of those initial recruits are now dead, wounded or simply exhausted, and the army needs new recruits to fill the ranks. By now, most of those who want to fight have already signed up, leaving the military to recruit among a much more reluctant pool of men.
On Friday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, fired every regional military recruitment head in the country, citing endemic corruption in the apparatus.
Ukraine fires missiles at Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to Russia
Ukrainian forces fired three missiles at the bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia, forcing Russian authorities to cover the structure in white smoke to deter further attacks and prompting a furious threat of retaliation.
In the latest example of Kyiv taking the war to Russia, multiple guided S-200 rockets were fired at Kerch Bridge but they were seemingly shot down by local air defences.
A further 20 Ukrainian unmanned drones attacked targets in Crimea, the Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014, but Russian officials said they had also been successfully neutralised. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service claimed responsibility for the attack.
Daniel Boffey reported.
Berlin prosecutor investigates possible poisoning of Russian journalist
German authorities are investigating a possible poisoning attack in Munich last autumn on a Russian dissident journalist who had written critical articles about her country’s invasion of Ukraine, the Berlin prosecutor has confirmed.
In an article published with Russian-language outlet Meduza and US publication n+1 on Tuesday night, journalist Elena Kostyuchenko said she was tipped off by a source in Ukrainian military reconnaissance last March about Russian plans to assassinate her.
Kostyuchenko, who was at the time reporting for the now-shuttered independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta from near Mariupol, Ukraine, initially managed to escape to Berlin. Philip Oltermann reported this story.
Kyiv’s drone strikes on Moscow mean Kremlin’s war can’t be ignored by Russians
A new campaign of drone strikes has targeted the Russian capital in recent days as Kyiv has demonstrated its ability to hit Moscow and to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of the Russian elites and others seeking to ignore the invasion of Ukraine, Andrew Roth, Pjotr Sauer and Daniel Boffey reported.
Video from two weeks ago showed a drone slamming into the ground and exploding near a residential area in the north-west of the city, as rowers nearby participated in a national championship in the Krylatskoye district.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed to have downed other drones and earlier in the week on the south-west approaches of the city, illustrating Kyiv’s ability to target the Russian capital on a weekly or even daily basis, although with mixed success.
Putin to discuss capital controls to help prop up rouble
Vladimir Putin is reportedly planning to hold a meeting with Russian policymakers on Wednesday in order to discuss reintroducing some capital controls to help prop up the struggling rouble, Andrew Roth reported.
Citing a Russian finance ministry proposal, the Financial Times said large exporters could be forced to convert up to 80% of their foreign currency into roubles in order to raise demand for the currency.
Other proposals included a ban on foreign dividend payments and loan extensions, cancelling import subsidies, limiting currency swaps, and reducing the amount of foreign currency exporters can take out of Russia, the newspaper reported.
Russia turning to sleeper cells and unofficial agents
An Argentinian couple living in Slovenia, a Mexican-Greek photographer who ran a yarn shop in Athens and now three Bulgarians arrested in Britain. Over the past year, police and security services across the globe have accused numerous people living apparently innocuous lives with being Russian intelligence agents or operatives, Shaun Walker wrote in an analysis piece this week.
Many others have been accused of passing information to Russia, including a security guard at the British embassy in Berlin, sentenced to 13 years in prison, and more than a dozen people arrested in Poland accused of carrying out various tasks for Russian intelligence.
Much about the three Bulgarians, said to be among five people detained in February, remains unclear. They have been charged but their trial is not until January, they have yet to enter pleas, and the British authorities have made no details public about the allegations.
