Every week we wrap up essential coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and features to analysis, opinion and more.
Threats and violence in Russian-occupied Ukraine
Early voting in Russia’s presidential election has already begun in occupied areas of Ukraine, Shaun Walker reported from Zaporizhzhia, with officials carrying ballot boxes going house to house in some areas, accompanied by soldiers.
With critics and opponents silenced, exiled or murdered, Vladimir Putin is expected to be anointed for another six years when the polls close at the end of next week. The four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions, claimed by Putin as Russian territory in 2022, will have a special part to play in the set-piece vote.
The picture that Russian television will paint is almost as predictable as the final result: carefully curated images of grateful Ukrainians, delighted to be brought under Russian rule.
It will be a message to local people that there is no alternative to Russian control, and tell a story for people inside Russia of a supposedly happy population welcoming their new rulers. The narrative will also be specially curated for an audience of one – Putin – said a senior Ukrainian security official: “Most of all, the results will be about the elites demonstrating to the tsar that the people in his new territories really do love him.”
Zaluzhnyi heads to London
Ukraine’s former commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, is to become its next ambassador to the UK, a month after he was fired by Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Dan Sabbagh reports. The popular former general is seen as the only realistic challenger to the president if there were to be an election.
The decision makes good on Zelenskiy’s promise to keep Zaluzhnyi “as part of the team” and also removes him from Ukraine. Zaluzhnyi was dismissed after the failure of the summer counter-offensive against Russian invasion forces, and after a to-and-fro in which the general initially refused to resign at the president’s request before accepting that his position was no longer tenable.
Although Ukraine considers the UK one of its closest allies, the ambassadorship has been vacant for many months. Zelenskiy dismissed the former envoy, Vadym Prystaiko, in July 2023 after he publicly criticised the president.
Restarting a nuclear power plant in a war zone
Concerns are growing that Vladimir Putin may seek to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station it captured from Ukraine, Dan Sabbagh reported. The UN’s nuclear watchdog this week reminded Moscow that the plant lay in an active combat zone and that it had been in shutdown “for a prolonged period of time”. Greenpeace added to those calls, with its nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie saying: “No nuclear regulations exist anywhere in the world that permit a nuclear plant to operate on the frontline in an active war zone.”
Burnie urged the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to rule out such a restart, saying: “The IAEA must not play the role of pretend regulator in overseeing a Russian nuclear timebomb, but instead must make clear that safe operation is impossible.”
Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, discussed with Putin the possibility of restarting the plant, and said that to do so would “require a number of safety assessments to be performed” by the Russian occupiers.
The Indian and Nepali men on the frontlines in Ukraine
When Hemil Mangukiya left his small village in the Indian state of Gujarat last December, he told his family he was off to Russia to make a better living than was possible at home in India, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Aakash Hassan and Gaurav Pokharel reported.
Lured by a recruitment video he had seen on YouTube, the 23-year-old had thought he was going for a secure security job far from the war in Ukraine. But in strained phone calls home from Russia, he told his family he was instead sent to a month-long military training camp and then taken to the frontlines, where he was made to dig trenches, carry ammunition and operate rifles and machine guns. Then, in late February, his calls abruptly stopped.
The call that came days later shattered his father’s heart: Mangukiya had died in a missile strike somewhere in Ukraine. “Our entire family is devastated by this. We are still trying to get back his dead body,” said Ashwin Mangukiya, 52.
Drones sink another Russian warship
Ukrainian sea drones sank the Russian warship Sergei Kotov near the Kerch strait in occupied Crimea in a further blow to Moscow’s naval power and its control over the Black Sea, Luke Harding reported. The sinking was a much-needed boost to Ukraine’s morale after recent losses.
On land, Russian forces have been advancing across the eastern frontline and last month captured the salient city of Avdiivka after a five-month assault. At sea, Ukraine has had greater success, despite having no navy of its own. It has used sophisticated home-produced drones to pick off one Russian warship after another. On 14 February Ukraine sank a heavy assault ship, the Caesar Kuznikov, near the Crimean resort town of Alushka using the same class of Magura V5 naval drones.
Ukraine’s long-term strategic objective is to degrade Russia’s military and naval assets on Crimea, and to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting the occupied peninsula with the Russian mainland. Kyiv has repeatedly asked Berlin to give it Germany’s long-range Taurus missile system. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has so far ruled this out. Earlier this week, Russia released an intercepted phone call during which high-ranking German military officers discussed how Taurus could be used to destroy the crossing.
Germany’s loose talk
German politicians and officials were criticised this week after their conversations on insecure phone lines published by Russian media made it more or less undeniable that British forces are already in Ukraine, Dan Sabbagh and Kate Connolly reported.
In a 38-minute recording German officers were heard discussing weapons for Ukraine, the possibility of supplying Taurus missiles, and a potential Ukrainian strike on the Kerch Bridge in Crimea. As part of the conversation, the participants discussed how Britain was working closely with Ukraine in deploying Storm Shadow missiles, and suggested Britain had troops in Ukraine.
Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said the Russian eavesdropping was being investigated and most likely resulted from a random sweep of insecure data on the sidelines of the Singapore airshow, Kate reported separately. One of the participants dialled in from his hotel room, and either his mobile phone or an insecure connection in the hotel provided the vulnerability, Pistorius said.
Rather than publicly criticise Germany over the leak, Britain said it was for Berlin to investigate, and lobbied Germany to supply Kyiv with its Taurus missiles, which have a 300-mile range, twice that of Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp weapons system already given to Ukraine.
When the Ukrainians came to Ivybridge
Two years ago, when the first displaced Ukrainians arrived in the UK, the photographer Frankie Mills followed a small group of women and children as they settled in rural Devon, Tess Reidy reported. Over the space of a year and a half, Valentyna Romanchuk, from Kharkiv, introduced Mills to her fellow Ukrainians in the village and the nearby town of Ivybridge, communicating through translation apps.
For Romanchuk, being part of the series felt like an escape. There were countless day trips, walks on the moors and ice-cream stops. “We spent many wonderful hours surrounded by nature in the reserve,” she says. What came next was Good Evening, We Are From Ukraine, a photographic project which follows the small community of women and children as they rebuild their lives. The title, taken from the words Mills had seen printed on a young boy’s T-shirt, was a wartime slogan used across the country. She has now been shortlisted for a Sony world photography award for the series.
