What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis | Ukraine
Each week we recap the required reading from our coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and articles to analysis, visual guides and opinions.
Germany and the US are laying down tanks
When the US and Germany announced they would supply Ukraine with tanks it had long requested, in a major escalation in Western efforts to counter Russian aggression, the Guardian’s defense and security editor Dan Sabbah summed it up.
“Politically, the unity of the West is crucial,” he wrote. “The West may not be fighting directly in Ukraine, but it cannot afford to lose this war. If Russia manages to hold on to the fifth part of Ukraine it seized during 2023, the confidence of the Kremlin, which now leads the world’s largest rogue state, will only increase.
“Instead, the Western alliance has demonstrated that it can stick together by modernizing the supply of weapons to Ukraine at the cost of 30 Abrams tanks from its arsenal to the United States — although their fuel requires “three gallons per mile,” according to the Pentagon, simple logistics will become a problem for the Kyiv forces.
“However, tanks alone are not a weapon to win a war, although heavy tracked armored vehicles are critical to mount any kind of offensive in the open against entrenched Russian positions, not least because they can continue to advance when faced with inevitable resistance.” .
Peter Beaumont explained what Leopard tanks are and why Ukraine desperately needs them.
Russian missile attack kills 11 people
Ukraine’s top general promised that his country would not be “broken” after successfully shooting down 47 of 55 missiles launched by Russia in an attack that followed a Western tank offering. Daniel Boffey reported.
General Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said 20 of those intercepted were on their way to the Kyiv region, where one 55-year-old man was killed and two others were injured by falling shrapnel.
The Russian air and sea attack on Thursday morning, the 13th such rocket attack in the war, left a total of 11 people dead and 11 injured, an emergency services official said.
The man leading Ukraine’s fight against corruption
This week, a number of Ukrainian officials were fired or resigned over allegations of corruption. While Vladimir Zelensky is trying to approach this issue with absolute intolerance, Daniel Boffey This was announced by the head of the anti-corruption department of Ukraine Oleksandr Novikov.
Fifteen high-ranking officials have left their posts since Saturday, six of whom have received allegations of corruption from journalists and Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities.
For the first two months of the war in Ukraine, Novikov, 40, lived with a group of his staff in the basement of the austere office of the National Corruption Prevention Agency in Kyiv.
“We have an armory, there are machine guns in it. We were ready to fight on those streets,” Novikov says, looking down from the window of his third-floor conference room.
This is his fourth and final year as head of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency, and while the Russians didn’t show up on his doorstep in the Ukrainian capital last February, the former prosecutor general’s appetite for fighting against the odds has not been quenched.
In 2021, Transparency International ranked Ukraine as the second most corrupt country in Europe, behind only Russia, and Novikov set out to reverse that stance, only to find that Covid and Vladimir Putin made his task much more difficult.
Ukraine hotline urging Russians to surrender
The government of Ukraine said that more than 6,500 Russian troops tried to surrender through a special “I want to live” hotline. Daniel Boffey reported from Kyiv.
Vitaly Matviyenko, a spokesman for the department for prisoners of war, said those who contacted through the service were verified as having served in the Russian forces by their personal details and service number.
Between September 15, when the hotline was launched, and January 20, 6,543 Russian military personnel are said to have contacted the Ukrainian government to surrender to custody, often from the front line.
The hotline, which employs 10 operators, was created after Vladimir Putin announced the mobilization of 300,000 civilians with no military experience to participate in Russian military operations.
Doomsday Clock records record 90 seconds to midnight amid Ukraine crisis
A group of international scientists warned this week that the continued existence of humanity is at greater risk than ever before, largely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Julian Borger reported.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest time to midnight since its inception in 1947, to illustrate the global existential threats at the dawn of the age of nuclear weapons.
Rachel Bronson, President and CEO of Bulletin, said the clock had been moved from 100 seconds to midnight, where it had been for the previous three years, “primarily, though not exclusively, because of the rising dangers of war in the US.” Ukraine”.
Ukrainian families express frustration over trying to find a home in the UK
Maria, 22, arrived in the UK from Ukraine in March last year, shortly after the outbreak of the war. She and her mother were traveling on a family visa to Ukraine to stay with her aunt. But when her aunt was evicted, they became homeless. For five months, Maria and her mother have been living in temporary housing in south London. Toby Thomas reported this story.
“It’s really terrible, the corridors are so old and so dirty,” Maria says. “The advice didn’t help much. The room is so small it’s hard with two adults in the same room.”
Maria hopes to find private housing, but it is not available if she lives on universal credit. “You have to pay a deposit and have a lot of savings, but we don’t have them right now,” Maria adds.
