“Ukraine – Russia”

Ukraine’s fight isn’t merely for its existence as a nation – it’s a battle for the very fabric of the global order.

Yes, it’s about safeguarding European security – a rallying cry heard in countless statements from Western officials, often accompanied by assurances of limited air defence and ammunition – but as Ukraine continues to lose ground, towns, and lives, the West’s response is tepid, with its only firm stance drawn around Nato borders, where geopolitical interests overshadow humanitarian concerns.

Flying through an area of Western Russia twice the size of Texas, hundreds of Ukrainian drones attacked oil refineries and tank farms in five cities last week. In Russia-controlled Crimea, American-supplied missiles hit the main air base. The Army Tactical Missile System rockets damaged the two-mile concrete runway and destroyed $1 billion worth of matériel — one air defense system, four war jets, and the base fuel tanks.

Russia is increasingly using “glide bombs” – cheap but highly destructive ordnance – to advance its offensive in Ukraine.

More than 200 of them are thought to have been used in just a week to pound Ukraine’s northern town of Vovchansk during Russia’s current cross-border advance near Kharkiv.

If you want a reminder of the security threats faced by the world today, take a look at how much governments have hiked defense spending. Global military budgets reached $2.44 trillion (€2.25 trillion) last year, nearly 7% higher than in 2022. It was the steepest year-on-year rise since 2009, recorded during the second year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

For every man, woman and child, world military spending is now at its highest since the end of the Cold War — at $306 per person.

With Kyiv unprepared to fight such a large-scale conflict, Western countries ramped up military aid to Ukraine, while other escalating tensions with Russia and in the Middle East and Asia also prompted governments to shore up their defenses, unlike any time since World War II.

… Denys wants to know what happened to Ukraine’s defences.

“There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields” he says.

He shows me video from a drone feed taken a few days ago of small columns of Russian troops simply walking across the border, unopposed.

He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”.

A fierce battle is under way for Ukraine’s second city as Moscow launches the biggest ground assault on the region for two years. Soldiers caught up in the fighting tell their story

The soldiers had spent almost a fortnight digging trenches day and night to deter Russian forces from crossing the border north of Kharkiv, but at about two o’clock on Friday morning the enemy came crashing through. Russia’s new assault on Ukraine’s second city had begun.

“It was silent at first, and then it was hell,” said platoon commander Nikita a few hours later, speaking from his mother’s home in Kharkiv. “We held the artillery. That’s it. We stood watching it all.”

Ukrainian men caught avoiding the call-up to fight will face increased fines under new measures—which will also allow authorities to detain ‘draft dodgers’ for up to three days—supported by Parliament on Thursday.

The bill, which has yet to be signed into law by President Volodymyr Zelensky but is backed by most lawmakers, comes amid fears about Russia gaining momentum on the battlefield and of soldier shortages in the Ukrainian army.

Zelensky said in February that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Russia launched its invasion, or the ‘special military operation’ in Kremlin-speak, two years ago—the first figure he has given since the war started. The true number is undoubtedly much higher.

Ukraine says it has repelled a Russian armoured attack in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, after Moscow’s forces launched an incursion across the border and sought to break through defensive lines.

Kharkiv regional head Oleh Syniehubov said Russian reconnaissance groups had tried to penetrate the border, adding that “not a single metre has been lost”.

“Russia has launched a new wave of counteroffensive operations in the Kharkiv sector,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

European intelligence agencies are claiming that Russia is actively preparing various acts of sabotage, either directly or through proxies, of Europe’s infrastructure, including through detonation, arson, or other forms of damage.

If accurate, this would mean Russia would be expanding the scope (as well as type) of its foreign operations in Europe.

According to gathered intel, Moscow would be unconcerned about potential civilian casualties, the Financial Times reports. Thus far, the Kremlin has not released a statement to address the allegation.

Imagine the reaction in a NATO state if their soldiers were sent to fight for a country whose own young men are too feckless to take up arms against their invader

Emmanuel Macron warned recently that Europe is in “mortal danger.” The French president said that Russia cannot be allowed to win its war with Ukraine. He reiterated the idea he first floated in February of sending soldiers to Ukraine, saying: “I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out.” Macron’s comments come amid reports of an upsurge in draft dodgers in Ukraine. They are frightened because their government has launched a crackdown on men avoiding the draft.