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.
‘No quick wins’: Ukraine launches Kherson counteroffensive
As the war enters its seventh month, attention has shifted to the southern front, and hopes for a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Kyiv says the attempt to retake ground is already under way but Russia has dismissed its prospects of success.
Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, announced on Monday that an offensive in Kherson – the only regional capital Russia has been able to secure since the war began – had begun.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a senior adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukrainian troops had begun attacking Russian defences along the frontline and claimed they had broken through in several places.
However two Ukrainian fighters on the frontlines in Kherson, who have oversight of events, described to Isobel Koshiw a situation that differed from the Ukrainian officials’ statements. According to them, fighting is taking place in Kherson region, but it is not the major counteroffensive being touted by Kyiv.
Kherson has huge symbolic and practical significance and if Ukraine can entirely cut off enemy forces on the western bank of the Dnieper, they will have a realistic prospect of success, Archie Bland explains.
Kyiv also needs to show that it can do more than resist the Russian advance; it can seize the initiative – thus shoring up the morale of its own population ahead of a grim winter and at the same time maintaining the support of western leaders.
UN team leads mission to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine on Thursday amid calls from Zelenskiy and the international community to demilitarise and safeguard the site from potential radiation disaster.
“We are going to a war zone,” IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, said ahead of the visit he described as a “technical mission” to prevent a nuclear accident at Europe’s largest atomic plant, Isobel Koshiw reported from Kyiv.
In the days leading up to the visit, Ukraine accused Russia of deliberately shelling corridors along the pre-agreed route to deny the IAEA inspectors safe passage to the plant.
Just hours before the team was due to cross from Ukrainian into Russian-held territory, the nearby city of Enerhodar came under fire, Jon Henley reported.
A defiant Grossi told reporters: “We are not going anywhere. The IAEA is now there, it is at the plant and it is not moving – it’s going to stay there.”
The nuclear chief confirmed after returning to Ukrainian-held territory that a group of IAEA experts had stayed behind at the plant and would provide an impartial, neutral and technically sound assessment of the situation.
“It is obvious that the plant and physical integrity of the plant has been violated several times,” he added. “I worried, I worry and I will continue to be worried about the plant until we have a situation which is more stable, which is more predictable.”
Children return to Ukrainian school trashed by occupying Russian forces
Children and teachers gathered on the grass outside School No 2 in Borodianka on Thursday morning for the first day of the academic year, Isobel Koshiw writes from the town once occupied by Russian forces just north of Kyiv.
There were speeches and a recital of the Ukrainian national anthem, and as is traditional the girls wore white scrunchies in their hair, the boys white shirts. They brought flowers to give to their teachers.
But there will be no lessons in the classrooms of School No 2 this year. The invading soldiers used the school as a base and then trashed it as they left.
Where enough students opted for in-person teaching and the schools are fit for use, school administrations have been preparing for the new academic year by outfitting basements as shelters and training teachers on what to do in case of an attack. All children who attend in person are told to carry an emergency bag with a change of clothes, any medicine they may need, a note from their parents and, for the younger children, a favourite toy.
Putin: trapped and desperate
Russia’s president is trapped and desperate. Will his friends in the west rescue him, Simon Tisdall asks.
Putin keeps understandably schtum about his “special military operation”. But indefinite stalemate is not what he expected and an endless military quagmire is not a scenario he can afford. Slow-burn western sanctions corrode his economy and his military’s manpower and materiel are steadily depleted. So what are his options?
As pressure on him grows to produce a breakthrough, Putin may well decide his best option is to raise the cost of the war to Ukraine’s backers in the context of rising anxiety over Europe’s energy and cost of living crises, largely caused by the invasion and Kremlin cuts to gas supplies.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader who ended cold war, dies aged 91
Meanwhile in Russia, Andrew Roth and Luke Harding reported the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader whose reforms led to the unlooked for break-up of his own country, and to the demise of communism across central and eastern Europe.
Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died in Moscow aged 91 after a “difficult and protracted illness”, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying on Tuesday.
He will be associated with his attempts to modernise and to improve the Soviet Union, a process that he ultimately lost control of, leading to the country’s collapse.
In his last years, Gorbachev was a paradoxical figure. Abroad, he was viewed as the hero of the cold war, whose actions – or lack of them – ushered in a freer world. In Russia he was largely reviled and unloved, an unperson at best, a traitor at worst, Pjotr Sauer explains.
The Kremlin appeared unsure how to mark Gorbachev’s death this week, issuing a statement saying Putin would not attend the funeral or the public farewell ceremony, in what will be seen as an extraordinary snub by the Russian president.
However Putin did visit the open coffin of the former Soviet leader on Thursday morning, leaving flowers at the mourning hall of Moscow’s central clinical hospital.
Our visual guide to the invasion is updated regularly and can be found here
