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.
Russia downed a US drone over the Black Sea
A Russian fighter collided with a US Reaper drone on Tuesday, forcing it down into the Black Sea, in what US forces called an “unsafe and unprofessional” intercept. Julian Borger wrote that the incident marks an escalation of confrontation near a war zone: “On any given day around Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Russian and Nato aircraft and naval vessels, manned and unmanned, buzz around in close proximity, a constant recipe for a superpower crisis along the edges of a war,” he writes. “Downing an expensive drone over the Black Sea is one thing, but destroying a crewed aircraft and killing pilots or forcing a landing on hostile territory in the middle of the war would lead to a far more volatile situation, with pressure on other sides to act tough.”
“There are open military lines of communication and longstanding conflict de-escalation mechanisms in place to stop scenarios getting out of hand, but every time something like this happens, the world uses up a little bit more of its luck.”
A remarkable video released by the Pentagon shows the moments before a Russian fighter crashed into the $32m US Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel, Dan Sabbagh, Martin Belam, and Julian Borger wrote. The declassified footage shows an Su-27 Flanker jet making two exceptionally close passes of the uncrewed drone, and spraying fuel in front of it, a harassment tactic that US experts say has not been seen before.
Jonathan Yerushalmy looked at what a US MQ-9 reaper drone is.
ICC to issue first arrest warrants
The prosecutor at the international criminal court will formally open two war crimes cases and issue arrest warrants for several Russians deemed responsible for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children and the targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, Julian Borger reported.
It was not clear whether the warrants would be sealed, which would leave suspects guessing over whether they had been implicated. It is unlikely that the warrants will lead to trials as the ICC would not try the defendants in absentia, and Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, is highly unlikely to hand them over to the court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Moscow does not recognise the jurisdiction of the international criminal court, Pjotr Sauer reported. “We do not recognise this court; we do not recognise its jurisdiction,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists in Moscow.
Ukrainian and Russian casualties mount in Bakhmut
Fierce fighting continued for control of the centre of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, Isobel Koshiw reported, as casualties continued to mount in the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia’s war.
Russia ratcheted up its efforts to take Bakhmut in early February after months of intense fighting, and has since inched into the small city’s suburbs. Ukraine’s forces have been fighting off attacks from the north, east and south. Their only road out, to the west, has been under Russian artillery fire.
Ukraine insists there is a strategy behind continuing the fight for Bakhmut. The head of ground forces, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the military was using the defence of Bakhmut to buy time until Ukraine is able to carry out an anticipated spring offensive. Syrskyi also said Ukraine was using the opportunity to kill as many Russian troops as possible and wear down its reserves.
The 4-metre-wide board detailing Russia’s military chain of command in Ukraine
For more than a year, Russian jets have been pounding Ukrainian cities, destroying hospitals and apartment blocks, while Moscow’s troops on the ground have been accused of executing civilians. Flooded with evidence of Russian war crimes, Ukrainian prosecutors have moved swiftly.
Kyiv has compiled hundreds of dossiers, naming more than 600 Russians – many of them high-ranking political and military officials – as suspects. The suspects range from senior officials including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to a lesser-known colonel believed to be responsible for some of the most brutal aerial attacks on Ukraine. Lorenzo Tondo and Pjotr Sauer profiled some of the commanders and generals accused by Ukraine, based on interviews with former soldiers, defence officials and open-source data.
Ukrainian volunteers search for Russian corpses
In a deserted village in northern Donetsk, a group of volunteers set about the grim task of extracting two rotted Russian corpses from a cellar next to a destroyed house. Isobel Koshiw and Lorenzo Tondo joined members of the Black Tulip group as they carried out their grim work in Krasnopillia.
The aim is to collect Russian bodies to exchange for Ukrainians, since a soldier cannot be declared dead by the state until there is a body, but the process of extracting them is extremely risky. Like much of the deoccupied territory, Krasnopillia is littered with antipersonnel mines. Russia has been using systems that scatter tiny mines from the air. There have also been instances of Russian forces booby-trapping bodies and houses before retreating.
“The mines are dropped from rockets and so they can be anywhere. They can even be caught in trees and blow off in the wind,” said one volunteer, Artur, who was piloting a donated drone to document the bodies’ recovery.
Russia disinformation looks to US far right
As Russia’s ruthless war against Ukraine has faced major setbacks since it began a year ago, the Kremlin has deployed new disinformation themes and tactics to weaken US support for Kyiv with help from conservative media stars and some Republicans in Congress, according to studies and experts. Peter Stone reported this story from Washington.
Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the top two Republicans in polling regarding the 2024 presidential nomination, have said defending Ukraine is not a vital US interest, Martin Pengelly and Julian Borger reported, in remarks that will demoralise Kyiv and encourage Vladimir Putin to believe that time is on his side.
How war in Ukraine destabilises old Soviet allies
As Georgian protesters marched on their parliament against a draft “foreign agents” law this week, they bore signs that said “No to Russian law!”, and other placards decrying the spirit of autocracy and imperialism that is now firmly associated with Moscow’s influence in the region.
By all appearances, the law they opposed was a local initiative to allow the ruling Georgian Dream party to crack down on civil society and win forthcoming elections. But that party’s perceived closeness to Moscow and the similarities to a notorious Russian law against “foreign agents” proved a popular rallying cry for Georgians who joined the protests, Andrew Roth reported.
Steven Seagal and an Italian princess: Russia’s friends abroad
Andrew Roth asked who Russia’s friends are abroad. Judging by a recent congress of the International Movement of Russophiles, an event put together by conservative activists and held with great fanfare at a glass-enclosed hall at the Pushkin State Museum in Moscow, the answer is political marginals and conspiracy theorists.
Among them were the contentious American actor Steven Seagal; a grandson of Charles de Gaulle; and an Italian princess and scholar known for her Tolkien translations who fears European boys are being encouraged to marry their cows.
