Every week we wrap up essential coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and features to analysis, opinion and more.
Ukrainians tell of torture by captors
As prosecutors in Kharkiv prepare a war crimes case against Russian occupiers, victims have revealed how they were beaten and made to dig their own graves in Balakliia, Ukraine, Lorenzo Tondo reports.
For seven months, until the city was liberated by Ukrainian armed forces, more than 200 civilians, including 30 women, were detained and subjected to degrading treatment. At least 150 men were tortured, one woman allegedly raped, and seven civilians were killed.
“When the Russians left, we seized dozens of files and weapons from the facility,” said Maksym Blokhin, 41, a war crimes military prosecutor in Kharkiv. “Throughout our investigation, we have seen how the invaders inflicted unspeakable suffering on detainees, using electrical cables, rubber objects, hammers, and guns.”
Meanwhile, a UN investigation has found further evidence that Russian forces committed “indiscriminate attacks” and war crimes in Ukraine, including rape and the deportation of children to Russia, Pjotr Sauer reported.
And in Germany, dossiers of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine were presented to federal prosecutors at the start of a campaign to use the principle of universal jurisdiction to bring war criminals to justice, Julian Borger reported.
Russian deserters call on former comrades to join them
Artyom, who asked for his last name to be withheld out of fear for his safety, is one of the growing number of Russian combatants who have fled the army over the past 20 months of war.
Coming from a small city in southern Siberia, Artyom told Pjotr Sauer he joined a military boarding school as a teenager “because the army sounded prestigious”. He signed a three-year contract with the Russian military but quickly became disillusioned and as Russian troops invaded Ukraine, he was stationed on the border training conscripts.
But as Russia’s invasion faltered, forcing the Kremlin to announce a large-scale mobilisation, he was ordered to join the fighting. “I told my commanders that I do not want to shoot people; they knew what my stance was even if they bullied me for it.”
Biden’s $106bn plea gains Republican leader’s support
Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ leader in the US Senate, offered a strong endorsement of the Biden White House’s $106bn aid proposal for Israel and Ukraine, saying he and the president were essentially “in the same place” on the issue, Sam Levine reported.
McConnell rebuffed some of his party colleagues who have called for a package separating assistance for the two countries, saying it would be “a mistake”.
“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine,” he said. “We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it’s wonderful that they’re defending themselves.”
Nightmare of Ukraine’s stolen children
Ukraine’s Stolen Children is one of many films continuing to shed light on the growing list of horrors blighting the world, writes Rebecca Nicholson. Veteran journalist and film-maker Shahida Tulaganova tells the horrifying story of the thousands of children reported missing from Ukraine in 2022, who were taken away in the months after Russia invaded the country.
In March, the international criminal court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, for the alleged war crimes of unlawfully deporting and transporting Ukrainian children.
In the film, Tulaganova gets to the heart of a horrifying story – speaking to some of the young people who were taken by the Russians, sometimes to what were supposed to be holiday camps. She also meets their family members and carers, and those working for the charity that has been trying to bring them home.
When the allegations of mistreatment and Russian “re-education” at the camp are put to Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, she laughs, claiming they are now “checking the facts”.
Ukraine preparing for expected attacks on energy infrastructure
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine is preparing for renewed Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure ahead of the second winter of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of the country – and that the country is ready to counterattack if targeted, Andrew Roth reported.
“We are preparing for terrorist attacks on our energy infrastructure,” Zelenskiy said. “This year we will not only defend ourselves, but also respond.”
The warning came as Russia looks for new tools to win dominance over Ukraine in its war, which has lasted more than 20 months along frontlines that have grown increasingly static.
Russia has launched assaults on the cities of Kupiansk in northern Ukraine and of Avdiivka, where commanders said they were worried that Russia was seeking to surround and besiege the well-defended city.
Russia simulates nuclear strike after treaty opt-out
Photograph: Russian Defence Ministry Press Service Handout/EPA
Russia’s military conducted a simulated nuclear strike in a drill overseen by President Vladimir Putin, hours after the upper house of parliament voted to rescind the country’s ratification of a global nuclear test ban.
State television showed Putin directing the exercise via video call with top military officials. Russia’s minister of defence, Sergei Shoigu, said the purpose of the drills was to practise “dealing a massive nuclear strike with strategic offensive forces in response to a nuclear strike by the enemy”.
The bill to end ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, approved in the lower house last week, will now be sent to Putin for final approval. Putin has said that revoking Russia’s 2000 ratification would “mirror” the stance of the US, which signed but did not ratify the nuclear test ban.
Can Russia change? Ask a Ukrainian
Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer, revisited the Lviv BookForum, held in the open this year, instead of in a basement theatre like in 2022.
“In many of the events last year, Ukrainian writers spoke of shock, escape and survival; of abandoning novels and later tentatively taking up their pens to bear witness, to write essays and diaries,” Higgins wrote. “They spoke of how the escalation of Russia’s war against them had exploded through language, changing how they understood words, the world.
“This time around, the topics had deepened and broadened. In some cases they had become more difficult. In one event Anne Applebaum – the author of Red Famine, about Stalin’s forced starvation of as many 4 million Ukrainians in 1932-33 – suggested that supporting dissident Russians was ‘something that Ukrainians might usefully do’. A questioner remarked there is precious little sign of these dissidents. ‘Change is possible,’ insisted Applebaum.
“In such conversations, it was possible to detect a certain gap in understanding and experience between the Ukrainians present, 19 months into resisting a devastating invasion, and even their most sympathetic friends.”
