Ukraine

Economic sanctions were meant to be the West’s secret weapon against Russia, a way of crippling Vladimir Putin’s war machine and bringing his invasion of Ukraine to a halt without Nato firing a shot. Instead, Russia’s economy and military remain in rude health. After recent heavy attacks north of Kharkiv, Putin’s troops have seized more than 38 square miles of territory and stretched Kyiv’s already thinly deployed defences as they grind forward in Donbas. Putin has demoted his long-serving defence minister Sergei Shoigu, replacing him with the little-known economist Andrei Belousov. Appointing a finance specialist as military chief was a reminder that armies march on money. In Russia’s case, oil money.

The bravery of Ukraine Sir: Few articles could resonate as strongly as that of Svitlana Morenets (‘Scrambled logic’, 20 April). She brings the agony of her brave countrymen and women home to us, and the effect of dithering and equivocation by the West. As a volunteer with a refugee charity, I weekly admire the character of our Ukrainian clients, mainly older ladies who spend their time bringing us delicious homemade cakes, volunteering in charity shops and signing up to English classes at the local college.

Home The Hate Crime and Public Order Act came into effect in Scotland, making it a crime to communicate or behave in a manner ‘that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive’, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. The Scottish government offered online training to 500 Police Scotland ‘Hate Crime Champions’. The author J.K. Rowling named ten people who call themselves women that she called men. Police Scotland said complaints had been received about her, but that but no action would be taken. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We should not be criminalising people saying common sense things about biological sex.

In my village in Ukraine, there aren’t many families left intact. The funerals of those who have been killed in the war have been taking place with crushing regularity. It feels like everyone’s loss. Today, in house after house, you can find parents whose children have either died or are still fighting with no indication of when they may return. It’s almost impossible for couples to start families – men are deployed to the front line with little hope of any leave. If they return alive, most are maimed in some way.  There is, though, a spark of hope for these young Ukrainians. Ukraine has quite an advanced network of fertility clinics, which are often used in more peaceful times by foreigners taking advantage of liberal surrogacy laws.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that Britain needed to build new gas-fired power stations to ensure energy security. GDP grew by 0.2 per cent in January. The number of people of working age classed as economically inactive rose to 9.25 million, compared with 8.55 million in February 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics. Among those aged 16 to 34, economic inactivity was rising; among those aged 35 to 64 it had fallen. Long-term sickness accounted for 2.7 million people not in work, 600,000 more than four years ago. The National Health Service employed more than two million for the first time, more than a third of public-sector workers.