Ukraine

The sinking of the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva is both a reminder of the past and a marker for the future. It harkens back to a lesson learned forty years ago. It was in 1982, in the waters around the Falkland Islands, that the ability of anti-ship missiles to destroy modern warships was brought home to much of the world. It was a shock for many to see a not-first-rate military run by the oppressive Argentinian Junta being able to destroy a number of the newest British warships during the Falklands War. Most notably the destroyer HMS Sheffield, which had been commissioned only seven years before, was destroyed after being hit by only one French-made Exocet missile.

The war in Ukraine is about to enter an even deadlier stage, one in which both Kyiv and Moscow will be tempted to apply more and more military might that could even draw in outside powers. The Battle for Donbas, with another battle raging for what is left of the city of Mariupol, will be a new hell that Europe has not seen since the second world war. It has the potential even to mutate into World War III unless the conflict is brought to a conclusion — and fast. Why the war in Ukraine is shifting to these critical regions is simple to understand.

Like the Greek titan Cronos devouring his own children, Vladimir Putin seems determined to turn against those he was once closest to – out of fear, anger and hubris. In the process, he is only further weakening his regime. The former deputy head of the infamous Federal Security Service (FSB), colonel general Sergei Beseda, has been moved from house arrest to the investigations wing of the equally infamous Lefortovo prison. Designed to break inmates’ wills, guards escorting prisoners through its corridors use clickers to announce their presence. This allows other prisoners to be placed face to the wall in niches along the way so that they don’t get to see who else is in there.

In 1942, as Hitler’s forces swept through the Soviet Union, the Red Army went underground. Outside the city of Kerch in Crimea, 10,000 Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian soldiers dug into the caves of a limestone quarry, ready to defend their position to the last man. Intent on flushing them out, the Nazis bombed them from the skies, flooded the complex and, according to testimony from survivors, pumped noxious gas into the tunnels. That siege, 80 years ago, would have been the last time that chemical weapons were used in combat in Europe. Until, perhaps, yesterday. Just over 100 miles north of Kerch, in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, locals have reportedly complained of lung and ear problems after a drone dropped its payload overhead.

We are seven weeks into the war and the level of destruction in Ukraine is mounting. Every single day we learn more about Russia’s scorched earth tactics and about the atrocities its forces have committed in the areas they once occupied. But with another Russian surge in Ukraine’s east looming, one trend is not sufficiently understood in the West. Over the past weeks, Russian air and missile strikes have deliberately targeted and destroyed key components of Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure, especially in the energy sector, in a bid to make the country collapse. In late March the Pentagon estimated that Russia had fired over 1,200 precision guided missiles into Ukraine.

So much had been written about the Russian armed forces’ modernisation and improvement over the last decade that that it was widely believed that the Russians possessed one of the largest and most powerful armies in the world until a few weeks ago. The army might not be on par with the US or China, but it was certainly capable of conquering a military minnow like Ukraine – or so the logic went. The six weeks of war in Ukraine – which have seen Russian forces fail to take Kyiv and fall back elsewhere – has dented the army’s reputation. And now it seems that the Russian military may be running out of options in the rest of the country too.