James Snell

It is winter in Ukraine. The ground is frozen and hard. Groups of soldiers on both sides struggle in the cold. The Ukrainians insist they have one advantage over the Russians: their soldiers, unlike mobilised Russian troops, have some effective winter clothing.   Traditionally, armies stop moving in winter. They hunker down. It’s less true in Ukraine, where winter does not mean paralysis for civilian or army life. But in much of the country, the frontline does appear frozen – figuratively and literally. But winter ends quickly, especially in wartime.  Western intelligence agencies believe that a new Russian offensive is in the offing. They say a new attack will begin in either early spring or, possibly, at the tail end of the winter.

Bakhmut is not of immense strategic importance. It's a backwater, empty of almost all civilian life, and largely in ruins. But the city is where Ukraine’s war of self-defence has been at its most intense for months.  The defenders are suffering, under a hail of artillery fire and under constant threat of attack. But the Russians are losing more. Almost daily, it seems, Putin's forces advance without cover across a moonscape torn with shell-holes. They are cut down in their tens every time. The front line has barely moved in weeks. Russian bodies, uncollected in the cold, litter the surrounding fields.   To Ukrainians and their allies, these suicidal attacks are no longer simply foolish. They are almost disconcerting.

Almost as soon as the war in Ukraine began, strange things started to happen in Russia. Buildings connected to the country’s military and its war effort caught fire, saboteurs were suspected – and occasionally caught, according to state TV – and recently, air bases quite far away from Ukraine have started to blow up.  All of this gives the lie to the official Russian claim, from the early days of the war, that this was a special military operation – small in scope, limited in objective – fought between the Russian military and a few fanatics and drug addicts far away. The conflict was in fact a war, as we know – and it is between the armed forces of the Russian Federation, its proxy Wagner Group mercenaries and Iranian allies, and the entire nation of Ukraine.

Four people associated with the European parliament have been arrested in what seems to be the beginning of a major corruption scandal. The political career of Eva Kaili, a Greek politician and one of the vice presidents of the European parliament, has already been derailed. She has been suspended from office by the parliament's president, Roberta Metsola – and thrown out from her previous parties and affiliations.  Kaili has been arrested and, according to the BBC, has had her assets frozen. It is unclear as yet whether she has been charged with anything; some media outlets say she has, others that she soon will be.

As England’s football team prepare to face Iran in the first match of their World Cup campaign, the backdrop is already miserable. Football’s most prestigious tournament is taking place in the wrong season in a deplorable state where workers have died in the construction of stadiums. To make matters worse, the Three Lions’ first opponents are in the midst of a brutal crackdown back home on those who have dared speak out in opposition. Hundreds have died; thousands more have been locked up.  Russia, of course, was booted out of the tournament months ago following its invasion of Ukraine. As Iran’s leaders intensify their repression on the streets of Tehran, should England’s first opponents face a similar punishment?

Iran’s protest movement appears to be coming to a head. It’s been going on for two months, since the country’s ‘morality police’ beat Mahsa Amini, a young woman visiting Tehran, into a coma from which she never recovered earlier this year. The reason these thugs gave for dragging her into their van was that she was wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly. Ever since, Iranians of all ages, across the country, have been on the streets, protesting for ‘women, life, freedom’.  Now the violence of that initial act is radiating outwards.

Israel’s longest serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is back. His return confirms once again an iron clad rule of Israeli politics: never write Bibi off. A few years ago, his opponents briefly thought they had vanquished him for good.   Netanyahu lost an election in 2021 and two great American supporters, the late media tycoon Sheldon Adelson and former president Donald Trump, were gone. Netanyahu was under investigation for corruption in a wide-ranging criminal probe which he sought unsuccessfully to undermine. It seemed as if Bibi could soon exchange the prime minister’s residence for jail, and the TV make-up and dark suits he always wears for prison uniform.  But that is not what happened.

Until this week, the prospect of global famine had disappeared from the headlines, but earlier in Russia’s war against Ukraine, a sinister possibility had begun to take shape. Ukraine is a breadbasket. Its produce feeds the world. And Russia, knowing this, hatched a plan. Its soldiers could wreck Ukrainian farmland and kill its farmers. Russians would steal and sell all the Ukrainian grain it could. And the Black Sea – a vital artery through which most of Ukraine’s food exports travelled – would be blockaded by the Russian navy. Food shipments would not be let through. The world would starve, Ukraine’s economy would suffer, and – in Vladimir Putin’s mind – he would be the victor.

As Iranian munitions have hurtled through the air at the front line in the Donbas, and as Iranian suicide drones have smashed into Ukrainian cities, Tehran has denied everything – unconvincingly. The most recent was Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, who said on Saturday: ‘The Islamic Republic of Iran has not and will not provide any weapon to be used in the war in Ukraine’. With the piety beloved of hypocrites everywhere, he went on: ‘We believe that the arming of each side of the crisis will prolong the war’. This is part of a pattern.