Lisa Haseldine

Putin’s war in Ukraine is not going his way. As the screw tightens on him, what options does he have left up his sleeve? There remains, of course, the possibility that Putin could, at some point, choose to deploy nuclear weapons – he himself has threatened this enough times. But there is also Belarus. Controlled by Alexandr Lukashenko, currently in his sixth term as president thanks to an election in 2020 rigged in his favour with Putin's help, the country has sat on the fringes of the war since it began. On Monday, as Putin launched his latest attack on Ukraine, Belarus announced that, together with Russia, it was deploying a joint regional forces group to its borders in response to the ‘worsening situation’ in Ukraine.

‘The West has let their mask slip and revealed their true nature!’ That was Vladimir Putin's message to a hall of vacant-looking officials at the Kremlin this afternoon. The Russian president gathered the great and the good of Russia to reveal the formal annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaphorizhzhia and Kherson. But Putin's audience in the hall would be forgiven for quickly losing sight of this. This was a speech aimed at Russia's enemies in the West. Putin justified the expansion of the Russian Federation by insisting that the four now-annexed Ukrainian territories had voted in favour of joining Russia: ‘This is the will of 20 million people’, he said.

In Putin’s Russia, fortunes can change rapidly. A week on from the partial mobilisation of the army, Russians are gripped by the fear that the closure of the country’s borders is next. Those who are not willing to risk death in Ukraine are looking for a way out. In the six days since 21 September, when Putin announced his plan in a pre-recorded television address, protests have sprung up in at least 43 towns across the country; the human rights organisation OVD News has said that more than 2,300 people have been arrested for taking part. According to the official terms of the Kremlin’s partial mobilisation, those with military experience aged between 18 and 35 are being called up first (those holding higher military ranks can be summoned up to the age of 65).

Authorities in the Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine have announced that both would hold referendums on formally joining the Russian Federation this coming weekend. Although the breakaway states of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republic (LPR and DPR respectively) have been controlled by Putin-loyal separatists, they have technically remained semi-autonomous. Similar announcements about a referendum have been made in the recently-invaded regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia, of course, has welcomed the decision – the Chairman of the State Duma Vycheslav Volodin declared its readiness to provide Luhansk and Donetsk with total support. Putin is due to give an address to the nation on the subject this evening.

Just how much of a grip does Vladimir Putin have on the situation currently unfolding in Ukraine? Over the weekend, the Ukrainian Army made a series of rapid advances, reportedly regaining control of as much as 3,000 square kilometres of formerly Russian-controlled territory. According to one Ukrainian commander, the counter-offensive had Russian soldiers fleeing for the border ‘like Olympic sprinters’. In a sign of just how dire a situation the Russian war effort looks to be in, Chechen leader and Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov took to social media to criticise the campaign. In a rambling voice note on the messaging app Telegram, Kadyrov slammed the Russian retreat from the towns of Izyum and Kupiansk.

Lurking in the background of the Tory leadership contest, the cost of living crisis rumbles on. With Autumn round the corner, fears over the sharp rise in the energy price cap have once again hit the headlines, inflation continues to soar and ever more people are wondering how they’re going to pay their bills. In recent days, to the sound of muted trumpets, the government launched its latest initiative to tackle the crisis: Help for Households. Billed as a partnership scheme with businesses such as supermarkets and entertainment venues, the scheme boasts a variety of deals over the summer period designed to help out struggling households.

Boris Johnson’s departure isn’t just front-page news in the UK. Germany’s press – which has never been much of a fan of Johnson since the days of Brexit – has taken a sombre, if derisive, tone towards his resignation. Today has seen the coining of a new term in the media, with popular tabloid Bild.de splashing the one-word headline ‘Borexit’ across the top of their homepage in a large green mockup of a fire exit sign. German broadsheet Der Tagesspiegel takes its readers through a chronology of the scandals that consumed Johnson’s time in office, eye-catchingly branding him a ‘scandal noodle’.

Next week Putin is due to meet Alyaksandr Lukashenka, self-proclaimed president of Belarus, for the sixth time since the invasion of Ukraine. This will also be the first time in three years that they have met in Belarus. Much hooha is usually made by the Russian and Belarusian press of their meetings. There is always a ‘happy families’-style photoshoot: Lukashenka towering over Putin, grasping his hand in his meaty fist, looking like Laurel and Hardy’s grotesque reincarnation. According to official readouts, their long meetings tend to cover a variety of mundane topics: agricultural output, the state of their economies, general commitments of mutual support.