A dangerous escalation
What happened
Boris Johnson hailed Ukraine’s resistance to Russia as its “finest hour” this week, as he announced an extra £300m in UK military aid. In the first address by a world leader to Ukraine’s parliament since Russia launched its invasion, the PM said Ukrainians had “exploded the myth of [Vladimir] Putin’s invincibility”. The aid – including a radar system, GPS jammers, drones and night-vision devices – is due to be dispatched within weeks. In the US, President Biden asked Congress to approve $33bn in aid for Ukraine.
As Russia struggled to make breakthroughs in its offensive in Ukraine’s east, Putin ramped up his nuclear threats to the West. Kyiv claimed it had killed a ninth Russian general in an artillery strike near the northeastern city of Izyum – an attack which reportedly also injured Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff of the Russian military. In Mariupol, 156 people were evacuated from a besieged steelworks where they had been trapped for weeks. Survivors described horrifying conditions at the site, where 200 civilians remained this week.
What the editorials said
The war on the ground may be entering an attritional, static period, said The Independent – but the global situation is “unmistakably” escalating. In the latest signs of the war’s expanding scope, the UK said last week that it will deploy 8,000 extra troops to eastern Europe, and announced further military aid. Finland and Sweden seem “on the verge of joining Nato”; the EU is planning to ban Russian oil (see page 6); even reluctant Germany is sending tanks to Ukraine. The US is stepping up its efforts as well, said The Washington Post. Congress is likely to approve Biden’s $33bn package, of which $20bn will be military aid, in the hope of helping Ukraine launch counter-attacks in the coming months.
Why is Russia’s army failing? Partly, it’s because much of Moscow’s $250bn defence budget is “squandered or stolen”, said The Economist. But there are other issues, too. The fact that Putin and his top commanders kept their invasion plans from senior officers reflects “a crippling lack of trust”. Russian generals have made tactical errors; troops have grown disaffected. For Putin, all this adds up to a humiliation. “Unfortunately, it also leaves a nuclear-armed power with a point to prove.”