Every week we wrap up essential coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and features to analysis, opinion and more.
‘A reason to keep on living’
“Everything broke in my head and soul. And my body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” With the Russians just a few kilometres away, Serhii Dovbysh was defending his home in Chernihiv when something inside him snapped. Young soldiers under his command were dying in battle. Dovbysh, a major in Ukraine’s armed forces and a deputy commander, felt responsible.
Russia’s full-scale invasion exacerbated his pre-existing mental health issues, he said, in a stressful period when there was scarcely time to eat or sleep. “I wanted to be brave and strong, to protect my country and town. But it was hard to cope. You knew the Russians might attack at any moment.”
Now discharged from the army, Dovbysh, who was suffering from depression, works with war veterans who are struggling to deal with physical and psychological trauma. “For these guys it’s a long process. They need to find a reason to carry on living.” The picture is mixed, with some veterans coping better than others. Dovbysh told Luke Harding that he had found new purpose in helping ex-servicemen deal with the horrors of war.
‘Music is to me the light’
For this piece Charlotte Higgins sets the scene at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, where the stakes are very high for everyone on stage. Violinist Joshua Bell and conductor Dalia Stasevska are on an intensely focused mission to get the opening bars of a concerto just right – and not just any concerto, but one by the virtually forgotten Ukrainian-born composer Thomas de Hartmann.
The musicians of the International Symphony Orchestra Lviv (INSO-Lviv) are giving it its first commercial recording since the work’s premiere in 1943. They will then perform it in a concert of Ukrainian and Polish music in Warsaw.
The young Ukrainian orchestra have spent nine hours queuing to cross the Polish border the previous day. They are coping with the heartbreaking fact that one of their horn-players, Maryan Hadzetskyy, is missing in action.
The work – as well as other Ukrainian pieces the orchestra are preparing to perform in Warsaw – represents a discovery, and an assertion, of a Ukrainian classical musical heritage that is only now beginning to be fully realised. Stasevska says: “There’s such a contrast between light and dark in Ukraine. Music is to me the light. It makes me believe in good – and in humanity.”
Ukraine shoots down two Russian warplanes
Ukraine’s military shot down two of Russia’s command planes on Sunday, one of the most disastrous days for the Kremlin’s air power since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, Luke Harding reported.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said his air force had destroyed an A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an Il-22 control centre plane. Both were flying above the Sea of Azov on Sunday when they were hit at 9.10pm local time.
The A-50, which detects air defences and coordinates targets for Russian jets, crashed instantly, killing its crew. The badly damaged Il-22 appeared to have made an emergency landing at an airfield in Anapa, Russia.
It was unclear how Ukraine managed to target and shoot down the planes. One theory is that a Patriot anti-aircraft missile battery – supplied by the US – was used. This, however, would have involved moving the system close to the frontline where it could be detected.
‘Spend Russia’s money now for Ukraine’s good’
Britain has been ramping up pressure on western governments to use $350bn (£275bn) of frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine, Larry Elliott and Graeme Wearden reported.
The rich G7 countries froze Russian central bank reserves after the invasion of February 2022, and there have been growing demands from Kyiv for the assets to be seized and spent on reconstruction. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s chief economist Beata Javorcik said without continuing flows of financial support from overseas there was a chance that Ukraine’s government would have to print money to pay its bills. “We don’t want a failed state,” she said.
Speaking in Davos, where Ukraine has been high on the agenda this week at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Lord Cameron said: “When Putin launched this illegal invasion, the world changed, and we have to change with it and recognise we are in a more dangerous, uncertain and difficult world.
“We should be prepared to do some innovative thinking about how we use these resources to help Ukraine.”
Cameron said the moral argument was straightforward and strong. “At the end of the day, Russia is going to have to pay reparations for its illegal invasion, so why not spend some of the money now, rather than wait till the war is over and have all the legal wrangling about reparations”.
