What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis
Every week we wrap up the must-reads from our coverage of the Ukraine war, from news and features to analysis, visual guides and opinion.
Germany and the US pledge tanks
As the US and Germany announced that they would supply Ukraine with the tanks it has long been asking for, a significant escalation in the western efforts to counter Russian aggression, the Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh took stock.
“Politically, western unity is critical,” he wrote. “The west may not be fighting directly in Ukraine, but the war is not one it can afford to lose. If Russia is able to hang on to the fifth of Ukraine it has captured throughout 2023, the Kremlin, now in charge of the world’s largest rogue state, will only grow in confidence.
“Instead, the western alliance has shown it can stick together as it upgrades its weapons supply to Ukraine, at the price to the US of 30 of its arsenal of Abrams tanks – although their fuel demands, ‘three gallons to the mile’ according to the Pentagon, mean simple logistics supply will be a challenge for Kyiv’s forces.
“Tanks are not war-winning weapons by themselves, however, although heavy tracked armour is critical to mounting any kind of offensive across open terrain against entrenched Russian positions, not least because they can continue to advance once they meet the inevitable resistance.”
Peter Beaumont explained what Leopard tanks are and why Ukraine so desperately wants them.
A Russian missile attack killed 11 people
Ukraine’s top general vowed that his country would not be “broken” after the successful downing of 47 of the 55 missiles launched by Russia in an attack that followed the western offer of tanks, Daniel Boffey reported.
General Valery Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, said 20 of those intercepted had been heading to the Kyiv region, where one 55-year-old man was killed and two more were injured by falling fragments.
As a result of the Russian assault from air and sea on Thursday morning, the 13th such missile barrage of the war, a total of 11 people died while a further 11 were wounded, a spokesperson for the emergency services said.
The man leading Ukraine’s fight against corruption
As a number of Ukrainian officials were dismissed or resigned this week amid corruption allegations. As Volodymyr Zelenskiy attempts to take a zero-tolerance approach to the issue, Daniel Boffey profiled the head of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency, Oleksandr Novikov.
Fifteen senior officials have left their posts since Saturday, six of whom have had corruption allegations levelled at them by journalists and Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities.
For the first two months of the war in Ukraine, Novikov, 40, lived with a coterie of his staff in the basement of the austere offices of the national agency on corruption prevention in Kyiv.
“We have a munitions room – it has machine guns. We were ready to fight on these streets,” Novikov says, looking down from the window of his third-floor boardroom.
It is his fourth and final year as head of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency, and while the Russians didn’t end up on his doorstep in Ukraine’s capital last February, the former public prosecutor’s appetite for battle against the odds has not been sated.
In 2021, Transparency International ranked Ukraine as the second most corrupt country in Europe, behind only Russia, a position Novikov set out to turn around, only to find his task made significantly harder by Covid and Vladimir Putin.
The Ukraine hotline encouraging Russians to surrender
More than 6,500 Russian military personnel have sought to surrender through a bespoke “I want to live” hotline, Ukraine’s government has claimed, with the call centre said to have been recently moved to a secret location to avoid Moscow’s interference, Daniel Boffey reported from Kyiv.
Vitaly Matvienko, spokesperson at the department for prisoners of war, said those who had made contact through the service had been verified as serving in the Russian forces using their personal data and service number.
Between 15 September, when the hotline launched, and 20 January, it is claimed that 6,543 Russian personnel contacted the Ukrainian government to surrender themselves into their custody, often from the frontline.
The hotline, fielded by 10 operators, had been established following Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a mobilisation of 300,000 civilians with no previous military experience to join the Russian war effort.
Doomsday Clock at record 90 seconds to midnight amid Ukraine crisis
A panel of international scientists warned this week that humanity’s continued existence is at greater risk than ever before, largely as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Julian Borger reported.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has been since it was established in 1947 to illustrate global existential threats at the dawn of the nuclear weapons age.
Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin, said the clock had been moved forward from 100 seconds to midnight, where it had been for the previous three years, “largely, though not exclusively, because of the mounting dangers in the war in Ukraine”.
Ukrainian families vent frustration at struggle to find homes in the UK
Maria, 22, came to the UK from Ukraine in March last year shortly after the war broke out. She and her mother travelled using the Ukraine family scheme visa to stay with her aunt. But when her aunt was evicted, they became homeless. For five months, Maria and her mother have been living in temporary accommodation in south London. Tobi Thomas reported this story.
“It’s horrible actually, the corridors are so old and so dirty,” Maria says. “The council haven’t been very helpful. The room is so small and it’s hard with two adults in one room.”
Maria is hoping to find private accommodation, but it is unaffordable when living on universal credit. “You have to pay a deposit, and have a lot of savings but we don’t have that right now,” Maria adds.
