Ukraine is having mixed results on the battlefield

Greetings from London, where with all the unpredictable inevitability of a Ukrainian counter-offensive, summer has arrived at last.

Your usual correspondent, Adam Roberts, is having a few weeks away, not on the beach (much as we Brits love to be beside the seaside) but at a different desk, as temporary editor of the Britain section. I am the first of a rotating cast of stand-ins.

The counter-offensive will continue to preoccupy us for a while yet. Ukraine’s forces are having mixed success against Russian defences, but the bulk of its troops are yet to be committed, as our reporter there writes. When I was back in my old home town, Singapore, for a few days last month, a number of readers complained that our coverage of the war betrayed a euro-centric bias—that we cover it so much because it is closer to home than many global conflicts. I think our cover leader in the current issue and our analysis of why it is so important to inflict a strategic defeat on Vladimir Putin did a good job of explaining why we care so much.

It is also a powerful story of human conflict and misery. Our correspondent in Kherson has filed gripping dispatches from areas inundated by floods caused by the blowing up of the Nova Kakhovka dam, describing both the devastation in Ukrainian-controlled areas, and the suffering of those in Russian-controlled areas, who appear to have been abandoned by the local authorities.

It is true, however, that war in Ukraine should not divert attention from other vicious conflicts around the world. One close to my heart is the civil war torturing Myanmar. I remember the mood of hope in Yangon, the commercial hub and old capital, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a big majority in elections in 2015, as it did again in 2020. That hope was snuffed out by a coup in 2021, leaving Myanmar as it was when I first knew it, as Burma, in the 1980s: a place under occupation by its own army. Forty years on, people are no longer willing to accept the army’s vicious incompetence.

I do not know why that phrase should make me think of Donald Trump, who once again is proving impossible to ignore. His indictment on Friday on federal charges is just the latest legal obstacle to a second tilt at the presidency. To the bafflement of most on this side of the Atlantic, it seems unlikely to harm his chances.?

And in Britain, another populist former premier is sounding Trumpian. Boris Johnson, in announcing his resignation from Parliament on Friday, echoed the phrase used by Mr Trump in response to the indictment when he spoke of a “witch-hunt” against him. He jumped before a committee of MPs, which was investigating whether he misled Parliament over alleged breaches of covid lockdown rules, published its findings.

Last, today we published an obituary of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Republic’s longest-serving prime minister, who has died aged 86. Mr Berlusconi’s time in office was dogged by scandals, but his supporters backed him with a fervour rare in democratic societies. As we put it, he was Italy’s great seducer.?

Next week, look out for a series of stories on India. We have to get used to thinking of the country as both the world’s most populous and a rising power, assiduously courted by the West as a potential ally but still fiercely, to use a phrase from the cold war, “non-aligned”. We have already published what I found a revelatory article about India’s ambitions to turn its remarkable innovations in public digital infrastructure into a powerful form of soft power.

Please let us know what you think about our coverage of India, and indeed the rest of the world. We read all the emails sent to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

Simon Long, Editor-at-large

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