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The Ukrainian government is planning to change its conscription practices as it seeks to sustain fighting capacity after nearly two years of full-fledged war with Russia.

The summer and autumn Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed to win back large amounts of territory, and there are increasing voices among Ukraine’s western partners suggesting in private that sooner or later Kyiv may need to consider attempting a negotiated end to the war.

In the first months of the war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians volunteered to fight, as part of a wave of patriotic determination that shocked Russia and repelled its initial advances.

Viral videos have shown men snatched from the street to be conscripted, and there have been numerous corruption scandals of officials taking bribes to provide exemption.

Many Ukrainians say if called upon they would go to the army, but many men of conscription age who do not want to be sent to the front have spent weeks or months hiding at home, trying to avoid the roaming squads of mobilisation officers.

In the summer, sources in Odesa explained a popular scheme in the city, whereby for a fee of $5,000 in cash, men who did not want to serve could receive a fake medical report suggesting serious spinal issues, with which they would be declared exempt from conscription and be allowed to leave the country.

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On October 13, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said that “the so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive can be considered finished” with nothing to show for it but tens of thousands of dead recruits and that Russia had “launched active combat operations along the entire frontline.” (Nebenzya also accused the West of feeding more weapons to Ukraine “like drugs to a drug addict, thus prolonging his agony.”) Two days later, Nebenzya’s boss Vladimir Putin weighed in with his own assertion that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had “failed completely” but, confusingly, added that “the opposing side” was planning new offensive operations in some areas and described the Russian troops’ operations as “active defense,” without explaining how that differs from plain and simple defense.

Then, after two more days, on October 17, Russia got an unpleasant surprise when Ukraine delivered powerful strikes at targets in occupied territories, in Berdyansk and Luhansk, hitting military airports and weapons depots.

Thus ends a prolonged will-they-or-won’t-they saga in which reports last September that Zelensky’s request for the long-range missiles would not be granted during his visit to Washington, D.C. were followed by a quick reversal, albeit not officially announced.

Putin, on his visit to Beijing, predictably claimed that the ATACMS would not help Ukraine but also made a weird invitation to President Joe Biden to take them back and come over to Russia for “tea and pancakes” instead.

Appearing on the 60 Minutes program on Channel One with the husband-and-wife team of Olga Skabeyeva and Yevgeny Popov, retired Russian colonel and TV pundit Mikhail Khodaryonok candidly admitted that if ATACMS strikes continued, this could make it much harder for Russia to use its military aircraft to stymie Ukrainian offensive operations by strafing tanks and armored personnel vehicles.

Pro-Ukraine commentators who are critical of the slow pace of Western weapons deliveries, such as Russian expatriate journalist Yulia Latynina, have been asking why the ATACMS were not in place before the start of the spring/summer counteroffensive, which would have likely ensured far more impressive successes.

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Much of the fallow land lies in a vast swath along the front line of the war, while other fields are in areas recently retaken by Ukrainian forces, she says.

Becker-Reshef says that while overall, Ukraine has been able to maintain its agricultural output this year, the abandoned fields have already cost the nation around $2 billion in lost crops.

Precise estimates of how much artillery ammunition has been used in the war so far are hard to come by, but Russian and Ukrainian forces are firing thousands of rounds a day, according to Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“These can lay in the ground for over a hundred years and still be lethal,” says Iain Overton, the executive director of Action on Armed Violence, a British non-profit that focuses on the harm caused by explosive weapons.

Still, Overton says, the amount of unexploded ordnance, land mines, and toxic pollution in farmland along the front line will make returning those fields to production a “gargantuan task.”

The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam earlier this year drained a massive reservoir and left nearly a thousand miles of irrigation channels without a source of water.

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The first American-made Abrams tanks have been delivered to Ukraine, two U.S. defense officials said, arriving months ahead of initial estimates and in time to be used in Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russian forces.

But Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, has warned that the Abrams would need to be deployed “in a very tailored way, for very specific, well-crafted operations,” or risk being destroyed.

Their arrival represents part of an extraordinary effort by Western allies — responding to relentless pushing from Ukraine — to deliver a powerful weapon months ahead of schedule.

Just one year ago, allies had resisted sending Western-made tanks to Ukraine, concerned that doing so would draw NATO more directly into the war and further escalate tensions with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

By January, however, convinced that Ukraine needed more heavy armored vehicles to confront Russian forces, Britain, Germany and the United States each agreed to supply the modern Western tanks or allow for them to be transferred to Kyiv.

U.S. troops began training Ukrainian forces in late spring, conducting an abbreviated 12-week course to operate Abrams tanks at American military bases in Germany.

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The war in Ukraine has forced the Kremlin to reassess its relationship with Pyongyang as it seeks to secure weapons to replace its own depleted stocks.

In return, North Korea is hoping to receive valuable foreign currency to continue funding its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles – its trump card in its quest to secure concessions, and recognition as a legitimate nuclear state, from the US.

Russia’s growing isolation has sent it in a new, worrying direction as it seeks to build a united front against a “hostile” west that includes China and now, it seems, North Korea and its million-strong army.

As news emerged of Kim’s possible trip to Vladivostok, media reported that the North could take part in joint naval drills with Russia and China.

In a message to Putin to mark Russia’s national day in June this year, the Kim pledged his regime’s “full support” for the invasion of Ukraine, and vowed to “hold hands” with the Russian leader in their common aim to build “a powerful country”.

Pyongyang knows that Moscow is desperate for munitions, Everard said, adding that he expected North Korea to demand an “eye-wateringly high” price.

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Recapturing cities like Tokmak, and a further advance on to Melitipol, will be a daunting task for a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has made incremental gains since it launched earlier this summer.

Kyiv got more welcome news Friday as the United States has given the green light for the Netherlands to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, a major gain for the country that has long sought the U.S.-made fighter jets to counteract Russian superiority in the air.

Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra confirmed the approval from Washington in a post on social media.

This comes as the Pentagon told CBS News on Thursday that the Biden administration is willing to host training on F-16 fighter jets in the United States for Ukrainian pilots if additional capacity is needed.

Meanwhile, Russian officials claimed on Friday that air defenses stopped drone attacks on central Moscow and on the country’s ships in the Black Sea.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed some of the fragments fell on the grounds of the Expocentre, a building located in close proximity to the Moscow City commercial and office complex that has been struck twice by drones in the past month.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared an existential war, framing Western revulsion at his brutalization of Ukraine as an insidious plot to “dismember” and subjugate Moscow.

In his deepening crusade against the “degenerate” West, the Russian strongman has banned the use of foreign words, ordered his officials to drop foreign-made cars, and barred them from using Western technology—including Apple devices.

The independent media organization revealed this month that Russian government agencies allocated more than 53 million rubles ($570,000) for foreign cars, one week after Putin’s order that officials stop using them.

With the Wagner Group mutiny close in the rear-view mirror—and concerns over the supposedly lethargic reaction of Russian authorities to it—Putin’s position atop the Kremlin kleptocracy is perhaps not as secure as it once was.

The order to stop using foreign cars and Apple goods “will be difficult to implement, because on the market you cannot find a lot of alternatives,” Oleg Ignatov, the Crisis Group think tank’s senior Russian analyst, told Newsweek.

Putin decried Prigozhin’s “treason,” but quickly agreed to give the Wagner financier and his fighters amnesty in exchange for their exile in Belarus under the watch of President Alexander Lukashenko.

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New Zealand’s intelligence service has accused China of foreign interference in its democracy, amid increasing tensions and geopolitical competition in the region.

Friday’s public threat assessment points to “increased strategic competition” in the Indo-Pacific region as driving the interference from China.

Beijing’s “efforts to advance its political, economic, military and security involvement in the Pacific is a major factor driving strategic competition in our home region,” it says.

In previous security overview reports, NZSIS has spoken broadly about having gathered evidence of interference and espionage activities in New Zealand by foreign states and agents, but not named specific countries or governments.

In one case study – not attributed to a specific state – it said “an undeclared foreign intelligence officer … targeted and sought to cultivate a New Zealander with access to information and people networks of interest to the foreign state [and] almost certainly sought to obtain political, economic and national security intelligence through the relationship.”

On the threat from Iran, the agency said it had detected state actors “monitoring and providing reporting on Iranian communities and dissident groups”.

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

New Zealand’s intelligence service has accused China of foreign interference in its democracy, amid increasing tensions and geopolitical competition in the region.

Friday’s public threat assessment points to “increased strategic competition” in the Indo-Pacific region as driving the interference from China.

Beijing’s “efforts to advance its political, economic, military and security involvement in the Pacific is a major factor driving strategic competition in our home region,” it says.

In previous security overview reports, NZSIS has spoken broadly about having gathered evidence of interference and espionage activities in New Zealand by foreign states and agents, but not named specific countries or governments.

In one case study – not attributed to a specific state – it said “an undeclared foreign intelligence officer … targeted and sought to cultivate a New Zealander with access to information and people networks of interest to the foreign state [and] almost certainly sought to obtain political, economic and national security intelligence through the relationship.”

On the threat from Iran, the agency said it had detected state actors “monitoring and providing reporting on Iranian communities and dissident groups”.

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