Dylan Colligan

Nov 27, 2024 | thespectator.com | Svitlana Morenets |Sara Wheeler |Mark Galeotti |Dylan Colligan

Not since the summer of the 2022 invasion have Russian troops been making more progress in Ukraine. Last month alone, they took almost 200 square miles in the Donetsk region. Just fifteen miles now separate the Russian forces from entering the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. If Russia succeeds, a sixth region will be swallowed by hostilities. What’s changed? Russia’s ranks are swelling with highly paid contractors and fresh North Korean reinforcements, while Ukraine’s forces are thinning fast.

Nov 21, 2024 | thespectator.com | Dylan Colligan |Svitlana Morenets |Melanie McDonagh |Nick Spencer

By the summer of 2024, Kyivans could joke that there was no way the Russian army could take their city now — they’d never get through the downtown traffic. The simple normality of urban congestion, crawling through grand boulevards in the shadows of buildings that, with fresh coats of paint, would suggest a Wes Anderson vision of Mitteleuropa, could lull a visitor into thinking he could be in any capital on the old Orient Express route.