Cover Story

How we chose this week’s image

Russia may be geographically vast, but in other ways it is a medium-sized country that still yearns to be a superpower. To fill the gap between its capacities and its aspirations, Vladimir Putin has repeatedly turned to the only sphere where Russia can still purport to be world-class: military force. His army’s record in Ukraine matters most to Ukrainians. But Putin’s habitual use of aggression means that everyone has a stake in the conflict.

So far, Russia’s armed forces have had a bad war. About 15,000 troops have been killed in two months of fighting, according to the British government. At least 1,600 armoured vehicles have been destroyed, along with dozens of aircraft and the flagship of the Black Sea fleet. The first job of the cover was to get across this disastrous record and we immediately thought of the rusting tanks strewn across the Ukrainian landscape, often with the turrets blown off—because the Russian army, unlike its Western counterparts, stores ammunition beneath them.

Russia’s failure involves manpower as well as machinery. The country’s defence budget, of over $250bn at purchasing-power parity, is about three times that of Britain or France, but much of it is squandered or stolen. Putin and his top commanders kept their invasion plans from senior officers, reflecting a crippling lack of trust. Russia has failed to win control of the skies or combine air power with tanks, artillery and infantry. Perhaps these two designs make light of the atrocities of war, but they do get at Russia’s self-defeating incompetence: it is an army that hobbles itself and that cannot use its own equipment.

There is also a moral dimension to Russia’s failure. Disaffected troops, fed on out-of-date rations, have deserted their vehicles. Units have tortured, raped and murdered only to be honoured by the Kremlin. Wallowing in corruption, unable to foster initiative or learn from their mistakes, Russia’s frustrated generals abandoned advanced military doctrine and fell back on flattening cities and terrorising civilians. Here we have a rusting bucket and a grenade like a pineapple rotten to the core.

We asked for the grenade to be worked up. Inside you have the fruit’s mouldering flesh and, if you look carefully, the wriggling tails of a couple of grubs. It’s a skin-crawling amalgam of metal, marrow and maggots.

However, design could not compete with the photography. This tank turret lying in an empty field looks half-buried, as if it were an abandoned corpse. The picture has a pitiful futility, like war itself. It says the Russian army is broken.

But we found this even stronger, especially with the type ranged to the left. Taken from above, by a drone, you see a skull. Only then do you pick out the tank turret and its slabs of armour, a couple inscribed with the letter Z. This says the Russian army is experiencing physical and moral decay. It is the first time in our 179-year history that we have had a picture credited to the 93rd Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces.