Cover Story

How we chose this week’s image

Our cover this week is about the long war in Ukraine. The rapid manoeuvres early in the conflict have been left behind for slow, grinding progress, dominated by trenches and artillery.

On the face of it, this suits Russia. Both sides are using huge amounts of ammunition, but Russia has vastly more. The Russian economy is much larger than Ukraine’s and in far better shape. In pursuit of victory, Vladimir Putin is willing to commit war crimes and impose grievous suffering on his own people. In recent days its forces have taken the eastern city of Severodonetsk. They are advancing on Lysychansk and may soon control all of Luhansk province.

However, the long war does not have to be fought on Mr Putin’s terms. Potentially, Ukraine has vast numbers of motivated fighters. It can be supplied by the West’s defence industry. In 2020, before sanctions, the economies of NATO were more than ten times bigger than Russia’s.

For the cover we had a choice of depicting the strategic calculations imposed by a long war, or the terrible burden of human suffering: an abstract design or a photograph.

Start with the abstraction. Here are some shells, mounting like a histogram as the fighting drags on. It could represent almost anything, from the cost of the war to the death count. Beside it is a gun-barrel graph pointing relentlessly upward. These designs are minimalist, which is often a strength. But here they are short of punch. Unprompted, readers may struggle to see the gun barrel for what it was: a walking cane, a mace?

Nothing says strategy like a chess set. One version has missiles and shells in various states of attack. The other stretches far into the distance. We wondered if we could combine them to create a new take on an old idea.

An alternative was to show the human cost. We have some Ukrainian troops under a blue sky, walking beside what looks very much like a field of oilseed rape. The evocation of the Ukrainian flag is good, but the soldiers seem as if they are on a ramble rather than fighting for their country’s survival.

The black-and-white portrait beside it is more powerful. This man looks exhausted. He is gazing into the distance, as if thinking of the struggle that lies ahead.

Some of us were taken by the man in a tank, staring into the lens defiantly. He is grimy and grim-faced. The tank is battered; its paint is peeling; you can smell the oil. The drawback is that nothing says he is Ukrainian.

Beside him is a study in vulnerability. The veteran is holding his gun as if he’d much rather be somewhere else. The orange glow feels like a sunset. You sense that, if this is what Ukraine has in reserve, victory in the long war will be elusive.

That is why we preferred this gutsy image of Ukrainian troops firing an M777 Howitzer. With NATO-calibre weapons, plus fresh tactics and enough financial aid, Ukraine has every chance of forcing back Russia’s armies. Even if lost territory will be hard to retake, Ukraine can demonstrate the futility of Mr Putin’s campaign and emerge as a democratic, Westward-looking state.

Over the past few months, readers will have seen a lot of weapons being fired. So we used a black-and-white filter and put a graduated scale in the black border between the title and the image. We wondered, even so, if it was sufficiently fresh.

That is what led us to this. They say that a chessboard represents the battlefield. On this one, the second dimension is time, stretching towards a distant horizon. Rockets and oil drums litter the scene. To win this fight will take both tactics and endurance. And if you half-close your eyes and squint, can you see Vladimir Putin sitting at the end of a very, very long table?