Cover Story

How we chose this week’s images

We do not normally make a fuss about interviews. We speak to people all the time. It seems meretricious to jump up and down just because someone has opened their doors to us.

But every so often the moment comes along—in the Oval Office, for example—when we think readers will want to hear what somebody has to say at length. Our job is to get out of the way and let them be heard.

This week was one of those occasions.

In an unprecedented series of briefings that took place in Ukraine within the past fortnight, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the head of its armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, and the head of its ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrsky, gave us their analysis of the state of the war and their calculations about the critical months that lie ahead.

Russia is massing a new army, General Zaluzhny told us, using mobilised men and weapons powered by industry retooled for the war effort. As soon as January, this army could launch a big counter-offensive from Donbas in the east, from the south or even from Belarus, a puppet state in the north. “The Russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops,” he declared. “I have no doubt they will have another go at Kyiv.”

The cover design needed to set up the interviews and their themes. That is harder than it sounds, because our covers usually focus on ideas or events and their consequences. This week our subject was not only what was said, but also who was saying it.

In most of the world the Russo-Ukrainian war is thought to be deadlocked. There has been almost no movement for a month along the 1,000km or so of battlefront. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s most senior officer, this week said that, right now, a shortage of artillery shells means Russia’s scope for ground operations is “rapidly diminishing”.

These ideas bring those perceptions to life. In one, artillery shells are heaped under a Christmas tree like so many presents in a Ukrainian forest. Beside it is a bare gun barrel. Although it is angled to fire, it has frozen from lack of use. We liked the gun barrel for its simplicity and asked for the idea to be worked up.

The appearance of stalemate is feeding new interest in peace talks. Many in the West, appalled at the suffering, and, more selfishly, wearying of high energy prices, would welcome this. But Ukraine’s commanders argue that it should not happen too soon, and they are right.

We wanted to draw attention to their words. Our designers thought that the snowflake made of missiles and bombs could become the anchoring element for a collage that brought together Mr Zelensky and his generals. We asked for that to be worked up, too.

The gun barrel has come up well. Perched on the end is a crow. They are often taken as a symbol of death—a group of them is called a murder—but they also signify intelligence and cunning. Unusually for us, the type is ranged left, leaving bird and barrel open to the sky above.

It’s a fine image, but it has one problem. Although the words stress the voice of Ukraine’s commanders, the message is buried.

Converting the barrel of a howitzer into the barrel of a pen draws the eye to the fact that we have the testimony of Ukraine’s commanders. But this cover suggests something that looks to the past—as if we had the diary of a general, or an account of the early days of the war. In fact we have their analysis of the state of battle and of its next phase.

That led us back to the idea of a collage. We weren’t sure about this design, which lacks focus—which means that it also lacks drama. If, as we say, Ukraine’s commanders are assessing their options, this image says that they cannot make up their mind.

This is the design we liked, although with a different colour scheme. The photographs of Mr Zelensky and Generals Zaluzhny and Syrsky say whose voices we are featuring. The geometry tells readers that their words will be analytical and the subtitle that this analysis is forward-looking. The limbs of the snowflake introduce the hierarchy between the president and his generals. Its angles are picked up in the snow-covered Czech hedgehogs. Ruined buildings, rocket launchers and flag-waving soldiers fill out the empty space. If you look closely, you will even find a murder of crows.