Nick McDonell

Early on 24 July, a Russian missile struck the Kharkiv office of Fondation Suisse de Déminage, a mine-clearing organisation. The missile – probably a medium-range ballistic Iskander-M – blew open the second, third and fourth floors of the building and damaged several vehicles. Fortunately, it didn’t kill or injure any staff. One morning last summer, an hour east of Kharkiv, at the edge of an overgrown field, I watched as three de-miners from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine strapped on their body armour.

In January 2021, seven months before the fall of Kabul, representatives of the US-backed government of Afghanistan met with Taliban negotiators in Doha, Qatar. It was one of several inconclusive rounds of talks that had been going on for years. They failed for many reasons, but one may have been that negotiators on all sides believed they were under surveillance by the Americans, which made it difficult, perhaps impossible, to build trust.