In today’s newsletter: As Ukrainian forces make further advances inside Russia, Vladimir Putin goes on an offensive to calm fears and mould perceptions at home. Will it work?• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. Ukrainian troops have made further advances in the Kursk region of Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday. Meanwhile, Kyiv said it had launched a “major” drone attack on four Russian airbases, and the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region declared a state of emergency. And while Kyiv insists it has no intention of trying to hold Russian territory permanently, there is little doubt that it intends its cross-border incursion to bring home the cost of the war to the Russian public.So how do ordinary Russians view the surprise attack on their own territory – and what is Vladimir Putin doing to try to shape their response? For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Dr Olga Vlasova, a visiting scholar at King’s Russia Institute in London who researches Russian state propaganda with a focus on the “politics of pacification”, about the impact of Ukraine’s incursion on perceptions of the war. Here are the headlines.Metropolitan police | London’s police force is providing an inadequate or failing service in seven of eight key areas, and there are “serious concerns” about its management of dangerous offenders, according to an official inspection. The Met is now half as likely as other forces to solve a victim-based crime, the report says.Israel-Gaza war | Hamas appears unlikely to participate in a new round of talks on a Gaza ceasefire deal on Thursday, further eroding hopes of an agreement that might stave off expected retaliatory strikes by Iran against Israel for the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month.Environment | A record 15 national heat records have been broken since the start of this year, an influential climate historian has told the Guardian, as weather extremes grow more frequent and climate breakdown intensifies.Mpox | An outbreak in Africa of mpox, the disease formerly known as monkeypox, resembles the early days of HIV, scientists have said, as the World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency. The declaration must accelerate access to testing, vaccines and drugs in the affected areas, medical experts urged.UK heritage | A “jaw-dropping” study has revealed that one of Stonehenge’s central megaliths did not come from Wales, as previously thought, but the very north-east corner of Scotland. One of the scientists told the Guardian: “It completely rewrites the relationships between the Neolithic populations of the whole of the British Isles.” Continue reading...
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