The Russians have changed generals as well as shifting the focus of their attack from the north to the east and south. The new man is Lt. General Alexander Dvornikov, aka “the butcher”, a title he earned for his merciless bombardments in the Second Chechen War and Syria. In the first he levelled Grozny and the second left Aleppo a smouldering ruin whose streets were littered with the bodies of civilians. General Dvornikov is wanted for alleged war crimes in Syria and has been blacklisted by the EU.  Vladimir Putin has awarded him with the Hero of Russia medal.

Dvornikov’s appointment also signals a change in strategy. Previously, daily operations were directed from military headquarters in Moscow. Dvornikov, who has been in Eastern Ukraine for the past two years, is expected to have much more control. His experience is with mechanised artillery units and the terrain of Eastern Ukraine is more suited to his tactics. The north and west of the country is heavily-forested. The south and east is the breadbasket of Europe with wide open plains resembling the American Midwest. His problem is that the Ukrainian military have prepared for his attack with trenches and anti-tank traps. He should also bear in mind that being a general in the Russian army is a dangerous job. The Ukrainians have killed eight so far.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, Vladimir Putin is resorting to the tactics of the man whom he has repeatedly said he admires – Joseph Stalin. The Soviet dictator used a combination of fear, the media, the police and repression to ensure adherence to his policies. Putin is doing the same. The enemy, according to Putin and Russian television, is no longer Neo-Nazis in Kyiv. It is the West “attempting to destroy Mother Russia.” Ukrainians are no longer fellow Slavs awaiting liberation, they are “traitors who deserve only to be ground into the dust.”

Also guilty of treason, is anyone who disseminates “fake news” about the “special military operation” in Ukraine (“fake news” is defined as anything other than news that originates in the Kremlin). So far 15,000 people have been arrested for refusing to toe the Putin line. They face up to 15 years in prison.  To further keep the lid on the dissidents, authorities are encouraging family, neighbours and friends to inform on each other – another Stalinist tactic.

For the moment the strategy is working. Vladimir Putin appears to have the overwhelming support of the Russian public. This may change with a worsening of the economic situation. When Western sanctions were initially imposed the rouble nose-dived and overnight the savings of millions of Russians were wiped out. Since then the central bank has intervened, buying roubles from its reserves. This has blunted the effect of the sanctions and stabilised the currency, but the head of the central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has warned that this policy is unsustainable beyond the short term. But no matter, President Putin, has decided he wants a result by the 9^th of May, the anniversary of the end of World War Two, which means that eastern Ukraine can expect a rough next few weeks.

Sri Lanka is an economic basket case and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The problem is that the country has run out of foreign currency reserves to pay for vital imports. The cause is partly the result of a drop in tourism because of the pandemic but mainly the result of the policies of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He was elected in 2019 with the promise of a “strong hand”. He used that hand to cut taxes and borrow heavily to invest in prestige infrastructure projects. At the time the country’s foreign reserves were $7.6 billion. A year later they were $1.9 billion – and then the pandemic struck and the country’s main foreign currency earner – tourism – came to a sudden halt.

To conserve foreign reserves, the government ordered farmers to use home-grown organic fertilisers instead of buying chemical fertilisers from abroad. The result was crop failures and a bigger import bill as Sri Lanka was forced to import food. Most governments respond to such crises by lowering the value of the national currency to make their exports more competitive. Rajapaksa refused to do this, which meant that more reserves were wasted. When the Sri Lankan rupee was finally allowed to float free it plummeted by 30 percent against the dollar in one day. There are now acute shortages of food, clothing, and vital medicines and, of course, energy. Ten of thousands have taken to the streets to demand the resignation of President Rajapaksa and this week one died when police used live ammunition to disperse a crowd. The president has refused to resign. The IMF has been called in to sort out the mess, but their experts say it will be at least six months before they can organise any major loans.

The Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (population 687,000) is not generally known as one of the world’s diplomatic hot spots. But in the past few weeks that is exactly what it has become. This is because the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogarvae has signed a security deal with China which, according to leaked documents, gives Beijing the right to dock warships on the island chain and send security forces to quell anti-government riots which have plagued the islands in recent years. This has sent warning bells ringing in Washington, London and, most of all, Canberra.

The South Pacific has been regarded as a Western security zone since shortly after World War Two with the Australians, with some help from New Zealand, holding the fort on behalf of first the British and now the US. Other islands which shelter under the ANZUS umbrella include Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Samoa and Tonga. They rely not only on Australian military protection but also on aid and trade.  China has been courting all these countries in a bid to break the Australian stranglehold on the region. The deal with the Solomon Islands is seen as Beijing’s first big success.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain". To subscribe to his email alerts on world affairs click here.