PHOTO: ALAMY/NST

With the Ukrainian territory around Prypyat now under Russian control, the Chernobyl disaster is remembered in a new documentary 24

COLUMNS

Christopher Howse’s Notebook ‘Telling tales is thought to be one of the most serious sins among children and criminals’ / 6 Shelagh Fogarty ‘I wonder if a miracle is happening in the person of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’ / 8

REGULARS Word from the Cloisters 17 Puzzles 17 Letters 18 The Living Spirit 19

CONTENTS 5 MARCH 2022 // VOL 276 NO. 9442

FEATURES

4 / The roots of Putin’s war How did it come to this? The origins of the invasion lie in centuries of

Russian disdain for Ukraine / BY ROBERT BRINKLEY

5 / Cain’s Crime

Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians. And the divisions between them may

be a key to the outcome of the war / BY ANATOLII BABYNSKYI

7 / The story of a nation Ukraine has forged a cohesive and distinct identity while Russia remains a state

in search of a national idea / BY MARY DEJEVSKY

9 / Our lost leaders

The Church has failed to make full use of the enormous wealth of experience and

talent of more than half its members – women / BY JOANNA MOORHEAD

14 / Finding the walls of a new freedom The first of our Lent series in which writers select the book that helped them

through a difficult patch in their lives / BY JAMES MARTIN

NEWS

25 / The Church in the World / News briefing 26 / Church pledge to defend Ukraine’s independence

28 / View from Rome 29 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing

30 / Bishop would bless those fighting Russians

COVER: ALAMY/GUY CORBISHLEY

BOOKS / PAGE 20

Oliver Letwin A Duty of Care: Britain Before and After Covid PETER HENNESSY Lucy Beckett Hanging On In There: An Essay in Meaning – Selected Poems of Marie Noël TRANSLATED BY PAULINE MATARASSO

ARTS / PAGE 22 Theatre The Collaboration MARK LAWSON Radio Conversations from a Long Marriage D.J. TAYLOR Music Cheer-Accident; Alt-J; Gary Brooker BRIAN MORTON Television Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes LUCY LETHBRIDGE

5 MARCH 2022 | THE TABLET | 3