This Week in the World sheds light on events and personalities around the globe that may not have made the headlines
Ukraine-Russia
Since the last This Week in the World, Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk Oblast. Catching Russian forces by surprise, and ill prepared, Ukrainian troops broke through the initial lines and have captured around 1 000 square kilometres of Russian territory, mostly small towns and villages.
Ukrainians seem to have achieved this surprise through a mixture of careful deception and keeping tight-lipped about the plan. Ukrainian troops who took part were only informed hours before the attack, and, according to Ukrainian commander Syrsky, the Ukraine’s US and European allies were not told. Indeed, Ukraine has now said that it believes some of its attack plans in the failed 2023 counter-offensive were leaked to Russia by its allies.
This video is of Ukrainian troops marching through Plekhovo village in Kursk Oblast on 13 August:
The invasion of Kursk Oblast is likely an attempt to regain the strategic initiative and prevent the Russians from reinforcing their continuing assaults in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces have slowly been losing ground since the fall of the town of Avdiivka in February this year.
In other recent developments, Ukraine’s drone programme continues to advance, with Forbes reporting that Ukrainian drone production and electronic-warfare counter measures have passed Russia’s in sophistication and scale. Highlighting this point, the past few weeks have seen continued Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian targets. These include airbases, oil refineries and other military targets. These targets have ranged in distance from being close to Ukraine’s border with Russia, to Moscow, and even all the way to Murmansk Oblast in northern Russia.
This video shows Ukraine’s 95th brigade using drones to support its troops:
In this video, a Russian man despairs at the aftermath of a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian airbase:
Afghanistan
Continuing its clampdown on human rights since taking over the country in 2021, the Taliban government this week placed further restrictions on the rights of women. In a decree issued by the Supreme Leader, the Taliban has banned women’s voices and bare faces in public.
The new law says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short. Furthermore, a woman’s voice has been declared intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting poetry, or reading aloud in public. It is also prohibited for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
Another portion of the same law bans the publication of images of living beings. This may in effect make almost all visual media illegal in Afghanistan.
Myanmar (Burma)
Burma’s military junta has continued to lose ground across the country to various rebel and ethnic separatist forces throughout August.
On 10 August the rebel-backed National Unity Government claimed that the Junta controlled less than 30% of the towns across the whole country. Junta forces are still firmly in control of the major cities, but many rural provinces and towns have now fallen to various rebel groups. The border with Bangladesh has been entirely captured by rebels, who have also captured most of the borders with China, Thailand and India.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, a member of the rebel-allied Three Brotherhood Alliance, captured the Junta’s north-eastern regional command headquarters in Lashio, Shan State on 13 August.
If the Junta collapses it will likely create a power vacuum which could draw China, India and the United States into the fight to establish a new regime in Burma.
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