Guardian Weekly 20 January 2023

An infantry carrier moves quickly across a devastated landscape, traversing a flat expanse dotted with lines of shattered buildings, some reduced to rubble by artillery fire. The drone footage shows the carrier, marked with a red cross, halt beside a building missing part of its roof and many of its windows. A Ukrainian medic darts out and peers briefly around the corner of the building as a casualty is brought out on a stretcher. Loaded quickly, the carrier heads away at speed, coming under Russian artillery fire. Pictured in the footage are the ruins of the small Donbas saltmining town of Soledar, and a fleeting scene from a battle where life, death and injury has been measured in the past week in such near and not-so-near misses. Last Friday, as Russia’s defence ministry…

‘IF SHIPWRECKS ARE THE SIRENS THAT LURE US INTO THE DEPTHS, THEY ENCOURAGE EXPLORATION INTO WHAT TRULY IS THE LAST FRONTIER OF THE PLANET’ AN IMMENSE RAILING, gnawed at by metal-eating bacteria for more than a century, emerged amid the pitch black waters. For more than two hours, the submersible had plunged through the water column to reach the depths of the Atlantic; now its lights bobbed over the prow of a ship dripping in red and orange icicle-like formations. “My heart just started beating,” says Bill Price. “It was just like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing. This is the actual Titanic.’” The 2021 expedition catapulted the 70-year-old retiree on to a shortlist – believed to number fewer than 300 people – who have visited the wreckage of the tragedy since the…