The exploits of Ukrainian espionage, officially acknowledged or not, eventually reach the public eye. Around the second half of December 2024, Kyiv’s intelligence services reported that a Russian ship was damaged and stranded in the Mediterranean. It had suffered, they claimed, an engine problem. The GUR, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s spy agency, identified the vessel as the Sparta. According to Kyiv’s version at the time, it was en route to Syria to transport military equipment. Ukraine never claimed responsibility for any sabotage that might have damaged the enemy vessel. On December 23, 2024, the cargo ship, renamed Ursa Major — although until 2021 it bore the name Sparta on its hull, a long-standing family of Russian ships — sunk to a depth of 2,500 meters off the coasts of Algeria and Spain.

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The Polish airport of Rzeszów is modestly sized, a regional airfield. The Patriot air defense batteries deployed alongside the runway, however, indicate that it handles more than just charter flights. Following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Rzeszów became the air terminal for delivering military and humanitarian aid to Kyiv. Those imposing missile defense systems visible from the aircraft windows protect key supplies sent by allies.

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In Chernobyl, tragedy takes the trouble to give warning. It does so by telephone at 4 a.m. At that hour, the doorbell rang at Alexander Zelentsov’s house on April 26, 1986. His shift at the nuclear power plant didn’t start until four hours later, at 8 a.m., but there was a fire in one of the reactors. Nothing serious, they told him. A car is already on its way to pick you up.

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