| Sometimes I think that coverage of Ukraine has become bogged down—a bit like the war itself. Because the front line is not moving, neither is the story. Away from the battlefield, though, the wheels continue to turn. Our cover in Europe this week is a good example.
Ukraine is facing a savage cash crunch. Unless something changes, it will run out of money at the end of February. To keep it in the fight, indebted Europe needs to find a lot of money. It would be a mistake to see this cash call as merely a painful exercise in annual budgeting. Instead, it is a historic opportunity to shift the balance of power between Europe and Russia by exposing the Kremlin’s financial frailty. The price of supporting Ukraine is higher than most Europeans realise, but it is also a bargain.
Elsewhere our cover is about New York—one of the world’s great cities, a source of immense financial and political power, and a place that is about to elect a Democratic Socialist as its mayor. Zohran Mamdani is a new kind of politician, inspiring, optimistic and a rebuke to the tired, predictable Democratic party machine.
Mr Mamdani has built his campaign around the idea that life in New York has become too expensive. He is right, but his solutions—which include rent control, a higher minimum wage, free bus travel and so on—would be a disaster for the city. Meanwhile, a New Yorker 45 years his senior is itching to “straighten out” the city of his birth. Working from Washington, Donald Trump could use the flow of federal money and an immigration clampdown to whip up trouble.
It’s a theme that Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief, and I discussed on The Insider this week, with two of the stars from our Checks and Balance podcast, Charlotte Howard and John Prideaux. We fear a Trump-Mamdani grudge match with New York as its stage and victim. | 
