This harrowing study of the Russian leader’s weaponising of sexual violence argues that misogyny goes hand in hand with imperialism

In 1944, the Red Army pushed the Germans out of the Baltic state of Estonia. Soon afterwards, Soviet officers took away Sofi Oksanen’s great-aunt for interrogation. It was night. When she returned the next morning Oksanen’s young relative appeared unscathed. In fact, she had been raped. She could only mutter a few words: “Jah, ära”, or “Yes, please don’t”.

The consequences of her unspoken ordeal were lifelong. As Oksanen relates it, her great-aunt became mute. She never married, had children or a relationship. Nor were the men who abused her punished. After the Soviet reoccupation – which saw Estonia erased from Europe’s map – she lived quietly with her ageing mother. Black-and-white family photos and the stories that went with them were hidden.

Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women by Sofi Oksanen is published by HarperVia (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply

David Williams lost his mother, his marriage fell apart and he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. But it took one more blow to bring him to tears

David Williams was 17 when his mother died of cancer. But he didn’t cry when his mum’s friend knocked on the door in the dead of night to give him and his sisters the news. He was the eldest of three, “the adult male” as his father had left years earlier.

Instead, he bottled up his feelings and carried on working. Williams, now 61, says: “Something happens to you in that situation that isn’t your choice.” This was 1980, and the family lived on the Lache social housing estate in Chester, which was, he says, “a tough place. Lads didn’t go around crying.”

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

Xi Jinping is expected to emphasise China as a reliable partner, in contrast to Washington, which imposed then suspended punishing tariffs across the region

Chinese president Xi Jinping warned there would be “no winners” in a trade war and that protectionism “leads nowhere”, as he began a three-nation trip to south-east Asia, starting in Vietnam on Monday.

Xi’s tour, which began in Hanoi, also includes rare visits to Malaysia and Cambodia and will seek to strengthen ties with China’s closest neighbours amid a trade war that has sent shockwaves through global markets.

Joel and Ellie face new threats in the second series of the mushroom zombie epic. Plus: knotty thriller Reunion continues. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
Anybody else hear a clicking noise? Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s hit mushroom zombie drama is back for a second season. It starts with a flashback scene, signalling major trouble ahead, but, in the present, Joel (Pascal) and Ellie (Ramsey) have been settled in a thriving community in Wyoming for the past five years. Joel’s most pressing problem now is that he feels emotionally estranged from 19-year-old Ellie (Ramsey) – who hasn’t told anyone about her immunity to the virus. Catherine O’Hara and Kaitlyn Dever are top additions to the cast, and though the opener begins slowly, it inevitably has an action-packed payoff involving Clickers – with the threat of new types of monsters to come. Hollie Richardson

Supplier rallies small businesses as critics say overhaul would harm development of clean energy

Octopus Energy has rallied thousands of its small business customers to back an overhaul of Great Britain’s electricity market.

The largest energy supplier in Britain and more than 3,700 of its customers wrote to the Treasury last week calling for an immediate introduction of postcode electricity pricing.

Winston Jones, who for a decade was unable to return home from Jamaica, almost didn’t apply for compensation, fearing it was a trap

Winston Jones has worked hard to rebuild his life after Home Office errors meant he was unable to return to his family in the UK for 10 years after taking a short holiday in Jamaica in 2005, enduring a decade of near destitution and homelessness in Kingston.

Jones, 64, a former bakery manager at Sainsbury’s, has used the money he received from the Windrush compensation scheme to set up a podcast studio and music recording unit in Manchester, working with his son to create opportunities for local young people.

The truth is, we were always dangerously overexposed to decisions made in Washington – consider this chaotic moment an opportunity

“People speak with forked tongues about America,” a veteran foreign correspondent once said to me. It was a long time ago – during a debate about whether the US should intervene in a foreign conflict – and I have never forgotten it. What they meant was that just as the US is condemned for foreign intervention in some instances, it is also called upon to do so in others and then judged for not upholding its moral standards. That dissonance persists, and is even more jarring as we approach the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second term. There is a duality to how the US is seen: as both a country that wantonly violates international law and as the only one capable of upholding that system of law and order. This duality, always tense, is no longer sustainable.

I have felt this ambivalence myself – the contradictory demand that the US stay out of it but also anger that it is not doing more. In Sudan , Washington frustratingly refuses to pressure its ally, the UAE, into stopping pumping arms and funding into the conflict. But what proof or history is there to support the delusional notion that the US cares about a conflict in which it has no direct interest? It is an expectation of moral policing from an amoral player that I remember even in childhood, after Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Arab world was rocked with fear of regional war. A fierce debate in our classroom in Sudan on the merits of US intervention was silenced by one indignant evacuee from Kuwait, who said that the most important thing was to defeat Saddam Hussein. Her words occasionally echo in my mind: “We must deal with the greater evil first.”

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Government acknowledges that many victims have felt too nervous to engage with officials from Home Office

A £1.5m fund has been launched to encourage people affected by the Windrush scandal to come forward to seek compensation, as ministers finally acknowledge that many victims have felt too nervous to engage with officials from the Home Office.

Since the compensation fund was launched in 2019 it has been the subject of intense criticism over long processing delays, low offers of payment, and the lack of legal aid for claimants. There has also been unease over the original decision to hand the administration of the scheme to officials from the department that was responsible for the scandal.

Listings on resale site suggest that touts are speculatively selling tickets they do not yet have

The ticket resale platform Viagogo has been accused of failing to prevent “misleading and potentially unlawful” practices on its platform, despite facing intense scrutiny as the government consults on new anti-touting laws .

Ministers are weighing up plans to cap the price at which tickets can be resold, after Labour pledged in its election manifesto to tackle ticket touts using platforms such as Viagogo and StubHub to charge fans huge mark-ups for in-demand shows .