Vladimir V. Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine: a statement after the Kremlin announces that Ukraine is part of Russia

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia signed decrees on Friday to declare four Ukrainian regions part of Russia as the Kremlin seeks to solidify its tenuous hold over Ukrainian territory through a widely denounced illegal annexation.

The Russian leader spoke in the same room where he made the announcement about the strip of territory being part of Russia.

The anniversary of Putin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor is just a few days away. The assembled audience included uniformed soldiers the Kremlin said had come directly from the frontlines of Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Ukraine and its Western partners have called the annexation illegal, with the Biden administration saying that it is ready to impose additional sanctions on Russia if it proceeds. The European Union issued a statement saying that they “firmly reject and condemn” the annexation.

“The territorial integrity of our homeland, our independence and freedom will be ensured, I will emphasize this again, with all the means at our disposal,” Putin said in a speech last week. He said that those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that winds can change direction.

The Western military actions that he mentioned were from the British Opium War in China in the 19th century to the Allied firebombing of Germany in the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

“Glory to Ukraine” — Putin’s response to Ukraine’s recent nuclear attack “when the Kremlin refused to intervene”

In response to an increasing influx of advanced Western weapons, economic, political and humanitarian aid to Kyiv and what he saw as Western leaders’ inflammatory statements, Putin has periodically hinted at his potential use of nuclear weapons. When a member of the Human Rights Council asked him Wednesday to pledge that Russia would not be the first to use such weapons, Putin demurred. He said Russia would not be able to use nuclear weapons at all if it agreed not to use them first and then came under a nuclear strike.

The Russian bombardment hit several cities across the country at the same time and put the conflict into a new phase that was coming as much of the country was getting back to life.

The annexations are in the interest of the Kremlin. Russia only partly occupies the four provinces, and Mr. Putin and his top aides have asserted that Moscow will then be defending its own territory from attacks by Ukraine, rather than the other way around.

We will defend our country because our weapon is truth, and our truth is that this is land, our country, our children and we will defend all of this. He concluded, “That is it. That’s all I wanted to tell you. Glory to Ukraine.”

Friday’s events include a celebration on Red Square. The Kremlin spokesman said that the final version of the decree would be done next week.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) – a campaign against Russian conventional forces in the post-World Warsaw conflict between Russia and the West

The moves are based on staged referendums that took place during a war in defiance of international law. People who did vote were sometimes held at gun, and some of the civilians fled fighting since the war began.

The Kremlin could claim victory at a time when they have been lambasted by the hawks for not doing enough to prevent recent gains by Ukrainian forces.

Putin’s recent heavy-handed conscription drive for 300,000 troops won’t reverse his battlefield losses any time soon, and is backfiring at home, running him up a dangerous political tab.

He seems to have been taken at his word by the Ukrainian government. According to a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s intelligence agencies believe there is a “very high” risk that Russia might use so-called tactical nuclear weapons, less powerful cousins of conventional nuclear weapons that are designed to be used on the battlefield.

De Bretton-Gordon: It is all about scale – strategic nuclear weapons are basically Armageddon. Russia and the West both have over 6,000 nuclear warheads, which is pretty much enough to change the planet, according to the Federation of Nuclear Scientists. This is called Mutually Assured Destruction, with the rather ironic acronym MAD.

These warheads are fitted to Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) which can travel thousands of miles and are aimed at key sites and cities in the US, UK, France and Russia.

Tactical nuclear weapons have a small yield of up to 100 kilotons of dynamite and are 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465.

That said, tactical nuclear weapons could still create huge amounts of damage, and if fired at a nuclear power station – for example Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine – could create a chain reaction and contamination on a scale with a nuclear strike.

It is certain that Russia has nuclear weapons in this conflict and they would be responsible for NATO action if they were used. So degraded are Russian conventional forces, that they would likely be quickly overcome by NATO forces if it came to that, which even with Putin’s other failings, presumably he realizes.

This is probably not the case for the tactical weapons. The warheads and missiles are probably in reasonable condition but the vehicles they are mounted on are, I believe and have on good authority, in poor condition. The rest of the Russian Army equipment at the show in Ukraine is in a pretty poor state, that’s a fair assumption.

It is probable that they would have to travel hundreds of miles to get into a position where they could attack the Ukrainians, as they only have a range of around 500 kilometers. It is unlikely that they would get that far, from a mechanical perspective.

As a result of sanctions and the heavy use of precision guide missiles by Russia, these weapons rely on high-tech components which are hard to find in Russia.

The move is to attack civilians rather than opposition forces. This manifests itself with attacks on hospitals, schools and ‘hazardous’ infrastructure, like chemical plants and nuclear power stations. If these are attacked, they can become improvised chemical or nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Warfare as a Threat to the Security of the World: The Case of Syria and the Birth of a Nation without Nuclear Arms

For the outside world, the idea of a defeated Russia is still scarier than the sight of Ukraine half-ruined. It is the same thing as a year ago, Ukraine is calling on the world to find courage.

Meteorological conditions at the moment indicate that all this contamination would also head west across Europe. This could be seen as an attack on NATO and trigger Article 5 – where an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all allies – which would allow NATO to strike directly back at Russia.

De Bretton-Gordon: The use of strategic nuclear weapons is extremely unlikely in my opinion. This isn’t a war that anybody can win, and at the moment it seems like there wouldn’t be a global nuclear war which could destroy the planet for many generations.

I am sure the checks and balances are in place in the Kremlin, as they are at the White House and 10 Downing Street to make sure we are not plunged into global nuclear conflict on a whim.

Analysts inside and outside of government have doubts about whether the arms they received in the back of a truck would advance Mr. Putin’s objectives.

It’s believed that the Russians developed unconventional warfare tactics in Syria. Russian forces entered Syria’s civil war in 2015, bolstering Assad’s regime. I do not believe Assad can remain in power if he did not use chemical weapons.

The massive nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 on Ghouta stopped the rebels overrunning Damascus. Four years of siege was ended by multiple chlorine attacks.

Russian Nuclear Forces in the Light of the Crimes of Crime, and the Crime against Crime in the Cold War: Reflections on Putin’s Implications

Thousands of innocent Ukrainians have died as a result of Putin’s misguided attempt to revive a soviet empire. More broadly, authoritarianism has been exposed as a disastrous system with which to wage wars of choice.

Russia, however, decided to keep its tactical arsenal, says Anya Fink, a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analysis who has studied Russian nuclear doctrine. The decision was driven by the military’s view that there was a huge gap in conventional weapons technology.

The likelihood of tactical use is high if the four districts are attacked. Though one still expects that local commanders would defer to Putin first before pressing their own equivalent of a red button.

Putin is a grave threat. He’s all in, having painted himself into a corner. And he is not about to surrender in Ukraine. Biden and NATO have been careful to support Ukraine while avoiding a direct clash with Putin, but a drastic escalation by Russia remains one of the greatest dangers in the year ahead.

When it came to an attack on a power station, one assumed Putin would be involved and that the West would use it as a nuclear weapon.

A special case of negotiation with few parameters and a narrow range of outcomes is a category error, but it should be applied to the complex, fluid and much wider geopolitical rivalry. While the danger of Russian nuclear escalation may rise and should be studied carefully, there is no special, separate category of actions that the West or Ukraine might take that would automatically trigger it. Russia has a range of options and perceptions of their relative risks and benefits. The West should use its diplomacy to shape the perception so that Russia can choose the various options that the West prefers.

The Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow is run by Kortunov. “President Putin wants to end this whole thing as fast as possible,” he told CNN.

Putin argued it was good riddance, part of a “self-cleansing” of Russian society from traitors and spies. Russian officials have suggested stripping those who left the country of their passports. Russia has many of its top people, yet there are questions as to whether it can thrive without them.

Western analysts have noted Russia has grumbled consistently about these deliveries, but been relatively muted in its practical response to the crossing of what, as recently as January, might have been considered “red lines.”

“The current onslaught of criticism and reporting of operational military details by the Kremlin’s propagandists has come to resemble the milblogger discourse over the past week. The Kremlin narrative had focused on general statements of progress and avoided detailed discussions of current military operations. The war had failed and the partial reserve call was necessitated by a devastating loss in Khradeiv Oblast.

He used the same playbook annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and now, like then, threatens potential nuclear strikes should Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, try to take the annexed territories back.

Explosive Shock Waves in a Nearby Sea: Russian Response to the Crimea War and its Implications for NATO, Russia, and the West

Both Danish and Swedish seismologists recorded explosive shockwaves from close to the seabed: the first, at around 2 a.m. local time, hitting 2.3 magnitude, then again, at around 7 p.m., registering 2.1.

Within hours, roiling patches of sea were discovered, the Danes and the Germans sent warships to secure the area, and Norway increased security around its oil and gas facilities.

Russia denies responsibility and says it has its own investigation. But former CIA chief John Brennan said Russia has the expertise to inflict this type of damage “all the signs point to some type of sabotage that these pipelines are only in about 200 feet or so of water and Russia does have an undersea capability to that will easily lay explosive devices by those pipelines.”

Russian naval vessels were seen by European security officials in the area in the days prior, Western intelligence sources have said. NATO’s North Atlantic Council has described the damage as a “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible act of sabotage.”

Nord Stream 2 was never operational, and Nord Stream 1 had been throttled back by Putin as Europe raced to replenish gas reserves ahead of winter, while dialling back demands for Russian supplies and searching for replacement providers.

Putin said that Zelensky refused to negotiate as he accused Zelensky of refusing to end conflicts with negotiations.

With Scholz shouldering his way to the diplomatic helm, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may find his territorial ambitions to restore the entirety of Ukraine’s sovereignty including Crimea, before peace talks with Putin, constrained. The German chancellor has been at the forefront of friendly leaders wanting a speedy end to the war and the restoration of economic stability to Europe.

By most objective standards Putin already seems to be losing. The war aims of crushing Ukrainian sovereignty, capturing Kyiv, and ousting an elected government have backfired terribly. Russia is a pariah state and its economy is ruined because of international sanctions. Putin is being branded a war criminal. As far as the West is concerned, Ukraine is a NATO client state propped up by the US and Europe, and thus it will probably need decades of support even if a ceasefire deal is reached.

Russia’s retreat from Lyman, which sits on a riverbank that has served as a natural division between the Russian and Ukrainian front lines, came after weeks of fierce fighting.

The surge in the Ukrainian counteroffensive has deepened Putin’s troubles, as evidenced by the fact that key areas of Russian-controlled territory have been seized.

In an unusually candid article published Sunday, the prominent Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that in the last few days of their occupation, Russian forces in Lyman had been plagued by desertion, poor planning and the delayed arrival of reserves.

Russia’s flagship Sunday political show, ” News of the Week” on Channel 1 covered Russia’s annexation of 89 regions without mentioning the fall of Lyman, which many view as illegal.

The Russian War on the Warfront: How to Counterattack on the Russian Counteroffensive and the Ukranian Border, as Declared by the American Observer

The soldiers said on the Sunday broadcast that they had been forced to retreat because they were fighting with NATO soldiers.

The US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian battlefield setbacks, coupled with the unease in Russian society over mobilization, “was fundamentally changing the Russian information space.” That has included robust criticism from men of power including Kadyrov, but also from the pro-war milbloggers, who often provide a realistic picture of the battlefield realities for Russian forces.

This nuclear propaganda is meant to “scare the West and appease the audience—and take their mind away from failures,” says Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the US think tank Institute for the Study of War and a frequent watcher of Russian TV.

The idea that Russia is fighting a broader campaign was repeated in an interview with Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right thinker whose daughter, also a prominent nationalist commentator, was killed by a car bomb in August.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Dugin both accused Western countries of sabotage in the wake of the underwater explosions that wreaked havoc on the Nord Stream gas pipes.

He said the West already accused them of blowing up the gas line. “We must understand the geopolitical confrontation, the war, our war with the West on the scale and extent on which it is unfolding. In other words, we must join this battle with a mortal enemy who does not hesitate to use any means, including exploding gas pipelines.”

The nonstop messaging campaign may be working, at least for now. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow, many Russians feel threatened by the West.

Moscow and Tehran want their ideologies to spread beyond their borders. The struggles of the Iranian and Ukrainian people are going to have a big impact on other countries.

The disarray of its forces on the ground indicated that it didn’t know what new borders Russia would claim in southern Ukranian. The population of the areas will be consulted about the border, Mr. Putin’s spokesman told reporters on Monday.

Many US officials say that the primary utility is a last-ditch attempt by Mr. Putin to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for the sake of their safety.

The bravery of the most dissuasive regimes: David v. Goliath’s battles in Ukraine and Iran

Frida Ghitis is a former CNN producer and correspondent. She writes an opinion column for World Politics Review, is a weekly contributor to CNN and is a columnist for The Washington Post. Her views are her own in this commentary. CNN has more opinions on it.

While in London on Sunday two groups of demonstrators came together. One was waving Ukrainian flags; the other Iranian flags. They both cheered and chanted “All together we will win” when they met.

democracies looked almost spent while autocrats were gaining ground. Now suddenly, when we least expected, a ferocious pushback against two of the most brazen tyrannies has burst into view. In Ukraine and in Iran, the people have decided to defy the odds for the sake of their dignity, freedom and self-determination.

In these David v. Goliath battles you can see how brave people are, and it is inspiring similar support in places like Afghanistan.

The death of a young woman last month in Iran caused the spark. The morality police who imprisoned her for breaking rules that mandated women to dress modestly, known as Zhina, took her life.

In scenes of exhilarated defiance, Iranian women have danced around fires in the night, shedding the hijab – the headcover mandated by the regime – and tossing it into the flames.

Even as the regime assassinates more and more people, men still join the peaceful uprising in large numbers because it’s about cutting the shackles of oppression.

Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin, and the Ukranian War: Two Different Regimes in the Cold Cold Middle East, Syria and Yemen

After all, it was less than a decade ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military entered Syria’s long civil war, helping to save the dictator Bashar al-Assad (as Iran had).

Zelensky is on a mission in Washington, according to a Democratic congressman who went to the country earlier this month. He is trying to show the correlation between our support and survival of the Ukranian people.

In the 8 years leading up to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, the Kremlin rained down cyberattacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and wreaked havoc on the east of the country, throwing that area into a state of turmoil. Many military and cybersecurity observers around the world warned that Russia’s scorched-earth hacking was demonstrating a playbook that would, sooner or later, be used outside of Ukraine too—a warning that soon proved true, with cyberattacks that struck everything from American hospitals to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The repressive regimes in Moscow and Tehran are now isolated, pariahs among much of the world, openly supported for the most part by a smattering of autocrats.

CNN reported that Iran will soon send more weapons to Russia for the fight against Ukraine, according to a western country closely monitoring Irans weapons program.

Both of these regimes are very different in their ideologies and they have the same approach to oppression and desire to project power abroad.

Iran’s prisons are filled with regime critics and courageous journalists – including Niloofar Hamedi, first to report what happened to Mahsa Amini. In Russia as well, journalism is a deadly profession. It’s being criticized of Putin. After trying and failing to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin’s people manufactured charges to keep him in a penal colony indefinitely.

For people in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, there’s more than passing interest in the admittedly low probability that the Iranian regime could fall. It would have a big effect on their countries and their lives. Iran’s constitution calls for the spread of its Islamist revolution.

What is Putin’s Off Ramp? A Primer on Russia’s Nuclear Threat after the Cuban Missile Crisis – a View from the White House

Over the months, Putin’s “genius” and “savvy” have come under question as the invasion has not only faltered, but has caused him to lose support in unexpected places.

But Biden’s comments also show that, in one way at least, Putin’s nuclear threats have worked: They have left his adversaries unsure how he might behave.

“(For the) first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going,” Biden said.

All weapon systems that are available to us will certainly be used in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country. “This is not bluffing.”

Presidents are often less guarded during political fundraising events, which are usually not on camera even though a press pool is allowed in for some remarks. It is possible that the President’s comments – his most stark on the nuclear issue since the started of the war inUkraine – might not have appeared in a more conventional setting. And the White House has frequently walked back unscripted presidential remarks on foreign policy, especially on how the US would respond if China invaded Taiwan.

“I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp,” Biden said. “Where does he find a way out? He is in a position where he does not only lose his face, but have significant power within Russia. Biden made a statement.

The President may have been thinking of Kennedy’s commencement address at American University in Washington in 1963 in which he reflected on the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis and the risks posed by weapons that could end the world.

It would not be possible to adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age as there would be a lot of bankrupting of our policy.

Putin will be sure to hear that Biden made an argument that the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine could be contained and would not lead to a wider conflagration.

The entire strategic logic between maintaining nuclear weapons for self-defense is that they are too terrible to be used, and any nation that did would be writing their own death warrant.

Armageddon has not been faced since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Story of Vladimir Putin’s Annexed Crimes

Biden said at the second of two fund-raisers on Thursday evening that Armageddon has not been faced since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

His comments underscore the most important mission of his presidency – shepherding the world through the most dangerous nuclear brinkmanship in 60 years.

Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen is the author of The Cost of Chaos. The opinions expressed are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.

After failing to capture Kyiv, Russia seized southern Ukraine at the start of the invasion, then captured the key Sea of Azov port of Mariupol in May. In September, Putin illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions even though his forces didn’t completely control them: Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east. He annexed the Ukranian peninsula in a planned manner.

With hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country, and even his allies expressing concern, Putin has once again taken to making short speeches in order to get attention.

He claims that his rationale for the war in Ukraine is that Russia has always been a part of the Soviet Union even though it didn’t formally break away from it until three decades ago.

The Soviets planned to install a puppet government in Afghanistan as soon as possible after invading the country in December of 1979 according to a new book.

During the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the US was initially reluctant to escalate its support for the Afghan resistance, fearing a wider conflict with the Soviet Union. It took until 1986 for the CIA to arm the Afghans with highly effective anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, which ended the Soviets’ total air superiority, eventually forcing them to withdraw from Afghanistan three years later.

If China provides arms for the conflict in Ukraine, it would be a grave and hostile new front for the US-China rivalry.

But the US put those fears to rest relatively quickly, and American-supplied anti-tank Javelin missiles and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), GPS-guided missiles, have helped the Ukrainians to push back against the Russians.

The Russian Revolution: The Birth of an Era of Instability: Russia’s Failure to Reconstruct the Romanov Monarchy in the First World War

Putin is also surely aware that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was hastened by the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan two years earlier.

Looking further back into the history books, he must also know that the Russian loss in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 weakened the Romanov monarchy. The Russian Revolution was started by Czar Nicholas II during the First World War. Subsequently, much of the Romanov family was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad.

More than seven months into the war, the “genius” myth has unraveled. During the past two weeks, at least 200,000 Russian men have voted with their feet to flee Putin’s partial mobilization order. They understand – despite the Herculean efforts of Putin’s propagandists – that this war is a bloodbath Russia is losing.

If Russia is allowed to win, the world would be plunged into a new era of instability with less freedom, less peace and less prosperity.

Several senior US officials were surprised by Bidens blunt assessment due to lack of new intelligence and the grim language he used.

Biden has made comments previously that went beyond what he says in his speeches to larger audiences. It was a fundraiser in Maryland where Biden declared Trump-aligned Republicans “semi-fascist” and where he said the views of the Catholic Church on abortion had changed.

Biden’s remarks serve as a window into a very real, very ongoing discussion inside his administration as the seek to calibrate the response to that environment.

Typically held with only a few dozen donors, Biden’s fundraisers are more intimate occasions where he often speaks from handwritten notes, only loosely following a script he’s written for himself. Biden speaks from a handheld microphone and travels around the room while he’s talking. Reporters are able to listen to and report on the President’s remarks, but not film them, a convention begun during the Obama presidency.

During Biden’s comments about nuclear Armageddon, he made them public, and aides in Washington learned of them from reports and dispatches from the press pool.

The President use of Armageddon showed that there isn’t a ladder for escalation when it comes to nuclear weapons. A cascading response only has one outcome when there is a move in that direction.

The United States retains some visibility over the Russian arsenal, mostly with satellites that keep track of Russian nuclear movements. There is a bigger worry than that. The five-year extension of New START that President Biden and Mr. Putin agreed upon in the first month of the Biden presidency is the only one permitted under the agreement, which was negotiated during the Obama presidency. It means there would have to be a new treaty. And while American officials insist that they want to negotiate a new treaty, it is increasingly hard to imagine that happening in the next three years.

One official characterized the speech as “insane,” and while that bolstered the US view of Russian weakness and isolation, it also further increased concern about Putin’s willingness to escalate beyond the level of a rational actor.

White House officials decided not to say anything in public Thursday night and there are no plans to address the remarks in isolation on Friday morning. If Biden wants to address it himself, it will be apparent when he departs for his Maryland event later in the morning, one official said.

More broadly, the most important element remains that US officials have seen no change in posture or specific intelligence that raises the threat level above where it has been.

There have been direct communications to Moscow in the last several weeks detailing the scale of the US response should Putin decide to go down that path. Those details remain closely held, and officials say that won’t change any time soon.

In an interview with Russian arch-pagandized theorist Vladimir Solovyov the head of the defense committee in Russia’s parliament demanded that officials cease lying and level with the public.

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Valuyki is located in the Belgorod region of Russia and is near the border with Ukraine. Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance when it comes to striking Russian targets across the border.

If Russian security threats were not eliminated from there, the Russian military might have to take action, according to the transcript of the call from the Foreign Minister.

“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. “Indeed, many say that the Minister of Defense [Sergei Shoigu], who allowed this situation to happen, could, as an officer, shoot himself. The word officer is not well-known to many.

But after Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has been a lot less shy about naming names when it comes to blaming Russian commanders.

Kadyrov accused Lapin of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and of failing to adequately provide for his troops on Telegram.

“The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control,” ISW noted in its recent analysis.

Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.

The destruction of a rural village in Pakistan during the first day of the Soviet Union: air strikes in Kyiv, Kiev, and other Ukrainian cities

A disaster that could have resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens was averted thanks to that deal.

The result in one remote village of a mountain-flanked area of southwestern Pakistan is devastating, with homes reduced to rubble, a burned-out school and a gut-wrenching stench from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens.

The most violent month to hit the area since the collapse of the Soviet Union happened last month, but both members of a Russia-led military alliance dedicated to preserving peace did nothing to stop it.

Multiple explosions in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities were reported on Monday, as Russia hit back with a huge wave of military air strikes that brought back memories of the first days of its invasion.

Putin made a brief television appearance on Monday, saying that it’s impossible to leave such crimes unanswered. “If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, responses from Russia will be tough and will correspond in scale to the level of threats to the Russian Federation.”

For several hours on Monday morning Kyiv’s subway system was suspended, with underground stations serving as bunkers. Rescue workers were trying to pull people from the rubble when the air raid alert was lifted.

The Prime Minister of Ukrainian said Monday that at least 11 important infrastructure facilities had been damaged.

In western Ukraine, the city of Lviv is without electricity, and the city’s waterworks could also be forced to stop working due to the lack of power.

The Crimea-Keplerian Attack Revisited: Putin’s December 25 Decree Statement at a Security Council Meeting

Putin held an operational meeting of his Security Council on Monday, a day after he called the explosions on the Crimea bridge a “terrorist attack” and said the organizers and executors were “Ukrainian special services.”

In some ways, Monday’s attacks were not a surprise – especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused Kyiv of attacking the Kerch bridge, calling it an “act of terrorism.”

The Russian-appointed head of annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, claimed on Monday that his country’s approach to its special military operation in Ukraine has changed.

If the special military operation had begun every day, everything would have been accomplished by the end of May, according to him.

“Putin’s December 25 statement is a part of a deliberate information campaign aimed at misleading the West to push Ukraine into making preliminary concessions,” the ISW said, adding that Moscow has stepped up those efforts in December.

NATO leaders have vowed to stand behind Ukraine regardless of how long the war takes, but several European countries – particularly those that relied heavily on Russian energy – are staring down a crippling cost-of-living crisis which, without signs of Ukrainian progress on the battlefield, could endanger public support.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the attacks “another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price.”

The G7 group of nations will hold an emergency meeting via video conference on Tuesday, the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed to CNN, and Zelensky said on Twitter that he would address that meeting.

Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst who in summer relocated from Canada to Ukraine. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Kiev’s response to the weekend attack of the Kerch Bridge: a reminder of the early times of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Cold War in Ukraine

Even amid irrepressible jubilation here in Ukraine in the aftermath of a massive explosion that hit the hugely strategic and symbolic Kerch Straight bridge over the weekend, fears of retaliation by the Kremlin were never far away.

The strikes took place as people were going to work and kids were being dropped off. A friend in Kyiv texted me that she had just exited a bridge span 10 minutes before it was struck.

In between air raid sirens, there were reports that three missiles and five drones had been shot down around my office in Odesa. Normally at this time of the day nearby restaurants are heaving with customers and chatter of upcoming weddings and parties.

Monday’s attacks also came just a few hours after Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, mostly while people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

Russia is attacking Ukraine’s power grid, which is casting people into darkness, and pushing the US towards sending a missile defense system for the country.

In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the war when Russian forces neared the capital, some Kyiv media outlets temporarily moved their operations to underground bomb shelters. In one metro station that is serving as a shelter, a group of people took cover as a small group sang patriotic Ukrainian songs.

Many people in the Ukraine will spend most of the day in bomb shelters at the advice of officials, as businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

The attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence, as many regions of Ukraine are starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home.

Russia’s military watchers were horrified by it. A “demonstrative humiliation of Russia” is how Russian journalist Sergey Mardan described the moment. A Telegram app managed by Russian service members said that they were in Russia waiting for the president, but not the president of the United States.

dictators seem to prefer hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive infrastructure projects. The Kerch bridge, Europe’s longest, was personally opened by Putin. The world’s longest sea crossing bridge was inaugurated by the Chinese president after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.

The explosion of Kiev in February 2022: Putin’s anger, his hatred of Russia, and the need to protect Kyiv and its infrastructure

There was a rapid reaction to the explosion from the Ukrainians. Many shared their jubilation with text messages.

For Putin, consumed by pride and self-interest, sitting still was never an option. He responded in the only way he knows how, by unleashing more death and destruction, with the force that probably comes natural to a former KGB operative.

It was also an act of selfish desperation: facing increasing criticism at home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on unusually thin ice.

Kamyshin has a ready supply of one-liners. (Asked how it was possible to get trains into Mariupol, a city being flattened by Russian bombardments, he said simply: “very fast.”) He says the government already had contingency plans in place in case of war, and that the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, was not unexpected. The Ukrainian Railways have a plan. The problem was, that plan was on paper. It was not relevant at all.

China is attempting to play a bigger role in the brouhaha. It sent its top diplomat Wang Yi – his ears ringing with US warnings not to send Russia arms to use in Ukraine – to Moscow for high-level talks, even as a Sino-American spy balloon feud simmers.

This raises Lenin’s famous question: what is to be done? The United States needs to double down on diplomacy to convince those countries that are not supporting the defense of Ukraine that doing so is a moral necessity.

Furthermore, high tech defense systems are needed to protect Kyiv and crucial energy infrastructure around the country. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.

The rush-hour attacks in Ukraine, and the US role in bridging the war with Russian troops, as described by Biden and Kirby

Turkey and Gulf states which receive many Russian tourists need to be pressured into joining the sanctions as it’s time for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions.

The city dwellers who lived through the war in subways have been able to get back to living normally, but they fear for their lives again because of the attacks.

The targets on Monday also had little military value and that is how Putin wanted to find new targets, even though he has not been able to win battles on the battlefield.

The bombing of power installations appeared to be a sign of the misery that the Russian President could cause as winter sets in, even as his forces retreat in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western arms.

After at least 14 people died in the attacks on civilians in Ukraine, new attention has been given to what actions the US and its allies must take to respond.

President Joe Biden Monday spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offered advanced air systems that would help defend against Russian air attacks, but the White House did not specify exactly what might be sent.

John Kirby suggested Washington was in touch with the government in Kyiv almost every day, and that the US was looking favorably on the requests. He told CNN that they did the best they could in subsequent packages to meet those needs.

Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to pummel civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he suggested it was a trend developing in recent days and had already been in the works.

It was something that they had been planning for a long time. Kirby said that the explosion on the bridge might have increased some of their planning.

But French President Emmanuel Macron underscored Western concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the prelude to another pivot in the conflict.

“He was seeing Ukraine slip away from his orbit. When he saw that he no longer had control over it it was obvious to me that he was going to try and change it.

Russian troops in Ukraine? The question of deploying troops: Vladimir Lukashenko’s anger at the return of revenge and violence in Ukraine

“So imagine if we had modern equipment, we probably could raise the number of those drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians or wound and injure Ukrainians,” Zhovkva said.

Putin doesn’t appear to have learned that revenge is not a good way to act either off the battlefield or on it, so it is likely that Russia is going to be weakened irreversibly.

On Monday, Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is filming the war on her website, told Anderson Cooper that she was angry about the return of fear and violence in her country.

She said that this was just another terror and that he is still powerful enough to scare or show to his people that he is still a bloody tyrant.

Russia used Belarusian territory to stage its assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in February. The number of troops in Belarus that Moscow has is still a lot but they are now expected to increase sharply.

“This won’t be just a thousand troops,” Mr. Lukashenko told senior military and security officials in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, after a meeting over the weekend with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in St. Petersburg.

He gave no information regarding the size or purpose of the new force on Monday, stirring speculation that Belarus would send troops to aid Russia in its military campaign. He could be preparing his country for the arrival of thousands of Russian soldiers, some of whom are former convicts, and others who are ill trained.

Artyom Shraibman, a Belarusian political analyst now in exile in Warsaw, said Mr. Lukashenko would likely try to resist deploying his own troops in Ukraine because that “would be so dangerous for him on so many levels. It would be catastrophic politically.”

Andrei Sannikov, who served as deputy foreign minister under Mr. Lukashenko during his early period in power but fled into exile after being jailed, said Mr. Lukashenko was “running scared,” caught between pressure from Russia to help its demoralized forces in Ukraine and the knowledge that sending in Belarusian troops would be hugely unpopular, even among his loyalists.

The Russian War on Crime and Security in the Era of World War II: The Case of Ukraine, as Revised by Jeremy Fleming

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed plumes of smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, along with empty store shelves and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures there.

“We know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out,” Jeremy Fleming, a UK’s spy chief, said in a rare speech on Tuesday.

The 300,000 reservists Putin ordered to help bolster forces inUkraine were discussed at his meeting. He said only about 150,000 have been deployed so far to combat zones and the rest are still undergoing training. There is no need for the defense ministry or country to do that according to Putin.

The violent strikes follow Putin’s announcement of immediate military escalation in September, in which he threatened the possibility of nuclear retaliation.

Fleming said that any talk of nuclear weapons is very dangerous, and that we must be very careful about how we’re talking about that.

If they started to go that way, I’d like to see some indicators. He said that if they were to think about that, it would be a disaster like many people have talked about.

Fleming will say that Russians are starting to calculate the cost of the invasion of Ukraine and that Putin has not been good at understanding the situation.

His decision-making has proved flawed because he lacks an effective internal challenge. It is a strategy that leads to strategic errors in judgement. Their gains are being reversed,” Fleming will say in an address at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) annual security lecture in London.

They know that their access to modern technologies and influences will be restricted. He will say that they are feeling the terrible human cost of his war.

Reconsidering Putin’s Favor for Ukraine after the Crimes of Crime: A Podolskiian Investigation by the Alternative for Germany Party

Putin has turned the former idol of the Far Right into a toxic figure because of his so-far-disastrous invasion of Ukraine.

Many former fans have re- reconsidered their admiration for Ukraine after seeing the daily images of bombed out schools, hospitals, playgrounds and apartment buildings.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy and now slated to become prime minister, dispensed with her formerly warm words toward Putin and vowed to continue sending weapons to help Ukraine. Likewise, Matteo Salvini, who once called Putin “the best statesman on Earth” and used to sport a shirt with Putin’s face on it, now insists he supports Ukraine.

The source of their reconsideration may be found in a separate Pew poll that revealed favorable opinions of Putin and Russia among far-right members have collapsed since Russia invaded Ukraine. In the last year, the confidence in Putin to do the right thing collapsed among the Lega backers.

Pro-Russia positions are so poisonous that the RN’s acting president, Jordan Bardella, threatened to sue anyone who suggests there are financial ties between the party and Russia. The campaign for President of France was partly funded by a multimillion dollar loan from Russia. Le Pen said French banks did not lend to her.

In Germany, the leadership of the Alternative for Germany party tries to downplay support for Russia because it makes Germans feel worse about their country, but they also use the argument that it creates hardships for Germans.

CPAC, a conservative political action group, put out a message two weeks ago calling on Democrats to end their support for Ukraine and focus on the US. The group soon deleted the post, apologetically, with claims that it didn’t go through proper vetting.

At the far-right America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in February, days after Russian started bombing Ukraine, AFPAC founder and notorious White nationalist Nick Fuentes bellowed, “Can we get a round of applause for Russia!”

Trump held his ground, repeating his praise of the Russian dictator and claiming, “Putin is playing Biden like a drum, and it’s not pretty to watch.” (Trump hasn’t been praising Putin as much lately. More often using the war to praise himself.)

Even authoritarian leaders in the former Soviet Republics who had protected Putin in the past are letting him down. Only one, the Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, has stood with the Kremlin.

Even after Putin said he would use nuclear weapons, a few of the far-right figures still defended him.

Tucker Carlson is a useful voice for Putin propaganda and his nightly show is on Russian state-controlled television. Newsmax’s host lambasted him after seeing the spectacle. Carlson was referred to as an “alleged American” by Eric Bolling for defending Russia and Putin.

Forecasts of the next few weeks of the war in Ukraine and the role of Russian epochs for reconstruction after the Russian invasion of Crimea

With the cold months nearing and likely bringing a slowdown in ground combat, experts say the next weeks of the war are now expected to be vital, as both sides try to strike another blow and each other looks to increase intensity.

The war is headed towards a new phase not for the first time. Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, said this is the third, fourth, and possibly fifth different war that they have been observing.

Giles said, that anything that could be described as a Ukrainian victory is now much more plausible. The response from Russia is more likely to be followed by more violence.

Ukrainian troops hoist the country’s flag above a building in Vysokopillya, in the southern Kherson region, last month. Ukrainian officials say they have liberated hundreds of settlements since their counter-offensive began.

Russia said Thursday that its forces would help evacuate residents of Kherson who were still being held by the Ukrainians. The announcement came shortly after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, in the latest indication that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

Since the end of summer, the ground war in eastern and southern Ukranian has been defined by a series of decisive counter-offensives that have pushed back Russian forces and raised Western optimism that Kyiv can win the war.

The Russians can be extremely happy if they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking just as it is.

Landing a major blow in Donbas would send another powerful signal, and Ukraine will be eager to improve on its gains before temperatures plummet on the battlefield, and the full impact of rising energy prices is felt around Europe.

Within Ukraine, the economy continues to stumble from the impact of war and persistent missile and drone attacks on critical power infrastructure – including at least 76 strikes on Friday. Many Ukrainians are having to endure long periods without heat, water and electricity during the winter. Many Ukrainians think that they will be able to endure hardship for two or five more years if they are able to defeat Russia.

The Ukrenergo, the national electricity company of the country, said it has been able to make up for the lost electricity supply due to the Russian missile attacks. But Ukrainian Prime Minister has warned that “there is a lot of work to do” to fix damaged equipment, and asked Ukrainians to reduce their energy usage during peak hours.

Russian Forces in the High-Temperature Warfare of the Second World War: The Challenge for Ukraine and the Security Assistance to Ukraine

Moscow is running out of new cards to use as it is struggling to equip and rally its conventional forces. China and India have joined the West in open statements against the use of nuclear force, which has made that option even less likely.

The ISWR said in its daily update on the conflict Monday that the strikeswasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets as opposed to militarily significant targets.

The success rates against Russian cruise missiles have increased since the start of the invasion in February, a military expert told CNN.

“The barrage of missile strikes is going to be an occasional feature reserved for shows of extreme outrage, because the Russians don’t have the stocks of precision munitions to maintain that kind of high-tempo missile assault into the future,” Puri said.

The impact of such an intervention in terms of pure manpower would be limited; Belarus has around 45,000 active duty troops, which would not significantly bolster Russia’s reserves. The assault would threaten another one on the northern flank of Ukraine.

“The reopening of a northern front would be another new challenge for Ukraine,” Giles said. It would provide Russia a new route into the Kharkiv oblast (region), which has been recaptured by Ukraine, should Putin prioritize an effort to reclaim that territory, he said.

Biden will announce an additional $1.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine during the visit, with the coveted Patriot missile systems as part of that package, a US official told CNN’s Phil Mattingly. Sources told CNN that Washington plans to send Ukraine precision bomb kits to convert less sophisticated bombs into “smart bombs” that could help target Russian defensive lines. Zelensky’s visit also comes as Congress is poised to sign off on another $45 billion in aid for Ukraine and NATO allies, deepening the commitment that has helped Kyiv’s forces inflict an unexpectedly bloody price on Putin’s forces.

Ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers, the NATO secretary general said thatUkraine needed more systems to better halt missile attacks.

The UK and the United States are both expected to receive modern systems from Germany and the IRIS-T. , Bronk said.

Arm-twisting and back-room manipulation after Putin’s war in Ukraine: some shocking results from a multi-faith perspective

It is not to say that mobilized forces will not be used. If used in support roles, like drivers or refuelers, they might ease the burden on the remaining parts of Russia’s exhausted professional army. They could also fill out depleted units along the line of contact, cordon some areas and man checkpoints in the rear. They are, however, unlikely to become a capable fighting force. Already there are signs of discipline problems among mobilized soldiers in Russian garrisons.

Mr. Putin could ramp up his attacks against Ukraine in that circumstance. Russia could target the Ukrainian leadership directly if it were to have missiles, while the attacks of the last week could be expanded if supplies hold out.

The impact of Western sanctions will become a crisis over time. Russia will lose $190 billion in GDP by the year 2026 because of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

But even now some goods and sectors remain conspicuously exempted. A look at just a few items reveals the intense back-room bargaining and arm-twisting by some nations and by private industry to protect sectors they deem too valuable to give up — as well as the compromises the European Union has made to maintain consensus.

The Belgians have shielded trade in Russian diamonds. The Greeks do not require Russian oil to be shipped unimpeded. France imports Russian uranium for Nuclear power generation.

Hans Kristensen is head of the nuclear info project at the Federation of American Scientists, he says that Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The public doesn’t understand the differences of the Russian arsenal, which includes tactical nukes as smaller weapons. He says that they have a wide range of explosives, which is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465, that are 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465, so much greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

According to the Director of Europe and Central Asia for the InternationalCrisis Group, the classic nuclear deterrence has been effective at containing the Ukraine war.

Fink says that she still believes that Putin is unlikely to take the war nuclear. As the drone and cruise missile strikes of the past week illustrate, Russia has plenty of powerful conventional weapons it can use to attack Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin and the Problem of Thermonuclear War: Towards a Global Comprehensive Nuclear Warfare Resolved

For the use of a nuclear weapon to be shocking, “You really need to make it clear that you are willing to target civilians, and that means, to put it bluntly, killing a lot of people,” he says.

She says the Russians would view a conventional attack on their nuclear capacity as a nuclear attack. Things could go further from there.

The theoretical nature of this is still high. She hopes that the two sides will still find a way to begin de-escalating the conflict.

“If I try to tell myself a story of how to get there, it requires a whole bunch of leaps and jumps,” she says. There were some leaps and jumps in the path of global thermonuclear war.

Some regional officials — including the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin — appeared to be taking pains to offer reassurances. Mr. Sobyanin stated that no measures are being introduced that would restrict the normal rhythm of the city’s life.

The new power granted to the governors by Mr. Putin wouldn’t cause any restrictions on entry or exit.

It is the first time since World War II that Moscow has declared martial law, so the warning message will likely get through to many Russians.

“People are worried that they will soon close the borders, and the siloviki” — the strong men close to Mr. Putin in the Kremlin — “will do what they want,” Ms. Stanovaya said.

The commander of the Russian invasion acknowledged on Tuesday that his army had a hard time in Kherson, suggesting that it might need to retreat. The general said he was ready to make difficult decisions, but not more about what they might be.

Russia meanwhile continues to stockpile arms and ammunition in large quantities close to the troops they will supply and well within range of enemy weaponry. Standard military practice tells that large depots be broken up and scattered, even in Russian territory that the western powers have declared off-limits to Ukrainian strikes.

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.

EU energy price caps and the fate of Europe: A frustration in the wake of Putin’s impenetrable $boldsymbolto e’emu$ summit

This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.

In the early hours of Friday, EU powers agreed on a plan to control energy prices that have been going up due to the embargoes on Russian imports.

These include an emergency cap on the benchmark European gas trading hub – the Dutch Title Transfer Facility – and permission for EU gas companies to create a cartel to buy gas on the international market.

He conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism, even though he hailed the summit as having maintained European unity.

Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. Now energy ministers must work out details with a Germany concerned such caps would encourage higher consumption – a further burden on restricted supplies.

These divisions are all part of Putin’s fondest dream. Manifold forces in Europe could prove central to achieving success from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, which amounts to the continent failing to agree on essentials.

Germany and France are at odds over a lot of these issues. The conference call is to reach some accommodation, though it was scheduled in an effort to do so.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/opinions/putin-prolonge-war-ukraine-winter-andelman/index.html

Italy’s new prime minister: the consequences for the European Union and for the Russian military-industrial complex and the U.S. against a new regime

And now a new government has taken power in Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in Saturday as Italy’s first woman prime minister and has attempted to brush aside the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.

Silvio Berlusconi, himself a four-time prime minister of Italy, was recorded at a gathering of his party loyalists, describing with glee the 20 bottles of vodka Putin sent to him together with “a very sweet letter” on his 86th birthday.

The other leading member of the ruling Italian coalition, Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as deputy prime minister, said during the campaign, “I would not want the sanctions [on Russia] to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.”

Poland and Hungary, two countries that have a close association with the ultra-right, have now differing opinions of the EU’s policies over Ukraine. Hungary’s Orban had pro-Putin sympathies, that’s what Poland has taken offense to.

This is trickier. Congress’s likely new Speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, has warned the Biden administration cannot expect a “blank cheque” from the new GOP-led House of Representatives.

Meanwhile on Monday, the influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to open talks with Russia on ending the conflict while its troops are still occupying vast stretches of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.

Hours later, caucus chair Mia Jacob, facing a firestorm of criticism, emailed reporters with a statement “clarifying” their remarks in support of Ukraine. The Secretary of State made a call to Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

The US has offered more than $60 billion in aid since Biden took office, but only Republicans voted against the latest aid package.

Russia is being Pressured by the West. A report was released last Thursday by the State Department on the impact of sanctions on the Russian military-industrial complex.

A day before this report, the US announced seizure of all property of a top Russian procurement agent Yury Orekhov and his agencies “responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end-users…including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors.”

The Justice Department said it would prosecute individuals and companies for violating sanctions by attempting to bring high-tech equipment into Russia.

The 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was halted because of the increased relationship between Tehran and Moscow, which made Iran’s foes and NATO members more focused on getting Iran to comply with the agreement.

Yuval Noah Harari argued that a victory by Russia would mean the end of wars of aggression, something most nations had come to reject since the Second World War.

For that reason, Ukraine received massive support from the West, led by the United States. The war in Ukraine reinvigorated NATO, even bringing new applications for membership from countries that had been committed to neutrality. It helped reestablish the interest of people in eastern European states in orienting themselves towards Europe and the West.

Much of what happens today far from the battlefields still has repercussions there. The Saudis were accused of helping Russia fund the war by boosting their oil revenues after they decided to slash production. The Saudis deny the accusation.

Weapons supplies toUkraine have become a point of tension with Israel, as they have developed defensive systems against incoming missiles. Israel refused to provide the systems, which include Iron Dome, because of its own strategic concerns.

The amount of military aid. CNN reported last month that the US was running out of weapons to give to the Ukrainians. Look for that storyline to become part of the US aid debate after Republicans take control of the House of Representatives next month and promise more scrutiny of US aid for Ukraine.

More significantly, the invasion roiled the global economy, including energy and grain markets. And most tragically, it slaughtered thousands of innocents and caused unspeakable suffering for millions of Ukrainians because of a policy choice by Putin in his quest for empire.

Families and individuals are affected by higher prices. When they come with such powerful momentum, they pack a political punch. Inflation, worsened by the war, has put incumbent political leaders on the defensive in countless countries.

Why a Far-Right Ukrainian Organization Embedded in a Nuclear Bomb is Not a Thing That Makes America Great Again

And it’s not all on the fringes. Kevin McCarthy, if elected speaker of the House, suggested that the GOP might reduce aid to Ukraine. Progressive Democrats released and withdrew a letter calling for negotiations. Farkas, who was a Pentagon official during the obama administration, told reporters that they are all smiles for Putin.

Russian foreign minister Sergeilavya told a press conference on October 24th that the information about the use of a nuclear bomb was reliable. Defense minister Sergei Shoigu had conveyed this supposedly reliable information to the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Turkey, according to read-outs from the Russian government.

A popular account with nearly 100,000 followers uploaded a video in February showing a far- right Ukrainian organization constructing a bomb, with their hands adjusted a radiological meter on top of a barrel. The account warned that the bombs would be used against Russian troops in the event of an invasion.

The video, however, was quickly debunked—the Ukrainian-language video is rife with spelling mistakes and shows common industrial equipment, according to the Ukrainian fact-check organization StopFake. Nevertheless, the basic claim remained a constant reference for those pro-Kremlin Telegram accounts—appearing in hundreds of posts over the last eight months, being viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Ukranian, Japan, and the United States: a Conversation between the Russian and Chinese Presidents during the First Two Years of the Cold War

Apparently, the talks were productive. The Chinese described them as thorough, frank and constructive. Biden agreed to try to avoid a new Cold War by being blunt with one another. It wasn’t “Kumbaya,” the President said, but the two sides are perhaps less likely to start an accidental war against each other.

President Joe Biden said after taking office that they had to prove that democracy works. He predicted that future generations “are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy?”

This was the perfect time for a meeting to happen because it was from the standpoint of the United States and for democracy.

The president of Ukranian returned to Kherson, the one province that had been subsumed by the Russian empire, as Biden andXi were meeting.

His presence sent a message of defiance to Putin most directly and a cherished sign of resolve and empathy for the people of Ukraine. His audience also included European powers in a western alliance that Biden has led and invigorated like no president since the end of the Cold War. Every time a president makes a major splash on the world stage he reminds Americans that his own support for the war effort in Ukraine depends on his own critics back home.

In February of last year, Putin stood alongside the Chinese President and was smiling like a happy man. Putin was still denying plans to invade Ukraine, which he would do just after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Tellingly, Putin chose not to attend the G20 summit in Bali, avoiding confrontations with world leaders as he increasingly becomes a pariah on the global stage.

Biden and the XI JINPING Balloon: The Battle for the United States and for the Russians in the War on Ukraine

President Biden wants to avoid a war with China while competing vigorously, so the West has an opportunity to manage the relationship in a way that is agreeable to him. It is an objective he reiterated on Thursday while talking about the Chinese balloon that traversed the US earlier this month.

Also a mirage, it was the brilliance of XI JINPING. After nearly three years of repressive Covid-19 lockdowns the country saw unprecedented protests calling for an end to their signature Zero Covid policy with some calling for regime change. There was no preparation or transition when the restrictions were lifted.

And yet, China and Russia remain close, the world’s two leading autocracies determined to challenge the West and undercut the notion that genuine democracy is the most desirable system of government – lest it come for their jobs.

Now Poland is facing the repercussions from these attacks – and it’s not the only bordering country. Russian rockets have also knocked out power across neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member, and therefore attracted considerably less attention than the Polish incident.

One thing is clear, whatever the specific circumstances of the missile. “Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Wednesday.

According to reports, the hotline and Telegram channel that was launched as the Ukrainian military intelligence project “I want to live” has taken off and has booked 3,500 calls in its first two months of activity.

“Does Russia really want to rearm?” the Russian army tells a journalist in Berlin about a possible Brexit break-up

One leading Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who has settled in Berlin after fleeing in March, told me last week that while he hoped this is not the case, he is prepared to accept the reality – like many of his countrymen, he may never be able to return to his homeland, to which he remains deeply attached.

Yet some good has come from this debacle. Europe knows it must get off its dependence on Russian gas immediately, and hydrocarbons in general in the longer term, as economic dependence on the fossil fuels of dictators cannot bring longer-term stability.

Moreover, Putin’s dream that this conflict, along with the enormous burden it has proven to be on Western countries, would only drive further wedges into the Western alliance are proving unfulfilled. On Monday, word began circulating in aerospace circles that the long-stalled joint French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System – Europe’s largest weapons program – was beginning to move forward.

Russian hopes of a swift seizure were dashed nine months ago, the army largely on the defensive across more than 600 miles of battle lines in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

The conflict would end in a negotiated resolution when Putin recognizes the war is unsustainable, according to Peter Bergen, who wrote an opinion article for CNN.

Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the think tank and a leading expert on the Russian military, told me in an interview that the only thing a premature truce does is allow both parties to re-arm.

Russia is starting to rearm, according to experts. “Ammunition availability” was one of the “most determinative aspects of this war,” said Kofman. “If you burn through 9 million rounds, you cannot make them in a month. So the issue is what is the ammunition production rate and what can be mobilized?” he added.

In some factories in Russia, the manufacture of weapons has shifted from two to three a day, according to information cited by Kofman. This suggests that “they have the component parts or otherwise they wouldn’t be going to double and triple shifts,” he said.

Seize the moment. What do we really have in common with the Russian people in the midst of the current crisis? A comment on Milley, Milley and Ryan

When peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff said recently.

“We never refused, it was the Ukrainian leadership that refused itself to conduct negotiations … sooner or later any party to the conflict will sit down and negotiate and the sooner those opposing us realize it, the better,” he said.

General Mick Ryan, a fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me that it would relieve the pressure on the Russians at the moment and give them time to regroup. “They have been at it hard for nine months. Their forces are tired.

Compounding the problem, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said after the recent Makiivka strikes that “the Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate.”

He said they will get tired of the war at some point. The Russian mindset may change from being that we may not have everything we wanted. But we’ll have a big chunk of the Donbas and will annex that into Russia and we’ll hold onto Crimea. And I think that’s kind of their bet right now.”

Any hypothetical momentum towards a deal could result in a reduction of Western military aid to Kyiv. And it would present a possible face-saving exit route for Putin, whose reputation would be severely diminished at home if he returned from a costly war without meaningful territorial gains.

But were the war to resume months or years from now, there’s a real question as to whether the US and its allies would be prepared to return to a conflict that many are beginning to wish was already over.

Putin’s Nuclear Weapons: “Before the Great Strikes” on the Northern Sea of Azov and Kiev, and in his televised comments on Ukraine

Speaking in a televised meeting in Russia with members of his Human Rights Council, Putin described the land gains as “a significant result for Russia,” noting that the Sea of Azov “has become Russia’s internal sea.” In one of his frequent historic references to a Russian leader he admires, he added that “Peter the Great fought to get access” to that body of water.

If it is not used first, then it won’t be the second to use it, because the chance of a nuclear strike on our territory will be very low.

Putin rejected Western criticism that his previous nuclear weapons comments amounted to saber-rattling, claiming they were “not a factor provoking an escalation of conflicts, but a factor of deterrence.”

“We haven’t gone mad. Putin said that they were aware of what nuclear weapons were. He added, without elaborating: “We have them, and they are more advanced and state-of-the-art than what any other nuclear power has.”

In his televised remarks, the Russian leader didn’t address Russia’s battlefield setbacks or its attempts to cement control over the seized regions but acknowledged problems with supplies, treatment of wounded soldiers and limited desertions.

The governor uploaded photos of “dragon’s teeth” in the open field in the region bordering Ukranian. The governor had said a fire broke out at the airport in the area after a drone strike. In neighboring Belgorod, workers were expanding anti-tank barriers and officials were organizing “self-defense units.” The governor of Belgorod reported on Wednesday that Russia’s air defenses have shot down incoming rockets, apparently from cross-border attacks.

Two strategic Russian air bases more than 300 miles from the Ukraine border were hit by drones on Monday. Moscow blamed Ukraine, which didn’t claim responsibility.

In the past two months, Ukraine’s power grid has come under relentless bombardment by Russian bombs, taking down as much as half of the country’s electric infrastructure and at times leaving the majority of the country without power. Ukrainians in Kyiv are only able to keep their phones and computer running for a few hours a day because of the fighting in the region, and they have to keep their food and water supplies well-stocked. Water supplies have been paralyzed at times, too, along with portions of the country’s electrified rail system. The winter still looms ahead with only a small portion of the country’s heating systems operational.

Putin was speaking at a news conference in Bishkek. He described the preemptive nuclear strike as “applied to the control points, deprive the enemy of these control systems and so on,” implying that it could even prevent a retaliatory strike.

Biden administration officials have previously said that Moscow has been warned at the highest levels of the consequences for use of nuclear weapon in the war.

Think about emulating the best practices of our American partners and their ideas for security if we are talking about this disarming strike. We’re just thinking about it. He said that no one was shy when they talked about it.

If a potential adversary believes that a preventive strike can be used, then that still makes us think about the threats we face.

The U.S. Army is Close to the Crime Scene: Why Do We Need It? Vladimir Zakharova’s Comments on the Russia Response to the US Response to Ukraine

It requires a relatively large number of personnel to be trained, according to CNN’s Barbara Starr and Oren Liebermann, who were first to report the US is close to sending the system to Ukraine.

Zakharova said that many experts questioned the rationality of such a step which could lead to an increase of the conflict and the risk of dragging the US army into combat.

The country can guard against Russian attacks that have left millions without power, but because of its expensive and complicated nature, it is not possible to take on the system in a single person.

The Pentagon press secretary was asked if Russian warnings that the system would be provocative were true. Gen. Pat Ryder said those comments would not influence US aid to Ukraine.

The country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion chose to say provocative things about defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians.

“We don’t have NATO troops on the ground. NATO planes are in the air over other countries. He said he was supporting Ukraine in their right to defend themselves.

Russia is sharing a video of an intercontinental missile being put into a silo in the Kaluga area for the commander of the Kozelsky missile formation.

In an interview this week on Russian state TV, a commander from the Russian militia in the eastern region of Russia said that they wouldn’t defeat the NATO alliance in a conventional war.

The War on Crime: How US Forces Faced with Ruin and Indications for a Russian-Mexican Army Campaign in Ukraine

Small air defense systems are not as large as the Patriot missile batteries and require many personnel to operate them. The training for Patriot missile batteries normally takes multiple months, a process the United States will now carry out under the pressure of near-daily aerial attacks from Russia.

The system is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend airspace against incoming ballistic and cruise missiles as well as some aircraft. Because of its long-range and high-altitude capability, it can potentially shoot down Russian missiles and aircraft far from their intended targets inside Ukraine.

Zelensky was quoted by The Economist as saying that he did not agree with the idea ofUkraine wanting to only regain land that has been seized by Russia since February 1992, and not parts of the country that are under Russian control.

Old firearms. CNN’s Ellie Kaufman and Liebermann reported earlier this week on a US military official who says Russian forces have had to resort to 40-year-old artillery ammunition as their supplies of new ammo are “rapidly dwindling.”

The official spoke to reporters, saying that when loading the ammunition, you hope it will fire or explode.

In the trenches. CNN’s Will Ripley filed a video report from trenches and fortifications being built along Ukraine’s border with Belarus, where there is growing concern about Russia once again assembling troops. Ripley talks to a man who has reinvented himself as a tank driver.

Moscow has begun a new campaign to encourage Russians to enlist in the armed forces and fight in Ukraine, despite the Kremlin having denied needing more recruits.

The Kremlin as a Propaganda Machine: A Snowmass of War and Violence in the Russian Military and a Breakdown of the Russian Revolution

One of the videos posted on December 14, shows a young man who is going to fight instead of partying with his male friends and then buying himself a car when he makes money from fighting in the military.

The soldier’s former girlfriend begged him to get back together with her in a video posted on December 15. A further example shows a middle-aged man leaving the factory job that doesn’t pay him enough to sign a military contract and go to the front.

One of the videos shows a group of men, some of whom are 30-something, well-off, loading a car while an elderly lady asks where they are going. One of the men replies: “To Georgia. It’s forever. When one woman spills a bag of groceries, the men just get into the car and leave, instead of helping, while younger Russian men rush to pick up the groceries. “The boys have left, the men stayed,” one of the elderly women concludes.

There are a lot of videos that portray the war as an escape for men from their daily reality of drinking and poverty. There are reports about shortages of equipment and provisions in the Russian military.

During a meeting with mothers of the mobilized, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that it was better to die in service of the motherland than to drink and die.

Putin attempted to assure the public that there wasn’t any plans for additional deployment during his news conference after the summit in Bishkek.

Questioned about reports of continuing military equipment shortages on the front lines, Putin said he was working closely with the Russian defense ministry and that the issue was being resolved.

This war was something that nobody would have thought of. Putin was not the only one who miscalculated. The Russian elite largely thought there’d be no way that Putin would actually go to war. The Europeans did not think that Putin was going to invade. Russia was expected to invade, but the U.S thought it could win in a few days. The war was different from other wars in recent years and it was difficult to know what would happen.

Something else that has gone well from the Kremlin’s point of view is the country’s propaganda machine. It helped convince many Russians that the war was not going disastrously wrong, and that it was the West that was forcing Russia to fight. The Russian economy has been unaffected by the sanctions as the West had thought, and most of the world has not turned its back on Russia.

It was a very intense reporting effort. I was trying to get beyond what we already know about Putin and get to some of the nuances surrounding him and his decision to go to war. It is really hard, because it’s something that so few people know for sure. It took a long time and a lot of conversations.

I witnessed how Zelensky pulled up to the lysée Palace in a small car while Putin drove off in a limo. The host of the event, the French president, hugged Putin, but did not shake hands with Zelensky.

Zelensky said the swap of prisoners with Russia would be the first step to ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which had started in 2014 and claimed the lives of over 15,000 people.

Zelensky has had a reputation for doing things the right way inside and outside of the country, but it is difficult to say just how much stagecraft the president has put into him.

“After the full-scale invasion, once he got into a position of being bullied by someone like Vladimir Putin he knew exactly what he needed to do because it was just his gut feeling,” Yevhen Hlibovytsky, former political journalist and founder of the Kyiv-based think tank and consultancy, pro.mova, told me.

As Russia launched its invasion, the leader of the United States joked: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

It is perhaps easy to forget that Zelensky honed his political muscles earlier in his career standing up to another bully in 2019 – then-US President Donald Trump, who tried to bamboozle the novice politician in the quid pro quo scandal.

Amid the fog of war, it all seems a long, long way since the heady campaign celebration in a repurposed Kyiv nightclub where a fresh-faced Zelensky thanked his supporters for a landslide victory. Standing on stage among the fluttering confetti, he looked in a state of disbelief at having defeated incumbent veteran politician Petro Poroshenko.

In the days leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelensky was in a steep, downward trajectory in popularity ratings from the all-time high in the first days of his administration.

His bubble includes many people from his previous professional life as a TV comedian in the theatrical group Kvartal 95. Even in the midst of the war, a press conference held on the platform of a Kyiv metro station in April featured perfect lighting and curated camera angles to emphasize a wartime setting.

As for his skills as comforter in chief, I remember well the solace his nightly televised addresses brought in the midst of air raid sirens and explosions in Lviv.

A Portrait of the Zelensky Brand: From King Charles to the Pentagon to Washington, D.C. During a World War for Democracy

Beyond the man himself, there is Zelensky the brand. It’s almost impossible these days to dissociate the Ukrainian leader from his olive green t-shirts; worn when meeting everyone from Vogue journalists to military commanders and world leaders.

She believes that he would be more comfortable on camera than Putin. “I believe both of them want to come across as relatable, not aloof or untouchable, although Zelensky is definitely doing a better job balancing authority with accessibility.”

Zelenska has shown herself to be an effective communicator of international fora by projecting empathy, style and smarts. King Charles met with her at the refugee assistance center at the Holy Family Cathedral in London. (Curiously, TIME magazine did not include Zelenska on the cover montage and gave only a passing reference in the supporting text).

Zelensky said in his video address that if the world is truly united, it’s the world not the aggressor that determines how events develop.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House visit Wednesday will symbolically bolster America’s role as the arsenal of democracy in the bitter war for Ukraine’s survival and send a stunning public rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

When Zelensky arrives in Washington, he might well experience the same revelation that Churchill did over the capital’s blazing lights at Christmas after months in the dark of air raid blackouts back home.

His visit is unfolding amid extraordinary security. Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t confirm early reports that she would welcome Zelensky to the US Capitol, saying they weren’t know yet. We don’t know.

The Battlefield for Ukraine: The Challenge for the US and for the Security of Homeland Security and the Future of the Cold War with the United States

The process of matching the US aid to the changing strategy of Russia’s assault was reflected by the decision onPatriots. The system would help Kyiv better counter Russia’s brutal missile attacks on cities and electricity installations, which it has mounted in an effective attempt to weaponize bitter winter weather to break the will of Ukrainian civilians.

“I do think this is a critical moment,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told NPR. “As difficult as it is and as bloody as it is, the battlefield will be a very significant factor for both President Zelenskyy and President Putin’s calculations as to whether or not to go.”

His visit to Congress will also play into an increasingly important debate on Capitol Hill over Ukraine aid with Republicans set to take over the House majority in the new year. Some pro-Donald Trump members, who will have significant leverage in the thin GOP majority, have warned that billions of dollars in US cash that have been sent to Ukraine should instead be shoring up the US southern border with a surge of new migrants expected within days.

In March, for instance, Zelensky evoked Mount Rushmore and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream Speech” during a virtual address to Congress. He also referred to two days of infamy in modern history when Americans directly experienced the fear of aerial bombardment.

The morning of December 7, 1941, the sky was black as planes attacked Pearl Harbor. Just remember it,” Zelensky said. “Remember September 11, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories, into battlefields. When innocent people were attacked, attacked from air, just like nobody else expected it, you could not stop it. Our country experiences the same every day.”

The Wartime British Prime Minister, the Ukranian Prime Minister and the United States – The Case for a Solution to Putin’s Ukraine Problem

The wartime British leader sailed to the United States aboard HMS Duke of York, dodging U-boats in the wintery Atlantic and took a plane from the coast of Virginia to Washington, where he was met on December 22, 1941, by President Franklin Roosevelt before their joint press conference the next day.

Over days of brainstorming and meetings – fueled by Churchill’s regime of sherry with breakfast, Scotch and sodas for lunch, champagne in the evening and a tipple of 90-year-old brandy before bed – the two leaders plotted the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and laid the foundation of the Western alliance that Biden has reinvigorated in his support for Ukraine.

The anniversary of World War II was a chance for the British Prime Minister to talk about the importance of the US involvement in that conflict, but he said that he was far from his country and family.

The Ukrainian leader is likely to appreciate the historical parallels. He used a copy of a famous speech from the 1940s to appeal to British members of parliament.

There are two key headline deliverables: first, the Patriot missile systems. Complex, accurate, and expensive, they have been described as the US’s “gold standard” of air defense. NATO cares for them and requires their personnel who operate them to be properly trained, even though they are almost 100 in a battalion.

There are two types of precision-guided munitions for Ukrainian jets. Ukraine, and Russia, largely are equipped with munitions that are “dumb” – fired roughly towards a target. Western standard precision missiles and Howitzers has been given to Ukranian.

The supply of guidance kits which could be used to bolt on to unguided missiles and bombs is expected to be included in the new deal. This will increase their accuracy by increasing the rate of fire. A lot of the $1.8 billion is expected to fund munitions replacements and stocks.

Whatever the eventual truth of the matter – and military aid is opaque at the best of times – Biden wants Putin to hear nothing but headline figures in the billions, to sap Russian resolve, push European partners to help more, and make Ukraine’s resources seem limitless.

The remnants of the Trumpist “America First” elements of that party have echoed doubts about how much aid the US should really be sending to the edges of eastern Europe.

Washington receives a large defense budget, which makes the bill for the slow defeat of Russia in this conflict relatively light.

Zelensky and the Ukraine War: Why Russia Is So Cold Right Now and How Do We Need It? CNN News Special Report on the US Embassy in Kiev

The speech “connected the struggle of Ukrainian people to our own revolution, to our own feelings that we want to be warm in our homes to celebrate Christmas and to get us to think about all the families in Ukraine that will be huddled in the cold and to know that they are on the front lines of freedom right now,” Clinton said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” Wednesday.

Her comments came after Zelensky delivered a historic speech from the US Capitol, expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began – and asking for more.

Clinton believes that no one is asking for a blank check. I believe that the Ukrainians are a good investment for the US. They don’t want us to fight the war. They are fighting it on their own. They’re asking us and our allies for the means to not only defend themselves but to actually win.”

She said that she hopes they will send more than one. She commented that there had been reluctance by the US and NATO to provide advanced equipment in the past but that they have seen how effective the Ukrainian military is.

Clinton, who previously met Russian President Vladimir Putin as US secretary of state, said the leader was “probably impossible to actually predict,” as the war turns in Ukraine’s favor and his popularity fades at home.

Moscow said that Ukraine and its Western allies are set for a long confrontation with Russia after President Zelensky visited Washington.

The Biden administration’s accusation of crimes against humanity by Russia last week made a return to normal between Washington and Moscow impossible.

“As the leadership of our country has stated, the tasks set within the framework of the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground and the actual realities,” Zakharova added, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

There were no calls for peace according to Peskov. But during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky did stress that “we need peace,” reiterating the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine.

The meeting showed the US was in a proxy war against Russia, Peskov told journalists.

Putin’s critics say that using the word “war” to describe the Ukraine conflict has effectively been illegal in Russia since March, when the Russian leader signed a censorship law that makes it a crime to disseminate “fake” information about the invasion, with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted.

“Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin told reporters in Moscow, after attending a State Council meeting on youth policy. “We have been and will continue to strive for this.”

Nikita Yuferev, a municipal lawmaker from St. Petersburg who fled Russia due to his antiwar stance, on Thursday said he had asked Russian authorities to prosecute Putin for “spreading fake information about the army.”

“There was no decree to end the special military operation, no war was declared,” Yuferev wrote on Twitter. “Several thousand people have already been condemned for such words about the war.”

A US official told CNN that Putin’s remark was not intentional and likely a slip of the tongue. The officials are watching to see what figures in the Kremlin say about it.

Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday declared the Kremlin would make a substantial investment in many areas of the military. The initiatives include increasing the size of the armed forces, accelerating weapons programs and deploying a new generation of hypersonic missiles to prepare Russia for what Putin called “inevitable clashes” with its adversaries.

The Russian Foreign Minister’s “Negotiations” with the United Nations are “Unlikelyly Intllegitimate”, a Comment on Ukraine’s Open War

Ukraine is open to peace talks. According to the Associated Press, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister says that talks should start by February once Russia is tried for war crimes.

Even when seemingly indicating a willingness to negotiate, the Russian leader refused on Sunday to mention Ukraine itself as a relevant party and continued to couch his offer in the false pretext that it is Moscow that is defending itself with what he euphemistically calls a “special military operation.”

As has often been the case, a vaguely conciliatory tone from Putin was quickly overshadowed by a message from one of his key officials.

Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to President Zelensky told CNN Tuesday that Putin was trying to buy time in the conflict.

So it makes little sense for Ukraine or the West to even entertain the possibility of a deal that carves up its land or rewards Putin for his invasion.

But Zelensky and his officials have said throughout that they will continue to sound out the possibility of negotiations, without raising any hopes that they would achieve a truce.

Kuleba said every war ends in a diplomatic way. “Every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”

The Foreign Minister said the UN would be the most natural broker for those talks. “The United Nations could be the best venue for holding this summit, because this is not about making a favor to a certain country,” he said. Everyone is supposed to be brought on board.

The steps includes a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow. He urged the G20 leaders to use their power to make Russia abandon nuclear threats and implement a price cap on energy imports from Moscow.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/27/europe/ukraine-russia-negotiations-putin-unlikely-intl/index.html

Zelensky’s Visit to the US and Russia’s War with the U.S. Consultative Council on Crime and Human Rights

A decisive swing on the battlefield in the New Year could force a change in the calculus, but both sides are dug into what will many observers believe could become a long and grinding conflict.

And Zelensky’s visit to the US – his first overseas trip in ten months – shows his intention to keep his allies focused on the conflict and united in their support.

He said that living under Putin was horrible and he pointed to the collapse of established institutions, since they would almost have been taken for granted.

Her life was destroyed by the war, she told CNN. Someone will immediately tell you that no one is interested in you, and we can be happy about it. Ukrainians were the ones who suffered the most. Of course, they are in much worse conditions now. But that doesn’t mean we’re okay.”

Maria has asked CNN not to publish her full name or details of her employer because of personal security concerns. The NGO for which Maria works is deemed a foreign agent under Russia’s recently expanded law on foreign agents, which means she is at risk of being persecuted.

The repression of dissent has been brutal. According to independent human rights monitor OVD-Info, there have been more than 19,400 detentions for protesting against the war in Russia and dozens are prosecuted every week under a new law that made it illegal to disseminate “fake” information about the invasion.

He is accused of spreading false information about the Russian military and law enforcement like many others and now is on Russia’s wanted list. He denied the charges and said he was simply reporting the truth about the actions of the Russian government.

Russian citizens still have access to independent sources of information with the assistance of technical workarounds. But state media propaganda now blankets the airwaves favored by older Russians, with angry TV talk shows spreading conspiracies.

There were 36,265 encounters with Russian citizens by the US Border Patrol. The number includes people who were apprehended or expelled by the border force and is significantly higher than the 13,240 and 5,946 recorded in the two previous fiscal years.

OK Russians, a non-profit helping Russian citizens fleeing persecution, said its surveys suggest those who are leaving are on average younger and more educated than the general Russian public.

If you take the Moscow liberals, I would say that at least 70% of them are gone. Some people from universities, schools, artists, people who have clubs in Moscow and journalists are the ones that got closed down.

It’s important that you lose the educated middle-class portion of the population, but also that you regain the political reconstitution of the country, says a Russia expert in the United States. She pointed to the exodus of liberal, educated Iranians following the country’s 1979 revolution as an example of what can happen when large numbers from such demographics leave the country.

Maria said she remains determined to stay in Russia, even though all of her friends and her son have left. Maria is unwilling to leave her mother, who does not want to travel abroad. “If I knew for sure that the borders would not be closed and I could come at any time if my mother needed my help, it would probably be easier for me to leave. She told CNN that she worried that something else could happen at any moment.

She still believes her work is important, but said she is struggling to see any hope for the future. She said her life was a constant cycle of panic, horror, shame and self-doubt.

“You’re constantly torn apart: Are you to blame? Did you not do enough? Can you do something else, and what should you do now? she said. “There are no prospects. I’m an adult, and I didn’t exactly have all my life figured out, but all in all I understood what would happen next. Now nobody understands anything. People don’t even understand what will happen to them tomorrow.”

He had begun to question his own identity. “The things we held dear, like the memory of the Second World War, for instance, became completely compromised,” he said, referring to Putin’s baseless claim that Russian forces are “denazifying” Ukraine.

“It’s part of the Russian national identity that the Russian army helped to win the war (against Hitler’s Germany) and now it feels absolutely wrong because this message was used by Putin. You start questioning the history,” he said, adding that the favorable reaction by some parts of the Russian society to the invasion prompted him to research pre-war rhetoric in Germany.

Maria, a historian by training, has spent years taking part in anti-government protests, describing herself as a liberal deeply opposed to Putin, a former KGB agent. “I always knew that our country should not be led by a person from the KGB. She said that it’s too deeply entrenched with horrors and deaths.

Berzina said that the expectation of some in the West – that “once people start feeling as though their leaders are doing wrong, that there is an immediate wave of protests on the streets and call for government change that actually has an effect” – does not reflect the reality of life in Russia.

“Almost all opposition leaders and opinion leaders are now either in prison or abroad. People have a huge potential for political action, but there is no leader and no power base,” she said, adding that civilians will not come out against the armed police, the National Guard, and other security forces.

The contest between democracy and autocracy is far from over, but autocracy’s appeal has diminished in the past 12 months due to the very public display of its fatal flaws. You cannot tell leaders they are wrong, they will make mistakes. The more powerful and ruthless the ruler, the higher the likelihood that no one dares challenge his wisdom, even if he leads his nation toward a cliff.

What do civilians really need to know about cyber attacks on Russia’s internet? Observation of a Russian think tank in the wake of Thursday’s sirens

If you mess with the central nervous system of the human body you will put all sorts of systems out of whack, said a director of a think tank who recently returned from a trip to the Ukrainian capital. It is an enormous economic cost and it’s not only an inconvenient thing. It’s an effort to create pain for the civilian population, to show that the government can’t protect them adequately.”

Menon sees that every one of his comments could apply to the cyberattacks on Russia’s internet five years ago, including the NotPetya malware released by the GRU. “They’re different in the technicalities, but the goal is the same,” he says. “Demoralizing and punishing civilians.”

Russia’s onslaught on Thursday was aimed at the country’s electrical infrastructure, and knocked out power in several regions. As the New Year’s holiday approaches, engineering crews are racing to restore services.

As the sirens went off, Halyna Hladka stocked up on water and made breakfast for her family so they wouldn’t have to go hungry. They heard the sounds of explosions for more than two hours. She told CNN that she thought they were close to her area, but it was actually air defense. We will celebrate the new year with the family and that is not going to be affected by an attack.

After the sirens gave the all clear, life in the capital went back to normal, Hryn said: “In the elevator I met my neighbors with their child who were in hurry to get to the cinema for the new Avatar movie on time.” People continued with holiday plans even though their parents took their children to school.

Russian Civil Liberation after the Crimes of March 2022: a wake from a long-term war? The Ukrainian crisis is still coming to an end

At least three people, including a 14-year-old girl, were injured and two people were removed from a damaged home on Thursday. Homes, an industrial facility and a playground in the capital were damaged in attacks on Kyiv, according to the city military administration.

Regardless of whether Russia lost 400 men as Ukraine claims, or 89 as Moscow says, the result of the attack is the same: Russia’s highest single-incident death toll since the war began more than 10 months ago.

Senseless barbarism. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said those were the only words that came to mind watching Moscow launch a fresh wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities ahead of the New Year, adding there could be “no neutrality” in the face of such aggression.

At the time, Putin insisted his forces were embarking on a “special military operation” — a term suggesting a limited campaign that would be over in a matter of weeks.

The war has upended Russian life and disrupted the process of democratic reforms that the country pursued after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The most respected human rights group in Russia, the 2022, winner of the co-recipient memorial prize, was forced to stop its activities because of alleged violations of the foreign agents law.

The state has also vastly expanded Russia’s already restrictive anti-LGBT laws, arguing the war in Ukraine reflects a wider attack on “traditional values.”

For now, repressions remain targeted. Some of the new laws are not enforced. The measures are supposed to crush dissent, should the moment arise.

Leading independent media outlets and a handful of vibrant, online investigative startups were forced to shut down or relocate abroad when confronted with new “fake news” laws that criminalized contradicting the official government line.

Restrictions extend to internet users as well. The American social media giants were banned in March. Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin’s internet regulator, has blocked more than 100,000 websites since the start of the conflict.

The Russian Exodus from the War: From the Government to the Post-Soviet Countries, and Across the Border to the Global Scale

Thousands of perceived government opponents — many of them political activists, civil society workers and journalists — left in the war’s early days amid concerns of persecution.

Meanwhile, some countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus predict their economies will grow, even as the swelling presence of Russians remains a sensitive issue to former Soviet republics in particular.

The central bank of Russia, which hiked up interest rates to 20% after the invasion, was a stabilizing force. Military goods have been imported from the West, so it’s necessary for factories to increase production.

When it comes to Russia’s military campaign, there’s no outward change in the government’s tone. The Defense Ministry gives daily briefings on their successes. Putin, too, repeatedly assures that everything is “going according to plan.”

The longest war in history suggests that Russia underestimated Ukrainians’ willingness to resist.

But Sullivan argued that one year into the conflict, Ukraine has already stopped Russia from accomplishing its main objective of taking over the capital of Kyiv.

Why Does Russia Want to Win? The Last 10 Months of Russia’s Decline & Loss: NATO, the West, and Central Asia

The true number of Russian losses – officially at just under 6,000 men – remains a highly taboo subject at home. Western estimates are much higher.

Indeed, Russia’s invasion has — thus far — backfired in its primary aims: NATO looks set to expand towards Russia’s borders, with the addition of long-neutral states Finland and Sweden.

Longtime allies in Central Asia have criticized Russia’s actions out of concern for their own sovereignty, an affront that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. India and China have been purchasing discounted Russian oil, but have yet to fully support Russia’s military campaign.

Putin’s speech in effect made good on an overdue commitment: the Kremlin repeatedly delayed and then ultimately canceled last year’s address amid a trickle of bad news from the battlefield in Ukraine.

An annual December “big press conference” – a semi-staged affair that allows the Russian leader to handle fawning questions from mostly pro-Kremlin media – was similarly tabled until 2023.

The Kremlin has given no reason for the delays. Many suspect it might be that, after 10 months of war and no sign of victory in sight, the Russian leader has finally run out of good news to share.

The conclusion was that threatening people with nukes was an oxymoron as the destruction they brought was complete, for everyone on the planet.

Despite this palpable Russian decline, Europe is not welcoming in an era of greater security. Calls for greater defense spending are louder, and heeded, even if they come at a time when Russia, for decades the defining issue of European security, is revealing itself to be less threatening.

Russia and the West met that was happy to send some of Russia’s weapons to its eastern border. Western officials might also be surprised that Russia’s red lines appear to shift constantly, as Moscow realizes how limited its non-nuclear options are. This was not supposed to happen. So, what does Europe do and prepare for, now that it has?

It is surprising that Europe was heading in the opposite direction a year ago when Russia decided to seek its strategic defeat in Ukraine rather than appeasement.

The prospect of a Russian defeat is a bigger picture, and it did not win quickly against an inferior adversary. State TV talked about the need to remove gloves, as if they would not expose a fist that had already withered. The Russian military will be in a battle for decades to regain a semblance of peer status with NATO. That is perhaps the wider damage for the Kremlin: the years of effort spent rebuilding Moscow’s reputation as a smart, asymmetrical foe with conventional forces to back it up have evaporated in about six months of mismanagement.

America has done this before. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the most dangerous nuclear confrontation so far, the Soviet Union’s position shifted in a matter of days, ultimately accepting an outcome that favored the West. Had “red lines” thinking been in vogue, America might well have accepted an inferior compromise that weakened its security and credibility.

The rise of autocracy in the 21st century: How Russia, China, and Iran fought back with determination and conviction during 2023

Notice that it was an open question. At the time, many believed that autocracy would not only win, but would prove to be the better system. How many believe that today?

How many of you think that China, Russia, and Iran are better models than an open society with challenges? How many believe the US would be better off with a more autocratic president?

Throughout the year of 2022, democracy fought back with determination and conviction. Autocrats went on the defensive. Even populism started to sputter. At the moment, many of the positive trends – forged with great effort and through enormous human suffering – look promising.

A poor showing by election deniers in the US midterm elections, as well as an exodus of Russians from their own autocratic country, is not good news for democratic leaders, who need to show they can weather the economic challenges of the coming months. They will face the efforts of the Russian and Chinese autocrats to regain the upper hand.

The autocracy brothers wanted the world to think their system was superior, a message that would preemptively quiet any doubts at home. For 16 consecutive years, according to the non-partisan democracy monitor Freedom House, democracy was losing ground. Authoritarian leaders and illiberal forces were on the rise; only about 20% of the world’s population lived in what it calls “Free countries”, the organization’s research showed.

While the global strong men struggled, self-assured geniuses like Musk revealed their own weaknesses, and the people were fed up with decades of tyranny.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/democracy-china-russia-2023-ghitis/index.html

The era of democracy in China: the women’s rights activists in the light of China’s first invasion of the Russian army and the crisis in the 21st century

The invasion strengthened NATO, a democratic defense alliance, in a way nothing had in decades. Even Sweden and Finland – countries that had long cherished their neutrality – wanted to join.

The rules that were in place for three years were thrown out. But China had not used the time to push for increased vaccination or stock up on certain drugs. Hundreds of millions have been infected, according to reports citing an internal estimate from China’s top health officials, and various models predict more than a million deaths.

No one expected the women’s rights activists to fight back against the regime. How far will they go? How far will the regime go to snuff them out? How will the rest of the world respond?

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/democracy-china-russia-2023-ghitis/index.html

The New Trump: The Misleading Case of Exit from the EU and the Resilient Legacy of His Failure to Become a Leader Balloon

Donald Trump is launching a new campaign. A lead balloon was what the British called it. He’s becoming an increasingly isolated, rather pathetic figure after many of his top choices failed in the midterm elections and election deniers fared badly. Even his calls for Republicans to unite behind Kevin McCarthy as the new House Speaker seemed to do little to quell the rebellion this week. And while the struggle over the speakership may have seemed dysfunctional, it was democracy, in all its messy wrangling, on display. Trump’s legal troubles seem endless.

Jair Bolsonphosphate lost his reelection bid due to his similarity to Trump. Like Trump, he refused to admit defeat or attend the inauguration of the man who defeated him, President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Instead, a grim Bolsonaro decamped to Florida.

After Boris Johnson lost the UK’s top job, the decidedly non-populist centrist, Rishi Sunak, took over as prime minister. Back when Johnson was leader of the country, they wanted their own version of exit from the EU. We don’t hear that anymore. French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his populist opponent, Marine Le Pen who, like other European populists, had to run from her record of closeness to Putin.

Why cell phones cannot be used in the Russian Army: the Makiivka attack on a school building two days after Putin’s christmas ceasefire

The cell phones that the novice troops were using were in violation of regulations that allowed the Ukrainian forces to target them the most accurately, according to the Russian account. Ukraine, however, has not indicated how the attack was executed. The ramifications are for how Russia is conducting its war now.

It is telling that days after the deadliest known attack on Russian servicemen, President Vladimir Putin called for a temporary ceasefire, citing the Orthodox Christmas holiday. The move was cynical and designed to get breathing space for Russia amid a terrible start to the year.

Russian officials say four Ukrainian-launched rockets hit the school where the forces of the Russian military were housed, near a large arms depot. (Another two HIMARS rockets were shot down by Russian air defenses).

Chris said that the failure to move large arms depots is due to the fact that their forces cannot communicate adequately.

It’s a view shared by other experts. “Bad communications security seems to be standard practice in the Russian Army,” James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told me in an e-mail exchange.

The troops killed in Makiivka seem to have been recent conscripts, part of a larger picture of Russian soldiers being shipped to the front lines with little training and deeply sub-standard equipment and weapons.

Most of the recently arrived inmates are from Russian prisons and freed immediately to the Ukrainian side. The use of cell phones would appeal to prisoners used to years of isolation with no contact with the outside world.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and was personally awarded the Order of Courage by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin two weeks ago, attacked the Ministry of Defense for its “blatant attempt to smear blame” in suggesting it was the troops’ own use of cell phones that led to the precision of the attack.

He questioned if the location of soldiers who were in a school building could not have been figured out using drones or a local source.

After a month, the defense ministry replaced four-starGen. Bulganikov with Colonel Gen. Mikhail Y. Mizintsev, who was known to Western officials as the butcher of Mariupol. The arms depot, close to the Makiivka recruits, was likely to have been on Mizintsevs watch.

Still, Putin-favorite Sergei Shoigu remains defense minister — as recently as Saturday, before the Makiivka attack, telling his forces in a celebratory video: “Our victory, like the New Year, is inevitable.”

Just this week, the Biden administration announced the US was considering dispatching Bradley armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron also announced he would be sending light tanks, though Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was urging the dispatch of heavier battle tanks. All of which puts German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under increasing pressure to add its powerful Leopard 2 tanks to the mix.

Russia had invested heavily in the 750-mile undersea pipeline linking it to Germany and wanted to increase global sales and ramp up economic leverage over Europe and its power-hungry heavy industries. Germany, a leading consumer, was on board from the get-go. Washington wasn’t.

The United States didn’t want the new, high-capacity subsea supply to supplant old overland lines that transited Ukraine, providing vital revenue to the increasingly Westward-leaning leadership in Kyiv.

But if in Europe Scholz seems to have wrestled some vestige of influence over America in the Ukraine war, in Moscow they don’t believe his new vigor changes much.

Europe has been slow to respond to the deep fissures in US politics and the uncertainty another Trumpian-style presidency could cause. The US has always been a reliable place but it has become less reliable in the last few decades due to stubborn European pragmatism.

Europe was guided by the moral compass of a former Chancellor. Scholz has found unexpected metal in his ponderous, often stop/go/wait traffic-light governing coalition and won thunderous applause in Germany’s Bundestag on Wednesday as he flashed a rare moment of steely leadership.

The War in Ukraine, a Tale of Two Worlds: When Russia and the US fought the Cold War, and what Putin didn’t

“Trust us,” he said, “we won’t put you in danger.” He explained how the government handled Russia’s aggression and how no one realized the dangers of a freezing winter and economic collapse. “The government dealt with the crisis,” he said, adding: “We are in a much better position.”

The applause at each step of his carefully crafted speech spoke as loudly as his words. In short, Scholz got it right for Germany, bringing with him a population typically averse to war and projecting their own power, and deeply divided over how much they should aid Ukraine in killing Russians and potentially angering the Kremlin.

When he was Russian president, the former deputy chairman of the national security council said that Russia wouldn’t allow itself to be defeated and would use its nuclear weapons if threatened.

The mixed messaging has some Muscovites CNN spoke with after the announcements by Biden and Scholz on tanks confused. Some said Russia would win regardless, and lumped the US and Germany together as the losers, but a significant proportion were worried about the war, dismayed at the heavy death toll and frustrated that Putin ignored their concerns.

How much Scholz is aware of Putin’s softening popularity or whether he believes it relevant at this moment is unclear, but his actions now, sending tanks, may help ease Putin’s iron grip on power.

Longer debates about the next military moves for Ukraine could be coming and will likely signal to Zelensky that weapons supplies will be on more of a German leash, and less unilaterally led by Washington.

This shift in the power dynamic may not change the way the war is fought but could impact the contours of a final deal and shape a lasting peace when it comes.

Russia is gearing up for a “maximum escalation” of the war in Ukraine, potentially as soon as the next few weeks, according to a top Ukrainian national security official.

The Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said these will be the defining months in the war.

Ukraine’s Defense IntelligenceRepresentative said on national television that February and March will be a very active period of hostilities.

“During the week, military representatives from the two countries will practice joint planning of the use of troops based on the prior experience of armed conflicts in recent years,” the ministry said in a statement.

The senior British official told CNN that the Russian forces are unlikely to be more successful than before and that they might be willing to send in more troops.

“They amassed enough manpower to take one or two small cities in Donbas, but that’s it,” a senior Ukrainian diplomat told CNN. “Underwhelming, compared to the sense of panic they were trying to build in Ukraine.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday in Brussels that the US is not seeing Russia “massing its aircraft” ahead of an aerial operation against Ukraine.

The War Between Moldova and the EU: Relaying the Cold War with Security and Security, as Moldova Turns Into a Better Place: News from the Moldovan Embassy

Editor’s Note: Cristian Gherasim is an analyst, consultant and journalist focusing on Eastern and Central European affairs. You can follow him on a verified social media account. His own views are included in this commentary. View more opinion at CNN.

Though Moldova is unlikely to become part of the EU anytime soon, the country’s European-leaning objectives and desire to tear itself away from Russian influence have brought security guarantees and Western aid like never before.

Since the power shortages hitMoldova, which has 2.6 million people, Ana has made more trips to the small country from her home in the Romanian capital of Bucharest.

As I write, Russia has just fired dozens of Kalibr missiles towards several cities in Ukraine, including my adopted city of Odesa. We run for shelter as air raid sirens blare. My landlady brings me a pot of borscht to help create a sense of normalcy.

Last month, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said border police had found missile debris near the village of Larga in Moldova’s north. It was not the first incident in which police found missile debris and it’s left many wondering what will happen if a stray rocket hits closer to home.

Europe has another reason to care: Without Moldova, Europe would have a bigger refugee problem. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, more than 765,000 people have crossed from Ukraine into Moldova, and the small country is hosting more than 108,000 recorded refugees, according to the UN.

If Odesa had been Seized, Russia could have used it as a base to move troops towards the doorstep of NATO and the EU.

NATO officials offered assurances of support toMoldova, without saying what that would mean, during a meeting in November last year, the Associated Press reported. NATO members reportedly offered to help with security and defense training in the face of Russian pressure.

During a visit to Chisinau earlier this spring, the UN Secretary General saidMoldova is by far the country that has received the most refugees, as proportion of its own population. He mentioned that the country has a front line of preservation, peace and stability in the world. But what does that mean, exactly?

Secondly, since Ukrainian refugees have been largely allowed to move freely in Europe, those who did choose to stay in Moldova are usually those having a harder time integrating anywhere else. Moldova’s culture does share a lot of similarities with Ukraine. If Moldova were unable to take in enough refugees, the rest of Europe would have to integrate them.

Moldova has troubles that have to do with internal factors. The current pro-EU government has struggled to tackle the long running issues of corruption and governance in the country. The Council of Europe report highlighted Moldova’s judicial weaknesses, with the judiciary system under scrutiny following the contest for the top job of chief prosecutor.

People are leaving Moldova. Moldova has lost 12% of its population since 1991 as a result of demographic decline seen throughout post-communist Europe, according to World Bank statistics.

Gazprom has slashed its gas exports to Moldova and Ukraine has halted energy exports altogether due to Russian missile attacks. In November, Russian attacks onUkraine caused power cuts in a part of the country. As a result of all this, Moldova is left with only the 10% of electricity that it manages to produce by itself.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu, plain spoken and charismatic, is leading a charm offensive; Sandu has met with Western leaders and gave an inspiring commencement speech at Harvard, helping to bring attention to Moldova’s plight. She knows that there would be nothing worse for Moldova than to be forgotten and ignored on the world stage.

What Do US Ambassadors Know About NATO and the Security Situation in the Light of the Russia Invasion? The Case for an End to the Cold War

Ahead of next week’s anniversary of the Russian invasion, US and Western leaders are gearing up for a show of unity and strength designed to establish once and for all that NATO is in the conflict for the long haul and until Moscow’s defeat.

Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, stated on Tuesday that Russia has lost strategically, operationally, and tactically. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made it clear that Putin couldn’t win as he explained the rationale for sending arms and ammunition to the Ukrainians. And Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, told CNN’s Becky Anderson that Washington was doing all it could to “continue to apply pressure on Moscow to affect (Putin’s) strategic calculus.”

This week was always planned for Biden to visit Europe but his public program only mentioned a trip to Poland. Given that many European leaders have already traveled to Kyiv, it would not have been a good idea for a journey across the Atlantic to not have a Ukrainian component. Still, the security footprint of the US president is far greater than the one accompanying those leaders, and his position as the leader of the West leaves him far more exposed.

In the US House for instance, some members of the new Republican majority are skittish. Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz last week demanded an end to aid to Ukraine and for the US to demand all combatants “reach a peace agreement immediately.” A bipartisan majority for saving Ukraine still exists in the House and the Senate. But it’s not certain Biden can guarantee massive multi-billion dollar aid packages for Ukraine in perpetuity. And US aid might be in serious doubt if ex-President Donald Trump or another Republican wins the 2024 election.

The lack of any diplomatic framework for ceasefire talks has led to Putin not considering defeat or an exit from the war.

There were no signs that Putin was giving up on his determination, said one of the experts who worked in the White House.

The prospect of China leaning on Putin for an end to the war was remote even before the lurch in US-China relations caused by the flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the US this month.

Sherman said at the event that the US is worried about the increasing ties between China and Russia, at a time when the country is engaged in simultaneous confrontations with each power.

In a show of unity, the leaders of the two nuclear powers vowed to have a relationship with “no limits.” It looked like a pivotal moment in a global realignment of power.

In addition to fortifying NATO and strengthening alliances, which President Joe Biden’s administration has accomplished with great success, the US must aim to forestall the creation of a credible, unified force of aggressive antidemocratic regimes.

This week’s developments do not mean that the future national security threats to the US from Beijing and Moscow are the same. The war in Ukraine has often exposed Russian weakness while worries about China’s rising power will preoccupy Washington for much of this century. Even though both of the US foes see ways in which they can harm each other, they are not locked in an alliance against the US.

On February 14th, a bloc of anti-western autocracies was launching. Ursula von der Leyen warned that Beijing and Moscow wanted to replace the rule of law with the rule of the strongest.

Russia had to rethink its commitment because the rule of the strongest does not work when you can’t win.

According to US intelligence, Russia has bought artillery shells from North Korea, another notorious dictatorship, which denies its involvement in a war whose morality is beyond the pale.

Xi, the first 20-year president, and the fate of the world: in Washington, D.C., Beijing, and Moscow

The first Iranian president to visit China in 20 years happened this week. An agreement for a 25-year strategic cooperation pact was reached at a meeting of theShanghai Cooperation Organization in 2021.

The Beijing-Tehran ties have raised alarms among both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who fear China’s support could help Tehran evade sanctions related to its nuclear and conventional weapons programs, support for terrorism and human rights abuses.

There is an internal contradiction in the dual goals of Xi. If you want to elevate your standing to that of a respected global leader, it’s hard to create an alliance of rule-breaking autocrats and assorted dictators, and then expect other countries to join enthusiastically.

February 23, 2022, is the evening. A news site boss relaxes with a bath and candles. In Zaporizhzhia, a young woman goes to bed planning to celebrate her husband’s birthday in the morning. In Moscow, a journalist happens to postpone his travel plans to Kyiv.

In the space of a year, the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions more. It has unleashed unfathomable atrocities, decimated cities, driven a global food and energy crisis and tested the resolve of western alliances.

The Crime of Zaporizhzhia: A Cold War in Ukraine. I. When Russians Went to Poland, but Not Into Their Own Land

Zaporizhzhia, February 23, 2022. I went to bed thinking that I would celebrate my husband’s birthday the next day. Our life was getting better. My husband owned his own business. Our daughter had started school and made friends there. We were lucky to have arranged support services and found a special needs nursery for our son. I finally had time to work. I felt happy.

We are trying to live in the here and now. We are very sad. Our hearts are still inUkraine even though we are inPrague.

My husband got a job due to the opportunities provided by the Czech Republic. I found special needs classes for my son. He now attends an adaptation group for Ukrainian children and has a learning support assistant. My daughter is studying in a Ukrainian school and going to a Czech school.

We woke up to the news that the invasion had started. I wrote an open letter denouncing the war, which was co-signed by 12 Russian writers, directors and cultural figures. Soon it was published, and tens of thousands of Russian citizens added their signatures.

On the third day we, my husband and I, left Russia. I felt that it was some kind of moral obligation. I could no longer stay on the territory of the state that has become a fascist one.

We moved to Berlin. Thousands of Ukrainians come every day to the refugee camp near the main railway station, and my husband worked there as a volunteer. And I started writing a new book. It begins like this.

“This book is a confession. I am guilty for not reading the signs much earlier. I too am responsible for Russia’s war against Ukraine. My predecessors and our forebears are the same. Regrettably, Russian culture is also to blame for making all these horrors possible.”

This is a war of history that has been going on for years, from the forced deportation of 2.5 million Ukrainians, including 38,000 children, to the theft of Ukrainian grain to the wanton destruction of Ukrainian museums, libraries, churches.

The eyes of three old men thrust into our van in Posad Pokhrovka, in the early days of the war, desperate to flee shelling that had torn their world apart, still haunt me: Not even the Nazis beat them like that, they said, sobbing. They never thought they’d live long enough to see worse than the 1940s.

A year into the full-scale invasion, my passport is a novel in stamps. My life is split between London, where I teach Ukrainian literature, and Ukraine, where I get my lessons in courage.

The entire year has been full of tears and worries. People close to me are killed by Russians, like the director of a sports school or a teammate.

My capital, which the Kremlin and the West expected to fall in three days, has withstood 12 months of Russia’s terrorist bombings and energy blackouts. The Russians have been able to bring closer to eternal life by seeing so many stars over Kyiv during dark winter nights.

Recent speculation has centered on whether rivals within Russia’s power elite have been trying to clip Prigozhin’s wings. Russian political analyst Dr. Stanovaya recently offered her opinion on Prigozhin, stating that she was skeptical about his rise. In a recent article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, she noted that Prigozhin has rivalries with Russia’s power ministries and doesn’t have much showing in polls.

It seems that since February 2022 we have experienced several eras. Putin, after receiving stagnant ratings, was approved by over 80% of the population.

By aborting the past, he canceled the future. Those who were disoriented, preferred to support Putin: it is easier to live this way when your superiors decide everything for you, and you take for granted everything you are told by propaganda.

In my opinion, what happened was a catastrophe that it’s impossible to adapt to. The authorities labeled me a foreign agent because I was an active commentator on the events which increased my personal risk and made me feel like I lived in an Orwellian anti-utopia.

On the evening of February 23 I washed my dog, cleaned the house, took a bath and lit candles. I have a cozy, one-bedroom apartment in a northern district of Kyiv. I loved taking care of it. The life I had allowed me to live a good life. All of it – the small routines and the struggles. That night was the last time my life mattered.

The phone was vibrating with messages and missed calls. The headline on the Kyiv Independent website read “PUT INDYRES WAR ON UKRAINE”.

The first two years of war: fighting for the cause of my country. The battle that we had to fight against Russia during the first half of the Cold War

I remember trying to get a bunch of volunteers together to strengthen the newsroom. My parents need to organize buying supplies.

The life I knew started falling apart soon after, starting with the small things. I no longer have to pay attention to how I dressed, drank my morning tea, or took a shower. The battle mattered more than life.

It was difficult to remember the good and bad times of the pre-war era because of the full-scale invasion. I can no longer relate to the way I was upset about my boyfriend. The day my life was taken on, February 24, it was the same as before.

By March, my initial shock and fear of the war turned into a desire to act through sports. Athletes can fight against Russian propaganda in a way that works for them. We have to tell the truth about how strong, kind and brave we are. How we have united to defend our country.

I was not concerned about my own ambitions. Only the common goal was crucial – to raise our flag and show that we are fighting even under these circumstances.

I couldn’t enjoy my victories on the track. They were only possible because so many defenders had laid down their lives. I received messages from soldiers. They were very happy to follow our accomplishments, and I wanted to keep working.

The human cost of Russia, beyond Ukraine’s borders and the diplomatic and military efforts to stop the war: a human rights lawyer’s perspective

In a special report, NPR’s Leila Fadel explores the human cost of Russia’s ambitions, the ripple effects beyond Ukraine’s borders, and the diplomatic and military efforts to stop the war.

This leads me to ask whom we should document all of these crimes. Oleksandra Matviichuk is the head of the Center for Civil Liberties. “If I’m not a historian, I’m a human rights lawyer and we document human pain in order to bring these Russians to justice.”

The Foreign Minister of Taiwan said his country is learning from the war in Ukraine and keeping an eye on China.

They have expansionist motivation. They want to keep growing their sphere of influence. They want to increase their power. If they are not stopped, then they will march on.

The United States is negotiating worsening Foreign Policy crises at the same time as it negotiates worsening Foreign Policy crises in the Russia of Putin and his new rival. Both these rivals are openly challenging the international rule of law and rejecting norms that have underpinned the international system for decades.

The First Battle of Volgograd: A Crime against Russia in the First Two Years of the Second Great Patriotic War. Vlasov vs. Vvav

They tried to flee in the first days of the war, but the family car was shelled, Natalia believes, by Russian forces. Her husband was killed, along with her 6-year-old nephew, Maxim. Vova was hospitalized for months after the attack because he had seven bullets in his body.

The audio for the story was edited by two people. Carol Klinger and other people help with production and editing. Hanna Palamarenko and Tanya Ustova provided reporting and translation help.

Navalny likes to say that the ” wonderful Russia of the future” could be a country without Putin.

Since last February’s invasion, Putin has shrugged off protests and international sanctions. Independent media and human rights groups have been branded as foreign agents or shut down entirely.

Putin paid a visit to the southern city of Volgograd on February 2 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory at what was then called Stalingrad, a turning point in the Great Patriotic War.

People who bring the European countries into a new war with Russia, and all the more irresponsibly, think that they will win in the battle, do not understand that a modern war with Russia will not go smoothly.

A return to rapid warfare with Tanks ruins this strategy that Russia has just set its sights on, Baunov wrote. “New people may also be needed to hold the front, and this is risky.”

The first event caused major tremors in Russian society, which is why this is risky. Hundreds of thousands of Russians voted with their feet. Police faced off against demonstrators in multiple cities when protests erupted in ethnic minority regions. Russian social media saw a surge of videos and public complaints about the lack of equipment and appalling conditions for newly mobilized recruits.

The first folk hero: Yevgeny Prigozhin, his legacy, and the struggle for power in the era of Russia

Many of those advances have been led by soldiers of the Wagner Group, a private military company headed by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. Many reports on Wagner have focused on the group’s brutal tactics, including human-wave attacks and summary execution for waverers or deserters.

Part of the fascination with Prigozhin has to do with the fact that Putin used to have a firm grip on power. Any political opposition had been effectively neutered by the authorities’well practiced quashing of street protests. There was speculation that the collapse of Putinism could be caused by a fissure in the elite. Further setbacks in Ukraine may cause a scramble for power in the siloviki, which remain publicly loyal.

He was the first folk hero in a long time. “He’s a hero for the most ultraconservative – the most, I would say, fascist – part of Russian society, as long as we don’t have any liberal part in Russian society, because most of the leaders of that part of Russian society have left, he’s an obvious rival to President Putin.”

Against that backdrop, some Russians have taken refuge in a form of political apathy. CNN spoke with several people from Moscow who told them how they have changed since last year, but only if they didn’t use their names anymore.

“There have been a lot of changes (in Russia), but I can’t really make a difference,” said Ira, a 47-year-old who works for a business publication. I try to keep an internal balance. I don’t think it is going to happen, but maybe I am too a political person.

Ira said she felt acute anxiety in February and March of last year, immediately after the invasion. She had just purchased an apartment so she was worried she wouldn’t be able to pay her mortgage because of the work drying up.

She said it got a lot worse in the spring. “Now it seems we’ve gotten used to a new reality. I started to meet and go out with girlfriends. I started to buy a lot more wine.”

The restaurants are now full, she said, but added: “The faces look completely different. The hipsters – you know what hipsters are? – there are less of them.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/europe/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html

Yukawa War: What have they Learned? How Have They Moved? Olya and her Husband, Alya, Revisited

According to Olya, she and her family decided to go for more domestic holidays. Europe is largely closed to direct flights from Russia, and opportunities to travel abroad are more limited.

Life carries on, Olya said, even though there is a war on. She said she couldn’t influence the situation. My friends say we do what we can. It doesn’t help to be depressed.

He said that those who reorganized quickly were seeing growth. “In January we concluded an unusual number of deals, and most of our activity usually picks up in February.”

“In terms of everyday life, practically nothing has changed,” he said, talking about the cutoff of Western imports. “If we’re talking parts for a (Mercedes Benz) G-Class, it might be trickier.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/europe/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html

John J. Sullivan: From Moscow to Ukraine: The War Between Russia and the United States in the Cold War Era, 1993–1998

He didn’t like the state media, and looked for other sources of information. And he acknowledged that he could theoretically be called up in another wave of mobilization.

The dismemberment of the Soviet empire was duly halted at the borders of the Russian Federation — at the cost of two devastating Chechen wars, for which the Kremlin was given a free hand both domestically and internationally. As a result, Chechnya-Ichkeria became a testing ground for the military strategy now applied against Ukraine: state terrorist warfare.

John J. Sullivan was US Ambassador to Russia during the months of December, and October. He is a former US deputy secretary of state. And is now a partner in Mayer Brown LLP and a Distinguished Fellow at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

For weeks, I had been telling everyone I could reach that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to launch a war on the continent of Europe, the scale of which had not been seen since World War II.

Although confident in my pre-war assessment, I was disconsolate. I worked hard to make modest progress in a few areas with the Russians during my two years as US ambassador.

The Secretary of State said on Tuesday after Mr. Putin spoke that he would be willing to negotiate a new treaty in the interests of both Russia and the United States.

Russian people wouldn’t engage in a dialogue unless they read from their talking points. Minders from the Russian security services kept an eye on meetings and calls. The Russians had created a diplomatic ruse in order to begin the groundwork for Putin’s invasion. When was the only question.

The war changed things great and small, from where I lived in Moscow to Russia’s standing in the world. I had to move onto the Embassy compound because the pace of teleconferences with Washington, combined with an eight-hour time difference, meant I had to be immediately available at all hours.

Yet the merciless Russian violence (which has forced almost 15 million Ukrainians to become refugees or internally displaced), the catastrophic missile strikes on civilian targets and the unlawful occupation of sovereign Ukrainian territory continue. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, whose purpose is to preserve and defend world peace.

The economic toll alone is staggering and this problem will only get worse until it is reversed on terms acceptable to Ukraine that will protect its sovereignty and security.

Only then will the Russian government realize that the goals of its Special Military Operation cannot and will not be achieved. The Russians will only negotiate in good faith. And only then will peace return to Europe.

A Ukrainian service member, who preferred not to be identified, told CNN that it was “incomprehensible” that the President of the United States is coming to the country.

The true historic sweep of Biden’s perilous journey to Ukraine can only be judged in the light of subsequent events, as was the case with Kennedy and Reagan. If Russia succeeds in winning the war, then his gesture will be meaningless.

But by not visiting Ukraine, Biden would have been implicitly admitting that there were some things that Putin could prevent him from doing – in effect showing US weakness.

Putin is expected to rally the Russian people in a speech on Tuesday, and that’s because President Biden claimed the upper hand.

Biden has so far declined to agree to the request, which gets to the heart of a dilemma that defines his war strategy: How far to go to help Kyiv win while avoiding a direct clash between the West and Russia.

McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN on Sunday that the US should not make the same mistake as it did in the past when it sent game-changing weapons to Ukraine. Asked if the current administration is considering the dispatch of F-16 fighter planes, the Texas Republican replied that he hoped so and added that he thought the process was building for it to happen.

This is because they would enhance Ukraine’s capacity to potentially strike at Russian jets and air defense systems inside Russia. The use of NATO aircraft in such operations – even with Ukrainian pilots – could prompt the Kremlin to conclude the alliance has directly intervened in the war, increasing the risk of a disastrous escalation of the conflict Biden has tried to avoid.

The Battle of Bakhmut: What the Ukrainians Don’t Want to Tell Us About the Russian War on January 6, 2021 and the Crimes of Crime against Russia

The journey that required energy and endurance was a jab at those who questioned if Biden should run in his 80s.

The issue of the southern border will be important in the next election because many Americans believe that Biden has not done enough to secure it. But Greene’s comment did not just exemplify the deterioration in civility in US politics. It was clear that the pro-Trump republican had supported the insurrectionists who tried to destroy American democracy on January 6, 2021.

The visit to Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv by Biden was seen in Moscow as proof that Russia is engaged in a proxy war with the United States.

There is nothing more presidential than standing for the values of freedom and democracy and the right of a people to defend themselves from a foreign oppressor if they believe in them.

“Biden, having received security guarantees in advance, finally went to Kyiv,” Medvedev said in a statement on Telegram. There were conflicting opinions about the new weapons and courage that would come with the victory. And here it is important to note that the West already delivers weapons and money to Kyiv quite regularly. In huge quantities, NATO countries can earn money and steal weapons to sell to terrorists around the world.

Biden was in Kyiv. Demonstrative humiliation of Russia,” Russian journalist Sergey Mardan wrote in a snarky response on his Telegram channel. Children may be able to see scenes of miraculous hypersonics. It’s just like spells about the holy war that we are fighting.

A Russian army veteran and former FsB officer claims that Biden could have escaped unharmed if he had visited the frontlines in eastern Ukraine.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if the grandfather (he is not good for anything but simple provocations anyway) is brought to Bakhmut as well… AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO HIM,” Girkin said.

Girkin is among a number of hardline military bloggers – some of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers and provide analysis of the conflict for large swaths of the Russian population – who have repeatedly criticized what they consider a “soft” approach on the battlefield by Putin’s generals.

Jake Sullivan and the United States: Biden’s Visit to Ukraine during the First Russian Invasion of the Balkans and the Primordial War Zone

A few hours before he departed, the United States informed Russia of the plans to visit the Ukrainian capital for “deconfliction purposes,” according to Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, is known for making belligerent pronouncements in an apparent bid to shore up his nationalist credentials.

Putin will be unaccustomed to the debate over Biden’s visit and will make a major speech to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday about the invasion.

Participants of what Russia refers to as its “special military operation” will be in attendance but foreign guests or representatives will not be invited, the Kremlin’s spokesperson told reporters Monday.

The risky trip to an active war zone on Monday was a powerful symbol of American support, it was a shot in the arm to the population that has suffered catastrophic Russian attacks on their health and power stations.

In the early days of the invasion, Russia’s dress uniforms were thought to be expecting a victory parade.

Biden is 80 and walks with a stiff gait. But he has no shortage of courage (air raid sirens sounded over Kyiv while Biden was there) or, crucially, competence.

Biden revealed Putins plan before the war started and made sure it looked like it was a Ukrainian provocation. The NATO alliance was so despised by the former president that he rallied it.

Zelensky said Biden’s visit brings them closer to victory and will have repercussions on the battlefield.

The Russian War in the Cold War and the Role of Strategic Nuclear Forces in the Security of the Weak Arms Control Agreement with the United States

Putin also said that he was suspending Russia’s participation in a critical arms control treaty, New START, with the U.S., though he stressed that Russia is not withdrawing from the treaty.

Mr. Putin’s announcement, he added, was “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible.” But he suggested that the United States would not change its compliance with the treaty, no matter what Russia did.

But he made clear that the United States would not be inspecting Russian nuclear sites, a central element of verifying compliance with the treaty. And more broadly, he sounded like a leader who was done with arms control at a time of escalating confrontation with the United States and NATO.

If that attitude holds, whoever is sitting in the Oval Office when the treaty expires in a bit more than 1,000 days may face a new world that will look, at first glance, similar to the one of a half-century ago, when arms races were in full swing and nations could field as many nuclear weapons as they wanted.

None of this changes the status quo very much. Nuclear inspections were stopped when inspectors on either side could not enter Russia or the US. As travel restrictions were lifted in Russia, Russians came up with reasons to deny inspections. Mr. Putin charged that the US was not living up to its inspection requirements.

There are many reasons. First, there is virtually no communication between the two countries. The “strategic stability talks” that Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin agreed upon in June 2021, at their only face-to-face meeting as presidents, were suspended after the invasion of Ukraine.

The treaty didn’t cover tactical nukes that Mr. Putin has threatened to use against Ukrainian forces, which most of the world is worried about. The United States and Russia both have a few hundred.

Putin told people present to stand for a moment of silence, acknowledging Russia’s losses in the war. The Russian leader also promised a range of social support packages for families of the fallen.

The Russia-U.S. War, Nuclear Warfare, and the Rise of the Cold War: A Commentary on Putin’s Great Again Challenge

The New Start came into force in 2011. Russia and the U.S are able to deploy up to 10 strategic nuclear warheads. The majority of deployable warheads are in the two countries.

The Russian leader again equated Ukraine’s “neo Nazi” government with Nazi Germany, and said Russia was defending itself just as the Soviet Union defended its territory during World War II.

Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on her verified account on social media. She has sole responsibility for the opinions she expresses in this commentary. CNN has more opinion.

The threat of nuclear Armageddon is terrifying for Americans who come of age after the Cold War, and even more so for those who lived through it.

Biden is correct in saying that this is a battle between freedom and oppression. In its own way, Putin’s emphasis on cultural and gender warfare is correct.

He is lying when he states that the West wants the destruction of the family, cultural and national identity, perversion and the abuse of children, and when he claims that the God is a gender neutral one. It is true, though, that there is a clear historical and contemporary relationship between conservative religiosity and autocracy on the one hand, and liberal tolerance and democracy on the other.

Conservative religiosity isn’t required for autocracy because it was definitely irreligious in the previous era of Russian autocracy. The autocrats in Beijing, who are expanding their own nuclear arsenals and looking for support to Russia, are not bringing conservative Christian principles to China.

They are embracing a number of traditionalism and hypermasculinity. A familiar refrain has been found among analysists of global authoritarians. Again, great again. Evan Osnos wrote a piece about how China’s leader is trying to make the country great again. “Putin set out to ‘Make Russia Great Again,’” Gen. David Petraeus told CNN earlier this month. And, of course, we all know the American version.

It is informative, though frightening, to realize how many right-wing Americans think Putin is going to bring in a stronger ruler to restore the traditional order in the West.

The most important difference between the east and west is the ability to live freely regardless of religious beliefs, sexual orientations and desires, and those who prefer authoritarian strong men who use the law to impose conservative values.

The Russian Economy: Donald Putin’s Rise to Self-Sustained Power, the Crimean Crimea Crisis and the Decline of the Ruling Dollar

Meanwhile, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that “NATO has been supplying the neo-Nazis in Ukraine with powerful weapons and extensive training on how to use them.”

Putin has positioned his Russia as the leading light for Christian nationalists worldwide, standing against Western secularism and decadence. And many Christian nationalists, including in the United States, have gotten in line.

This is also a divide between the US and Russia. Russia is divided as the nation’s feminists and democracy activists push for a more free and fair country. And it’s a divide within the US, too, between the Americans who want liberal democracy to thrive, and those who want their ideology to rule us all.

“The Russian economy and system of government have turned out to be much stronger than the West believed,” Putin said in a speech to Russia’s parliament Tuesday.

Russia was able to send crude oil to Europe, which it could send to countries like China and India. The International Energy Agency says the European Union imported 3.3 million barrels of Russian crude and oil products per day in 2021, but still purchases 2.3 million barrels per day.

Those measures are already straining Russia’s finances as it struggles to find replacement customers. The budget deficit for the month of January was more than 2 billion dollars. Expenditure jumped 59% year-over-year, while revenue plunged 35%. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that Russia would cut oil production by about 5% starting in March.

“The era of windfall profits from the oil and gas market for Russia is over,” Janis Kluge, an expert on Russia’s economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told CNN.

Meanwhile, the ruble has slumped to its weakest level against the US dollar since last April. The currency’s weakness has contributed to high inflation. And most businesses say they can’t conceive of growing right now given high levels of economic uncertainty, according to a recent survey by a Russian think tank.

One reason for Russia’s unexpected pluck was its push toward self-sufficiency following Putin’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Through a policy known as “Fortress Russia,” the government boosted domestic food production and policymakers forced banks to build up their reserves. Ash at Chatham House said that the degree of “durability” was created by that.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted an event last month where Sergey Akeshenko, a former deputy minister of finance, said it was a question of natural resources. That meant the economy experienced a decline, but “not a collapse,” he added.

The price of a barrel of Urals crude, Russia’s main blend, fell to an average of $49.50 in January after Europe’s oil embargo — as well as a Group of Seven price cap — took effect. The global benchmark stood at $82. That suggests that customers like India and China, seeing a smaller pool of interested buyers, are negotiating greater discounts. The budget of Russia in 2023 will be based on a Urals price of more than $70 per barrel.

Finding new buyers for processed oil products will be difficult, as embargoes and price caps will also be a problem. China and India have their own network of refineries and prefer to buy crude, noted Ben McWilliams, an energy consultant at Bruegel.

Russian companies are under pressure to plan for the future: a survey of Russian businesses in the 21st year of economic activity in the United Kingdom

The Russia Institute at King’s College London said energy resources will be used for military needs.

Across sectors, firms are struggling to plan for the future. A survey of more than 1000 businesses in Russia found that almost half of them don’t plan to increase production in the next two years. The group said this contributed to a high risk of “long-term stagnation of the Russian economy.”

“Whether the economy shrinks or expands in 2023 will be determined by developments in the war,” Tatiana Orlova, an economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. Shortages of workers tied to military conscription and emigration pose a key risk, she noted.

Sectors that rely on imports have been particularly vulnerable. Domestic car makers such as Avtovaz are having difficulty with shortages of key components and materials.

Last year, companies such as Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford and others stopped production and began to sell their local assets, causing Russia’s auto industry to be weakened. The Chinese firms have increased their presence. The Association of European Businesses reported that the sale of new cars dropped in January.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/business/russia-economy-ukraine-anniversary/index.html

What Ukrainian protests have to say about the past, present and future of the United States and their role in the security and security of the Ukrainian people

“In normal times, we might have said that the population would protest against that,” Sharafutdinova said. These are not normal times.

My organization, the Center for Civil Liberties, has been documenting abductions, illegal detentions, rapes, tortures and extra-judicial killings in the occupied territories since 2014. Since February of last year, the river of horrors has become a flood.

The democratic path that began during the revolution has been taken by Ukraine. More rights for local communities was given by the government. Parliament adopted legislation that makes it harder to hide abuse of power. Changes to our Constitution opened the way to judicial reform. There are a lot of things that still need to be done, but we were on the right track.

Over this past year, the emotions I have experienced have evolved. I still have anger over the death and destruction inflicted on Ukraine. But I have also felt a rising tide of love.

Because amid so many disappointments — in the ability of the international order to protect us, in the idea that the laws of war protect civilians — I have found we can still rely on people.

This was the spirit I saw during the protests in the Square. We believed in something better, even after the police beatings and killings. And it came.

In addition to this love, a future Ukraine where human rights are respected is what the country can rise from. Where perhaps we no longer need a Center for Civil Liberties to fight for them. It could be a vision of a world where the spirit of shared humanity prevails.

Putin welcomed Wang and told him relations between Beijing and Moscow were getting better.

There are always opportunities in a crisis and the two nations can probably turn into one, Wang told Putin.

And this new and complicated foreign policy picture is not just a problem for American diplomats. Rising challenges abroad as well, as the depletion of US and Western weapons stocks as arms are sent to Ukraine, pose questions about military capacity and whether current defense spending is sufficient. Key Republicans meanwhile are accusing Biden of snubbing voters facing economic and other problems, even as he tries to position Democrats as the protectors of working Americans as the 2024 campaign dawns.

The Ukrainian people love their country and the lust for land and power of President Putin is going to fail, said Biden.

Biden proved that the estrangement between the US and Russia is almost complete, which will have a large impact on global politics for years.

The US Secretary of State said that Washington was willing to discuss the nuclear situation with Russia even if other things were going on.

Even as it confronts Russia in Ukraine, the US is seeking to dampen its latest crisis with China – over what Washington says was a Chinese spy balloon that wafted over the continental US earlier this month. The two showdowns came closer to a linkage this week as the US warned China not to supply Russia with arms that it could use in the war in Ukraine and as Wang headed to Moscow.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that such a step would cross a US red line but did not specify what consequences could result.

The Battle of Kiev: How Chinese Foreign Policy May Prevent Discontent from the First Day of World War II – Memories of Newlyweds

China has watched the war in Ukraine through its rivalry with the US, so it may not be in a hurry to see the war end.

A conflict between the US and Europe can cause divisions, further putting Chinese foreign policy goals in jeopardy. Biden’s capacity to fulfill his foreign policy goals could be weakened due to political dissent in Washington.

Newlyweds who separated after saying their vows to make the groom return to the front are some of the stories I heard a year ago. A tax person quit her job in Boston so she could return to Ukraine with suitcases full of medical supplies. The wife of a border guard who travels three hours from the west to the east to bring in fleeing women and children daily picked up weapons and supplies.

How sad that humans who survived the waves of Covid only to be killed by someone else got back to their normal lives. It’s senseless to spend tens of billions of dollars on missiles, tanks and other aid, when more needs to be done to help communities adapt to rising oceans and drying rivers. It is lunacy that farmers have gone hungry while hiding in bomb shelters. It’s madness that Vladimir Putin declared Ukrainians to be part of his own people — right before he sent his army into the country, where Russian soldiers have been accused of raping and murdering civilians.

Governments gussy up war. They talk of victory because it gives soldiers hope and they want to fight on. The war is death in a muddy hole. It’s an existential fight over a frozen field with no strategic value. It’s a generational grudge that begets new generational grudges. The 1,100-mile, $11 billion Baltic Sea project has been rendered useless overnight. It is one of the largest steel plants in Europe, which is unable to produce a single metal sheet. Bombings and siege emptied the charming seaside city.

“What do I do when I’m stuck in Moscow”: Analogy to Alperovitch in the U.S. after he left Moscow

Kremlinolgists tried to understand the soviet union from information that came out of a highly secret Communist leadership. Some analysts argue against Putinology, saying it’s too simplistic to interpret a sprawling country like Russia through the study of one man. Some say the notion of an all-powerful leader also plays into the hands of Putin, who would like Russian citizens and the wider world to believe he has control over all aspects of Russia.

Alperovitch came to the US at the age of 13 and was born in Moscow. He’s never returned to Russia, though that country — and Putin — have shaped his life. The founder of CrowdStrike investigated Russian computer hacks including the 2016 Democratic National Committee data breach. Here’s how he describes the Russian leader: “I’ve always viewed him as a gambler. He’s got most of the time. Ukraine is the biggest gamble he has had so far.

Yet Putin has consolidated his hold on Russia throughout his more than two decades in power, and critical decisions — like invading Ukraine — are widely seen as the work of Putin alone.

Julia Ioffe is one Putinologists who accepts the label with reluctance. Ioffe, who writes for a news magazine and is interviewed by other publications, said that he had been fighting for it for a while. “But at the same time, people in the West have a really hard time understanding him. Somebody needs to translate him for the West. So OK, I’ll do it.” She left Moscow for the U.S. with her family at age 7 in 1990. In college at Princeton, she initially planned to be a doctor. “But I couldn’t resist Soviet history and switched tracks,” she noted. I was getting sucked in and trying to do something else. I’ve been doing this for my whole professional life, in one form or another. A three-year stint in Moscow was part of it. She was suggested to write a column by her editor. “It was supposed to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek thing because it was like, ‘Who does Kremlinology anymore?’” she recalled. “But the system was becoming more and more and more Soviet, and there were fewer and fewer ways to get into it, to understand it. So, it’s back.” Ioffe traveled to Russia until a few years ago. She writes about the way Putin shaped society in Russia and prepares it for military adventures.

“He created this cult around World War II. That makes you think about war. That sanctifies war. And then once a war starts, it’s pretty easy to convince Russians that this is a war just like that and that they need to go in and do it,” she said.

The One-Year anniversary of Russia’s invasion: What the US has to offer to the Ukrainians during the war and what Russia wants to do about it

If you remember correctly the Europe of a year ago, it was obvious that the West had learned its values and purpose.

The Russian dead I saw sprawled all over the road, were scruffy and only had their armor at their backs, with a sleeping mat and workout gloves for comfort.

Defense budgets were growing in recognition of Russian malice, but the hope was that Putin would be a benign grumpy neighbor arguing over the border fence, rather than a savage marauder bent on restoring an empire not even he had seen in full.

Is that a bad thing? Ukrainians should never have had to sacrifice. So much loss remains hidden: I recall being inside and shivering outside the administration building of Mykolaiv at the start of the war. How many must have been inside when the missile tore it in two?

The possibility Russia’s nastiest toys also fail in their most destructive use – that the nuclear button just smokes and whirrs when struck – is perhaps what is holding Putin back, or the same streak of self-preservation that has guided his every move.

The United States is prepared to support Ukraine for the long haul in the war against Russia and is confident Kyiv will prevail, senior Biden administration officials told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria at a unique CNN town hall marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

The questions at the town hall from Americans and Ukrainians were ranging from how the US will keep providing weaponry to Ukraine to an assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions.

Power was asked by Lera if she could rely on the United States to feel safe in her country. Power responded that the US was committed to making Ukrainians feel as safe as possible despite the war.

Sullivan said that there have been no movements in Russia’s nuclear forces that would lead them to believe that something has changed.

Sullivan said during the town hall that the Biden administration has approved a $2 billion package of weapons for the Ukrainians and that it is expected to be officially announced on Friday.

The $2 billion package includes new funding for contracts including HIMARS rockets, 155-millimeter artillery ammunition, drones, counter-drone equipment, mine-clearing equipment and secure communications equipment.

Sullivan was asked by a Ukrainian soldier named Yegor, currently serving on the front lines, whether the US would be able to increase production of ammunition and other weapons to Ukraine, such as 155-millimeter artillery shells and HIMARS.

“One of the things that we are working hard at – at President Biden’s direction – is to increase the production of all of these types of ammunition,” Sullivan said. “This is not something we can do with the snap of a finger, but it’s something that we are putting immense effort and resources into.”

He acknowledged that the Ukrainians have asked for more than the US is willing to give, and that the Biden administration has eventually moved weapons it had initially resisted sending.

Sullivan reiterated the Biden administration’s position Thursday evening that it’s not currently providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, saying the fighter jets “are not the key capability” Ukraine needs for a counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Sullivan was asked by Zakaria to react to a plan Beijing released that called for the end of fighting in Ukraine and offered its services as a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.

Both Sullivan and Power brushed aside criticism from some of Biden’s Republican critics that the billions of dollars the US is spending in Ukraine would be better spent at home.

“I would say to those senators, yes, let’s do these things at home. Do you mean that American is unable to serve as a powerful force of good in the world? Sullivan said.

I think there is pessimism in the argument that these senators are making. The president has an optimistic view that we can do it, we should do it and we are doing it.

The issue of US support for Ukraine is a rare one in which there is bipartisanship in Washington, as Power argued when she was asked about the similarities between citizens of both countries.

Power said that they have your backs, and they stand with you, as well as trying to help you feel safer, when one man tries to take that away.

The magic day of the first day of Ukraine War II: When Ukrainian soldiers arrived in Kherson, Ukraine, to make sure that humanitarian aid is going to Ukraine

Power acknowledged that it would take a long time to rebuild the country after the war ends. Some estimates have totaled the damage to date at $130 billion, she noted.

Power said that USAID and international financial institutions have worked to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure and help get private industry to return to peaceful parts of Ukraine.

She said that some major projects are still ahead, that the Biden administration is focused on making sure the money used for reconstruction is spent well, and that other allies are doing the same.

Most of the big-ticket items will only happen when there is a negotiated peace, Power said.

“But we have to make sure resources are going to be well spent,” she added. When you have huge investments, which go way past what is being provided right now, you want to make sure that you have the safeguards in place so that donors can know and know that this is money that’s going

The CEO of Ukraine Railways arrived in Kherson with a group of railway workers and Ukrainian special forces two days after the Russian troops left. They reached the central train station even before the regular army arrived to secure the city, and got to work. Six days later, the first train from Kyiv rolled into liberated Kherson.

“It was a magic day,” Kamyshin says. “We saw the faces of the people seeing the train, crying, waving their hands. I am certain that it was unforgettable. That’s one of the days to remember forever.”

Kamyshin and Ukraine’s rail workers have had to make countless small, but enormously consequential decisions that weren’t part of the pre-invasion script. They stopped issuing tickets so anyone who needed to travel could do so right away. They slowed down the trains to limit casualties in the event of derailment or sabotage. They changed the rules on pets so that evacuees could bring them as they fled—Ukraine Railways estimates 120,000 animals have traveled over the past 12 months.

During the first three weeks of last year’s war as Russian troops pushed into central and southern Ukraine, the railway prioritized moving humanitarian aid into towns and cities to be hit by rockets and bombs. Passenger trains went west toward the Polish border carrying refugees, then returned to the front filled with supplies.

In Mariupol, a port city on the Black Sea close to the Russian border that was bombarded relentlessly until resistance finally collapsed in May 2022, rail workers were able to get trains in and out multiple times before the tracks were destroyed. Two trains are still stuck, even though crews were able to leave by road.