Attention to the Unseen

David Remnick writes: When I asked [Mikhail] Zygar [former editor-in-chief of TV Rain] what was the most striking aspect of the uprising, he said, “Putin is weaker. I have the feeling he is not really running the country. Certainly, not the way he once did. He is still President, but all the different clans”—the factions within the government, the military, and, most important, the security services—“now have the feeling that ‘Russia after Putin’ is getting closer. Putin is still alive….

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Politico reports: President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday, a day after Russian mercenary forces reversed their plans to march on Moscow, Zelenskky said. The White House confirmed the call on Sunday afternoon. Zelenskyy and Biden discussed “the course of hostilities and the processes taking place in Russia,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Twitter. “The world must put pressure on Russia until international order is restored.” [Continue reading…] David Ignatius writes: The Biden administration’s response…

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The New York Times reports: American intelligence officials briefed senior military and administration officials on Wednesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, was preparing to take military action against senior Russian defense officials, according to officials familiar with the matter. U.S. spy agencies had indications days earlier that Mr. Prigozhin was planning something and worked to refine that material into a finished assessment, officials said. The information shows that the United States was aware of impending…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner paramilitary group, said his forces will stop their march on Moscow and return to their camps to avoid bloodshed, as the Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko announced a deal to halt the armed confrontation threatening Russia. Lukashenko, who said he spent most of Saturday negotiating with Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said an agreement was reached “that unleashing a bloodbath on the territory of Russia was unacceptable.” The deal offered to Prigozhin…

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Meduza reports: Prigozhin “started to get restless” about two weeks ago, sources close to the Kremlin and the Russian government told Meduza, right after Putin said that mercenary groups would be required to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry if they wanted to continue serving in Ukraine. Putin himself explained that the change was necessary so that Wagner mercenaries could be “covered by social guarantees.” But Prigozhin categorically refused to sign an agreement with the agency and made unofficial…

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The Guardian reports: From the elevated deck of his command post, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces, peers down with pinched eyes and furrowed brow at the expanse of scrubland and forest laid out in front of him as an assault unit of soldiers seeks to cross a heavily mined field. It is evident that the general would like a little more speed. “This isn’t a show,” says Syrskyi. The men running from trench to armoured…

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The Moscow Times reports: The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group on Friday accused the country’s military leadership of ordering strikes on the group’s camps and killing a “huge” number of forces. In an extraordinary declaration against the Defense Ministry, with whom he has been feuding publicly for months, Yevgeny Prigozhin vowed to “stop” Russia’s top military brass and urged ordinary Russians to remain calm. [Continue reading…] A new FSB statement: "Prigozhin’s statements and actions amount to calls for the…

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An editorial in the Washington Post says: In the spring of 2012, Vladimir Putin was feeling the pressure. For months, anti-Putin protests had surged through the streets of Moscow and other cities following fraudulent parliamentary elections the previous December. Mr. Putin, who was about to be sworn in for a third term as president, harbored a fear of “color” revolutions — the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine — as well as other popular revolts…

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HuffPost reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday he believes Russia acted in “good faith” amid the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, adding the U.S., in fact, bore heavy responsibility for the ongoing war. Kennedy, who announced his bid for the Democratic nomination in April, made the comments on SiriusXM’s “The Briefing with Steve Scully.” Scully asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued effort to seize part of Ukraine despite international condemnation. Kennedy claimed the way forward involved “baby steps” toward…

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