Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Last week, President Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv as an act of defiance meant to mark the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. This week, back in Washington, grimmer realities are setting in. Biden will host German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House on Friday in what will be, on the surface, another display of Western unity with Ukraine as it repels Russia’s punishing invasion. But the show of solidarity comes against a backdrop of growing…

Read More Read More

Peter Beaumont writes: War breeds euphemism and metaphor. In the battle for the Donbas city of Bakhmut, threatened with a closing encirclement by Russian forces after seven months of bitter fighting, there are “White Angels” and “Dark Angels”, the “road of life” (the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway, which is anything but) and the “Invincibility Centre”. The White Angels, a police evacuation group, scour the lethal districts of the shell-ruined city to evacuate children and the elderly. Their counterparts, the Dark Angels, take…

Read More Read More

Politico reports: The EU is seeking countries outside the bloc to join its efforts to collectively provide ammunition, with at least Norway already expressing interest, according to one EU official and two diplomats. The push is part of an EU plan to help provide larger quantities of lower-cost ammunition for Ukraine, while also boosting Europe’s capacity to produce and resupply its own dwindling stocks. Canada could also be included in the scheme, added a second EU official, who, like the…

Read More Read More

NBC News reports: Initial U.S. intelligence suggesting that China is considering supplying lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine was gleaned from Russian government officials, according to one current and one former U.S. official familiar with the intelligence. U.S. officials then spent weeks corroborating the information from other sources of intelligence, the current and former officials said, and with allies who also brought additional streams of information. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive…

Read More Read More

The Guardian reports: The oligarch Oleg Deripaska has said Russia could run out of money by next year unless the country secures investment from “friendly” countries as western sanctions bite. Deripaska, an energy and metals tycoon who was once Russia’s richest person, told an investment conference in Siberia on Thursday: “There will be no money already next year. We will need foreign investors.” Deripaska, who is subject to UK, US and EU sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said funds…

Read More Read More

The Guardian reports: Finland’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved legislation allowing the country to join Nato, increasing the chances of it becoming a member of the transatlantic defensive alliance before its Nordic neighbour Sweden. Both countries last year abandoned decades of military non-alignment in a historic policy shift triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, submitting simultaneous Nato membership applications and pledging to complete the process “hand-in-hand”. However, new entrants must be approved by all 30 existing members and while both applications still await…

Read More Read More