Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: Russian soldiers, wearing balaclavas and wielding guns, flanked election workers. Ukrainians were forced to vote while Russian officials or their proxies stood guard. Some residents even hid in their homes, terrified that voting against Russia’s annexation would lead to their being abducted, or worse. As Russia began orchestrating staged voting in referendums across Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine on Friday, Ukrainians in those areas expressed a mix of anger, defiance and fear that their homeland was…

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The Washington Post reports: The United States for several months has been sending private communications to Moscow warning Russia’s leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, who said the messages underscore what President Biden and his aides have articulated publicly. The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague, so the Kremlin worries about how Washington might respond, the officials…

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The Washington Post reports: Within hours of President Vladimir Putin’s speech declaring a partial military mobilization on Wednesday, men all over Russia — including some who had tried for months to ignore the messy war in Ukraine — suddenly found their lives thrown into chaos as they were summoned to duty. The men, mostly reservists under 35 who served in the army and have junior military ranks, were handed written notices in their offices or at their homes. In some…

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The Guardian reports: Summons delivered to eligible men at midnight. Schoolteachers pressed into handing out draft notices. Men given an hour to pack their things and appear at draft centres. Women sobbing as they send their husbands and sons off to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine. The first full day of Russia’s first mobilisation since the second world war produced emotional showdowns at draft centres and even signs of protest, while it appears Russia could be considering far more…

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CNN reports: Russia’s military is divided over how best to counter Ukraine’s unexpected battlefield advances this month, according to multiple sources familiar with US intelligence, as Moscow has found itself on the defensive in both the east and the south. Russian President Vladimir Putin is himself giving directions directly to generals in the field, two sources familiar with US and western intelligence said– a highly unusual management tactic in a modern military that these sources said hints at the dysfunctional…

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New Lines reports: The blood of Ukrainian detainees is still visible on the floor and on the wooden batons Russian forces used to beat them. Ukrainians were tied to metal-framed chairs before being electrocuted with cables or choked with a length of rope. Proof of the horrors to which local residents were subjected during more than six months of occupation was revealed on Sept. 19 in a dark and dust-filled basement under the police station in Izium, a strategic city…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the threat of a nuclear response in the conflict and ordered reservists to mobilize, escalating the war in Ukraine following stinging losses on the battlefield and drawing harsh criticism from President Biden. “Russia will use all the instruments at its disposal to counter a threat against its territorial integrity—this is not a bluff,” Mr. Putin said in a national address that blamed the West for the conflict in Ukraine, where…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: President Vladimir Putin’s moves to mobilize as many as 300,000 reservists, threaten nuclear strikes and annex occupied parts of Ukraine show how badly the war has gone for Russia, military and political analysts say, and are unlikely to stop the Ukrainian advance or reverse the battlefield situation in the immediate future. Mr. Putin made these announcements a day after snap referendums on joining Russia were called for Friday in the Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk,…

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