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Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy

Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy

The Washington Post reports: With upgraded weaponry on the way, Western resolve holding firm, and the Ukrainian army continuing to outmaneuver and outwit Russia’s flailing military, Ukraine’s promised “year of victory” is off to a good start. If 2023 continues as it began, there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to fulfill President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Year’s pledge to retake all of Ukraine by the end of the year — or at least enough territory to definitively end…

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Russia and Belarus extend military drills amid fears of new push into Ukraine

Russia and Belarus extend military drills amid fears of new push into Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Russia and Belarus have expanded their joint military training exercises in Belarus, the country’s defence TV channel said on Sunday, as concern grows that Moscow is pressuring its closest ally to join the war in Ukraine. The two countries added weapons, soldiers and specialised equipment to the exercises and were doing drills drawing on Russian experience in Ukraine, Reuters reported. On Friday the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, visited a military base where Russian troops are stationed to…

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Now fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers seeking revenge against Russia

Now fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers seeking revenge against Russia

The New York Times reports: The sharp crack of sniper fire rang out across the snowbound valley. Soldiers in white camouflage crouched low, shooting at the hill opposite to provide cover as four men evacuated a casualty. The action was part of a live-fire training exercise for new recruits on a recent morning outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. But there was an unusual element to the event. While a Ukrainian Army officer was giving the orders, the trainees were members…

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Turkey supports Ukraine without alienating Russia

Turkey supports Ukraine without alienating Russia

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: On Dec. 20, two Turkish air force A400M transport aircraft that had been stranded at an airfield just outside of Kyiv for 299 days took off and returned home. The planes, believed to have been used to shuttle Turkish drones and other weapons to Ukraine, had been grounded by Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. The airspace between Ukraine and Turkey since has remained contested by Russia and too dangerous to risk the return journey. What…

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Brazil is having its own Jan. 6

Brazil is having its own Jan. 6

Rollng Stone reports: Images eerily evocative of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol are coming out of Brazil as thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro storm government buildings in the capital of Brasília. According to The New York Times, protesters have breached Brazil’s Congress, presidential offices, and Supreme Court believing Bolsonaro’s baseless claims that the recent presidential election was stolen from him. President Joe Biden condemned the attacks as an “assault on democracy and on…

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From Gingrich to McCarthy, the roots of governance by chaos

From Gingrich to McCarthy, the roots of governance by chaos

Robert Draper writes: Newt Gingrich was disdainful. After watching days of House Republicans failing to elect a speaker, Mr. Gingrich, the most famous of all recent G.O.P. House speakers, vented about the hard-right holdouts, among them Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida. “There’s no deal you can make with Gaetz,” Mr. Gingrich said in an interview Thursday night. “He’s essentially bringing ‘Lord of the Flies’ to the House of Representatives.” In contrast, Mr. Gingrich said of his own speakership, which sought…

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Inside the right’s plans to seize power in the new Congress

Inside the right’s plans to seize power in the new Congress

The Grid reports: A week after the midterm elections in November, a small group of far-right GOP lawmakers and activists gathered on K Street in Washington, D.C., to discuss strategies to use their narrow majority to extract power in the House. The next Congress, influential activist Ed Corrigan said, could be a “European-style coalition government” run by three groups: “The Democrats, the Republicans and the Freedom Caucus.” The forum was convened by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and attended by several…

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Enablers, line-straddlers and quiet resisters: How GOP lawmakers contributed to Jan. 6

Enablers, line-straddlers and quiet resisters: How GOP lawmakers contributed to Jan. 6

Politico reports: A handful of Republicans who remained in the Jan. 6 committee’s sights throughout its investigation are now leading the effort to deny Kevin McCarthy the speakership — using their power to bring the House to a standstill. During its last days of existence, the Capitol riot panel unleashed a massive trove of evidence with an unmistakable conclusion: At every stage of former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results, a phalanx of hardline GOP lawmakers…

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How Trump’s missing call logs could become his Nixon tapes

How Trump’s missing call logs could become his Nixon tapes

The Daily Beast reports: During the nearly nine hours that Congress was under attack on Jan. 6, 2021, the official White House call logs show former President Donald Trump not placing a single phone call. And while historians may consider the missing call logs a crime of inaccurately memorializing history, it may also actually bolster the expected criminal case against Trump. “The first thing one thinks of is the Nixon tapes, the missing 18 minutes. It’s never been resolved,” said…

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Historical perspectives on Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

Historical perspectives on Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

Uilleam Blacker writes: In the 2007 film “Katyn,” directed by Poland’s acclaimed Andrzej Wajda, a young woman in wartime Krakow tries to sell her hair to raise money for a headstone for her brother, who has been murdered and buried in an unmarked grave by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. She finds a buyer in a local theater, an actress who survived Auschwitz and lost her own hair. The actress watches as the woman’s long braids are cut off…

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Imagine if the current speaker impasse were occurring in a presidential inaugural year

Imagine if the current speaker impasse were occurring in a presidential inaugural year

The Bulwark reports: As Kevin McCarthy repeatedly fails to secure enough votes to become speaker and the House of Representatives sits in limbo, Democrats say they are increasingly concerned about the risks to national security involved in a prolonged period without any active members or ability to conduct legislative business. Currently, every elected member of the House has yet to be sworn in to office, leaving committee structures up in the air and creating a backlog of onboarding for freshmen…

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In House speaker fight, Trump struggles to play kingmaker

In House speaker fight, Trump struggles to play kingmaker

The New York Times reports: After Kevin McCarthy failed to win enough votes to become House speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump held a call with Mr. McCarthy and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, one of the key Republican members of Congress blocking Mr. McCarthy’s bid. Mr. Trump’s goal was to break the logjam. But if Mr. Trump had wanted Mr. Perry to quickly flip, it wasn’t to be: The next day, Mr. Perry voted against Mr. McCarthy three…

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Kevin McCarthy is showing other Republicans how much there is to gain from pushing him around

Kevin McCarthy is showing other Republicans how much there is to gain from pushing him around

Michelle Goldberg writes: McCarthy evidently believed that by courting Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avatar of hyper-performative politics, he could co-opt her wing of the party. He was set to offer her valuable committee assignments, and, according to Draper, had even offered to create a new leadership position for her. But her elevation would be valuable to other Trumpists only if there were concrete things they hoped to accomplish together. Putting Greene on the Oversight Committee does nothing to help…

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U.S. and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine

U.S. and Germany agree to send infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Joe Biden and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz have agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine fight Russia, a day after France said it would supply its own armoured vehicles to Kyiv in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the 10-month war. The joint announcement followed a phone call between Biden and Scholz and amounts to a step change in western military support for Ukraine, which has asked for up to 700 armoured vehicles…

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Number of populist world leaders at 20-year low

Number of populist world leaders at 20-year low

The Guardian reports: The number of populist leaders around the world has fallen to a 20-year low after a series of victories for progressives and centrists over the past year, according to analysis from the Tony Blair Institute showing the number of people living under populist rule has fallen by 800 million in two years. The research claims 2023 could be an equally decisive year for populism, with critical elections in Turkey and Poland. Those two elections could see two…

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The Kevin McCarthy mess is peak Trumpism

The Kevin McCarthy mess is peak Trumpism

Molly Jong-Fast writes: Despite his best efforts, the leopards have finally come for Kevin McCarthy’s face. For those not extremely online, I’m referring to a 2015 tweet from YA novelist Adrian Bott: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” It’s nearly eight years later and McCarthy is learning this lesson the hard way, as his quixotic quest for the Speakership, which spanned most of that time, is falling…

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