Attention to the Unseen

Foreign Policy interviews former NATO chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen: FP: What lessons will NATO planners draw from what they’ve seen of Russia’s military? AFR: I think we have made two miscalculations. We have overestimated the strength of the Russian military. Despite huge investments in military equipment and the reopening of old Soviet bases, we have seen a very weak Russian military. It remains to be seen why this is. I think corruption may be one of the reasons. But the…

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The Guardian reports: Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has described Vladimir Putin as “absolutely rational, cold, cruel, black evil” and claimed he is determined to go down in Russian history alongside Stalin and Peter the Great. In an exclusive interview, Tymoshenko dismissed the suggestion that the Russian president was “crazy”. “He acts according to his own dark logic,” she said. “He’s driven by this idea of historic mission and wants to create an empire. That’s his hyper-goal. It comes…

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Reuters reports: The town of Valuyki in western Russia has become a crucial staging post in the latest phase of Russia’s war over the nearby border in Ukraine. Throughout last month, helicopters buzzed overhead, military vehicles clogged the roads, and soldiers prepared for combat at a huge military base there. It’s also a place where soldiers’ relatives and private citizens are working to provide supplies and equipment for troops based near the town to address shortages, including drones, radios and heat-detecting…

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The New York Times reports: The Kremlin-backed mayor of the Ukrainian town of Enerhodar was standing on his mother’s porch when a powerful blast struck, leaving him critically wounded. A week later, about 75 miles away, a car packed with explosives rocked the office of another Russian-appointed official in the occupied southern city of Melitopol. In a rarity, both Ukrainian and Russian officials confirmed the blasts, which struck deep inside Russian-controlled territory. And both explosions appeared to be the work…

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The New York Times reports: Since Russia invaded, NATO nations have upgraded Ukraine’s arsenal with increasingly sophisticated tools, with more promised, like the advanced multiple-launch rocket systems pledged by the United States and Britain. But training soldiers how to use the equipment has become a significant and growing obstacle — one encountered daily by Junior Sgt. Dmytro Pysanka and his crew, operating an aged antitank gun camouflaged in netting and green underbrush in southern Ukraine. Peering through the sight attached…

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The Guardian reports: Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s east has brought it some battlefield success as its military has advanced slowly in fierce fighting in Donbas. But those gains have come at a high price for the Russian invasion force, with evidence that high-level casualties are growing and that some units may be approaching exhaustion as the war moves past its 100-day mark. As the conflict drags on, some fighters have gone public with appeals to Vladimir Putin for an investigation…

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The Washington Post reports: For Russia’s urban middle class, the war on Ukraine has messed up plans, ruined longed-for vacations and stripped away joys like shopping for a favorite foreign clothing brand, turning the key in a new Japanese car, even biting into a Big Mac. As the war drags on, many yearn for life to go back to normal, before prices went crazy and foreign companies quit the country over Russia’s invasion. But these Russians are equally sure that…

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The New York Times reports: Russia has bombed, blockaded and plundered the grain production capacity of Ukraine, which accounts for one-tenth of global wheat exports, resulting in dire forecasts of increased hunger and of spiking food prices around the world. Now, the United States has warned that the Kremlin is trying to profit from that plunder by selling stolen wheat to drought-stricken countries in Africa, some facing possible famine. In mid-May, the United States sent an alert to 14 countries,…

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