Attention to the Unseen

Rolling Stone reports: In the months before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, an oligarch with Russian ties allegedly paid for locals to paint swastikas around Kharkiv, sources say. The effort, according to the sources, was part of a false flag operation to exaggerate Ukraine’s Nazi presence at a time when Putin was using it as a pretext for war. The alleged plot, according to multiple sources, involved Pavel Fuks, a real estate, banking, and oil magnate who, the sources claim,…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: NATO says that up to 40,000 Russian troops have been killed, wounded, taken prisoner or are missing in Ukraine, said a senior military official from the alliance. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization calculates the figure based on information provided by Ukrainian authorities and information obtained from Russia–both officially and unintentionally, the official said. NATO estimates that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the invasion began on Feb. 24. Using statistical averages…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia invaded Ukraine in February with an arsenal of advanced fighter planes, bombers and guided missiles, but significant combat losses in more than three weeks of fighting raise questions whether Moscow will ever fully dominate the skies. The Ukrainian military is using a patchwork of Soviet-era air-defense batteries dating to the 1980s and modern, shoulder-launched missiles supplied by the U.S. and others in the West to inflict heavy losses on Russian combat planes and helicopters….

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The Guardian reports: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is primarily Vladimir Putin’s war, but if there is a second man whose name and reputation will be tied to the devastation unleashed by Moscow it is Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. His fighters were part of the first wave assault on the country, and died in large numbers around the Hostomel airbase, with one key commander among those killed. Elite Chechen squads were also reportedly recruited for failed attempts to assassinate key Ukrainian…

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Anne Applebaum writes: The war in Ukraine has reached a turning point. The Russian troops that invaded the country from the north, south, and east are now scarcely moving. They have targeted schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, and a theater sheltering children, but they are not yet in control even of the places they occupy. And no wonder: Few Ukrainians are willing to collaborate with the occupiers. The overwhelming majority, more than 90 percent, believe they will defeat them. The Ukrainian…

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Tom Mutch reports: “Russian terrorists did this. … And my father is Russian, from Belgorod!” Galina, a 63-year-old cashier, says as she pulls her belongings from the wreckage of what used to be her apartment. As she gestures at the rubble behind her, she tells us, “They dumped an enormous bomb from a plane over there, at what used to be our flat.” Galina and her husband, Sergey, also 63, have not left the city because they have nowhere to…

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The Guardian reports: It has been three weeks since Russia updated the official death toll to its invasion in Ukraine, leaving open the question of how many of its soldiers have been killed or wounded in the chaotic opening stages of its war. In early March, the Russian defence ministry admitted that 498 Russian soldiers had been killed in action and 1,500 wounded, a large number after just 10 days of fighting that pointed to the danger of its attempts…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Over the past 120 years, a Beirut bakery has survived civil war, Lebanon’s financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Fighting in Ukraine, disrupting food and energy supplies world-wide, may soon put it out of business. Zouhair Khafiyeh’s storefront is empty of the pastries and meat-stuffed pies he has sold for years, which helped put his children through college. The cost of a bag of flour on the black market has gone up more than 1000%…

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