Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: Like anyone who gets into his dream college, Victor Muller Ferreira was ecstatic when he was admitted to Johns Hopkins University’s graduate school in Washington in 2018. “Today we made the future — we managed to get in one of the top schools in the world,” he wrote in an email to those who had helped him gain entry to the elite master’s program in international relations. “This is the victory that belongs to all of…

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Michael Weiss reports: At first, the Russian pilots all thought it was a scam. But they agreed to go along with it anyway, especially after the initial payments came through. Last summer, a group of Ukrainian volunteers, working closely with their country’s intelligence service, apparently came close to persuading three Russian aviators who were in the midst of bombing Ukraine to defect with their warplanes in exchange for $1 million a piece. It was a bold, months-long operation, “like a…

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The New York Times reports: Hidden in the bowels of an unmarked building, set well back from the fighting, a command center directing operations in the city of Bakhmut was high-tech and humming. Soldiers monitored video screens with live feeds of destroyed buildings and a cratered battlefield. Six weeks after coming to help defend Bakhmut, the men of the Adam Tactical Group, one of Ukraine’s most effective battle units, were quietly confident they had turned the tide against Russian troops…

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The Washington Post reports: Russian intelligence agencies worked with a Moscow-based defense contractor to strengthen their ability to launch cyberattacks, sow disinformation and surveil sections of the internet, according to thousands of pages of confidential corporate documents. The documents detail a suite of computer programs and databases that would allow Russia’s intelligence agencies and hacking groups to better find vulnerabilities, coordinate attacks and control online activity. The documents suggest the firm was supporting operations including both social media disinformation and…

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An editorial in the Washington Post says: Information is the world’s lifeblood. It pulsates in torrents of facts and images. We are swamped with it. But information can be poison, a dangerous weapon. Disinformation, or organized lying, can be used to wage political warfare. As the historian Thomas Rid wrote in “Active Measures,” his book on the subject, disinformation can weaken a political system that places its trust in truth. “Disinformation operations, in essence, erode the very foundations of open…

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David J. Kramer, John Herbst, and William Taylor write: Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine last year and, for that matter, its first invasion of its neighbor eight years before are impossible to justify. Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to convince his public that this war is existential, but with little success. Russia’s existence as a strong, sovereign state is not dependent on its control of Ukraine or even parts of the Donbas or Crimea. That’s why, since Putin implemented…

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John Pomfret and Matt Pottinger write: Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he is preparing for war. At the annual meeting of China’s parliament and its top political advisory body in March, Xi wove the theme of war readiness through four separate speeches, in one instance telling his generals to “dare to fight.” His government also announced a 7.2 percent increase in China’s defense budget, which has doubled over the last decade, as well as plans to make the country less…

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The Guardian reports: One evening in late December, as Muscovites strolled along their city’s brightly lit streets in anticipation of the end-of-year celebrations, a group of old friends gathered for dinner at the flat of a senior state official. Some of the guests present, which included members of Russia’s cultural and political elite, toasted a new year in which they expressed hope for peace and a return to normality. As the night went on, a man who needed little introduction…

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Politico reports: China and the U.S. are in a race to build up their world power blocs, and both are using the same pressure point: the war in Ukraine. Last week, China’s leader Xi Jinping spent three days in Russia, solidifying his “no limits” partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden kicks off his second Summit for Democracy — aiming to rally world leaders around principles of freedom, rule of law and human rights. The…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The opening months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year drove an increase in oil and natural-gas prices that brought a windfall for Moscow. Those days are over. As the war continues into its second year and Western sanctions bite harder, Russia’s government revenue is being squeezed and its economy has shifted to a lower-growth trajectory, likely for the long term. The country’s biggest exports, gas and oil, have lost major customers. Government finances are…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia is helping Iran gain advanced digital-surveillance capabilities as Tehran seeks deeper cooperation on cyberwarfare, people familiar with the matter said, adding another layer to a burgeoning military alliance that the U.S. sees as a threat. The potential for cyberwarfare collaboration comes after Iran has, according to U.S. and Iranian officials, sold Russia drones for use in Ukraine, agreed to provide short-range missiles to Moscow and shipped tank and artillery rounds to the battlefield. Tehran…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: After months of new weapons deliveries from the West, Ukraine is poised to punch back at Russia’s invasion forces in coming weeks—a high-risk campaign that will set the course of subsequent battles and potential peace negotiations. Ukraine’s operational plans remain confidential, but some aspects of what is to come are discernible from a look at the equipment each side has—or doesn’t have—and their recent performance on the battlefield. Both are struggling to make gains and…

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Julian Borger writes: Like a lot of what Vladimir Putin says about nuclear weapons, his suggestion that Russia would start storing its bombs in Belarus may add up to less than it appears. In February last year, Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert, but there was no perceptible change in the country’s nuclear posture, or any unusual movements of its weapons. Putin and the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, have been hinting at some kind…

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Phillips Payson O’Brien writes: For the past four months, people around the world have witnessed the macabre process of Russian forces making repeated assaults near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut for only the tiniest of gains. By some counts, Russia has lost about five of its soldiers for every Ukrainian soldier lost—to say nothing of massive equipment losses. Although in theory a country can win a war by using its military forces to make forward assaults against an enemy’s forces,…

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  A string of mysterious explosions and a poisoning have targeted Bulgaria’s arms industry, which has been a crucial supplier of weapons to Ukraine. But amid mounting evidence of Russian involvement, critics accuse Bulgarian authorities of dragging their feet in their investigations of these unsolved blasts. A new @svobodna-evropa documentary looks into evidence of Russian sabotage, claims that there have been cover-ups by Bulgarian authorities, and whether Bulgarian arms depots are still at risk as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine…

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Douglas London writes: Vladimir Putin seeks to prevail in Ukraine through an exhausting war of attrition in which he outlasts his opponents, or so the expert consensus has it. The U.S. is supplying weapons to Ukraine at a remarkably slow pace, perhaps for fear of provoking a calamitous Russian escalation. It seems as if Washington is playing right into Mr. Putin’s hands. But maybe not everything is as it seems. If I learned anything from decades as a Russian-speaking Central…

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