Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: Steep Russian casualties in key battles in eastern Ukraine have prompted an unusual public outcry — and sharp criticism of military commanders — by surviving soldiers and family members of recently conscripted fighters, who say their units were led to slaughter in poorly planned operations. The uproar over battlefield losses near Vuhledar in the Donetsk region prompted an official statement from the Russian Defense Ministry, which sought to play down the reportedly high death toll among…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was open to negotiations with Russia if they are focused on safeguarding Ukraine’s territorial integrity, compensating Kyiv and bringing to justice perpetrators of war crimes. Speaking ahead of his address to a global climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky said late Monday: “Anyone who treats seriously the climate agenda should just as seriously treat the necessity of immediately stopping Russian aggression, resuming our territorial integrity and forcing…

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The Guardian reports: Hours after Aleksei Agafonov arrived in the Luhansk region on 1 November as part of a battalion of new conscripts, his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night. Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit. “A…

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The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions. The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: President Biden’s top national-security adviser has engaged in recent months in confidential conversations with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict over Ukraine and warn Moscow against using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, U.S. and allied officials said. The officials said that U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has been in contact with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Putin. Mr. Sullivan…

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The New York Times reports: The Defense Department is setting up a new command to oversee how the United States and its allies train and equip the Ukrainian military, the Pentagon announced on Friday along with a new package of $400 million in security assistance. The Pentagon’s commitment to supplying Ukraine with weaponry and the new command are clear signals that the United States expects the threat from Russia to Ukraine and its neighbors to persist for many years, current…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The majority of Americans support continuing aid to Ukraine in what will likely be a prolonged war with Russia, but support is becoming a partisan issue as Republican opposition grows to helping the country, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. Military and financial aid to Ukraine has emerged as one of many political flashpoints days before a midterm election in which control of the Congress is at stake. The continuing flow of aid…

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James Rushton and Michael Weiss write: It’s a cold and rainy morning as Yahoo News arrives at an anonymous industrial estate somewhere outside of Kyiv. We are here to meet the volunteers of Ukraine Aid Ops, one of a growing number of civilian organizations that supply Ukrainian troops and civilians with humanitarian and nonlethal military aid. Over the next four days they have more than 10 deliveries to make to Ukrainian troops spread across the east of the country, supplying…

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Jim Rutenberg reports: On the night of July 28, 2016, as Hillary Clinton was accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in Philadelphia, Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, received an urgent email from Moscow. The sender was a friend and business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik. A Russian citizen born in Soviet Ukraine, Kilimnik ran the Kyiv office of Manafort’s international consulting firm, known for bringing cutting-edge American campaign techniques to clients seeking to have their way with fragile democracies around…

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CNN reports: Russian military officials have discussed how and under what conditions Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to a US intelligence assessment described to CNN by multiple sources who have read it. The assessment, drafted by the National Intelligence Council, is not a high confidence product and is not raw intelligence but rather analysis, multiple people who have read it told CNN. For that reason, some officials believe the conversations reflected in…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Saudi Arabia has shared intelligence with the U.S. warning of an imminent attack from Iran on targets in the kingdom, putting the American military and others in the Middle East on an elevated alert level, Saudi and U.S. officials said. In response to the warning, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and several other neighboring states have raised the level of alert for their military forces, the officials said. They didn’t provide more details on the Saudi…

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CNN reports: Iran is preparing to send approximately 1,000 additional weapons, including surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones, to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine, officials from a western country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program told CNN. The shipment is being closely monitored because it would be the first instance of Iran sending advanced precision guided missiles to Russia, which could give the Kremlin a substantial boost on the battlefield. The last shipment of…

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The Washington Post reports: In Ohio, Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R) said the United States would have to “stop the money spigot to Ukraine eventually.” J.R. Majewski, a fellow Ohio Republican running for a House seat, has criticized President Biden for “[cutting] billion-dollar checks to Ukraine” during a time of inflation at home. In New Hampshire, Senate candidate Don Bolduc (R) said U.S. aid to Ukraine is “money we don’t have.” Opposition to — or skepticism of — sending more…

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