Attention to the Unseen

Reuters reports: Russia can access enough tankers to ship most of its oil beyond the reach of a new G7 price cap, industry players and a U.S. official told Reuters, underscoring the limits of the most ambitious plan yet to curb Moscow’s wartime revenue. The Group of Seven countries agreed last month to cap Russian oil sales at an enforced low price by Dec. 5 but faced consternation from main players in the global oil industry who feared the move…

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David Rothkopf writes: Vladimir Putin is fighting a two-front war. Sure, he’s losing badly in Eastern Ukraine, but things are looking up for the Russian dictator in the West—at least on the political front that runs through every ballot box in America. Although the resilience, courage, and skill of the Ukrainian military has driven Putin to increasingly desperate and depraved measures to avoid further battlefield humiliation, he can see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. And it’s being provided…

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Boris Bondarev writes: For three years, my workdays began the same way. At 7:30 a.m., I woke up, checked the news, and drove to work at the Russian mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva. The routine was easy and predictable, two of the hallmarks of life as a Russian diplomat. February 24 was different. When I checked my phone, I saw startling and mortifying news: the Russian air force was bombing Ukraine. Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Odessa were under…

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NBC News reports: Amid concerns that a new Congress could take a more skeptical view of aid to Ukraine, lawmakers from both parties are looking to lock in billions of dollars in military assistance to Kyiv before newly elected members are sworn in in January, according to a lawmaker and congressional staffers. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who is poised to take over as speaker if the GOP wins a majority in the House in the November midterm…

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The New York Times reports: Friday afternoons at the Chop-Chop Barbershop in central Moscow used to be busy, but at the beginning of a recent weekend, only one of the four chairs was occupied. “We would usually be full right now, but about half of our customers have gone,” said the manager, a woman named Olya. Many of the clients — along with half of the barbers, too — have fled Russia to avoid President Vladimir V. Putin’s campaign to…

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Reuters reports: Ukraine said Russia had destroyed almost a third of its power stations over the past week as Moscow stepped up a pre-winter campaign to strike infrastructure, a move the West says is a calculated attempt to disrupt and demoralise. Missiles struck power generating facilities in a clutch of Ukrainian cities home to millions of people and several people were killed. Moscow acknowledged targeting energy plants, while Ukraine said water infrastructure had also been hit. “The situation is critical…

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The New York Times reports: The Iranian-made drones that Russia sent on Monday to divebomb Ukraine’s capital delivered the most emphatic proof yet that Tehran has become a rare, increasingly close ally to the Kremlin, offering both weapons and international support that Russia sorely lacks. There is no deep love between Russia, newly a pariah for attacking another country, and Iran, for decades one of the most strategically isolated nations in the world. But the two authoritarian governments, both chafing…

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The Guardian reports: Germany’s interior minister has sacked the country’s cybersecurity chief, after allegations he had turned a blind eye to a firm with links to Russian security circles. Arne Schönbohm, the president of the German Federal Office for Information Security, was released from his duties with immediate effect on Tuesday, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported, citing security sources. A spokesperson for the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, confirmed that Schönbohm would be barred from his office, as “necessary public…

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Politico‘s Maura Reynolds: We’ve recently had Elon Musk step into this conflict trying to promote discussion of peace settlements. What do you make of the role that he’s playing? Hill: It’s very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin. There was a conference in Aspen in late September when Musk offered a version of what was in his tweet — including the recognition of Crimea as Russian because it’s been mostly Russian since the 1780s — and…

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The Washington Post reports: Police and military officers swooped down on a Moscow business center this week unannounced. They were looking for men to fight in Ukraine — and they seized nearly every one they saw. Some musicians, rehearsing. A courier there to deliver a parcel. A man from a Moscow service agency, very drunk, in his mid-50s, with a walking disability. “I have no idea why they took him,” said Alexei, who, like dozens of others in the office…

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Mick Ryan writes: Since the beginning of their invasion, Russia’s military has been forced by the Ukrainians to continually re-assess their strategic objectives. This is not unusual in warfare. While political objectives shape how war is conducted and what battles are fought, so too do battles reshape political objectives. The Ukrainian resistance, and their defeat of the Russians in the north of the country early in the war, have unhinged the Russian overall campaign for Ukraine. This has been the…

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The Guardian reports: Russian soldiers have shot dead a Ukrainian musician in his home after he refused to take part in a concert in occupied Kherson, according to the culture ministry in Kyiv. Conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko declined to take part in a concert “intended by the occupiers to demonstrate the so-called ‘improvement of peaceful life’ in Kherson”, the ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page. The concert on 1 October was intended to feature the Gileya chamber orchestra,…

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