Attention to the Unseen

The Guardian reports: Russia has appointed a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s as its first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, as the Kremlin struggles to halt a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has left its forces in disarray. The appointment of Gen Sergei Surovikin came on the same day as Vladimir Putin was dealt a humiliating blow after an explosion on the Kerch bridge sank a section of the motorway into the Kerch Strait…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: A major explosion on Saturday severely damaged the bridge connecting Russia’s mainland to the occupied Crimean Peninsula, disrupting traffic on a crucial artery for the supply of fuel, military equipment and food to Russian troops fighting to hold ground in southern Ukraine. The bridge, opened by President Vladimir Putin to great fanfare in 2018, was meant to symbolize the might of the Russian state and the permanence of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula four years…

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The Washington Post reports: Russian Ground Forces Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, who over a 44-year military career was best-known for scorched-earth tactics in campaigns he led in Syria and Chechnya, was named overall operational commander of the war in Ukraine in April. He lasted about seven weeks before being dismissed as part of what appeared to be a wider shake-up in response to heavy losses and strategic failures. Around the same time, Col. Gen. Andrey Serdyukov, another four-decade serviceman, the commander…

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CNN reports: The Ukrainians’ bodies lay side-by-side on the grass, the earth beside them splayed open by a crater. Dragged to the spot by Russian mercenaries, the victims’ arms pointed to where they had died. “Let’s plant a grenade on them,” a voice says in husky Russian, in what appears to be a plan to booby-trap the bodies. “There is no need for a grenade, we will just bash them in,” another says of the Ukrainian soldiers who will come…

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The Washington Post reports: When President Vladimir Putin yelled, “We will win!” at a Red Square concert to celebrate his illegal annexation of Ukrainian lands on Friday, he projected the hubris of a man who cannot accept defeat. Putin has said Russia will not lose in Ukraine. But multiple battlefield defeats and national fury over a botched military mobilization have broken a taboo in Moscow on discussions about what would happen if Putin did lose — not just the war,…

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The Washington Post reports: A member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle has voiced disagreement directly to the Russian president in recent weeks over his handling of the war in Ukraine, according to information obtained by U.S. intelligence. The criticism marks the clearest indication yet of turmoil within Russia’s leadership over the stewardship of a war that has gone disastrously wrong for Moscow, forcing Putin last month to order the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops in a desperate bid…

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Politico reports: The Pentagon said Friday that it still has seen no indications that Vladimir Putin is planning to launch nuclear weapons after President Joe Biden warned of the risk of a nuclear “Armageddon.” Biden’s comments show how seriously the U.S. is taking Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons, Defense Department spokesperson J. Todd Breasseale said in a statement to POLITICO. “However — and to be clear: we have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture…

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Timothy Snyder writes: At first, no one could imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian war could begin. And yet it began. And now, no one can imagine how it will end. And yet end it will. War is ultimately about politics. That Ukraine is winning on the battlefield matters because Ukraine is exerting pressure on Russian politics. Tyrants such as Putin exert a certain fascination, because they give the impression that they can do what they like. This is not true, of…

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Martin Chulov reports: After four years of global fallout from the assassination of the Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Prince Mohammed’s security aides in Istanbul, the heir to the Saudi throne is in the midst of a global comeback. His attempts to position the kingdom as a regional power and global mover are among the 37-year-old’s core goals. Saudi officials have not condemned Putin’s invasion, and nor has Moscow weighed into Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen over the…

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Andrew S. Weiss and Jasmine Alexander-Greene write: The spotlight is back on the burgeoning Saudi-Russia relationship, thanks to their renewed efforts to prop up oil prices and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s role in brokering a surprise deal in September to release foreign prisoners of war seized on the battlefield in Ukraine, including several U.S. and UK military veterans. The Kremlin’s ties with Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have expanded steadily following the…

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Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: To hear pro-Russian military analysts tell it, in the last 72 hours Ukraine has managed to simultaneously recapture about 1,000 square kilometers of terrain in the northeast of the country and 2,200 square kilometers in the south. Although it is difficult to independently confirm these figures, the very fact that they’re coming from cheerleaders of Vladimir Putin’s war highlights just how disastrously things have gone for the Russian president in a month that has…

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Jeremy Shapiro writes: Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas enthusiastically joined the general outrage when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He took to Twitter immediately to condemn the attack as “the greatest breach of peace in Europe in nearly 80 years”. He went on a trip to Germany and the Polish-Ukrainian border in March to visit US troops and observe the humanitarian operations there. On his return, the Republican senator implored President Joe Biden to “get them the damn weapons”,…

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Mikhail Khodorkovsky writes: When declaring the annexation of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, and parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed characteristic contempt for the truth. The announcement followed sham referenda reflecting Putin’s brand of democracy — where voting takes place at gunpoint and the outcome is predetermined. Delivered amid deranged bombast regarding the “satanic” West, this was Putin’s latest attempt to regain the initiative and deflect attention from the fact that he’s losing his…

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Tatiana Stanovaya writes: When Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine back in February, many believed a Rubicon had been crossed after which the Russian president’s relationship with his elites would never be the same. It was then that Putin began to be seen as a desperate leader, no longer capable of normal interaction with the outside world. Nonetheless, the feelings of despondency and doom that prevailed among the elites didn’t stop them from continuing to demonstrate loyalty to the…

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