Attention to the Unseen

Phillips Payson O’Brien writes: What happens on the battlefield is rarely the thing that decides a war. Normally, the preparations beforehand determine what happens when the fighting begins—and these preparations are what settle the outcome of the war itself. This truth is playing out along the roads and in the towns of Kharkiv Oblast, the province that includes Ukraine’s second-largest city. The stunningly swift advance of Ukrainian forces, which started around September 1 and sped up soon after, has easily…

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The New York Times reports: As Russian forces hastily retreated in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday in one of their most embarrassing setbacks of the war, President Vladimir V. Putin was at a park in Moscow, presiding over the grand opening of a Ferris wheel. “It’s very important for people to be able to relax with friends and family,” Mr. Putin intoned. The split-screen contrast was stunning, even for some of Mr. Putin’s loudest backers. And it underscored a growing rift…

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The Guardian reports: The much-publicised Ukrainian southern offensive was a disinformation campaign to distract Russia from the real one being prepared in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine’s special forces have said. Ukrainian forces are continuing to make unexpected, rapid advances in the north-east of the country, retaking more than a third of the occupied Kharkiv region in three days. Much of Ukraine’s territorial gains were confirmed by Russia’s defence ministry on Saturday. “[It] was a big special disinformation operation,” said Taras…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian forces seized most of a strategically vital city in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, cutting the main supply line to thousands of Russian troops near the eastern city of Izyum and marking the biggest strategic gain Ukraine has made since the start of an offensive this week. Photos from Russian and Ukrainian channels on Telegram showed Ukrainian soldiers holding the country’s flag in front of the city hall in Kupyansk, and Kremlin-loyal Russian military correspondents…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian forces advanced on the strategic city of Kupyansk on Friday, threatening to isolate thousands of Russian troops further south and prompting Moscow to send reinforcements. Over the past three days, Ukrainian forces have advanced almost 50 kilometers, or about 31 miles, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, achieving their biggest breakthrough in months of grinding combat. Images of the Ukrainian flag being raised over local government buildings and residents greeting soldiers with tears of joy…

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The New York Times reports: On a recent evening in Red Square, a corps of elite paratroopers dressed in camouflage performed a battle-like dance with pyrotechnics. An Egyptian performer dressed as a pharaoh rode back and forth in a chariot wielding an ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, as a band played “Katyusha,” a Soviet-era patriotic war song. Nataliya Nikonova, 44, was one of thousands of spectators cheering from the bleachers at a festival celebrating the militaries of Russia…

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Anne Applebaum writes: No revolutionary posters line the streets, “flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues,” as they did when George Orwell left Barcelona to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Nor can you hear loudspeakers “bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night,” as Orwell did in 1936. Instead, gathered in a basement on a quiet, tree-lined street, the Belarusians preparing to leave Warsaw to join the Ukrainian army look more like a bunch of…

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Nick Foretek writes: On March 1, in a Moscow therapist’s office, Alevtina “Alya” Borodulina chose to leave Russia. The invasion of Ukraine had begun five days earlier. People called the new world “After 24,” marking the invasion’s date and the ruthless and irrevocable division of time it had created. Daily routines no longer structured life but instead gave way to existential concerns. Nostalgia now tinted the immediate past. It was her first therapy session, scheduled prior to the war’s outbreak…

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Dominic Tierney writes: In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Harlem’s Riverside Church to a crowd of thousands that flowed out the door as far as 120th Street. King publicly condemned the Vietnam War because it had “broken and eviscerated” the civil-rights and anti-poverty movements at home. The American government was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” In 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invoked another MLK speech while asking Congress to help his country repel the…

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Reuters reports: Europe’s gas prices surged, its share prices slid and the euro sank on Monday after Russia stopped pumping gas via a major supply route, sending another economic shock wave through the European Union as it struggles to recover from the pandemic. EU governments are pushing through packages worth billions of dollars to prevent utilities being crushed by a liquidity crunch and to protect households from soaring energy bills, after Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom said it would stop pumping gas…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian officials say their military’s southern offensive is going slowly. They also say that is precisely the plan. The announcement Monday of a thrust in the south raised hopes that Ukraine could reclaim territory Russia seized early in the war, including the regional capital of Kherson. But success could take many shapes, say officials and Western analysts. Even without quickly regaining much ground, Kyiv can achieve progress by forcing Russia to expose its troop locations…

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Politico reports: The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine again lost connection to its main external power line but remains connected to a reserve line, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said late Saturday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its experts were told by Ukrainian staff at the nuclear facility that the plant’s fourth operational power line was down. The three other power lines “were damaged during Russian shelling earlier,” Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom said last month. The disconnection of…

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The Guardian reports: Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is investigating allegations that two senior civil servants working in the economy ministry could have been spying for Russia, according to a local media report. Die Zeit, which first revealed the case, said the officials being investigated had close involvement with energy supply issues and held key positions. The economy ministry and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, would not comment on the reports….

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Politico reports: The energy battle between Russia and the West escalated dramatically Friday, with Western countries making a concerted push to cap the prices of Moscow’s oil and gas exports, while Russia announced it won’t be restarting the crucial Nord Stream pipeline. Finance ministers from the G7 group of industrialized democracies called for devising a system that would only allow the sale of Russian oil at below-market prices. The European Commission president also called for capping Russian gas prices. The…

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