Attention to the Unseen

James Kirchick writes: In 1942, answering a pacifist opponent of British involvement in the Second World War, George Orwell replied that “pacifism is objectively pro-fascist.” There have of course been many times in human history when opposition to war has been morally justified, intellectually coherent, and, in the end, vindicated. But the war to defeat fascism during the middle part of the past century was simply not one of them. “This is elementary common sense,” Orwell wrote at the time….

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The Wall Street Journal reports: NATO said that a series of leaks on the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Europe were the result of sabotage and that attacks on its members’ infrastructure would be met with a collective response from the military alliance. The statement, from the North Atlantic Council, the decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, didn’t provide details or evidence. It also noted that the damage to the pipelines occurred in international waters. But it…

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The Associated Press reports: Russia positioned itself Wednesday to formally annex parts of Ukraine where occupied areas held a Kremlin-orchestrated “referendum” on living under Moscow’s rule that the Ukrainian government and the West denounced as illegal and rigged. Armed troops had gone door-to-door with election officials to collect ballots in five days of voting. The suspiciously high margins in favor were characterized as a land grab by an increasingly cornered Russian leadership after embarrassing military losses in Ukraine. Moscow-installed administrations…

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The Guardian reports: Norway’s prime minister has said its military will be more visible at oil and gas installations as politicians across Europe warned the suspected sabotaging of the two Nord Stream pipelines could herald a new stage of hybrid warfare targeting vulnerable energy infrastructure in order to undermine support of Ukraine. Jonas Gahr Støre told a news conference Norway would step up its military presence at Norwegian installations after the country had become Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas….

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Mac William Bishop reports: Vladimir Putin spent decades modernizing his army and building his empire, ruthlessly asserting control over Russia’s border states through force, intrigue and economic might. Now the cream of his military has been destroyed or is bogged down in Ukraine: hundreds of his once-parade-worthy tanks rusting away as burned-out hulks in wheat fields while thousands of his best soldiers will never return home. Beset by sanctions, his economy survives mainly through energy exports: Putin’s enemies continue to…

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The New York Times reports: The Kremlin has dispatched still more forces to shore up its faltering war effort, but the units are headed not to Ukraine but to Russia’s borders with other countries, where on Tuesday they were confronting young Russian men trying to join an exodus out of the country. As the avenues for Russians to escape a draft order issued last week narrowed, the Federal Security Service sent armored vehicles to the frontiers, where some men waiting…

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The New York Times reports: In a rare admission of official mistakes, the Kremlin acknowledged on Monday that its new military draft to reinforce the Russian assault on Ukraine has been rife with problems. The admission occurred the same day that a man, apparently distraught over the mobilization, shot and seriously wounded a recruitment officer at a draft office in Siberia. Since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia announced a “partial mobilization” last week to call up 300,000 people with…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The grain elevator towering over the eastern edge of Kupyansk, the former seat of Russian power in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, was supposed to be defended by soldiers from an elite Russian unit. But when troops from Ukraine’s International Legion moved to seize the compound on Thursday, part of the developing Ukrainian military offensive east of the Oskil River, the expected firefight never happened. “They just ran away. They know they are finished here,” said the…

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Peter Pomerantsev writes: “Do you want Total War?” Goebbels demanded of the Nazi faithful as the Second World War went south for Germany in 1943. He depicted a Reich surrounded by evil Jewish cosmopolitan conspirators bent on its destruction and he advocated for total mobilisation and to embrace a glory-in-death ideology. Vladimir Putin delivered his own (partial) version last week. As the Ukraine war goes south for Russia, he claimed the defeats are the result of cosmopolitan conspiracies bent on…

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The New York Times reports: President Biden’s national security adviser said on Sunday that the United States had warned Russia that there would be “catastrophic consequences” for the country if Moscow used nuclear weapons in its increasing desperation to hold on to territory in Ukraine, adding that in recent days the United States has “spelled out” how the world would react in private conversations with Russian officials. The adviser, Jake Sullivan, repeated the comments several times in three Sunday television…

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The New York Times reports: As military officers across Russia race to enlist hundreds of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine, the Kremlin is also looking to bolster its flagging recruitment efforts by dragooning Ukrainians in occupied territories to fight against their own nation. In two regions, Kherson and Zaporizka, the Russian occupiers are beginning to round up men to fight even as they are also forcing residents to vote in a sham referendum on joining Russia. All men…

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The Washington Post reports: Officials in Russian-occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine were forcing people to vote “under a gun barrel,” residents said on Saturday as staged referendums — intended to validate Moscow’s annexation of the territory it occupies — entered their second day. Voting is taking place in portions of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and will last five days, ending Tuesday. The outcome is not in doubt. The purported referendums are illegal under Ukrainian and…

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The Guardian reports: Rights activists in Crimea say Russia’s mobilisation drive in the occupied peninsula is disproportionately targeting Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group that has largely opposed Russian rule since the area was annexed in 2014. “Everywhere, in every town, I am hearing that the majority of those mobilised are Crimean Tatars, and we know they are particularly targeting settlements with predominantly Crimean Tatar populations,” an activist from the group still living on the peninsula said in a telephone interview….

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The New York Times reports: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has thrust himself more directly into strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks, American officials said, including rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson. A withdrawal from Kherson would allow the Russian military to pull back across the Dnipro River in an orderly way, preserving its equipment and saving the lives of…

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Sasha Vasilyuk writes: Starting this weekend, people in four occupied regions of Ukraine will “vote” on whether to join Russia. For many people, including my aunt and uncle, in Donetsk, what that really means is they will be forcibly absorbed into a country they do not want to be a part of. Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in the south, are all at least partly occupied by Russia. The point…

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Michael Weiss writes: “If you want to be part of the resistance against Russian disinformation,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger said, “join the fellas.” It’s an admittedly unorthodox way to begin an interview with the outgoing Republican congressman, one of two on the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 and an outspoken opponent of former President Donald Trump. But then, Kinzinger is equally outspoken about his support for Ukraine. He is the first and only sitting U.S. legislator to enlist in the…

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