Attention to the Unseen

Luke Mogelson writes: People in Ukraine sometimes describe the intensity of shelling in simple auditory terms. A place can be “quiet” or “loud.” As the volume increases, so do the chaos, misery, death, and fear. You cannot experience such fatal noise without instinctively grasping its purpose, which is to brutalize psychically as much as physically—to demoralize and stupefy. Nowhere on earth is louder today than the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated its forces and its firepower…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s key grain-exporting port of Odessa, officials said, hours after signing an international agreement to ease its blockade of the Black Sea coastline and allow for the safe transport of grain and other foodstuffs necessary to alleviate a looming global food crisis. The attack on Odessa appeared to violate the terms of the United Nations-brokered agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on Friday, which stipulated that both…

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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: The anonymous whistleblower behind the bombshell leak known as the Panama Papers has emerged anew to warn how offshore companies are enabling Russia’s war machine. John Doe, as the whistleblower insisted on being called, had only spoken out publicly once before, but reached out recently to the two German journalists who had received the leak of documents in 2015 concerning the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Those two reporters from Suddeutsche Zeitung, Frederik Obermaier…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Any cease-fire that allows Russia to keep Ukrainian territories seized since the invasion in February would only encourage an even wider conflict, giving Moscow a badly-needed opportunity to replenish and rearm for the next round, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned. “Freezing the conflict with the Russian Federation means a pause that gives the Russian Federation a break for rest,” Mr. Zelensky said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in the heavily fortified presidential…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The Pentagon is considering providing Ukrainian forces with fighter jets, the White House said Friday, marking what would be a significant expansion of U.S. involvement in the war and carrying with it a risk of more direct confrontation with Moscow. The Pentagon “is making some preliminary explorations into the feasibility of potentially providing fighter aircraft to the Ukrainians,” said John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications. “But it’s not something that they’re…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: U.S.-supplied long-range artillery has helped stabilize the front line with Russia in the east of the country, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces said, as his troops geared up for a counteroffensive to retake territory in the south. After weeks of grueling combat in eastern Ukraine that culminated in Russian forces claiming control over the Luhansk region, the arrival of U.S. mobile rocket launchers, known as Himars, last month has strengthened Kyiv’s hand. “It is…

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Politico reports: Ukraine has created a temporary special commission to monitor the flow of billions of dollars in Western weapons into the country. It’s in response to what Kyiv says is a Russian smear campaign to whip up concern in the West about its ability to effectively handle and monitor the arms. “To date, more than a dozen international partners have provided Ukraine with various types of weapons that are already being used at the front. However, Russian propaganda, in…

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Tatiana Stanovaya writes: We are used to thinking that Mr. Putin sees the West as a hostile force that aims to destroy Russia. But I believe that for Mr. Putin there are two Wests: a bad one and a good one. The “bad West” is represented by the traditional political elites that currently rule Western countries: Mr. Putin appears to see them as narrow-minded slaves of their electorates who overlook genuine national interests and are incapable of strategic thinking. The…

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Simon Tisdall writes: Time to wake up and smell the cordite. Like shockwaves from an exploding missile, Vladimir Putin’s war on Europe’s edge is rapidly rolling westwards, blasting its way through the front doors of homes, businesses and workplaces from Berlin to Birmingham. Its fallout seeds a toxic rain of instability, hardship and fear. The idea the Ukraine conflict could be confined to Ukraine – Nato’s politically convenient grand delusion – and that western sanctions and arms supplies would stop…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Until a few months ago, Mohammed Wahid Haykalyar owned a busy restaurant in the heart of Kabul, where people came from all over the city for steaming plates of saffron rice and braised lamb. His monthly earnings of $3,000 were more than enough to pay for his children’s English-language lessons and after-school soccer practice. These days, he doesn’t even have money to buy food for his family. “I never imagined I would find myself here….

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran and Russia are engaged in a fierce competition for sales of oil, refined crude products and metals in India, China and across Asia, as Moscow sells at prices that are undercutting one of its few supporters during the Ukraine invasion. The struggle over market share between Iran and Russia provides a stark example of how the Ukraine war is rewiring global energy markets, knocking Moscow out of the West only to find it re-emerge…

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