Attention to the Unseen

Tom Nichols writes: In the early days of my career, I was a Russian-speaking “Sovietologist” working in think tanks and with government agencies to pry open the black box of the Kremlin’s strategy and intentions. The work could be unsettling. Once, during a discussion of various nuclear scenarios, a colleague observed matter-of-factly, “Yes, in that one, we only lose 40 million.” He meant 40 million people. The end of the Cold War, however, led to an era of national inattentiveness…

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William M Arkin reports: Vladimir Putin’s health is a subject of intense conversation inside the Biden administration after the intelligence community produced its fourth comprehensive assessment at the end of May. The classified U.S. report says Putin seems to have re-emerged after undergoing treatment in April for advanced cancer, three U.S. intelligence leaders who have read the reports tell Newsweek. The assessments also confirm that there was an assassination attempt on Putin’s life in March, the officials say. The high-ranking…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Hundreds of Russian soldiers have escaped the fighting in Ukraine or refused to take part during the early stages of the war, according to military decrees viewed by The Wall Street Journal as well as accused soldiers and lawyers defending them. Military analysts and Ukrainian officials say there have been many more. Russia’s army stumbled badly early in its invasion of Ukraine and suffered thousands of casualties and the loss of an estimated quarter of…

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Julia Davis reports: While some in the West are pondering what kind of a concessions would allow Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin “to save face” in Ukraine, leading Russian lawmakers and top propagandists are advocating smashing the West, which they say is Russia’s ultimate target. On the state TV show 60 Minutes, host Olga Skabeeva announced: “I have some unpleasant news… Even though we are methodically destroying the weapons that are being delivered [to Ukraine], but the quantities in which the…

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In an op-ed for the New York Times, Joe Biden writes: The invasion Vladimir Putin thought would last days is now in its fourth month. The Ukrainian people surprised Russia and inspired the world with their sacrifice, grit and battlefield success. The free world and many other nations, led by the United States, rallied to Ukraine’s side with unprecedented military, humanitarian and financial support. As the war goes on, I want to be clear about the aims of the United…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Collectively, European governments have been able to agree on measures to isolate Russia’s economy that once would have been unthinkable, including an embargo on most of the crude oil Russia sells to Europe. But opinion is sharply divided on the stakes of the war and Ukraine’s chances. Public statements by the leaders of France and Germany and comments by those countries’ officials suggest they are skeptical Kyiv can expel the invaders and they have called…

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Quentin Sommerville reports: Russian forces have entered the city of Severodonetsk, as they continue their attempts to capture the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. One of the region’s governors says that the bombardment of the industrial centre is so intense that they have given up counting the casualties. Just days ago, I watched from a rooftop in Lysychansk as, on the horizon, its twin city of Severodonetsk was being bombed indiscriminately. Shells were landing every minute on its length and…

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Timothy Snyder writes: Some observers of the Russo-Ukrainian war seem to think that its greatest danger is that Ukraine will win, or win too quickly, and that this will be uncomfortable for Putin, and that we should care. This is a deeply perverse way of seeing things. Putin has chosen to fight a war of aggression and destruction in Ukraine. Wherever Russia controls Ukrainian territory, Russians commit genocidal crimes against citizens of Ukraine, including mass rape, mass killing, and mass…

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Ivan Philippov writes: The day of the invasion – 24 February – is a day that will be forever seared into my memory. The enormity and the irrationality of the war was like a physical blow. In my carefully constructed social bubble, there wasn’t a single person who supported the war. We felt like leaves, scattered by a hurricane. We still feel like this. Some of us left Russia and some stayed. I left with the film director Kantemir Balagov….

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The Washington Post reports: In a video address early Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation on the battlefield in Donbas was “very difficult,” with Russian forces attacking Ukrainian positions with “maximum artillery and maximum reserves.” “We are defending our land insofar as the defense resources we have today will allow. We’re doing everything we can to strengthen them — and we will strengthen them,” Zelensky said. “If the occupiers think Severodonetsk or Lyman will be theirs, they are…

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Tom Mutch reports: Flowers bloom over an unmarked grave in Kharkiv. We never found the woman’s name, but the neighbors buried her in a shallow grave in the garden she had tended her whole life. Springtime has come to Ukraine’s biggest city, which has mostly been relieved of the agony of three months of Russian bombardment. Galina, a 61-year-old teacher from Kharkiv, lived underground for nearly three months, but her daughter in Russia refused to believe that their city was…

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Politico reports: Half of Washington, D.C., is in the business of analyzing Vladimir Putin’s every word and move these days. But when CIA Director William Burns speaks of the Russian leader, an autocrat waging a brutal war on Ukraine, his words carry unusual weight. Putin is the epitome of a “peculiarly Russian combination of qualities”: “cocky, cranky, aggrieved and insecure,” Burns has written. The Kremlin chief is “an apostle of payback,” Burns has declared. Instead of giving up on his…

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Anders Aslund writes: In his grand work Capital, Thomas Piketty has established that the total capital of a country, including everything, such as land and minerals, is historically usually four times GDP, that is, $800 billion for Ukraine, and much of this capital persists. The next question is how can this possibly be financed. Ideally, it should be financed by Russia as war reparations. Needless to say, the Kremlin is not likely to accept that voluntarily, but the beauty of…

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