Attention to the Unseen

Anne Applebaum writes: The expression off-ramp has a pleasing physicality, evoking a thing that can be constructed out of concrete and steel. But at the moment, anyone talking about an off-ramp in Ukraine—and many people are doing so, in governments, on radio stations, in a million private arguments—is using the term metaphorically, referring to a deal that could persuade Vladimir Putin to halt his invasion. Some believe that such an off-ramp could easily be built if only diplomats were willing…

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Bohdan Kukharskyy, Anastassia Fedyk, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Ilona Sologoub write: Dear Professor Chomsky, We are a group of Ukrainian academic economists who were grieved by a series of your recent interviews and commentaries on the Russian war on Ukraine. We believe that your public opinion on this matter is counter-productive to bringing an end to the unjustified Russian invasion of Ukraine and all the deaths and suffering it has brought into our home country. Having familiarized ourselves with the body…

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The Guardian reports: Ukraine has said it will not agree to any ceasefire deal that would involve handing over territory to Russia, as Moscow intensified its attack in the eastern Donbas region on Sunday. “The war must end with the complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” said Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, in a Twitter post. The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, offered Warsaw’s backing, telling politicians in Kyiv that the international community had to demand Russia’s…

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Politico reports: With Russia claiming to have taken prisoner nearly 2,500 Ukrainian fighters from the besieged Mariupol steel plant, concerns grew about their fate as a Moscow-backed separatist leader vowed they would face tribunals. Russia has declared its full control of the Azovstal steel plant, which for weeks was the last holdout in Mariupol and a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity in the strategic port city, now in ruins with more than 20,000 residents feared dead. The seizure gives Russian President…

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NPR reports: Medyka, Poland is a quiet and idyllic farming village near the southeastern border with Ukraine. But in recent months, it has become the busiest border crossing for Ukrainian refugees since the war with Russia began in late February. In February and March, refugees waited for hours or days there to cross into Poland. Now, the flow has reversed. The long lines are on the Polish side of the border filled with people waiting to cross into Ukraine. Anna…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukraine’s military intelligence chief said the country would keep fighting until it evicts Russian forces from all of its territory—including Crimea and other areas effectively seized by Moscow in 2014—and called for deliveries of longer-range heavy weapons and warplanes from the West to help. “I don’t know any borders except the borders of 1991,” Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said, referring to the year of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. “Who can force Ukraine to…

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Paul R.S. Gebhard writes: Since its founding, NATO’s key challenge has been ensuring that its members have the military means to fulfill their political commitments to each other. With Finland, which filed its application along with Sweden this week, the Alliance can rest easy: The Nordic nation not only meets the threshold criteria of defense capability for membership, but exceeds it. The country’s experience since it secured independence from Russia in 1918 has forged a national policy of defense and…

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Timothy Snyder writes: Fascism was never defeated as an idea. As a cult of irrationality and violence, it could not be vanquished as an argument: So long as Nazi Germany seemed strong, Europeans and others were tempted. It was only on the battlefields of World War II that fascism was defeated. Now it’s back — and this time, the country fighting a fascist war of destruction is Russia. Should Russia win, fascists around the world will be comforted. We err…

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Dara Massicot writes: Six days before the invasion of Ukraine, a small group of Russian soldiers huddled together in their tents in Belarus. One of them had covertly acquired a smartphone—barred by the military—and together, the group logged on to Western news sites. There, they read a story that shocked them: according to Western intelligence reports, Russia was about to invade its neighbor. One of the soldiers called his mother in shock about what he had read. She told him…

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The Moscow Times reports: Russia spent more than $300 million per day on defense last month as its invasion of Ukraine continued to drag on, according to Finance Ministry data, more than doubling its pre-war defense spending. Defense spending has increased every month since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in late February as Russia’s Armed Forces failed to secure a quick victory and settled for a strategy of capturing eastern territories. If Russia’s defense spending in February totaled…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: China’s Communist Party will block promotions for senior cadres whose spouses or children hold significant assets abroad, people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to insulate its top officials from the types of sanctions now being directed at Russia. The ban, outlined in an internal notice by the party’s powerful Central Organization Department, could play a role in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s efforts to increase his influence at a twice-a-decade leadership shuffle scheduled…

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Grid reports: It is a slow, silent process — and it unfolds in the dark. Yuriy Russu, who works on a farm near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, describes it this way: After sunset, he and his fellow farmers shut off the lights around their fields. Buildings, streetlights — everything goes dark. Then they wait for the skies to fall silent — the threat of airstrikes is ever present, Russu told Grid. “We wait for the fighter jets to fly away,”…

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