The Washington Post reports: The mere sight of a child here — wearing sunglasses, pulling a scooter, bugging his mother to buy him candy — was enough to impress Petro Trotsenko, a stall owner at a market in Bucha that reopened this past week. Just over a month ago, the market lay bare, looted of all its wares, cut up by shrapnel. The nearby glass factory where Trotsenko, 74, worked in his younger years was being used as a torture…
Kirill Martynov writes: Vladimir Putin was born seven years after the end of the second world war, and raised on the Brezhnev-era myth of the great victory. A man of no great education, he loved to quote Soviet films and old stories. The history books portrayed the “great patriotic war” as a magical fable in which the hero – the Russian people – vanquishes a monster, to the envy of the whole world. In this myth there was no room…
The Washington Post reports: President Biden signed into law Monday afternoon a bill that will expedite the process of sending military aid to Ukraine, as the Eastern European country presses into its third month of fighting off a Russian invasion. Flanked by Vice President Harris and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, Biden vowed the United States would continue to support Ukraine “in their fight to defend their country and their democracy” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…
Heljä Ossa and Tommi Koivula write: Finland doesn’t often make it into international headlines. When it does, it is usually because of the country’s world-renowned education system or for yet again being named the happiest country in the world. Even rarer are international discussions over Finnish security issues. That changed when Russia invaded Ukraine (again) and Europe’s security landscape transformed overnight. Suddenly, Finland and its possible NATO membership is a hot topic around the world. Finland will likely make a…
Nick Cohen writes: If the west could find the courage, it would order an immediate freeze of Rupert Murdoch’s assets. His Fox News presenters and Russia’s propagandists are so intermeshed that separating the two is as impossible as unbaking a cake. On Russian state news, as on Fox, bawling ideologues scream threats then whine about their victimhood as they incite anger and self-pity in equal measures. Its arguments range from the appropriation of anti-fascism by Greater Russian imperialists – the…
The Washington Post reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined his conditions Friday for entering peace talks with Russia, demanding a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5 million refugees, membership in the European Union and accountability from Russian military leaders before Kyiv would consider laying down its arms. Zelensky’s slate of requirements, which he listed during an online forum organized by Chatham House, are in direct conflict with the military objectives Russian leaders have articulated as they…
i reports: Thousands of Ukrainians have been sent to remote camps up to 5,500 miles from their homes as Vladimir Putin’s officials follow Kremlin orders to disperse them across Russia, i can reveal. They include survivors from the besieged port city of Mariupol, where civilians remain trapped at the Azovstal steel plant as Russian forces make a final push to subdue to city’s last defenders. An investigation by i analysing Russian local news reports has identified 66 camps in a…
The New York Times reports: The solicitation to commit treason came to Oleksandr Vilkul on the second day of the war, in a phone call from an old colleague. Mr. Vilkul, the scion of a powerful political family in southeastern Ukraine that was long seen as harboring pro-Russian views, took the call as Russian troops were advancing to within a few miles of his hometown, Kryvyi Rih. “He said, ‘Oleksandr Yurivich, you are looking at the map, you see the…
Genevieve Kotarska and Lauren Young write: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, energy security has been a central feature of public discourse. As Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil and gas, the energy market has become a crucial factor as the humanitarian and environmental crisis unfolds. With many countries dependent on Russia for energy supplies, the international community is now in a position where its ability to respond forcefully to the invasion is…
Politico reports: Yesterday, the talk of the town was breaking news of the U.S. providing intelligence to Ukraine to kill Russian generals. Now there’s another firestorm over reports on American-provided information helping Ukraine to sink Russia’s Moskva warship last month. Speculation abounded across the Washington, D.C., natsec and intel communities that the administration was intentionally rubbing salt in the Kremlin’s wound. Turns out none of this is a coordinated leak by President Joe Biden’s team: “Someone is eager to take…
Shaun Walker writes: In cities across Russia on Monday morning, tanks and missile trucks will growl their way along the main streets. Soldiers will march across central squares. Fighter jets will roar overhead. Victory Day, when Russians celebrate the 1945 endpoint of what they still call the “great patriotic war”, has gradually become the centrepiece of Vladimir Putin’s concept of Russian identity over his two decades in charge. This year, as the Russian army’s gruesome assault on Ukraine grinds on,…
Yevgenia Albats writes: The government’s economic section has a special position today. Technocrats are in high demand because they are supposedly saving the economy from the endless stream of new sanctions. In actual fact, their task is hopeless. About 70% of goods manufactured in Russia have imported components, and it is impossible to replace them. There are endless meetings in the government, says a well-known financier and former high-ranking official. The director of a factory that makes Russian aircraft comes…
The Daily Beast reports: Russian fighters have been sharing tips with one another about how to deliberately damage their own equipment and hamper Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war plans in Ukraine, according to recordings of alleged Russian troops’ phone calls that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) intercepted. In one regiment, one Russian soldier allegedly said they’ve been pouring sand into the tanks’ fuel systems to clog them up. “I don’t follow stupid orders, I simply refuse,” one fighter can…
The New York Times reports: The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials. Ukrainian officials said they have killed approximately 12 generals on the front lines, a number that has astonished military analysts. The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to…
CNN reports: Pope Francis warned the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, not to become “Putin’s altar boy,” he said in an interview this week. In his strongest words to date against the pro-war Patriarch, Francis also slammed Kirill for endorsing Russia’s stated reasons for invading Ukraine. “I spoke to him for 40 minutes via Zoom,” the Pope told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Tuesday. “The first 20 minutes he read to me, with…