Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is aggressively stoking tensions with Venezuela and its president, Nicolás Maduro, and appears to be creating conditions that could lead to a military confrontation. A major buildup of U.S. naval forces is underway outside Venezuela’s waters as the administration has stepped up belligerent rhetoric about fighting drug cartels and labeled Mr. Maduro a terrorist-cartel leader. All that raises the question of whether the end goal is just to counter drug-smuggling boats, or…

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Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: The war that has engulfed Israel, the Gaza Strip, and well beyond since October 7, 2023, has confronted the world with much on which it had never set eyes before. In scope and brutality, Hamas’s assault on Israelis exceeded any prior Palestinian act. Israel’s military attacks and forced starvation in Gaza are an onslaught governed by unusual rules, in which the death of Palestinian fighters seems like collateral damage, while the widespread, indiscriminate slaughter…

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+972 reports: Data from an internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza were civilians, an investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal. Figures obtained from the classified database — which records the deaths of militants from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) — contradict by a huge margin the public statements of Israeli army and government officials throughout the war, which have generally claimed a…

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Olga Rudenko writes: Vladimir Putin looked like he loved every minute of it. Mr. Putin, the president of Russia, the man who has proclaimed that my country shouldn’t exist — that it’s a historical mistake, to be fixed by Russian soldiers — was welcomed effusively to Alaska by the president of the United States. Mr. Putin exited his plane and diplomatic isolation and walked a red carpet like an honored guest. His smile was triumphant. Was it confidence that he…

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Politico reports: Moscow isn’t shifting on what it considers to be acceptable security guarantees for Ukraine, a top Kremlin official said Wednesday. The comments by Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov undercut hopes that any progress has been made toward ending the Ukraine war since Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday in Alaska. Lavrov’s remarks further indicate that the Kremlin has not softened on its maximalist positions on Ukraine: that it becomes a neutral rump…

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Masha Gessen writes: Before the full-scale invasion, the populations of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two Ukrainian cities on land Putin is demanding, were 200,000 and 100,000, respectively. We don’t know how many people live there now — some people surely fled, some came from occupied territories, some died — but the number is almost certainly tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people. To propose to cede the land to Russia is to propose either subjecting those residents to Russian…

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Zolan Kanno-Youngs writes: For President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, a lot is riding on how much he can trust President Trump. Mr. Trump offered only vague assurances on Monday that the United States would play a role in guaranteeing Ukraine’s safety if Mr. Zelensky were to cut a deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to stop the fighting. “We’re going to make sure it works,” Mr. Trump said at the start of an hourslong meeting with Mr. Zelensky…

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Politico reports: Handing over massive fortification lines to an expansionist neighbor hellbent on destroying your state tends to be a bad idea. In 1938, ceding the Sudetenland and its dense network of forts, forests and trenches led to the rapid collapse of Czechoslovakia’s ability to defend itself against Nazi Germany. There are fears in Europe that Kyiv’s ability to resist Russia will be similarly devastated if Donald Trump — swayed by Russian President Vladimir Putin — presses Ukraine to hand…

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Anne Applebaum writes: President Donald Trump berated President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. He allowed the Pentagon twice to halt prearranged military shipments to Ukraine. He promised that when the current tranche of armaments runs out, there will be no more. He has cut or threatened to cut the U.S. funds that previously supported independent Russian-language media and opposition. His administration is slowly, quietly easing sanctions on Russia, ending “basic sanctions and export control actions that had maintained and…

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Peter Baker writes: On the flight to Alaska, President Trump declared that if he did not secure a cease-fire in Ukraine during talks with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, “I’m not going to be happy,” and there would be “severe consequences.” Just hours later, he got back on Air Force One and departed Alaska without the cease-fire he deemed so critical. Yet he had imposed no consequences, and had pronounced himself so happy with how things went with Mr….

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