Attention to the Unseen

Russian police have detained thousands of Russians who have taken to the streets to protest the invasion of Ukraine. AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky By Brian Grodsky, University of Maryland, Baltimore County The West has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by imposing harsh economic sanctions. Most consequentially, key Russian banks have been cut out of the SWIFT payments messaging system, making financial transactions much more difficult. The United States, European Union and others also moved to freeze Russian Central Bank reserves….

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Literary Hub: Writer and translator Artem Chapeye sent the following earlier this week in response to recently resurfaced comments by Noam Chomsky about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While Chomsky has been a clear and much-needed critic of American imperialism over the last 50 years, his reluctance to recognize similarly imperialistic inclinations in Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been frustrating to many of his admirers. This includes Chapeye, who has in the past translated much of Chomsky’s writing into Ukrainian. A…

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been lauded for his resistance to the Russian invasion. Photo by Laurent Van der Stockt for Le Monde/Getty Images By Michael Blake, University of Washington Whatever happens in the coming weeks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will go down as the face of Ukrainian resilience during the Russian invasion of his country. His response to the Russian invasion of his country has been widely praised, both at home and abroad. His speech to the European Parliament in early March…

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John Harwood writes: Americans rarely pay much attention to international events. Busy lives leave little time for distant events with unfamiliar protagonists. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has become a rare exception, its butchery in plain view via saturation coverage for anyone with a video screen. But Americans may not yet have absorbed this disturbing reality: The American president who left office just 14 months ago sided with the butcher. That’s right: In the struggle now uniting the…

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Matt Lewis writes: National populists—the same people who are dogmatic about protecting national borders—are in a tough spot right now, thanks to Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression on Ukraine. The same ultra-nationalists passionate about building a wall on the U.S.’ southern border, or obliterating the EU and returning to hard borders among European nation states—seemed utterly unconcerned about Ukraine’s borders during the run-up to war. These folks are also known for the fetishization of masculinity and toughness, and yet they…

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The Guardian reports: “Can we get a round of applause for Russia?” asked Nick Fuentes, on stage last week at a white nationalist event. Amid a roar of applause for the Russian president, just days after he invaded Ukraine, many attendees responded by shouting: “Putin! Putin!” Conservative activists and elected officials from across United States attend CPAC 2022, in OrlandoGreg Aselbekian, supporter of former President Trump, sells hats as he attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida,…

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The New York Times reports: Despite the threat of yearslong prison terms, thousands of Russians joined antiwar rallies across the country on Sunday in a striking show of the pent-up anger in Russian society about President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The police reported more than 3,000 arrests across the country — the highest nationwide total officially reported in any single day of protest in recent memory. An activist group that tracks arrests, OVD-Info, reported detentions in 49 different…

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The New York Times reports: With hands still dirty from the battlefield, a dozen Russian prisoners of war sat, stony-faced, in a conference room of a Ukrainian news agency on Saturday and described being captured after their armored columns were ambushed. Lt. Dmitry Kovalensky, who had fought in a Russian tank unit and spoke at the behest of his Ukrainian captors, said he recently came under fire from an armed drone and shoulder-launched anti-tank missiles on a road near Sumy,…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The Biden administration is seeking to ease oil sanctions on Venezuela as part of a broader U.S. strategy to temper oil prices that have skyrocketed because of Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. officials began rare face-to-face meetings with Venezuelan officials in Caracas over the weekend, with a view to allowing Venezuelan crude oil back on to the open international market, these people said. The administration also wants to…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. is exploring a deal in which Poland would send Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine in return for American F-16 jet fighters, U.S. officials said Saturday, in the latest bid to help Ukraine respond to Russia’s invasion. The deal would require White House approval and congressional action, U.S. officials said. The disclosure of a possible deal followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s impassioned plea to Capitol Hill for assistance in obtaining more lethal military aid, especially…

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The New York Times reports: The day after Russian tanks and troops poured across the Ukrainian border on Feb. 24, NATO leaders received a deeply frightening message. The alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, opened an emergency video summit by warning that President Vladimir V. Putin had “shattered peace in Europe” and that from now on, he would openly contest the continent’s security order. However unlikely, Mr. Stoltenberg told the leaders, it was no longer unthinkable that Mr. Putin would attack…

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Masha Gessen writes: Pushkin Square, in the center of Moscow, is a traditional site of protest. Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on February 24th, most of the square has been cordoned off, with police in riot gear and National Guard soldiers in full combat gear stationed around its perimeter most of the day. On the first day of the war, police made hundreds of arrests in Pushkin Square; on most nights since, they have netted only a…

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Yassin al-Haj Saleh writes: In the week since Russia’s invasion began, Syrians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad might come second only to Ukrainians themselves in following every horror of the war that Vladimir Putin’s regime is waging in Ukraine. The reason behind this curious situation, of course, should be quite apparent. Russia has been occupying part of Syria since late September 2015, brutally supporting Assad’s regime, whose highest priority is to stay in power forever, even if he has to…

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