The Russian Revolutionary War on Ukrainian Territorium – a Victory for the Violation of the Law of The First Law of Moscow

The danger of a nuclear war has been present in the background of Russian aggression towards Ukraine for over seven months now, and in the past couple of weeks it has become more difficult to ignore. In a televised speech, President Vladimir Putin warned that should Western forces endanger the “integrity” of Russian territory — which, as Putin defines it, may now include the four regions of Ukraine that he illegally annexed — “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal.” He added, “This is not a bluff.”

“People who live in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens — forever,” Mr. Putin said. We want the Kyiv regime to stop fire and use military force.

Reports from the ground suggested voting took place at gunpoint, but Putin attempted to claim it was indicative of the will of millions of people.

It was time to wish the New Year bring all this. We are ready to fight for it. That’s why each of us is here. I’m here. We’re here. You’re here. Everyone is here. We are all Ukraine.”

The Russian president believes the annexation was an attempt to fix a mistake made after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Putin’s logical option, Kortunov says, is to declare victory and get out on his own terms. But for this he needs a significant achievement on the ground. “Russia cannot simply get to where it was, on the 24 February of this year, say, okay, you know, that’s fine. Our mission has been accomplished. So we leave and things should be presented to the public as a victory.

Russia will go ahead with its plans to fly a flag over tens of thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian land despite widespread condemnation, the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

The Russian leader spoke in the chandeliered St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace — the same place where he declared in March 2014 that the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was part of Russia.

Putin was joined by Moscow-backed separatist leaders and Kremlin-appointed officials from the four regions, as senior Russian lawmakers and dignitaries looked on.

The Kremlin used its propaganda channels to amplify President Putin’s argument that Russia is at war with the West.

He showed how military actions from the British Opium War to the Vietnam and Korean Wars are part of a long list of Western military actions.

He said that the US was the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in war. They created a precedent according to Mr. Putin.

A series of attacks on Monday were evidence that Russian President Putin was furious after a series of setbacks in the war.

A celebration takes place on Red Square. Official ratification of the decrees will happen next week, said Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman.

The War in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin’s Battle for the Founding and Unification of the Cold War with the West and the Associated Security Forces

During a war in defiance of international law, there were staged referendums in occupied territory. Many civilians have fled the fighting since the war began, and people who did vote were often held at gun point.

If Russia is able to cement their hold over the two eastern regions, it will allow the Kremlin to proclaim a victory at a time when they have been accused of doing little to stop recent gains by the Ukrainians.

But Mr. Putin nevertheless faces huge hurdles to reassert his control over an increasingly chaotic war, including a recent draft of hundreds of thousands of civilians into military service that has encountered opposition in Russia.

The debate over Biden’s visit will make Putin take a back seat in his speech on Tuesday at the Federal Assembly.

“The people made their choice,” said Putin in a signing ceremony at the Kremlin’s St. George hall. “And that choice won’t be betrayed” by Russia, he said.

Putin wants his negotiations to be with Biden and his allies, not with the Ukraine, according to Hill. That means we should recognize what we have done on the ground.

There will be a concert and rally outside the Kremlin, in support of Russia and the newly integrated territories.

It capped a week in which the Kremlin orchestrated referendums in Russian territories that supposedly delivered overwhelming numbers in favor of joining Russia.

“The United States will never, never, never recognize Russia’s claims on Ukraine sovereign territory,” Biden said. “This was an absolute sham, it was manufactured in Moscow, and the results were there.”

Putin, however, framed the decision as a historical justice following the breakup of the Soviet Union that had left Russian speakers separated from their homeland — and the West dictating world affairs according to its own rules.

The Western powers once again accused Russia of using staged votes to justify its annexation of Ukraine’s territory, often at the barrel of a gun.

The approval of Russia’s parliament and constitutional court is foregone conclusion, as the territories will now be formally entered into the Russian Federation.

The Russian government’s annexation has unfolded as it works to deploy an additional 300,000 troops to bolster its military campaign amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has retaken territory in the south and northeast of Ukraine.

The newly incorporated territories are entitled to protection under Russia’s nuclear umbrella.

Putin hopes to break what has been a will to resist. The US House of Representatives is about to change hands and will now support Biden’s campaign to support Ukraine. Kevin McCarthy, the likely speaker of the House, said he wouldn’t automatically support the Biden administration’s requests for more aid because he would not want to encourage the use of NATO bases in Europe. And that is happening just as Putin is believed to be planning a renewed offensive. Putin, who rules over a much larger, wealthier country, apparently still believes he can win.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country, some out of principle or because they were facing persecution, others to avoid Western sanctions or the risk of being drafted into the military. Rights groups say thousands of people have been imprisoned. Hundreds of western companies did not want to do business in Russia, and many lost their jobs, after many campaign groups were shut down.

The perception that Putin is losing his touch at reading the mood in Russia was strengthened by traffic tailback at the border with Georgia and the long lines at the border crossings with both Central Asia and Northern Europe.

The current flurry of criticism and reporting by the Kremlin’s propagandists resembles the discussion on milbloggers over the past week. The Kremlin narrative had focused on general statements of progress and avoided detailed discussions of current military operations. The war was a failure prior to the loss in Kharkiv Oblast which resulted in the partial reserve mobilization.

The longer the war goes on, and the greater the success of Ukraine’s forces, the more concern there will be about Putin reaching for his nuclear arsenal to try to change the equation. There is real concern in western governments about Putin’s state of mind, even though some strategists think that he is either bluffing or has no real strategic advantages to breaking the nuclear taboo, something that would leave Russia even more ostracized in the world. He made many tactical assumptions, and did not show the kind of strategic cautions and clear thinking that will be necessary if he wants to avoid using nuclear weapons.

We were still searching for ways to improve relations with the world’s only other nuclear superpower. Everything we had been working upon was changed by what the US intelligence officials told senior policymakers in late 2021.

Russian actions in the wake of the 19th Ukrainian revolution: Nuclear weapons and mass destruction vs. nuclear weapons of mass destruction in the Mediterranean Sea

Both Danish and Swedish seismologists recorded explosive shockwaves from close to the seabed: the first, at around 2 a.m. local time, hitting 2.3 magnitude, then again, at around 7 p.m., registering 2.1.

Within hours, roiling patches of sea were discovered, the Danes and the Germans sent warships to secure the area, and Norway increased security around its oil and gas facilities.

Russia denies it is to blame and begins its own investigation. According to John Brennan, who was the CIA’s director at the time, there are signs that Russia could sabotage the pipeline in about 200 feet of water and then use it to make bombs.

Brennan’s analysis is that Russia is the most likely culprit for the sabotage, and that Putin is likely trying to send a message: “It’s a signal to Europe that Russia can reach beyond Ukraine’s borders. Who knows what he will be doing next.

Nord Stream 1 was throttled back by Putin after Europe raced to replenish their gas reserves ahead of winter, while dialling back demands for Russian supplies and searching for replacements.

Russian officials have been warned by the Ukrainians for weeks that they may be about to launch a major new attack. Putin ordered a partial mobilization back in September after a Ukrainian counteroffensive caused Russian forces to flee from the northeastern Kharkiv region and put up a fight for Kherson. Many of those troops have now gone through the training pipeline, further fueling speculation that Russia is committed to a manpower-intensive war of attrition.

It was 2019. And the successful TV comedian turned commander in chief had traveled to Paris for a summit to negotiate a peace deal with Putin. Zelensky did not give any concessions despite the doubts that many people had.

Putin is said to want France and Germany to say, “we need to end this war, we’re going to protect our territories at all costs, using anymeans necessary, and you need to put pressure on Ukrainians to settle.”

“We continue to monitor his nuclear capabilities, Kate, best we can. And what I can tell you today is that we just don’t see any indications that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use weapons of mass destruction or even nuclear weapons. And we’ve seen nothing, Kate, that would give us cause to change our own deterrent posture,” Kirby said.

Vladimir Putin has lost his first war with Ukraine: The story of a heroic nation and a martyred nationalist thinker in the North Stream

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces on Sunday hunted Russian stragglers in the key city of Lyman, which was taken back from Russia after its demoralized troops, according to a major Russian newspaper, fled with “empty eyes,” and despite Moscow’s baseless claim it had annexed the region surrounding the city.

Two powerful Putin supporters called for using harsher fighting methods because Lyman had fallen, as Moscow was proclaiming that the illegally annexed area would be Russian forever.

Russian forces in the last few days of their occupation were plagued with desertion, poor planning and delayed arrival of reserves, according to an article published Sunday in Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Putin lost Lyman just as he was publicly declaring that the Donetsk region – in which Lyman sits – was now annexed by Russia.

The soldiers who were interview on the Sunday broadcast said that they were forced to retreat because they were fighting with NATO soldiers.

“These are no longer toys here. The deputy commander of a Russian battalion told the war correspondent that they were part of a systematic and clear attack by the army and NATO forces. The soldier insisted that his unit had been intercepting discussions by Romanian and Polish soldiers, not Ukrainians, on their radios.

The saying goes that the first casualty in war is truth. Nowhere is that more true than in Russia, where the Kremlin has engaged in a campaign of false advertising to sell its invasion of Ukraine to the public.

The idea that Russia is fighting a broader campaign was repeated in an interview with Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right thinker whose daughter, also a prominent nationalist commentator, was killed by a car bomb in August.

The calamitous adventure has achieved the opposite of what Putin wanted. Ukraine has emerged as a heroic nation, with a hunger for democracy more passionate than ever before.

The leaders of both Russia and the European countries accused the western countries of damaging theNord Stream gas line after underwater explosions last month.

He said, “The West accuses us of blowing up the gas line ourselves.” The war with the West on a scale and extent is unfolding, so we need to understand it. In other words, we must join this battle with a mortal enemy who does not hesitate to use any means, including exploding gas pipelines.”

The nonstop messaging campaign may be working, at least for now. Many Russians feel threatened by the West, said Aleksandr Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who is from Russia.

Moscow and Tehran have sought to foment their ideologies beyond their borders. That’s why the struggles of the Ukrainian and Iranian people will have repercussions beyond their countries.

Russian officials, on the other hand, welcomed Musk’s tweets. The deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, a former Russian president and prime minister, predicted that Musk would say thatUkraine is an artificial state after Musk replied with “kudos”.

A majority of respondents on Twitter voted “No” in response to Musk’s poll. Musk suggested that these results were due to a bot attack.

When the war in Ukraine began, Musk and his company, SpaceX, sent Starlink internet terminals, which can be operated from any place with power or clear view of the sky, to the war-torn country.

After months of war, his musings were not well-received by Ukrainian officials.

As Russian troops began to mass on Ukrainian borders, more than half of the Ukrainian population didn’t trust Zelensky to lead them into war. It was a rating likely influenced by him not keeping some of his campaign promises, especially failing to launch an effective fight against corruption in the judiciary.

Musk continued to tweet out defenses for his initial Twitter thread, seeming to suggest that there was little chance of victory for Ukraine, which recently began swiftly reclaiming territory in its northeast, including the strategically important transport hub of Lyman.

Musk’s foreign policy commentary came one day after Tesla announced lower-than-expected delivery and production numbers for the third quarter and days after the car company unveiled an underwhelming humanoid robot. He’s in a legal fight over his attempts to back out of a proposed deal to buy the company.

Living in a World: The David v. Goliath Battle of the London and the Iranian Regime, and the Decay of Mahsa Amini

A world affairs columnist is Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has more opinion on it.

There are two groups of demonstrators in London. One was waving Ukrainian flags; the other Iranian flags. When they met, they cheered each other, and chanted, “All together we will win.”

Ukraine’s brave resistance galvanized and unified the West. In the United States, large swathes of the population supported the cause of Ukraine despite the best efforts.

These David v. Goliath battles show bravery that is almost unimaginable to the rest of us – and is inspiring equally courageous support in places like Afghanistan.

In Iran, the spark was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last month. She died in the custody of morality police who had held her for violating rules which required women to dress modestly.

In defiance, Iranian women have stripped off their hijab and thrown it into the fire in the middle of the night.

It’s why women are climbing on cars, waving their hijab in the air, like a flag of freedom, and gathering crowds of supporters in city streets, and in universities, where security forces are opening fire to try and silence them.

Vladimir Putin and the Syrian Civil War: The Soviet Union, the Middle East, and the Continuum of Security and Security in the Cold War

After all, it was less than a decade ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military entered Syria’s long civil war, helping to save the dictator Bashar al-Assad (as Iran had).

Russia will continue to do what it does, and we will continue to do what we do. And that is to not be deterred from our support for Ukraine, and for us and Zelensky to not be deterred to travel as he sees fit to advance his people’s interests,” the official said.

The war exposed Russia as a paper tiger and led to terrible suffering in Ukraine and the growing oppression at home. Putin’s genius, it turns out, was a mirage.

The repressive regimes in Moscow and Tehran are viewed as pariahs by other countries and supported by some autocrats.

The Iranian-made drones that Russia sent on Monday to divebomb Ukraine’s capital delivered the most emphatic proof yet that Tehran has become a rare, increasingly close ally to the Kremlin, offering both weapons and international support that Russia sorely lacks.

These are two regimes that, while very different in their ideologies, have much in common in their tactics of repression and their willingness to project power abroad.

Niloofar Hamedi was the first journalist to report on what happened to the female prisoner, Mahsa Amini. Journalists are a very dangerous profession in Russia. So is criticizing Putin. After failing to kill Navalny, the people of Putin created charges to keep him in a prison indefinitely.

There is more than just a low probability that the Iranian regime could fall for people in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. It would have a significant effect on their countries’ lives, heavily influenced by Tehran. After all, Iran’s constitution calls for spreading its Islamist revolution.

So is Putin’s grip on power unchallenged? Rumors are now flying inside the country about another wave of mobilization. And in Moscow, signs of elite competition are beginning to emerge, even as some Russians are seeing through the cracks in the wall of state propaganda.

War in Ukraine: Why the US and Russia are underperforming in detecting war in Ukraine, as suggested by CNN’s Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling

EUREKA, Mo. — After falling out with his partner at a limousine company in the St. Louis suburbs, Martin Zlatev recently sought a lucrative new business opportunity: selling $30 million worth of rockets, grenade launchers and ammunition to the Ukrainian military.

The pair wrote to the Ministry of Defense about how little time was left. They have a plan for the sale of Bosnian and American arms to Ukranian.

Biden will unveil a new package that includes an air defense system for Ukraine, which has been a request for a long time. CNN was first to report the US was expected to send the Patriot systems to Ukraine.

Many in Ukraine seem to accept his explanation, but they also say Zelenskyy’s government failed to prepare the country to defend itself. It has made a lot of people angry.

President Joe Biden has delivered a stark warning about the dangers behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats as Moscow continues to face military setbacks in Ukraine. CNN’s Military Analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling joins Don Lemon to discuss the state of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.”

US officials have also said, however, that they have detected no sign that Russia is moving or readying any of its tactical nuclear weapons, which can be small enough to target soldier formations or big enough to destroy a city.

What Biden wanted to say about nuclear physics: a response to Kennedy’s commencement speech at the American University Kennedy Fundraiser

Biden said that he was trying to figure out what Putin had off ramp. Where is he going to find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not not only lose face but significant power within Russia?” Biden said something.

The President may have been thinking of Kennedy’s commencement address at American University in Washington in 1963 in which he reflected on the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis and the risks posed by weapons that could end the world.

While defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers have to avoid confrontations which bring an adversary a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.

“To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy – or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

If a country wanted to use nuclear weapons, they would be writing their own death warrant.

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden said at the fundraiser.

Peter Bergen is a professor of practice at Arizona State University and a vice president at New America. Bergen is the author of “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The Russian Revolution in Ukraine: How did Putin and the Romanov Monarchy Learn to Wish for Russia? The Case of Sergei Soldatov

His revisionist account shows that despite the fact thatUkraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union over three decades ago, his rationale for the war is still based on being part of Russia.

A recently published book by a historian states that during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, they planned on setting up a puppet government and leaving the country as quickly as possible.

The US was initially hesitant in increasing its support for the Afghan resistance due to fears of a larger conflict with the Soviet Union. It took until 1986 for the CIA to arm the Afghans with highly effective anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, which ended the Soviets’ total air superiority, eventually forcing them to withdraw from Afghanistan three years later.

It does not mean the war in Ukraine is not changing. The war will look different this year with major offensives likely staged by both sides, according to General David Petraeus. Overall, the war continues to demonstrate basic weaknesses in Russia’s military, which was once thought to be one of the most capable in the world.

Ukraine claims a high success rate for its Patriot air defense systems, as it says 30 out of 35 missiles have been stopped. The best NATO technology is on the table with the goal of helping Ukraine win the war and hold Russia back.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was preceded by the withdrawal of soviet forces from Afghanistan two years earlier.

Looking further back into the history books, he must also know that the Russian loss in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 weakened the Romanov monarchy. The Russian Revolution was started because of Czar Nicholas II’s leadership during the First World War. The Romanov family was killed by the Bolsheviks.

In the early hours of that day, President Vladimir Putin announced that he had ordered Russian troops into Ukraine. Russian investigative journalist Sergei Soldatov, who is living in self imposed exile in London, told CNN that everything they believed in got completely compromised.

More than seven months into the war, the “genius” myth has unraveled. Over 200,000 Russian men voted to leave the country over the past two weeks. Despite the huge efforts of Putin, they know that Russia is losing the war.

If Russia is allowed to win, the world will see a new era of global instability with less freedom, less peace and less prosperity.

Biden’s comments on Armageddon: How a Secretary of State confronts a Cold War with Nuclear Laws and Intelligence

Biden caught several senior US officials by surprise due to the lack of any new intelligence, but also due to his grim language.

Biden’s remarks show that he is trying to calibrate his response to that environment in a very real and ongoing discussion.

Typically held with only a few dozen donors, Biden’s fundraisers are more intimate occasions where he often speaks from handwritten notes, only loosely following a script he’s written for himself. Biden is usually around the room while he is talking at his fundraisers, even if he is only speaking from a handheld microphone. The convention that began during the Obama presidency, where reporters are not allowed to film the President’s remarks is still going on.

He usually gives a short speech for 10 minutes but in the past he has given lengthy comments on a variety of topics. After the remarks, reporters are ushered out while Biden takes a few questions from the donors.

Biden’s comments about the prospect of nuclear Armageddon were not scripted and aides back in Washington first learned about his remarks through news reports and dispatches from the press pool in the room.

The President’s use of Armageddon served to illustrate that point – there’s no escalation ladder when it comes to nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise. Any move in that direction sets off a cascading response that only has one outcome.

Several officials pointed out that the threat of a nuclear attack has been around for a long time, and that US officials have grappled with the potential for use since the first days of the war.

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The White House did not say anything publicly Thursday night, so there are no plans to address the remarks on Friday morning. If Biden wants to address it himself, that will be apparent when he leaves for Maryland later in the mornng, said one official.

More broadly, the most important element remains that US officials have seen no change in posture or specific intelligence that raises the threat level above where it has been.

There have been direct communications between the US and Moscow to let them know of the scale of US response should Putin go down that path. The details are still kept closely held, and won’t change soon.

A former colonel-general in the Russian army and a member of the United Russia party stated that they need to stop lying. “We brought this up many times before … But somehow it’s apparently not getting through to individual senior figures.”

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Near the border with Ukraine is Valuyki. When hitting Russian targets across the border, Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm nor-deny stance.

“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. Many say that the Minister of Defense could potentially shoot himself if this happened to him. The word officer is an unfamiliar one for many.

Kadyrov has been more open about blaming Russian commanders after Russia retreated from Ukrainian cities.

In a Telegram post, Kadyrov blamed Colonel-General Lapin, the commander of the Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

The Russian information space has deviated from the narrative preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense that things are generally under control, according to a recent analysis.

Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.

Ukranian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Decay of a Remote Village in the Light of the Chern-Simons Disaster

With that deal, which came to light only later, a disaster that could have killed tens of millions of Americans and untold numbers of Soviet citizens was averted.

There is only a single remote village in the western part of the country and it has been devastating: homes have been reduced to rubble, a school burned to the ground and a gut wrenching stench from dead chickens.

The worst violence to hit the region since the fall of the Soviet Union took place last month and killed at least seven people, but both Russia and a military alliance devoted to preserving peace failed to stop it.

The blasts will be accompanied by concerns that Putin may try to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, after damage to the Crimean bridge dealt a blow to the Russian President.

Moscow fired at least 84 cruise missiles toward Ukraine on Monday, the Ukrainian military said, 43 of which were neutralized by missile defense systems. Twenty-four Russian attack drones were also used in the salvo, 13 of which were destroyed.

The subway system in Kyiv was closed for several hours on Monday. But the air raid alert in the city was lifted at midday, as rescue workers sought to pull people from the rubble caused by the strikes.

Demys Shmygal, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, said Monday that as of 11 a.m. local time, a total of 11 “crucial infrastructure facilities” in eight regions had been damaged.

In his Saturday night remarks, Mr. Zelensky said that there had been ongoing power cuts throughout various parts of Ukranian. Some are what he classified as “emergency” outages resulting from attacks. He called them some of the things, such as disrupted outages or planned blackouts.

Putin held an operational meeting of his Security Council on Monday, a day after he called the explosions on the Crimea bridge a “terrorist attack” and said the organizers and executors were “Ukrainian special services.”

The attacks on the Kerch bridge were a surprise, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Ukrainian government of attacking it on Sunday.

The head of annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, claimed on Monday that Russia’s approach to its military operation in Ukraine has changed.

He said that if actions to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure had been taken every day, they would have been able to defeat the regime in May.

There are air raid sirens in all over Ukraine. There are missiles continuing to strike. There are people dead and wounded. I ask you: do not leave your shelters. Take care of your families and stay safe. Let’s hang in there and be strong,” Zelensky added.

And there seems to be little suggestion that the West will be letting up on its support for Ukraine. The United States and Europe are both committed to see Ukraine through this winter and beyond.

“Again, Putin is massively terrorizing innocent civilians in Kyiv and other cities,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. The Netherlands condemns the acts. Putin does not seem to know that the will of the Ukrainian people is irreversible.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations called the attacks unacceptable and said that civilians were paying the highest price.

CNN Follows Ukraine Through the Troubles: Attacks on the Kerch Straight Bridge, Kyiv Bridge and the Typsy Cherry in Kharkiv

Zelensky told CNN that he would address a meeting of the G7 group of nations on Tuesday, after the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed that they would hold an emergency meeting via video conference.

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed are of his own. View more opinion at CNN.

Even after a huge explosion struck the vital and symbolic Kerch Straight bridge over the weekend, fears of retaliation by the Kremlin were never far away.

The strikes occurred as people headed to work and while kids were being dropped off at schools. A friend in Kyiv texted me that she had just exited a bridge span 10 minutes before it was struck.

The area around my office in Odesa remained quiet as air raid sirens blared, with reports of missiles and drones being shot down. Usually at this time of the day nearby restaurants are packed with customers and excited about weddings and parties.

Monday’s attacks also came just a few hours after Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, mostly while people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

In recent months, Russian troops have relentlessly targeted Ukraine’s power grid, repeatedly pounding power plants, heating systems and other energy infrastructure with targeted drone and missile strikes. The attacks have spanned the country on the cusp of winter, leaving Ukrainians vulnerable and in the dark just as the coldest time of the year is beginning.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, which has seen more bombardments than Kyiv, residents shifted to war footing and stocked up on canned food, gas and drinking water. At the Typsy Cherry, they entertained themselves. “The mood was cheerful,” its owner, Vladyslav Pyvovar, told The Times. People drank, had fun and wondered when the electricity will come back. Hours later, the power came back.

Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

With so many asylum seekers back home, the attacks are likely to cause another blow to business confidence.

Russia’s military bloggers were aghast. A “demonstrative humiliation of Russia” is how Russian journalist Sergey Mardan described the moment. The account on Telegram app managed by Russian service members made a sarcastic remark about not being waiting for the President of the United States, but for the president of the Russian Federation.

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. Putin personally opened the bridge by driving a truck across it. The world’s longest sea crossing bridge was connected to the former British and Portuguese territories of Macau and Hong Kong by that same year. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.

The Social Media Blast: Putin’s Last Attempt to Confront the Critique of his Home-Sensitive Television Regime

The blast lit up social media channels like Christmas trees for Ukrainians. Many shared their sense of jubilation via text messages.

For the world to see, the message was obvious. Putin doesn’t want to be humiliated. He will not admit defeat. He is prepared to cause carnage and terror in his response to his battlefield reversals.

It was also an act of selfish desperation: facing increasing criticism at home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on unusually thin ice.

Do Ukrainians Really Want to Leave Ukraine? Why the West Needs to Remain The Wrong Despite the Crimes of February 8, 2008

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, many predicted a short war. Eight months later, this conflict still has a long way to go, despite the fact that there have been new twists in it. “The Ukrainians are determined to take back all of Ukraine. Now, this is the real eye opener for me,” said retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus. He said the ongoing offensive has Ukrainians thinking they might be able to drive out Russian troops altogether.

What is crucially important now is for Washington and other allies to use urgent telephone diplomacy to urge China and India – which presumably still have some leverage over Putin – to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.

Third, the West should make clear to a wide range of Russian audiences that it is safe to end the war by leaving Ukraine. An orderly withdrawal is unlikely to lead to regime change, let alone the breakup of Russia. Both outcomes are not an official goal of Western policy and talk about them is counter-productive. Some in the West will resist the idea of any such reassurance. But if Russia’s elites conclude that it is as dangerous for Russia to leave Ukraine as to stay, they have no incentive to press for an end to the war. Reassurance does not mean compromise.

There is an urgent need for high tech defense systems to protect the country. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.

The US Will Continue to Help Ukraine Against Air Attacks, Reply to U.S. President Joe Biden and CNN’s Kate Bolduan

Turkey and the Gulf states, which get many Russian tourists, need to be pressured into joining the West in further isolating Russia with trade and travel restrictions.

President Joe Biden Monday spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offered advanced air systems that would help defend against Russian air attacks, but the White House did not specify exactly what might be sent.

Biden relayed in November that he did not believe Ukraine aid would dry up in a Republican Congress, saying that he “would be surprised if leader McCarthy even has a majority of his Republican colleagues who say they’re not going to fund the legitimate defensive needs of Ukraine.”

Asked whether the attacks of the past 24 hours would change the calculus on what the US would consider offering Ukraine, a senior administration official said they had no announcements to make on that front, but that the US will continue to help provide Ukraine with short- and long-range air defense systems, as it has in the past.

The US had yet to deliver NASAMS to Ukraine, according to the Department of Defense. He was at the time. Two of the systems are expected to arrive in the next couple of months, with the remaining six arriving later, according to the general.

John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, suggested Washington was looking favorably on Ukraine’s requests and was in touch with the government in Kyiv almost every day. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kirby told CNN’s Kate BOLDUAN that “it is clear” that he is feeling pressure both at home and overseas.

The tragedy of Monday night: Russia’s enemy as a weapon in the war on Ukraine, and a campaign to destroy the Ukrainian civilian population

The attacks snatched away the semblance of normality that city dwellers, who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters, have managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of new strikes.

The targets on Monday had little military value and Putin needs to find new targets because of his inability to cause losses on the battlefield.

These two headline packages alone could impact the course of the war. The threat of Russia now is the bombardment of energy infrastructure. It is making winter colder and unbearable for some, plunging cities into darkness of up 12 hours a day and sometimes longer, in the hope of sapping high Ukrainian morale.

The attacks on civilians, which killed at least 14 people, also drove new attention to what next steps the US and its allies must take to respond, after already sending billions of dollars of arms and kits to Ukraine in an effective proxy war with Moscow.

Kirby was unable to say if Putin was changing his strategy from a lost battlefieldwar to a campaign to damage Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he said it had already been in the works.

It was something they had been planning for a long time. Kirby said that the explosion on the bridge did not accelerate some of their planning.

But French President Emmanuel Macron underscored Western concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the prelude to another pivot in the conflict.

“He was telegraphing about where he is going to go as we get into the winter. Vinman said on CNN that he is going to try to force the Ukrainian population to compromise by going after the infrastructure.

“So imagine if we had modern equipment, we probably could raise the number of those drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians or wound and injure Ukrainians,” Zhovkva said.

A long-term campaign against civilians by Putin could be a way to break the perception of the Ukrainian people, and perhaps cause a new flood of refugees into Western Europe that might upset NATO allies that are supporting Ukraine.

The lesson of this horrible war is that everything Putin has done to fracture a nation he doesn’t believe has the right to exist has only strengthened and unified it.

Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper live from her basement in Ukraine on Monday that she was angry at the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians from a new round of Russian “terror.”

“This is just another terror to provoke maybe panic, to scare you guys in other countries or to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant, he is still powerful and look what fireworks we can arrange,” she said.

The knee-jerk reaction to these attacks — “strike back at the barbarian Russians” — must be held in check. Instead, now is the time for renewed pressure for a cease-fire.

In the age of nuclear weapons, notions of right and wrong have been rendered irrelevant as all modes of just war are accepted. It really doesn’t matter who was the aggressor, who the aggrieved, who committed crimes against civilians, who was merely acting in self-defense.

In an asymmetrical exchange of nuclear missiles in which hundreds of millions could die, it’s not really important who was right or wrong. No historians will survive to tell the story.

President Biden should publicly muse about alternatives and dispatch his diplomats immediately to Russia to give Vladimir Putin off ramps. An immediate cease-fire must occur, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine must be pressured to agree.

What do far-right critics of Putin and Putin (and their enemies) really want to know about Ukraine? A rethinking for some of Putin’s former supporters

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, empty store shelves, and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures there.

Openly supporting Putin has turned out to be the a more complicated strategy than the far right expected. Their history of support for a man whose authoritarian leanings are still visible today is a cautionary tale for some of Putin’s former supporters.

The daily images of bombed out schools, hospitals, playgrounds and apartment buildings, and the determined, so-far-largely-successful pushback by Ukraine, has prompted many – though not all – former fans to reconsider their admiration.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy and now slated to become prime minister, dispensed with her formerly warm words toward Putin and vowed to continue sending weapons to help Ukraine. Likewise, Matteo Salvini, who once called Putin “the best statesman on Earth” and used to sport a shirt with Putin’s face on it, now insists he supports Ukraine.

The source of their rethinking may be found in a similar poll which showed that the favorable opinions of Putin and Russia among far-right members had gone down since Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin was trusted by 42% of Lega last year, but now they trust him only 10%.

Pro-Russia positions are so poisonous that the RN’s acting president, Jordan Bardella, threatened to sue anyone who suggests there are financial ties between the party and Russia. Le Pen’s presidential campaign was partlyfinanced by a loan from Russia. Le Pen said French banks refused to give her a loan.)

That’s the case in Germany, where some in the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have openly expressed support for Russia, but the leadership has tried to tone it down while mobilizing opposition to Berlin’s policies – on the grounds that it creates hardships for Germans.

A couple of weeks ago, CPAC, the conservative political action group, tweeted a cringeworthy message that framed the conflict along Putin’s preferred lines, calling on Democrats to “end the gift-giving to Ukraine” and focus on the US. The group soon deleted the post, apologetically, with claims that it didn’t go through proper vetting.

Nick Fuentes, founder of the America First Political Action Conference, shouted out, can we get a round of applause for Russia, days after the Russian bombing of Ukraine.

The leaders of the former Soviet republics are letting Putin down as he tried to protect them. Alexander Lukashenko is the only one who has stood with the Kremlin.

In the US – where 73% of the people want continued support for Ukraine even after Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons – a few prominent far-right figures still defend him.

He began to feel bad about speaking about Russians as “us” as he disagreed with Russia. But saying “Russians” didn’t seem right either. I have some partial responsibility for what is happening and I don’t want to hide it.

Beyond the reality of living through war inside Ukraine, people around the world have felt the knock-on effect of the conflict as inflation and energy prices spike. It raised the fear of another invasion by a different global power.

For the first time in the war, it’s heading towards a new phase. Keir Giles is a senior lecturer at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, and he said this war is the third, fourth and possibly fifth war that they have observed.

It means that, as winter approaches, the stakes of the war have been raised once more. Giles said that Russia would like to keep it up. But the Ukrainian successes of recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin, too. “They are able to do things that take us by surprise, so let’s get used to it,” Giles said.

Ukrainian troops hoist the country’s flag above a building in Vysokopillya, in the southern Kherson region, last month. Since their counter-offensive began, the Ukrainians have liberated hundreds of settlements.

Russia said Thursday its forces would help evacuate residents of occupied Kherson to other areas, as Ukraine’s offensive continued to make gains in the region. The announcement came shortly after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, in the latest indication that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

Since the end of the summer, when the ground war in eastern and southernUkraine began, there has been a series of decisive counter-attacks that pushed back Russian forces and brought Western optimism that the war can be won.

According to the author of “Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine,” the Russians are playing for the whistle by trying to avoid a collapsing frontline before the winter sets in.

“If they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking roughly as it is, that’s a huge success for the Russians given how botched this has been since February.”

Ukrainian troops are focused primarily on pushing Russian forces eastwards, having crossed the Oskil River in late September, with Moscow likely preparing to defend the cities of Starobilsk and Svatove in the Luhansk region, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Ukraine will be eager to improve on its gains before the cold weather hits and the full impact of higher energy prices will be felt in Europe.

“There are so many reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to get things done quickly,” Giles said. Ukrainians are always going to bevulnerable to winter energy crises and power cuts in Europe, even if they have the support of the Western world.

According to Ukrenergo, the power supply has been restored to the central areas of the country after Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday. The Prime Minister of Ukranian asked Ukrainians to reduce their energy consumption during the peak hours, because there is a lot of repair work to be done.

Experts believe it remains unlikely that Russia’s aerial bombardment will form a recurrent pattern; while estimating the military reserves of either army is a murky endeavor, Western assessments suggest Moscow may not have the capacity to keep it up.

“We know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out,” Jeremy Fleming, a UK’s spy chief, said in a rare speech on Tuesday.

The ISW said in its daily update Monday that the strikes had wasted some of Russia’s precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.

Justin Bronk, a military expert with the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed with that assessment, telling CNN that, “Ukrainian interception success rates against Russian cruise missiles have risen significantly since the start of the invasion in February.”

The Russians don’t have the supplies of precision munitions to maintain a high-tempo missile assault, so the barrage of missile strikes is going to be an occasional feature for shows of extreme outrage.

There is a psychological impact to any further involvement in the war. “Everyone’s mind in Ukraine and in the West has been oriented towards fighting one army,” he said. Putin would use the invasion to argue that the war is about restoring the lands of ancient Rus states.

The reopening of a northern front would be a new challenge for the country, said Giles. It would give Russia a new way into the area that was wrested from Ukraine, should Putin try to reestablish control of it.

Mr. Zelensky told tales of triumph and despair as the New Year approached. He said the first missiles destroyed the labyrinth of illusions but also showed Ukrainians what they were capable of.

Ahead of the NATO defense ministers’ meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that more missile attack systems were needed for Ukraine.

Ukraine “badly needed” modern systems such as the IRIS-T that arrived this week from Germany and the NASAMS expected from the United States The man said, Bronk said.

Vladimir Putin’s Cold War in Ukraine: What does the United States want to do about it? The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Studies at the Cipher Brief

Petraeus is the commander in chief. It could if Putin mobilized all of Russia successfully. However, to date, the mobilizations have been partial, as Putin seems to fear how the country might respond to total mobilization. More Russians left the country than were reported to the stations, in response to the latest call-up of reserves.

The Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said there was a partnership of convenience between the two dictatorships.

Both countries are deep in crisis, struggling economically and politically. Iran is attempting to quell street protests that pose the most serious challenge in years to the government, while Russia is trying to manage rising dissension over a faltering war effort and an unpopular draft.

The prisoner swap after the summit seemed to favor Zelensky, who stated at the time that it was the beginning of an end to the war in eastern Ukraine, which had killed over 15,000 people.

Petraeus spoke at an annual conference in Sea Island, Ga., run by The Cipher Brief, which brings together members of the national security community — current and former — to stand back and look at the big picture on global security.

The conference was told by a top Ukrainian official that a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield is what the conflict needs to end.

The Russian leader is not interested in finding a way out of the conflict, according to a former CIA officer who runs the Intelligence Project at Harvard. In fact, he says, just the opposite. “Putin’s ability to remember when he is running into an obstacle is something he uses to his advantage,” said Kolbe. “There’s a lot of tricks he can still pull out to try to undermine morale in Ukraine and in the West.”

This annexation is huge. Dmitri Alperovitch, who runs a think tank, said that Putin bets his presidency on staying in Ukraine.

Alperovitch said that this is a burn of bridges. “What this means is that this war is likely to continue for many, many months, potentially many years, as long as he’s in power and as long as he has the resources to continue fighting.”

The fast approaching winter will slow the pace of the war but is not expected to stop the fighting. David Petraeus thinks the harsh weather favors the Ukrainians on the battlefield. The Ukrainians can come and knock on the door and be taken in to eat soup from their fellow citizens. And of course, they’re welcomed as liberators, whereas the Russian occupiers, the Ukrainians are trying to kill them,” he said.

At the Georgia conference, in a ballroom filled with experienced national security types, no one suggested the war was near an end. “I don’t believe there’s any need for talks in the near term, despite wars ending with some sort of negotiated solution, whether it’s stalemate or defeat,” said the former CIA official.

He said that the war began with a Russian invasion and is now intense. Greg Myre covers national security for NPR. Follow him @gregmyre1.

Russian Warfare in the Ukraine: a warning message from the Kremlin and the new commander of the Russian forces on the Ukrainian front

The mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, was taking pains to offer reassurances. “At present, no measures are being introduced to limit the normal rhythm of the city’s life,” Mr. Sobyanin wrote on his Telegram channel.

Despite the new power granted to them by Mr. Putin, the governors of the region said no entry or exit restrictions would be imposed.

But many Russians are sure to see a warning message in the martial law imposed in Ukraine, the first time that Moscow has declared martial law since World War II, analysts say.

“People are worried that they will soon close the borders, and the siloviki” — the strong men close to Mr. Putin in the Kremlin — “will do what they want,” Ms. Stanovaya said.

The problem is when Putin will start shifting the blame for the crisis to himself, since he seems too inexperienced to lead a change at the top. The last change was the appointment of Sergei Surovikin as the first person to be placed in overall command of all Russian forces on the Ukraine front — an army general formerly in charge of the brutal Russian bombardment of Aleppo in Syria.

Russia keeps large quantities of weapons close to the troops it will supply and in range of enemy weaponry. Standard military practice dictates that large depots be broken up and scattered and that they be located far behind enemy lines — even within Russian territory that western powers have declared off-limits to Ukrainian strikes.

The support they received in terms of arms and materiel have been a major factor in their success against the Russian military.

The Dean Obeidallah Show: Why the U.S. and the Pentagon should not be more generous to Ukraine, even if Republicans win the House in 2020

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show” and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him. The opinions on this commentary are those of the author. You can also give your opinion on CNN.

It is my guess that no one will be happier to hear McCarthys words than Putin. The United States has provided more money to Ukraine than any other nation. Humanitarianaid, along with a wide range of weapons, were given to the Ukrainians by these funds.

The Republican Senate candidate in Ohio said that he wanted the Ukrainians to be successful. The Washington Post reported on Sunday thatUkrainian Americans who are lifelong Republicans are going to vote for Tim Ryan in the Senate race because of his original remark.

White House officials, before the current predicament on Capitol Hill, were skeptical that Ukraine aid would dry up completely. They have pointed out Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is among the most ardent supporters of Ukraine, and note McCarthy has pledged continued support for Ukraine.

He knows better, but if he goes down the route of suggesting that America will stop being free, it would show you he is willing to sacrifice everything for his own political gain.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene blamedUkraine for the war in the wake of Russia’s attack on it, because she expected McCarthy to give her a lot of power if Republicans win the House in next month’s elections.

Tucker Carlson is one of the Conservative Fox News stars that have been working with members of the Republican base to make sure that they know there’s a possibility of an end to US assistance for Ukraine.

Last week, Ingraham bashed the United States for being the “arseal of democracy” and suggested our massive military is not enough to help other countries. During that same episode, Ingraham welcomed GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who echoed McCarthy’s comments about aid for Ukraine, saying, “We can’t put America first by giving blank checks to those around the world to solve their problems.”

Biden implied that McCarthy and his colleagues may or may not be able to get it. But there’s one person who fully gets it: Vladmir Putin. Few people will have greater cause for celebration if the GOP wins back control of the House.

The author of A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen is a CNN contributor, David A. Andelman. He worked as a correspondent for The New York Times in Europe and Asia. The views he expresses are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.

Energy price caps for Europe and the EU: Implications for the environment, the economics and the epochs of war in Europe

This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.

European Union powers agreed a plan to control energy prices that have gone up since Russia imposed embargoes on imports of energy and the Kremlin abruptly cut natural gas supplies.

The Dutch Title Transfer Facility has an emergency cap and the EU has permission to form a group to buy gas on the international market.

While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.

Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. The ministers must work out details with Germany which is worried that such caps would encourage higher consumption.

These divisions are all part of Putin’s fondest dream. The success of the Kremlin is dependent on the fact that Europe fails to agree on essentials.

Germany and France are already at loggerheads on many of these issues. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/opinions/putin-prolonge-war-ukraine-winter-andelman/index.html

Italy’s new prime minister, the threat of Russian sanctions, and the warning to the U.S. to end the war on Ukraine in a far-right coalition

There is a new government in Italy. Giorgia Meloni was inaugurated as the first woman prime minister of Italy on Saturday and tried to remove the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.

Silvio Berlusconi, himself a four-time prime minister of Italy, was recorded at a gathering of his party loyalists, describing with glee the 20 bottles of vodka Putin sent to him together with “a very sweet letter” on his 86th birthday.

The other leading member of the ruling Italian coalition, Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as deputy prime minister, said during the campaign, “I would not want the sanctions [on Russia] to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.”

At the same time, Poland and Hungary, longtime ultra-right-wing soulmates united against liberal policies of the EU that seemed calculated to reduce their influence, have now disagreed over Ukraine. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

This is trickier. Kevin McCarthy, the most probable Speaker of the House, warned the Biden administration that a blank cheque from the new Republican-led house wouldn’t suffice.

Meanwhile on Monday, the influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to open talks with Russia on ending the conflict while its troops are still occupying vast stretches of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.

Hours later, caucus chair Mia Jacob, facing a firestorm of criticism, emailed reporters with a statement “clarifying” their remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

The War Between Russia and Iran: The Prospects for Russian Military-Industrial Production, Export Controls, and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow

At the same time, the West is turning up the pressure on Russia. Last Thursday, the State Department released a detailed report on the impact of sanctions and export controls strangling the Russian military-industrial complex.

The lack of necessary semi-conductors has halted Russian production of hypersonic missiles. Aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts, plants producing anti-aircraft systems have shut down, and “Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks” for replenishment. The Soviet era ended more than three decades ago.

The US announced that they had seized property of a top Russian procurement agent and his agencies who were responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end- users.

The DOJ announced charges against companies and individuals for violating sanctions by bringing high-tech equipment into Russia.

Zelensky refused to leave the United States even when it was clear that the situation would lead to a strong resistance from the Ukrainian people. The West would have supported theUkrainian people in their efforts if Zelensky had left. It would be the Mariinsky Palace, the official residence of the Ukrainian President, rather than a military parade in Kyiv that Biden would be going to.

The relationship between Moscow and Iran, which has improved in the past few years, has attracted the attention of Iran’s rivals and foes in the Middle East, of NATO members and of nations that are interested in restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which aims to delay Iran’s ability

The direction of history is at stake, according to Yuval Noah Harari, as a victory by Russia would reopen the door to wars of aggression and invasions of one country by another, something that has not been done since the Second World War.

NATO leaders decided to equip, arm and train Ukraine at their summit in March of last year. It wouldn’t be a member, but the message to Moscow was that in the coming years, it would look and fight like it was in NATO.

The repercussions of what is happening far from the battlefields are still felt today. When oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, decided last month to slash production, the US accused the Saudis of helping Russia fund the war by boosting its oil revenues. (An accusation the Saudis deny).

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz recently reiterated that “Israel supports and stands with Ukraine, NATO and the West,” but will not move those systems to Ukraine, because, “We have to share our airspace in the North with Russia.”

Russia’s assault on Ukrainian ports and its patrols of Black Sea halted Ukraine’s grain exports just after the war started, causing food prices to skyrocket. The head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, warned in May that the world was “marching toward starvation.”

More significantly, the invasion roiled the global economy, including energy and grain markets. And most tragically, it slaughtered thousands of innocents and caused unspeakable suffering for millions of Ukrainians because of a policy choice by Putin in his quest for empire.

Higher prices not only affect family budgets and individual lives. They are powerful when they have political power. The war has made incumbent political leaders on the defensive in many countries.

CNN Journalism in Kherson: A journey through the Dnipro River, a region of Ukraine that has been ruled by Russian forces since March 3

And it’s not all on the fringes. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader who could become speaker of the House after next week’s US elections, suggested the GOP might choose to reduce aid to Ukraine. Progressive Democrats released and withdrew a letter calling for negotiations. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official, said they bring a smile to Putin’s face.

For much of the journey through smaller towns and settlements, our team of CNN journalists was forced to drive through diversions and fields: bridges over canals were blown up, and roads were full of craters and littered with anti-tank mines.

On Friday it was announced that Russian troops had withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro River, leaving the regional capital of the same name and surrounding areas to the Ukrainians.

The outskirts of the city, which had been held by Russian forces since March 3, were mostly empty with no military presence except a Ukrainian checkpoint around 5 miles outside the city center.

The city has little or no power, water or internet. The city center felt good as a CNN crew entered on Saturday.

Once the scene of large protests against Russian plans to transform the region into a breakaway pro-Russian republic, the streets of Kherson are now filled with jubilant residents wrapped in Ukrainian flags, or with painted faces, singing and shouting.

The military presence is still limited and crowds on the street applaud when a truck full of soldiers drives past, with the soldiers being offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses.

As CNN’s crew stopped to regroup, we observed an old man and an old woman hugging a young soldier, with hands on the soldier’s shoulder, exchanging excited “thank yous.”

After living under Russian rule, every single person we have spoken to has had terrifying experiences, such as a teenager who said he was beaten by Russian soldiers because he was a spy. Residents told us they were exhausted and overwhelmed by their new found freedom.

With the occupiers gone, everyone wants you to understand what they’ve been through, how euphoric they feel right now, and how much they’re grateful to the countries who have helped them.

Everyone we talked to is aware that the Russians could shell them in the days to come. There is no guarantee that all Russian troops have left Kherson. Behind this euphoria, there’s still that uncertainty.

After Russia retreated from the southern city of Kherson on Monday, Ukrainian and Russian forces took to the Dnipro River to shoot at each other.

The Dnipro has become the front line in southern Ukraine and officials there are warning of continued danger from the Russian occupation.

There were fears that the Russian army would retaliate for the loss of the city by bombarding it from its new position on the eastern bank.

Mortar shells struck near the bridge, sending up puffs of smoke. The incoming rounds were loud near the river. It was not immediately possible to assess what had been hit.

Invasion of a Russian village in Kherson city, Ukraine, on Monday during a surprise visit by Prime Minister Viktor Yanushevich

The mines are a significant danger. Four people, including an 11-year-old, were killed when a family driving in the village of Novoraysk, outside the city, ran over a mine, Mr. Yanushevich said. Another mine injured six railway workers who were trying to restore service after lines were damaged. And there were at least four more children reportedly injured by mines across the region, Ukrainian officials said in statements.

The people of Kherson were a tangible sign of the strength of the country, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit.

“We are, step by step, coming to all of our country,” Mr. Zelensky said in a short appearance in the city’s main square on Monday, as hundreds of jubilant residents celebrated.

Russian forces continued to fire from across the river on towns and villages newly recaptured by Ukrainian forces, according to the Ukrainian military’s southern command. Two Russian missiles struck the town of Beryslav, which is just north of a critical dam, the military said. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.

A resident of Kherson City who used a secure messaging app said that theOccupants robbed local people and exchange stuff for homemade vodka. “Then they get drunk and even more aggressive. We are so scared here.” She wanted her name to be not used for security.

“Russians roam around, identify the empty houses and settle there,” Ivan, 45, wrote in a text message. He asked that his name not be used because of his concern for his safety in Skadovsk, which is south of Kherson city. We try to find a local who will stay in the owner’s place. So that it is not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.”

Biden and Xi: Two Years after the U.S. Senate and the Great Debate on the Status of Security and Security in the Cold War

On the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Indonesia, US president joe Biden and Chinese president xiuscu chun met for the first time, but it was two years after he was elected.

While a well-developed democratic process in the US is probably disappointing for Xi and other autocrats because they want to show that democracy is inferior to their autocratic systems, they will be happier if there are more cracks in the country. The midterms brought the American President to the table with a stronger hand to play.

That’s not the only reason, however, why this was the perfect moment — from the standpoint of the United States and for democracy — for this meeting to occur: There’s much more to this geopolitical moment than who controls the US House of Representatives and Senate.

As Biden and Xi were meeting, the president of Ukraine went back to Kherson, the city that was taken over by the Russians.

Putin’s adventure turned to disaster as the Ukrainians defended their country with unexpected tenacity and as Biden rallied allies in a muscular push to support Ukraine.

By the time Xi and Putin met again in September, China had done little to support Russia militarily, and Putin admitted that Xi had “questions and concerns” about Ukraine. More recently, after the Russian President thinly threatened to use nuclear weapons, Xi rebuked him.

Putin chose not to go to the G20 summit in Indonesia, avoiding confrontations with world leaders as he became a pariah on the global stage.

“I want to live”: Russian response to the Biden missile attack on Ukraine and a “non-NATO member” of the Ukrainian parliament

Biden is not the only leader that has a strong hand. Xi has just secured an unprecedented third term as China’s leader, and he can now effectively rule for as long as he wants. He doesn’t have to worry about elections, about a critical press or a vociferous opposition party. He is essentially the absolute ruler of a mighty country for many years to come.

And yet Xi faces a mountain of daunting problems. The economy has slowed down so much that China is reluctant to reveal economic data. China’s Covid-19 vaccine, once a tool of global diplomacy, is a disappointment. Because of that, China is imposing martial law as the rest of the world slowly returns to normal.

It’s important that democracy works and that wars of aggression, which have been aimed at suppressing democracy and conquering territory, don’t succeed in the competition between the two systems.

Now Poland is facing the repercussions from these attacks – and it’s not the only bordering country. Russian rockets have also knocked out power across neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member, and therefore attracted considerably less attention than the Polish incident.

Whatever the exact circumstances of the missile, one thing is clear. “Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Wednesday.

That said, a growing number of Russian soldiers have rebelled at what they have been asked to do and refused to fight. Russia may be ready to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers, according to the UK Defense Ministry.

A hotline and a Telegram channel have taken off after being launched as a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live”, designed to assist Russian soldiers eager to defect.

Russian Forces in the Odesa Region: The Last Days in Kyiv, a Country Where Power is Hard to Find a Home

Last week, I spoke to a leading Russian journalist who had fled in March, and he told me he was willing to accept the reality that he would never be able to return to his homeland.

Rumbling in the background is the West’s attempt to diversify away from Russian oil and natural gas in an effort to deprive the country of material resources to pursue this war. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission spoke to the G20 on Tuesday, saying they learned that dependency was unsustainable and that they wanted reliable and forward-looking connections.

The burden that the conflict has put on Western countries is proving to be unfulfilled by Putin, who had hoped that the conflict would drive wedges into the Western alliance. There was a rumor that the long-stalled joint French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter at the center of the Future Combat Air System was beginning to move forward.

Nonetheless, he said, the strikes, using Iranian drones, had left many in the dark. Mr. Zelensky said that the situation in the Odesa region was very difficult. He said that it would take days to restore power to civilians after repair crews were done.

In his nightly address on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had shot down 10 of the 15 drones that Russian forces used. It was not immediately possible to verify his tally.

In the last two months, Russian bombs have taken down half of the country’s electric infrastructure and left the majority of the country without power. In Kyiv, more than 200 miles west of the ongoing fighting in the region known as Donbas, Ukrainians are reduced to hunting for generators, storing food outside to prevent it from spoiling, charging their phones and computers during the few hours a day of reliable power, and keeping backup food and water supplies in apartment building elevators in case someone is trapped inside during a blackout. Water supplies have been paralyzed at times, too, along with portions of the country’s electrified rail system. Only a small portion of the country’s heating systems are working in the winter.

The power system is far from normal and he is urging people to cut their power use.

State of Ukraine: The Changing Face of Moscow’s Troubles in the November 1941 Black Hole That May Come From the Atmosphere

Remember the terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your skies were black from the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Zelensky said to just remember it. “Remember September 11, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories, into battlefields. When innocent people were attacked, attacked from air, just like nobody else expected it, you could not stop it. Our country experiences the same every day.”

Ukrainian authorities have been stepping up raids on churches accused of links with Moscow, and many are watching to see if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy follows through on his threat of a ban on the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is in Paris for a working dinner with French PresidentEmmanuelMacron.

Also in France, on Tuesday, the country is set to co-host a conference with Ukraine in support of Ukrainians through the winter, with a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Fans, friends and family are rejoicing over the return of basketball playerBrittney Griner after she was freed from a Russian prison. Some Republican politicians complain about the prisoner swap and other Americans still being held by Russia.

New measures targeting Russian oil revenue took effect Dec. 5. They include a price cap and a European Union embargo on most Russian oil imports and a Russian oil price cap.

Ukraine hit targets in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, including a church reported to be used as a Russian military base. Officials said Ukrainian forces used long-range artillery to reach targets in the city in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

Zelenskyy said that the city of Bakhmut was turned into burned ruins by Russian forces. Fighting has been fierce there as Russia attempts to advance in the city in the eastern Donbas region.

You can read past recaps here. You can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

There was a wide range of news events in the year. It was a year of significant and surprising moments that caused disbelief and despair. Some days offered joy and pride. Some of the remarkable stories of the year are Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting and the death of Queen Elizabeth II. As the world slowly came out of its Pandemic H1N1, the year started calmly. However, consistent with the brittleness of these modern times, a full-blown war erupted in Ukraine in February as Russia invaded the country, ending and upending the lives of many, including civilians and children. A photograph of a pregnant woman, ashen-face, being carried on a stretcher moments after a bomb was launched at a Maternity Hospital in Mariupol is one of the most vivid pictures of the war for the Associated Press. The unnamed woman and her baby died days later. This image has come to symbolize one of many Russian atrocities in the war in Ukraine. The attack on March 9, just 13 days after the war started, was one of the most brutal days of the conflict that continues to this day. In June, there was a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The photographer photographing the chaotic scene outside of the school took a picture while the student were running for their lives. There were shockwaves around the world after Queen Elizabeth II died. The monarch has worked with most of the British prime ministers. She died two days after inviting Truss to form a new government. The funeral of the Queen drew a lot of people, as they paid their last respects to a monarch who reigned for 70 years. This was the first year that many things had not been done before. The United States saw the confirmation of the country’s first Black woman Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. At the Winter Olympics, American Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win an individual medal in speedskating. And history was made with the first all-female refereeing crew at a men’s World Cup. Another notable moment this year was the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that guaranteed the federal constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. The court’s decision this year triggered protests by abortion-rights activists and celebrations in the streets by anti-abortion groups, further ideologically separating an already divided country. In November, Americans went to the polls, producing election results that defied polling expectations. As all these moments unraveled, the Earth continued to warm up, melting and separating glacial ice ridges while much of the Northern Hemisphere dealt with a historic drought that scorched soil, dried up rivers and triggered mass crop failure. The images of space captured by the James WEBb Space Telescope were very crisp and clear. At the Academy Awards this year, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the middle of the show after he said something about his wife. Millions around the globe watched the moment on television. This summer, many sports fans rooted for Aaron Judge as he broke fellow Yankee Roger Maris’ American League home run record in a single season, a remarkable feat. snapshots of daily life were included with the news events to remind the world of the peaceful and funny things that can happen in people’s lives. And behind all the top photos this year is the hard work of photojournalists. Many of them document conflicts away from their homes. It is thanks to their perseverance and dedication that these images come to light, providing a window to the world and helping us understand it through photography. CNN Digital has a piece on the year in pictures.

The Ukrainian fairy tale of Ievheniia and her husband, Denys, when she was fighting in Bakhmut, Ukraine

Long nights with the promise of a miracle: December is the month of fairy tales, when we peer into the darkness only to be reassured of the “happily ever after.”

“We used to joke that our life was like a dark fairy tale inclined towards a happy ending. Ievheniia, a Ukranian woman who is nursing her two-month-old son in Poland this December, says it is time for her to move on.

On November 18, Ievheniia’s husband Denys was killed in action while defending Ukraine against Russian aggression. The 47-year-old died at the site of some of the war’s heaviest fighting, near the city of Bakhmut in the east of the country. Ukrainian forces have been holding the line there for months; soldiers waist-deep in mud amid trenches, bomb craters and charred trees.

The important moments in the Ukrainian fairy tale take place via video link. A time of war has shifted love to the digital space and disrupted the plot.

A sports medicine physician and reserve officer, Ievheniia has too been ready to join Ukraine’s army these eight years, if called upon. “I am not the kind of person who flees,” she explained.

Ievheniia, a mother-of-five fleeing war, comes home to tell us her story about how she ended up in Poland

The country in Europe is plunged into darkness by Russia’s barbaric imperialist war, so we must remember this as we hurry to bring gifts to our loved ones.

Ievheniia finally arrived at an enlistment office after driving across the country under Russian bombardment. She was told to return the following Monday to sign her contract, after an interview on Friday.

She decided to take a pregnancy test on the weekend. She said with a laugh, the ground was slipping under one’s feet with war and evacuate. It was discovered that I was pregnant.

The pregnancy test provided that plot twist: the woman who planned to defend her homeland instead joined the flow of refugees looking for safety in Poland.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

A fairy tale tale of two Ukrainians and one girl: Ievheniia, Denys, and their son Yukraine

Ievheniia and Denys sought to demonstrate their partnership to the state after the war ended. The everyday ingenuity of the country at war was at work; now, Ukrainian servicemen are allowed to marry via a video call. “Instead of (by) boring civil servants, we got married remotely by a handsome man in a uniform. I had nothing to complain about,” Ievheniia said.

Denys kept the magic alive through the Internet, ordering flowers and professional photos from the trenches.

Ievheniia’s rented flat was found to be empty when a rescue squad found her unconscious, after Denys raised the alarm. A delay could have resulted in death. A Caesarean section was followed. The baby was born two months early, so the dad was able to meet his son.

The men of fighting age aren’t currently allowed to leave the country under martial law. Yet as is appropriate for a fairy tale, Denys got permission, crossed the border, and spent five days with his family.

“It was a magical time filled with ordinary things: shopping, registering with a pediatrician, laughing, talking. Then he left. Ievheniia recalled that they sent greetings to him on his birthday. “The next day he was killed.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

Ievheniia’s story of victory and defeat of Russia in the fabled “Consolatory Fables” of Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino, the celebrated Italian journalist and editor of folktales, among other works, called them “consolatory fables” because it is that a rare fairy tale ends badly. If it does, it means that the time to be consoled has not yet arrived. Instead, it is time to act.

The narrative logic of a fairy tale should not convince us. The wily kid will not defeat the monster with the aid of magic. Like ten months ago, Ukrainians need military aid sufficient to bring a decisive victory over Russia, not just prolong the fight with enormous sacrifices. The Ukrainian victory depends on our collective effort.

I was wondering how I would fight against evil when I was a teenager, and I read a lot of fantasy books. Would I be able to turn away and proceed with my daily life?” Ievheniia told me. “Today, all of us have a chance to find out.”

Zelensky in the Ymolenko Era: A pivotal moment in geopolitics of the 20th century and a crucial moment for the G7

In Paris at the time, I witnessed how Zelensky pulled up to the Élysée Palace in a modest Renault, while Putin motored in with an ostentatious armored limousine. (The host, French President Emmanuel Macron, hugged Putin but chose only to shake hands with Zelensky).

Zelenskyy’s career path has been audacious and inventive, moving from entertainment to his improbable role as global symbol of democracy. Zelenskyy is a way to understand him, since it became an independent country three decades ago, according to the philosopher by the name of Yermolenko.

“After the full-scale invasion, once he got into a position of being bullied by someone like Vladimir Putin he knew exactly what he needed to do because it was just his gut feeling,” Yevhen Hlibovytsky, former political journalist and founder of the Kyiv-based think tank and consultancy, pro.mova, told me.

The leader who when offered an escape from the US when Russia began a full-scale invasion joked that he didn’t need a ride.

Who can forget the infamous phone call after which Trump was impeached, when Zelensky implored the US President for help to deter an aggressive Russia? Trump wanted to push Ukraine into launching an investigation into Biden even though he feared him as his most effective opponent.

Amid the fog of war, it all seems a long, long way since the heady campaign celebration in a repurposed Kyiv nightclub where a fresh-faced Zelensky thanked his supporters for a landslide victory. He looked in disbelief as he stood on the stage and saw the confetti he had just won.

Despite the strong tailwinds at Zelensky’s back, there are subtle signs that his international influence could be dwindling. Last week in what analysts said was a pivotal moment in geopolitics, the G7 imposed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude despite Zelensky’s pleas that it should have been set at $30 so that more pain could be inflicted on the Kremlin.

A Conversation with Vladimir Zelensky during a World War II: When the World is Unite, Not the Attacker (like Putin)

Many of the people from his earlier professional life are in his bubble. Even in the midst of the war, a press conference held on the platform of a Kyiv metro station in April featured perfect lighting and curated camera angles to emphasize a wartime setting.

I remember well the comfort of his nightly televised addresses in the midst of the air raid sirens and explosions, as well as his skills as comforter in chief.

Zelensky is projecting confidence and competence in a modern way, to a younger, global audience that recognizes it as such by wearing T-shirts and hoodies, according to a fashion historian.

“He is probably more comfortable than Putin on camera, too, both as an actor and as a digital native,” she added. “I believe both of them want to come across as relatable, not aloof or untouchable, although Zelensky is definitely doing a better job balancing authority with accessibility.”

Zelenska has shown herself to be a good communicator in international fora as she traveled to where her husband could not. She met King Charles during a visit to the refugee assistance center at the Holy Family Cathedral in London. Zelenska was not on the cover of Time magazine, but they did give a reference in the supporting text.

Zelensky says in his video address that when the world is truly united, it is then the world, not the attacker, that determines how events develop.

A US Army Air Defense System for Intercept on Target: Olena Zelenska Meets President Donald J. Biden in Kyiv

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv on April 25 to meet Zelensky, at that point the top US officials to visit. The first lady, Dr. Biden, paid a visit to a small city in the far southwestern corner of Ukraine on Mother’s Day last year. Olena Zelenska is the Ukrainian first lady.

The visit aimed to convince Americans to continue supporting Ukraine, to show Ukrainians that there’s reason to remain hopeful and resilient and to prove to Putin that Ukraine is not about to let up.

The final decision was made in an Oval Office meeting on Friday evening, when Biden gave the final green light. The US tried to avoid a disaster by notifying Moscow of their plans while Biden was on the ground.

The larger the battery, the larger the crews must be to properly operate it. The training for missile batteries is usually done in several months, and will now be done under the pressure of Russia’s aerial attacks.

The official said US troops would train Ukrainians to use the system in a third country. The training would be held at a US Army base, according to CNN.

The US Army’s Phased array Tracking Radar for intercept on Target system is considered one of the most competent long-range air defense systems on the market, and has been repeatedly asked for by Kyiv.

The address Zelensky gave to a group of people after the Pearl Harbor attacks was compared by the historian to one given by Britain’s prime minister in 1941.

His visit is unfolding amid extraordinary security. Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t confirm the early reports that she’d welcome Zelensky to the US Capitol in an unexpected coda. We just don’t know.”

Zelensky’s legacy as a pioneer of US-Russia relations: The case against the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the Cold War

The Kremlin said that the transaction will prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Wesley Clark said that Zelensky’s trip reflects a critical moment when the destiny of a war that Ukraine cannot win without upgraded US support could be decided before Russia can regroup.

His visit to Congress will also play into an increasingly important debate on Capitol Hill over Ukraine aid with Republicans set to take over the House majority in the new year. Some pro-Donald Trump members, who will have significant leverage in the thin GOP majority, have warned that billions of dollars in US cash that have been sent to Ukraine should instead be shoring up the US southern border with a surge of new migrants expected within days.

That imagery encapsulated Zelensky’s mastery of historical allusion and public relations theater. He argued the war in Ukraine was at a turning point – drawing an analogy to the Battle of Saratoga, a rallying point for an outgunned army against a superpower enemy in America’s revolutionary war. He evoked the heroism of US soldiers dug into freezing foxholes in the Battle of the Bulge during Christmas 1944, which thwarted the last effort by Nazi Germany to repel the allied liberation of Europe. And he cited wartime President Franklin Roosevelt to promise a certain, hard-won victory for freedom.

The wartime British leader sailed to the United States aboard HMS Duke of York, dodging U-boats in the wintery Atlantic and took a plane from the coast of Virginia to Washington, where he was met on December 22, 1941, by President Franklin Roosevelt before their joint press conference the next day.

Over days of brainstorming and meetings – fueled by Churchill’s regime of sherry with breakfast, Scotch and sodas for lunch, champagne in the evening and a tipple of 90-year-old brandy before bed – the two leaders plotted the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and laid the foundation of the Western alliance that Biden has reinvigorated in his support for Ukraine.

During his visit, which was on the anniversary of World War II, the man who had been pining for US involvement in the conflict said that he was far away from his family and country.

The Ukrainian leader is likely to appreciate the historical parallels. In an emotional speech to British members of parliament, he re-read some of the most famous speeches from the war.

The Ukranian President Remedies During Putin’s “An extraordinary evening” (after he and Lukashenko)

There are two key headline deliverables: first, the Patriot missile systems. Complex, accurate, and expensive, they have been described as the US’s “gold standard” of air defense. NATO guards them very much and they have to make sure the personnel who operate them are properly trained.

More precision weapons are vital: they ensure Ukraine hits its targets, and not any civilians remaining nearby. The fact thatUkraine does not go through a lot of shells means that Russia will not be able to capture any areas it wants.

Petraeus: There will be new features on the Ukrainian side this year, most notably the addition of Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, as well as larger and longer-range precision missiles from the US that will enable precise strikes out to 150 kilometers.

The remnants of the Trumpist “America First” elements of that party have echoed doubts about how much aid the US should really be sending to the edges of eastern Europe.

Washington’s defense budget of over a trillion dollars makes it relatively light on the bill for the loss of Russia in this conflict.

The United States congress, Republicans and Democrats stood up, one by one, to pay their respects to the president of the Ukranian republic. It was an extraordinary evening, concluding an extraordinary day during a crucial moment in history.

Imagine if you would, being Putin, who just yesterday visited one of his allies, Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, and seeing the United States come together to embrace Zelensky.

“Our money is not charity,” Biden declared in a White House press conference about the “breaking of tyranny in Ukraine”

“Your money is not charity,” he assured a Congress about to debate billions more in military and economic support, where skeptical Republicans will soon have more influence. “It is an investment in the global security and democracy, that we handle in the most responsible way.”

“We really fight for our common victory against this tyranny that is real life,” Zelensky said in a press conference at the White House — “and we will win.”

He said the soldiers fighting in the brutal Battle for Bakhmut asked him to give the flag of their country to the US Congress. The House had tears in it.

The need to continue to stand together through 2023 is important to the American people and he wants them to hear directly from him.

Zelensky had delivered a historic speech from the US Capitol, thanking American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began and asking for more.

“I think around now, what [Putin] is considering is how to throw more bodies, and that’s what they will be – bodies of Russian conscripts – into the fight in Ukraine,” Clinton said.

“I hope that they will send more than one,” she added. She noted there’s “been some reluctance in the past” by the US and NATO to provide advanced equipment, but added “We’ve seen with our own eyes how effective Ukrainian military is.”

Clinton said that as the war turns in Ukraine’s favor and his popularity at home fades, the leader is probably impossible to predict.

Cloaked in secrecy and weighted with history, Biden’s trip was the work of months of planning by only a small handful of his senior-most aides, who recognized long ago the symbolic importance of visiting the Ukrainian capital a year after Russia tried to capture it.

The trip wasn’t just about symbols. Zelensky would not be invited to Washington by Biden if he had not believed that face-to-face meetings could be done in the real world instead of using a phone.

Both men made clear after their talks that the war was entering a new phase. Fears of a stalemate are growing because of the brutality of the air campaign by Russia and the deployment of more troops.

But on Wednesday, Zelensky used bellicose rhetoric that suggested such a peace was not close, saying the road to ending the war would not involve making concessions to Russia.

Zelensky said during his joint press conference with Biden that just peace was no compromise as to sovereignty, freedom and territorial integrity of the country.

Later, in his address to Congress, Zelensky said he’d presented a 10-point peace formula to Biden – though US officials said afterward it was the same plan he offered to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit last month.

Biden said that Zelensky was in charge of deciding how he wanted the war to end.

Zelensky talked about American history from the Battle of the Panhandle during the American Revolutionary War in 1777 to the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

He delivered his address in English, a purposeful choice he telegraphed ahead of the speech. Even his attire – the now-familiar Army green shirt, cargo pants and boots – seemed designed to remind his audience they were in the presence of a wartime leader.

Zelensky in Ukraine: Looking in the eye is what it’s about, not what it does, but what it tells us

Over the course of the conflict, Zelensky has demonstrated an acute ability to appeal to his audience, be they national legislatures or the audience of the Grammys.

On Wednesday, he sought to harness Americans’ emotional response to his country’s suffering, evoking dark winter nights as Russia seeks to interrupt Ukraine’s power supply.

“In two days we will celebrate Christmas. Maybe candlelit. Not because it’s more romantic, no, but because there will not be – there will be no electricity,” he said.

But he also seemed aware that many Americans – including some Republicans in Congress – have wondered aloud why billions of US dollars are needed for a conflict thousands of miles away. He tried to make the cause about more than his homeland.

Zelensky’s candid request for more Patriots – and Biden’s lighthearted response – amounted to a window into one of the world’s most complicated relationships.

That hasn’t always sat well with Biden or his team. Biden appeared intent on putting physical proximity into a better understanding of his counterpart as he has with a number of other foreign leaders.

Looking in the eye is what it’s all about. I mean it sincerely. He didn’t think that there was a substitute for sitting down with a friend or foe and looking them in the eye.

Zelensky teaches Ukraine, but doesn’t kidnale anyone: What can we do about it? How Ukrainians and the American public are affected by the Ukrainian war

CNN adapted the story for the December 22, 2016 edition of their daily email about US politics for global readers. Click here to read past editions and subscribe.

The fate of millions of Ukrainians is now in the hands of American lawmakers, taxpayers and families at a time when there is growing skepticism about the cost of US involvement.

At an emotional peak of his speech in the House chamber, Zelensky handed Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris a Ukrainian flag he retrieved from the hottest battle front at Bakhmut on Tuesday.

“Our heroes … asked me to bring this flag to you, to the US Congress, to members of the House of Representatives and senators whose decisions can save millions of people,” he said.

His broader message was that Ukraine’s fight was not just some flashpoint over an ancient grudge on the fringes of the old Soviet empire. His fight is to save democracy and hold back tyranny, and it is that of America and everyone.

But Zelensky’s inspirational rhetoric and heroic bearing couldn’t disguise the uncertainties and risks of a war in which the US is effectively now fighting a proxy battle with its nuclear superpower rival, Russia.

— To Americans, Zelensky professed deep thanks for tens of billions of dollars in weapons and aid offered and to come. Implicitly, he argued they couldn’t abandon this gritty, independence hero without also suppressing something of their own patriotic national identify.

— To the incoming House Republican majority, some of whose members want to halt aid, the Ukrainian leader’s hero’s welcome in the chamber suggested they would be shamed if they choose to forsake him.

“Joint victory for minds of the world”: President Zelensky on Wednesday in a divided US Senate room during the election campaign

To Europeans, enduring their own grim winter of high electricity and heating prices after cutting off from Russian energy, who may be interested to push for an end to the conflict on Putin’s terms, Zelensky showed that the West is united and that Biden means it when he said Wednesday.

Zelensky repeatedly pointed out that despite the largesse of US artillery support and the imminent arrival of high-tech weapons like a Patriot missile battery that Biden unveiled Wednesday, his nation was still outmanned and outgunned.

The president tried to limit the power of the weapons he sent into the battle so as to avoid a disastrous confrontation with Russia and also to be careful where they go so as not to offend Putin.

Biden said that the West was divided and that Russian President Putin thought that Ukraine was weak. “As you know Mr. President, he’s counting on us not sticking together, as I said at the beginning.”

Due to the partisan fury that will erupt in a divided Washington next year, it is not certain if America’s lawmakers will ever be able to fund their own government.

Several Republican members who have expressed reservations about aid to Ukraine – like Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida – did not stand to applaud when Zelensky was introduced.

President Zelensky went to shore up his supply line after going to the bloody front lines in Ukraine and he went to the US House floor in a green military outfit.

On the dais where heads of state usually sport suits, Zelensky embraced the look of a warrior as he used confident English to claim “joint victory” in what he said was the defeat of Russia in the “battle for minds of the world.”

The speech was a plea for Republican lawmakers to stay withUkraine and not talk about the elephant in the room.

His remarks came as Congress had been planning to vote this week on a year-long spending bill that includes roughly $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies.

Wednesday’s White House reception could not have been the one Zelensky envisioned years ago when he faced then-President Donald Trump’s call for him to investigate Biden in exchange for military aid. Zelensky thanked Americans in the very chamber where Trump was impeached three years ago for pressuring him.

The Battle of the Bulge: When American Soldiers Returned to Moscow, Putin and the West Will Do What It Takes to Kyiv

The Battle of the Bulge, where US troops were surrounded in the snow after crossing into Europe on D-Day in World War II, was recalled by him Wednesday.

“Just like the brave American soldiers, which held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944, brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing this same to Putin’s forces this Christmas,” Zelensky said.

“He’s already established in the American people’s mind we’re in this together, but then pointing out that they’ll do the fighting for us – ‘just give us the tools and we will finish the job.’ That’s what Churchill said,” Kearns Goodwin told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday evening.

A state of the nation address, originally scheduled for April, was repeatedly delayed and won’t happen until next year. Putin’s annual “direct line” — a media event in which Putin fields questions from ordinary Russians — was canceled outright.

Now, with the war nearing its one-year mark on February 24, Biden is hoping to demonstrate to the world his commitment to Ukraine, even as it remains unclear how much longer US and western resolve can last.

Petraeus added it was substantive because of the new money pledged to Ukraine both at the White House and in a larger $1.7 trillion spending bill lawmakers need to pass before Friday.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who wants to be House speaker and needs votes from Ukraine-skeptical Republicans to get there next month, did meet with Zelensky and the other three top congressional leaders.

The only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, Indiana GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz, has expressed skepticism about some of the aid to Ukraine and concerns about corruption in Zelensky’s administration.

Kyiv and its Western allies are “set for a long confrontation with Russia” following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s momentous visit to Washington, Moscow said as the war in Ukraine approaches 10 months.

The foreign ministry of Russia condemned what they said were monstrous crimes against the people of Kyiv, after the US President promised more military support to the people there.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that no matter how much military support the West provides to the Ukrainian government, “they will achieve nothing.”

“As the leadership of our country has stated, the tasks set within the framework of the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground and the actual realities,” Zakharova added, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Peskov told journalists, however, that Wednesday’s meeting showed the US is waging a proxy war of “indirect fighting” against Russia down “to the last Ukrainian.”

The Kremlin has also been selling that line to the Russian public, who is largely buying it, says Sergey Radchenko, a Russian history professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Dismissing accusations of a proxy war, Sloat says Zelenskyy and Ukraine have made clear that they want a “just peace,” and all the U.S. has been doing is help the country defend itself against Russian aggression.

Russia warned that the reported delivery of missiles to Ukraine could be another provocative move by the US.

Putin said the war in Ukraine was an existential struggle against the West, and claimed that sanctions had no effect on the country’s economy. He also said he was suspending Russia’s participation in the New START arms control treaty.

“Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin told reporters in Moscow, after attending a State Council meeting on youth policy. “We have been and will continue to strive for this.”

Nikita Yuferev said on Thursday that he had asked Russian authorities to prosecute Putin for spreading fake information about the army, because he fled Russia due to his antiwar stance.

“There was no decree to end the special military operation, no war was declared,” Yuferev wrote on Twitter. “Several thousand people have already been condemned for such words about the war.”

A US official told CNN their initial assessment was that Putin’s remark was not intentional and likely a slip of the tongue. However, officials will be watching closely to see what figures inside the Kremlin say about it in the coming days.

The Ukrainian leadership refused to conduct negotiations and we never refused, but sooner or later all of the parties in the conflict will sit down and negotiate and the better.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Vladimir Putin: “We need to win time in the war,” Foreign Minister Rodnyansky told CNN

The Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, said on Wednesday that the Kremlin would make a big investment in the military. The initiatives include increasing the size of the armed forces, accelerating weapons programs and deploying a new generation of hypersonic missiles to prepare Russia for what Putin called “inevitable clashes” with its adversaries.

The Institute for the Study of War said in their daily assessment of the war thatPutin has focused on talks with the West rather than with Ukraine, while accusing it of being a Western pawn with no real agency.

The somewhat conciliatory tone from Putin was quickly replaced by a strong and threatening message from one of his key officials.

Sergey Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister, said Monday that Ukraine must fulfill Russia’s demands for the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukrainian-controlled territories, repeating Moscow’s well-worn and false accusation of Nazism against Ukraine, which it has used in an attempt to justify its invasion.

Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to President Zelensky, told CNN Tuesday that Putin’s comments were likely an effort to buy time in the conflict.

“The blitzkrieg has gone terribly wrong for them and they know that, so they need more time to regroup and rebuild their troops,” Rodnyansky said, adding that it was also Kremlin’s strategy to dissuade the world from sending more military aid to Ukraine. “We must not fall into that trap.”

A reduction of Western military aid could be a result of a hypothetical deal. If Putin had not fought in the war he would have lost his reputation at home, and this would be a possible face-saving exit route.

But it remains unclear what parameters Zelensky might be willing to accept in any peace negotiations, and the US has steadfastly refused to define what a settlement may look like beyond stating it will be up to Zelensky to decide.

Kuleba said every war ends in a diplomatic way. Every war ends because of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.

The Foreign Minister said the UN would be the most natural broker for those talks. This isn’t about making a favor to a certain country, and the United UN could be the ideal venue for the summit. “This is really about bringing everyone on board.”

The steps includes a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow. He urged the G20 leaders to make Russia abandon nuclear threats and to impose a price cap on energy imports from Moscow.

Zelensky’s visit to the US in 2021-2022: The legacy of a triumphant victory for democracy and freedom in Russia

A swing in the battlefield in the new year could force a change in the way the fight is being fought but both sides are dug into what they believe could be a long and grinding conflict.

And Zelensky’s visit to the US – his first overseas trip in ten months – shows his intention to keep his allies focused on the conflict and united in their support.

The Putin regime has succeeded in forcing out viable alternatives that are of more democratic fashion, but then on the other side you have fear of going out into the streets if there is no clear path forward.

She stopped attending demonstrations when she became too dangerous after the war broke out. She doesn’t see a scenario in which the regime in Russia could be overthrown soon because all of the opposition leaders are in jail or killed.

Maria is worried about her security and asked CNN not to publish her full name or employer’s name. Maria is at risk of being imprisoned due to Russias recent expanded law on foreign agents, which means she works for a non-profit that is deemed a foreign agent.

Lengthy prison sentences have been meted out to high profile opposition voices on charges of “discrediting” the Russian army by questioning its conduct or strategy.

He is accused of spreading false information about the Russian military and law enforcement and is now on Russia’s wanted list. He denies the charges and says he was simply reporting the truth about the actions of the Russian government in the run up to and during the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian citizens still have access to independent sources of information via technical workarounds. But state media propaganda now blankets the airwaves favored by older Russians, with angry TV talk shows spreading conspiracies.

The US Border Patrol recorded 36,271 encounters with Russian citizens between October 2021 and September 2022. The number includes people who were expelled by the border force and it is significantly higher than the number recorded in the previous two years.

According to surveys conducted by OK Russians, those who are leaving are less educated and younger than the general Russian public.

If you take the Moscow liberal intelligentsia, I think maybe 70% left, because I know many of the people. It’s journalists, it’s people from universities, sometimes schools, artists, people who have clubs and [foundations] in Moscow that got closed down,” Soldatov said.

“If you are losing the educated middle-class portion of the population, then it matters for your economic prospects, but it also matters for the potential political reconstitution of the country,” said Kristine Berzina, a Russia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Large numbers of people who were educated or liberal left the country after the 1979 revolution in order to find better opportunities elsewhere.

Maria is determined to remain in Russia even though many of her friends have left. Maria will not leave her mother in order for her to travel abroad. If my mother needed my help and the borders wouldn’t be closed, it would be easier for me to leave. But knowing that something else could happen at any moment scares me,” she told CNN.

She is struggling to see hope for the future, but she still believes her work is important. Like Olga, she described her own life as a perpetual cycle of panic, horror, shame and self-doubt.

Are you to blame? Was it possible you didn’t do enough? How should you act now that you can do something else? she said. “There are no prospects. I’m an adult, and I didn’t exactly have all my life figured out, but all in all I understood what would happen next. Nobody understands what’s happening. People don’t understand what will happen tomorrow.

Soldatov said he had begun to question his own identity. “The things we held dear, like the memory of the Second World War, for instance, became completely compromised,” he said, referring to Putin’s baseless claim that Russian forces are “denazifying” Ukraine.

“It’s part of the Russian national identity that the Russian army helped to win the war (against Hitler’s Germany) and now it feels absolutely wrong because this message was used by Putin. He said that he wanted to research the pre-war rhetoric in Germany due to the positive reaction to the invasion by some parts of the Russian society.

Maria, a historian by training, has spent years taking part in anti-government protests, describing herself as a liberal deeply opposed to Putin, a former KGB agent. I knew from experience that a person from the KGB wouldn’t be good to lead our country. She said that it was deeply rooted in horrors, deaths and all that.

Berzina said that the expectation of some in the West, that once people start to feel as though their leaders are doing wrong, that there will be a wave of protests on the streets and call for government change, does not reflect the reality of life in Russia.

Almost all of the opposition and opinion leaders are either in prison or abroad. People have a huge potential for political action, but there is no leader and no power base,” she said, adding that civilians will not come out against the armed police, the National Guard, and other security forces.

“It is probably difficult for people from democratic countries to understand the realities of life in a powerful autocracy,” she said. “It’s a terrifying feeling of one’s own insignificance and helplessness in front of a gigantic machine of death and madness.”

The director of the Defense Priorities think tank, who just returned from visiting the Ukrainian capital, says that messing with the central nervous system can have dire consequences. “It’s not only an inconvenience but an enormous economic cost. To demonstrate that the government can’t adequately protect the civilian population, it’s an effort to create pain.

Menon notes, however, that every one of his comments could just as easily apply to Russia’s earlier waves of cyberattacks on the country’s internet—such as the NotPetya malware released by Russia’s GRU hackers, which five years earlier destroyed the digital networks of hundreds of government agencies, banks, airports, hospitals, and even its radioactivity monitoring facility in Chernobyl. He says that the goal is the same despite the differences in the technicalities. Demoralizing and punishing people.

Anna Kovalchuk, another Kyiv resident, said she was determined not to let the Russians ruin her upcoming celebrations. On New Year’s Eve, the holiday may need to be spent in the dark because there is likely to be no electricity. But I began to prepare myself for such a scenario in advance, stocked up on garlands, power banks, so the blackout would upset us, but not stop us,” she told CNN.

As soon as sirens sounded in the capital, Halyna Hladka bought water and quickly made breakfast for her family, so they would have a place to eat. They heard the sounds of explosions for nearly two hours. “It seemed to me that they were really close to our area but it turned out to be air defense,” she told CNN. The new year will be celebrated with the family even if there is an attack.

After the sirens gave the all clear, life in the capital went back to normal, Hryn said: “In the elevator I met my neighbors with their child who were in hurry to get to the cinema for the new Avatar movie on time.” People continued with holiday plans, despite the fact that parents went to school and people went to work.

Russian High-Energy Human Trafficking During the First World War II: The Lives of Three Injured People in the Ukranian Capital

At least three people, including a 14-year-old, were injured and two people pulled from a damaged home on Thursday, Klitschko said earlier. The military administration of the city reported that homes, an industrial facility, and a playground were damaged in the capital.

Regardless of whether Russia lost 400 men as Ukraine claims, or 89 as Moscow says, the result of the attack is the same: Russia’s highest single-incident death toll since the war began more than 10 months ago.

At the time, Putin insisted his forces were embarking on a “special military operation” — a term suggesting a limited campaign that would be over in a matter of weeks.

The war has irreparably destroyed the post-Soviet period in which Russia pursued democracy and at least financial integration with the West.

Even Russia’s most revered human rights group, 2022’s Nobel Prize co-recipient Memorial, was forced to stop its activities over alleged violations of the foreign agents law.

Russia’s anti-LGBT laws have been dramatically expanded by the state in order to argue that the war in Ukranian is an attack on traditional values.

repressives remain targeted for now. The new laws are not enforced. Should the moment occur, many believe the measures are intended to crush dissent.

The new “fake news” laws made it very difficult for leading independent media outlets and a number of vibrant, online investigative startups to stay in the United States.

Restrictions extend to internet users as well. The ban on American social media giants was enacted in March. More than 100,000 websites have been blocked by the Russia’s internet regulatory agency since the start of the conflict.

The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine: Is Putin’s Cold War Really Coming to an End? And What Has Putin Really Done About It?

Thousands of perceived government opponents — many of them political activists, civil society workers and journalists — left in the war’s early days amid concerns of persecution.

Some countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus are predicting that their economies will grow in the long run.

In the initial days of the invasion, Russia’s ruble currency cratered and its banking and trading markets looked shaky. McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil, and many other global corporations stopped their Russian operations entirely.

President Putin hopes Europe will blink first when it comes to sanctions, as it will grow angry over soaring energy costs at home. He banned oil exports to countries that adhere to the price cap, which is likely to make the pain worse in Europe.

The government’s tone is not different when it comes to Russia’s military campaign. daily briefings from Russia’s Defense Ministry tell of endless successes on the ground Everything is “going according to plan” according to Putin.

Yet the sheer length of the war — with no immediate Russian victory in sight — suggests Russia vastly underestimated Ukrainians’ willingness to resist.

The true number of Russian losses, officially at just under 6,000 men, is a highly taboo subject in the country. Western estimates place those figures much higher.

Indeed, Russia’s invasion has — thus far — backfired in its primary aims: NATO looks set to expand towards Russia’s borders, with the addition of long-neutral states Finland and Sweden.

Longtime allies in Central Asia have criticized Russia’s actions out of concern for their own sovereignty, an affront that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. India and China have eagerly purchased discounted Russian oil, but have stopped short of full-throated support for Russia’s military campaign.

Top Ten News Stories in the First 10 Years of the Crimeas: The Uvalde Shooting, Birthplace of the Nation and the Crisis of the Ukraine

An annual December “big press conference” that allows the Russian leader to handle questions from pro-Kremlin media was also tabled until 2023.

The Kremlin has given no reason for the delays. It’s believed that the Russian leader ran out of good news to share after 10 months with no sign of victory.

As it has for more than 40 years on television and 25 years on digital platforms, the world comes to CNN when news breaks. More than 165 million people from around the globe came to CNN Digital every month in 2022, according to Comscore.

The tragic school shooting in Uvalde, the election coverage on CNN, and our digital pages of up-to-the-second results from hundreds of races made up the top 10 most read, watched or listened to stories.

I wrote an analysis explaining the limitations of what the US and its allies would and wouldn’t do in Ukraine in the first part of the conflict. Those limits have been contentious from the start and are only growing more so today as Russia accuses the West of going too far.

The overturning of abortion law, as well as mass shootings and natural disasters, were all top stories.

Understanding Ukraine during the First Four Years of the Second World War I: An Address by Volodymyr Zelensky on a New Year’s Eve Address

The last weeks of the year brought new fears in China, even though interest and fear around the Covid-19 pandemic waned. Pandemic developments know no borders, according to history.

Entertainment news brought millions of you to CNN. The sad death of Stephen “tWitch” Boss, the amiable DJ for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” was our top entertainment story. There were bright moments too: like the Good Samaritans that made a difference in the lives of strangers.

For those playing along at home, every piece on our Top 100 Stories list this year received more than 3 million visits, according to our internal data.

Thank you for being here with us through it all. We will be here for you in 2023, whenever there is a breaking news story and whenever there is joy, delight and triumph.

KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine delivered a rousing New Year’s Eve address on Saturday night, recalling a year that he said truly “began on Feb. 24” with fear over Russia’s invasion but ended with his country hopeful for victory.

In a speech that was videotaped, Mr. Zelensky recounted a number of notable moments from the war, including the attack on a maternity hospital, the attack on the Azovstal steel plant, and the destruction of the Russian bridge to peninsular Europe.

“This year has struck our hearts,” he said, according to a translated transcript posted on his official website. “We’ve cried out all the tears. All the prayers have been yelled. There are 311 days. We have something to say about every minute.”

The End of the Cold War? Russian Security in the Early 2022 Era: In the Light of the European War on Nuclear Explosions and the First Cold War

Mr. Zelensky said that everyone in the Ukrainian community is participating in the defense of the country. And although 2022 could be called a year of losses, he said that was not the right way to think of it.

The world has rallied around Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky said, from the main squares of foreign cities and their halls of government to the top of Google’s search results.

And finally, to those who felt nuclear saber-rattling was an oxymoron in 2022 – that you could not casually threaten people with nukes as the destruction they brought was complete, for everyone on the planet.

Despite this palpable Russian decline, Europe is not welcoming in an era of greater security. Calls for greater defense spending are louder, and heeded, even if they come at a time when Russia, for decades the defining issue of European security, is revealing itself to be less threatening.

Russia and the West have met a West that was happy to send some of the Russian weaponry to its eastern border. Western officials might also be surprised that Russia’s red lines appear to shift constantly, as Moscow realizes how limited its non-nuclear options are. None of this was supposed to happen. Now that it has, what is Europe going to do to prepare?

The west has been unified. The United States and Europe have spoken from the same script on Ukraine, despite differing opinions on Iraq, fractured over Syria and unwilling to spend 2% of GDP on security. At times, Washington may have seemed warier, and there have been autocratic outliers like Hungary. But the shift is towards unity, not disparity. That’s quite a surprise.

The prospect of a Russian defeat is in the broader picture: that it did not win quickly against an inferior adversary. Mouthpieces on state TV talked about the need to “take the gloves off” after Kharkiv, as if they would not be exposing a fist that had already withered. The Russian military will struggle to regain even a semblance of peer status with NATO over the course of decades. That is perhaps the wider damage for the Kremlin: the years of effort spent rebuilding Moscow’s reputation as a smart, asymmetrical foe with conventional forces to back it up have evaporated in about six months of mismanagement.

If Moscow’s supply chain for diesel for tanks 40 miles from its border doesn’t work, how can they be certain that The Button will work if Putin tries to push it? There is no greater danger for a nuclear power than to reveal its strategic missiles and retaliatory capability do not function.

This is not the first time America has done this. The Soviet Union accepted the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis that favored the west in a matter of days. Had “red lines” thinking been in vogue, America might well have accepted an inferior compromise that weakened its security and credibility.

The Cold War: The Rise of Autocracy and the Fall of Democracy in the 21st Century: An Open Democracy or an Open Society?

Notice that it was an open question. Many people thought that the better system would be autocracy. How many believe that today?

How many believe Russia, China or Iran offer a better model than an open society with all its foibles and challenges? How many of you think the US is better off with a more autocratic president?

Democracy fought back with determination, conviction, and yes, gusto. Autocrats went on the defensive. Even populism started to sputter. At the moment, many of the positive trends – forged with great effort and through enormous human suffering – look promising.

With the headway democracy just made – a poor showing for election deniers in the US midterm elections, an exodus of Russians from their own autocratic country, an upsurge of support for embattled Ukraine – democratic leaders need to show they can navigate the economic challenges of the coming months. They will face continuing efforts by ambitious autocrats like Russian President Putin and Chinese leader Xi to regain the upper hand.

The autocracy brothers wanted the world to think their system was superior, a message that would preemptively quiet any doubts at home. For 16 consecutive years, according to the non-partisan democracy monitor Freedom House, democracy was losing ground. 80% of the world’s population lives in what the organization refers to as “Free countries.” Authoritarian leaders and illiberal forces were on the rise, according to research by the organization.

In 2022, while these global strongmen struggled, self-assured “geniuses” like Elon Musk – who more than once appeared to side with autocrats – revealed their own shortcomings, and oppressed populations fed up with decades of tyranny demanded change.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/democracy-china-russia-2023-ghitis/index.html

“Man, Life, Freedom” protesters and the emergence of democracy in a world without troops: a counterexample to the regime and its brutality

NATO was strengthened in a way that nothing had in decades by the invasion. Even Sweden and Finland – countries that had long cherished their neutrality – wanted to join.

It was not anticipated that the activists of the “Man, Life, Freedom” would continue to defy the regime and its brutality. How far will they go? How far will the regime go to eradicate them? How will the rest of the world respond?

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/democracy-china-russia-2023-ghitis/index.html

Trump, Bolsonaro, Sunak, Macron, Macron: The political crisis in the era of globalization and the coupling between the UK and Russia

Former President Donald Trump launched a new presidential campaign. The British called it a lead balloon. He is becoming an increasingly isolated and pathetic figure, because of his top choices failing in the mid-term elections. The rebellion this week seemed to do little to quell, even after his calls for Republicans to unite behind Kevin McCarthy. The struggle over the speakership appeared chaotic, but it was democracy that was on display. Trump’s legal troubles seem endless.

In Brazil, Trump’s doppelganger, Jair Bolsonaro, lost his bid for reelection. He didn’t admit defeat or attend the inauguration of the man who defeated him. Instead, a sad Bolsonaro left his home to go to Florida.

In the UK, the populist Boris Johnson lost the premiership and after an embarrassing interlude with the hapless Liz Truss, the decidedly non-populist centrist, Rishi Sunak, became prime minister. When Johnson was leading his country out of the EU, populists were clamoring for their own version of the deal. We do not hear that anymore. French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his populist opponent, Marine Le Pen who, like other European populists, had to run from her record of closeness to Putin.

Does the Russian Army Use Cell Phones to Attempt to Smear President Vladimir Putin? The case of Makiivka, Ukraine

If the account is true, it was the cell phones the novice troops were using in violation of regulations that allowed Ukrainian forces to target them most accurately. Ukraine, however, has not indicated how the attack was executed. The implications are broader for how the war in Russia is being conducted right now.

It is telling that days after the deadliest known attack on Russian servicemen, President Vladimir Putin called for a temporary ceasefire, citing the Orthodox Christmas holiday. The move was dismissed as a cynical attempt to seek breathing space by the US and Ukrainians.

Russian officials claimed that four rockets hit the school where the forces were housed, which was near a large arms depot. (Another two HIMARS rockets were shot down by Russian air defenses).

Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow for the Defense Program and co-head of the Gaming Lab at the Center for New American Security in Washington, has told me that Russia’s failure to break up or move large arms depots is largely a function of the reality that their forces cannot communicate adequately.

It is a view shared by other experts. James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies program at the Center forStrategic and International Studies told me in an e-mail that bad security communications are a common practice in the Russian Army.

The Ministry of Defense of Britain said after the recent Russian strikes that the Russian military has a history of unsafe ammunition storage prior to the current war and that the incident highlights how professional practices contribute to the high casualty rate.

The troops killed in Makiivka seem to have been recent conscripts, part of a larger picture of Russian soldiers being shipped to the front lines with little training and deeply sub-standard equipment and weapons.

Indeed, a number of the most recent arrivals to the war are inmates from Russian prisons, freed and transferred immediately to the Ukrainian front. One can only imagine how appealing the use of cell phones would be to prisoners accustomed to years of isolation with little or no contact with the outside world.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and was personally awarded the Order of Courage by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin two weeks ago, attacked the Ministry of Defense for its “blatant attempt to smear blame” in suggesting it was the troops’ own use of cell phones that led to the precision of the attack.

He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance or a local informant.

A month earlier, the defense ministry underwent a shakeup when Col. Gen. Mikhail Y. Mizintsev, known to Western officials as the “butcher of Mariupol,” was named deputy defense minister for overseeing logistics, replacing four-star Gen. Dmitri V. Bulgakov, who had held the post since 2008. The arms depot is close to the recruits of Makiivka.

Sergei Shoigu told his troops in a video that their victory was inevitable, just days before the attack.

In the past year, he has signaled Germany is very much in play, and that they would like to regain control of the controls. He said Germany would coordinate the supplies of the Leopard 2 from allied countries to Ukraine because he had German legislation preventing the sale of war fighting hardware to a third state.

Some conservatives in the United States are reluctant to give any more aid to Ukrainians, even though the party’s leaders seem unaffected by that. If Biden runs for reelection, there is a possibility that a new White House will change its approach to Ukraine.

Several Republican members who switched their votes to support McCarthy on Friday said they are encouraged by a framework of an agreement, but provided no specifics about the deal and said talks are ongoing.

The recent drawdown on Ukraine as a wonderful Christmas present for Ukraine, and the expectations of the future of the United States in a GOP-led House

That number was even higher than President Joe Biden requested – a reflection of Democrats’ concern that additional funding wouldn’t be as forthcoming in a GOP-led House. In some ways, that number was an insurance policy against Republican resistance and the view inside the White House was that that figure would sustain US support for several months.

Rules changes to the budgetary process could significantly hamper Congress’ ability to pass new aid come September and certain conservative Republicans have vowed to oppose any new Ukraine funding.

A third diplomat was concerned that lawmakers who had opposed more aid to Ukraine might be given concessions, which could make it difficult to pass additional assistance legislation.

“This is a harbinger for a protracted legislative paralysis,” the diplomat said, adding that “the Freedom Caucus – which is not particularly pro-Ukrainian – has just demonstrated its clout.”

Others noted they were watching closely to see the kinds of maneuvers McCarthy would make to secure the role, which could potentially include cuts to aid.

Another diplomat told CNN they’re personally concerned about “the policy concessions McCarthy has to make, and if they are going to affect US role in the world.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday welcomed the latest drawdown, saying it was an “awesome Christmas present for Ukraine!” The lawmakers in Ukraine told CNN they are not concerned about the future of assistance due to the recent bipartisan and public support for aiding their country.

Russia reasoned that if Washington blocked Nord Stream 2, which it ultimately did, then it would show that European power no longer flowed through Berlin, but actually via the White House.

The United States didn’t want the new, high-capacity subsea supply to supplant old overland lines that transited Ukraine, providing vital revenue to the increasingly Westward-leaning leadership in Kyiv.

The Brexit Crisis and the European Moral Compass: What Vladimir Scholz’s Last Word told us about Russia and how he handled the Ukraine crisis

Europe has been slow to respond to the deep fissures in US politics and the uncertainty another Trumpian-style presidency could wreak on its allies. Germany leads the way in replacing a fairly unshakable reliance on the US with a more stubborn European pragmatism.

Former Chancellor Merkel was Europe’s moral compass. He flashed a rare moment of steely leadership and won thunderous applause in Germany as he discovered unexpected metal in his ponderous, often stop/go/wait traffic-light governing coalition.

He told people to trust him and that he wouldn’t put them in danger. He spelled out how his government had already handled Russia’s aggression and how fears of a freezing winter and economic collapse were not realized. He said that the government dealt with the crisis and that they are in a better position.

The applause at each step of his carefully crafted speech spoke as loudly as his words. In short, Scholz got it right for Germany, bringing with him a population typically averse to war and projecting their own power, and deeply divided over how much they should aid Ukraine in killing Russians and potentially angering the Kremlin.

But if in Europe Scholz seems to have wrestled some vestige of influence over America in the Ukraine war, in Moscow they don’t believe his new vigor changes much.

Russia cannot be blamed for not reaching its goals if the decision on tanks is not reversed, said Putin’s spokesman.

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy chairman of its national security council, has said Russia would never allow itself to be defeated and would use nuclear weapons if threatened.

What do U.S. Senators really need to know about the Ukraine war? CNN spoke with Biden and Scholz on the “Measurements of the War in Ukraine”

The mixed messaging has some Muscovites CNN spoke with after the announcements by Biden and Scholz on tanks confused. Some said Russia would win regardless, and lumped the US and Germany together as the losers, but a significant proportion were worried about the war, dismayed at the heavy death toll and frustrated that Putin ignored their concerns.

Longer discussions about the next Ukrainian military moves will signal to Zelensky that weapons supplies are not going to be lead by the US but are going to come from Germany.

This shift in the power dynamic may not change the way the war is fought but could impact the contours of a final deal and shape a lasting peace when it comes.

The reception Biden gets in Congress has changed due to domestic politics and the drawn-out nature of the conflict in Ukraine.

A few members of Congress wore blue and yellow ribbons on their lapels this year. The House chamber was adorned in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as lawmakers applauded for Biden’s speech on the war.

This year, Biden only spent two minutes talking about the war. When he asked what Americans would do to safeguard democracy, he received bipartisan applause, but not all of them stood.

“Tonight, I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who’ve bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more,” Biden said a year ago.

Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova attended President Biden’s State of the Union speech, for the second year in a row, but the war in Ukraine received far less attention in the address this time.

In December, a poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found 40% of respondents said the United States should “maintain its current level of support for Ukraine indefinitely.” With support for the United States dropping since the summer, Americans are split over whether the United States should supportUkraine for as long as it takes.

Republican strategist Ryan Williams said this sentiment has given pause to some Republicans from conservative districts who had supported the war, but are now worried about wider public support among their constituencies.

“It is having an impact with the base. If that continues, that could be an issue for Republicans, according to Williams. “The key is to make sure that that it doesn’t become a big issue with Republicans, a litmus test issue, if you will, that could endanger incumbents who could face conservative primary challengers that may have a difference of opinion.”

Is the First Open-Source War In Ukraine? The Case Of The Ukranian Army And Its Aegis To The Kremlin

There’s strong reason to think that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead to send weapons to the rebels in Ukranian.

Is this the first truly open-source war? The war in Ukraine is being fought in part on social media by Zelensky; commercial overhead satellites capture Russian battle groups moving around in real-time, and the social media accounts of Russian mercenaries in the Wagner Group document what they are doing.

Petraeus is the commander in chief The developments in Ukraine should serve as a cautionary tale for any country contemplating a large-scale military operation, since the country’s forces haven’t engaged in any major combat operations in many decades.

That said, the battle lines since the withdrawal of the forces west of the Dnipro last fall have been fairly static, although Russian forces have made grinding, incremental and very costly gains in villages around Bakhmut in southeast Ukraine. The areas under pressure are under the control of the Ukrainians.

There are some hints of what the future of warfare might look like. We see the Ukrainian use of drones (of only modest range and capability) as aerial observers identifying Russian headquarters and other targets for the precision munitions the US has provided (which will double in range from 70-80 kilometers to 150 kilometers when the just announced US precision munitions arrive in Ukraine).

Perhaps most notably, of course, we see a war taking place, for the first time, in a context that includes the widespread presence of smart phones, internet connectivity, and social media and other internet sites.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/opinions/petraeus-how-ukraine-war-ends-bergen-ctpr/index.html

What do NATO and NATO look like now? A warning warning on Russia’s military and militaristic capabilities in the era of global war

In the air, sea, sub-sea, on the ground, in outer space, and cyberspace, there would be vastly more capable spudding systems.

It used to be said that if it can be seen it can be hit and if it cannot be hit it can be killed. In those days, we didn’t have many of the surveillance assets and other capabilities needed to operate that adage. In the future, however, just about everything – certainly every platform, base and headquarters – will be seen and thus be susceptible to being hit and destroyed (unless there are substantial defenses and hardening of those assets).

The Secretary of State said that they have been able to avoid conflict between great powers. “This system, for all its imperfections, works. But now, it’s being challenged.”

NATO was described as suffering from “brain death” by French PresidentMacron late last year, but it has turned out to be a bit premature.

All of the above, as well as more. The list is long, including poor campaign design; wholly inadequate training (what were they doing for all those months they were deployed on the northern, eastern, and southern borders of Ukraine?); poor command, control, and communications; inadequate discipline (and a culture that condones war crimes and abuse of local populations); poor equipment (exemplified by turrets blowing off of tanks when fires ignite in them); insufficient logistic capabilities; inability to achieve combined arms effects (to employ all ground and air capabilities effectively together); inadequate organizational architecture; lack of a professional noncommissioned officer corps; a top-down command system that does not promote initiative at lower levels and pervasive corruption that undermines every aspect of their military – and the supporting military-industrial complex.

Petraeus: Not at all. Russia still has enormous military capability and is a nuclear superpower as well as a country with abundant energy and minerals. It also has a population (about 145 million) that is nearly double that of the next largest European countries (Germany and Turkey, each just more than 80 million).

How Ukrainian War Ends: Where do we stand? How can Russia be in the fight for its independence? How do Russian soldiers and civilians are affected?

It is still led by a dictator who embraces many grievances and views that can cripple his decision-making.

Bergen: You know the observation sometimes attributed to Stalin: “Quantity has a quality all its own.” Russia has a far bigger population than Ukraine, can it make a difference in the long term?

Nonetheless, it is estimated that as many as 300,000 new recruits and mobilized reservists are being sent to the frontlines, with up to 100,000-150,000 more on the way. That isn’t trivial because quantity does, indeed, matter.

Thus, Ukrainians know what they are fighting for, while it is not clear that the same is true of many of the Russian soldiers, a disproportionate number of whom are from ethnic and sectarian minorities in the Russian Federation.

The Ukrainians have shown an impressive ability to learn quickly how to use new weapon systems and vehicles, which is very useful as they want to get back to the fight.

To be clear, there have been times when I have believed that we should have provided more capabilities. sooner than we have.

Eventually, for example, Ukraine is going to have to transition from eastern bloc aircraft (e.g., MiG-29s) to western ones (e.g., F-16s). There aren’t any more MiGs to provide to them at this point and they have more pilots than aircraft.

So, we might as well begin the process of transition, noting that it will take a number of months, regardless, to train pilots and maintenance personnel. The Administration has done a great job and been proven to be the indispensable nation in this particular situation for other situations around the world.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/opinions/petraeus-how-ukraine-war-ends-bergen-ctpr/index.html

What the Ukrainians say about the invasion of Tibet and the Wagner Group: Is there anything? The case for a smartphone invasion

Bergen: The quasi-private Wagner Group is the force that Putin sends into the meat grinder of the toughest battles. Any thoughts on using mercenaries, many of whom are convicts, as a tactic?

The use of mercenaries by Russia is innovative, but also inhumane, as it entails throwing former convicts into battle as cannon fodder and with little to no concern for their survival.

At the end of the day, these are not the tactics or practices that foster the development of well trained, disciplined, capable and cohesive units that have trust in their leaders and soldiers on their left and right.

What are the lessons ofUkrainians for the Chinese if they were to stage an invasion ofTaiwan, which would not be over a neighboring land border but over a 100 mile body of water? How the Chinese might think about this question has been altered by the sinking of the Moskva.

If the target of the operation has a population willing to fight for its survival and is supported by major powers with economic, financial, and personal sanctions and export controls then that will be even more of a factor.

Petraeus: Is there something? Yes, I believe it is. This is the first war in which smartphones and social media have been so widely available and also so widely employed. The result is unprecedented transparency and an extraordinary amount of information available – all through so-called “open sources.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/opinions/petraeus-how-ukraine-war-ends-bergen-ctpr/index.html

The End of the Irreversible War in Ukraine and a Cold War with the Russians: When NATO and the West converge

There is a lack of innovative new plan given the limitations of professional capabilities of the Russian forces and their demonstrated inability to generate combined arms effect.

Bergen: In 2003, at the beginning of the Iraq War, you famously asked a rhetorical question: “Tell me how this ends?” How does the war inUkraine end?

Petraeus: I think there is an end to it when Putin knows that the war is unsustainable on the battlefield and on the home front, which has been heavily impacted by economic sanctions against Russia.

Also when Ukraine reaches the limits of its ability to withstand missile and drone strikes, getting a Marshall-like plan (developed by the US and G7) to help rebuild the country, and gaining an ironclad security guarantee (either NATO membership or, if that is not possible, a US-led coalition guarantee).

Ahead of next week’s anniversary of the Russian invasion, US and Western leaders are gearing up for a show of unity and strength designed to establish once and for all that NATO is in the conflict for the long haul and until Moscow’s defeat.

The trip comes ahead of Biden’s planned two-day visit to Poland. The President is scheduled to be in Warsaw on Tuesday where he will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, the White House said Sunday.

What’s going on in the U.S. Senate after the February 23rd, 2022 Russian-American War? An outsider’s view of US-China Relations

Some members of the new Republican majority in the US House are hesitant. Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz last week demanded an end to aid to Ukraine and for the US to demand all combatants “reach a peace agreement immediately.” There is a bipartisan majority in both the House and the Senate. But it’s not certain Biden can guarantee massive multi-billion dollar aid packages for Ukraine in perpetuity. And US aid might be in serious doubt if ex-President Donald Trump or another Republican wins the 2024 election.

The outside world knows Putin isn’t planning to leave the war because there is no diplomatic framework for truce talks.

At the Senate armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, a leading expert on Russia and Putin, who worked in President Trump’s White House, said there were no signs that Putin’s determination was waning.

Even before the spat in US-China Relations caused by the flight of a Chinese spy balloon, there was no chance of China leaning on Putin for an end to the war.

Sherman said at an event that there would be a lot of concern among the US regarding the relationship between China and Russia, at a time when it is locked in battles with both Russia and China.

It’s the evening of February 23, 2022. In Kyiv, the boss of a news site relaxes with a bath and candles. In Zaporizhzhia, a young woman goes to bed planning to celebrate her husband’s birthday in the morning. A journalist is going to change his travel plans in Moscow.

My phone was busy the next morning and I missed a few calls. The Kyiv Independent website had a headline with red caps that read: “PUTIN DECLARES WAR ON UKRAINE.”

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more over the past year. It has unleashed unfathomable atrocities, decimated cities, driven a global food and energy crisis and tested the resolve of western alliances.

The Birth of a Nation Irregularized by the Crimes of Crime. A Memorino of the First Day of War and a New Journey in Ukraine

Zaporizhzhia, February 23, 2022. I thought I would have a birthday celebration for my husband the next day. Our life began to get better. My husband was in charge of his business. Our daughter had started school and made friends there. We were lucky to have arranged support services and found a special needs nursery for our son. I finally had time to work. I was happy.

We were exhausted, scared and had to come to terms with our forced displacement. I will be forever grateful to all those who helped us come to Prague and adjust to a new life in a foreign land.

My husband got a job, thanks to the opportunities provided by the Czech Republic. I found some classes for my son. He has a learning support assistant and he attends an adaptation group. My daughter goes to a Czech school while studying in her Ukrainian school remotely.

That morning we woke up to learn that the invasion started. I wrote an open letter denouncing the war, which was co-signed by 12 Russian writers, directors and cultural figures. Soon it was published, and tens of thousands of Russian citizens added their signatures.

We left Russia on the third day. I felt that it was some kind of moral obligation. I could no longer live in the state that had become a fascist one.

We moved to Berlin. My husband went to work as a volunteer at the refugee camp next to the main railway station, where thousands of Ukrainians had been arriving every day. I am writing a new book. It starts like this.

“This book is a confession. I am guilty for not reading the signs much earlier. I too am responsible for Russia’s war against Ukraine. As are my contemporaries and our forebears. Russian culture is to blame for making all these horrible things possible.

As I write, Russia has just fired dozens of Kalibr missiles towards several cities in Ukraine, including my adopted city of Odesa. Air raid sirens blare as we run for shelter. My landlady brings me a pot of borscht to help create a sense of normalcy.

If anything, for me, the son of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada, this has been a war of history repeating itself – from the forced deportation of upwards of 2.5 million Ukrainians, including 38,000 children, to the stealing of Ukrainian grain to the wanton destruction of Ukrainians museums, libraries, churches and monuments.

Time and again since the Russian invasion started, I’m haunted by the darkness in my father’s eyes during the re-telling of chilling dinnertime stories of relatives shipped off to the Soviet gulag, never to return. Millions of Ukrainians died in the famine of 1932-33.

Once it began, Russia’s aggressive war completely upended what little was left of its relationship with the United States – and many other countries. February 24 changed history after we learned that history had not ended. This was not just a brutal war on Ukraine, it was a war on Europe.

My passport is a novel in stamps from a year ago when the invasion began. I live in London where I teachUkrainian literature but in Ukraine where I find my lessons in courage.

My former classmates in Zaporizhzhia who I thought were going to lose their addictions a long time ago have now volunteered to fight them. My hairdresser, who was supposed to be a summer child, fled with her family on foot from the Russia-occupied town of Bucha to the forest where they were found with five dogs.

The capital, which was supposed to fall over the next three days, has withstood a year of Russia’s terrorism and energy shortages. These dark winter nights, one sees so many stars over Kyiv which the Russians have only managed to bring closer to eternity.

At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Kolesnikov is a senior fellow. He is the author of several books on the political and social history of Russia, including “Five Five-Year Liberal Reforms.” Origins of Russian Modernization and Egor Gaidar’s Legacy.”

It seems that since February 2022 we have experienced different eras. The first was euphoric, when Putin suddenly, after a significant time of stagnant ratings, received more than 80% approval from the population.

By aborting the past, he canceled the future. When your superiors decide everything for you, and you don’t pay attention to the propaganda, it’s easy to live this way.

It was not possible to adapt to what happened for me and my family. I was labeled as a foreign agent because of my commentary on the events, which made me believe that I lived in an Orwellian anti-utopia.

On the evening of February 23 I washed my dog, cleaned the house, took a bath and lit candles. I have a cozy, one-bedroom apartment in a northern district of Kyiv. I loved taking care of it. I was very happy with the life I had. All of it – the small routines and the struggles. The last time my life mattered was that night.

I remember talking to colleagues about forming an army of volunteers to help strengthen the newsroom. It’s my parents that I call to organize buying supplies.

The life that I knew was falling apart soon after. I didn’t care if I drank my morning tea or did not take a shower. Life itself no longer mattered, only the battle did.

When the full-scale invasion began it was hard to remember the good times of the past. I would remember being upset about my boyfriend, but I could no longer relate. On February 24th, my life was taken from me.

I realized that I no longer cared about my personal ambitions. Only the common goal was crucial – to raise our flag and show that we are fighting even under these circumstances.

I couldn’t enjoy my victories on the track. They were possible because so many defenders had died. But I got messages from soldiers on the frontline. They were so happy to follow our achievements, and it was my primary motivation to continue my career.

Life values have changed. I enjoy seeing or talking to my relatives and friends, like never before. My belief in our victory and that we will return to our homeland has been shared by other Ukrainians. But we need the world’s help.

“This is something that leads me to the question – for whom do we document all these crimes?” In an email, Oleksandra Matviiuk told us that she heads the Center for Civil Liberties. “We document human pain in order to have all those Russians brought to justice because I am a human rights lawyer, and I’m not a historian.”

Leaked lessons from the Ukraine war: Taiwan’s Foreign Minister J. Wu says the world will continue to expand: “We have a wary eye on China”

Speaking to NPR’s Leila Fadel, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said his country is learning lessons from the war in Ukraine and keeping a wary eye on China.

“They have expansionist motivation. They want to continue to expand their sphere of influence. They want to continue to expand their power. “If they are not stopped, then they will continue to march on, and if they are stopped, then that is what they will do,” saidWu.

Natalia believes that the family car was hit by Russian forces during the first days of the war. Her husband was killed along with her nephew. Vova was taken to the hospital for months after the attack, with seven bullets in his body.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1157820509/ukraine-russia-war-anniversary

The Battle of Stalingrad: Is Prigozhin Ready to Challenge Putin? A Memorino of the History of the Revolutionary Russian Army

Danny Hajek produced and edited the audio for this story. Additional editing and production help from Carol Klinger, Denise Couture and Nina Kravinsky. Some people provided translation and reporting help.

Navalny likes to use the phrase, “The wonderful Russia of the future,” his shorthand for a country without Putin.

Since last February’s invasion, Putin has shrugged off protests and international sanctions. Human rights groups and the independent media have been labelled as foreign agents.

Rogov wrote on Telegram that Putin arrived in Volgograd, which was renamed Stalingrad on the occasion of the anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. “The anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, which is perceived as a turning point in the Patriotic War, is, of course, used as a great allusion and patriotic warm-up before the decisive second offensive against Ukraine that is being prepared.”

Baunov said that the new strategy was ruined by a return to rapid warfare with tanks. New people may be needed to hold the front.

Exactly why this is risky should be clear: The first mobilization caused major tremors in Russian society. A large number of Russia’s voters voted with their feet. Protests erupted in ethnic minority regions such as Dagestan where police faced off against anti-mobilization demonstrators in multiple cities. In Russian social media, a lot of videos about the lack of equipment and bad conditions for new recruits were posted.

But Wagner’s methods are also a flashback to a bleak chapter of Soviet history. Prigozhin has recruited thousands of prisoners with the promise of amnesty or a pardon, a practice that mirrors Stalin’s use of penal battalions and convicts to take on desperate or suicidal missions in the toughest sectors of the front, using human-wave attacks to overwhelm enemy defenses, regardless of the human cost.

“Is Prigozhin ready to challenge Putin?” She wrote a piece recently. There is an important but that is not related to the answer. After going through bloody meat grinder it is difficult to remain balanced and sane. As long as Putin is relatively strong and able to maintain a balance between groups of influence, Prigozhin is safe. But the slightest easing could provoke Prigozhin to challenge power, even if not directly to Putin at first. War can breed monsters, who can become a challenge to the state.

He’s the first folk hero in a long time. “He’s a hero for the most ultraconservative – the most, I would say, fascist – part of Russian society, as long as we don’t have any liberal part in Russian society, because most of the leaders of that part of Russian society have left, he’s an obvious rival to President Putin.”

Some Russians have taken refuge in the form of political apathy. CNN recently spoke to several Muscovites about how their lives have changed since last year, on condition that their surnames not be used over the risks of publicly criticizing the government.

Ira does not have a son, so she is not concerned about him being mobilized. The 21-year-old daughter went out to kvartirnik, informal, word-of-mouth gatherings in private apartments, which were reminiscent of the underground performances held in the Soviet era.

Ira said she was very worried in February and March of last year. She had just purchased an apartment and was worried that work would stop and that she wouldn’t be able to pay her mortgage.

“It got a lot worse in the spring,” she said. “Now it seems we’ve gotten used to a new reality. I started to meet and go out with girlfriends. I started to buy a lot more wine.”

The restaurants are now full, she said, but added: “The faces look completely different. The hipsters – you know what hipsters are? – There are fewer of them.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/europe/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html

Russia Ukraine War Anniversary: How the Events Go On and Where Do Families Get Their Breaks? Olya, 51, recounts how her family lives in the Cold Dark Matter

Olya, a 51-year-old events organizer with two teenage children, said her family had opted for more domestic holidays. Europe is largely closed to direct flights from Russia, and opportunities to travel abroad are more limited.

Even though there is a war, life goes on, Olya said. “I can’t influence the situation,” she said. My friends tell me to do what I can, what is possible. It doesn’t help to get depressed.”

He said that those who reorganized quickly are seeing growth. “In January we concluded an unusual number of deals, and most of our activity usually picks up in February.”

Practically nothing has changed in terms of everyday life, he said. “If we’re talking parts for a (Mercedes Benz) G-Class, it might be trickier.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/europe/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html

What Do We Know About Russia? When Did Putin Decide to Start a War on the Conifold of the World? A Comment on John J. Sullivan

He was skeptical of state media according to him. And he acknowledged that he could theoretically be called up in another wave of mobilization.

I should explain to you. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Chechnya was one of the two autonomous republics of the newly independent Russian Federation that claimed independence. Tatarstan was the other one. World leaders were quite fed up with the fact that all the Union republics that they’d seen for decades as administrative units of Russia, such as Georgia, were actually real things. Ichkeria had a low chance of beingrecognized as an independent state because of the West’s shock at this new geography.

Editor’s Note: John J. Sullivan was US Ambassador to Russia from December 2019 to October 2022. He was previously US Deputy Secretary of State. And is now a partner in Mayer Brown LLP and a Distinguished Fellow at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The views in this commentary are of his own. You can read more opinions on CNN.

For weeks, I had been telling everyone I could reach that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to launch a war on the continent of Europe, the scale of which had not been seen since World War II.

Although confident in my pre-war assessment, I was disconsolate. For two years, I had worked hard as US ambassador to make even modest progress in the few areas in which any dialogue was possible with the Russians.

My approach was reaffirmed following President Joe Biden’s meeting in Geneva with Putin in June 2021. No one in our US delegation had any illusions that we would make progress on any particular issue, but all of them agreed that it was in the interests of the United States to try.

Russian interlocutors read from their talking points and would not engage in a real dialogue. The Russian security services monitored meeting and phone calls. The Russians were going through a diplomatic charade to lay the groundwork for an invasion that Putin had already decided to launch. When was the only question.

The war changed things great and small, from where I lived in Moscow to Russia’s standing in the world. I had to move onto the Embassy compound because the pace of teleconferences with Washington, combined with an eight-hour time difference, meant I had to be immediately available at all hours.

Russian violence caused almost 15 million Ukrainians to be refugees or internally displaced, missile strikes on civilian targets, and the illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory continue, even though there is no military solution to the crisis. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is tasked with preserving and defending world peace.

Until the problem is reversed on terms acceptable toUkraine, which will protect its security, the problem will continue to get worse.

Only then will the Russian government realize that the goals of its Special Military Operation cannot be achieved. Only then will the Russian government negotiate in good faith. And only then will peace return to Europe.

The High-Redshift Travels of the Biden Regime: Kyiv, Poland, Slovenia, Italy, and Macedonian

Only three officials as well one reporter and one photographer traveled with Biden. A small group of reporters already inside Ukraine — including NPR’s Joanna Kakissis — joined Biden after his arrival at 8 a.m. local time.

Biden’s trip to Kyiv was shrouded in secrecy, a reflection of the steep security concerns. Reporters on Air Force One were not permitted to carry their devices with them while they traveled under cover on Sunday.

Jake Sullivan, a national security adviser, is one of the people Biden has with him.

They first began visiting Kyiv in March 2022, when the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic all arrived by train. Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited April 9, followed by visits from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and then-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Last year, on Mother’s Day, Dr. Biden traveled to a little-known city in the far southwestern corner of Ukraine. The former school that she met with Zelenska was turned into temporary housing for displaced Ukrainians.

Biden could not make a similar trip due to security precautions. When he visited Poland in April last year, the White House did not even explore the potential for a trip across the border, even though Biden said he had voiced interest.

Why the U.S. was out of control in the war zone, and why he wasn’t there a day after his visit to Russia

American officials told CNN that the US has recently begun seeing disturbing trends and that Beijing wants to give lethal military aid to Moscow without being caught.

The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture, but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the last several days.

Wang is expected to make his first visit to Russia since Russia invasion of Ukraine this week, and it will be from the top foreign policy adviser to the Chinese leader.

Russian forces are trying to take control of the eastern region of Ukraine which they illegally annexed last September.

” I thought it was important that there was no doubt in U.S. support for Ukraine in the war,” Biden said.

But with no end to the war in sight, polls show a growing number of Americans are concerned about how much money has gone to the war — and some Republican budget hawks have said they would like to curtail the spending.

Around 7 p.m. ET on Saturday night, President Joe Biden was out in Washington on a Valentine’s week date-night, lingering over rigatoni with fennel sausage ragu before returning with his wife to the White House.

The next time he was in public was 36 hours later when he walked out of the cathedral into the cold weather.

Yet it was more than symbolism that drove Biden to endure the significant risk of visiting an active war zone without significant US military assets on the ground.

The trip itself was fluid and that was a part of the reason for that. When the small circle of White House officials looped in on the plan, they were confident it was doable but the reality was that the US had no control over air space in the war zone.

No notice was given to reporters on Sunday that Biden was no longer in Washington. The White House’s official schedule shows his departure for Poland at 7 p.m. on Monday.

“We’re going to continue to use our convening power, to marshal the world, to galvanize support for Ukraine, but there are no plans for the president to enter Ukraine on this trip,” NSC spokesman John Kirby said in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.”

When Joe Biden and his colleagues made the flight from Joint Base Andrews to Kyiv, Ukraine: Where did he end up?

But at that point, Biden had already lifted off from Joint Base Andrews hours before, not in the usual plane that is synonymous with Air Force One, but instead in a smaller Air Force C-32.

There would be a stop to refuel at a US base in Germany before continuing the flight into Poland. As he jetted eastward, Biden’s focus was plotting out his conversations with Zelensky, hoping to use his limited time wisely in discussing the coming months of fighting.

“I’m here in Poland to see firsthand the humanitarian crisis and quite frankly, part of my disappointment is that I can’t see it firsthand like I have in other places,” Biden said then. “They will not let me – understandably, I guess – cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine.”

The process that began months earlier began to come to a close when Biden watched as his foreign counterparts made the journey into Ukraine.

Biden was presented with many options for his visit to Ukraine but chose the capital of the country, Kyiv, a person familiar with the matter said.

“This was a risk that Joe Biden wanted to take,” said White House communications director Kate Bedingfield. “It’s important to him to show up, even when it’s hard, and he directed his team to make it happen, no matter how challenging the logistics.”

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, did not say if Biden overruled the military or Secret Service to go ahead with the trip.

He was given a complete presentation of an effective operational security plan. He heard that presentation, he was satisfied that the risk was manageable and he ultimately made a determination (to go),” Sullivan said.

Biden’s Visit to Ukraine: His First Visit to the Kremlin and the United States, Its Sentimentation to Critics

During his visit to the city, the president strolled through in the daylight through the center of the city with President Zelensky standing behind him in St. Michael’s Square.

Biden’s words might have lacked the poetry of “Ich bin ein Berliner,” or “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But Biden’s visit instantly went down in history alongside two defining trips to divided Berlin by Presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan that were flashpoints of the Cold War and each of which sent their own image of US resolve to the Kremlin.

Putin will have to reply to what Biden said in tomorrow’s speech because the president claimed the upper hand on Monday, according to Rudik.

Biden doesn’t agree to the request because it affects his war strategy of how far to go to help win while avoiding a direct clash between the West and Russia.

Texas lawmaker Mike McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN on Sunday that the US should not do the same thing as they did toUkraine in the past. Asked if the Biden administration was now considering the dispatch of F-16 fighter planes, the Texas Republican replied: “I hope so,” and added, “I think the momentum is building for this to happen.”

This is because they would enhance Ukraine’s capacity to potentially strike at Russian jets and air defense systems inside Russia. The use of NATO aircraft in such operations – even with Ukrainian pilots – could prompt the Kremlin to conclude the alliance has directly intervened in the war, increasing the risk of a disastrous escalation of the conflict Biden has tried to avoid.

It was like a jab at the critics who questioned if Biden should run for reelection at the ripe old age of 80.

Of course, some GOP members criticized Biden for going to Ukraine. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called the trip “incredibly insulting,” a sign of an “America Last” policy. The lawmaker who was at the center of a legal dispute with the Justice Department over his cell phone described the idea that Biden would helpUkraine defend its borders as “breathtaking.”

This is offensive. Today on our President’s Day, Joe Biden, the President of the United States chose Ukraine over America, while forcing the American people to pay for Ukraine’s government and war. I can not express how much Americans hate Joe Biden,” Greene said in a tweet.

If you are to be president, you have to stand up for US values of freedom and democracy, and the right of a people to fight tyranny enforced from the point of the gun by a more powerful foreign oppressor.

Biden was in Kyiv. Demonstrative humiliation of Russia,” Russian journalist Sergey Mardan wrote in a snarky response on his Telegram channel. “Tales of miraculous hypersonics may be left for children. Just like spells about the war we are fighting in the West.

A Russian army veteran and former Federal Security Service officer suggested that Biden could have visited the frontlines in easternUkraine and escaped with his life.

“I’m pretty sure if the grandfather was brought to Bakhmut, nothing will happen to him,” he said.

Many hardliners within the military blogosphere, who have hundreds of millions of followers, give analysis of the conflict for large swaths of the Russian population and critique what they consider to be a soft approach on the battlefield by Putin’s generals.

Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, is known for making belligerent pronouncements in an apparent bid to shore up his nationalist credentials.

Participants of what Russia refers to as its “special military operation” will be in attendance but foreign guests or representatives will not be invited, the Kremlin’s spokesperson told reporters Monday.

A special session of the U.N. General Assembly is taking place on Wednesday. The Security Council discusses Nord Stream pipelines at Russia’s request. Russia’s parliament is going to hold extraordinary meetings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened the Munich Security Conference, speaking via video link to attendees including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Vice President Kamala Harris. The vice president later told the gathering that Russia had committed “crimes against humanity.”

NATO defense ministers met in Brussels, where Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged a boost in ammunition to Ukraine, warning that the Kremlin is preparing for new offensives and attacks.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of the People, in Kyiv, During the War: A Yale University Perspective

The Russian government is operating a systematic network of at least 40 child custody centers for thousands of Ukrainian children, a potential war crime, a Yale University team reported.

Zelenskyy might flee if people thought so. Daria Kaleniuk, who runs the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a public watchdog group, pointed out that Zelenskyy had downplayed the threat of war and seemed unprepared. That he stood his ground in Kyiv, she says, “honestly, it was a surprise for me.”

It’s about an earnest high school history teacher who rails against corruption and politics in their country. Zelenskyy’s character becomes popular after a student captures a rant and posts it on social media.

Zelenskyy, who was a real candidate, won the election by a wide margin with over 70% of the vote. He named his political party Servant of the People.

The decision to stay in Kyiv during the war turned out to be a turning point in public opinion. By August, about 90% of Ukrainians said they approved of his job performance. The character actor was aware of what the Ukrainian people needed.

Zelenskyy gained international support. He spoke to the European parliament from a video booth, and brought the English speaker to tears.

He said something about another wartime leader, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, drawing a huge round of applause.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1158150926/volodymyr-zelenskyy-president-ukraine-russia-war

Volodymyryry Zelenskyy: The president of Ukraine, Ivan Bakanov, explains the war in the Kherson region

I saw him in the Kherson region less than two weeks before the invasion. He was there to observe drills to defend against Russian sabotage. Afterward, Zelenskyy gave an impromptu news conference in which he was defensive and confusing. Zelenskyy downplayed the warnings that Russia would launch a massive invasion.

There is too much information about a full-scale war in the information space, according to the president who was standing in the middle of the street.

Chornovol was a member of the parliament of Ukraine. Later, she joined the military. She worked in the Kherson region where she was to fire missiles at Russian armor.

Chornovol says that – before the war – the Ukrainian army left the route north of Kyiv open to invasion, even failing to mine bridges to stop a Russian advance.

Chornovol showed me her camouflaged missile launchers which was camouflaged with Astroturf. “There was no preparation for the invasion. Kyiv was not fortified in any way.”

Jack Watling, senior researcher in land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London, says a brigade and a half of troops were supposed to be deployed to the area, but weren’t. Ukrainian officers warned that the south was vulnerable to a Russian attack.

Because Ukraine remains at war, parliamentarians are careful not to launch domestic political attacks. But Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a Ukrainian lawmaker with the opposition European Solidarity party, says she and others will be asking tough questions about what happened in the south as soon as — she says — Ukraine defeats Russia.

The people here think that the loss of the region was caused by the SBU. In July, Zelenskyy fired the head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, a longtime friend who had no security experience.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1158150926/volodymyr-zelenskyy-president-ukraine-russia-war

Zelenskyy: A good president in the late 19th century and the most important thing that he doesn’t do during a war

“He’s a good president during war,” she says. “He’s not a very good president during a non-war period. His largest weakness is that he trusts people who are his friends and he is not tolerating different opinions.”

At the time, Fialko-Smal was an actor. She says Zelenskyy used to watch her troupe perform and sought advice on becoming a dramatic actor. She discouraged Zelenskyy, who is under 5-foot-6.

The father of Zelenskyy is a renowned educator. According to Natalya Voloshanyuk, Volodymyr is smart, funny and self-assured.

“She said, ‘You should be proud that you study at this university,’ ” Voloshanyuk recalls, “to which he replied, ‘One day you will be proud that you taught me.’ “

The collapse of the Soviet Union makes it possible for you to create something new. “I think Zelenskyy’s one of one of those people. The good thing is that these people think that impossible is nothing and you can create anything.”

People recognize themselves in him, he identifies himself with the people or he is with them. I think this is the most important thing.

Joe-Ben-Poland trip: How long will you be with me, Monsieur Biden, during his twelve-year presidency?

This week, Biden returns to the Royal Castle to mark the anniversary of the war that has put him at odds with the Russians, as well as his secretive visit a day before that to Ukraine, which underscores the Cold War dynamic between them.

The White House said ahead of his trip that Biden would speak by phone over the course of the week with other Western leaders, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom and President Emmanuel Macron of France.

There is no doubt in my mind that freedom is priceless. It is worth fighting for, for as long as is necessary. And that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President – for as long as it takes,” Biden told Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday.

Yet Biden – nor any other Western leader – has not been able to say exactly how long that will be, making this week as much about the year ahead as it is about the past 12 months.

The war has left an indelible mark on nearly all aspects of Biden’s presidency and he has left his mark on the war, from the billions of dollars in arms shipments to the newly invigorated Western alliance. It has caused convulsions in the global economy and created political problems in the United States but still allowing Biden to demonstrate his claim that America is back.

The surprising resilience of the Ukrainian people, along with the unexpected ineptitude of the Russian forces, have prevented a full takeover. Instead, the war has become what NATO’s chief Jens Stoltenberg described last week as a “grinding war of attrition” without a discernible end.

“I think it is wise to be prepared for a long war,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who will visit Biden at the White House early next month, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Friday.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/politics/joe-biden-poland-trip/index.html

The impact of the Cold War on the Polish-Russian Warsaw Region and on the Ukrainian Civil Liberation Front, according to a spokesperson for the German Marshall Fund

There has been new concerns about the availability of weapons and supplies in the last week, indicating that the West can’t provide all the help it needs forever.

“I do have to say that there is a concern, both in Poland and in Ukraine, about the staying power of the US beyond this administration. This war would look entirely different without the support of the US,” said Michal Baranowski, the managing director in Warsaw of the German Marshall Fund.

“The fact is that we are fighting with time, right?” Baranowski said something. “I mean, it’s really whether time is on the side of Russia, who is losing but has a lot of resources to deplete us in the West. That’s what gives me pause. I hope we have the strength to stay.

His remarks will be translated into both Polish and Ukrainian, in an indication of the massive number of refugees Poland has absorbed.

The president would send a message to people all around the world, according to John Kirby.

The risky trip on Monday to an active war zone was not just a powerful symbol of American support, it was a shot in the arm to a population that has endured Russia’s devastating attacks on civilian apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and the power stations that provide heat and electricity.

Russia brought along their dress uniforms in hopes of a victory parade, according to the Ukrainians.

Violations of the Declaration of Independence by President Biden: The Case Against Crime and Genocide in Ukraine and its Repercussions for the United States

Biden is 80 and walks with a stiff gait. He has no shortage of courage or competentness, despite the fact that Biden was there.

A joyous Zelensky said Biden’s visit “brings us closer to victory,” adding it will “have repercussions on the battlefield in liberating our territories.”

Biden promised continuing support from the US, which is what most Americans want though backing has weakened somewhat. In an interview with CNN, McCaul said that bipartisan support for Ukraine is very strong.

NATO ally Poland has provided nearly $4 billion in military and humanitarian assistance. Kirby said Biden will also use the opportunity to thank Poland for hosting U.S. forces.