There was a bigger message from the Biden-Xi meeting

Vladimir Putin has been trying to end the Cold War with Russia – but how much does the Kremlin really need to lose? The case of Vladimir Kortunov

Back then, on the opening day of the Winter Olympics, Putin and Xi declared the two countries had a friendship with “no limits,” with no “forbidden areas of cooperation.” Twenty days later, after months of denying any intention to invade Ukraine, Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s borders in what they — and much of the world — expected would be a quick operation to conquer the fledgling democracy next door.

The logic is the same because Russia was more involved in subordinating Ukraine than it was in sending missiles to Cuba. In 1962, America persuaded the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, that removing nuclear weapons from Cuba was, however unpalatable, a better choice than deploying them. Mr. Putin should be persuaded by the West that he’s less risky than fighting. He will be likely to do so if he understands that a long war threatens his regime — whose preservation seems to be the only thing he values more highly than a subordinated Ukraine — by fatally weakening domestic cohesion or by escalating out of control.

Kortunov is the president of the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow. He told CNN that Putin wants to end the whole thing quickly.

The myth of a genius has been shattered more than seven months into the war. During the past two weeks, at least 200,000 Russian men have voted with their feet to flee Putin’s partial mobilization order. They understand – despite the Herculean efforts of Putin’s propagandists – that this war is a bloodbath Russia is losing.

Many of the greatest and best players in the field have moved to other countries. This includes writers, artists and journalists as well as some of the most creative technologists, scientists and engineers.

Russia has complained about these deliveries a lot but has been relatively quiet in response to what might have been considered red lines.

Kortunov says he doesn’t know what goes on in the Kremlin but that he understands the public mood over the huge costs and loss of life in the war. “Many people would start asking questions, why did we get into this mess? Why, you know, we lost so many people.”

He used the same method as when he annexedUkraine, threatening nuclear strikes if it tries to take the annexed territories back.

CNN reported last week that the US is considering how to respond to a range of potential scenarios, including fears that Russians could use tactical nuclear weapons, according to three sources briefed on the latest intelligence. There is a possibility that Putin could take a step just short of nuclear attack on Ukraine and that the US would respond with a military strike.

The discovery of explosive seismic shockwaves and greenhouse gases in Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines as a probe of Russian aggression in a Russian energy war

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.

After patches of sea were discovered, the Danes, Germans, and Norwegians increased security around their oil and gas facilities.

So far, at least four leaks in Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines 1 and 2 have been discovered, each at the surface resembling a boiling cauldron, the largest one kilometer across, and together spewing industrial quantities of toxic greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

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 is going to do next.

Nord Stream 2 was never operational, and Nord Stream 1 had been throttled back by Putin as Europe raced to replenish gas reserves ahead of winter, while dialling back demands for Russian supplies and searching for replacement providers.

The early signs suggest that Putin thought the world would respond to his brutality. Macron, for instance, said the attacks would prompt France to increase military assistance to Kyiv. The footage of Russian missiles roaring over their heads may serve to change the opinion of the Western public because of the energy war being waged by Putin. Since it shows Russian weakness, it makes sense that Putin was unable to respond to the humiliating defeats of his forces in the field.

It was last year. And the successful TV comedian turned commander in chief had traveled to Paris for a summit to negotiate a peace deal with Putin. Zelensky walked away after giving few concessions to many people.

He expected Putin to pitch France and Germany first and say they need to end the war, protect their territories at all costs and put pressure on the Ukrainians to settle.

Alperovitch says the likelihood of Putin using nuclear weapon is still low. But it can’t be dismissed. He thinks that if he does use it, he might do a demonstration strike over the Black Sea in hopes of getting the West to agree to negotiations.

Russia’s president has been threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons at Ukrainian targets, but now American officials think small nuclear weapons are a far better weapon of terror than they previously thought.

The main utility is part of a last-ditch effort by Mr. Putin to stop the counteroffensive by the Ukrainians. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so.

But with the ability to target major Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Russia has shown that it can still cause immense damage and dislocation. Monday’s strikes heightens Russia-Ukraine conflict to one of its most dangerous phases since 2014. Tensions were already high due to Putin suggesting that tactical nuclear weapons are still on the table.

The American-Russian War on the Balkans: the Case of Daria Dugina, a Russian Nationalist, and the U.S.

Mr. Zlatev and his new business partner, a local osteopath, took their first crack at international arms dealing. The New York Times obtained contract documents and other records that show how the deal relied on multiple layers of transportation across seven countries. And it exists in a legal gray area, designed to skirt the arms-export rules of other countries.

The pair recently wrote to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. They said they planned to sell American, Bosnian and Serbian arms to Ukraine.

A year since Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine, the war is far from over. However bravely Ukrainians fight on, and however muddled the performance of Russia’s military, Ukraine cannot prevail without continued and substantial Western assistance. Since the invasion, that has swelled to over $150 billion in American and European spending, and the weapons supplied to Ukraine now include the latest Western tanks and antiaircraft systems.

WASHINGTON — United States intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, an element of a covert campaign that U.S. officials fear could widen the conflict.

The United States provided intelligence or assistance in the attack, officials said. American officials also said they were not aware of the operation ahead of time and would have opposed the killing had they been consulted. They said that American officials admonished Ukrainian officials over the assassination.

The Cost of Chaos: The View from the Kremlin’s Outlook on the Cold War Between the West and the Soviet Union, an Analysis by Peter Bergen

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen is the author of “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Just as he declared that the eastern region of the Russian empire was annexed by Russia, Putin lost Lyman.

Meanwhile thousands of innocent Ukrainians have died in Putin’s egotistical and misguided bid to revive a Tsarist empire. authoritarianism has been exposed as a disastrous system which can cause wars of choice.

With the support of his allies and the movement of hundreds of thousands of citizens out of concern, an increasingly isolated Putin has once again taken to making short speeches about his personal view of history.

Shurokin appeared on Moscow television last week to suggest the Kremlin’s new objective – that actually dates back decades – is to force Ukraine into Russia’s orbit and keep it from joining the EU and especially NATO. Shurokin said: “We just want one thing, for Ukraine to be independent of the West and NATO and be friendly to the Russian state.”

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they planned to install a puppet government and get out of the country as soon as it was feasible, as explained in a recent, authoritative book about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, “Afghan Crucible” by historian Elisabeth Leake.

During the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the US was initially reluctant to escalate its support for the Afghan resistance, fearing a wider 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.

The Kremlin says that the US and other countries are following a path of increasing the distance between them and the Ukrainians. “This does not contribute to a speedy settlement of the situation, on the contrary.”

It can intercept many of Russia’s missiles and attack drones, although it already claimed a high success rate on Monday. The Patriot is also a sign NATO’s best technology is on the table to help Ukraine win the war, or at least hold Russia back.

Joe Biden in Moscow During the 1991/Russian War: The U.S. Response to Putin’s Explanation of Crime and Invasion

The collapse of the soviet union in 1991 was helped by the withdrawal of the soviet forces from Afghanistan two years before.

The Romanov monarchy was weakened by the loss of Russian territory in the 1905 war with Japan. Czar Nicholas II’s feckless leadership during the First World War then precipitated the Russian Revolution in 1917. Subsequently, much of the Romanov family was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad.

On February 22 – just two days before Russia’s invasion – former US President Donald Trump, who has always fawned over Putin, publicly said that the Russian autocrat was “genius” and “savvy” for declaring two regions of eastern Ukraine independent and moving his troops there in a prelude to full-blown invasion.

Almost exactly one year ago, I sat in my office at the US Embassy in Moscow, reading reports of Russia’s brutal military assault on Ukraine. I was numb and not surprised by the gravity of the situation.

After the First World War ended in 1917 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991), there was a third dissolution of the Russian empire due to Putin’s gamble.

But White House officials closely watched – and studied for clues – Putin’s speech last week – and much like his speech just prior to the invasion, it raised alarms. It’s been an element of several internal discussions in recent days, highlighting that while the world may brush off the latest in months of Putin statements seemingly detached from obvious reality, the Biden “doesn’t have that luxury,” one official said.

Several senior US officials were surprised by Bidens blunt assessment due to the lack of new intelligence and the grim language he used.

After Russian missiles hit Ukrainian cities, President Joe Biden talked to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pledged continued US security assistance, including air defense systems.

Biden’s remarks serve as a window into a very real, very ongoing discussion inside his administration as the seek to calibrate the response to that environment.

Biden makes use of handwritten notes to speak from at least one of his smaller fundraisers, where he often speaks from a script he wrote for himself. Like at his public events, Biden speaks from a handheld microphone during his fundraisers and usually roams around the room while he’s talking. Reporters can only report on the President’s remarks but cannot film them, a convention that started during the Obama presidency.

What Does Kennedy and Khrushchev Really Tell Us About Cold War, and Why Does Moscow Want to Become More Effective? Remarks on the Cold War Between the USA and Russia

Implicit in Biden’s comments, however, was the risks posed by a critical difference. President John F. Kennedy and his team weighed a series of potential off-ramps and backchannel proposals that could head off the crisis. The Soviet leader at the time – Nikita Khrushchev, who had seen the horrors of World War II – always made clear he understood the stakes of a nuclear standoff, even if his strategic calculation in Cuba was woefully off-base. Kennedy and Khrushchev’s dealings reflected the fact that destruction was the baseline, even at their worst moments and most bellicose threats.

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. The cascading response only has one outcome when a move is made in that direction.

One official characterized the speech as “insane,” and while that bolstered the US view of Russian weakness and isolation, it also further increased concern about Putin’s willingness to escalate beyond the level of a rational actor.

White House officials decided not to say anything publicly Thursday night, and there are no plans to address the remarks in isolation so far on Friday morning. If Biden wants to address it himself, it will be apparent when he departs for his Maryland event later in the morning, one official said.

The most important element is that the US officials have not seen any change in posture or specific intelligence that raises the threat level above where it was.

There have been direct communications to Moscow in the last several weeks detailing the scale of the US response should Putin decide to go down that path. Officials say that the details will stay the same no matter what.

The deal saved tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens from a disaster.

What if, I keep asking myself, Russia’s new totalitarianism had not been so lightheartedly overlooked by the rest of the world in the 1990s? To spare everyone from a new Hitler, Russia should have been allowed to peacefully shrink under international control. Alas, the West agreed to blame Communism alone for all the atrocities of the Soviet regime. Russian imperialism was never identified as a problem.

The destruction of a village in Kyrgyzstan after the border conflict between Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan during the 1991 Russian-Szelensky war

The result in only one village has been devastating, with homes reduced to rubble, a burned-out school and a gut-wrenching stench from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens.

All fell victim last month to the worst violence to hit the area since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union — a brief but bloody border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both members of a Russia-led military alliance dedicated to preserving peace but which did nothing to halt the mayhem.

In the wake of the missile attack on Ukrainian cities,Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that there had been another kind of Russian attacks targeting energy and critical infrastructure. Since Oct. 10, 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country.”

Russian retaliation – an onslaught of missile attacks – has expanded as Ukrainian forces have continued to push back Russian units and reclaim territory seized in the early days of the war.

To add to Putin’s sense of humiliation, the bridge explosion came amid a surging Ukrainian counteroffensive that has seized key pockets of Russian-controlled territory, including in regions Putin recently annexed.

Putin said on Monday it’s impossible to leave such crimes unanswered. Russia will respond in a scale to the level of threat to the Russian Federation if any terrorist attacks on our territory continue.

The subway system in Kyiv was stopped for several hours on Monday. Rescue workers were working to remove people from the rubble caused by the strikes, so the air raid alert was lifted at midday.

Kiev Crisis: What happened to Demys Shmygal and the explosion on a bridge in Kyiv, Ukraine, during the August 1 attacks?

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.

The Ukrainian State Emergency Services said that electricity supply had been cut in some areas on Monday. Electricity was “partially disrupted” in the rest of the country.

Putin held an operational meeting of his security council on Monday, the same day that he said that the explosion on the bridge was a terrorist attack.

The Russian-appointed head of annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said he had “good news” Monday, claiming that Russia’s approaches to what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine “have changed.”

If the actions to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure had been taken every day since the start of the operation, we would have finished everything in May, and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.

The air raid sirens will go on for a long time. Rockets continue to strike. The people are dead and wounded. Do not leave your shelters. Stay safe and take care of your families. Let’s hang in there and be strong,” Zelensky added.

Ukraine’s Western allies doubled down on their support for Kyiv following the strikes, with EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell Fontelles tweeting that “additional military support from the EU is on its way.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, “Putin is terrorising innocent people in airports and other places.” These heinous acts were condemned by the Netherlands. Putin does not seem to understand that the will of the Ukrainian people is unbreakable.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the attacks “another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price.”

The attack on Zaporizhskia, Central Kiev, as seen by CNN: The first russian president has spoken out against the mass massacre in Ukraine

The G7 group of nations will hold an emergency meeting via video conference on Tuesday, the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed to CNN, and Zelensky said on Twitter that he would address that meeting.

Michael 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 contributes to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.

The strikes that took place on central Kyiv are significant and close to government quarter. Western governments should see this as a red line being crossed in the war.

There were no air raid sirens and no reports of missiles being shot down in the area around my office as of midday. Typically, at this time of the day a nearby restaurant would be filled with customers and chatter about weddings and parties.

Zaporizhskia, a city that is close to the largest atomic power plant in Europe, was hit by a number of strikes on apartment buildings as people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

In a video filmed outside of his office on Monday, defiant President Zelensky said that many of the 100 or so missile strikes across Ukraine were aimed at the country’s energy infrastructure. Some provinces in the Ukrainian capital are without power, while at least 11 infrastructure facilities have been damaged.

Some media outlets in the city temporarily moved their operations to underground bomb shelters in scenes reminiscent of the early days of the war. In one metro station serving as a shelter, large numbers of people took cover on platforms as a small group sang patriotic Ukrainian songs.

Many people are going to spend the majority of the day in bomb shelters, as businesses have been asked to shift work Online as much as possible.

Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/10/opinions/putin-russia-war-ukraine-strikes-crimea-bridge-bociurkiw/index.html

Vladimir Putin, the Kerch Bridge, and the Kravets Force: Trump’s response to China and India demands that Security Systems are not compromised by Nuclear Forces

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. The world’s longest sea crossing bridge was connected to the former Portuguese and British territories after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.

The reaction among Ukrainians was immediate, with jokes like a Christmas tree on social media. Many shared their sense of jubilation via text messages.

For Putin, sitting was never an option due to his pride and self-interest. He responded by unleashing more death and destruction, with the force that probably comes from a former KGB operatives.

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.

In late August, Roman Kravets, a Ukrainian journalist, was told by the chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate at the Defense Ministry that by the end of this year, they would have to enter Simferopol.

It’s important for Washington and other allies to use urgent telephone diplomacy to convince China and India to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.

High tech defense systems are needed to protect energy infrastructure in the country. The need to protect heating systems is urgent because of winter.

The United States War on Crime and Human Rights During the Russian-Ukrainian War: A Key Agenda for the War on the Balkans

The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.

Any long campaign against civilians by Putin could cause a split in NATO allies that are supporting Ukraine, as well as possibly unleashing a new flood of refugees into Western Europe.

The meeting between Biden and Zelensky, who have spoken multiple times by phone and video link-ups but have not met in person since the invasion, comes at a vital moment in the war. Biden has been careful in his US shipments of arms and weaponry in order to save Ukraine from a disastrous direct clash between NATO and Russia. He didn’t approve of the idea of the West putting a no-fly zone over the country. The deepest US dive into the conflict thus far has been with the long range-aerial defense system called the “patriot”.

A senior administration official said they had no announcements to make, but that the US would continue to help with air defense systems for Ukraine.

The US had not yet delivered NASAMS to Ukraine, according to a Department of Defense briefing in September. At the time, Brig. The general said two systems would be delivered in the next two months, with the other six to arrive at a later date.

When Zelensky arrives to the White House, he will meet for lengthy talks with Biden, along with key members of the US national security team. The official said Biden and Zelensky would engage in an “in-depth strategic discussion on the way ahead on the battlefield,” along with the training and capabilities Western partners are providing Ukraine, the sanctions they have imposed on Russia and economic and energy assistance to the Ukrainian people.

Zelensky’s skills as a negotiator were tested in his first face-to-face meeting withPutin, less than a year into his term as president of Ukraine.

The Ukraine Crisis: Is Russia’s enemy in the war? Vladimir Putin has had a good fight in Ukraine, he tells CNN

Yes. There is an enormous package of aid in the works, and it is part of a consistent drumbeat from the Biden administration. There is a simple message: aid will not stop even though Washington can provide more than Ukraine can.

Kirby told CNN that it was clear that he was feeling the pressure both at home and overseas, and how he reacted to that.

The city dwellers who were in the air raid shelters when the war began have managed to rebuild their lives, but the recent attacks have thrown them off balance and they are scared of new strikes.

But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.

The two headline packages could have an impact on the war. The constant bombardment of Energy Infrastructure is Russia’s most potent threat now. 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 that killed at least 14 people gave new attention to the need for the US and its allies to act in response to the proxy war that they have been playing with Russia.

Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to pummel civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he suggested it was a trend developing in recent days and had already been in the works.

It was something they had been planning for a long time. Kirby said that there was no evidence that the explosion on the bridge sped up their planning.

The new general in charge of the war had previously served in Syria and Chechnya. Russia is accused of committing serious human rights violations in both places, where it bombarded populated areas and demolished built-up districts.

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 making clear where he was going during the winter. He is going to try to force the Ukrainian population to compromise, to give up territory, by going after this infrastructure,” Vindman said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“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.

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’s documenting the war on YouTube, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper 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.

Vladimir Zelenskyy is not looking for a way out of the Cold War on the Crimea, but he wants to stay in Ukraine

They join an army already degraded in quality and capability. As much of Russia’s prewar force in Ukraine was wounded or killed, its best equipment was destroyed or captured, the composition of its military force has changed over the course of the war. The Russian military leadership isn’t sure how the undisciplined force will respond when confronted with cold, exhausting combat conditions or rumors of Ukrainian assaults. Recent experience suggests these troops might abandon their positions and equipment in panic, as demoralized forces did in the Kharkiv region in September.

Even if Zelenskyy came up with an idea to stop the punishment, we should negotiate. I don’t believe he can do that now because of the conviction of the Ukrainian 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 heard from a top Ukrainian official, who said that the conflict needs to end with a victory on the battlefield.

But Paul Kolbe, a former CIA officer who runs the Intelligence Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School, says the Russian leader is not looking for a way out of the conflict. He says it’s the opposite. “Putin’s muscle memory when he runs into an obstacle is to escalate,” said Kolbe. “There’s a lot of tricks he can still pull out to try to undermine morale in Ukraine and in the West.”

As Russia begins a new offensive in eastern Ukraine, the US and its allies are skeptical Moscow has amassed the manpower and resources to make significant gains, US, UK and Ukrainian officials tell CNN. A senior US military official said that it was likely more aspirational than realistic.

“That is essentially a metaphorical burning of bridges,” said Alperovitch. “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.”

Meanwhile, the fast approaching winter will likely slow the pace of the war, but is not expected to halt the fighting. David Petraeus thinks the harsh weather favors the Ukrainians on the battlefield. “The Ukrainians can knock on the door and be taken in and get warmed up and get a bowl of 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. “Although wars end with some sort of negotiation, I don’t see any chances of that in the near term,” said Paul Kolbe, a former CIA official.

This war began with a Russian invasion in 2014, he noted, and is now as intense as it’s ever been. Greg Myre is an NPR National Security Correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.

Moscow’s warning message on the Ukrainian martial law: The crisis in Kherson, Russia, and the epoch in the Middle East

Some regional officials — including the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin — appeared to be 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.

And despite the new power granted them by Mr. Putin, the regional governors of Kursk, Krasnodar and Voronezh 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 Russian commander of the invasion acknowledged that the position of his army in Kherson was extremely difficult and indicated that a tactical retreat might be necessary. The General said he was ready to make difficult decisions about military assignments, but did not say what those might be.

Three senior officials in the Middle East say that Russia redeployed key military hardware from Syria in order to signal that it has lost influence in other parts of the world.

Comment on CNN Feature Article by D. Dean Obeidallah ‘The Case Against Kevin McCarthy’s Referendum on the Ukraine Crisis’

The Daily Beast has a column written by Dean Obeidallah, who is a former attorney. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The GOP Senate candidate in Ohio later flip-flopped, saying that he wanted “the Ukrainians to be successful.” Ukrainian Americans who are lifelong Republicans are being swayed to support Tim Ryan by Vance’s original comment, that the Senate race was too close to call.

My guess is that nobody would be Happier to hear McCarthy’s words than Putin. The United States is the world leader in helping Ukraine, providing more than $18 billion since January 2021, far more than any other nation. Humanitarian aid has been given to Ukrainians along with a wide range of weapons.

“The notion that now Kevin McCarthy is going to make himself the leader of the pro-Putin wing of my party is just a stunning thing. Cheney spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“He knows better, but the fact that he’s willing to go down the path of suggesting that America will no longer stand for freedom, I think, tells you he’s willing to sacrifice everything for his own political gain.”

The GOP Representative, who recently stated that if the Republicans take over the House, she expects McCarthy to give her a lot of power and a lot of latitude, blamed Ukraine for the war which broke out after Russia attacked.

Tucker Carlson is one of the Conservative Fox News stars that has been laying the groundwork for a possible end to US assistance for Ukraine.

Carlson tried to make a point about the conflict between neighboring countries on his show, but the best he could do was paint Ukraine in a negative light. For example, Carlson falsely claimed Ukraine was “not a democracy” and called Ukrainian leader Zelensky a “puppet of the Biden administration.”

And just last week, Ingraham derided former Vice President Mike Pence for referring to the United States as the “arsenal of democracy” and suggested our massive military is too depleted to help other countries such as Ukraine. 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 suggested that the Republicans may or may not 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.

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. His own views are expressed in this commentary. CNN has more opinions.

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.

Putin Prolonge War with the EU: The Constraints on French and European Priorities for the Future of the Large-Scale Nuclear Energy Challenge

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.

In the early hours of Friday in Brussels, European Union powers agreed a roadmap to control energy prices that have been surging on the heels of embargoes on Russian imports and the Kremlin cutting natural gas supplies at a whim.

Emergency caps on the Dutch Title Transfer Facility and permission for EU gas companies to form a Cartel to buy gas on the international market are included in these.

President of France,EmmanuelMacron, acknowledged that the European Commission had only a “clear mandate” to begin work on a gas cap mechanism while he was at the summit.

Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. Now energy ministers must work out details with a Germany concerned such caps would encourage higher consumption – a further burden on restricted supplies.

Putin wants this to be part of his dream. Europe could prove key to achieving success from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, which is that the continent fails to agree on essentials.

Many of these issues are already at odds between Germany and France. 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

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Russian Defense Minister, Michele Berlusconi, and the Ukrainian Defense Minister Dmitrij Kuleba

There has been a change of government in Italy. The post-fascist aura of her party has been removed by Giorgia Meloni, who was the first woman prime minister of Italy. One of her coalition partners has expressed admiration for the Russian leader.

Berlusconi, in an audio clip, said that he returned Putin’s gesture with bottle of Lambrusco wine and that he was a good person.

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.”

The Poland and Hungary, who were close to each other for many years, have different feelings about the policies of the EU, which they feel has reduced their influence. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

Similar forces seem to be at work in Washington where House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control after next month’s elections, told an interviewer, “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it.”

The influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus has called for Biden to open talks with Russia to end the conflict, while its troops are still occupying large areas and missiles and drones are hitting deep into the interior.

Hours later, Mia Jacob sent a statement to clarify what she had said in support of Ukraine. The Secretary of State called the Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, to express America’s continued support.

Matters for the Russians have not improved since then. On Monday, the British Defense Ministry, which provides some of the most up-to-date and accurate intelligence on the Russian military in Ukraine, reported that, “Both Russian defensive and offensive capability continues to be hampered by severe shortages of munitions and skilled personnel.”

The West is attempting to limit the amount of oil nations pay for and limit the amount of oil they import from Russia. There are some indications that the efforts are cutting into profits.

Russian production of hypersonic missiles has all but ceased “due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors,” said the report. Plants producing anti-aircraft systems have shut down and aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts. The Soviet era ended more than 30 years ago.

On the eve of the report, the US seized the property of a top Russian procurement agent who was responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end- users.

The Justice Department also announced charges against individuals and companies seeking to smuggle high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.

The War in Ukraine’s Cold Handle: Mark Milley’s Effort for Diplomacy in the U.S.

During internal conversations about the war in Ukraine, America’s top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, has in recent weeks led a strong push to seek a diplomatic solution as fighting heads toward a winter lull.

The conflict has evolved into a war that is difficult to win for Ukraine, which means any deal that would weaken the country’s borders is unacceptable to the government in Kyiv.

The public has witnessed Milley’s push for peace, just as the Ukranian took back Kherson. In comments at the Economic Club of New York on Wednesday, Milley praised the Ukrainian army for fighting Russia to a stalemate, but said that an outright military victory is out of reach.

It was no surprise that administration officials were unsurprised by the comments, but they were also concerned about the appearance of the administration being divided in the eyes of the Kremlin.

Sullivan is one of the senior US officials who have been urging Ukraine to reopen negotiations with Russia, even after Zelensky signed a decree in October ruling out negotiations with Putin.

According to internal deliberations, Milley tried to make it very clear that he is not pushing for a capitulation by the Ukrainians, but rather that this is the best time to end the war as it will lead to more death and destruction.

There’s a view that isn’t held across the administration. The State Department is located on the opposite side of the pole. It has resulted in a situation where military brass are pushing for diplomacy instead of the US diplomats.

Milley’s position comes as the US military has dug deep into US weapons stockpiles to support the Ukrainians and is currently scouring the globe for materials to support Ukraine heading into winter – such as heaters and generators – which has raised concerns about how long this war can be sustained, officials said.

The US intends to buy 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition from South Korean arms manufacturers to provide to Ukraine, a US official said, part of a broader effort to find available weaponry for the high-intensity battles unfolding in Ukraine. As part of the deal, the US will purchase 100,000 rounds of 155mm howitzer ammunition, which will then be transferred to Ukraine through the US.

CNN’s Ned Price: The White House and China are Doing Their Best to Support a Truncated Solution to the Cold War

State Department spokesperson Ned Price would not say Thursday whether the State Department agrees with Milley’s position. Price was supposed to be speaking for the US when he said that a diplomatic solution is needed.

Sullivan said in a visit toUkraine that the US is going to be with it for as long as it takes. “There will be no wavering, no flagging, no flinching in our support as we go forward.”

A world affairs columnist is Frida Ghitis, who worked for CNN. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a columnist for the Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

The statements from both the White House and the Chinese government seem to agree that it happened. The two sides discussed sources of disagreement, including Taiwan’s autonomy, the war in Ukraine and China’s human rights record. Climate change, global health and economic stability were some of the areas of potential cooperation broached by them.

The Perfect Moment to Rejoin Putin, Putin, and China: Russian Warfare, Inflation, and the War on the World Scale

There are signs that the democratic world is just starting to reverse the tide of autocracy, or at least its most dangerous elements. But it’s too early to tell how strong the global democratic push will be.

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.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had just returned to Kherson, the one provincial capital that Russian invaders had conquered, when he met with Biden and China’s President.

Putin and Xi, the world’s leading autocrats, looked ascendant, unstoppable even. The Western democracies were roiled by riots against Covid-19 restrictions. Putin was preparing for an outcome in Ukraine. Xi was hosting the Olympics, basking in attention, and preparing to solidify his control of China.

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.

China didn’t do much to support Russia in the way of weaponry, and Putin admitted that he had concerns about the future of Ukraine at the time they met again. The Russian President was rebuked by the Chinese President after he threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Tellingly, Putin chose not to attend the G20 summit in Bali, avoiding confrontations with world leaders as he increasingly becomes a pariah on the global stage.

Ubiquitous collusion between Russia and the United States in the epochal battle of the two powers: Biden’s victory over Putin, Putin’s war on Ukraine, and the crisis in the EU

To be sure, Biden is not the only leader with a strong hand. China’s leader, Xi, has just secured his third term, which means he can 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 the 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. China is imposing lockdowns because of that as the rest of the world slowly recovers after the swine flu.

Also crucial in the epochal competition between the two systems is showing that democracy works, defeating efforts of autocratic countries such as China and Russia to discredit it and proving that unprovoked wars of aggression, aimed at suppressing democracy and conquering territory, will not succeed.

The first missile to have landed in Poland – a NATO member – on Tuesday may well have been a Ukrainian anti-aircraft rocket intercepting an incoming Russian missile a short distance from one of Ukraine’s largest cities, Lviv, as suspected by Polish and NATO leaders. (President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, has insisted the missile was not Ukrainian)

Whatever the circumstances, one thing is certain. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for the illegal war against Ukraine.

His forces have planted mines in vast stretches of territory in Kherson from which they’ve recently withdrawn – much as the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia stretching back to the 1970s. Cambodian de-mining experts have been called in to help with the massive task facing Ukraine in 2022. Russian armies left behind evidence of atrocities and torture reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge, at the same time.

A growing number of Russian soldiers have refused to fight and rebelled against what they were told to do. Amid plummeting morale, the UK’s Defense Ministry believes Russian troops may be prepared to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers.

The hotline and Telegram channel, which were launched as a Ukrainian Military Intelligence project, has taken off, reportedly booking some 3,500 calls in its first two months of activity.

Diplomatically, Putin finds himself increasingly isolated on the world stage. He was not at the G20 session, but Zelensky dubbed it the “G19.” Though Putin lusted for a return to the G7 before he was ousted, he seems to have forgotten about it. The comparison with North Korea is more striking than Russia banning all Canadians, including Canadian-American Jim Carrey.

One leading Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who has settled in Berlin after fleeing in March, told me last week that while he hoped this is not the case, he is prepared to accept the reality – like many of his countrymen, he may never be able to return to his homeland, to which he remains deeply attached.

The fate of the Russian Army in the upcoming NATO-EU war: What will you do if we don’t stop now, and what will we do next?

The attempt by the West to deprive the country of material resources to pursue this war isumbling in the background. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, told the G20 on Tuesday that it was an unsustainable dependency and that they needed reliable and forward looking connections.

Moreover, Putin’s dream that this conflict, along with the enormous burden it has proven to be on Western countries, would only drive further wedges into the Western alliance are proving unfulfilled. On Monday, word began circulating in aerospace circles that the long-stalled joint French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System – Europe’s largest weapons program – was beginning to move forward.

The Russian army was largely on the defensive across more than 600 miles of battles lines in eastern and southern Ukraine, completely denying it the opportunity to seize control of the region.

The conflict will come to an end in a “negotiated resolution” when Putin understands the war is unsustainable on the battlefield and at home, according to an opinion article by CNN’s Peter Bergen.

“The only thing a premature truce does is it allows both parties to re-arm,” Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the CNA think tank and a leading expert on the Russian military, told me in an interview.

Already, Russia is beginning to rearm, experts say. Kofman said “Ammunition availability” is one of the most important aspects of the war. You can’t make them in a month if you burn through 9 million rounds. So the issue is what is the ammunition production rate and what can be mobilized?” he added.

According to Kofman, there are factories in Russia that shift the manufacture of weapons from two to three a day. This suggests that “they have the component parts or otherwise they wouldn’t be going to double and triple shifts,” he said.

Petro Poroshenko, the former Ukrainian president, said to the Council on Foreign Relations that Ukrainians understand negotiations. You are sitting in your own house, the murderer comes to your house, and kills your wife, and your daughter, then opens the door to a second floor and tells you to come here. I would like to have a negotiation. What would be your reaction?”

Trump’s Bet: Russia’s War on the Cold War, and the Ruling of a Cold War in the Cold Cold War

Russian leaders wanted to launch their offensive sooner, even though the US military said it would take as long as until May. The US now sees it as likely that Russian forces are moving before they are ready due to political pressure from the Kremlin, the senior US military official told CNN.

That sentiment was voiced last month by Jeremy Fleming, head of Britain’s top-secret electronic espionage agency GCHQ. Russian commanders on the ground know their supplies are running out.

Though Ukrainian officials have been sounding the alarm about new Russian attacks in the East, there is also skepticism on the Ukrainian side about Russian capabilities as those forces currently stand.

That’s “basically any big command post or ammo dump they pulled back beyond the 80-kilometer range,” he explained. In many cases, just inside Russian territory, whichUkraine has given assurances to Washington that it will not use rocket systems supplied by the US.

And, he added, the Russians are “willing to trade mobilized soldiers and artillery shells.” The Russians are expecting that “over time, NATO and the Western allies and Ukrainians won’t be willing to continue to make those trades. Eventually, it will push them to negotiate. That, I think, is Putin’s bet.

They will get tired of the war at some point, he said. And the Russian mindset may become “we may not have everything we wanted. But we’ll have a big chunk of the Donbas and will annex that into Russia and we’ll hold onto Crimea. And I think that’s kind of their bet right now.”

At the same time, a truce would also allow the West to rebuild rapidly depleting arsenals that have been drained by materiel sent to Ukraine, even upgrade what’s been supplied.

It is questionable if the US and its allies would be prepared to return to a war that many are starting to wish was over.

But news, first reported by CNN, that the US is finalizing plans to send the system to Ukraine triggered a cryptic warning from Russia’s US embassy Wednesday of “unpredictable consequences.”

Zakharova said that many experts questioned the rationality of such a step which would lead to an escalate of the conflict and increase the risk of directly dragging the US army into combat.

The Patriot system is expensive and complicated and requires intensive training for the multiple people it takes to operate it, but could help the country guard against Russian attacks that have left millions without power.

“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion … that they would choose to use words like provocative to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder told reporters.

The defense ministry shared a video of the installation of a “Yars” intercontinental missile into a silo in the Kaluga region for the commander of the Kozelsky missile formation.

Appearing this week on Russian state TV, Commander Alexander Khodakovsky of the Russian militia in the Donetsk region suggested Russia could not defeat the NATO alliance in a conventional war.

The Russian Army in Ukraine: Can it reclaim the Land seized by Russia for the next few years? A Ukranian Defense Minister Revisited

Unlike smaller air defense systems, Patriot missile batteries need much larger crews, requiring dozens of personnel to properly operate them. The United States will have to train Patriot missile batteries for months now that Russia has launched a string of aerial attacks.

It is believed that the system can defend airspace against missiles as well as some aircraft. It can possibly shoot down Russian missiles and aircraft that are far from their intended targets inside of Ukranian.

In an interview with The Economist published Thursday, Zelensky also rejected the idea recently suggested by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Ukraine seek to reclaim only land seized by Russia since February 2022 and not areas like Donbas and Crimea, which have been under Russian control since 2014.

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

The old bullets were old. A US military official told CNN earlier this week that Russian forces were having to use 40-year-old gunpowder as their supplies of new gunpowder were quickly disappearing.

“You load the ammunition and you cross your fingers and hope it’s gonna fire or when it lands that it’s gonna explode,” said the official, speaking to reporters.

Zelensky’s legacy as a president of the think: The trenches between Ukraine and the US during the first four years of World War II

International support for the war in Ukraine is under scrutiny as it draws to a close. The effects of sanctions on Moscow have contributed to higher energy prices in Europe. With control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans have promised they won’t quickly approve massive new assistance packages for Ukraine.

It was in the trenches. There is growing concern about Russia assembling troops again as CNN reported from trenches and fortifications being built along the border between the two countries. Ripley talked to the repairman about how he turned into a tank driver.

I saw how Zelensky pulled up to the lysée Palace in a small car and Putin drove in with an armored limo. The host of the event, the French President, hugged Putin but didn’t shake his hand.

Fast forward to 2022 and Zelensky is the instantly recognizable wartime president in trademark olive green; as adept at rallying his citizens and stirring the imaginations of folks worldwide, as naming and shaming allies dragging their feet in arming his military.

Zelensky has a reputation for being popular both inside and outside Ukraine and it can be difficult to calculate how much stagecraft the president’s inner circle has contributed to that.

After the invasion, he knew what he had to do and it was just his gut feeling, according to the former political journalist and founder of the think.

This is the leader who asked the US to give him a ride as he was offered an order to leave Russia as it began a full-scale invasion.

Zelensky was able to stand up to Trump earlier in his career when the US president tried to bribe a politician in the quid pro quo scandal.

Zelensky thanked his supporters for a huge victory in the campaign celebration at the Kyiv nightclub, but as the fog of war shrouds the scene, it all seems long ago. He looked in disbelief while standing on stage, as confetti rained down on him.

His ratings seem to have turned around because of the war. Just days after the invasion, Zelensky’s ratings approval surged to 90%, and remain high to this day. Zelensky was viewed highly by Americans early in the war for his handling of international affairs.

His previous professional life as a TV comedian has made his bubble full of people. The press conference was held on the platform of a metro station in Kyiv in the middle of the war, with perfect lighting and camera angles to emphasize a wartime setting.

I can remember the solace he brought in the midst of air raid sirens and explosions when he was comforter in chief.

The Rise and Fall of the Silicon Valley: How the US Helped Ukraine During World War II: An Arrival Letter from Zelensky

“By wearing T-shirts and hoodies, the youthful, egalitarian uniform of Silicon Valley, rather than suits, Zelensky is projecting confidence and competence in a modern way, to a younger, global audience that recognizes it as such,” Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, a fashion historian and author of “Red, White, and Blue on the Runway: The 1968 White House Fashion Show and the Politics of American Style,” told NPR.

As an actor as well as a digital native, he’s probably more comfortable than Putin. “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.”

Journeying to where her husband can’t, Zelenska has shown herself to be an effective communicator in international fora – projecting empathy, style and smarts. She was at a refugee assistance center in London when she met with King Charles. Zelenska was not included on the cover of Time and only had a passing reference in the supporting text.

Despite the strong tailwinds at Zelensky’s back, there are subtle signs that his international influence could be dwindling. The G7 imposed a price cap on Russian crude despite pleas from Zelensky that it should have been set at $30 in order to cause more pain on the Kremlin.

Zelensky said in his nightly video address that the world is determined by how events develop when the world is truly united.

He got both ten months later. When Zelensky touched down outside Washington in a US military plane Wednesday, his arrival capped a 10-day sprint by American and Ukrainian officials to arrange a risky wartime visit meant to rally support for Ukraine’s ongoing resistance to Russia’s invasion.

Pulled together quickly by American and Ukrainian officials over the past 10 days, the wartime visit is meant to demonstrate in stirring fashion the continued American commitment to Ukraine at a moment when Biden’s ability to maintain that support at home and abroad is being tested.

Zelensky was very interested in visiting the US, and the US was going to execute those parameters he decided met his needs. The trip was finally confirmed on Sunday.

US troops would help train the Ukrainians to use the system in a third country. CNN has previously reported that the training would take place in Germany.

That his first trip outside Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February is to the United States will also highlight President Joe Biden’s historic role in reviving the Western alliance that kept the Soviet Union at bay and is now countering new expansionism by Moscow in an effective proxy war between nuclear superpowers.

Zelensky is sure to get that kind of hero’s welcome and hopes that the extra US support will mean that Washington has truly drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard it said in the Congressional speech of December 26, 1941.

His visit is under a lot of security. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t even confirm the early reports that she’d welcome Zelensky to the US Capitol in an unexpected coda to her speakership. We don’t know.

Zelensky’s “I Have a Dream Speech” and “You Wanna Shoot Me”: A Key Moment in the Decay of Ukraine

She said that if Russia is able to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure and kill Ukrainian citizens with missiles and drones, it will be a good thing to have a defensive weapons system. “If Russia doesn’t want their missiles shot down, Russia should stop sending them into Ukraine.”

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 will play an important part in the debate on Capitol Hill over aid for the Ukrainians with Republicans poised to take over the 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.

In March, for instance, Zelensky evoked Mount Rushmore and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream Speech” during a virtual address to Congress. He also referred to two days of infamy in modern history when Americans directly experienced the fear of aerial bombardment.

“Remember Pearl Harbor, terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was black from the planes attacking you. Just remember it,” Zelensky said. “Remember September 11, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories, into battlefields. Nobody else thought that people would be attacked from air, but you could not stop it. Our country experiences the same every day.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/21/politics/us-visit-zelensky-analysis/index.html

The War of the Ukraine: From the First Soviet Union to the Second World War II, a Conversation with Churchill in Washington, D.C.

After dodging U-boats and taking a plane from the coast of Virginia to Washington, he was met by President Roosevelt at a press conference on December 22, 1941.

The formation of the Western was laid out by the two leaders who plotted the conquest of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with the aid of a diet of food and drink, which included breakfast, Scotch and sodas, champagne and 90-year-old brandy before bed.

Churchill, who had pined for US involvement in World War II for months and knew it was the key to defeating Adolf Hitler, said during his visit, “I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family, and yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home.”

The leader of the Ukrainian nation is likely to appreciate the parallels between the past and present. He spoke to the British members of parliament about one of their favorite speeches from the war.

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 preciously guards them, and they require the personnel who operate them – almost 100 in a battalion for each weapon – to be properly trained.

More precise weaponry ensures that Ukraine hits its targets, and not any civilians remaining nearby. It means Ukraine does not go through many shells as Russia bombards it.

The new deal will likely include the supply of guidance kits, or Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), which Ukraine can use to bolt on to their unguided missiles or bombs. This will increase their accuracy and the rate in which Kyiv’s forces burn through ammunition. It is expected that the money will fund munitions replacements and stocks.

An Address to the Ukraine Crisis: The State of the Art, the Status of the Cold Cold War, and the Challenges for the American Revolution

With the exception of its nuclear forces, Moscow appears to be running out of new cards to play. China and India have spoken out against the use of nuclear force and that has made that option less likely.

Whatever the truth of the matter is at the best of times, Biden wants Putin to hear that billions of dollars in military aid are going to his country and that he needs to push European partners to help more.

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 budget is so large that the bill for the fight against Russia in this long and dark conflict is fairly light.

Her comments came after Zelensky delivered a historic speech from the US Capitol, expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began – and asking for more.

The speech connected the struggle of Ukrainian people to our own revolution so that when we celebrate Christmas, we can think about all the families who will be on the front lines in their own country.

“In terms of whether or not Russia is massing its aircraft for some massive aerial attack, we don’t currently see that. We do know that Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capability left,” he said. “That’s why we’ve emphasized that we need to do everything that we can to get Ukraine as much air defense capability as we possibly can.”

Clinton, who met Putin as secretary of state, predicted that he was unlikely to win the war in Europe and lose his popularity at home.

“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.

What will Zelensky say about a new phase of the American War? A joint press conference message from Biden and the White House

Shrouded in secrecy until the last minute, the historic visit was heavy with symbolism, from Zelensky’s drab green sweatshirt to President Joe Biden’s blue-and-yellow striped tie to the Ukrainian battle flag unfurled on the House floor.

But the trip was about far more than symbols. If Biden didn’t believe something real could be done meeting face-to-face, he wouldn’t invite Zelensky to Washington and he wouldn’t go to Ukranian for the first time since the war began.

Emerging from their talks, both men made clear they see the war entering a new phase. Russia has sent more troops to the frontlines and has begun an air campaign against civilian targets.

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 the joint press conference with Biden that a just peace is no compromises for the 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.

For his part, Biden said it was up to Zelensky to “decide how he wants to the war to end,” a long-held view that leaves plenty of questions unanswered.

Zelensky used his address to the legislature to reference some American history, including the important Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolutionary War, and 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.

From Zelensky’s Oval Office to the East Room: Celebrating Ukraine’s Most Emotional Journey with the United States

Zelensky has demonstrated that he can appeal to an audience, even if they are national legislators or the audience of the Recording Academy.

On Wednesday, he sought to invoke Americans’ emotional response to his country’s suffering, as Russia sought 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 more than just his homeland.

Ahead of Zelensky’s arrival, the Biden administration announced it was sending over two billion dollars in new security assistance to Ukraine – including a new air defence system Zelensky has been requesting for months.

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.

On the surface, Biden and Zelensky have maintained a stalwart partnership. Zelensky was effusive in his praise of Biden when he went from the Oval Office to the East Room.

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

It is about looking in someone’s eye. I mean it in a sincere way. He believes that there is no substitute for sitting down face to face with a opponent and looking at them in the eye.

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine is Ready to Present its Peace Proposal for Ukraine, a State-Leading Remark after the Zelensky Summit

Moscow said that the war in Ukraine is about to get worse following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington.

After the Zelensky summit at the White House, US President Joe Biden said that the United States would give more military support to the people of Ukraine.

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.”

Russian history professor at the Baltimore School of Applied International Studies, Sergey radsak, says the Kremlin has been selling that line to the Russian public.

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.

Moscow said last week that it would see the reported delivery of missiles to Ukraine as provocative, so do they think this could lead to a Russian attack?

Beijing is ready to present its peace proposition for Ukraine, its top diplomat announced Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, in a rare remark that referred to the Ukraine conflict as a war.

The country could not be invited to a summit if it faced a war crimes tribunal, according to the Foreign Minister.

U.S. Plans for the Patriot Militon Battery in Ukraine During the 2018 Ukrainian-Russia War: A View from the Foreign Minister Kuleba

Kuleba also said he was “absolutely satisfied” with the results of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S. last week, and he revealed that the U.S. government had made a special plan to get the Patriot missile battery ready to be operational in the country in less than six months. It takes up to a year to train.

Kuleba said during the interview that diplomacy always plays an important part in winning a war, and that Ukraine will try to win the war in 2023.

The UN would be the most natural broker for those talks, said the Foreign Minister. This is not about making a favor to a certain country and we could hold the summit at the United Nations. This is about making everyone on board.

Kuleba said that he has proven himself to be an efficient mediator and a man of principle and integrity. We would be glad to have his participation.

“They regularly say that they are ready for negotiations, which is not true, because everything they do on the battlefield proves the opposite,” he said.

“This shows how important the United States is to both Ukraine and the US,” said Kuleba, who was in the delegation to the U.S.

He said that the U.S. government developed a program for the missile battery to complete the training faster than usual “without any damage to the quality of the use of this weapon on the battlefield.”

While Kuleba didn’t mention a specific time frame, he said only that it will be “very much less than six months.” And he added that the training will be done “outside” Ukraine.

Kuleba has been second only to Zelenskyy in carrying Ukraine’s message and needs to an international audience during the Russia’s air and ground war.

Almost 15 million Ukrainians have been forced to become refugees or internally displaced because of the merciless Russian violence, which has also led to catastrophic missile strikes on civilian targets. And all by a country, Russia, that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, whose mission is to preserve and defend world peace.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian never went through the legal process to join the U.N. Security Council.

War and Peace in the Cold Cold War: Vladimir Putin’s Complaints on Ukraine’s Demilitarization and Denazification

As has often been the case throughout the conflict, the vaguely conciliatory tone from Putin was quickly contradicted by a heavy-handed 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.

According to Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Russia lost strategically, operationally, and tactically. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday that “Putin must realize that he cannot win” as he explained the rationale for rushing arms and ammunition to Ukrainian forces. Washington is applying pressure on Moscow to affect Putin’s strategic calculus, according to the US ambassador to NATO.

Since the end of the summer, a series of counter- attacks have pushed back the Russian forces in eastern and southern Ukraine, and made it seem as if Kyiv can win the war.

So it makes little sense for Ukraine or the West to even entertain the possibility of a deal that carves up its land or rewards Putin for his invasion.

Zelensky may or may not accept certain parameters in a peace negotiations, and the US has refused to define what a settlement would look like beyond stating it will be up to Zelensky to decide.

“Every war ends in a diplomatic way,” Kuleba told the AP on Monday. “Every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”

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 to put a price cap on energy imported from Moscow, and to make Russia abandon nuclear threats.

Russia’s biggest land war since the First Kissing of the Cold Cold War: Anti-LGBT and anti-Fake News laws

Both sides are dug into what they think could be a long and grinding conflict if a decisive swing on the battlefield happened in the New Year.

Zelensky’s visit to the US shows his plan to keep his allies focused on the conflict and united in their support.

Putin said his forces were about to embark on a military operation that would last only a few weeks.

The invasion has grown into the biggest land war in Europe since World War II, forcing millions of Ukrainians from their homes, decimating the Ukrainian economy and killing thousands of civilians.

Yet the war has also fundamentally upended Russian life — rupturing a post-Soviet period in which the country pursued, if not always democratic reforms, then at least financial integration and dialogue with the West.

Draconian laws passed since February have outlawed criticism of the military or leadership. Over 20,000 people have been jailed for protesting against the war, 45% of them are women, according to a leading monitoring group.

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.

The repressions extend elsewhere: organizations and individuals are added weekly to a growing list of “foreign agents” and “non-desirable” organizations intended to damage their reputation among the Russian public.

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 vastly expanded, as the state argues that the war in Ukraine reflects a broader attack on “traditional values.”

For now, repressions remain targeted. Some of the new laws are still unenforced. The measures are meant to crush dissent should it arise.

When new “fake news” laws were passed, a few vibrant, online investigative startup were forced to shut their doors or relocate abroad.

Restrictions extend to internet users as well. American social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook were banned in March. Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin’s internet regulator, has blocked more than 100,000 websites since the start of the conflict.

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

War against Ukraine has Left Russia: The Case of a Cold Cold Cold World and the Failure of Europe to Resiliently Arm the Soviet Union

In the early days of the war, thousands of perceived government opponents left because of concerns of persecution.

Meanwhile, some countries that have absorbed the Russian exodus predict their economies will grow, even as the swelling presence of Russians remains a sensitive issue to former Soviet republics in particular.

In the initial days of the invasion, Russia’s ruble currency cratered and its banking and trading markets looked shaky. McDonald’s and ExxonMobil are among hundreds of global corporate brands that suspended or closed their operations in Russia.

President Putin is betting that Europe will blink first when it comes to sanctions because it’s growing angry at the soaring energy costs at home. The five-month ban on oil exports to countries that abide by the price cap will make the pain more acute in Europe.

There’s no change in the government’s tone when it comes to Russia’s military campaign. daily briefings by the Defense Ministry give an overview of the successes on the ground. Putin assures everyone that everything is going according to plan.

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

Russian troops have proven unable to conquer Ukraine’s capital Kyiv or the second city of Kharkiv. Russia abandoned Kherson during a Ukrainian counteroffensive in November. Russian forces have shelled the city repeatedly since retreating.

Moscow’s problems have been underscored by its illegal annexation of four territories of Ukraine, which have not been established as its own.

The true number of Russian losses – officially at just under 6,000 men – remains a highly taboo subject at home. Western estimates place those figures much higher.

NATO looks set to expand towards Russia’s borders, with the addition of long-neutral statesSweden andFinland, as a consequence of Russia’s invasion.

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. Both India and China have been buying discounted Russian oil, but haven’t fully supported Russia in its military campaign.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/31/1145981036/war-against-ukraine-has-left-russia-isolated-and-struggling-with-more-tumult-ahe

What has the West learned from the state of the nation? The frustrations of a Russian leader after 10 months of war and the decline of European security

A state of the nation address, which was originally scheduled for April, will not happen until next year. The yearly “direct line” is a media event in which Putin fields questions from ordinary Russians.

The “big press conference”, a semi-staged event that allows the Russian leader to handle questions from mostly pro-Kremlin media, was also tabled until 2023.

The Kremlin did not give a reason for the delays. Many suspect it might be that, after 10 months of war and no sign of victory in sight, the Russian leader has finally run out of good news to share.

The meaning of nuclear saberrattling was an oxymoron in 2022, as the destruction it 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.

The West was happy to get some of its weaponry to its eastern border, instead of being divided and reticent. Moscow knows how limited its non-nuclear options are, as well as that Russia’s red lines appear to shift constantly. This was not supposed to happen. Europe does not have anything to prepare for, now that it has.

Key is just how unexpectedly unified the West has been. Europe and the US are both speaking from the same script on Ukraine, despite being split over Iraq, fractured over Syria, and partially unwilling to spend 2% of GDP on security for NATO members. 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.

Russia has already lost the war. There are variables which could still lead to a stalemate in its favor, or even a reversal of fortune. NATO could lose patience and nerve over weapons shipments, as well as seek economic expediency over long-term security, pushing for a peace unfavorable to Kyiv. At this point, that seems to be unlikely.

So, how does the West deal with a Russia that has experienced this colossal loss of face in Ukraine and is slowly withering economically because of sanctions? Is a weak Russia something to be afraid of? This is the known unknown the West must wrestle with. It isn’t a terrifying question anymore.

This has been done before by America. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the most dangerous nuclear confrontation so far, the Soviet Union’s position shifted in a matter of days, ultimately accepting an outcome that favored the West. America might not have accepted a compromise that weakened its security and credibility if red lines had been in place.

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 subsea supply to replace old overland lines that brought important revenue to the Westward-leaning leadership.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s refusal, in his words, “to be pushed” to go it alone in sending tanks to Ukraine – instead standing his ground and demanding US President Joe Biden join him in the venture, risking Putin’s wrath – has shown the transatlantic power dynamic has shifted.

Europe has been slow to react to the deep fissures in US politics and the uncertainty another Trumpian-style presidency could cause. Germany leads the way in replacing unshakable trust with stubborn European pragmatism after decades in the US.

Former Chancellor Merkel was Europe’s moral compass. As he flashed a rare moment of steely leadership in the German parliament, Scholz found unexpected metal in his ponderous, often stop/go/wait traffic-light governing coalition.

The mechanics and diplomacy of getting tanks, fighting vehicles, air defenses, and artillery has always been the primary focus ofUkraine’s transformation from legacy Soviet force to NATO clone. Scholz made that point in parliament on Wednesday.

“Trust us,” he said, “we won’t put you 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. “The government dealt with the crisis,” he said, adding: “We are in a much better position.”

His speech was praised as loudly as he said it. 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.

CNN’s State of the Union: The Russian War after the First Day of the Cold War with the World Bank and the U.S.

Russia will use nuclear weapons if threatened, said the former Russian president and deputy chairman of the national security council.

CNN spoke to some people in Russia after Biden and Scholz announced 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.

How much Scholz is aware of Putin’s softening popularity or whether he believes it relevant at this moment is unclear, but his actions now, sending tanks, may help ease Putin’s iron grip on power.

Longer debates about the next military moves for Ukraine could be coming and will likely signal to Zelensky that weapons supplies will be on more of a German leash, and less unilaterally led by Washington.

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 Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova was in attendance for the second year in a row, but the war in her country received much less attention in the State of the Union speech.

There are previous recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. NPR’s State of Ukraine will keep you updated on the day.

The United States and the Western Front: Predictions for the NATO Security Conference in Germany, Poland and Joe Biden’s visit to Poland

“It’s unlikely Russian forces will be particularly better organized and so unlikely they’ll be particularly more successful, though they do seem willing to send more troops into the meat grinder,” a senior British official told CNN.

“They amassed enough manpower to take one or two small cities in Donbas, but that’s it,” a senior Ukrainian diplomat told CNN. The sense of panic was very overwhelming, compared to the situation in Ukranian.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday in Brussels that the US is not seeing Russia “massing its aircraft” ahead of an aerial operation against Ukraine.

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.

Vice President Kamala Harris will attend the Security Conference in Germany this week, increasing the rhetorical and diplomatic offensive by the Western countries. Joe Biden will visit Poland next week, a country he will bolster his legacy of providing effective leadership of the Western alliance.

Chinese-American espionage and the end of the 2024-2020 war: the view from the European Commission and the foreign ministry

In the US House for instance, some members of the new Republican majority are skittish. Gaetz wants the US to demand that all warring parties reach a peace agreement immediately, and an end to aid to Ukraine. The House and the Senate both have bipartisan majority for saving Ukranian. 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.

Despite the lack of a diplomatic framework for ceasefire talks, the outside world knows that Putin isn’t contemplating defeat or an exit from the war.

Fiona Hill, a leading expert on Russia and Putin, who worked in Trump’s White House, said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday that there were few signs Putin’s determination is waning.

Even though there was a flight of a Chinese espionage balloon across the US, the chances of China leaning on Putin for an end to the war were not very high.

Sherman said at an event that the US was concerned about China and Russia getting closer, though admitted that it was also worried about the US going into a war with each power.

Wang said that Beijing will work for peace and that the integrity of countries’ territories would be respected in the proposal.

While speaking to a room of European officials at the security conference on Saturday, Wang seemed to try and drive a wedge between Europe and the US by emphasizing China’s commitment to peace.

Ursula Von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on Saturday that they need more proof that China isn’t working with Russia.

The first visit from a Chinese official in that role since the war began will take place this month in Russia, according to the foreign ministry.

The Russian Revolution of 1991: When did Russia Decide to Start a War on Europe? — John J. Sullivan as US Ambassador to Russia

I should explain. 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. For a long time, world leaders thought that all of their union republics, like Georgia, had simply been called administrative units of Russia. Ichkeria had no chance of recognition due to the shock of this new geography.

Editor’s Note: John J. Sullivan was US Ambassador to Russia from December 2019 to October 2022. He was the US deputy secretary of state. He is now a partner in Mayer Brown and a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has an opinion on it.

I had been telling people for a long time that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to launch a war on Europe, the scale of which had not been seen since World War II.

Although confident in my pre-war assessment, I was disconsolate. I was the US Ambassador for two years, during that time, I worked hard to make small progress in certain areas with the Russians.

My approach was reaffirmed following President Joe Biden’s meeting in Geneva with Putin in June 2021. No one in our delegation had any illusion that we would make headway on any particular issue, but they all agreed that it was important for the US to attempt to do so.

Russian interlocutors read from their talking points and would not engage in a real dialogue. Russian security advisers monitored every meeting and phone call. 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 for the better, from when I lived in Moscow to when I was in Russia. 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.

Peace talks can’t happen if some forces don’t want them. They do not pay any attention to the life and death of Ukrainians or harm to Europe. They might have bigger goals than they have right now. This warfare must not continue,” Wang said.

This is a menacing global problem that will only get worse—the economic toll alone is staggering—until it is stopped and reversed on terms acceptable to Ukraine that will protect its sovereignty and security.

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

The U.S. Foreign Ministry is against pursuing war with Russia: the case of the Biden-Zelensky trip to Ukraine

As US President Joe Biden touched down in Ukraine to meet with his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, China’s top diplomat was traveling in the opposite direction, on his way to Russia.

The optics of the two trips – taking place just days before the one-year anniversary of the brutal war on Friday – underscores the sharpening of geopolitical fault lines between the world’s two superpowers.

“We do not add fuel to the fire, and we’re against reaping benefits from this crisis,” Wang said in a thinly veiled dig at the US, echoing the propaganda messaging that regularly made China’s nightly prime-time news program – that the US is intentionally prolonging the war because its arms manufacturers are earning fat profits from weapon sales.

He urged European officials to think about “what framework should there be to bring lasting peace to Europe, what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy.”

The proposal’s vague mention of support for Russia was met with suspicion by some leaders who are more interested in Russia’s ability to win wars than China’s ability to help it.

“The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they’re considering providing lethal support, and we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship,” Blinken said.

Responding to the accusations Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry blasted the US for “shoving responsibility, shifting blame and spreading false information.”

“It is the US side, not the Chinese side, that supplies a steady stream of weapons to the battlefield. The US side cannot lecture China, and we wouldn’t accept the US coercing pressure on Sino Russian relations, said a ministry spokesman at a regular news conference.

Who is calling for dialogue and peace? And who is handing out knives and encouraging confrontation? The international community can see clearly, according to the spokesman.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets Vladimir Putin during a conference on russian policy and the Russian influence in the Cold War

US officials have been concerned enough with the intelligence that they shared it with allies and partners in Munich, according to CNN reporting. The issue was brought to the attention of Wang in a meeting on the sidelines of the conference, according to a US readout.

According to CNN, the US has recently begun to see disturbing trends and there are signs that Beijing is going to provide lethal military aid to Moscow without being caught.

Previously, Beijing had carefully avoided actions that could trigger secondary sanctions, which would deal a devastating blow to an economy hampered by three years of costly zero-Covid policy.

Beijing claimed impartiality in the conflict, but it was silent on Moscow and blamed NATO for provoking the conflict.

Over the past year, Beijing has strengthened its support for Moscow even though it seems to have softened its pro-Russian rhetoric.

Biden arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. local time after a lengthy, covert journey from Washington and arrived to the Mariinsky Palace half-an-hour later. He departed Kyiv in the early afternoon.

“Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided,” Biden said, standing alongside Zelensky. “He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now.”

Biden’s trip to Kyiv was shrouded in secrecy, a reflection of the steep security concerns. Reporters aboard Air Force One were not permitted to carry their devices with them because the plane was not lit up in the middle of the night.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan, deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, and Biden’s personal aide Annie Tomasini are all traveling with him.

Biden has been longing to visitUkraine for months after many of his counterparts in Europe had to endure long train journeys to meet with Zelensky. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as well as former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have all made visits to the country to demonstrate their support.

During Mother’s Day last year, Biden’s wife paid a surprise visit to a small city in the far southwestern corner of Ukraine. She met Zelenska at a former school that was converted into a shelter for displaced Ukrainians.

Yet security precautions had prevented Biden from making a similar trip. 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.

With the war nearing a year, Biden is hoping to show the world that he’s committed to the cause, even as it’s not known how long US and western resolve can last.