Posted: March 8, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: anti-lynching bill, coronavirus pandemic, invasive species, Joro spider, Morgan Stanley, Russia, Russian default, SCOTUS, Ukraine, voting rights |
Good Morning!!
The war in Ukraine continues to be the top story in the news, but there are plenty of other things happening, so I hope you’ll forgive me if also I highlight non-Ukraine stories today.
Russia/Ukraine News
The New York Times: As Russia’s Military Stumbles, Its Adversaries Take Note.
CONSTANTA, Romania — When it comes to war, generals say that “mass matters.”
But nearly two weeks into President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — Europe’s largest land war since 1945 — the image of a Russian military as one that other countries should fear, let alone emulate, has been shattered.
Ukraine’s military, which is dwarfed by the Russian force in most ways, has somehow managed to stymie its opponent. Ukrainian soldiers have killed more than 3,000 Russian troops, according to conservative estimates by American officials.
Ukraine has shot down military transport planes carrying Russian paratroopers, downed helicopters and blown holes in Russia’s convoys using American anti-tank missiles and armed drones supplied by Turkey, these officials said, citing confidential U.S. intelligence assessments.
The Russian soldiers have been plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages. Some troops have crossed the border with MREs (meals ready to eat) that expired in 2002, U.S. and other Western officials said, and others have surrendered and sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting.
To be sure, most military experts say that Russia will eventually subdue Ukraine’s army. Russia’s military, at 900,000 active duty troops and two million reservists, is eight times the size of Ukraine’s. Russia has advanced fighter planes, a formidable navy and marines capable of multiple amphibious landings, as they proved early in the invasion when they launched from the Black Sea and headed toward the city of Mariupol.
And the Western governments that have spoken openly about Russia’s military failings are eager to spread the word to help damage Russian morale and bolster the Ukrainians.
But with each day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky holds out, the scenes of a frustrated Russia pounding, but not managing to finish off, a smaller opponent dominate screens around the world.
The result: Militaries in Europe that once feared Russia say they are not as intimidated by Russian ground forces as they were in the past.
Read all about it at the NYT.
Bloomberg: Morgan Stanley Says Russia’s Set for Venezuela-Style Default.
The odds of Russia making its foreign debt payments are diminishing as bond prices fall, recession in the nation looms and various payment restrictions pile up after the invasion of Ukraine, according to Morgan Stanley & Co.
“We see a default as the most likely scenario,” Simon Waever, the firm’s global head of emerging-market sovereign credit strategy, wrote in a Monday note. “In case of default, it is unlikely to be like a normal one, with Venezuela instead perhaps the most relevant comparison.”
The default may come as soon as April 15, which will mark the end of a 30-day grace period on coupon payments the Russian government owes on dollar bonds due in 2023 and 2043, he said.
Indicative pricing show investors value the 2023 bonds at around 29 cents on the U.S. dollar, the lowest ever, according to data collected by Bloomberg, though there appears to have been no trades at that level. In the days before Russia invaded Ukraine last month, the debt was trading above par.
While it is rare for sovereign debt to tumble to the single digits, Morgan Stanley said Russia’s bonds “could get close.” Lebanon and Venezuela are the only recent examples of a country’s debt slipping so low…..
JPMorgan Chase & Co. said on Monday it will remove Russian bonds from all of its widely-tracked indexes, further isolating the nation’s assets from global investors. Venezuela’s dollar bonds were also removed from the bank’s benchmark indexes in 2019 after sanctions curbed trading.
More stories to check out, links only
The Guardian: Focus on Kyiv deadlock obscures Russia’s success in south Ukraine.
Isabelle Khurshudyan at The Washington Post: I always dreamed of visiting my ancestral home of Odessa. But not like this.
AP: People flee embattled Ukraine city, supplies head to another.
NPR: What the war in Syria tells us about Russia’s use of humanitarian corridors.
Bloomberg: U.S. and U.K. Poised for Ban on Imports of Russian Oil Today.
The Guardian: Ukraine-Russia crisis: ‘I left my husband behind at the border. My heart is broken’
The Guardian: Where in Europe are Ukraine’s refugees going?
US News and Analysis
The Atlantic’s Ed Yong reminds us that we’re still in the midst of a pandemic: How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal?
The united states reported more deaths from COVID-19 last Friday than deaths from Hurricane Katrina, more on any two recent weekdays than deaths during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more last month than deaths from flu in a bad season, and more in two years than deaths from HIV during the four decades of the AIDS epidemic. At least 953,000 Americans have died from COVID, and the true toll is likely even higher because many deaths went uncounted. COVID is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after only heart disease and cancer, which are both catchall terms for many distinct diseases. The sheer scale of the tragedy strains the moral imagination. On May 24, 2020, as the United States passed 100,000 recorded deaths, The New York Times filled its front page with the names of the dead, describing their loss as “incalculable.” Now the nation hurtles toward a milestone of 1 million. What is 10 times incalculable?
Many countries have been pummeled by the coronavirus, but few have fared as poorly as the U.S. Its death rate surpassed that of any other large, wealthy nation—especially during the recent Omicron surge. The Biden administration placed all its bets on a vaccine-focused strategy, rather than the multilayered protections that many experts called for, even as America lagged behind other wealthy countries in vaccinating (and boosting) its citizens—especially elderly people, who are most vulnerable to the virus. In a study of 29 high-income countries, the U.S. experienced the largest decline in life expectancy in 2020 and, unlike much of Europe, did not bounce back in 2021. It was also the only country whose lowered life span was driven mainly by deaths among people under 60. Dying from COVID robbed each American of, on average, nine years of life at the lowest end of estimates and 17 at the highest. As a whole, U.S. life expectancy fell by two years—the largest such decline in almost a century. Neither World War II nor any of the flu pandemics that followed it dented American longevity so badly.
Every American who died of COVID left an average of nine close relatives bereaved. Roughly 9 million people—3 percent of the population—now have a permanent hole in their world that was once filled by a parent, child, sibling, spouse, or grandparent. An estimated 149,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver. Many people were denied the familiar rituals of mourning—bedside goodbyes, in-person funerals. Others are grieving raw and recent losses, their grief trampled amid the stampede toward normal. “I’ve known multiple people who didn’t get to bury their parents or be with their families, and now are expected to go back to the grind of work,” says Steven Thrasher, a journalist and the author of The Viral Underclass, which looks at the interplay between inequalities and infectious diseases. “We’re not giving people the space individually or societally to mourn this huge thing that’s happened.
Read the rest at The Atlantic.
The Washington Post: Senate unanimously passes anti-lynching bill after century of failure.
The Senate on Monday unanimously passed legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime, in a historic first that comes after more than a century of failed efforts to pass such a measure.
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which was introduced by Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) in the House and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate, now goes to President Biden for his signature.
It is named for the 14-year-old Black boy whose brutal torture and murder in Mississippi in 1955 sparked the civil rights movement.
Booker said in a tweet Monday night that he was “overjoyed” by the legislation’s passage.
“The time is past due to reckon with this dark chapter in our history and I’m proud of the bipartisan support to pass this important piece of legislation,” he said.
In a statement, Rush called lynching “a long-standing and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy.”
“Perpetrators of lynching got away with murder time and time again — in most cases, they were never even brought to trial. … Today, we correct this historic and abhorrent injustice,” he said.
The legislation would amend the U.S. Code to designate lynching a hate crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison. More than 4,000 people, mostly African Americans, were reported lynched in the United States from 1882 to 1968, in all but a handful of states. Ninety-nine percent of perpetrators escaped state or local punishment, according to Rush’s office.
Mark Joseph Stern at Slate: The Supreme Court Just Came Perilously Close to Blowing Up Federal Elections.
The Supreme Court will not overturn a century of pro-democracy precedent and two centuries of historical practice to give state legislatures unlimited power over elections—yet.
That’s the upshot of the court’s orders on Monday in two huge redistricting cases out of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The court refused to block new congressional maps drawn by the high court of each state, declining—for now—to embrace a radical theory rejecting state courts’ authority over election law. In the process, however, four justices did endorse this theory, and three attempted to blow up North Carolina’s upcoming election in a dissent with terrifying implications for democracy. The court stepped back from the abyss, but the ensuing reprieve may not last for long.
Both of Monday’s orders involve this year’s redrawing of congressional maps. In Pennsylvania, the Republican-controlled legislature drew a GOP gerrymander, which the Democratic governor vetoed. Because of this impasse, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stepped in to draw new, fairer districts. In North Carolina, the Republican-controlled legislature drew a GOP gerrymander, which the Democratic governor could not veto under state law. Voters challenged the map under the state constitution, and in February, the state Supreme Court struck it down. The legislature drew a new map, which a trial court rejected and replaced with its own, fairer version.
Republicans appealed both court-draw maps to SCOTUS. They claimed that these plans violated the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause, which says that the “manner” of federal elections “shall be prescribed” by the “legislature.” For at least a century, SCOTUS has read this language to give other organs of state government a say in election law. But conservative scholars have devised a theory known as the “independent state legislature doctrine” that would give legislatures complete control over elections, including voting rules and redistricting. Under this theory, state constitutional provisions governing elections would be null and void, and state courts would have no power to intervene in election disputes. The legislature alone would set the rules—and, in extreme versions of the theory, even dictate the outcome of an election.
The Supreme Court has never endorsed this doctrine, and has explicitly rejected it as recently as 2015. There is a good reason why: It contradicts the original meaning of the elections clause as well as historical practice reaching back to the early days of the republic. A mountain of evidence proves that framers never intended to give states lone authority over federal elections, and instead expected state constitutions to impose substantive limits on election law. Exhaustive research demonstrates that—aside from a few opportunistic arguments raised by congressional partisans in the 19th century—state legislatures, state courts, federal courts, and Congress have all rejected the doctrine for more than two centuries.
And yet, for nearly two decades, the conservative legal movement, working alongside Republican politicians, has pushed relentlessly to enshrine this theory into law.
Scientific American: Millions of Palm-Sized, Flying Spiders Could Invade the East Coast.
New research, published Feb. 17 in the journal Physiological Entomology, suggests that the palm-sized Joro spider, which swarmed North Georgia by the millions last September, has a special resilience to the cold.
This has led scientists to suggest that the 3-inch (7.6 centimeters) bright-yellow-striped spiders — whose hatchlings disperse by fashioning web parachutes to fly as far as 100 miles (161 kilometers) — could soon dominate the Eastern Seaboard.
“People should try to learn to live with them,” lead author Andy Davis, a research scientist at the University of Georgia, said in a statement. “If they‘re literally in your way, I can see taking a web down and moving them to the side, but they‘re just going to be back next year.”
Since the spider hitchhiked its way to the northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, inside a shipping container in 2014, its numbers and range have expanded steadily across Georgia, culminating in an astonishing population boom last year that saw millions of the arachnids drape porches, power lines, mailboxes and vegetable patches across more than 25 state counties with webs as thick as 10 feet (3 meters) deep, Live Science previously reported.
Common to China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, the Joro spider is part of a group of spiders known as “orb weavers” because of their highly symmetrical, circular webs. The spider gets its name from Jorōgumo, a Japanese spirit, or Yōkai, that is said to disguise itself as a beautiful woman to prey upon gullible men.
True to its mythical reputation, the Joro spider is stunning to look at, with a large, round, jet-black body cut across with bright yellow stripes, and flecked on its underside with intense red markings. But despite its threatening appearance and its fearsome standing in folklore, the Joro spider‘s bite is rarely strong enough to break through the skin, and its venom poses no threat to humans, dogs or cats unless they are allergic.
Well, that’s a relief. Read more at Scientific American.
That’s a sampling of today’s news. Have a nice Tuesday, Sky Dancers!
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Posted: March 3, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: House January 6 Committee, January 6 investigation, Joshua James, Maria Prymachenko, Oath Keepers, Roger Stone, Russia, seditious conspiracy, Stuart Rhodes, Ukraine crisis |
May That Nuclear War Be Cursed!, 1978, Maria Priymachenko
Good Morning!!
There was so much breaking news yesterday, and the flood of information continues this morning. I’ve been focused on the crisis in Ukraine lately, but yesterday the January 6 investigation came back into prominence.
Ukraine
Before I get to the latest news from Ukraine, I want to share an article from Vice about Maria Prymachenko, a Ukrainian folk artist whose work Dakinikat and I have been using for our recent posts: Russian Forces Destroyed the Wild and Beautiful Art of Maria Prymachenko.
Amid the intense battles that broke out approximately 50 miles northwest of Kyiv on February 25 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum was burned, according toThe Kyiv Independent. “Another one of the irreparable losses of the historical-cultural authority of Ukraine is the destruction of the Ivankiv Historical-Cultural Museum by the aggressor in these hellish days for our country,” wrote the museum’s director in a message on Facebook. As a result, the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, Olexandr Tkachenko, requested that Russia lose its UNESCO membership.
It is not yet confirmed how many pieces in the museum’s holdings survive, but the destroyed artifacts reportedly include roughly 25 works by the celebrated Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko, who died in 1997 at the age of 88. Beloved for her saturated gouaches and watercolors on paper, Prymachenko was known to transform cultural motifs (yellow suns and graphic, stencil-like flowers) into vivid and wildly imagined narratives, in which elephants longed to be sailors, horses traveled to outer space, and villagers hijacked giant serpents.Today, nearly 650 of her works, dating from 1936 to 1987, are also held by the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Applied Art, in nearby Kyiv. Whether or not the Ivankiv museum was targeted intentionally, its loss is pointedly a blow to Ukraine’s cultural history, its collective spirit, its artistic soul.
Maria Prymachenko was born in 1908 close to Ivaniv, in the village of Bolotyna. Her father was a craftsman and carpenter; from her mother and grandmother, she learned Ukrainian arts of embroidery and hand-painting Easter eggs. From an early age, with no formal fine art training, Prymachenko began to create a way of working that stemmed from her encounters in forests and wildflower fields, surrounded by animals….
Our Army, Our Protectors, (1978), Maria Prymachenko
Around 1936, Tetiana Floru, an artist from Kyiv, saw Prymachenko’s embroideries for sale in the Ivankiv market and invited her to join the Central Experimental Workshop of the Kyiv Museum of Ukrainian Art, an assembly of folk artists from all over the country. It was life-changing for Prymachenko, who in Kyiv underwent surgeries for complications from childhood polio that finally allowed her to walk. In 1936, her works were included in the First Republican Folk Art Exhibition in Kyiv, which later traveled to Moscow and Leningrad, and the following year some of her drawings were presented in the International Exhibition in Paris, where she received a gold medal and the blurb of a lifetime from Pablo Picasso….
“I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian,” Picasso reportedly said, visiting her exhibit in the same year he painted Guernica. Another admirer, Marc Chagall, also fell under the spell of her paintings: When he began to paint animals into his own magic realist scenes in his native Belarus, he called his creatures “the cousins of the strange beasts of Maria Prymachenko.” Other relatives in this imaginary zoo: the animal renderings of Henri Rousseau, Niki de Saint Phalle.
If you’re interested, read the rest at Vice.com.
Here’s the latest on what’s happening in Ukraine:
Newsweek: Ukraine Forces Reportedly Kill Russia General Andrei Sukhovetsky in Blow to Invading Army.
A top Russian military figure has been killed in the war in Ukraine according to local news outlets citing a social media post by his colleague.
Ukrainian news outlets were reporting that Andrei Sukhovetsky, deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District, had been killed on Wednesday.
Media outlets cited a post on VKontakte announcing the death, written by Sergei Chipilev, a deputy of the Russian veterans group, Combat Brotherhood.
Black Beast, 1936, Maria Prymachenko
“It is with great sorrow that we learned of the tragic news about the death of our friend, Major General Andrei Aleksandrovich Sukhovetsky, on the territory of Ukraine during a special operation,” his post said, without specifying the circumstances.
Christo Grozev, executive director of fact-checking website Bellingcat, tweeted news of the death, adding that if confirmed it would be a “major demotivator” for Russian forces….
News of the death was also reported by Russian media outlets. Lenta.ru carried the story, while Alexander Kots, a correspondent for the mass circulation tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, described the death in a post on social network Telegram.
Defense One: ‘The Convoy Is Stalled’: Logistics Failures Slow Russian Advance, Pentagon Says.
A 40-mile column of Russian invaders has stalled on the way to Kyiv, opening itself to attack by Ukrainians, a senior defense official told reporters Wednesday.
“We believe that the convoy is stalled,” the official said. “They are not moving at any rate that would lead one to believe that they’ve solved their problems,” which still include a lack of food, fuel, and spare parts.
Some Ukrainian troops have also targeted the convoy, although in limited fashion, the official said.
The Threat of War, 1986, Maria Prymachenko
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s security service posted a video of a captured Russian soldier who says he and his unit were sent across the border with only three days’ food.
“Putin expected to capture Ukraine in three days,” Ukraine’s security service wrote above the video, which could not be independently verified. “By the order of the top Russian leadership, the phones and documents were taken from the fire brigades, removed food and water for three days and sent to war with Ukraine,” the agency said, according to the English translation of the post.
Insufficient food is among the missteps that have slowed the Russian advance, and perhaps edged Russia into more ferocious and indiscriminate use of missiles and airstrikes. As of Wednesday, Pentagon officials had counted roughly 450 such strikes on Ukrainian targets.
The senior defense official said Pentagon leaders expect the invasion to accelerate as Russia adjusts and gets provisions to its forces inside Ukraine.
Nataliya Gumenuk: We have no illusions: we know Putin will try everything to bomb us into submission.
As soon as the curfew was lifted in Kyiv, I drove around to understand what had happened to our capital overnight. For two full days residents had not been allowed to go out, even during the daytime. Russian saboteur groups were identified, and random street fights took place.
I did not recognise my city, with checkpoints in the old town, with people digging trenches, bridges being fortified and the subway turned into a bomb shelter.
“Do you enrol everybody who shows up?” we asked a young guy in charge. “Almost all, but I do not accept those under 18,” he said. “And there are a lot of them. I wouldn’t be able to look their mothers in the eyes. I fought in 2014-2015 in Donbas, so I know what the war is.”
It’s a predominantly male group but there are three women. The youngest is a lawyer. “What Russia has already done to the civilians has made us act,” she said. She had not told her family of her decision to fight. They live in a small town on the Ukrainian-Russian border, which has been partially destroyed. Another woman, in her 60s, said she was a nurse. Her husband had joined the defence units and she felt she needed to be with him. The last was a retired officer. She enrolled because her son had already joined the Ukrainian army. “When our grandparents, who remember the second world war, were wishing for peace, we didn’t understand why,” she said. “But now I know.”
Four Drunkards Riding a Bird,1976, Maria Prymachenko
The figures say one thing, experience another. The official toll of civilian deaths is 350, but after seven days’ fighting, there cannot be a single Ukrainian who doesn’t know somebody who has been touched by tragedy. There are more than 1,600 wounded….
“Those of you who have come to ‘rescue us’, just go away,” cries a woman holding a baby at Kyiv’s main station. “We were all right before you came. Just leave. All I have is some cash and a backpack.” Like thousands of people here, her mission is to go somewhere else, anywhere. The Ukrainian railway allows everybody to ride without tickets, including foreign citizens, and is running extra trains to the west.
We count the hours: seven, 20, 70, 100, 144: hours of the Ukrainian army on its own, its citizens holding off one of the mightiest armies in the world, which is now being bolstered by support from Belarus. The count becomes symbolic. For those under bombardment, each hour seems like a year.
Read more at the Guardian link.
AP News: Russian forces seize key Ukrainian port, pressure others.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces captured a strategic Ukrainian port and besieged another Thursday in a bid to cut the country off from the sea, as the two sides met for another round of talks aimed at stopping the fighting that has set off an exodus of over 1 million refugees.
Moscow’s advance on Ukraine’s capital has apparently stalled over the past few days, with a huge armored column north of Kyiv at a standstill, but the military has made significant gains in the south as part of an effort to sever the country’s connection to the Black and Azov seas.
The Russian military said it had control of Kherson, and local Ukrainian officials confirmed that forces have taken over local government headquarters in the Black Sea port of 280,000, making it the first major city to fall since the invasion began a week ago.
Heavy fighting continued on the outskirts of another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Azov Sea, plunging it into darkness, isolation and fear. Electricity and phone service were largely down, and homes and shops faced food and water shortages.
Without phone connections, medics did not know where to take the wounded.
More Ukraine reads:
The New York Times: A War the Kremlin Tried to Disguise Becomes a Hard Reality for Russians.
Military Times: Ukraine jets hit Russian column; Russia has used thermobarics, Ukraine military says.
The New York Times: Anxiety Grows in Odessa as Russians Advance in Southern Ukraine.
January 6 prosecutions
This is huge: yesterday a January 6 defendant w ho worked closely with Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes has agreed to cooperate with investigators. Law and Crime: Oath Keepers Member Pleads Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy and Obstruction in Jan. 6 Capitol Attack, Will ‘Fully Cooperate’ with Feds.
A member of the Oath Keepers right-wing militia group charged in the Jan. 6 siege at the U.S. Capitol has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress. He vowed to “fully cooperate” with the federal investigation into the attack.
Joshua James, 34, is the first member of the militia group charged with seditious conspiracy to plead guilty to that charge. At a hearing Wednesday, he confirmed that under the plea agreement, he will “fully cooperate” with the government’s prosecution and testify before a grand jury and at trial.
The seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges, both felonies, carry potential jail sentences of 20 years each. The seditious conspiracy charge is the most serious charge yet in the federal government’s sprawling prosecution of those who participated in the Jan. 6 siege.
This Ukrainian Ram Did Not Gather His Crop, Maria Prymachenko, 1976
James was named in a 17-count indictment that also charged Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. According to prosecutors, James and the other Oath Keepers made plans to bring a variety of weapons to support the mob of Donald Trump supporters who violently overran police to swarm the Capitol building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden‘s win in the 2020 presidential election.
At Wednesday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, James confirmed the Statement of Offense submitted in connection with his plea, which outlines the actions James took in support of the plan to overturn the election and keep Trump in office…
Here are a couple of things James admitted to:
In advance of and on January 6, 2021, James and others agreed to take part in the plan developed by Rhodes to use any means necessary, up to and including the use of force, to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power….
In the weeks leading up to January 6, 2021, Rhodes instructed James and other coconspirators to be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter and use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump from the White House, including the National Guard or other government actors who might be sent to remove President Trump as a result of the Presidential Election.
Read the rest at Law and Crime.
James is also close to Roger Stone and was communicating with him the morning of January 6, 2021.
House January 6 Committee investigation:
The New York Times: Jan. 6 Committee Lays Out Potential Criminal Charges Against Trump.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said on Wednesday that there was enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by misleading Americans about the outcome of the 2020 election and attempting to overturn the result.
In a court filing in a civil case in California, the committee’s lawyers for the first time laid out their theory of a potential criminal case against the former president. They said they had accumulated evidence demonstrating that Mr. Trump, the conservative lawyer John Eastman and other allies could potentially be charged with criminal violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people.
The filing also said there was evidence that Mr. Trump’s repeated lies that the election had been stolen amounted to common law fraud.
Corncob Horse in Outer Space, 1978, Maria Pryachenko
The filing disclosed only limited new evidence, and the committee asked the judge in the civil case to review the relevant material behind closed doors. In asserting the potential for criminality, the committee largely relied on the extensive and detailed accounts already made public of the actions Mr. Trump and his allies took to keep him in office after his defeat.
The committee added information from its more than 550 interviews with state officials, Justice Department officials and top aides to Mr. Trump, among others.
It said, for example, that Jason Miller, Mr. Trump’s senior campaign adviser, had told the committee in a deposition that Mr. Trump had been told soon after Election Day by a campaign data expert “in pretty blunt terms” that he was going to lose, suggesting that Mr. Trump was well aware that his months of assertions about a stolen election were false. (Mr. Trump subsequently said he disagreed with the data expert’s analysis, Mr. Miller said, because he thought he could win in court.)
The evidence gathered by the committee “provides, at minimum, a good-faith basis for concluding that President Trump has violated” the obstruction count, the filing, written by Douglas N. Letter, the general counsel of the House, said, adding: “The select committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
The filing said that a “review of the materials may reveal that the president and members of his campaign engaged in common law fraud in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”
This post is way too long, but so much is happening! Have a great Thursday, Sky Dancers, and please share your thoughts a recommended reads with us.
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Posted: March 1, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Joe Biden, Russia, State of the Union Address March 1 2002, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin |
Good Morning!!
So much is happening in the Ukraine story right now. Whatever I post this morning is likely to change rapidly. But before I get to the Ukraine news and analysis, I want to call attention to the State of the Union Address tonight. We can probably use this post as a live thread, but if necessary we’ll put up a new thread for the speech.
Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post: Opinion: Biden’s State of the Union address should build on his record.
“My fellow Americans, the state of the union is … better. Much, much better.”
I doubt President Biden will use those exact words in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night — not with inflation still in the headlines — but they encapsulate the truth. Biden has not solved all the problems of the nation or the world in his first year in the White House. But he has done a heck of a lot.
Recall where we were on the day Joe Biden took the oath of office.
The nation was gripped by the covid-19 pandemic, and there was no workable process or plan to get everyone vaccinated. The economy was in crisis; restaurants and hotels were shuttered, and airports were like ghost towns. Schools were closed. Two weeks earlier, a shocking and unprecedented violent assault on the U.S. Capitol was waged by insurrectionists bent on overturning the presidential election and keeping Biden’s predecessor in power. That defeated incumbent, bitter because the putsch had failed, lacked the respect for tradition and country to attend Biden’s inauguration.
Look where we are now.
Some 65 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and nearly 44 percent has also had a booster shot. Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are in free fall. During Biden’s first year, the economy added a record 6.6 million jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 4 percent. Schools are open and functioning normally. Mask mandates are being lifted. Our political discourse has returned to Democrats and Republicans shouting at each other across a yawning divide, but they are once again fighting with words, not cudgels and bear spray.
NBC News: Biden’s State of the Union address to focus on Ukraine, U.S. economy.
President Joe Biden will come before Congress on Tuesday seeking to sell his domestic and foreign policy agenda to an American public that has given him persistently low approval ratings as he faces the intensifying conflict in Ukraine.
A key focus of the prime-time address before Congress will be the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Biden planning to highlight the united efforts by the U.S. allies and the impact sanctions have already had on Russia’s economy, administration officials said.
On domestic issues, Biden plans to talk extensively about efforts he has taken to improve the U.S. economy and control the pandemic, while pressing Congress to revive his stalled domestic policy agenda.
The speech comes at a pivotal moment for Biden, both at home and abroad. Among recent presidents, only his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, came before Congress with a lower approval rating, with voters giving Biden low marks on everything from his leadership style to his handling of the economy.
The address may mark Biden’s last opportunity to make the case for his domestic policy agenda before a Congress controlled by his own party, with many Democrats facing a tough fight in the midterms.
The president’s team has been reworking his remarks in recent days to more heavily emphasize the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. White House press secretary Jen Psaki, in an interview with MSNBC this week, compared the moment to the remarks before Congress by President Barack Obama during the financial crisis or the one President George W. Bush gave after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Here’s where things stand In Ukraine right now:
The Russians have unleashed an all-out attack on Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv.
Michael Schwirtz at The New York Times: An explosion rocks Kharkiv a day after shelling in a residential neighborhood.
A large explosion struck central Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Tuesday, directly in front of the city’s administrative building, creating a huge fireball that appeared in a video to engulf several cars driving through an area called Freedom Square.
The cause of the blast and number of casualties were not immediately clear, though the city’s mayor said there were dead and wounded. CCTV footage of the attack captured what appeared to be a rocket striking directly in front of the building. Video of the aftermath showed a large crater in the middle of the city’s cobble-stoned central square.
USA Today: ‘Nobody will forget’: Zelenskyy calls attack on Kharkiv ‘a war crime’ as 40-mile convoy rolls toward Kyiv: Live updates.
Residential areas in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, were being pounded by Russian shells while a massive 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks and vehicles rolled toward the capital of Kyiv on Tuesday as the war entered its sixth day.
At least 11 people were killed and 35 wounded in the rocket strikes on Kharkiv, Interior Ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said. He said the rubble was still being cleared and the death toll was expected to rise.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack on the city’s main square “frank, undisguised terror. Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget. This attack on Kharkiv is a war crime.”
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said Tuesday that his government remained under control but said the city is surrounded by Russian troops.
The Washington Post: Russian invasion escalates as massive convoy threatens Kyiv, Kharkiv ‘surrounded.’
DNIPRO, Ukraine — Russian forces, frustrated by the tenacious defense of major cities by Ukrainian soldiers and ad hoc civilian militias, gathered menacing strength Tuesday, as a projectile appeared to strike near Kharkiv’s administration building and a convoy of tanks, troop carriers and artillery more than 40 miles long threatened Kyiv.
Kharkiv remains under Ukrainian control but is “surrounded” by Russian troops, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov told The Washington Post. In Kyiv, residents are bracing for an all-out assault as the Russian force, under the command of a president whose country has quickly become an international political and economic pariah, is apparently preparing to encircle the capital. A senior U.S. defense official said the Kremlin seems ready to adopt the same siege tactics that are beginning to strangle Kharkiv.
There, thousands are without power and heat in freezing temperatures, local officials said, and residents braced for more shelling Tuesday. Suspected cluster munitions struck residential parts of Kharkiv on Monday, raising fears that Russia could use tactics similar to those employed in Chechnya and Syria, where it has been accused of war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack on Kharkiv was “terror against the city.”
Five hours of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations Monday near the Belarusian border failed to yield a breakthrough, with the two sides agreeing only to continue discussions in coming days. Top Russian officials hardened their rhetoric Tuesday, denying attacks on civilian areas, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the war would continue until Moscow’s goals are met.
The Washington Post: Dozens wounded in shelling of Kharkiv as Russia strikes buildings with suspected cluster munitions.
MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials say at least 11 people were killed and more were wounded in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Monday morning after Russia launched rocket strikes, targeting Ukraine’s second-largest city with some of the heaviest shelling since the invasion began Thursday.
Suspected cluster munitions struck buildings in residential parts of the city, raising fears that as Russia escalates attacks in urban areas it could use tactics similar to those it used in Chechnya and Syria, where it has been accused of widespread wartime abuses.
The bombardments came as Russian and Ukrainian delegations held talks Monday for the first time. They met by Ukraine’s border with Belarus, a key Russian ally.
Oleh Synehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, said Monday that “dozens are dying” and that at least 11 people were confirmed dead. He called the attacks, in three areas of the predominantly Russian-speaking city that had been considered more friendly to Russia, “a war crime.”
“The Russian enemy is shelling entire residential areas of Kharkiv, where there is no critical infrastructure, where there are no positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that the Russians could aim at,” he said in a message on Telegram.
The Washington Post: Satellite images show 40-mile convoy of Russian forces bearing down on Kyiv.
A massive convoy of Russian ground forces is wending its way closer to Kyiv, drawing within 20 miles of the center of the Ukrainian capital Monday, satellite images showed.
The line of Russian military vehicles stretched along the road for roughly 40 miles, far longer than initial estimates, according to the U.S. firm Maxar Technologies, which captured the photos Monday morning local time. The convoy includes armored vehicles, tanks and towed artillery, Maxar said, and it appears to be making steady progress along the war-scarred roads leading to Kyiv.
On Sunday, Maxar released images that showed the same group of Russian forces roughly 40 miles from the capital. The company’s analysts estimated then that the convoy was about three miles long but revised their assessment dramatically upward one day later, noting that cloud cover interfered with initial projections.
The convoy cuts a menacing figure through the countryside near Kyiv, but Ukrainian troops remained defiant Monday after weathering the most intense shelling since the invasion began, in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
The images come amid questions over whether Russian forces will use siege tactics against Kyiv, encircling the city, cutting off supplies and escape routes, and then moving in.
Russia is attempting to surround Kyiv, a senior U.S. defense official told The Washington Post on Monday, adding that Moscow has used siege tactics elsewhere in Ukraine, including in the northern city of Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
The possibility of such an attack on the capital city of nearly 3 million people adds to concerns that the death toll could increase significantly in the coming days. House lawmakers briefed Monday by senior Biden administration officials were told Ukraine has suffered 1,500 civilian and military casualties, according to two people in the briefing. It was unclear whether the count referred only to fatalities or included injuries. “It’s likely going to be very significant loss of life,” said Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who was born and raised in Ukraine.
So that’s the latest on the war front.
Ukraine Analysis
From the Politico piece:
[Fiona] Hill spent many years studying history, and in our conversation, she repeatedly traced how long arcs and trends of European history are converging on Ukraine right now. We are already, she said, in the middle of a third World War, whether we’ve fully grasped it or not.
“Sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again,” Hill told me.
Those old historical patterns include Western businesses who fail to see how they help build a tyrant’s war chest, admirers enamored of an autocrat’s “strength” and politicians’ tendency to point fingers inward for political gain instead of working together for their nation’s security.
But at the same time, Hill says it’s not too late to turn Putin back, and it’s a job not just for the Ukrainians or for NATO — it’s a job that ordinary Westerners and companies can assist in important ways once they grasp what’s at stake.
“Ukraine has become the front line in a struggle, not just between democracies and autocracies but in a struggle for maintaining a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force,” Hill said. “Every country in the world should be paying close attention to this.”
There’s lots of danger ahead, she warned. Putin is increasingly operating emotionally and likely to use all the weapons at his disposal, including nuclear ones. It’s important not to have any illusions — but equally important not to lose hope.
“Every time you think, ’No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Hill said. “And he wants us to know that, of course. It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared…. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”
Read the full interview at Politico. Also check out this piece by Mattathias Schwartz at Insider: ‘Putin might do the unthinkable’: Former intelligence chief warns that the conflict in Ukraine has increased the risk of nuclear war.
https://twitter.com/RosaLSmothers/status/1497419029174235136?s=20&t=6pSIVOzL5MTjh_V6rei73g
One more from CNN: US intelligence agencies make understanding Vladimir Putin’s state of mind a top priority.
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Posted: February 26, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: caturday, Kazakhstan, Russia, Russian antiwar protests, Ukraine, Ukrainian cats, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky |
Mariia Pryimachenko, Wild Cat
Good Morning!!
NOTE: Today’s cat paintings are by Ukrainian artists.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine is not going as smoothly as he probably hoped. In fact he looks isolated by most of the world and is even getting negative feedback from the Russian people and from close neighbor and ally Kazakhstan.
Peter Alexander at NBC News: One of Russia’s closest allies denies request for troops.
Kazakhstan, one of Russia’s closest allies and a southern neighbor, is denying a request for its troops to join the offensive in Ukraine, officials said Friday.
Additionally, the former Soviet republic said it is not recognizing the Russia-created breakaway republics upheld by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, as a pretext for its aggression in Ukraine.
Despite ceasefire accords covering the disputed land, Putin on Monday declared Russia’s recognition of Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) as independent states.
The surprising development from a traditional ally of Russia has the support of the United States.
“We welcome Kazakhstan’s announcement that they will not recognize the LPR and DPR,” the National Security Council said in a statement. “We also welcome Kazakhstan’s refusal to send its forces to join Putin’s war in Ukraine.”
At home in Russia, Putin is struggling to put down popular antiwar protests.
The Economist: Russians greet Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine with dismay, not enthusiasm.
As the sun set over the Kremlin on the first day of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Moscow felt tense. Black cars with tinted windows, flashing lights and police escorts zipped around the city centre. Police vans pushed ordinary cars to the side of the road. It was as though Moscow itself was coming under attack.
Rimma and her cat, by Gubsky Igor
And the “attack” did come, a couple of hours later as several thousand people, mostly young, poured onto the streets holding signs condemning the war their president had unleashed against their brothers and sisters in Ukraine. They chanted, “Net voine” (“No to war”). The same words were splashed with paint on the glass doors of the Russian state Duma, the parliament that had almost unanimously supported the invasion.
The protesters’ faces were crestfallen, gripped by dismay and grief. And they were met with brutality. Helmeted riot police pushed them to the ground and bundled them into vans. Gregory Yudin, a sociologist and left-wing philosopher, was beaten and taken to a police cell before finally being transferred to hospital. On February 24th some 1,700 people were arrested, half of them in Moscow. But anti-war protests also rolled through the country from Siberia to St Petersburg, where more people were detained the following day….
Journalists, artists, celebrities, rockstars and bloggers have been speaking out. “Fear and pain,” wrote Ivan Urgant, a popular host on state-owned television, on his Instagram. Monetochka (“Little coin”), a pop star, published a photo of her own face, weeping, with a sign: “So ashamed!” So far there have been no resignations among senior officials, but neither has there been any enthusiasm for war. Sergei Utkin, a security expert who had previously peddled the Kremlin’s line on foreign policy, wrote on Twitter, “My country is committing a horrible crime in Ukraine that can have no justification…We all bear a part of responsibility. There is no good way out of that.”
A petition against the war has gathered 500,000 signatures in a single day, and is growing. Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s main pro-opposition newspaper, came out in two languages, Russian and Ukrainian. Its editor, Dmitry Muratov, the most recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote that Mr Putin “is spinning a nuclear button around his finger like some expensive car key chain…But we can never recognise Ukraine as an enemy. And never will.”
In Kyiv, former comedian and now Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky is turning out to be an inspirational leader.
CNN: Zelensky refuses US offer to evacuate, saying ‘I need ammunition, not a ride.’
Jeff Stein at Spy Talk: Zelensky Prepares to Go Down with the Ship.
An American businessman with close ties to Volodymyr Zelensky says the Ukrainian president was “calm and businesslike” when they talked yesterday, even as Russian troops pressed on toward Kyiv and the volume of rocket attacks on the capital soared.
“He seemed reluctant to leave the country,” said the businessman, who has extensive projects in the country and asked not to be identified because of the fraught security situation.
“U.S. officials were urging him to leave. He feared he’d never be able to come back.”
Zelensky’s position hardened Friday when he posted a defiant video in which he said he and his government were “defending our independence” from the Russian invasion.
“We are all here,” he said, surrounded by senior advisers and his prime minister.
“Our troops are here, citizens are here. All of us are here protecting the independence of our country.
“And it will continue to be this way.”
On Thursday evening he told European Union leaders “this might be the last time you see me alive,” according to Axios.
Reports on the progress of Putin’s attack:
The New York Times: Russia’s Assault in Ukraine Slows After an Aggressive Start.
The Fat Cat, by Olena Kamenetska-Ostapchuk
On the first day of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his generals and troops followed a textbook strategy for land invasions. They attacked the country’s military installations and air defense systems with missiles launched from the air, sea and land, seeking to take ownership of the skies, and sped forces to Kyiv, the capital, with the goal of decapitating the government of the democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
But then, things slowed. It is one thing to cross the border of another country with tanks and artillery, protected by warplanes above, Pentagon officials and analysts say. It is another thing entirely to lay siege to cities and an army populated by people willing to put their lives on the line to protect what they view as their sovereign right to self-determination.
Within a day of entering Ukraine, Russian forces lost some momentum, senior American and British officials said, as Ukrainian fighters mounted a resistance. No population centers had been taken, a senior Defense Department official told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. Nor had Russia yet managed to achieve air superiority over Ukraine, partly because the Ukrainians are using mobile systems and partly because Russian missiles have hit old air defense sites, which could show a flaw in Russia’s intelligence. The Ukrainian air defense and missile defense systems were degraded, he said, but the country’s air force was still flying planes and denying air access to Russia.
In addition, officials said, Russia was conducting most of its initial operations during the day, suggesting that its ability to fight at night — a hallmark of the American military — was less effective.
Read the rest at the NYT.
From CNN this morning: Battle moves into Kyiv as Ukrainians fight to keep control of their capital.
More Ukraine/Putin stories to check out:
The Economist on Biden’s sanctions: America has targeted Russia’s technological fabric.
Michael D. Weiss at Time: Even If Russia Wins, It Won’t Do So Easily.
Jason Stanley at The Guardian: The antisemitism animating Putin’s claim to ‘denazify’ Ukraine.
Max Seddon at Financial Times: Vladimir Putin, Russia’s resentful leader, takes the world to war.
Douglas McGrath at Air Mail with a terrific piece on the GOP worship of Trump and Putin: The View from Here. Ukraine is attacked and Trumpists swoon over Vlad the Invader. With global and U.S. democracy in peril, the G.O.P. is M.I.A.
Eric Wemple at The Washington Post: Opinion: How did Tucker Carlson turn into a Putin apologist?
I’ll add more news links in the comment thread. I hope you all have a nice weekend!
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Posted: February 22, 2022 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Germany, Joe Biden, NATO, Nordstream 2, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin |
Good Morning!!
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin finally ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine, while trying to put the blame on the U.S., NATO, and the Ukraine government. Putin claimed the troops were for “peacekeeping” purposes, to protect ethnic Russians in two parts of Eastern Ukraine.
At first the Biden administration debated whether to call this an “invasion,” but as of this morning that has changed. Newsweek: Biden Administration Backtracks, Is Now Calling Russia’s Attack on Ukraine an Invasion.
President Joe Biden‘s administration has called Russian troops entering Ukraine an “invasion” for the first time on Tuesday morning after members of Congress from both parties used the term and called for tough sanctions.
The Biden administration had not previously referred to the Russian military action in eastern Ukraine as an “invasion” but White House officials have said a further response will be forthcoming and is likely to include more sanctions.
Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer called Russian military action in eastern Ukraine an “invasion” in remarks to CNN on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on Monday recognizing the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) in Ukraine’s east as independent states and ordered Russian troops into those regions.
“We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine,” Finer said.
“I think ‘latest’ is important here,” Finer said.
“An invasion is an invasion, and that is what is underway, but Russia has been invading Ukraine since 2014,” he said.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. There has also been a Russian presence in Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014.
Follow the latest developments at CNN: Live Updates: The latest on the Ukraine-Russia crisis. or at The New York Times Ukraine live updates.
Western nations have begun sanctioning Russia for it’s illegal aggression:
The New York Times: Germany puts a stop to Nord Stream 2, a key Russian natural gas pipeline.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany would halt certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline that would link his country with Russia, one of the strongest moves yet by the West to punish the Kremlin for recognizing two separatist regions in Ukraine.
The German leader’s announcement came hours after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered armed forces to the separatist regions, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
Germany’s allies in Europe and the United States had been pressing Mr. Scholz for weeks to state publicly that the $11 billion pipeline, which was completed late last year and runs from Russia’s coast to northern Germany under the Baltic Sea, would be at risk of being blocked in the event of a Russian move against Ukraine.
“The situation today is fundamentally different,” Mr. Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “That is why we must re-evaluate this situation, in view of the latest developments. By the way, that includes Nord Stream 2.”
CBS News: U.S. imposes sanctions after Putin recognizes breakaway Ukraine regions.
President Biden signed an executive order Monday imposing sanctions that target two Russia-backed breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine in a swift response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the regions as independent.
The order bars “new investment, trade and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in” the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, located in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The order also provides authority to impose sanctions on “any person determined to operate in those areas of Ukraine,” Psaki said, adding the administration will later “announce additional measures related to today’s blatant violation of Russia’s international commitments.”
CNBC: UK announces first tranche of Russia sanctions, targets banks and wealthy individuals.
David Ignatius at The Washington Post: Opinion: Surprising cracks, if small ones, appear in Kremlin support for Putin on Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin presented a theatrical justification for war with Ukraine on Monday, but initial Russian military actions along the border were limited — and there seemed to be a few small cracks in Kremlin support for Putin’s obsession with regaining Russian dominion in Kyiv.
Putin appeared to be setting the stage on Monday for an all-out invasion. Under the dome of a grand state chamber in the Kremlin, he signed documents recognizing two Russian-backed enclaves in eastern Ukraine as independent “republics.” He then ordered some of the 150,000 Russian combat troops surrounding Ukraine to enter the breakaway regions in a “peacekeeping” operation.
Putin may hope to provoke an armed response from Ukraine that would provide a pretext for a larger assault. But the initial “peacekeeping” move into Donetsk and Luhansk was limited, and a senior Biden administration official was careful to avoid describing it as an invasion, noting that Russian forces have been operating covertly in the two enclaves for nearly eight years….
The day’s events began with a televised command performance of Putin’s security council in the ornate Kremlin chamber. Putin asked each of his ministers for their recommendation about recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk. Many responses were dutifully on script, but there were several surprises.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia’s demands for security guarantees were “not an ultimatum,” and he seemed ready to meet Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for more talks. Lavrov also conceded NATO’s unity, advising Putin that at this past weekend’s Munich Security Conference, “every Western representative declared their absolute commitment to a unified approach,” which “confirmed that we need to negotiate with Washington.” [….]
But the big surprise came when Putin quizzed Sergei Naryshkin, head of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Naryshkin advised that threatening to recognize Donetsk and Luhansk would be useful leverage for implementing the 2015 Minsk agreements to settle the conflict in the eastern region. Russia has claimed to support Minsk, but Monday’s recognition of the two breakaway enclaves as independent will probably derail any chance for the agreement. In response to Naryshkin’s answers, Putin got antsy.
Read more at the WaPo.
The New York Times on Biden’s strategy: Wooing Allies, Publicizing Putin’s Plans: Inside Biden’s Race to Prevent War.
In a series of top-secret meetings last October, President Biden’s national security team presented grim intelligence that would soon trigger a fierce effort to prevent what could become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, was preparing to invade Ukraine, top intelligence and military officials told Mr. Biden. Gathering each morning in the Oval Office for the global threat assessment known as the President’s Daily Brief, they described satellite images of Russian forces methodically advancing toward Ukraine’s border.
Not only did the United States have images of troops moving into position, it also had the Russian military’s plans for a campaign against Ukraine — elements of which had already begun. At one of the morning meetings, Mr. Biden dispatched William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, to Moscow with a message for Mr. Putin:
We know what you’re planning to do.
Stopping him would be a challenge. Many of America’s closest allies were skeptical that Mr. Putin — a master of disinformation — would actually invade. The use of U.S. military force against Russia was off the table, so the allies would have to threaten Mr. Putin with economic pain so severe it would also have consequences in Europe and the United States. And it was far from certain that Republicans in Congress would back whatever the administration did….
The White House acknowledged from the start that its campaign to stop Mr. Putin might not actually prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. But at the very least, White House officials say, Mr. Biden exposed Mr. Putin and his true intentions, which helped unite, at least for now, the at-times fractious NATO alliance.
Over the course of three and a half months, Mr. Biden made three critical decisions about how to handle Russia’s provocations, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior administration officials and others who requested anonymity to discuss confidential meetings. Early on, the president approved a recommendation to share intelligence far more broadly with allies than was typical, officials said. The idea was to avoid disagreements about tough economic sanctions by ensuring that everyone knew what the United States knew about Mr. Putin’s actions.
Mr. Biden also gave the green light for an unprecedented public information campaign against Mr. Putin. With the support of his top intelligence officials — and with a promise to protect the intelligence agencies’ “sources and methods” — the president allowed a wave of public releases aimed at preventing Mr. Putin from employing his usual denials to divide his adversaries.
Read more details at the NYT link.
So that’s where things stand this morning. I’m sure there will be more developments throughout the day today. What are your thoughts on this? What other stories are you following?
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