The Washington Post

05 July 2024 16:21

Hungarian leader Viktor Orban visits Moscow, angering E.U. allies

Fresh off his first visit to Ukraine since Russia invaded, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Moscow on Friday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — a striking break with the European Union’s collective foreign policy just days after Hungary took over the bloc’s rotating presidency.

Even before Orban’s plane touched down Friday, the trip drew sharp disavowals from Brussels.

Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s top diplomat, preemptively noted that the Hungarian leader’s travel is not official E.U. business and “takes place exclusively in the framework of bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia.”

But with Hungary now holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, the trip represented a diplomatic triumph for Putin, who has repeatedly accused NATO nations, particularly the United States, of prolonging the war he started.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

02 July 2024 14:22

Hungarian leader and Putin ally Viktor Orban visits Ukraine

KYIV — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the European Union’s most prominent critic of providing Ukraine with military aid, arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday in his first visit since Russia’s invasion more than two years ago.

His meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky comes just a day after Hungary took over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the E.U. and is a rare gesture in what has been a fraught relationship between the leaders.

Orban has repeatedly blocked or weakened European efforts to provide Ukraine with security assistance throughout the war, frustrating Zelensky. He does not permit donated Western weapons to be transferred to Ukraine over the two countries’ shared border.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

28 June 2024 04:36

During CNN's 2024 presidential debate, former president Donald Trump was trying to undercut President Biden’s key foreign policy argument: that Biden has restored alliances and united the world against despots and dictators.

Trump argued that these conflicts would have never happened if he were president. And now he’s arguing that, if elected, he’d “get it settled and get it settled fast.”

Read more here: https://wapo.st/4eB27VH

The Washington Post

25 June 2024 14:11

International Court issues warrants for top Russian military officials

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two top Russian military figures who led the war on Ukraine for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, it announced Tuesday.

Former defense minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov were named in the warrants for their attacks on civilian infrastructure in particular.

The action comes after the court — to which Russia is not a signatory — last year issued indictments against President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, over the removal of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

24 June 2024 13:04

More than 15 killed in Dagestan, Russia, as gunmen hit multiple sites

Assailants opened fire at an Orthodox church, a synagogue and a traffic police post across two cities in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Sunday evening, killing more than 15 police officers and several civilians, local officials said.

The dead included an Orthodox priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov. More than two dozen others were injured in what appeared to be a coordinated attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Kotelnikov, 66, was killed at the Church of Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Derbent. Gunmen also attacked the city’s only synagogue, though it was apparently empty at the time.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

20 June 2024 13:13

Ukraine claims to be winning its war on corruption. The West says: Do more.

Ukrainian officials insist they are battling corruption as fiercely as their troops are fighting Russia’s invaders in the east. But Western governments, including the United States, say it is still not enough — a source of increasingly raw tension between Kyiv and some of its strongest supporters that poses constant peril to additional economic and military assistance.

Nearly every month adds a new case to a string of high-profile arrests and dismissals. In late May, the former deputy head of the presidential administration, Andrii Smyrnov, was charged with “illicit enrichment” by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which said he had acquired real estate, vehicles and other assets worth more than 10 times his reported salary and savings.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

18 June 2024 20:31

As Kyiv celebrates first Pride since invasion, LGBTQ troops demand equality

KYIV — Pride in Ukraine is no longer just about defending and celebrating the right to love whom you choose. Like everything else here, it’s also about resisting Russia.

A Pride march in Kyiv on Sunday — the first since Russia’s 2022 invasion — and a host of other events this month across the country are intended as a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukrainians want to live in a country with Western freedoms — not Russian-style repressions. The events are also protesting Ukraine’s own policies, which advocates say perpetuate the marginalization of LGBTQ people, including soldiers who risk their lives for Ukraine’s future.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

14 June 2024 15:59

Putin demands Ukraine surrender four regions to stop war

Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded that Ukraine surrender four southeastern regions that Russian troops partly occupy and renounce plans to join NATO as conditions for Russia to “immediately” stop hostilities and start of negotiations to end the war.

Putin’s demands would amount to capitulation by Ukraine and the loss of more than one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory — including Crimea, which Russia invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.

The Russian leader’s remarks appeared designed to get ahead of an international “peace” conference organized by Ukraine in Switzerland this weekend. President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to reiterate his call for Russia’s complete withdrawal of military forces and the end of Moscow’s illegal occupation of Ukraine.

The Russian leader’s broader demands included cementing Ukraine’s “neutral, nonaligned, nonnuclear status” and lifting all Western sanctions against Russia.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

13 June 2024 16:12

U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich to be tried on espionage charges in Russia

American journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal will soon stand trial in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on charges of spying for the CIA, Russian authorities said Thursday, after announcing that they had finalized an indictment against the Wall Street Journal reporter.

Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg and accused of espionage. Gershkovich, the journal and U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected the charges as baseless.

Russian prosecutors said in a statement that they had “established and documented” that Gershkovich “collected secret information” about a military factory in the Sverdlovsk region “on assignment from the CIA.”

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

13 June 2024 12:35

U.S. will send Ukraine a second Patriot air defense battery

The Biden administration is planning to provide Ukraine an additional Patriot air defense system as Kyiv struggles to shield key cities and infrastructure from ongoing Russian assaults, three U.S. and a senior European official said Wednesday.

According to the European official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe plans that had not been made public, the United States has informed some allies of its decision to send Ukraine the additional battery.

One of the U.S. officials said the system will be sent to Ukraine from an airfield in southeastern Poland that the Pentagon has used as a staging base to send weapons and supplies to Ukrainian forces. Multiple Patriot batteries have been based there since Russian’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

U.S. military officials plan to backfill the system in Poland with another Patriot from elsewhere, this person said.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

11 June 2024 14:47

Poll: Many Ukrainians see war as stalemate but most back fight vs. Russia

Nearly half of Ukrainians believe the war with Russia is at a stalemate, according to a new poll, but nearly three-quarters said they were “very confident” or “somewhat confident” that Ukraine “will eventually liberate all of its territories” — a potentially unrealistic expectation but one that suggests little willingness to surrender land now occupied by Moscow’s forces.

The poll, conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) and a Ukrainian sociological research firm, Rating, is one of the most extensive measures of public opinion in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, its organizers said. The poll surveyed 2,000 people across all regions of Ukraine but not those living abroad, where millions have fled.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

08 June 2024 12:43

France, allies to ‘finalize’ plan to send military trainers to Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that a coalition of countries has agreed to send military trainers to Ukraine, suggesting that plans could come together in the coming days but not offering concrete details.

The comment, made in a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is the latest sign that France and other allies may now be willing to put NATO country troops on Ukrainian soil — an idea that some allies, including the United States, have long considered potentially escalatory.

Macron on Friday called Ukraine’s request for in-country training “legitimate” and said several partners have “already given their agreement.”

“We are going to use the coming days to finalize a coalition, as broad as possible,” he said.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

03 June 2024 14:28

Russia co-opts far-right politicians in Europe with cash, officials say

For nearly a year, European intelligence officials said, the Czech authorities secretly recorded hours of meetings between several far-right politicians from across Europe and the associate, Artem Marchevsky, who was running the propaganda website, Voice of Europe, including at its offices on a quiet side street in the center of Prague. E.U. and Czech authorities, which have shut down the site, have labeled Voice of Europe a Russian propaganda operation.

The Czech probe rapidly expanded into Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and France, European security and intelligence officials said, as investigators concluded that Voice of Europe represented far more than its official veneer as a pro-Russian website interviewing favored European politicians about ending aid to Ukraine.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

31 May 2024 20:46

Blinken opens the door to attacks with U.S. weapons deeper inside Russia

PRAGUE — Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday opened the door to allowing Ukraine to fire U.S.-provided weapons deeper into Russian territory, just a day after President Biden, in a major policy shift, okayed counterattacks aimed at limited Russian military targets across the border.

“The hallmark of our engagement has been to adapt and adjust as necessary, to meet what’s actually going on the battlefield, to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, when it needs it,” Blinken told reporters while in the Czech capital for a gathering of NATO foreign ministers.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

30 May 2024 13:22

U.S. concerned about Ukraine strikes on Russian nuclear radar stations

The United States fears that recent Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian nuclear early-warning systems could dangerously unsettle Moscow at a time when the Biden administration is weighing whether to lift restrictions on Ukraine using U.S.-supplied weapons in cross-border attacks.

“The United States is concerned about Ukraine’s recent strikes against Russian ballistic missile early-warning sites,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Washington has conveyed its concerns to Kyiv about two attempted attacks over the last week against radar stations that provide conventional air defense as well as warning of nuclear launches by the West. At least one strike in Armavir, in Russia’s southeastern Krasnodar region, appeared to have caused some damage.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

04 July 2024 13:25

Kyiv’s shrouded and absent statues tell a story of war and defiance

As Russian troops rolled toward Kyiv in February 2022, millions of Ukrainians fled, but many of those who stayed rushed to protect the country’s cultural heritage. Statues were encased in sandbags, monuments boarded up, sculptures wrapped, and framed paintings taped over.

Nearly 2½ years later, away from the front lines but still under constant threat of bombardment, many statues remain covered, some have been removed and others have been freed from their sandbags. This incongruous mix has taken on new meaning for some Kyiv residents as the country grapples with a changing sense of identity, a gasping economy and an unrelenting foe.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

01 July 2024 13:40

Russia’s devastating glide bombs keep falling on its own territory

The powerful glide-bombs that Russia has used to such great effect to pound Ukrainian cities into rubble have also been falling on its own territory, an internal Russian document has revealed.

At least 38 of the bombs, which have been credited with helping drive Russia’s recent territorial advances, crashed into the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine between April 2023 and April 2024, according to the document obtained by The Washington Post, though most did not detonate.

Roughly comparable to the more advanced American JDAM guided bombs, these glide bombs are large Soviet-era munitions retrofitted with guidance systems that experts say often fail — resulting in impacts on Russian territory.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

26 June 2024 15:52

Closed-door espionage trial of U.S. journalist kicks off in Russia

The closed-door trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich began in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on Wednesday, 15 months after he was arrested and charged with espionage while on a reporting trip.

The case marks the first time since the Cold War that an American journalist has been put on trial for espionage in Russia. Gershkovich appeared calm in court Wednesday, smiling and nodding at colleagues who had traveled to Yekaterinburg — almost 900 miles to the east of Moscow — to report on the opening moments of the trial. Gershkovich’s head had been shaved, as is typical for prisoners in the Russian penitentiary system.

Russian prosecutors announced earlier this month that they had finalized an indictment and had “established and documented” that Gershkovich had “collected secret information” about the Uralvagonzavod military factory in the Sverdlovsk region in Russia while “on assignment from the CIA.”

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

24 June 2024 20:48

After attack in Dagestan, Russian officials minimize Islamic State claim

Russian lawmakers on Monday quickly blamed external forces, including Ukraine and NATO, for terrorist attacks on Sunday that killed at least 20 people in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia in the North Caucasus that has long been a hotbed of violence by Islamist militants.

The gunfire attacks on Sunday — at a police post, a synagogue and Orthodox churches in the regional capital of Makhachkala and a second city, Derbent — killed at least 17 police officers and an Orthodox priest, authorities said.

Pro-Kremlin media appeared to play down a claim from Al Azaim Media, a Russian-language channel associated with the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, which posted a statement late Sunday that the attack was carried out in response to calls for attacks on behalf of the Islamic State organization, or ISIS.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

20 June 2024 18:18

U.S. will boost Ukraine’s air defense by pausing exports to allies

The United States will suspend the planned export of hundreds of air defense munitions to its allies and partners and redirect them to Ukraine, the White House said Thursday, as Russia continues its brutal assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure.

The Biden administration “has made the difficult but necessary decision to reprioritize near term planned deliveries of foreign military sales to other countries, particularly Patriot and NASAMS missiles, to go to Ukraine instead,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

The Patriot and NASAMS systems are the two most sophisticated air defense platforms the West has provided to Ukraine, and have been central to its defense against Russian missiles and drones that have attacked civilian infrastructure.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

19 June 2024 15:23

North Korea’s Kim declares ‘full support’ for Russian war in Ukraine

SEOUL — In a show of defiance against Western sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic pact on Wednesday pledging to come to each other’s assistance in case of a military attack — the starkest display yet of Russia’s alignment with anti-Western nations determined to topple the United States as a global leader.

Putin, visiting the North Korean capital, Pyongyang for the first time since 2000, said Russia and North Korea “pursue an independent foreign policy and do not accept the language of blackmail and diktat.”

“The comprehensive partnership agreement signed today provides, among other things, for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement,” Putin said.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

16 June 2024 16:21

Short on troops, Ukraine is freeing criminals to fight

To fill a critical shortage of infantry on the front line, Ukraine has embraced one of Russia’s most cynical tactics: releasing convicted — even violent — felons who agree to fight in high-risk assault brigades.

More than 2,750 men have been released from Ukrainian prisons since the parliament adopted a law in May authorizing certain convicts to enlist, including those jailed for dealing drugs, stealing phones and committing armed assaults and murders, among other serious crimes.

Now — seeking revenge against Russia, or in pursuit of personal redemption and freedom — they are trading their prison jumpsuits for Ukrainian army uniforms and deploying to the front lines.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

13 June 2024 17:47

G-7 leaders agree to deal to tap frozen Russian assets for Ukraine

Leaders from the world’s leading democracies came to an agreement Thursday to use frozen Russian assets to help provide Ukraine with some $50 billion over the next year in its ongoing war with Russia.

The agreement, which comes after months of intense diplomacy, was one of the top goals of the Group of Seven leaders as they met at a five-star resort on the southern Italian coast. President Biden is also planning to sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine at a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky before the two hold a joint news conference later Thursday.

The use of Russian assets marked a victory for Biden and other leaders who had been hoping to use the summit to send a strong signal of support for Ukraine at a precarious moment in the war.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

13 June 2024 14:38

‘Ram him’: How Ukraine is pushing U.S. combat gear to the extreme

The Ukrainians’ radio crackled with an urgent announcement: A Russian vehicle stacked with infantry troops was lurking in a forest and had to be taken out.

The mission went to Viktor, the commander of an American-made Bradley Fighting Vehicle, whose crew roared down the main road in the village of Sokil, in eastern Ukraine, where the Kremlin has gained ground this year.

The Russians emerged from the trees, and for a few chaotic seconds, the two vehicles barreled toward each other while firing their heavy guns. Viktor’s took a catastrophic hit to its targeting system, disabling the main weapon.

The May 31 exchange, captured on drone video that subsequently went viral online, underscores how Kyiv has used U.S.-provided Bradleys in unique and extreme ways to work around its depleted artillery stocks and manpower shortages, soldiers and analysts said.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

12 June 2024 20:46

U.S. lifts weapons ban on Ukrainian military unit

The Biden administration will allow a Ukrainian military unit with a checkered past to use U.S. weaponry, the State Department said Monday, having lifted a ban imposed years ago amid concerns in Washington about the group’s origins.

The Azov Brigade, known for its tenacious but ultimately unsuccessful defense of the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol early in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is regarded as a particularly effective fighting force. But it was barred about a decade ago from using American arms because U.S. officials determined that some of its founders espoused racist, xenophobic and ultranationalist views, and U.N. human rights officials accused the group of humanitarian violations.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

10 June 2024 14:42

In Putin’s wartime Russia, military corruption is suddenly taboo

Russia’s war in Ukraine has turned out to be a powerful anti-corruption initiative — at least at the Ministry of Defense.

For years, Russia tolerated rampant graft within its military and Defense Ministry. But in a bid to be certain that the country’s ballooning military and security spending results in more soldiers, weapons and other equipment and supplies on the front line, the Kremlin has suddenly undertaken an aggressive crackdown — purging officials with extravagant lifestyles or who have been critical of the military command.

Last month, President Vladimir Putin reassigned his longtime defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, to be head of Russia’s national security council. In Shoigu’s place, Putin appointed a former economy minister, Andrei Belousov, with a mandate to use the country’s growing defense budget “sparingly yet effectively.”

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

06 June 2024 20:50

Outages shroud Ukraine as Russian strikes on power plants take their toll

KYIV — The cutoffs started Monday and have only increased throughout the week, plunging much of Ukraine’s capital into darkness save for a few hours every day. In some parts of the city, even the traffic lights are turned off, and at night entire neighborhoods are draped in black.

The relentless pounding of Ukraine’s power plants by Russian drones and missiles are finally being felt. The state electricity distributor, Ukrenegro, said the latest onslaught on the power grid over the weekend meant rationing power throughout the country. It had been the sixth such barrage since March.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

02 June 2024 18:58

Basic training in Ukraine is barely covering the basics, commanders say

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — As Ukraine prepares to mobilize tens of thousands of men to address a critical shortage of soldiers amid intensified Russian attacks, Ukrainian commanders in the field say they are bracing for most of the new troops to arrive with poor training.

Ukrainian commanders have long griped about lackluster preparation for recruits at training centers. But with Russia on the offensive, the persistent complaints are a reminder that a newly adopted mobilization law intended to widen the pool of draft-eligible men is just one step in solving the military’s personnel problems.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

30 May 2024 17:33

As Ukraine stumbles in war, Kyiv and Western powers struggle to coordinate

Sharp fractures are opening between Kyiv and its Western backers, including the United States, over the future of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. Ukrainian leaders have increasingly complained that Washington is restricting their ability to respond to Russian attacks as U.S. policymakers push them to do more to fight corruption even amid the worsening war. Meanwhile, European and American officials are quarreling about strategy to turn the tide on the battlefield.

There have been frustrations virtually from the moment Russia’s invasion began in February 2022, but policymakers in Washington, Kyiv and around Europe said tensions have grown sharper in recent weeks as Russia has seized the initiative on the front lines and started recapturing territory liberated earlier in the war.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

28 May 2024 18:35

NATO chief and European allies urge U.S. to let Ukraine strike inside Russia

Washington is facing mounting pressure from NATO and several key European allies to lift restrictions and allow Ukraine to use the full force of U.S.-provided weapons to strike military targets inside Russia. The demands reflect new alarm in the West over Russian battlefield advances in recent days, including the seizure of several villages in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions and brutal bombings that have killed dozens of civilians.

“If you cannot attack the Russian forces on the other side of the front line because they are on the other side of the border, then of course you really reduce the ability of the Ukrainian forces to defend themselves,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s top political official, said during a visit to Bulgaria on Monday.

NATO’s parliamentary assembly, meanwhile, issued a declaration urging that the restrictions be lifted.

Read the full story here.