The Washington Post

17 February 2024 13:12

Alexei Navalny’s wife and two children learned of his death from afar

As Telegram exploded with the news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, his wife, Yuliya Navalnaya was in Germany — about to attend the annual Munich Security Conference surrounded by world leaders, defense officials, and within view of countless television cameras.

Navalnaya has generally sought to avoid the spotlight, to shield her two children from the fallout of her husband’s political work, and also to deny his tormentors in the Kremlin, including President Vladimir Putin, the satisfaction of ever seeing her cry. But as she took to the stage and delivered a dramatic, surprise statement, grief and worry were etched across her swollen face, and her eyes were tearful and blotchy.

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The Washington Post

16 February 2024 18:04

Exclusive: Kremlin runs disinformation campaign to undermine Zelensky, documents show

When news first emerged last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to fire his top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, officials in Moscow seemed jubilant. They had been trying to orchestrate just such a split for many months, documents show.

“We need to strengthen the conflict between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, along the lines of ‘he intends to fire him,’” one Kremlin political strategist wrote a year ago, after a meeting of senior Russian officials and Moscow spin doctors, according to internal Kremlin documents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration ordered a group of Russian political strategists to use social media and fake news articles to push the theme that Zelensky “is hysterical and weak. … He fears that he will be pushed aside, therefore he is getting rid of the dangerous ones.”

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

15 February 2024 21:04

Ukraine on verge of losing Avdiivka, strategic city long targeted by Russia

AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As fighters from the Ukrainian Security Service’s “Alpha” special forces branch drove through the blackness with night-vision goggles last week, Post journalists riding along saw only an occasional flash of light on the horizon — from yet more explosions in the besieged city, which is now the focus of the most pitched fighting in the war. A Russian drone above could not be seen, but a handheld device confirmed its presence.

The ruined coke and chemical plant, once an economic pillar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, is likely to be the last Ukrainian stronghold in Avdiivka, which has been embattled since 2014. Ukrainian troops say it is just a matter of time before they will have to surrender the city, and on Thursday the military said forces had already pulled back from some positions as the Russians have begun advancing rapidly.

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The Washington Post

11 February 2024 19:23

Tucker Carlson exposed Putin’s true war motive: For Russia to own Ukraine

KYIV — Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, thought Vladimir Putin went to war in Ukraine because he feared an imminent attack by the United States or NATO. Instead, after a two-hour interview of the Russian president in Moscow, Carlson said he was “shocked” to learn that Putin invaded for a different reason: “Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historic claim to parts of … Ukraine,” he said.

“What you are about to see seemed to us sincere,” Carlson told his internet viewers before the interview was broadcast on Thursday evening: “A sincere expression of what he thinks.”

For Carlson, and the American audience that the Kremlin was aiming to reach by agreeing to the interview, that may have been a surprise. But for Ukrainians, who have been living for more than two decades with Putin denying Ukraine’s right to exist as a country separate from Russia, the interview sparked only fury.

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The Washington Post

09 February 2024 13:55

Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.

In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.

The reports of acute troop shortages come as President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to replace his military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, with one chief disagreement being over how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize.

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The Washington Post

08 February 2024 13:37

Russia bars antiwar candidate from challenging Putin in March election

MOSCOW — Russian electoral authorities on Thursday banned the only remaining antiwar candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, from running against President Vladimir Putin in the March election, suggesting a degree of nervousness about an antiwar protest vote amid national war fatigue.

Russian authorities have long manipulated elections in a process officials have euphemistically described as “managed democracy,” and next month’s election is widely seen as a formality designed to ensure Putin’s long-term grip on power.

But the banning of Nadezhdin signals the Kremlin’s further shift from democracy to a system that Russian analysts describe as authoritarian, bordering on totalitarianism, where manipulated elections are used to provide a thin veneer of legitimacy for the 71-year-old president, without threatening his power

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The Washington Post

05 February 2024 21:30

A year along the vital river that flows through Ukraine’s heart

Angular shards of ice clink off one another, turn and clink again as they cluster along the banks of the Dnieper River in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in the early months of 2023.

Just next to the water’s edge, Valerya Dobrovolska, 28, a website developer, trudges through the sand and ice, looking out toward the last slither of sun as it sets over the city’s domed skyline on the opposite bank.

“This is my safe place,” says Dobrovolska, who stayed in Kyiv when Russian troops attempted to invade the city in spring 2022, “My whole life is connected to this river.”

After nearly two years of war, Kyiv is in the flow of a new normal — calm on the surface, but pain and uncertainty running deep.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

02 February 2024 21:21

Breaking news: Ukraine informs U.S. about decision to fire top general

Ukraine has informed the White House that President Zelensky has decided to fire his top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, in what would be the most consequential personnel shake-up of the war, said two people familiar with the discussion.

White House officials did not support or object to the high-stakes decision, but acknowledged it as the president’s sovereign choice, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive conversation.

Zelensky has yet to issue a formal decree announcing the ouster of Zaluzhny, and it is uncertain when that might happen. The advance notice to Washington, which has not been previously reported, reflects the influential role of the United States as Ukraine’s most powerful military and political backer.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

02 February 2024 15:32

Zelensky’s shake-up of military command, meant as a refresh, risks backlash

KYIV — When Volodymyr Zelensky told his top commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, on Monday that he would soon be dismissed, the Ukrainian president suggested a leadership change might help provide a refresh. The public is increasingly exhausted by the war, and aid from international partners has slowed, Zelensky said, according to a senior Ukrainian official familiar with their conversation.

But a swift, negative reaction in the military ranks, misgivings among some officials in Kyiv, and uncertainty in the West suggest Zelensky’s removal of the popular general could backfire — allowing Moscow to seize on the instability. It could also deliver a blow to morale among troops on the front lines, especially because there has been no public explanation for Zaluzhny’s expected dismissal.

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The Washington Post

01 February 2024 13:29

European Union finally agrees to more than $50 billion in Ukraine aid

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders agreed Thursday to more than $50 billion in aid for Ukraine, overcoming opposition from Hungary to secure critical funding as battlefield progress stalls and support from the United States looks uncertain.

In emergency meetings in Brussels, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has spent months railing against the aid, finally agreed to sign on — though the terms remain unclear.

The agreement is a win for E.U. leaders who have increasingly struggled to work with Orban on key issues, particularly Russia’s war in Ukraine, and it is good news for Ukraine, which is running desperately short of both ammunition and cash.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

31 January 2024 15:28

Zelensky to oust Ukraine’s top general amid tension over new mobilization

KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his top commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, that he was firing him in a meeting on Monday, according to a senior official familiar with the conversation — a disruptive military shake-up amid Ukraine’s struggles on the battlefield and after months of friction between the president and the popular general.

Zaluzhny remains in his post for now, but a formal presidential decree is expected to confirm his ousting nearly two years into Russia’s invasion and as Moscow’s forces appear to be gaining the strategic initiative on some parts of the front.

On Monday, Zelensky’s spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, denied that Zaluzhny had been fired. “There is no subject of conversation,” Nykyforov told reporters. “There is no order. The president did not dismiss the commander in chief.”

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The Washington Post

28 January 2024 13:35

Russia projects confidence as it pursues alliances to undermine West

Russia is increasingly confident that deepening economic and diplomatic ties with China and the Global South will allow it to challenge the international financial system dominated by the United States and undermine the West, according to Kremlin documents and interviews with Russian officials and business executives.

Russia has been buoyed by its success in holding off a Western-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive followed by political stalemates in Washington and Brussels over continued funding for Kyiv. In Moscow’s view, the U.S. backing of Israel’s invasion of Gaza has damaged Washington’s standing in many parts of the world. The confluence of events has led to a surge of optimism about Russia’s global position.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

27 January 2024 13:41

This man wants to run against Putin. Thousands of Russians are helping him.

RIGA, Latvia — Boris Nadezhdin claims he wants to do the unthinkable: unseat Vladimir Putin in Russia’s March presidential election by campaigning against the war in Ukraine. Many Putin critics suspect that Nadezhdin, a former member of parliament, is playing by the Kremlin’s rules — and is the latest to join a cast of approved opposition candidates used to create a sheen of democracy in a ruthless, authoritarian state where true dissent is crushed and genuine challengers are jailed or exiled.

Despite these misgivings, tens of thousands of antiwar Russians have flocked to help Nadezhdin get on the ballot. They don’t believe he will win, and some even dislike him, citing his appearances on propagandist state television programs and his previous job as an aide to Sergei Kiriyenko, who is now Putin’s domestic policy czar. Nonetheless, they view Nadezhdin, 60, as their own tool.

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The Washington Post

25 January 2024 20:12

Russia sentences woman to 27 years in bomb assassination of blogger

Russian courts on Thursday imposed prison sentences in two telling cases connected to the war in Ukraine, with one serving as a threat to pro-war Russians who criticize the military’s performance on the battlefield and another, much harsher sentence, as warning that Russians aiding Kyiv in this war will see no mercy.

In St. Petersburg, a military court sentenced Daria Trepova, a young antiwar activist, to 27 years in prison on terrorism charges connected to the killing of a prominent pro-war blogger in a cafe, the harshest known sentence for a woman in modern Russian history.

Trepova, 26, was arrested last spring and accused of giving a statuette with a bomb inside to Maxim Fomin, a pro-war commentator and Telegram blogger with over half a million followers, better known by his pen name Vladlen Tatarsky. Fomin died in the blast.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

24 January 2024 16:20

Russian military jet crashes near Belgorod, killing 74, officials say

RIGA, Latvia — A Russian military plane crashed on Wednesday in the western Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, killing 74 people on board, Russian state media reported.

Immediately after the 11 a.m. crash, there were conflicting reports about who was on the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were being transferred to the region for a subsequent swap. Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news outlet, citing unnamed military officials, reported that the plane was transporting missiles.

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The Washington Post

16 February 2024 21:30

For Putin nemesis Alexei Navalny, long-feared death arrives in Arctic prison

RIGA, Latvia — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the defiant anti-corruption crusader and democracy champion who was President Vladimir Putin’s despised nemesis, died suddenly in an Arctic Russian prison colony on Friday, penitentiary officials said, removing the most prominent figure inside Russia willing to challenge the Kremlin’s rule.

His death — foretold as almost inevitable, including by Navalny himself — sent shock waves across Russia and was quickly condemned by global leaders, some of whom joined Russian opposition figures in calling it a state-sponsored murder. Navalny, 47, had appeared a court hearing by video link the day before, seemingly in good health and with his trademark humor intact.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

16 February 2024 14:16

Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition leader, dies in prison, officials say

RIGA, Latvia — Russia’s jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, died in a Russian prison colony on Friday, Russia’s prison service announced in the early afternoon, without giving the cause of his death. News of his death flooded across Russian Telegram news channels early Friday afternoon and was later confirmed in a curt announcement by prison authorities.

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The Washington Post

13 February 2024 20:26

Russian court sentences sociologist to five years for criticizing war

RIGA, Latvia — A Russian military court on Tuesday sentenced Boris Kagarlitsky, a prominent sociologist, to five years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine — a shocking turnabout after another court originally ordered Kagarlitsky to pay a $6,500 fine but no prison time.

The brutally toughened sentence was issued after an appeal from prosecutors, Russian state media reported, and it reflected a continuing harsh crackdown on the few dissident voices remaining in Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Kagarlitsky is the editor in chief of the Marxist online publication Rabkor and a university professor who has been designated as foreign agent, a label Russian authorities have attached to many of those who have criticized the war.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

09 February 2024 20:59

Putin, in rambling interview, barely lets Tucker Carlson get a word in

Russian President Vladimir Putin spent the first 30 minutes of his two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson giving a revisionist historical tirade on the founding myths of Russia and Ukraine, the breakup of the Soviet Union and NATO expansionism.

From there, admonishing Carlson when he interrupted, Putin pontificated on matters ranging from the war in Ukraine and relations with the United States to the case of imprisoned American reporter Evan Gershkovich, and even to artificial intelligence.

By the end of the conversation, it was clear that Putin had no intention of ending his brutal war against Ukraine. But Carlson, who was sacked from Fox last year, seemed ready to surrender. Putin offered to keep talking. Carlson, evidently exhausted by the Russian leader’s long-winded conspiracy theories and grievances against the West, thanked him and called it quits.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

08 February 2024 19:33

Zelensky replaces military chief, naming Syrsky top commander

KYIV — Oleksandr Syrsky will be Ukraine’s next military chief after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Thursday night that he had replaced Gen. Valery Zaluzhny — the latest twist in a drawn-out saga between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, who told the military chief 10 days ago that he was being dismissed.

The decision to name Syrsky as Zaluzhny’s replacement is expected to be an unpopular one among Ukraine’s troops. The 58-year-old commander of Ukraine’s ground forces was credited with leading the defense of Kyiv in the first month of the war and then orchestrating a successful counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region in fall 2022.

But among rank-and-file soldiers, Syrsky is especially disliked, considered by many to be a Soviet-style commander who kept forces under fire too long in the eastern city of Bakhmut when Ukraine should have withdrawn.

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The Washington Post

07 February 2024 19:46

Trapped between two wars, Ukrainians in Gaza plead for an exit

Two years ago, with Russia pummeling Ukraine and nowhere else to flee, 24-year-old Yulia saw her husband’s hometown, Gaza City, as a sanctuary.

The couple moved to the seaside strip with their young son and built a comfortable life despite the hardships of a long-running Israeli blockade. Yulia became a manicurist and bonded with other Ukrainian women married to Palestinians. Her husband found engineering work. In Gaza, they welcomed a second child, another blue-eyed boy. Photos show the brothers smiling together on a sunny patch of grass.

Today, those boys — ages 5 and 1 — are displaced, hungry and terrified, their insides churning from contaminated water and their faces pocked with shrapnel wounds. Again plunged into war, Yulia, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used because of security concerns, said the main difference in Gaza is that, unlike in Ukraine, “there is no way out.”

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

05 February 2024 18:36

Russia poised to bar only antiwar candidate from presidential race

MOSCOW — The only remaining antiwar candidate seeking to run in Russia’s presidential election, Boris Nadezhdin, will probably be barred from the ballot, after Russian electoral authorities on Monday alleged irregularities in his attempt to register as a candidate.

A working group of Russia’s Central Election Commission rejected more than 15 percent of the first 60,000 signatures it reviewed among the more than 100,000 Nadezhdin has submitted as a requirement to register. The working group recommended he be barred, and the commission is expected to issue a final decision on Wednesday.

Russian authorities have long manipulated elections, banning any candidate who poses a threat to President Vladimir Putin — such as the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny — and admitting only a handpicked coterie of candidates who cooperate with the regim

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The Washington Post

02 February 2024 19:36

Ukraine’s top general, awaiting dismissal order, urges futuristic overhaul

KYIV — With his days in command apparently numbered, Ukraine’s top general alleged on Thursday that the Ukrainian government had failed to mobilize sufficient numbers of troops and called for an urgent upgrade of the country’s high-tech warfare capabilities to overcome Russia’s larger and better-armed forces “and ensure the existence of statehood.”

Gen. Valery Zaluzhny was told on Monday by President Volodymyr Zelensky that he was being dismissed, but as of Friday evening there was still no formal order removing him as head of commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, no announcement of a successor, and no public explanation by the president of any leadership change.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

01 February 2024 20:29

Exclusive: Precision equipment for Russian arms makers came from U.S.-allied Taiwan

Since January 2023, I Machine Technology has imported over $20 million of sophisticated equipment called CNC machine tools made in Taiwan, a U.S. strategic partner, according to trade records and Russian tax documents obtained by The Post. The computer-controlled machines are used for the complex and precise manufacturing that is critical in many industries, including weapons production.

The Taiwan-made machines accounted for virtually all of the Russian company’s imports in the first seven months of last year, according to the records, and the company’s sales during that period were overwhelmingly to the Russian defense industry.

The shipments highlight how, despite a U.S.-led regime of global restrictions that is one of the most expansive in history, Russia’s defense industry has remained robust partly because of regulatory loopholes and lax enforcement.

Read the full investigation here.

The Washington Post

31 January 2024 20:36

Russia, Ukraine trade POWs with no new word of passengers on downed plane

Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners Wednesday, exactly a week after Russia accused Ukraine of shooting down a military plane that Moscow claimed was carrying dozens of Ukrainian POWs being transported to a swap later that day.

Ukraine has not denied shooting down the aircraft, an Ilyushin Il-76, but says that Russia has provided no evidence that POWs were onboard. The incident raised concerns that future exchanges of POWs would be suspended.

But in a surprising announcement Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 195 Russian soldiers had been exchanged for “exactly” the same number of Ukrainian soldiers.

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The Washington Post

28 January 2024 17:54

Ukraine says defense officials stole $40 million meant for ammunition

KYIV — Ukrainian officials stole about $40 million meant for the purchase of ammunition for the military, the country’s internal security service said Saturday — confirming a massive procurement fraud as Kyiv seeks to assure international backers that it is cracking down on corruption.

Though it was state money — not foreign aid — that was embezzled, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement, the scheme is likely to resonate in both Washington and Brussels, where European Union membership and continued financial and military assistance hang in the balance.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

27 January 2024 16:19

Exclusive: U.S. war plans for Ukraine don’t foresee retaking lost territory

Still smarting from last year’s failed counteroffensive in Ukraine, the Biden administration is putting together a new strategy that will de-emphasize winning back territory and focus instead on helping Ukraine fend off new Russian advances while moving toward a long-term goal of strengthening its fighting force and economy.

The emerging plan is a sharp change from last year, when the U.S. and allied militaries rushed training and sophisticated equipment to Kyiv in hopes that it could quickly push back Russian forces occupying eastern and southern Ukraine. That effort foundered, largely on Russia’s heavily fortified minefields and front-line trenches.

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The Washington Post

26 January 2024 13:45

Kharkiv’s air defense struggles to halt nonstop Russian missiles

NORTH OF KHARKIV, Ukraine — Russia hit Kharkiv, which sits just 19 miles south of the border, three times on Tuesday. The barrages were the latest in a series of recent strikes that appear aimed in part to exploit weak points in Ukraine’s air defense systems.

The missile strikes show that Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to destroy Ukraine rather than allow the country to pursue an independent, democratic future in the European Union. They also show that Ukraine still does not have enough air defenses even after the West supplied Kyiv with an array of systems.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

25 January 2024 13:56

Ukraine alleges Russian disinformation in downing of military plane

KYIV — Russia and Ukraine traded blame and pushed dueling narratives Thursday over the downing of a Russian military plane, which Moscow said was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were about to be exchanged and returned home to their families. Everyone aboard was killed, Russia said.

Ukraine has not confirmed whether POWs were on board. Nor has it directly confirmed that it shot down the Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane, which crashed Wednesday in Russia’s Belgorod region, just north of the Ukrainian border.

But in their statements about the incident, senior Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have not denied shooting down the plane, and some have emphasized Ukraine’s right — and urgent need — to target Russian military aircraft given Moscow’s ongoing invasion, constant airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and push to seize more territory.

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The Washington Post

23 January 2024 21:09

Turkey votes in favor of Sweden’s NATO membership after months of delay

ISTANBUL — After 20 months of demands, obstruction and delay, the Turkish parliament on Tuesday night voted in favor of Sweden joining NATO, clearing one of the final hurdles for a major expansion of the military alliance set in motion by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still needs to sign the document into law.

Assuming he does, Hungary would be the last remaining holdout. Officials there have previously signaled they would not, ultimately, stand in the way. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced, somewhat cryptically, that he had invited the Swedish prime minister to visit to “negotiate on Sweden’s NATO accession.”

If both Turkey and Hungary get on board, the alliance could formally welcome its 32nd member, potentially sealing the deal before its 75th anniversary this spring.

Read the full story here.