White House Calls on Russia to Release Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich

A journalists worse nightmare.

At WSJ, "Biden Calls on Russia to Release Journal Reporter":

WASHINGTON—President Biden urged Russia to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich Friday—shouting “let him go” as he boarded a helicopter—amid a rift in U.S.-Russia relations already so wide that the two powers barely maintain diplomatic communications.

Mr. Biden said the U.S. didn’t plan any expulsion of Russian diplomats. “That’s not the plan right now,” he said from the South Lawn of the White House before departing for Joint Base Andrews.

Past expulsions have prompted tit-for-tat retaliation from Moscow, leaving both the U.S. Embassy in Russia and Russia’s Embassy in Washington with skeleton staff.

More than three dozen top global news organizations joined in the call for Mr. Gershkovich’s release, saying they were deeply troubled by his detention.

“Gershkovich’s unwarranted and unjust arrest is a significant escalation in your government’s anti-press actions,” they said in a letter to Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. “Russia is sending the message that journalism within your borders is criminalized and that foreign correspondents seeking to report from Russia do not enjoy the benefits of the rule of law.”

The sunken state of U.S.-Russia ties will make any agreement on the release of Mr. Gershkovich, 31, difficult to secure as he heads toward a trial in a court under the control of Russia’s security service, the FSB, U.S. officials say.

Such a court is expected to operate on the orders of the Kremlin, increasing the prospect of a conviction after a trial that may be held in secret. The FSB said Thursday that Mr. Gershkovich was detained Wednesday for alleged espionage while on a reporting trip to the Russian provincial city of Yekaterinburg, around 800 miles east of Moscow. The Journal vehemently denied wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Gershkovich and called for his immediate release.

In Washington, President Biden urged on Friday Mr. Gershkovich’s release. “Let him go,” he said.

Kremlin watchers say Mr. Gershkovich was likely detained so Moscow could use him in a prisoner swap. The fact that Russia has charged him with espionage, rather than a common criminal offense, suggests the Kremlin will want a big prize in return for his release, said John J. Sullivan, who served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow until last year.

“This is not an arrest that the local police or FSB would do on their own,” said Mr. Sullivan, now a distinguished fellow at Georgetown University in Washington. The charge of espionage, he said, is a big development and a very bad sign.

The arrest of Mr. Gershkovich, a Russian speaker whose parents came to the U.S. from the former Soviet Union, marked the latest diplomatic flashpoint between Moscow and Washington. The two countries, already on opposite sides of the war in Ukraine, have also clashed over the arrests of each other’s citizens and the state of nuclear-arms treaties. The U.S. has also led an array of countries in imposing sanctions on Russia in a campaign to choke its economy following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the Journal said. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”

Although Moscow has arrested American citizens on espionage charges, the detention of a journalist is rare. The last U.S. journalist to face such a charge was U.S. News & World Report journalist Nicholas Daniloff in 1986.

In that case, Moscow had a clear motive: Three days before Mr. Daniloff’s arrest, the U.S. had detained a Soviet employee of its United Nations delegation in New York in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting. After intense negotiations, Mr. Daniloff was released less than three weeks later in an exchange for the diplomat. Mr. Daniloff denied the espionage allegation.

A swap for Mr. Gershkovich could be more difficult today because of the poor state of U.S.-Russian relations, former diplomats say. In 1986, relations between Moscow and Washington were on the upswing, and both sides were anxious to try to preserve some of the progress.

Today, ties are on a downward trajectory, and Russia’s rhetoric suggests it sees itself in an existential conflict with the U.S., said Andrew Weiss, a vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he studies Russia and Eurasia.

Along with diplomacy, people-to-people contacts between the two countries have dried up, and the business relationship, which was never extensive, “is largely in tatters,” Mr. Weiss said...

 

The State Department's Toxic Equity Agenda

At City Journal, "Woke forces are working to turn America’s diplomatic corps into an arm of the Democratic Party":

Though support for the Black Lives Matter movement has plummeted over the last 12 months, many United States embassies and consulates will fly BLM flags again this year to mark Juneteenth. The display of BLM and Progress Pride flags, including at the U.S. Embassy in Vatican City, is just part of the State Department’s woke equity agenda, spearheaded by Ambassador Gina Abercrombie–Winstanley, the department’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer.

Winstanley participated in an Equity Town Hall this past week in order to discuss the State Department’s Equity Action Plan, which reads like something cooked up in the Evergreen State College faculty lounge. The 19-page document promises to “embed equity into U.S. foreign policies,” to “embed intersectional equity principles into diversifying public diplomacy,” and to “increase inclusive, equitable messaging to combat disinformation.”

A year ago, when I condemned the State Department in the Wall Street Journal for flying the BLM flag, BLM’s public support stood at around 50 percent, depending on the poll. Now that support has plummeted to 31 percent, according to a recent poll. A leaked cable in May 2021 revealed that State authorized posts to fly the BLM flag for the remainder of the year. A source told me that a February 2022 cable encouraged posts to fly BLM flags for Black History month and other occasions. The cable indicated that State Department lawyers believe that flying the flag isn’t a violation of the Hatch Act, which prevents federal employees from engaging in political activities at work. I asked a State Department spokesperson to confirm if posts were still authorized to fly BLM flags...

The embassies are overseas, though our country's being destroyed from within.

Keep reading.

 

The Fast-Gathering Storm

From Andrew Sullivan, at the Weekly Dish, "How close are we getting to a full-on war between Russia and the West?":

“The beginning of every war is like opening the door into a dark room. One never knows what is hidden in the darkness,” opined a certain Austrian maniac. And what we are discovering about Putin’s Russia as this brutal war continues, is something extremely dark.

The rhetoric in Moscow is now outright eliminationist toward not just Ukraine, but Ukrainians as a people. The more bogged down the Russian military, the more intense the “de-Nazification” memes. With each defeat, from the failure to take Kyiv to the sinking of the Mockva, the sense of humiliation and anger grows. In the words of one Kremlin propagandist: “It’s no accident we call them Nazis. What makes you a Nazi is your bestial nature, your bestial hatred and your bestial willingness to tear out the eyes of children on the basis of nationality.” Ukrainians are being dehumanized — deemed not just victims of a “Nazi” regime but somehow Nazis themselves. It’s hard not to recall Aleksandr Dugin’s 2014 remark when asked his view of Ukraine: “Kill! Kill! Kill! There can be no other discussion. This is my opinion as a professor.”

The rhetoric on Russian TV is about ending Ukrainian identity, as well as Ukraine, altogether. “Ukrainianism, fueled by anti-Russian poison and all-consuming lies about its identity, is one big fake,” pronounced Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s mini-me. And the tactics — mass rapes, wholesale flattening of cities such as Mariupol, profligate torture, mass-murder of civilians — are those of a country seeking some kind of psychic purge of its ungrateful and traitorous Ukrainian subjects. The removal of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia proper is yet another sign of Putin’s genocidal mania.

As this sinks in, Europe is instinctually, understandably rallying to support Ukraine. Because Europe proper is next in line for Russia’s aggression if Ukraine loses. Boris Johnson has grasped the crisis as a way to play FDR (BoJo) to Churchill (Zelensky), sending arms to Ukraine, arriving in Kyiv for a photo-op with Zelensky, with whom he seems to have bonded. The UK alone has sent 4,000 anti-tank weapons, including Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapons, or NLAWs, and Javelin missiles. More are on the way. They have had a real effect.

And the EU is now doing something no one expected only a couple of weeks ago: considering a ban on Russian oil imports. Finland and Sweden may join NATO in a matter of weeks. The US is now funneling arms and training to Ukraine, as Russia menaces from the east: “The training will focus on using 155mm howitzer cannons, counter-artillery radar and Sentinel air defense radars, and will take a few days each.” This comes after years of NATO training of Ukrainian armed forces, which helps explain their remarkable early success in nimbly thwarting Russia’s onslaught.

The emergency spending from Congress a month ago for military and other foreign aid to Ukraine amounted to $13.6 billion. The aid is a culmination of deep support from the US since 2014. It’s getting more and more aggressive. Just this week, the Biden administration offered another “$800 million in additional security assistance for Ukraine, including artillery, armored personnel carriers, and Humvees ... The new package includes heavier weaponry than the U.S. previously had provided and — for the first time — American-made artillery pieces.”

But the demand for this sum to grow even further is becoming the conventional wisdom in DC. Fareed Zakaria explains why: “the world is expected to pay $320 billion to Russia this year for its energy.” $16 billion doesn’t seem so impressive. Fareed also notes what is evident: the Russians are doing far better in the south than in the north, and could throttle Ukraine if they manage to capture Odessa. So what should the West do?

[NATO] should enforce an embargo around those waters, preventing Russian troops from entering to attack Ukraine’s cities or resupply Russian forces. NATO ships would operate from international waters, issuing any approaching ships a “notice to mariners” that NATO forces are active in the area and warning them not to enter.

No risk elevation there!

Let’s be real: This is a Europe-wide war, fast becoming a global one. And as Putin gets more isolated, and his war drags on without a breakthrough, Russia is upping the ante too. The CIA director, Nicholas Burns, just worried out loud about Putin’s possible reach for chemical or nuclear weapons: “His risk appetite has grown as his grip on Russia has tightened … Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.”

If and when Russia begins a new onslaught on eastern and southern Ukraine, with the potential for Grozny-like devastation and war crimes, the pressure on all these countries to keep Ukraine free will get even more intense. Russia will be sorely tempted to prevent these huge military transfers by attacking supply lines from the west. Medvedev has warned of an end to a nuclear-free Baltic zone if Finland and Sweden join NATO. Putin cannot lose this war in the eyes of the Russian public — and has far, far more invested in Ukraine than the West does, as Barack Obama once reminded us.

And while support for the war remains solid in the US, it is not uppermost in voters’ minds, as they cope with raging inflation and rising crime. In France, a candidate who would oppose a EU oil embargo and who’s been chummy with Putin in the past, Marine Le Pen, is polling far better than expected. The Germans remain the most reluctant anti-Putin country in Europe, and if their economy goes into the shitter this fall with spiraling energy costs, who knows how long their will to fight back will last? Much of the developing world is ambivalent but leery of the US. And all this Western mobilization gives credence to Putin’s propaganda, does it not? It’s simply true that Ukraine, while not in NATO, is essentially a NATO outpost, using NATO weapons, to defend their country.

If and when Russia begins a new onslaught on eastern and southern Ukraine, with the potential for Grozny-like devastation and war crimes, the pressure on all these countries to keep Ukraine free will get even more intense. Russia will be sorely tempted to prevent these huge military transfers by attacking supply lines from the west. Medvedev has warned of an end to a nuclear-free Baltic zone if Finland and Sweden join NATO. Putin cannot lose this war in the eyes of the Russian public — and has far, far more invested in Ukraine than the West does, as Barack Obama once reminded us.

And while support for the war remains solid in the US, it is not uppermost in voters’ minds, as they cope with raging inflation and rising crime. In France, a candidate who would oppose a EU oil embargo and who’s been chummy with Putin in the past, Marine Le Pen, is polling far better than expected. The Germans remain the most reluctant anti-Putin country in Europe, and if their economy goes into the shitter this fall with spiraling energy costs, who knows how long their will to fight back will last? Much of the developing world is ambivalent but leery of the US. And all this Western mobilization gives credence to Putin’s propaganda, does it not? It’s simply true that Ukraine, while not in NATO, is essentially a NATO outpost, using NATO weapons, to defend their country...

 

With New Punishments, West Escalates Pressure on Russia

The latest on Ukraine.

At the NewYork Times, "West Moves to Curb Russian Coal and Trade Over Ukraine War":

BRUSSELS — Western nations on Thursday escalated their pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, with the European Union approving a ban on Russian coal and the United States moving to strip Russia’s trading privileges and prohibit its energy sales in the American market.

The new punishments came as the United Nations General Assembly took a symbolically important vote to penalize Russia by suspending it from the Human Rights Council, the 47-member U.N. body that can investigate rights abuses. Western diplomats called the suspension a barometer of global outrage over the war and the growing evidence of atrocities committed by Russian forces.

That evidence includes newly revealed radio transmissions intercepted by German intelligence in which Russian forces discussed carrying out indiscriminate killings north of Kyiv, the capital, according to two officials briefed on an intelligence report. Russia has denied any responsibility for atrocities.

Together, the steps announced Thursday represented a significant increase in efforts led by Western nations to isolate and inflict greater economic pain on Russia as its troops regroup for a wave of attacks in eastern Ukraine, prompting urgent calls by Ukrainian officials for civilians there to flee.

“These next few days may be your last chance to leave!” the regional governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, declared in a video on Facebook. “The enemy is trying to cut off all possible ways to leave. Do not delay — evacuate.”

But the Western penalties were unlikely to persuade Russia to stop the war, and they revealed how the allies were trying to minimize their own economic pain and prevent themselves from becoming entangled in a direct armed conflict with Moscow.

In some ways, the efforts underscored internal tensions among Russia’s critics over how best to manage the next stage of the conflict, which has created the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. The war is also indirectly worsening humanitarian and economic problems far from Ukraine, including rising food and energy prices that are exacerbating hunger and inflation, particularly in developing nations.

It took two days of protracted talks in Brussels for the European Union to approve a fifth round of sanctions against Russia that included its first ban on a Russian energy source, coal. But the measures were softened by several caveats, highlighting Europe’s diminishing appetite to absorb further economic fallout from the war.

The ban would be phased in over four months, instead of three as originally proposed, according to E.U. diplomats. Germany had been pushing for a longer transition period to wind down existing contracts, even though Russian coal is easier to replace with purchases from other suppliers, compared with oil and gas.

European diplomats also agreed to ban Russian-flagged vessels from E.U. ports, block trucks from Russia and its ally, Belarus, from E.U. roads, and stop the import of Russian seafood, cement, wood and liquor and the export to Russia of quantum computers and advanced semiconductors.

Ukrainian officials had urged Western nations to go further and completely cut off purchases of Russian oil and gas, contending that existing sanctions would not cripple Russia’s economy quickly or severely enough to affect President Vladimir V. Putin’s campaign to subjugate Ukraine by force.

“As long as the West continues buying Russian gas and oil, it is supporting Ukraine with one hand while supporting the Russian war machine with the other hand,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he urged members of the alliance to accelerate promised help to Ukraine’s outgunned military.

The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance would “further strengthen and sustain our support to Ukraine, so that Ukraine prevails in the face of Russia’s invasion.” But he did not offer details...

 

Ukraine Learns the Israel Lesson

From Lahav Harkov, a really sweet lady who writes for the Jerusalem Post, at Bari Weiss's Substack, "Zelensky said his country will emerge from the rubble a 'big Israel.’ What did he mean?":

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky declared Tuesday that, when the war is finally over, Ukraine would emerge from the rubble a “big Israel.”

He meant that the war would never really be over, that Ukraine would be on a permanent war footing, just as the Jewish state is. He meant that it would view its neighbors the way Israel has long viewed its own: As enemies waiting to pounce. Most importantly, he meant that Ukraine would never again rely on anyone else for its security: not the West, not the international community, not the so-called liberal order. It would be, like Israel, a nation apart, answering to no one but its people, in control of its own destiny.

It said something heroic about Ukraine, which has gone from pleading with NATO to save it from imminent destruction to fighting—forcing—the Russians into peace talks in a matter of weeks.

It said something not so heroic about the West, which had failed to admit Ukraine to NATO and, more recently, to wean itself off Russian oil and gas.

But mostly it said something profound about Israel—a country whose behavior over the past seven weeks has confused and confounded. How did the Israelis—scrappy, abrasive—become the convener of presidents and nations?

Zelensky has repeatedly suggested that the Russians and Ukrainians could meet in Jerusalem to hash out a peace agreement. It’s an amazing suggestion, even if he’s just floated it. Not Washington, not London, not Brussels or Paris. Jerusalem. The Israeli capital, which, until just a few years ago, the United States did not even recognize as the Israeli capital.

It wasn’t Joe Biden who was shuttling to meet with Putin, but Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, an observant Jew who jetted to Moscow on Shabbat to meet with Vladimir Putin in the early days of the war. (He is the only Western leader to have done so.) Since then, Bennett has had countless separate phone calls with Putin and Zelensky, who repeatedly asked Bennett to mediate in the first place, and he has sought to remain as diplomatic as possible—the better to keep the Russians and Ukrainians talking to the Israelis.

All this has raised the increasingly burning question: whose side was Israel on?

Israeli politicians and the public overwhelmingly support Ukraine, but Zelensky, who is Jewish, was frustrated with what he saw as Jerusalem’s inaction. In an address to the Knesset last month, he tried to prod Israel into taking a greater stand by comparing the invasion of his country with the Holocaust. Noting that the invasion happened February 24, exactly 102 years after the Nazi Party was founded, Zelensky went on to rail against Russia’s “final solution,” repeating the Holocaust comparison so much that some Israeli politicians accused him of distorting its history.

On the one hand, Israel has flown plane loads of medical supplies, water-purification systems, winter coats and sleeping bags to the Ukrainians. And it is the only country that has built a field hospital in Ukraine. On the other hand, it won’t send military aid, including its famed Iron Dome anti-missile system. (Israeli officials say Iron Dome won’t work against Russian missiles.)

On the one hand, Israel has barred Russian oligarchs like Roman Abramovich from using Israel as a safe haven. On the other, it has not sanctioned Russia—as the United States, the European Union and many other countries have done. (Israeli lawmakers have noted that they lack the legal mechanism to impose sanctions.)

On the one hand, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has repeatedly condemned Russia’s attacks, and on Tuesday, while discussing the Bucha massacre, he accused Russia of “war crimes.” On the other, Bennett has only expressed a more general sorrow about the loss of life. Reacting to the slaughter at Bucha, the Israeli prime minister said, “We are shocked by what we see in Bucha, horrible images, and we condemn them”—but he refrained from explicitly condemning Russia or Putin.

How did Israel end up walking this tightrope? In part, it’s because Israel exists to be a safe haven for Jews everywhere, and there are still nearly half a million in Ukraine and Russia. Israel wants to make sure it doesn’t alienate Putin—and complicate things for the Jewish community in his country. (Since the war began, over 10,000 Jews have applied to immigrate to Israel from Russia. The country has prepared to absorb as many as 100,000 refugees.)

But the bigger reason is waning American hegemony. America’s post-Iraq war exhaustion with the Middle East led Israel to begin to see what Ukraine has just discovered: That it cannot rely on the assurances of an America that has turned inward—and away from the rest of the world. As the United States backed away from its “red line” in Syria and pursued a nuclear deal widely viewed in Israel as an existential threat, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu shifted Israel away from relying on the vaunted special relationship, forging new ones with China, India, and Russia, among others. Israel’s position in the Ukraine war has brought the Jewish state’s new geopolitical reality into stark relief.

When did the realignment begin? It’s a complicated story, but there are two years that matter most: 1989 and 2015...

Keep reading. 

The Price of Hegemony

It's neoconservative author and columnist Robert Kagan (who is married to Victory Nuland, part of the "neocon cabal" Glenn Greenwald's been wailing about), at Foreign Affairs, "Can America Learn to Use Its Power?":

For years, analysts have debated whether the United States incited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interventions in Ukraine and other neighboring countries or whether Moscow’s actions were simply unprovoked aggressions. That conversation has been temporarily muted by the horrors of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A wave of popular outrage has drowned out those who have long argued that the United States has no vital interests at stake in Ukraine, that it is in Russia’s sphere of interest, and that U.S. policies created the feelings of insecurity that have driven Putin to extreme measures. Just as the attack on Pearl Harbor silenced the anti-interventionists and shut down the debate over whether the United States should have entered World War II, Putin’s invasion has suspended the 2022 version of Americans’ endless argument over their purpose in the world.

That is unfortunate. Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’s inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading. Just as Pearl Harbor was the consequence of U.S. efforts to blunt Japanese expansion on the Asian mainland, and just as the 9/11 attacks were partly a response to the United States’ dominant presence in the Middle East after the first Gulf War, so Russian decisions have been a response to the expanding post–Cold War hegemony of the United States and its allies in Europe. Putin alone is to blame for his actions, but the invasion of Ukraine is taking place in a historical and geopolitical context in which the United States has played and still plays the principal role, and Americans must grapple with this fact.

For critics of American power, the best way for the United States to cope is for it to retrench its position in the world, divest itself of overseas obligations that others ought to handle, and serve, at most, as a distant offshore balancer. These critics would grant China and Russia their own regional spheres of interest in East Asia and Europe and focus the United States’ attention on defending its borders and improving the well-being of Americans. But there is a core of unrealism to this “realist” prescription: it doesn’t reflect the true nature of global power and influence that has characterized most of the post–Cold War era and that still governs the world today. The United States was already the only true global superpower during the Cold War, with its unparalleled wealth and might and its extensive international alliances. The collapse of the Soviet Union only enhanced U.S. global hegemony—and not because Washington eagerly stepped in to fill the vacuum left by Moscow’s weakness. Instead, the collapse expanded U.S. influence because the United States’ combination of power and democratic beliefs made the country attractive to those seeking security, prosperity, freedom, and autonomy. The United States is therefore an imposing obstacle to a Russia seeking to regain its lost influence.

What has happened in eastern Europe over the past three decades is a testament to this reality. Washington did not actively aspire to be the region’s dominant power. But in the years after the Cold War, eastern Europe’s newly liberated countries, including Ukraine, turned to the United States and its European allies because they believed that joining the transatlantic community was the key to independence, democracy, and affluence. Eastern Europeans were looking to escape decades—or, in some cases, centuries—of Russian and Soviet imperialism, and allying with Washington at a moment of Russian weakness afforded them a precious chance to succeed. Even if the United States had rejected their pleas to join NATO and other Western institutions, as critics insist it should have, the former Soviet satellites would have continued to resist Moscow’s attempts to corral them back into its sphere of interest, seeking whatever help from the West they could get. And Putin would still have regarded the United States as the main cause of this anti-Russian behavior, simply because the country was strong enough to attract eastern Europeans.

Throughout their history, Americans have tended to be unconscious of the daily impact that U.S. power has on the rest of the world, friends and foes alike. They are generally surprised to find themselves the target of resentment and of the kinds of challenges posed by Putin’s Russia and by President Xi Jinping’s China. Americans could reduce the severity of these challenges by wielding U.S. influence more consistently and effectively. They failed to do this in the 1920s and 1930s, allowing aggression by Germany, Italy, and Japan to go unchecked until it resulted in a massively destructive world war. They failed to do so in recent years, allowing Putin to seize more and more land until he invaded all of Ukraine. After Putin’s latest move, Americans may learn the right lesson. But they will still struggle to understand how Washington should act in the world if they don’t examine what happened with Russia, and that requires continuing the debate over the impact of U.S. power.

BY POPULAR DEMAND

So in what way might the United States have provoked Putin? One thing needs to be clear: it was not by threatening the security of Russia. Since the end of the Cold War, the Russians have objectively enjoyed greater security than at any time in recent memory. Russia was invaded three times over the past two centuries, once by France and twice by Germany. During the Cold War, Soviet forces were perpetually ready to battle U.S. and NATO forces in Europe. Yet since the end of the Cold War, Russia has enjoyed unprecedented security on its western flanks, even as NATO has taken in new members to its east. Moscow even welcomed what was in many ways the most significant addition to the alliance: a reunified Germany. When Germany was reunifying at the end of the Cold War, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev favored anchoring it in NATO. As he told U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, he believed that the best guarantee of Soviet and Russian security was a Germany “contained within European structures.”

Late Soviet and early Russian leaders certainly did not act as if they feared an attack from the West. Soviet and Russian defense spending declined sharply in the late 1980s and through the late 1990s, including by 90 percent between 1992 and 1996. The once formidable Red Army was cut nearly in half, leaving it weaker in relative terms than it had been for almost 400 years. Gorbachev even ordered the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Poland and other Warsaw Pact states, chiefly as a cost-saving measure. It was all part of a larger strategy to ease Cold War tensions so that Moscow might concentrate on economic reform at home. But even Gorbachev would not have sought this holiday from geopolitics had he believed that the United States and the West would take advantage of it.

His judgment was sensible. The United States and its allies had no interest in the independence of the Soviet republics, as U.S. President George H. W. Bush made clear in his 1991 speech in Kyiv, in which he denounced the “suicidal nationalism” of independence-minded Ukrainians (who would declare independence three weeks later). Indeed, for several years after 1989, U.S. policies aimed first to rescue Gorbachev, then to rescue the Soviet Union, and then to rescue Russian President Boris Yeltsin. During the period of transition from Gorbachev’s Soviet Union to Yeltsin’s Russia—the time of greatest Russian weakness—the Bush administration and then the Clinton administration were reluctant to expand NATO, despite the increasingly urgent appeals of the former Warsaw Pact states. The Clinton administration created the Partnership for Peace, whose vague assurances of solidarity fell well short of a security guarantee for former Warsaw Pact members.

It is easy to see why Washington felt no great compulsion to drive NATO eastward. Few Americans at that time saw the organization as a bulwark against Russian expansion, much less as a means of bringing Russia down. From the U.S. perspective, Russia was already a shell of its former self. The question was whether NATO had any mission at all now that the great adversary against which it was aimed had collapsed—and given just how hopeful the 1990s felt to most Americans and western Europeans. It was thought to be a time of convergence, when both China and Russia were moving ineluctably toward liberalism. Geoeconomics had replaced geopolitics, the nation-state was passing away, the world was “flat,” the twenty-first century would be run by the European Union, and Enlightenment ideals were spreading across the planet. For NATO, “out of area or out of business” was the mantra of the day.

But as the West enjoyed its fantasies and Russia struggled to adapt to a new world, the nervous populations lying to the east of Germany—the Balts, the Poles, the Romanians, and the Ukrainians—viewed the end of the Cold War as merely the latest phase in their centuries-old struggle. For them, NATO was not obsolete. They saw what the United States and western Europe took for granted—the Article 5 collective security guarantee—as the key to escaping a long, bloody, and oppressive past. Much like the French after World War I, who feared the day when a revived Germany would again threaten them, eastern Europeans believed that Russia would eventually resume its centuries-long habit of imperialism and seek to reclaim its traditional influence over their neighborhood. These states wanted to integrate into the free-market capitalism of their richer, Western neighbors, and membership in NATO and the European Union was to them the only path out of a dismal past and into a safer, more democratic, and more prosperous future. It was hardly surprising, then, that when Gorbachev and then Yeltsin loosened the reins in the early 1990s, practically every current, and soon former, Warsaw Pact member and Soviet republic seized the chance to break from the past and shift their allegiance from Moscow to the transatlantic West.

But although this massive change had little to do with U.S. policies, it had much to do with the reality of the United States’ post–Cold War hegemony. Many Americans tend to equate hegemony with imperialism, but the two are different. Imperialism is an active effort by one state to force others into its sphere, whereas hegemony is more a condition than a purpose. A militarily, economically, and culturally powerful country exerts influence on other states by its mere presence, the way a larger body in space affects the behavior of smaller bodies through its gravitational pull. Even if the United States was not aggressively expanding its influence in Europe, and certainly not through its military, the collapse of Soviet power enhanced the attractive pull of the United States and its democratic allies. Their prosperity, their freedom, and, yes, their power to protect former Soviet satellites, when combined with the inability of Moscow to provide any of these, dramatically shifted the balance in Europe in favor of Western liberalism to the detriment of Russian autocracy. The growth of U.S. influence and the spread of liberalism were less a policy objective of the United States than the natural consequence of that shift.

Russian leaders could have accommodated themselves to this new reality. Other great powers had adjusted to similar changes. The British had once been lords of the seas, the possessors of a vast global empire, and the center of the financial world. Then they lost it all. But although some were humiliated at being supplanted by the United States, Britons rather quickly adjusted to their new place in the firmament. The French, too, lost a great empire, and Germany and Japan, defeated in war, lost everything except their talent for producing wealth. But they all made the adjustment and were arguably better for it.

There were certainly Russians in the 1990s—Yeltsin’s foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, for one—who thought that Russia should make a similar decision. They wished to integrate Russia into the liberal West even at the expense of traditional geopolitical ambitions. But that was not the view that ultimately prevailed in Russia. Unlike the United Kingdom, France, and to some extent Japan, Russia did not have a long history of friendly relations and strategic cooperation with the United States—quite the contrary. Unlike Germany and Japan, Russia was not militarily defeated, occupied, and reformed in the process. And unlike Germany, which always knew that its economic power was irrepressible and that in the post–World War II order it could at least grow prosperous, Russia never really believed it could become a successful economic powerhouse. Its elites thought that the likeliest consequence of integration would be Russia’s demotion to, at best, a second-rank power. Russia would be at peace, and it would still have a chance to prosper. But it would not determine the fate of Europe and the world...

Keep reading. 

 

Zelensky in Bucha

The man looks worn down. He's aged 20 years in just one month. 

Video here, "Ukraine's President Zelensky says Russian actions make 'negotiations harder'."

And at the New York Times, "Atrocities in Bucha Complicate Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks."

And on Twitter, the grief of a nation:

Mass Grave Found in Bucha, Town on Outskirts of Kyiv

Following up from earlier, "Ukraine Condemns Russia for Alleged Civilian Executions, Braces for Onslaught in the East."

CNN's Fred Pleitgen visited Bucha and confirmed on the ground reports of atrocities committed by Russian troops against Ukrainian civilians. See, "Here's what a CNN team on the scene of a mass grave in the Ukrainian town of Bucha saw.

Gleen Greenwald was raising questions about the authenticity of reports, which is fair, but the story's been so widely reported it's a huge leap of logic to suggest that that many news organizations would risk their reputations putting out bogus reports.

Anyways, it's really and despicable. 

Ukraine Condemns Russia for Alleged Civilian Executions, Braces for Onslaught in the East

Glenn Greenwald's warning us not to jump to conclusions about Bucha, the town outside Kyiv where mass atrocities have been committed. 

Look, if all the major newspapers are reporting this, and respected sources on the ground are tweeting photos photos of bodies and mass burials, the reports sure look credible to me. The best proof, for me, will be when CNN has reporters on the ground at the scene broadcasting live images. I haven't checked yet, but will after I get this posted.

At the Los Angeles Times, "LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces braced for an intensified Russian onslaught against the eastern Donbas region Sunday as officials from Ukraine, the U.S. and other countries condemned Moscow over allegations of civilian executions":

A gruesome cleanup was underway in the northern suburbs of Kyiv, the capital, following the withdrawal of Russian troops. Ukrainian soldiers were removing bodies from streets, homes and other sites in the towns of Bucha and Irpin, which had been recently occupied by Russian forces.

“Bucha massacre proves that Russian hatred towards Ukrainians is beyond anything Europe has seen since WWII,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, wrote on Twitter. “The only way to stop this: help Ukraine kick Russians out as soon as possible. Partners know our needs. Tanks, combat aircraft, heavy air defense systems.”

Ukrainian officials accused Russia of large-scale killings of civilians, alleging that some of the victims’ bodies in Bucha had been found with their hands tied. Russia has reportedly denied the allegations.

“Kyiv region. 21st century Hell,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, tweeted on Sunday alongside photos of bodies on the streets. “This was purposely done. ... Stop the murders!”

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called for an investigation into the alleged atrocities: “Appalled by reports of unspeakable horrors in areas from which Russia is withdrawing,” she wrote on Twitter. “An independent investigation is urgently needed. Perpetrators of war crimes will be held accountable.”

Authorities in the battered outskirts of Kyiv were also clearing mines, unexploded ordnance, destroyed Russian armored vehicles and other rubble. Civilians in those suburbs had for weeks been trapped between Russian bombardments and Ukrainian forces trying to protect the capital. That toll was becoming increasing evident as retreating Russian soldiers — plagued by logistical and morale problems — left a landscape of ruin.

Every day we collect the bodies of our residents from the streets,” Oleksandr Markushyn, the mayor of Irpin, told local media, adding that at least 200 civilians had been killed in Irpin. “Under the rubble there are also the bodies of the dead.”

Meantime, several booming explosions broke the pre-dawn calm in the strategic southern port city Odesa, which had been quiet in recent weeks. Targeted were an oil-processing plant and fuel depots, according to a statement from the Russian military, which said missiles were fired at Odesa from ships and aircraft.

There were no casualties, the mayor of Odesa said. Images showed a huge plume of black smoke arising in the aftermath of the attacks.

The Odesa attacks continued a pattern of Russian missile strikes on fuel depots and defense infrastructure facilities throughout Ukraine. On Saturday, Russian missiles destroyed a refinery and surrounding fuel facilities in the central city of Kremenchuk, authorities said.

The war, which began with a Russian thrust into Ukraine on Feb. 24, has left thousands dead, forced almost one-quarter of Ukraine’s population of 44 million from their homes and created a broad swath of destruction across the nation.

Despite the widespread ruin and death, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that the country’s forces continue to regain control of various areas — including the outskirts of Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv — that were previously occupied by Russian forces...

 

Ukraine Strikes Fuel Depot in Belgorod, Russia (VIDEO)

At Forbes, "In Night Raid, Choppers Blow Up Fuel Depot On Russian Soil Near Ukraine." (With video on Twitter.)

And Kyiv's denial is here, at the Guardian U.K. "Ukraine rejects Kremlin claim it sent helicopters to attack oil depot in Russia: If Moscow’s accusation is true, the airstrike would be first raid on Russian territory so far in the war."

Actually, Ukraine neither denied nor confirmed, which makes it all the more interesting --- and freaky for Russia. Perhaps Putin's not doing so well. 

Putin Has Made NATO Stronger

From grand strategist Edward Luttwak, at UnHerd, "America's leadership is now uncontested":

War is the domain of paradox, contradiction, and boundless surprise. It is not merely because of ignorance or stupidity that military history is a record of crimes, follies, defeats, and very few victories worth their cost. Even so, the Ukraine war is exceptional in the amplitude of its paradoxes, the extremity of its contradictions, and the magnitude of its surprises.

For the “post-Pacifist” German mainstream, the most bitter paradox of all is that the Russians might not have attacked Ukraine had they foreseen Germany’s response: that the Bundestag would cancel the new Russian gas pipeline, invest in regasification terminals, send weapons to Ukraine, reaffirm its fealty to Nato, and move to drastically upgrade its armed forces with a €100 billion injection.

The Russians could not possibly have known these things. The day before Putin launched his invasion, the German government declared that the new Russian gas pipeline would be inaugurated no matter what, and that they would send no weapons to Ukraine; it even affirmed it would prevent Estonia’s delivery of 122mm howitzers to Kyiv because those guns had briefly belonged to Germany when the West German army absorbed East Germany’s. Yet more egregiously, Germany also denied overflight permission for British transports delivering weapons to Ukraine. As for Nato, Germany reiterated its refusal to spend 2% or even 1% of its GDP for defence. If there were to be collective defence at all, let it be European, and directed by the decidedly civilian European Commission.

In that remote past of a month ago, those were all decidedly mainstream preferences throughout Europe, albeit with a north-south divide. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden had all resurrected their ancient Baltic connections and therefore viewed Russia as a live threat. But in Italy and Spain such attitudes were rare, and declared Putin admirers could become ministers in coalition governments. As for France, Macron did not oppose the effectively pro-Russian stance of the German government because he also wanted a European defence, led by France, of course, as the only European nuclear power.

All this has now slipped into oblivion in today’s Europe, where Nato’s centrality and its US leadership are largely uncontested. The Russians assessed Nato as weak because it was weak, and therefore attacked Ukraine. Yet because they attacked, Nato is stronger than it has been for decades.

In every country’s military, the equally abrupt reversals are causing no end of trouble for the staff officers and civil servants working on next year’s budgets. The infantry is once again the queen of the battlefield, empowered as it is by anti-tank missiles that pursue armoured vehicles until they destroy them, and by portable anti-aircraft missiles that are the doom of helicopters, even if they cannot intercept much faster jets. This means that current combat helicopter and armoured vehicle purchases should be cancelled until they can be redesigned with much better protection; that is active defences that detect and intercept the incoming missiles — a process that might take years. (So far only Israel has active defence systems for its armoured vehicles )

By contrast, killer drones that can reliably destroy armoured vehicles and anything else beyond the horizon are grotesquely underfunded given their demonstrated combat value, largely because they are captive to air force priorities, set by pilots and ex-pilot senior officers. Only with political intervention can the stranglehold of the flying fraternity be overcome — they are today’s reactionary horse cavalry that resisted tanks in the Twenties. But the main thing, of course, is to have more infantry and to train it very well, and that raises the need for compulsory military service which only Sweden has confronted so far — by re-instituting it.

Because Nato has not instituted a no-flight zone, for the excellent reason that it would lead to air combat that the loser might try to nullify by escalation, and with everything happening much too fast for adult supervision, no new air combat lessons have been learned. While the heroism of Ukrainian pilots flying older models of Russian aircraft against newer models is highly admirable, it adds nothing that is not already written in The Iliad.

At the level of grand strategy, the largest and by far most consequential discovery is that in spite of decades of talk about the “diffusion of power”, particularly with the rise of China but also of Turkey, Iran, Brazil and South Africa, it is still the same old G7 countries that hold the keys of the world...

Keep reading. 

 

Why the West Must Win in Eukraine

The new edition of the Economist is out, and it's a dandy.

See, "Why Ukraine must win: A decisive victory could transform the security of Europe":

When vladimir putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine he was not alone in thinking victory would be swift. Many Western analysts also expected Kyiv, the capital, to fall within 72 hours. Ukrainian valour and ingenuity confounded those assumptions. As the war enters its sixth week, the side that is contemplating victory is not Russia but Ukraine—and it would be a victory that redraws the map of European security.

Speaking to The Economist in Kyiv on March 25th, President Volodymyr Zelensky explained how people power is the secret to Ukraine’s resistance and why the war is shifting in his nation’s favour. “We believe in victory,” he declared. “This is our home, our land, our independence. It’s just a question of time.”

The battlefield is starting to tell the same story as the president. After several weeks in which the Russian assault stalled, Ukrainian forces have begun to counter-attack. On March 29th Russia said that it will “fundamentally cut back” the northern campaign. Its retreat may well be only tactical, but Russia has in effect conceded that, for the moment, it cannot take Kyiv.

Yet a lot of Ukraine remains in Russian hands, including the strip of land on the southern coast that the Russians now claim was their focus all along. A large chunk of the Ukrainian army, in the Donbas region, is vulnerable to encirclement. Nobody should underestimate Russian firepower. Even if its forces are depleted and demoralised they can dig in. Victory for Ukraine means keeping its Donbas brigades intact and using them to deny Russia a secure hold on occupied territory.

For that, Mr Zelensky told us, the West must impose tougher sanctions on Russia and supply more weapons, including aircraft and tanks. Sanctions deplete Russia’s ability to sustain a long war. Arms help Ukraine take back territory. But nato countries are refusing to provide him with what he wants. Given what is at stake, for the West as well as Ukraine, that betrays a reprehensible failure of strategic vision.

For Ukraine, a decisive victory would deter yet another Russian invasion. The more convincingly Ukraine can see off the Russian army, the more able it will be to resist the compromises that could poison the peace. Victory would also be the best basis for launching a post-war democratic state that is less corrupted by oligarchs and Russian infiltration.

The prize for the West would be almost as great. Not only could Ukraine invigorate the cause of democracy, but it would also enhance European security. During 300 years of imperialism, Russia has repeatedly been at war in Europe. Sometimes, as with Poland and Finland, it was the invader. Other times, as with Nazi Germany and Napoleonic France, it was seen as a lethal threat and itself fell victim to aggression.

A strong, democratic Ukraine would thwart Russia’s expansionism—because its borders would be secure. In the short term an angry, defeated dictator would be left in the Kremlin, but eventually Russia, following Ukraine’s example, would be more likely to solve its problems by reform at home rather than adventures abroad. As it did so, nato would become correspondingly less of a drain on budgets and diplomacy. The United States would be freer to attend to its growing rivalry with China.

Alas, much of the West seems blind to this historic chance...

More at the link.

 

Russian Strategy in Ukraine Shifts After Setbacks, and a Lengthy War Looms

I've been lagging on my Ukraine blogging since the slapping blowout at the Oscars!

Back at it now, in any case.

At WSJ, "Moscow’s new focus on Donbas and retreats from Kyiv set the stage for a protracted war of attrition":

Russia’s war on Ukraine shifted gears this week, as Moscow, lacking the strength to pursue rapid offensives on multiple fronts, began pulling back from Kyiv and other cities in the north, and refocused for now on seizing parts of the country’s east.

The pivot, after five weeks of intense fighting, was a gauge of the intensity and effectiveness of Ukrainian resistance and signaled a decision by the Kremlin to pursue what is likely to become a prolonged war of attrition.

Ukraine’s counterattacks—including a helicopter strike inside Russian territory—and Moscow’s redeployment toward Donbas in Ukraine’s east suggest that both sides believe they can win, making it unlikely that peace talks will result in a deal anytime soon.

Russia’s “military and political strategy hasn’t changed, it remains to annihilate Ukraine,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian minister of defense who advises President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. But he said, “Now, their capabilities no longer match their strategic vision.”

That could be a recipe for a prolonged conflict, increasing the stakes for both sides’ ability to raise troops and money and access weapons, ammunition and supplies.

For Ukraine, with its smaller military resources, such a shift to a lengthy conventional war heightens the need for shipments of heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia’s declared shift toward trying to seize Donbas could allow it to concentrate firepower on a smaller front, shorten supply lines and make air support easier, giving Moscow a better chance at military success. It would also position Russia to try to encircle some of Ukraine’s best units, which are stationed there.

The Russian pullbacks from Kyiv, however, also allow Ukraine to redeploy additional resources to the eastern Donbas front—and to do it much faster because of shorter routes. Ukrainian officials were initially skeptical of Russian announcements that Moscow would limit military operations near Kyiv and Chernihiv, but lengthy convoys of Russian armor began leaving these areas Thursday, and scores of villages in northern Ukraine have been retaken by Ukrainian troops.

Russia appears determined to retain a smaller, blocking force around Kyiv to threaten the Ukrainian capital and prevent a large Ukrainian redeployment to Donbas, Ukrainian officials say. But a threat of encirclement of these Russian forces, northwest or northeast of Kyiv, could still precipitate a full withdrawal toward the Belarus border in coming days, they say.

“The enemy is not fully successful in retaining the areas that it wishes to keep. Our forces are kicking them out in the northwest and northeast, pushing the enemy away from Kyiv and making another attempt at storming it impossible,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Friday.

Russia sent some of its best units to Kyiv and northern Ukraine. Many of them have been battered by fierce fighting, and would need considerable time to be reconstituted and prepared for redeployment, military analysts say.

U.S. officials estimate that some 10,000 soldiers out of Russia’s 190,000-strong force in Ukraine have been killed, with tens of thousands of others injured or taken prisoner. The elite 4th Guards Tank “Kantemirovskaya” Division lost 46 of its estimated 220 T-80 tanks, according to visual evidence compiled by military analysts.

Seeking to replenish its forces, Russia has been calling up reserves, sending to Ukraine troops deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia as well as conscripts. Some of these troops, particularly from the Russian National Guard, which usually performs mostly internal-security duties, have refused orders to deploy to Ukraine.

British Air Marshal Edward Stringer, who headed operations for the British Defense Ministry and also helped create Britain’s military training program in Ukraine, said Russia no longer has many additional reserves to throw into new offensives.

“Most of the effective combat power is already assigned to the war,” he said. So Russian President Vladimir Putin “has to build some more, which is tricky without mobilizing and under sanctions, or concentrate the combat power that he has.”

Russian nationalists, dismayed by the retreat from Kyiv, have called on Mr. Putin to mobilize for all-out war...

Still more.  

War in Ukraine: No Breakthroughs But Peace Talks Spark Hope

Well, don't get your hopes up. Moscow's just pulling back from Kyiv to reposition its forces and bide time for further gains in other parts of the country. Putin's campaign to "topple" Kyiv has been a complete disaster, and in my mind, it raises questions about Russia's great power status. I mean, Russia's like a Third World petrostate with nukes. 

No matter. The country's a threat to Europe, and by extension to the U.S. through our alliance commitments. 

At the Washington Post, "Ukraine-Russia talks in Turkey stir optimism, but Western allies urge caution":

ISTANBUL — Ukrainian negotiators in Turkey said Tuesday they had offered a detailed peace proposal to their Russian counterparts, exchanging military neutrality for security guarantees, as Moscow said it would “drastically reduce” military activity near the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations.”

The declarations from the two sides followed hours of negotiations hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in an ornate palace on the Bosporus strait. They signaled a rare moment of optimism after weeks of halting negotiations that have done nothing to slow the bloody invasion.

But U.S. and other Western leaders were skeptical, saying they would judge Russia by its actions and not its words. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there were continued strikes Tuesday on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. “We’re not convince that the threat to the capital city has been radically diminished,” he said.

Russia, whose forces have bombarded Ukrainian cities for weeks, said in a statement that Tuesday’s talks had focused on “humanitarian issues." The Kremlin also signaled it will keep fighting for Mariupol, a key southern port city, saying that unless “Ukrainian nationalist militants” stop resisting and lay down their arms, it will be difficult to “resolve the acute humanitarian situation” there.

The centerpiece of the Ukrainian proposal was a pledge that the country would give up its bid to join NATO in exchange for a security system guaranteed by international partners including the United States, Turkey and others. Ukrainian negotiators likened the offer to Article 5 of NATO’s charter, which ensures the alliance’s collective defense.

The guarantor parties — including European countries, Canada and Israel — would provide Ukraine with military assistance and weapons if it were attacked, the negotiators said. Ukraine, in turn, would ensure it remained “nonaligned and nonnuclear,” although it would retain the right to join the European Union.

The Ukrainian proposal also offered a 15-year timeline for negotiations with Russia over the status of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s lead negotiator, characterized the talks to reporters afterward as a “substantive conversation.” Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said the discussions amounted to “the most meaningful progress since the start of negotiations."

Reaction from the United States was mixed, even as Moscow’s pledge to reduce military activity boosted U.S. stock markets on Tuesday morning. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed skepticism about the talks in Turkey, saying Moscow’s brutal, month-old military offensive leaves little room for optimism...

Keep reading.

Ukraine Strikes Russian Navy in Occupied Port City (VIDEO)

Huge moral booster. Watch at the Telegraph U.K., "'We f------ hit them!' Moment Ukraine strikes Russian warship in Odesa," and the Guardian U.K., "Russian ship destroyed in port of Berdiansk, says Ukrainian navy."

The story's at the Wall Street Journal, "Ukraine Strikes Russian Navy as War Enters Second Month: NATO agreed to help Ukraine protect itself against potential biochemical warfare during an emergency meeting in Brussels":

Ukraine said it struck the Russian-occupied port facilities in the Azov Sea city of Berdyansk on Thursday, setting off a large fire and hitting a Russian warship as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization pledged additional help for Kyiv.

Seized by Russia in the first week of the war that began a month ago, Berdyansk has become a major logistics hub for Russian forces. Footage from the area showed smoke billowing from the berthing area and secondary explosions from detonating ammunition.

The attack in Berdyansk—which is 50 miles west of the besieged port of Mariupol and nearly 100 miles from the main front line in southern Ukraine—is a sign Kyiv has retained significant military capabilities as it pursues a large-scale conventional war against Russian forces.

President Biden met with NATO leaders in Brussels on Thursday to agree on new measures to help Ukraine battle Russia’s invasion and address growing concerns Moscow might use chemical, biological or other unconventional weapons in its monthlong war.

“Allies agreed to supply equipment to help Ukraine protect against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after the summit. That includes equipment to detect such weapons, protect against them, medical support and decontamination equipment, he said.

NATO, he said, also has activated chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense forces. “We are taking measures both to support Ukraine but also to defend ourselves,” he said.

Russian officials didn’t immediately confirm the attack in Berdyansk. Kyiv initially said the strike destroyed the Russian navy landing ship, Orsk. Later Ukrainian news reports from Berdyansk named the targeted ship as Saratov, the same class of large landing ship as Orsk. The Ukrainian military followed up with a statement that it had hit Russian landing ships in Berdyansk, and that one of them was engulfed in fire. It didn’t provide the name.

Footage from Berdyansk also showed two smaller Russian ships fleeing the port after the explosions, one of them on fire.

Berdyansk, where pro-Ukrainian protests erupt regularly, is one of a handful of Ukrainian cities captured by Moscow in the month since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Ukrainian officials haven’t disclosed how Ukraine carried out the attack. Ukraine’s new Neptune antiship missiles have a range of about 200 miles and haven’t been used in the conflict so far. Ukraine also has ballistic missiles with a known range of some 75 miles, though there may be modifications with a longer range.

Andrii Ryzhenko, a former Ukrainian Navy captain now with the Center for Defense Strategies, a Kyiv think tank with close ties to the military, said he believed Ukraine used one or more Tochka-U ballistic missiles to dent Russia’s supply chain along the Azov Sea coast.

“For the Russians, this is the easiest way to bring and feed their contingent,” Mr. Ryzhenko said. “These ships, they can carry a significant amount of cargo. Our specialists say that at least for a few weeks, Berdyansk is closed for them for resupply because of damage to the port.”

Mariupol, another Azov Sea port city, has been surrounded by Russian forces and pummeled with artillery and airstrikes for weeks. Thousands of civilians there have been killed, and most of the city has been destroyed, according to local officials. While Russian troops have entered the eastern side of Mariupol in recent days, Ukrainian forces continue to keep most of the city from falling into Russian hands.

Before Thursday’s strike, Ukraine managed to inflict severe damage on the Russian navy personnel in the Azov area. Moscow has acknowledged that Ukrainian troops killed the deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Navy Capt. Andrey Paliy, and the commander of the fleet’s 810th Marine Infantry Brigade, Col. Aleksey Sharov, both of whom were recently operating in the Mariupol area.

The combat performance of the Ukrainian army and the failure of Russian forces to make significant advances have caught U.S. and allied officials by surprise. Weapons supplied to Ukraine before the invasion were tailored to fuel an insurgency campaign, with U.S. officials expecting Russia to seize the capital Kyiv in as little as three days.

However, Ukraine has managed to push Russia’s much bigger and better equipped military to a standstill, at least for now. Western nations are rushing to get more military supplies across Ukraine’s western borders as Kyiv says it risks running short of ammunition.

In Thursday’s address to the NATO summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the alliance to do more to help Ukraine defend itself. “Ukraine needs military assistance—without limitations. Just as Russia is using all of its arsenal against us without limitations,” he said...

 

Biden's State Department Not Rising to the Call of the Hour

At Issues & Insights, "The State Department Should Rise to the Call of the Hour":

The U.S. Department of State's official mission is to lead America's foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the American people's interests, safety, and economic prosperity.

For a situation that is bringing us closer to World War III and the worst inflation in 40 years, partly triggered by global events, the State Department is failing to lead in its core mission. Secretary Antony Blinken sounds like a cross between a media analyst and a military general rather than the lead diplomat of the free world.

During his March 17th remarks to the press, Blinken chided Russia as he has been doing for weeks. Switching hats, he then announced a laundry list of weapons to assist Ukraine. He sounded more like Lloyd Austen, the Secretary of Defense: "We're also helping Ukraine acquire longer-range anti-aircraft systems and munitions at President Zelenskyy's request." There was no mention of the State Department leading diplomatically, other than a vague promise: "We'll support Ukraine's diplomatic efforts however we can."

Leaving rookie Ukraine, whose leader has been in political office for fewer than three years, to negotiate peace with wily Russia will not cut it. For weeks, the parties have been talking while Russia mercilessly attacks Ukrainian civilian targets. Each hour's delay brings about additional carnage.

Blinken has been relentlessly pursuing a strategy to strangle Putin, isolate Russia, and inflict so much pain that Putin would initiate serious diplomatic overtures. "I have not seen any meaningful efforts by Russia to bring this war to a conclusion through diplomacy," Blinken said to news media this week.

But this "lead-from-behind" approach, relying on Russia to bell the diplomatic cat, makes no sense. History has repeatedly shown us that pariahs do not initiate peace talks. Even the appearance of conceding defeat would spell the death knell for them back home.

If anything, Putin's speech in Moscow shows that he feels vindicated by his actions in Ukraine. Putin has upped the ante by firing hypersonic missiles, which can travel at ten times the speed of sound. Russia is a powerful country spanning nine time zones and boasting a larger nuclear arsenal than any other country. It is more likely that Putin will dig in rather than bail out; take risks than ask for help.

This is where American diplomacy can make a difference...

Keep reading.