Map of areas controlled by Ukrainian and Russian forces in Ukraine, as of March 21, 2000 GMT (Valentin RAKOVSKY)
Ukraine claimed Sunday to have hit two Russian military ships stationed at the annexed peninsula of Crimea in overnight strikes, as it suffered another night of “massive” Russian aerial attacks.
And Ukraine’s ally and neighbour Poland said a Russian cruise missile headed for western Ukraine briefly breached its airspace overnight, after it had put its armed forces on high alert amid intense Russian aviation activity.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces successfully struck the amphibious landing ships Yamal and Azov, a communications centre, and a number of the Black Sea Fleet’s infrastructure sites,” the Ukrainian armed forces’ strategic communications centre said Sunday.
Moscow-installed officials on the peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, said their forces had repelled a major Ukrainian aerial attack late Saturday night.
“It was the most massive attack in recent times,” the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said in a Telegram post.
He said a 65-year-old man was killed and four people injured. He did not mention any damage to Russian war ships.
Footage shared on social media showed a large blast in the city, sending a fireball and plume of black smoke into the air, as well as what appeared to be Russian air defences intercepting incoming projectiles.
Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the war, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.
Satellite images show Russia has moved much of the fleet further east, to the port of Novorossiysk, amid the spate of attacks.
Moscow also recently replaced its navy chief.
– ‘Goal of destroying Kyiv’ –
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the western region of Lviv also came under a “massive” Russian air attack early Sunday, officials said, though no casualties were reported.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 29 cruise missiles and 28 drones at its territory overnight.
It said it had downed 18 of the missiles and 25 drones.
Russia has significantly escalated its air attacks against Ukraine in recent days, in what it says is retaliation for a wave of Ukrainian strikes on its border regions.
In the early hours of Friday, Moscow launched its largest aerial barrages against Ukraine’s energy sector since the start of the war, firing almost 90 missiles and 60 drones.
Russia has also resumed targeting Kyiv, carrying out its first strikes at the city since early February.
Russia “does not give up its goal of destroying Kyiv at any cost,” Sergiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration, said on Telegram.
Russia’s defence ministry said Sunday it had launched a “group strike” against Ukrainian military and energy targets overnight.
“All the goals of the strike have been achieved,” it said, claiming to have hit weapons factories.
Russian forces shot down “22 aerial targets” headed toward the city of Belgorod, not far from the Ukrainian border, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Sunday on Telegram.
Gladkov said four people were injured and taken to hospital as a result of the Ukrainian strike. He said seven apartment buildings and seven houses were hit and emergency and cleanup operations were underway.
– Polish airspace breach –
US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said Russia “continues to indiscriminately launch drones and missiles with no regard for millions of civilians, violating international law,” in a post on X.
Poland’s army said Sunday that one of the Russian missiles fired at western Ukraine had entered its airspace.
“The object flew through Polish airspace above the village of Oserdow (Lublin province) and stayed for 39 seconds,” the army posted on X.
The country’s Armed Forces Operational Command (RSZ) had said earlier that its forces were on a heightened state of readiness because of the “intensive long-range aviation activity of the Russian Federation tonight” and the missile attacks in Ukraine.
Poland, which has been a staunch ally of its neighbor Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, said Sunday that it would demand an explanation from Moscow.
Ukraine war: Two Russian landing ships hit off Crimea, officials say
James Gregory & Paulin Kola – BBC News – March 24, 2024
Kyiv’s mayor has told residents not to leave shelter
Ukraine says it has hit two landing ships, a communications centre and other infrastructure used by Russia’s Black Sea fleet off annexed Crimea.
An announcement by the Ukrainian general staff said the Yamal and Azov ships had been destroyed.
The Russian-installed governor of the port of Sevastopol said 10 Ukrainian missiles had been shot down.
Russia also launched a missile and drone attack on the capital, Kyiv, and the region of Lviv early on Sunday.
In an announcement, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-appointed mayor of Sevastopol, said damage had been caused to residential buildings and transport infrastructure as a result of the “massive” attack.
He asked residents not to publish information or any images.
UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps praised the attack on the Russian ships, calling it a “historic moment for Ukraine”.
“In plain English, it means that Putin can no longer exercise safely in the Black Sea, even though the Russian Fleet has operated there since 1783,” Mr Shapps said.
He added that the world “cannot afford” for Ukraine to lose this war, and that the UK’s support for Kyiv in the face of Russian assaults “will remain undimmed”.
The BBC has not been able to verify the Ukrainian claim to have damaged the Russian landing ships, which are used to land troops and equipment straight to shore without the need for a pier or dock.
On Sunday morning, Kyiv residents took shelter in metro stations as the attack began at 05:00 (03:00 GMT).
Officials said their defences had shot down 18 Russian missiles and 25 drones there. There was only minor damage.
About 20 Russian missiles and seven drones targeted “critical infrastructure” in the western region of Lviv. No damage has been reported.
One of the cruise missiles entered the airspace of neighbouring Poland, a Nato member, the armed forces announced.
“The object entered Polish space near the town of Oserdow and stayed there for 39 seconds. During the entire flight, it was observed by military radar systems,” the armed forces said in a statement.
“If there was any premise indicating that this object was going in the direction of any targets located in Poland, of course, it would have been shot down and more adequate measures would have been taken,” Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
Parts of a cruise missile fell on a park in Kyiv
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
There has been an increase in aerial attacks by both sides in the past few days, even as Russia makes slow progress in taking some territory in the east of the country.
And Ukraine has been hitting targets in Crimea more regularly.
In particular, Ukraine has repeatedly hit the Black Sea fleet – seen as the best of Russia’s navy. Satellite images last year showed many of the Crimea-based warships had left the peninsula for the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
Last month, the Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov was sunk off the coast of Crimea, according to Ukraine’s armed forces.
Its sister ship Novocherkassk was hit while in port in Feodosiya in December last year.
In one of the biggest strikes on the Black Sea fleet, last September Ukraine attacked naval targets and port infrastructure, using as many as 10 missiles and three unmanned boats. It caused a large fire at a Sevastopol shipyard.
Ukraine’s biggest scalp in naval warfare has so far been the sinking of Russia’s flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva, in April 2022.
Ukraine has also targeted the Kerch bridge several times, as it is an important resupply route for Russian forces occupying parts of the country’s south.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it plans to retake Crimea and all territories seized by Russia.
Ukraine is critically dependent on weapons supplies from the US and other Western allies to keep fighting Russia – a much bigger military force with an abundance of arms and artillery.
As well as being a platform from which to attack Ukraine, the Black Sea fleet is a major symbol of Russia’s centuries-old military presence in the region.
It was based in Crimea under a leasing deal, even before Russia illegally annexed the peninsula.
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia had to take control of Crimea to stop it from falling into Western hands.
Location of Russia’s Black Sea fleet HQ in Sevastopol
“He’ll never leave”: Why Trump’s dynasty, built on corruption and violence, won’t end with him
Dean Obeidallah – March 22, 2024
Donald Trump Win McNamee/Getty Images
No, you’re not being hyperbolic if you say MAGA is a fascist movement. You’re just being accurate. That was one of the biggest points made by NYU historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the book “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” during our recent “Salon Talks” conversation.
Ben-Ghiat explained that Donald Trump is leading a “right-wing counterrevolution against the loss of white male privilege,” aimed at taking America back to the time when women, nonwhite people and non-Christians “knew their place.”
But what truly defines MAGA as fascist, Ben-Ghiat said — rather than just right-wing — is its use of violence. “Fascists believe that violence is the way to change history,” she told me. We saw that clearly enough on Jan. 6, 2021, with the attack on the Capitol mean to keep Trump in power despite his loss in the 2020 election.
What is most worrisome going forward, Ben-Ghiat suggested, is Trump’s defense of the Jan. 6 attackers as “hostages” and his promises to pardon them, which seek to change “the perception of violence.” Trump’s message to his loyal followers, she said, is that “violence is sometimes morally necessary and even righteous, and even patriotic.” That, she added, is “what we call sacralizing violence, giving violence a kind of ritual, religious tone.”
Ben-Ghiat sees Trump’s promise to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists as intended to inspire his supporters to commit future acts of violence if that can help him win. The implied promise is that if they commit violent acts and Trump regains the White House, he’ll pardon them too. That’s straight out of the autocrat’s playbook, Ben-Ghiat says: “All authoritarians use pardons” and manipulate the justice system to maintain power.
Ben-Ghiat says she’s not trying to scare us, only to prepare us for what we’re likely to see between now and November — and for a good while after that if Trump wins. Too many Americans still don’t believe, Ben-Ghiat warns, that “it can happen here” — “it” being a fascist takeover. History tells us those people are wrong.
Watch my full conversation with Ruth Ben-Ghiat here or read a transcript of our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.
You’ve been discussing and studying this issue for years, but it seems even more important than ever to talk about authoritarianism.
It’s incredible that it could be upon us. Here’s Trump saying he’s going to be a “dictator for day one,” but we know that they’re never dictators for day one. They never relinquish their powers, so it’s extremely important to understand what we’re up against.
Despite Trump saying he wants to be a dictator and facing 91 felony counts for his attempted coup, the GOP base and millions of Americans still love him. What do you take from that?
Sadly, in history, when these charismatic demagogues come to power, they use emotions to manipulate people. Trump says, “I love you” to his people. He told them he loved them on Jan. 6. He builds a personality cult so he poses as the victim, which is really important because not only are all his crimes presented as persecutions by the “deep state,” but saying he’s being persecuted makes his followers feel protective of him.
You have quotes from MAGA people saying, “Oh, it’s so distressing. We have to be there for him.” That’s what Jan. 6 was. It was many things. It was a violent coup attempt. But he was a leader in distress and he called on people, he brought them to the rally and they responded. They were trying to rescue him. This happens in history. I have quotes in “Strongmen” with people, actual fascists sitting in jail in 1945, where they’re like, “Oh, I was completely magnetized by Mussolini. I didn’t realize what was going on.” So that’s how I see it.
Is history warning us about the fact that Trump has not been held accountable by the system? There was such a long delay in investigating him. He’s finally charged and now he’s using his lawyers to manipulate the system to keep him on the ballot, and maybe not have any of the serious criminal trials before Election Day.
It’s very disheartening, and no one is going to save the American people. My mantra has always been, “Never underestimate the American people.” We had the Women’s March, we had Black Lives Matter. These were the largest protests in history, and they led to electoral [change] in the midterms in 2018 and 2022.
We’ve got to do it. We can’t depend on our institutions, which is very sad in a democracy. But our democracy has been so damaged, including the Supreme Court with Justice Thomas who wouldn’t recuse himself. There’s a whole attempt to delegitimize democracy, and not just Joe Biden, but the whole system. So we have to do this from the ground up.
From an academic point of view, is MAGA an authoritarian movement? Is it a fascist movement? Where does it fall?
It’s pretty fascist.
Why?
The reason I wrote “Strongmen” was to have this 100-year history of authoritarianism, almost all right-wing, because that’s my specialty. Obviously communists had a higher body count than fascism, so I could have put them in there, but for narrative and other reasons, I focus on the right wing. Fascism was the first stage of authoritarianism, but it continued in different forms, like the Cold War military dictatorships.
Trump is very similar to Mussolini in many ways. It checks all the boxes, where it’s this huge right-wing counterrevolution against the loss of white male privilege, and it’s to save civilization, and the whole “great replacement” theory, which is big in the MAGA base, the idea that nonwhites and non-Christians are having too many babies: We’re going to be extinguished. Mussolini talked about this too. You can track a whole series of checkpoints and talking points, and they’re pretty much the same.
What’s the core of fascism? And why do you, as an academic, look at MAGA and say, “Yep, it’s now fascist”?
Mussolini actually was a great sloganeer. He created fascism and had one very simple definition. He called it “a revolution of reaction.” Both those things are true because it upends everything. It disrupts everything. It uses violence. Fascists believe that violence is the way to change history. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, he came to the Iowa State Fair to help Trump in the summer. People are eating their corn dogs, there’s kids there, and he says, “Only through force will we bring change to corrupt D.C.” This is after the coup that tried to do that. So that’s the revolution part. People are given permission to be their most violent selves, their worst selves. It’s a collapse of morals.
The reaction is what I was saying before, where you want to turn the clock back to “the good old days.” MAGA wants to make the nation “great again” by going back to times when women knew their place, as did nonwhites and non-Christians, so things were as they should be. This is part of authoritarianism, which is also a set of attitudes about child-rearing, about traditions, about male authority. All of that, Trump says, is threatened, and so the MAGA base is responding to that.
As an expert in authoritarianism, when you hear Donald Trump defending the people who attacked the Capitol, calling them “hostages” and saying they’ve been treated unfairly, pledging to pardon them, does that raise red flags for you? And if it does, what does it mean?
Totally. One of the major things that fascists did, and that Trump is doing — he’s been doing this through his rallies with frightening relentlessness — is to change the perception of violence. To get people to see that violence is not negative, including violence against your neighbors, or that you’re going to look the other way when your neighbor’s deported. Violence is sometimes morally necessary and even righteous, and even patriotic. He has used his rallies since 2015, and I wrote about this in my report for the Jan. 6 committee, where he’d say, “Oh, in the old days we used to be able to beat people up and nothing happened.” This is thug talk. This is part of fascism.
So Jan. 6 becomes this righteous “Stop the Steal.” The people who have been arrested become patriots. He almost is doing what we call sacralizing violence, giving violence a kind of ritual, religious tone. In his rallies, he has the Jan. 6 prisoners choir sing. This is totally fascist. Trump has these fascist spectacles.
I wrote an essay for Lucid when he kicked off his campaign at Waco, Texas. What a choice! He had the choir and the spectacle of it reminded me of Hitler’s Nuremberg rally. I think I entitled my essay, for my Substack newsletter, “Triumph of the Will, Waco Version.” He knows exactly what he’s doing because he’s a showman, he’s a man of TV, he’s a man of the camera. It’s really scary and it really works. That’s what all of that is about. The pardons are about encouraging people to do more violence, thinking that they’re not going to pay any consequences. That’s actually the essence of authoritarianism and fascism: You arrange government so that you can be violent and corrupt, and get away with it.
When Trump says “I’m going to pardon you for committing these crimes,” then the message becomes “If you commit crimes for me as we get closer to the election, I will do the same for you.”
That’s right. We also want to talk about not just Trump, but the enablers. So Rep. Paul Gosar, who should not be anywhere near government, in my opinion, who hangs out with Nazis, he was promising people pardons to get all the thugs he knew, all the right-wingers who were violent, to come on Jan. 6 — promising them pardons because Trump had just pardoned all these violent people like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon. That’s the environment.
All authoritarians use pardons because why do you want people sitting in jail, the worst people in the world, who are for you the best people, when they could be serving you? So Mussolini, Pinochet, they all use pardons to free up the people they need. It’s really awful, but this is where we are.
The fact that you know all this, does it scare you more?
I do. It’s a little eerie that things are unfolding exactly as they have — well, not exactly as they have in the past because it always looks different, which is why some people don’t see it coming. Because no, we’re not 1930s Germany, even though Trump’s saying, “I hope the economy crashes,” which is the Hitler playbook. But it redoubles my mission to speak out and to warn people. The challenge is to reach more people now, reach the people who usually don’t vote, who have no idea.
There was a poll that was very disturbing that said, I forgot what percent, a lot of Americans have never heard Trump’s authoritarian declarations. They’d never heard any of that, and some of them don’t know about his crimes because they don’t follow the news at all.
As a historian, are you concerned that there are Americans who sincerely believe it can’t happen here? “It” being fascism, authoritarianism and the end to self-determination as a people.
Oh, absolutely. Even when I’m speaking to people, and these are people who have come to hear me, so they know what I’m about, when I say things like, “The GOP is an autocratic entity, or it’s become autocratic” — I don’t use the word fascist often — you can see that they’re kind of, “Well, this is a little exaggerated.” It’s like a mental divide between what we hear about abroad and what we are. In the meantime, they’re going to pick their kid up from school, they’re going to the gym, and they don’t have any conception of how their lives would be affected. So it just seems like some blathering by a professor, and that is frustrating.
Sticking to Trump and what he says, at a rally recently, he mocked President Biden’s stutter. At another rally last year, he made fun of Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, a man in his 80s who was hit in the head with a hammer. Trump doing that is one thing, but what is more bone-chilling to me is when he did that, the crowd cheered and laughed. With Biden’s stutter, the crowd cheered and laughed. What does that indicate to you?
This is part of his re-marketing of violence as positive. That’s the Pelosi part. There’s a reason that threats to members of Congress and their families are up like 400%.
Mocking the speech impediment is about cruelty. To have an autocracy, you need people to be cruel. You need them to think that solidarity and empathy and kindness are for weak people. That’s totally fascist. That’s what fascism is. In fact, Mussolini, who, like Hitler, read Nietzsche, the philosopher of the Übermensch and all that, and took away from it that if somebody is weak and they’re on a cliff, you should just push them because they’re useless to society. That’s the philosophy. Trump also made fun, years ago, of a New York Times reporter with a disability. And the disabled, just to take that theme for a second, have always been persecuted by fascists and others.
When Biden gave the State of the Unionaddress,he raised the alarm about Trump. What more should he be doing, in talking about Trump, to alert our fellow Americans?
I was glad that he was doing that. You have to respond forcefully. This whole thing partly includes Putin’s maneuvers in Ukraine. Biden came to office and in his first press conference said, “We’ve got to prove democracy works.” So from the very beginning, he was going to not only save democracy in our country, but prove it works abroad and stop these people.
He had a summit with Putin in the summer of 2021. They sat there and Putin was placed as an equal visually, and they had the globe between them. It was in Geneva. I looked at Putin — because I live in these people’s heads, unfortunately — and I got a really bad feeling. He was also being grilled by the U.S. press, including by female journalists, and he didn’t like that at all. He was put on the spot by a female American journalist. I thought, “This is bad,” because there was something about him. So that night I wrote for my Lucid newsletter that Putin could become very reckless over the next months because he felt extremely threatened that Biden was there instead of Trump. It was a nightmare for him that Trump didn’t win. He was risking a lot.
Then we know what happened. He went into Ukraine and before that, he and China made a formal alliance. And so all of this, one way to read it is it’s because of Biden’s commitment to democracy. Now, after Jan. 6, he’s there. He almost didn’t make it into office, but now he’s there and we’re at the showdown. I think he needs to be even more forceful, but at least he’s stepped up.
Trump recently invited Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, to Mar-a-Lago. He said, “There’s no one that’s a better or smarter leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.” What alarm bells go off when you hear that?
Trump has actually been conditioning Americans to see authoritarian leaders like Orbán as positive role models, as well as saying, “I’m going to be a dictator.” One of the interesting things he said after that was that Orbán is a “non-controversial leader because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and everybody accepts it, end of discussion.” So what Trump is saying is that literally being a dictator, dictating what you’re going to do and everybody just submits, shouldn’t be controversial. It’s how it’s going to be.
He’s using these visits not just to curry favor with these autocrats and whatever dirty deals they’re going to have — and it’s all about Putin, because Orbán is a client of Putin — but he’s using these occasions to keep indoctrinating Americans that this is the leadership they’re going to have.
It resonates with some folks in the base. I see interviews where people are like, “Yes, he’ll be a dictator just in the beginning to get everything right.” And you’re like, “You are not upset that he’ll be a dictator because he’ll be your dictator.” That’s the way it is. If Biden said, “I want to be a dictator,” the right would go ballistic, as they should.
They already say he’s a dictator. That’s what I call the upside-down world of authoritarianism. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others talk about the “Biden regime.” Mussolini did this: Liberal democracy is tyranny, fascism is freedom. Then we get all the way to Auschwitz, where the gates of said, “Work will set you free.” That’s the upside-down world of authoritarianism.
We’re seven or eight months out from the election right now. As we get closer, do you have concerns about violence by the MAGA movement?
I do, because they’re being egged on. There was a news item out of Kansas, where there was a Republican fundraiser and they were using an effigy of Biden and encouraging people to attack it. This kind of violence against anybody who is trying to hold Trump accountable or protect democracy could easily, because of our lax gun laws, happen as the election nears.
If Trump loses in 2024, do you expect a similar scenario as we saw after 2020? Even a call for another Jan. 6-style attack?
I do. Sometimes I’ll have these thoughts and then they come to me and I’m like, “Oh, that’s not good.” It’s very interesting, when a president loses and a new one’s going to come in, there’s a transition team. That transition team is activated after the election is known. Project 2025, which has tens of thousands of people, 70 organizations, it builds itself as a transition team. Probably millions of dollars are being spent with giant staffs to plan a transition as though they think that whatever happens, they’re coming into power. So that is disturbing, and that’s a part of Project 2025 we haven’t thought about. Why are they doing all this if it’s going to be a free and a fair election, and they could lose?
It’s important for President Biden, as a defender of democracy, to adhere to democratic norms. Right now, there’s a debate about whether Biden should give him the standard national intelligence briefing. Do you think that is it in the nation’s best interests for Biden to adhere to this tradition that goes back to the time of Truman or, given the threat that Trump presents — and that he’s actually charged with felonies for mishandling classified documents — should Biden not give him the briefing?
Somebody who has instigated a violent coup to overthrow the government and kept classified documents in the bathroom of his private residence is not exactly trustworthy. It’s not just Trump, it’s also Jared Kushner. We need to be investigating how he came out of the Trump administration immediately into the hands of the Saudis. It’s a whole flow of illicit money and networks. Absolutely he cannot be briefed. If that happens, that’s actually very naive.
If Trump wins in 2024, do you think he would leave office peacefully in 2028?
No. He’ll never leave, and if he falls ill or something, there’s other Trumpers waiting in the wings. It’s a dynasty. You could even see they’re talking about Jared Kushner as secretary of state, which would be perfect for crime, for corruption. You don’t know what will happen, but they build dynasties, and Trump has always had a family business. His two sons are not exactly equipped to take on high public office, but there are other people around. Lara Trump was just put in charge of the Republican National Committee so that every penny will go to [the Trump campaign]. This is classic corruption. So it could be anyone. It could be Lara Trump, who knows? As long as they keep control.
How’s this going to end if Trump ends up being convicted, he loses the election, he’s convicted and put in prison? With authoritarian movements from the past, do you have any guide? Does that weaken the movement, or no?
Yeah, there are polls showing that if he’s actually convicted and sent to jail, he may become irrelevant. We can contrast what has happened after Jan. 6 here with Brazil, where they had a military coup in 1964. They had over 20 years of horrible dictatorship, with torture and all kinds of things, that only ended in 1985. The political class, the judges, they all know. They were there, or their parents were there.
Brazil had its own insurrection, on Jan. 8 [in 2023], but the former president Jair Bolsonaro has been banned from politics until 2030, so his popularity is going down. Same thing happened in Italy without an insurrection: Silvio Berlusconi had over 20 indictments and 14 major corruption trials. He was finally convicted two years after he left office and banned from politics for five years. That’s when his amazing, formidable personality cult shriveled. Because personality cults, they’re like plants. You’ve got to water them, you got to tend to them, and they need the person to be viable and active. If they’re in jail or they’re banned from politics, that’s what you need to end them. So I hope to goodness that happens.
Trump’s dark ‘retribution’ pledge at center of 2024 bid, but can he make it reality?
Alexandra Hutzler – March 23, 2024
Donald Trump, in his third run for the White House, has made “retribution” central to his agenda if elected.
“For hard-working Americans, Nov. 5 will be our new Liberation Day,” Trump said as he headlined this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. “But for the liars, and cheaters, and fraudsters, and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be their Judgment Day.”
Potential targets include former Rep. Liz Cheney and other individuals critical of his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat. He recently said Cheney and fellow members of the House committee that investigated him “should go to jail” despite the fact they’ve not been accused of any crimes.
Last year, as he complained of “weaponization” of the Justice Department after being indicted, Trump said he would appoint a special prosecutor to go after President Joe Biden and his family.
“Donald Trump’s campaign strategy has been to say that everything is chaotic, that the world is a dangerous place and the nation is falling apart, that Joe Biden is an incompetent leader and the only way to save the nation is to vote for Trump,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of political rhetoric at Texas A&M University. “That’s not unusual for him. He has been saying that since 2016. But the strategy has been darker this time around.”
“He really wants to avenge his loss in 2020,” she added, “and he is very good at using language as a weapon.”
PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally, Mar. 9, 2024, in Rome Ga. (Mike Stewart/AP)
But how far could Trump go, if elected, in carrying out such a vision? Or how much is it just designed to rile up his supporters, many of whom appear eager to embrace his message.
“The answer is, it depends,” said Bruce Green, a Fordham Law ethics expert who examined this exact issue back in 2018.
At the very least, a retribution campaign as Trump has described would require a significant reshaping of the modern-day Justice Department, which has a tradition of independence dating back to the post-Watergate era.
Internal policies enacted at the department after the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal sought to separate politics from law enforcement, and presidents of both parties have since abided by that construct — until Trump, according to Green.
But those policies aren’t codified by law, Green noted, and if Trump were to appoint an attorney general who embraced his theory of sweeping presidential power and discretion, investigations could be launched into perceived enemies.
PHOTO: Supporters of former President Donald Trump stand outside of the Alto Lee Adams Sr. U.S. Courthouse as they await his arrival on Mar. 1, 2024, in Fort Pierce, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Even then, there are still backstops in place to deter Trump’s more pointed threats. DOJ officials and prosecutors who are not politically appointed could threaten revolt, as has happened in the past. Evidence of wrongdoing would still need to be presented, and courts could reject politically-motivated cases that lack sufficient proof of a crime.
“So, you’d have whatever the traditional limitations are created by our judicial process, including the Constitution and statutes, but you wouldn’t have the gatekeeping function that we’ve counted on the Justice Department to exercise,” Green said.
It’s also worth noting Trump tried to target his political foes during his last administration and faced resistance.
He fumed at Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general, when Sessions recused himself from the DOJ’s investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election. In various social media posts, he named people Sessions should go after, including then-FBI Director James Comey, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
After firing Sessions, Trump found what many believed to be a friendlier ally in Bill Barr. Barr framed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report in what many said were more favorable terms for Trump than the findings warranted. He also drew scrutiny for intervening in the government’s case against Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn and for suggesting a lighter sentence for longtime Trump ally Roger Stone. The actions led many Democrats and former DOJ officials to decry the politicization of the department under Barr’s leadership.
PHOTO: President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr step off Air Force One upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Sept. 1, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
But when Trump urged Barr and the Department of Justice to push a narrative of election fraud after his loss to Biden in November 2020, the attorney general and others declined to fall in line. Then-Vice President Mike Pence, a loyalist to Trump, also resisted his demands to unilaterally reject the election results during the certification on Jan. 6, 2021.
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said she believed Trump would be stopped again if he tried to use his office to go after enemies or other acts of retribution.
“The Founding Fathers anticipated a Donald Trump,” Kamarck said. “They built a system of checks and balances, and it’s working so far. If Donald Trump won, what would it take to dismantle that checks and balances? It would take a clean sweep of the Congress — 60 senators in the Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives — and the courts to start the dismantling. And I don’t see that happening at this time and I don’t see it happening within the four years that he has to do it.”
“In other words,” Kamarck said, “we’re not a banana republic yet even if he’d like to make us one.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in response to expert comments that retribution would require never-before-seen politicization of the DOJ, told ABC News, “As President Trump has repeatedly said, the best retribution is the overall success of the American people.”
Donald Trump KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images
The Trumpocene is not normal. If you accept that it is normal or otherwise become habituated to it, the neofascists and other enemies of democracy have won.
For at least the last eight years I have been writing several times a week about the rise of Trumpism and the deep cultural and societal rot that birthed the monstrosity. I view this work as a type of chronicle, an ongoing account of America’s surreal misadventure. As Hannah Arendt and other truth-tellers have shown, fascism and other forms of authoritarianism are an assault on reality, the facts, and the very idea of the truth. Chronicling and otherwise documenting these events and their meaning is a way of trying to ensure that the facts are preserved, as public memory is under assault and organized forgetting spreads rapidly.
On this, Arendt famously warned, “the ideal subject of a totalitarian state is not the convinced Nazi or Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
Chronicling the Trumpocene and America’s democracy crisis and other struggles in this era is also a type of witnessing, which means not just recording the facts but testifying and feeling the pain of others. As psychohistorian Robert Jay Lifton teaches, “One bears witness by taking in the situation — in this case, its malignant nature — and then telling one’s story about it, in this case with the help of professional knowledge, so that we add perspective on what’s wrong, rather than being servants of the powers responsible for the malignant normality. We must be people with a conscience in a very fundamental way.”
It is not just those of us with a public platform who should be carefully chronicling and documenting the Trumpocene and these aberrant events. Everyone who claims to care about democracy and a free society should be doing the same thing. Moreover, this should be done not just online or in some other digital form but in print. The digital is so ephemeral and can easily be disappeared or otherwise altered. Paper is much more real and permanent — and thus dangerous. That is why fascists and other enemies of truth and democracy censor and burn books.
When reality and truth are under siege, doing this type of intellectual and spiritual work is a way to remain sane. As I tell many of the people who reach out to me about escaping the Trumpocene nightmare and who feel exhausted and confused, “You are not crazy, the Trumpocene (and late capitalism, the culture of cruelty, pandemic politics and trauma, environmental collapse, and future shock etc. etc.) is just making you feel that way.”
During the Trumpocene there have been many days when I feel like Charleston Heston in “Planet of the Apes” screaming “It’s a Madhouse!” or Peter Finch as Howard Beale in “Network” bellowing, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” And there have also been moments, especially as I watch Trumpism nakedly morph into some version of American Hitlerism where I truly wonder if I am Peter Weller in David Cronenberg’s film “Naked Lunch,” and if I have been exposed to that damn “bug powder.”
I know I am not alone in these feelings.
But I realized some months ago that I had made a fundamental error in my assumptions and method in how I have been chronicling these very bad times. The Trumpocene, like other forms of fascism and such malign forces do not exist in a finite space or in a linear relationship to time; it and they really have no concrete beginning and/or end. Such political formations are a type of force that is like a book or story that continues to have chapters added to it in real time. The challenge then, is how to document and intervene against such a force that is dynamic and not static.
To better orient myself, I have been returning to how the Trumpocene (the Age of Trump, the MAGAverse, TrumpWorld or whatever moniker one applies to these years) as a type of malignant normality. Focusing on that constant wrongness has ironically helped me to keep perspective and reinforced how this state of affairs cannot last forever because such systems almost always collapse inward on themselves. And of course, when the collapse takes place, it will not be without great pain and that euphemism for mass death, “collateral damage.”
When insanity becomes the norm, it ceases to be insane. As a practical matter, it is impossible for a society to spend a decade listening to an unwell man say crazy, disassociated, garbled words for hours at a time, almost daily, and maintain the position that he is unhinged. At some point, society decides that the man they once regarded as unhinged, simply is. It’s like sitting in a room that stinks of sulfur. At first the smell is intolerable; but after a while you can’t even notice it if you try. This is more than human nature: It’s how our brains are wired to adapt to environmental conditions. That’s one of my big worries about the next eight months: That it will be biologically and psychologically impossible for a crucial percentage of voters to perceive what the Republican candidate for president actually is.
At the New Yorker, Susan Glasser offers this description of Trump’s recent speech in Rome, Georgia, noting how he embodies and projects malignant normality as a type of patient zero and the main character in a twisted politics reality TV show that he is making up as he goes along:
Trump’s appearance in Georgia, by contrast, reflected a man not rooted in any kind of reality, one who struggled to remember his words and who was, by any definition, incoherent, disconnected, and frequently malicious. (This video compilation, circulating on social media, nails it.) In one lengthy detour, he complained about Biden once being photographed on a beach in his bathing suit. Which led him to Cary Grant, which led him to Michael Jackson, which led him back to the point that even Cary Grant wouldn’t have looked good in a bathing suit at age eighty-one. In another aside, he bragged about how much “women love me,” citing as proof the “suburban housewives from North Carolina” who travel to his rallies around the country. He concluded that portion of his speech by saying:
“But it was an amazing phenomenon and I do protect women. Look, they talk about suburban housewives. I believe I’m doing well—you know, the polls are all rigged. Of course lately they haven’t been rigged because I’m winning by so much, so I don’t want to say it. Disregard that statement. I love the polls very much.”
Makes perfect sense, right?
Echoing Glasser’s concerns about Trump and his disconnect from reality, chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, Miles Taylor, who I recently spoke with here at Salon, told MSNBC last Thursday: “The man that I interacted with years ago was very visibly unwell, was observably unstable, and he was the president of the United States then. I can only imagine what’s happened to him since. We’ve witnessed it, we all see it as an American public. But I can’t imagine how unstable he’ll be behind that resolute desk again.”
In another example of how none of this is normal and America’s elites and those so-called guardians of democracy and “the system” have normalized Trump’s deviance and evil, the corrupt ex-president, traitor, Jan. 6 coup attempter, defendant who is facing hundreds of years in prison for serious felonies – which include stealing classified and other top secret documents – will soon be getting intelligence briefings. Why? Because of “tradition” as he is the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. On this perilous absurdity, Tom Nichols warns in the Atlantic:
The decision rests, as always, with the sitting president, and Joe Biden is likely to continue this practice so that he will not be accused of “politicizing” access to intelligence. Such accusations need not be taken seriously; they would only be more meaningless noise from a GOP that has already stumbled in a clumsy attempt to impeach Biden after leveling charges of corruption at both him and his son. And although denying Trump access to classified briefs would produce squawks and yowls from Republicans, it would also serve as a reminder that Trump cannot be trusted with classified information.
The risks of denying Trump these early briefings are negligible. As we learned from his presidency, Trump is fundamentally unbriefable: He doesn’t listen, and he doesn’t understand complicated national-security matters anyway. The problem with giving Trump these briefings, however, isn’t that he’s ignorant. He’s also dangerous, as his record shows.
Indeed, if Trump were a federal employee, he’d have likely already been stripped of his clearances and escorted from the building. I say this from experience: I was granted my first security clearance when I was 25 years old—Ronald Reagan was still president, which tells you how long ago that was—and I held a top-secret clearance when I advised a senior U.S. senator during the Gulf War. I then held a clearance as a Department of Defense employee for more than a quarter century.
Government employees who hold clearances have to attend annual refresher courses about a variety of issues, including some pretty obvious stuff about not writing down passwords or taking money from a friendly Chinese businessman wearing an American baseball cap. (No, really, that’s a scenario in some of the course materials.) But one area of annual training is always about “insider threats,” the people in your own organization who may pose risks to classified information. Federal workers are taken through a list of behaviors and characteristics that should trigger their concern enough to report the person involved, or at least initiate a talk with a supervisor.
Trump checks almost every box on those lists. (You can find examples of insider-threat training here and here, but every agency has particular briefs they give to their organizations.)
Continuing with this betrayal of America’s pluralistic multiracial democracy, Trump recently met with Hungary’s neofascist leader, Viktor Orban. This meeting is part of a much larger pattern where today’s Republican Party and larger “conservative” movement are forging an international alliance with malign actors and other enemies of democracy.
Within a 24-hour period, the 2024 presidential campaign kicked off in a way that could not present the choice before the American public more starkly.
Joe Biden stood before the Congress and, in his State of the Union address, made a powerful case that he would fight with every fiber of his being to preserve American democracy and the fundamental freedoms of all Americans.
Then, late Friday, Donald Trump hosted Hungary’s authoritarian ruler, Viktor Orbán, in the kind of pro-Putin, anti-democracy summit that perfectly captured the true nature of today’s MAGA Republican Party. The dinner reception was so important that even Melania Trump made one of her rare appearances at her husband’s side. Trump said, “There’s nobody smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s the boss. He’s a non-controversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be and that’s the end of it.’ He’s the boss. He’s a great leader.”
A day earlier, Orbán—Vladimir Putin’s man in Europe, his acolyte and champion—met behind closed doors with the leaders of the new American right at the Heritage Foundation.
There it is, America. Biden is running to preserve America’s traditional values and institutions. Trump and the GOP have openly embraced autocracy, celebrating the virtues of “strong man” government.
If Donald Trump had actually been put on trial, and properly punished for the crimes of Jan. 6 and his other violations of American democracy, civil society and the law, the Trumpocene and this state of malignant normality would be closer to dissipating. Of course, and in an anti-climax because it confirms what has long been obvious, the Washington Post is reporting that Attorney General Merrick Garland delayed investigating Trump for his obvious crimes of Jan. 6 and the larger coup plot for more than a year. The result of that choice is that Trump will likely not be tried and sentenced before the 2024 Election. If he defeats President Biden, Trump will then ignore the verdicts against him and seek revenge on all people who dared to hold him accountable for his crime spree.
Investigative reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis detail how:
Hours after he was sworn in as attorney general, Merrick Garland and his deputies gathered in a wood-paneled conference room in the Justice Department for a private briefing on the investigation he had promised to make his highest priority: bringing to justice those responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In the two months since the siege, federal agents had conducted 709 searches, charged 278 rioters and identified 885 likely suspects, said Michael R. Sherwin, then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, ticking through a slide presentation. Garland and some of his deputies nodded approvingly at the stats, and the new attorney general called the progress “remarkable,” according to people in the room.
Congressional staffers barricade doors while taking cover during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)
Sherwin’s office, with the help of the FBI, was responsible for prosecuting all crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 attack. He had made headlines the day after by refusing to rule out the possibility that President Donald Trump himself could be culpable. “We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building,” Sherwin said in response to a reporter’s question about Trump. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”
But according to a copy of the briefing document, absent from Sherwin’s 11-page presentation to Garland on March 11, 2021, was any reference to Trump or his advisers — those who did not go to the Capitol riot but orchestrated events that led to it.
A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.
A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace. Garland and the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, charted a cautious course aimed at restoring public trust in the department while some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him, The Post found.
Ultimately, malignant normality through Trumpism, neofascism, white supremac(ies) racism(s) or whatever other type of vessel it uses to inject its poison is a threat to a humane society and a real social democracy. The language and labels we use to describe this reactionary revolutionary project must not distract us from that basic and foundational truth.
The cruel language and practices of human degradation and destructiveness now feed a growing fascist politics in the U.S. Fascist demagogues now boast about their racial fantasies, unchecked adoration of violence, and their aggressive lawlessness. What Ingmar Bergman once called “The Serpent’s Egg,” a metaphor for the birth of fascism, is about to hatch.
In a world shaped increasingly by emerging authoritarianism, it has become increasingly difficult to remember what a purposeful and substantive democracy looks like, or for that matter, what the idea of democracy might suggest. Democracy as an ideal, promise, and working practice is under assault, just as a number of far-right educational, market, military, and religious fundamentalisms are gaining ascendancy in American society. Increasingly, it becomes more challenging to inhabit those public spheres where politics thrives—where thinking, speaking, and acting subjects engage and critically address the major forces and problems bearing down on their lives. In this new moment in history, which too often resembles the nightmares of a fascist past with its banning of books, erasing of history, attack on trans people, and support of white nationalism and supremacy, the question of how society should imagine itself or what its future might hold has become more demanding given the eradication of social formations that place an emphasis on truth, social justice, freedom, equality, and compassion.
Historical and social amnesia have become the organizing principles of U.S. society. Lies morph into the celebration of violence, and language becomes part of the machinery of social death, relegated to the sphere of consumer culture, and devoid of an ethical grammar that is banished to zones of political and social abandonment.
Here, Giroux focuses in on how malignant normality reflects a failure of imagination:
What’s happening in this country is a failure of imagination.
Many of us take our freedoms for granted. We can’t envision a day when our rights would disappear, leaving us at the mercy of a dictatorship that’s accountable to no one.
Human beings are basically optimistic, and many of us haven’t considered the possibility that 248 years of democracy could end on a single election day. But they can, and they might.
Today I’m asking you to be alarmed – to be deeply afraid. But not crippled by that fear. I’m pleading with you to become motivated to avert a national disaster….
That’s right. The Nazi agenda was inconceivable to decent people – and that’s part of the reason it became a reality.
There was a failure of imagination.
But with today’s MAGA fascism, we don’t have to exercise our imagination very much. We just have to fight the temptation to downplay the dangers that Trump and his gang display in public, for all of us to see….
Whatever you do, don’t ignore what’s happening. Be part of the patriotic rescue of your country – something you can take pride in for the rest of your days. Consider it your gift to your children, your grandchildren, and future generations that you’ll never know.
Fight fascism now, while you can. Be a hero to your country.
I often use therapeutic language to describe the Trumpocene because fascism and other such evil forces are not “just” about politics but are an attack on our collective mental, spiritual, and physical – and intellectual – health. Applying that framework, Donald Trump is abusing the American people.
In an abusive relationship, the horrible and wrong becomes normalized and the victim often ends up celebrating those days when there is no abuse. In essence, what should be every day and a baseline becomes something special and “proof” that the relationship can somehow work or is “healthy.” Unfortunately, too many Americans have internalized the abuse, believe they deserve it, and as shown by public opinion polls want Donald Trump back in the White House to punish them (and the people they hate) some more.
Russia launches likely largest-ever attack on Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian official says
Andrew Carey, Yulia Kesaieva, Victoria Butenko, Olga Voitovych and Radina Gigova – March 22, 2024
Russia launched one of its biggest missile and drone barrages on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight into Friday since the start of its full-scale invasion more than two years ago.
Ukrainian officials said at least 10 of the country’s regions were struck in an attack targeting power supplies in multiple towns and cities, including Kharkiv in the east, Odesa on the coast and Kryvyi Rih in the center.
The attacks have left well over 1 million households without electricity Friday morning, according to reports from multiple regional authorities. Only Kyiv and the northwest of the country were spared.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had “launched a massive strike” on Ukraine’s “military-industrial complex” in response to recent strikes on Russia’s territory. Ukraine’s military – as well as pro-Ukrainian groups of Russian fighters – have this month targeted Russia’s border regions of Belgorod and Kursk, forcing schools to close and residents to evacuate.
“All the goals of the massive strike have been achieved,” the ministry said.
Among the major targets was Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric power complex, situated on the Dnipro river in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Ihor Syrota, chief executive of Ukrhydroenergo, the site’s operator, said both electricity generating plants there had suffered massive damage and that it was unclear when or if the plants would be able to resume operations.
The dam itself was currently not in danger of being breached, however, after workers opened the dam’s gates to allow water to flow downriver, another senior Ukrainian energy executive, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, told national television.
Kudrytskyi said the missile and drone barrage was likely the largest-ever single attack on Ukraine’s energy system.
The energy company operating in Dnipropetrovsk region, DTEK, said more than 1,000 miners were working underground when coal mines in the region lost power due to the strike.
The miners were evacuated above ground and no one was injured, DTEK said, adding that coal production would resume once the mines had been repaired.
At least three people were killed in the nationwide strikes, with two reported dead in Khmelnytskyi region, in western Ukraine, and one in Zaporizhzhia. Several people are reported missing and more than a dozen have been injured.
Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of Ukraine’s air force, said 151 missiles and drones had been launched, including 12 Iskander M ballistic missiles, 7 Kinzhal (Kh-47M2) ballistic missiles and 5 Kh-22 cruise missiles.
Over two years of war, these missile types have proven among the hardest for Ukraine’s air defenses to shoot down. According to Oleshchuk, all 24 of these missiles evaded attempts to intercept them.
Elsewhere, the air force commander said 63 Shahed drones had been fired, of which 55 were intercepted.
He said 40 cruise missiles of type Kh-101/Kh-555 were launched, of which 35 were shot down, while two Kh-59 guided missiles were launched and intercepted.
Finally, 22 S-300 and S-400 missile types – originally designed as anti-aircraft interceptors but commonly used by Russia as attack weapons – were also fired. These are usually left alone by air defense systems because the possible interception time is too short.
Rocket debris is scattered by a strike near a residential building in Zaporizhzhia. – Kateryna Klochko/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Friday’s attack came a day after Kyiv was struck with a salvo of 31 missiles, in an attack targeting facilities belonging to the Defense Intelligence Directorate, a Ukrainian source told CNN.
That strike included just two ballistic missiles, possibly North Korean-made. All 31 missiles fired were intercepted, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on Telegram showing firefighters responding at one of the badly damaged energy facilities, and issued a plea to his allies to provide Ukraine with more support.
“Russian missiles do not suffer delays in the way aid packages to our country do. Shahed drones are not affected by indecision like some politicians are,” Zelensky said.
“Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. We need these solutions. Life must be protected from these non-humans from Moscow,” he said, adding that Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia in particular needed US-made Patriot air defense systems.
For months, Republicans in the US House of Representatives have blocked a military aid package valued at $60 billion, as the issue of support for Ukraine has become embroiled in the political debate surrounding Donald Trump’s campaign to regain the presidency.
US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan visited Kyiv on Wednesday and insisted he remained confident the House would eventually pass a new assistance package, though he could not say when he thought this might happen.
Ukraine war: Five dead and a million without power after wave of Russian strikes
Lipika Pelham – BBC News – March 22, 2024
A million people are without power across Ukraine after Russian missiles targeted energy infrastructure.
There is no electricity in the second-largest city of Kharkiv, the regional head says, and more than 53,000 households in Odesa are without power.
Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, accused Russia of trying to provoke “a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system”.
Russia said it was revenge for recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.
At least five people have been reported killed and 14 wounded.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the latest wave of attacks showed that Western allies must give more military aid to Ukraine, including additional air defence systems.
“There are no delays in Russian missiles like there are in assistance to our country,” he wrote on Telegram.
Some 90 missiles and 60 Shahed drones were launched into Ukraine during the wave of overnight attacks, he said.
Among the targets was Ukraine’s largest dam – the DniproHES in Zaporizhzhia, which was hit eight times according to Ukrainian officials. Video footage appeared to show the dam on fire, but authorities say there is no threat of an imminent breach.
Officials also say that a trolleybus which was crossing the dam at the time caught fire after a missile strike, killing the driver.
“At 04:30 all hell broke loose. Terrible fireworks and explosions. At one point, our house tilted,” Valentyna, an eyewitness whose house overlooks the dam told the BBC.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost connection to the main power line for almost five hours on Friday following the Russian attacks.
This highlighted the “ever-present dangers to nuclear safety and security during the conflict”, it said.
The plant, however, continued to receive external electricity for reactor cooling from its only remaining back-up power line.
Regional head Ivan Fedorov said seven buildings in Zaporizhzhia had been destroyed and 35 others damaged.
Strikes were also reported in President Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih and in Vinnytsia, both in central Ukraine. They damaged a “critical infrastructure object”, said Ukrainian officials.
Russia’s defence ministry said the assault on Ukraine’s power grid was part of a series of revenge attacks against Kyiv for its earlier incursions into Russian territory.
Local officials in the Russian region of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, said on Thursday that a woman had been killed and many other people wounded by a Ukrainian strike.
The fresh attacks come a day after Russian forces launched one of their biggest air strikes in weeks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. At least 17 people, including a child, were injured by falling debris.
Attacks on the energy grid has been part of Russia’s warfare against Ukraine since 2022.
Moscow has previously carried out strikes on Ukrainian power infrastructure plunging millions of people into darkness and depriving them of heat, power and water.
Attacks during the autumn and winter of 2022 left 17 million Ukrainians without a regular supply of electricity for extended periods.
But the head of the Ukrainian grid operator, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, said Thursday night’s attacks were worse.
“Even last winter, attacks on our energy system weren’t so bad as last night. Dozens of grid facilities have been hit. This is on a global scale.”
Mr Kudrytsky added that the worst affected area was Kharkiv, where “Russia literally tried to destroy all the main energy facilities feeding the city”.
Firefighters at a power station in Kharkiv after Russian missile attack
President Zelensky has often described the Russian attacks on power stations as “energy terrorism”.
The White House condemned Thursday’s attacks and renewed its call for urgent additional air defences for Ukraine as soon as possible.
Russia launches massive air attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
Patrick Reevell – March 22, 2024
Russia unleashed a massive aerial attack on Friday in what Ukrainian officials said was the largest and most destructive assault on its energy infrastructure since the start of the war.
Over 150 missiles and drones were involved in the bombardment, striking targets across the Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force, knocking out power to swathes of the country and badly damaging its largest hydroelectric power station. It was the second largest aerial attack on Ukraine since Russia began its invasion two years ago, the air force said.
At least three people were killed in the assault, and 15 others were injured, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office.
Ukraine’s military said air defenses destroyed around 90 of the projectiles but more than a third still managed to get through.
The strikes forced emergency shut downs of electricity in at least seven regions, including Odesa, Dnipro, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia and Kirovohrad, according to Ukraine’s state energy company. Officials in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, said it was entirely without power following the attacks.
“The morning attack by the Russians on the energy system of Ukraine was the largest ever,” Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the head of Ukrenergo said in a statement.
Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said it was also the largest attack on the city since the start of the war, with at least 20 missiles fired into energy infrastructure, calling the damage “too severe.”
Missiles also hit Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric power station, the Dnipro dam in Zaporizhzhia, setting off a huge fire there and causing critical damage, according to Ukrainian officials.
“We are losing the station,” Ihor Syrota, head of Ukraine’s state hydro-power company, Ukrhydroenergo, told RFE/RL in a live interview, saying that two missiles had struck the power plant.
Ukrainian officials said the structural integrity of the dam itself was not in danger, but local authorities warned people to stock up on water in case of possible shortages.
Friday’s attack involved more than 75 missiles, including seven advanced, hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, according to Ukraine’s air force.
PHOTO: Smoke and fire erupt from an missile explosion on Ukraine’s largest dam, the DniproHES, in Zaporizhzhia (Denys Shmyhal/prime Minister Of /via Reuters)
The attack came as Ukraine is suffering increasingly severe shortages of air defense ammunition, amid delays in Western supplies and with more U.S. support blocked in Congress. A day earlier, Russia launched its largest missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv in months.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said the attacks showed the cost of the delays in Western support.
Russian drones “don’t have indecision,” Zelensky said in a video address. “It’s important to understand the price of delays and decisions put off. Our partners definitely know what is necessary. They definitely can support. These decisions are needed.”
A new $60 billion military aid package that would include funding for air defense is currently stalled in Congress, blocked by hard right Republicans close to former President Donald Trump. The bill was approved by a bipartisan majority in the Senate in December but Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to put it to a vote.
Russia has largely avoided striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for the past few months, instead focusing on military production targets. But Ukraine increasingly faces a choice of using its limited air defenses to protect large cities and civilian infrastructure or deploy it to the frontline, where Russia is regaining air superiority.
Ukraine has used the advanced handful of Patriot air defense batteries provided by the U.S. and European countries to shield Kyiv, but does not have enough to protect key cities elsewhere.
Ukrainian officials on Friday also defended recent Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s oil industry, following reports that U.S. officials have urged Ukraine to halt them over fears it is driving up oil prices globally.
Ukrainian drones have repeatedly struck major Russian oil refineries in recent weeks, in an apparent campaign to undermine Russia’s income for its energy sector, a crucial source of revenue for the Kremlin.
The Financial Times on Friday reported that U.S. officials have warned officials at Ukraine’s intelligence service the attacks should stop.
But Ukrainian deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna told a security forum Friday the strikes were legitimate.
“These are absolutely legal goals from a military point of view. We understand the appeals of American partners. At the same time, we are fighting with the capabilities, resources, and practices that we have today,” she said at the Kyiv Security Forum.
Russia launches ‘largest series of air strikes’ on Ukraine since start of war
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy – March 22, 2024
Russia launched the largest wave of missiles and Iranian–supplied drones against Ukrainian cities since the start of the war two years ago, the White House said Friday.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the attacks, launched overnight, demonstrated how important it is for U.S. to continue providing air defense systems and capabilities to the Ukrainians to fend off Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Mr. Putin is not waiting,” Kirby said. ”He’s not sitting on his hands. He’s making lethal use of every single minute available to him. While our own Congress refuses to act, he’s not wavering.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby
President Joe Biden has been urging Congress to pass an emergency national security bill which was approved by the Senate with bipartisan support and includes $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine. The bill has failed to gain traction in the Republican-controlled House.
“The House of Representatives must pass the national security supplemental as soon as possible so that we can provide Ukraine with this vital equipment,” said Kirby. “And as we’ve seen in just the last couple of days, every single day the House delays is another day that the Ukrainians have to pay for it with their own lives.”
A Ukrainian officer from The 56th Separate Motorized Infantry Mariupol Brigade fires a multiple launch rocket system based on a pickup truck towards Russian positions at the front line, near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
The attack left more than one million homes without electricity; the targets included power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings and “even a trolleybus,” according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“Russia is at war with people’s everyday lives,” wrote Zelenskyy. “My condolences to the loved ones of those killed by this terror.”
Ukrainian officials say that at least 10 different regions of their country were struck.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY.
Putin is ready to squeeze Russia’s outrageously wealthy elite to fund a future war with NATO, analysts say
Tom Porter – March 21, 2024
Putin is ready to squeeze Russia’s outrageously wealthy elite to fund a future war with NATO, analysts say
Vladimir Putin is moving to squeeze Russia’s wealthy elite, a think tank said.
He needs the money to boost military spending, analysts said, and is prepared to ruffle feathers.
Analysts said it’s a sign Putin’s readying for a war with NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to squeeze Russia’s wealthy elite to fund a conflict with NATO, a think tank said.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, drew attention to two recent speeches in which Putin voiced rare criticism of the rich loyalists who’ve been the backbone of his power.
In a Tuesday meeting with leaders from Russia’s lower parliament, the Duma, Putin set out the priorities for his new term in office.
He urged officials to “act in the interest of the state instead of corporations or parties.”
The remarks could be seen as a thinly veiled swipe at the widespread corruption that characterizes modern Russia (and from which, Putin’s critics allege, he has also handsomely benefited).
In similar remarks given about a month before to Russia’s Federation Council, Putin said that “individuals who ‘lined their pockets’ in the 1990s” — who are among its crop of oligarchs — are not the real elite.
The actual elite, he said, “are workers and military servicemen who proved their loyalty to Russia.”
The ISW said the remarks indicated that Putin was sending a warning shot to the “siloviki,” the wealthy ex-security officials who form an important part of his power base.
Taken together, the remarks pick away at the long-standing implicit bargain analysts say Putin struck with the country’s wealthy, agreeing to leave their riches untouched in exchange for political support.
The ISW said Putin was changing tack, “signaling that Russia’s long-term financial stability will require imposing at least some pain on some wealthy industrialist siloviki,” it said.
Putin appears willing to risk his accord with his wealthy backers to boost preparations “for a potential future large-scale conflict with NATO,” the ISW said.
The report comes after a series of warnings from Western leaders that Putin might be preparing for a war with the West.
Denmark’s defense minister said it could come in as little as five years.
Analysts say that the Russian president has long harbored ambitions to seize back control of territory in northern and eastern Europe that was once part of the Soviet Union and that victory in Ukraine could embolden him.
But fulfilling that ambition would not come cheap.
Who are the siloviki?
When Putin came to power in 1999, he moved to punish some who had grown wealthy during the liberalization of Russia in the ’90s.
Specifically, he took on those who challenged him, such as the oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
A new faction expanded its power under Putin, the siloviki.
Some were handed control over state energy companies and corporations in an apparent exchange for their loyalty, becoming vastly wealthy.
The US sought to undermine Putin’s power by targeting the assets of Russia’s wealthy loyalists in a series of sanctions in the wake of the Ukraine war’s start.
But the Russian economy has managed to withstand the worst effects of the fallout from the Ukraine war, and the loyalty of Putin’s wealthy backers has mostly held firm.
Some members of the Russian business elite were critical of the Ukraine war, fearing the effects on Russia’s economy and society. But, The Guardian reported, many have since resigned themselves to the war and Putin’s continued rule.
And it’s not just Putin’s willingness to shake up his relationship with his wealthy loyalists that indicates his readiness to rapidly expand Russia’s military.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, announced plans Wednesday to massively expand Russia’s armed forces by creating two new armies.
“Several Russian financial, economic, and military indicators suggest that Russia is preparing for a large-scale conventional conflict with NATO,” the ISW said, “not imminently but likely on a shorter timeline than what some Western analysts have initially posited.”
