Russia Goes After British MP’s Son for Killing of Chechen Commander in Ukraine
Allison Quinn – June 2, 2022
Russia’s National Guard has confirmed that a Chechen commander was killed in a bloody firefight with foreign volunteers in Ukraine—and they singled out the son of a British lawmaker as one of those responsible.
Ben Grant, a 30-year-old former Royal Marine and the son of Helen Grant, a Conservative MP and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s special envoy on girls’ education, joined British and U.S. servicemen fighting Russian forces in Ukraine back in March, telling British media at the time that he felt compelled to act after seeing footage of Russian troops bombing a home as a child screamed.
“I just want to make that clear, completely off my own back, I decided to do this. I didn’t even tell my mum, but it is what it is,” he said.
Viral footage of fighting in the Kharkiv region published by The Daily Telegraph last week captured Grant and other Western volunteers, part of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to force Russian troops out of the region, under heavy Russian fire as they rescued a wounded fellow volunteer.
“We’ve got to move now or we’re gonna die!” Grant can be heard shouting.
The harrowing video, filmed by a helmet-mounted camera, then shows as they turned the tables to ambush a Russian armored vehicle, striking it with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
“Shoot it now!” a man identified as Grant yells as the weapon is fired.
Russia’s National Guard says Sgt. Adam Bisultanov, the commander of a separate operational brigade of the North Caucasus District of the National Guard, was killed in the “attack” on Russian forces by the “group of mercenaries from Great Britain and the U.S.”
“During protective fire, the armored personnel carrier in which [Bisultanov] was located took three hits from a grenade launcher and was wrecked,” the National Guard said in a statement Tuesday.
“The GoPro camera captured footage of the attack and one of the fighters of the mercenary group, the son of British MP Ben Grant,” the statement said, adding that the video will be provided to military investigators. Russia’s Investigative Committee announced this week that it was investigating Grant for his role “leading” the ambush.
Bisultanov had taken part in the war in Ukraine since Vladimir Putin launched an all-out invasion on Feb. 24. In light of his death and news of Grant’s alleged role in it, some Russian media reports floated the idea of him facing the “death penalty” in Russian-occupied Donetsk.
“He will have to run for the rest of his life,” Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote of Grant, noting that Bisultanov had been born in Chechnya, “where the principle of blood feud or vendetta is not empty words.”
Two states aim to arm teachers despite opposition from educators and experts
Phil McCausland – June 2, 2022
George Frey
Two state legislatures are considering measures that would permit teachers and other school staff to carry arms in the aftermath of the Texas elementary school shooting that killed 19 children last month, despite opposition from gun safety advocates, teachers’ groups and school security experts.
While the idea isn’t new — many Republican-controlled legislatures considered similar legislation after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting — it is a growing talking point as the country has witnessed a number of mass killings in the past few weeks. Two states, Ohio and Louisiana, are now considering either decreasing the requirements to arm school staff or permitting employees to carry a firearm after fulfilling the required training.
It’s a popular talking point in conservative circles. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in an interview on Fox News on the day of the Uvalde school shooting that the state, which already allows teachers to be armed, should go further to ensure school employees have firearms.
Seth Garza pays his respects with his daughter Lilly at a memorial on May 31, 2022, dedicated to the 19 children and two adults killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. (Brandon Bell / Getty Images)
“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things,” he said. “We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly because the reality is that we don’t have the resources to have law enforcement at every school.”
At least 28 states, including Texas, currently allow teachers or school staff to be armed in the classroom under varying conditions, according to a 2020 RAND Corporation study. It is unclear how effective that has been at undermining a school shooting threat and critics note research that shows that adding firearms to a situation only increases the risk of gun violence.
Video: Former FBI agent turned teacher addresses proposal to arm teachers
0:09 5:19 Scroll back up to restore default view.
“These bills are about rhetoric and distraction — they’re not about solutions,” said Rob Wilcox, federal legal director at Everytown for Gun Safety. “If you were to introduce guns into schools, not only is it ineffective, but you’re introducing more risk. How will guns be stored? How will folks be trained? When will guns be used? How do you ensure kids won’t get access to them? How do you ensure a gun isn’t used in a tense situation at school? These are all critical questions about this type of legislation that never gets answered.”
The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have long expressed their opposition to arming teachers as a solution to gun violence at schools, and many have also shared concerns about the heightened risk of legal liability for teachers and schools.
School security experts also shared frustration that many of these programs provide limited training as a cost-saving measure for security, as it appeared to show a lack of commitment to safety.
“You can tell me all you want with your rhetoric that school safety is a priority, but I will know whether it is when I look at your budget, your actions and your leadership,” said Kenneth Trump, who has served as an expert for civil litigation trials after shootings and serves as the president of Ohio-based National School Safety and Security Services. “One thing I’ve learned in 30 years of working with schools is that it becomes a priority when the parents are outraged or when there’s media attention.”
Ohio’s and Louisiana’s pushes to arm teachers
The bill headed to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk from the state’s Republican-controlled legislature would lessen the threshold for carrying a weapon.
DeWine said in a statement that he called on the Ohio General Assembly last week to pass the bill that would allow school districts to “designate armed staff for school security and safety.” He said he looked forward to “signing this important legislation.”
“My office worked with the General Assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training. House Bill 99 accomplishes these goals, and I thank the General Assembly for passing this bill to protect Ohio children and teachers.”
Ohio state Sen. Cecil Thomas, a Democrat from Cincinnati, said “the bank of common sense is bankrupt in the Ohio legislature, noting that he’s been pushing for new regulations aimed at preventing gun violence since a 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, left nine dead and 17 wounded.
“Since then, the most we got in the legislature is to put more guns out there and made it easier to have access to firearms,” said Thomas, who served on the Cincinnati Police Department for 27 years.
A teacher puts on a bulletproof vest during a live fire training session in Thistle, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019. (George Frey / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)
The measure to arm teachers is heading to the governor’s desk as Ohio also prepares, in two weeks, to formally lift the requirement that gun owners have a concealed carry license as the state’s “Constitutional Carry” law goes into effect.
While those laws have passed easily in the Republican-controlled legislature, Thomas said he’s had no luck getting a hearing for legislation he’s written to limit the procurement of arms, such as red flag laws, universal background checks, background checks for the transfer of firearms, increasing age requirements for firearm purchases to 21 and more.
In Louisiana, state Sen. Eddie Lambert, a pro-gun Republican, amended a controversial gun bill passed by the statehouse on Wednesday, stripping the legislation of a measure that would allow permitless concealed carry, to pursue a similar idea. Because it is too late to introduce new bills into the legislative session, which ended Monday, his changes would delete the original concept of permitless concealed carry.
In place of the old language, he added text that would give school districts the authority to designate school administrators or teachers who could carry a gun and serve as “school protection officers” after they took a training course and obtained a permit that allowed them to carry weapons in schools. He said they would receive training similar to that provided to police officers.
“You don’t want anybody who is not fully trained in this situation: this is not for just some Joe Blow,” he said, adding that teachers would have to keep the concealed gun “on them at all times” and out of reach of children.
Lambert said the original bill — a copy of legislation vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards last year — had no chance of passing. This “common sense” law did, however, and he said he felt it necessary to include the language after reading about the Tulsa hospital shooting and the attack on the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
“You’re going to have some of the gun rights people criticize me for that,” he said, explaining that some were upset with him for changing the bill. “You know what? I’m just going to do what can be done to protect people.”
Bel Edwards’ office said it had not changed its position on permitless concealed carry since the governor, a gun owner, vetoed the bill last year, but added that it was too early to comment on legislation that hadn’t yet passed the Senate and would have to be voted on again in the House.
Teachers not enthusiastic about being armed
The question is, however, do teachers want to be armed in the classroom?
In the past they’ve said, no. A 2019 national survey of 2,926 teachers, including more than 450 gun owners, conducted in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting found that more than 95 percent of educators did not believe teachers should be carrying a gun in the classroom.
Only about 6 percent said they would be comfortable using a gun to stop a shooter.
Texas is one of the states that has allowed teachers and other school employees to be armed, but it’s not a particularly popular program, either.
Under its “school marshal” program, Texas has licensed certain school employees to carry a firearm since 2013. After an 80-hour course, a psychological exam and a $35 fee, school staff members can be approved to pack heat in schools. But in nine years, the state has only licensed 256 marshals in 62 of the state’s 1,029 school districts, according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.
NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement that “teachers need more resources, not revolvers.”
“Educators and parents overwhelmingly reject the idea of arming school staff,” she added. “Rather than arming educators with guns, we need to be giving them the tools needed to inspire their students. Rather than putting the responsibility on individual teachers, our elected leaders need to pass laws that protect children from gun violence and bring an end to senseless and preventable killings.”
Intercepted audio shows 2 Russian officers cursing out Putin and other commanders in charge of the Ukraine invasion
Joshua Zitser – June 2, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia, on June 1, 2022.Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Audio shows Russian officers bad-mouthing the leaders of the invasion of Ukraine.
They use harsh curse words to describe Vladimir Putin, Sergei Shoigu, and Alexander Dvornikov.
The audio was obtained by Ukrainian intelligence and passed to to US-funded Radio Svoboda.
Intercepted recordings shows Russian military officers cursing out Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders in charge of the invasion of Ukraine.
The audio recordings come from an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence agency, which intercepted the phone calls, and were provided to the Radio Svoboda investigative project “Schemes.”
In the audio, a senior Russian officer can be heard bad-mouthing Russia’s minister of defense Sergei Shoigu. Shoigu, a close ally of Putin, was one of the few Kremlin insiders who made the decision to invade Ukraine, Bloomberg reported in April.
“Shoigu is completely fucking incompetent,” he says in the recording. “Just a fucking showman, for fuck’s sake,” he adds.
According to the investigation, the officer was Lieutenant Colonel Vladimirovich Vlasov.
Vlasov also calls Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, Russia’s top commander in Ukraine, a “complete and utter imbecile” and a “brainless fucking idiot” in the recordings.
Vlasov was speaking to a Russian military medic, Colonel Vitaliy Kovtun, according to Radio Svoboda. Kovtun, per the recordings, refers to both Shoigu and Putin as a “fucking cunt.”
Radio Svoboda contacted both men for comment.
Kovtun took the phone call and responded by calling the journalist a “fucking cunt” and threatening to report him to Russia’s FSB security agency.
Vlasov answered the phone call but declined to offer a comment. He refused to answer follow-up calls, according to Radio Svoboda.
20 wounded on board, and we were hit by air defence missile – pilot describes his missions to Azovstal
Iryna Balachuk – June 2, 2022
SCREENSHOT FROM THE VIDEO
A helicopter pilot, who carried out missions to deliver supplies and evacuate the wounded from Azovstal, recounts how they prepared for the missions, what risks were involved, how Russian occupiers shot down the helicopter of his comrade-in-arms, and how he was able to fly with one engine not working to the landing site and thus save the 20 people on board.
Source: Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Facebook
Quote from the pilot, whose identity is not disclosed: “The main difficulty was that it was necessary to deliver the cargo into the depth of the enemy-held area, which was larger than 100 km. The enemy’s air defence was very dense throughout this area, and it was not only difficult – it was almost impossible to achieve. But practice has shown that it is possible, and we achieved it.”
Details: According to the pilot, at the landing zone at “Azovstal” alone there were three different anti-aircraft missile systems. Therefore, the pilots tried not to enter the area within reach of those systems. To achieve this, it was important to be aware of all the natural and man-made obstacles along the way.
The pilot added that when the task was assigned, the whole crew understood that in 90% of cases they would not return, but at the same time everyone realised that delivering supplies and picking up people was essential, so they decided to take these chances.
According to him, the greatest anxiety was felt when they walked to the helicopter before the launch; once underway, everyone understood that it’s just a job and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
Quote: “But once [we arrived] in Mariupol, when the cargo was being unloaded, the feeling was one of euphoria. It seemed to us that since we succeeded in arriving and standing here – within reach of three anti-aircraft missile systems – and we were unloading, we are like kings of the world, we had already won, and everything would be fine.
But on the way back, at the 6th kilometre – three minutes after take-off – my helicopter was hit by a Man-portable air-defence missile – and one engine failed. Another helicopter behind me was less fortunate, it crashed and the entire crew was killed. “
Details: He explained that each pilot has written guidance that it is their own decision to take off and land, so when his helicopter was hit by a missile, he chose to fly to the landing site.
Quote: “After the missile hit, we had an adrenaline rush – and we just did what we had to do. There were 20 wounded on board, and we understood that if we were to land somewhere in the field, how would they be picked up and evacuated further? Another helicopter would be needed, and this would become an unplanned operation – so we just flew to the landing site.”
Later, the founder and first commander of the Azov Regiment, Andriy Biletskyi, noted the exceptional heroism of the helicopter crews that delivered reinforcements, weapons, medicine and other essentials to the defenders of Mariupol blockaded by the Russian Federation.
Denmark Just Reversed 30 Years of Euroskeptic Defense Policy—Thanks to Russia
Charlie Campbell / London – June 1, 2022
DENMARK-EU-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT-REFERENDUM
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her husband Bo Tengberg cast their ballots at a polling station in Vaerloese near Copenhagen, Denmark, on Jun. 1, 2022, as traditionally euroskeptic Denmark votes in a referendum on whether to overturn its opt-out on the EU’s common defence. Credit – Ritzau Scanpix—AFP via Getty Images
Denmark on Wednesday voted to overturn its opt-out of the E.U.’s common defense policy, reversing three decades of Euroskepticism regarding security matters. The move is the latest sign of the West coalescing in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Some 66.9% of voters cast referendum ballots in favor of abandoning the opt-out—first negotiated in 1992—meaning Danish officials can now participate in E.U. defense discussions and the country’s armed forces can deploy on E.U. military operations.
“We now have an even stronger foundation for close Nordic security cooperation in #EU & NATO,” tweeted Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod in response to the result.
Although Denmark has been an E.U. member since 1973, the nation of 5.8 million has been one of the most hesitant participants. The country has opted out of the euro single currency and common bloc policies on justice and home affairs—as well as, until now, defense—that Danes believed would undermine their sovereignty.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression has spurred a rethink. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the referendum just two weeks after Russia’s Feb. 24 full-scale invasion of Ukraine—and despite her Euroskeptic government previously supporting the opt-out and deeming it a significant part of Danish identity.
In the end, 11 of Denmark’s 14 parties—representing more than three-quarters of parliament—urged voters to say “yes” to reverse the opt-out.
“Unfortunately we are looking forward to a time that will be even more unstable than what we experience now,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters after casting her ballot. “I believe it is the right thing for Europe, I believe it is the right thing for Denmark, believe it is the right thing for our future.”
The move comes as Nordic neighbors Finland and Sweden have applied to join NATO, abandoning 75 and 200 years of military neutrality, respectively. Denmark, by contrast, was a founding member of NATO and has long adopted a hawkish military posture, frequently engaging in joint military drills and joining the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this sense, Wednesday’s referendum is closer to correcting an aberration than the momentous U-turns of Finland and Sweden.
“Sweden and Finland applying to join NATO is a move of a different magnitude,” says Christine Nissen, a researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies. “Though the [Denmark referendum] is part of the same story of greater European unity.”
The symbolism is important but there are substantive elements as well. For one, Denmark can now participate in PESCO, or Permanent Structured Cooperation, an enhanced E.U. security framework established in 2017 to enable member states to develop defense capabilities, collaborate on shared projects (including weapons systems), and boost the operational readiness and potency of their armed forces. Still, there’s no obligation for Denmark or any member state to partake in E.U. military operations under the common defense policy.
Denmark has already been a significant contributor to Ukraine’s defense through NATO, even sending heavy weapons such as Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The missiles use active radar homing and fly just above the water to evade defenses—and many consider these weapons offensive rather than strictly defensive. “Basically, everything that can move within the Danish armed forces is deployed as part of the NATO response to bolster the defense on the eastern flank,” says Kristian Soby Kristensen, deputy head of the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
Much of the debate around the referendum concerned whether closer alignment with the E.U. on defense might come at the expense of cherished military ties to the U.S., U.K., and NATO. “NATO is the guarantor of Denmark’s security,” Morten Messerschmitt, head of the right-wing Danish People’s Party, who was against dropping the opt-out, argued during a televised debate Sunday “[Denmark’s defensive posture] would be totally different if it were decided in Brussels.”
However, Finland and Sweden’s decision to apply to join NATO reflect the fact that the two blocs are increasingly aligned. Another spur for Denmark to fall in with the E.U. on security was the decision by Germany—Denmark’s closest ally other than the U.S.—to increase its defense spending to 2% of GDP. “Now that Germany is likely to play a much larger role in European security, the perspective is that it will also materialize into a stronger role for the E.U.” says Nissen. “And so, there’s a wish to be a part of that.”
Separate to the referendum, Denmark in March agreed to increase its defense budget to 2% of GDP by 2033.
Of course, removing the opt-out drives a deeper wedge between Copenhagen and Moscow, and risks antagonizing Putin, though that appears of little consequence to either Denmark’s government or people. “It’s gone beyond that—opposition to Russia is strong and heartfelt,” says Kristensen. “The fact that a large country can use its military force to blatantly attack another country goes against everything that Danish foreign and security policy has been built upon for the last 70 years.”
Mallory McMorrow, rising Democratic star, says it’s time to answer conservative culture war attacks
Alexander Nazaryan, Senior W. H. Correspondent – June 1, 2022
WASHINGTON — It is fair to say that until last month, Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow was not a figure of national political prominence. That changed on April 19, when she delivered an impassioned speech countering Republican accusations that Democrats like she were “groomers” for supporting the rights of gay and trans students.
The four-minute broadside immediately roused Democrats who had been huddled in a defensive crouch for months; one circulating version has been viewed more than 15 million times
“I’m going to start talking that way,” Democratic consultant James Carville told the Washington Post.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich. (Al Goldis/AP)
The speech came after months of charges from politicians like Ron DeSantis, the ambitious Republican Florida governor, that teachers who wanted to discuss sexuality and gender were, in fact, trying to indoctrinate children. The charges were baseless but effective, and books like “Gender Queer” suddenly became the targets of national bans.
“There was a hesitancy to want to talk about things, at least for me,” McMorrow told Yahoo News during a recent visit to Washington, D.C.
That changed on April 13, when Republican state Sen. Lana Theis gave an arresting invocation to open the Michigan State Senate session. “Dear Lord, across the country we’re seeing in the news that our children are under attack,” Theis said. “That there are forces that desire things for them other than what their parents would have them see and hear and know. Dear Lord, I pray for Your guidance in this chamber to protect the most vulnerable among us.”
McMorrow walked out of the legislative chamber along with two other Democrats, seeing Theis’s concern as a thinly disguised reference to the “grooming” line of attack. She did not think much of her response to what had seemed like intentional political provocation, a local Republican trying to replicate the rhetoric of Fox News.
“I guess she took offense to that,” McMorrow said of Theis.
Five days later, Theis sent out a fundraising email that seemed to confirm as much. “These are the people we are up against,” the email said. “Progressive social media trolls like Senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they … can’t groom and sexualize kindergarteners or that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery.”
Michigan state Sen. Lana Theis. (Senator Lana Theis via Facebook)
McMorrow said she was stunned to find herself a target of such attacks. “She’s a mom, I’m a mom, and being accused of, let’s be honest, befriending children for the purpose of molesting them, is horrific,” McMorrow recalled.
She and Theis were not exactly friends, but they had been friendly. “I have gone out for coffee in her district. We talked about our families, and she asks about my baby all the time,” McMorrow told Yahoo News.
“She likes my truck,” adds her husband Ray Wert, who accompanied McMorrow to Washington and is the former editor of automotive website Jalopnik. (Theis did not answer a request for comment from Yahoo News.)
The fundraising email had gone out on a Monday. On Tuesday came McMorrow’s response.
“I am the biggest threat to your hollow, hateful scheme,” McMorrow said from the statehouse floor.
Describing herself as “a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom,” the 35-year-old New Jersey native and Notre Dame graduate positioned herself as precisely the kind of suburban voter whom the GOP “grooming” attacks were trying to court.
People hold up signs during a rally against “critical race theory” (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Virginia on June 12, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
“No child alive today is responsible for slavery,” McMorrow said in her viral speech. “No one in this room is responsible for slavery. But each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history.”
Dismaying as it had been to be labeled a pedophile, McMorrow says she tried to imagine what it was like to be gay or Black in a climate she described as relentless “fearmongering” by Republicans. “You are targeted and marginalized,” she said. “Just for existing.”
Coming amid increasingly downbeat predictions for Democrats in next fall’s congressional midterms, McMorrow’s rebuttal proved a welcome surprise at a time when Democrats were still reeling from discontent over pandemic-related school closures, not to mention the gender- and race-related attacks that followed.
In Virginia, suburban frustrations helped power the Republican business executive Glenn Youngkin to an upset victory over Democratic candidate and former governor Terry McAuliffe in that state’s gubernatorial race last fall. The suburbs hugging the Potomac — the same ones that had voted for Biden only months before — provided the crucial difference.
“Suburban moms who have left the Republican Party in big numbers came back,” a jubilant Bob McDonnell — Virginia’s last Republican governor before Youngkin — told the Washington Post after the latter’s unlikely win over McAuliffe.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Feb. 3. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
In McMorrow’s Michigan and across the Midwest, Republicans now control nearly all of the state legislatures. Democrats in Washington have found their messages about a post-pandemic economic renewal unconvincing to a suburban and rural electorate uneasy about social issues like education and crime.
Democrats need to reawaken those voters’ sense of moral responsibility, McMorrow believes, while acknowledging the challenges they face. “Moms are tired after the past few years with COVID, with school closures, trying to balance work and school, and I’ve seen attempts to take advantage of that exhaustion,” she told Yahoo News. “What I try to say, specifically to other white suburban moms, is this is a moment to decide to take our own identity and back fight for the types of communities we want.”
Perhaps precisely because she is herself a straight, white suburbanite, McMorrow has served to remind Democrats of what they stood for when they marched in the summer of 2020 for social justice, what they hoped for when they voted for Biden that fall. “I think I felt the same way a lot of people did on Inauguration Day, which was, we all worked so hard in 2020 to help President Biden get elected,” she says. “And it felt like we could breathe a sigh of relief. And I don’t think that was naive.”
Despite a promising start, new variants of the coronavirus spoiled Biden’s promised “summer of freedom,” and a sort of pandemic malaise has settled in. A messy withdrawal from Afghanistan added foreign policy woes to domestic ones. Biden’s infrastructure plan passed, but his more ambitious raft of social spending programs, known as Build Back Better, didn’t. Inflation climbed ever higher, making it increasingly difficult for many people to afford groceries and gas.
President Biden speaks during a Memorial Day address. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
McMorrow saw some of her conservative constituents give over to Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen from him. That conspiracy theory has melded with a resistance to coronavirus safety measures and fears of demographic change to fuel a pervasive feeling of grievance and threat.
She describes herself as wanting to speak for other suburban moms: perhaps the ones who put up Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home Here signs in their yards, but have, in the last two years, grown successively more exhausted with school closures, reports of rising crime and inflation.
“The signs are a wonderful signal and reminder of who we are and what kind of community and country we want our kids to grow up in,” McMorrow told Yahoo News of front yard progressivism. “But the devastating reality is that Republicans are actively trying to dismantle that vision, and a sign isn’t enough without action. Because they’ll win unless we stop them.”
Almost exactly two years before she gave her now-famous speech, McMorrow watched as heavily armed anti-lockdown protesters invaded the Michigan statehouse.
“When you saw the photo of the four men and guns, what you don’t see is I’m right below them. Like literally,” she says of that day’s iconic image. “They were above our heads, taunting us. You know, fingers on triggers.”
“There’s ordinary Republican voters who see it as bulls***,” she says, even as she worries that many of them have bought into a strident and often false narrative about the country. “I’ve got a woman in my district who calls our office fairly regularly and leaves voicemails, and you can hear her voice like she’s genuinely upset. She believes the election was stolen,” she recalled. “She asks how I, as a woman, could support ‘biological men’ playing in women’s sports. When you know in Michigan, there’s two kids per year who apply for the waiver for getting to play on a team to match their gender.”
After the massacre of 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, last week, Republicans in the Michigan State Senate ended sessions early, in order, state Democrats said, to prevent a genuine discussion of gun policy.
A memorial surrounds the sign outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, following the mass shooting there. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
In response, McMorrow recorded a video from her office. She asked parents to dispense with the notion of a school shooting as “unimaginable” and to instead imagine the horror of their own children caught in the terrifying chaos
“Your phone rings. It’s the school,” They need you to come down to give a DNA sample,” a tearful McMorrow says into the camera. “The bodies are too mutilated to identify. So mutilated that they don’t even know how many kids there are.”
The video garnered hundreds of thousands of views, more evidence that McMorrow was hitting raw political nerves. Even before the new message, liberal commentator Keith Olbermann was touting her as a presidential candidate in 2024, positing a run with Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. It was less a realistic ticket than a recognition that many Democrats feel that they need new people to say new things — and to say them more bluntly than their party elders have.
For the record, McMorrow said she isn’t going to seek the White House — at least not in 2024. “We’re in this mess because Republicans have known for decades to work from the bottom up,” she told Yahoo News. “What happens in the states is the most consequential thing on the ballot.”
The U.S. is sending Ukraine advanced rocket systems. Here’s why that artillery is so crucial.
Patrick Galey and Erin McLaughlin and Dan De Luce – June 1, 2022
Russia is advancing in the east behind a barrage of artillery that has strained Ukrainian defenses and Western unity over support for a protracted war.
The United States’ much-anticipated decision to send Kyiv long-range missile systems that will allow its forces to fire farther and faster has likely come too late to save two key cities in the Donbas region that has become the focal point of the fighting.
But delivery of the weapons after months of urging from Ukrainian officials will help the country’s military face the next, potentially decisive stage of the conflict — as the Kremlin perhaps hinted at in response, accusing the U.S. of “deliberately pouring oil on the fire.”
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the U.S. would be sending Ukraine the high mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS. “This new package will arm them with new capabilities and advanced weaponry, including HIMARS with battlefield munitions, to defend their territory from Russian advances,” he said in a statement.
The HIMARS is a variant of the longer-range multiple-launch rocket system, or MLRS. The U.S. is sending four of the rocket launch systems to Ukraine.
A senior Ukrainian official told NBC News after the announcement that he remained “very much worried… particularly since they have committed only a small battery of MLRSs, meaning they yet won’t make a large difference.”
MLRS missiles typically have a range of up to 40 miles, and can be equipped with GPS-guided missiles. This would be a significant upgrade of the Ukrainian artillery’s current range, which tops out at around 20 miles with the M777 howitzers its allies have so far provided.
The systems have the added benefit of being self-propelled, meaning they can be fired and moved fast enough to avoid enemy response salvos.
Phil Wasielewski, a fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the systems would aid Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, where the battle has “turned into an artillery duel.”
He said that combined with their targeting capacity aided by commercial drones and counter battery radars, the systems would provide a “distinct qualitative and quantitative improvement” to Ukraine’s combat capability.
“These rocket artillery systems can destroy Russian cannon artillery systems and not be touched by them.”
Ukraine’s allies are slowly stepping up their exports of heavy weaponry, with Germany promising Wednesday to supply Ukraine with modern anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems.
However they are unlikely to arrive in time to save swaths of the country’s east from being battered and overrun.
A Donetsk People’s Republic militia’s multiple rocket launcher fires from its position not far from Panteleimonivka, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People’s Republic, eastern Ukraine, on May 28, 2022. (Alexei Alexandrov / AP)
Lacking long-range missile capability, Ukrainian forces are experiencing heavy losses, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that up to 100 soldiers could be dying in battle each day in the east.
“The combination of artillery barrage, airstrikes and missile strikes is what we expected from Russia from the beginning of the war and they are grinding the Ukrainians down,” said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In comments earlier this week, he said that if Ukrainian forces had the MLRS during Russia’s advance, they would have had a “better chance of breaking up Russian advances with little risk of destruction.”
Speaking before the announcements from Washington and Berlin, the senior Ukrainian official said his country had long been communicating to the U.S. and its allies what it needed to win the war.
“This is about long-range firearms, howitzers, MLRS, air defense,” the official told NBC News.
“This is an active artillery war. A war in which you need long-range firepower,” the official said. “This war is about shooting and moving. Who can shoot the longest and fastest wins.”
Dating back to before the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government and its supporters in Congress have appealed to the Biden administration repeatedly for certain weapons, and the White House initially declined or it has taken weeks or months before approving the delivery of items such as anti-aircraft Stinger missiles and drones.
A man walks away from a burning house garage after shelling in the city of Lysytsansk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on May 30, 2022. (Aris Messinis / AFP – Getty Images)
U.S. officials have grappled for weeks over sending the MLRS to eastern Ukraine, largely due to the systems’ extended ranges, which could potentially allow Ukrainian forces to fire directly into Russian territory.
Biden on Monday told reporters that the U.S. would not “send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia.” A senior administration official said Ukraine has agreed not to use them to launch rockets into Russia.
Echoing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s comments, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Wednesday that any arms supplies “increase the risks of a direct collision between Russia and the United States,” according to the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.
Moscow’s messaging over the long-range weapons systems showed it “knows exactly how to play on the West’s doubts and fear of a direct NATO-Russia confrontation,” said Michael A. Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst who is the head of intelligence at the consultancy Le Beck International.
He said that it wasn’t too late for the weapons to help Ukrainian forces defend positions and stanch further Russian advances in the Donbas.
“But each day the West hesitates is a day Russian artillery rules the battlefield. Russian advances are preceded by massive fire. Each city lost by Ukraine is a city leveled to the ground, making each retreat even more painful,” Horowitz said.
Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said another Western concern was overloading Ukrainian forces with myriad new weapons systems, all of which require time for soldiers to be trained to use and maintain.
“The West has already given them artillery, armored personnel carriers, anti-artillery radars,” he said.
“If the Ukrainians had two years to absorb all this, that would be no problem. But they’re doing this in real time. We’re asking the Ukrainians to do in a couple of weeks what it would take us several months to do.”
A defense official said Tuesday that the Defense Department believes it can get the training for Ukrainian troops down to a week or two for basic operations and that there will be longer training courses for maintenance of the system.
Hundreds of Russian soldiers have deserted or refused to fight in Ukraine, compounding major losses in the war, report says
Kelsey Vlamis – June 1, 2022
Russian Spetsnaz troops march through Red Square in a Victory Day military parade, May 9, 2021.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Russian troops have suffered major losses since invading Ukraine in February.
Hundred of soldiers have also refused to fight, according to military documents obtained by the WSJ.
Reports have also emerged of low morale among Russian troops in Ukraine.
Hundreds of Russian soldiers have refused to fight or fled their posts since the war in Ukraine began, according to report published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.
“So many people don’t want to fight,” Russian lawyer Mikhail Benyash told the outlet. Benyash is representing a dozen service members of Russia’s National Guard, which typically stamps out protests in Russia, who were dismissed after refusing to take part in the invasion of Ukraine.
The Guardian reported last week that at least 115 Russian national guardsmen said they were fired for refusing to fight. The lawsuit they brought challenging their dismissals was rejected by a Russian court when the judge found their firings justified for “refusing to perform an official assignment.”
Benyash told The Journal soldiers who refuse to fight have been dismissed but not criminally charged because Russia has not formally declared war against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has instead described the invasion as a “special military operation.”
Benyash also said he received requests for legal help from more than 1,000 service members and employees of the Russian agency that oversees domestic policing. He said many had either refused to fight in Ukraine or quell protests in occupied towns.
Agora, a Russian human rights group, also told The Journal upwards of 700 Russian service members contacted the group for legal assistance in relation to refusing orders.
The desertions and refusals to fight have compounded the heavy losses Russian troops have experienced in Ukraine and a shortage of boots on the ground. The UK’s defense ministry said last month Russia had likely lost one-third of its its invading ground combat forces in Ukraine since February.
The 24-year-old was stationed at a military base in Russia near the border with Ukraine in February. On the morning of February 24, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion, shelling landed within two miles from his location and military aircraft in the sky appeared to be heading to Ukraine, The Journal reported. When Sakhibgareev saw a headline on Telegram that said “Russia Invades Ukraine” he panicked and left the base.
He’s one of hundreds of Russian soldiers who have deserted or refused to fight since the war in Ukraine began, according to the report published by The Journal on Wednesday. At least 115 Russian national guardsmen said they were fired after refusing to fight, according to The Guardian.
After months of setbacks, including getting pushed out of Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russian forces have made recent gains in the Donbas region after shifting their focus to eastern Ukraine. Analysts told Insider’s Bill Bostock the advances for Russia marked a reversal from earlier stages of the war, but that the momentum may not last long.
Sakhibgareev was eventually contacted by Russian military officials, who convinced him to come back but allowed him to instead go to a base that was further from battle, The Journal reported. Sakhibgareev’s lawyer, Almaz Nabiev, told the outlet the military could still decide to press charges against him for desertion.
Ukraine’s Muslim Crimea battalion yearns for lost homeland
Max Hunder June 1, 2022
YASNOHORODKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Standing amid the charred remains of a roadside hotel on a major highway near Kyiv, Isa Akayev explained what drove him to build his Muslim volunteer unit and fight for Ukraine.
“I just want to return home, to Crimea,” said Akayev, 57, a gently-spoken father of 13 who sports a long greying beard and shaven head.
When Russia annexed his home region from Ukraine in 2014, Akayev moved to Kyiv and formed the Crimea battalion, a small unit dominated by Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, his unit’s 50 men took part in battles around the Kyiv region but are now seeking to be deployed to the southern front to fight in the Kherson region bordering Crimea.
Their eventual goal of recapturing Crimea looks harder than ever after much of the Kherson region fell under Russian control early in the war, pushing Ukrainian forces back more than 100 km (60 miles) from the peninsula.
But it is enough to rally the Tatars – and their Muslim Russian allies in the unit – behind the cause of Ukraine, which needs all the manpower it can muster as the war grinds towards its 100th day and Moscow’s forces make slow but steady progress. – In Ukraine’s Eastern Donbass region, Scroll back up to restore default view.
ANNEXATION
Many Tatars opposed Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, which had followed the overthrow of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president amid mass street protests.
Their suspicion of Moscow has deep roots. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Crimea’s Tatars – Akayev’s grandparents among them – in 1944, accusing them of collaboration with Nazi Germany.
They were only allowed to return with their descendants in the 1980s – as Akayev did from Uzbekistan in 1989 – and many welcomed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as a liberation.
Fearing a new wave of repression under Moscow’s rule, Akayev moved to Kyiv in 2014, where he was initially rebuffed by Ukraine’s security forces.
“It was very difficult, many people didn’t trust Muslims, and especially Crimean Tatars. Everyone thought we would be the separatists, not someone else,” he said.
But when Russian-backed separatists took up arms against Ukraine in its eastern Donbas region in 2014, all that changed.
His group was allowed to register as a volunteer unit under Ukraine’s interior ministry and fought in the ensuing conflict, with three of its men being wounded. Last month they signed contracts to become a fully-fledged unit of Ukraine’s army.
Dozens of other volunteer battalions sprang up in 2014 and began helping Ukraine’s unprepared regular army to fight in the Donbas. They included two Chechen units, a Georgian one, and several with a right-wing nationalist ethos. Some have since disarmed while others have joined the regular army.
Russia has been scathing about such units. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the eve of the war that providing shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles to former volunteer battalions was evidence of a “militaristic psychosis”.
A Ukrainian presidential envoy said in March that such volunteer battalions now numbered more than 100. Ukraine’s government celebrates them as heroes, celebrating their exploits on an annual volunteers’ day.
TATAR IDENTITY
Just over half of Akayev’s battalion are Crimean Tatars, who make up about 15% of Crimea’s population.
“The core (of the unit) is Crimean because they want to liberate their peninsula, but they don’t have a rule that it should only be Crimeans,” said Serhiy, a Ukrainian who converted to Islam in 2004 and is the unit’s imam.
The Crimean cause provides a focus for the unit, which includes a number of Russian citizens. Its few non-Muslim members are required to follow certain rules, including a ban on alcohol.
“The Crimean Tatars… suffered more under Russian occupation, and so they feel closer to us,” says Muaz, an ethnic Kabardian from Russia’s North Caucasus who joined the battalion a year ago.
A United Nations report in 2017 accused Russia of committing “grave” human rights violations in Crimea, including subjecting the Tatars to intimidation, house searches and detentions.
Moscow, which in 2016 banned the Mejlis, a body representing Crimean Tatars, rejected the report’s findings. It says a March 2014 referendum legitimised its “incorporation” of Crimea.
The Crimea battalion performed reconnaissance against Russian forces around Yasnohorodka, a village 25km west of Kyiv, and later in nearby Motyzhyn, Akayev said.
“The residents here were initially very scared when they saw us because they didn’t know who we were. We had to shout ‘we are Ukrainian’… then people started slowly coming out of their homes and they gave us tea.”
Nearby, the burnt-out hotel bears a special significance for Akayev.
“We wanted to buy this place, to build a Crimean Tatar school and a mosque here… It didn’t come to anything, and then this happened,” Akayev said, gesturing at the building’s charred remains which he said was the result of Russian shelling.
“I (still) dream about this project, but really I just want to return home to Crimea.”
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