Author: John Hanno

Yahoo! News

Ukraine’s Zelensky, onetime comedian turned president, rallies nation against Russian invasion

Christopher Wilson, Senior Writer – February 25, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would remain in the nation’s capital amid the Russian invasion, an actor turned politician encouraging his country to stay strong in a time of war.

Zelensky released a short video address early Friday local time, appearing unshaven and in a T-shirt, in which he said that despite misinformation to the contrary, he was still in the capital, Kyiv.

“I remain in the capital, I remain with my people,” Zelensky said. “During the day I held dozens of international talks, directly managing our country. And I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine. My children are also in Ukraine. My family are not traitors. They are citizens of Ukraine. But I have no right to say where they are now.”

Hours after the video went up, Russian missiles began to hit the city. Early Friday, Kyiv’s mayor said the capital “has entered into a defensive phase.” Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry told citizens to “make Molotov cocktails, neutralize the occupier!” as many took shelter in basements and subway stations.

During his statement, Zelensky said he had been made aware of Russian saboteurs already entering Kyiv and that “the enemy has marked me as target No. 1, my family as target No. 2. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion into Ukraine late Wednesday. President Biden and European allies have imposed economic sanctions against Russia in an attempt to curb its takeover of the sovereign nation.

Zelensky said in the video address that while he had received moral support from world leaders, no one was assisting in his country’s fight.

“We are left alone in defense of our state,” he said. “Who is ready to fight with us? Honestly, I do not see such. Who is ready to guarantee Ukraine’s accession to NATO? Honestly, everyone is afraid.”

“We are not afraid of anything,” he continued. “We are not afraid to defend our state. We are not afraid of Russia. We are not afraid to talk to Russia.”

Early Friday, Russia’s foreign minister said his country was not interested in talking to Ukraine’s leaders until Ukrainian troops had laid down their weapons.

Zelensky’s path to this moment was far from traditional. He rose to prominence as a comedian, actor and producer, including participating in a signature sketch in which he pretended to play the piano with his penis. In one of his final roles before entering politics, he played the president of Ukraine on the popular television series “Servant of the People.” In the show, Zelensky portrayed a high school teacher who is elected to the office after a video of him railing against corruption in the country goes viral. In 2018 his production company created a political party named after the show, and months later Zelensky announced he was running for office.

He eschewed traditional political events like rallies and ran a campaign centered on releasing video messages, offering a vague platform short on specific policies. In the end, the 41-year-old defeated incumbent President Petro Poroshenko with more than 70 percent of the vote in the April 2019 runoff election, becoming the nation’s sixth president. And just like his character in the show, Zelensky appointed close friends to fill some of the highest positions in the government.

“My election proves that our citizens are tired of the experienced, pompous system politicians who over the 28 years [since Ukraine’s independence] have created a country of opportunities — the opportunities to bribe, steal and pluck the resources,” he said in his inaugural address.

Three months after he was elected, Zelensky would have a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump that would eventually get the latter impeached for attempting to pressure the Ukrainian leader into launching an investigation into Biden, then a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, in exchange for the release of military aid. In the lead-up to the Russian invasion this week, Trump repeatedly praised Putin.

A Jew who grew up in central Ukraine amid the fall of the Soviet Union, Zelensky has forcefully denied Putin’s baseless claims that part of Russia’s invasion was intended to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

“The Ukraine on your news and Ukraine in real life are two completely different countries — and the main difference is ours is real,” Zelensky said in a speech Wednesday, just before the attacks were launched. “You are told we are Nazis, but how can a people support Nazis that gave more than 8 million lives for the victory over Nazism? How can I be a Nazi? Tell my grandpa, who went through the whole war in the infantry of the Soviet army and died as a colonel in independent Ukraine.”

“We are different,” he added, “but that is not a reason to be enemies. We want to determine, build our future ourselves, peacefully, calmly and honestly.”

The New York Times – Opinion

Mr. Putin Launches a Sequel to the Cold War

By The Editorial Board – February 24, 2022

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is advancing from the east, the south and toward Kyiv in the north. As fighting raged on Thursday, President Biden ordered a harsh round of sanctions, and a fateful new East-West struggle is underway with no indication of where it might lead or how long it might last.

It is imperative to state clearly that none of the pretext for war that Mr. Putin churned out in recent days and weeks contained much truth or any justification whatsoever for waging war on a weaker neighbor. This is a war of choice for all the wrong reasons, and Mr. Putin and his coterie are solely and fully responsible for every drop of Ukrainian — and Russian — blood, for every livelihood destroyed and for all the economic pain engendered by this conflict.

It is also important to acknowledge that no one, save possibly Mr. Putin, has any idea what will happen in coming days, weeks, months and possibly even years. The Russian president said he had no intention of occupying Ukraine, yet he intends to oust its leadership and round up his enemies. But what does that mean? How did he intend to plant a puppet regime without seizing Kyiv, or to kidnap people without taking the whole country? How long does he intend to occupy the country?

Does the United States or its allies and friends have the levers, and the will, to punish Russia sufficiently to stymie Mr. Putin’s ambitions? In announcing new sanctions, trade restrictions and measures against Russian oligarchs, Mr. Biden said they would impose “severe costs” on the Russian economy “both immediately and over time.” But while a serious fall in the Russian currency and stock market suggest this could be so, the sanctions also demonstrated the limitations of what the West has done so far.

Mr. Biden announced sanctions on several large Russian banks, major state-owned enterprises and Mr. Putin’s lieutenants, and restrictions on high-tech exports to Russia. Those had all been threatened over many weeks. That the threat failed to deter Mr. Putin indicates that he was prepared to absorb the costs, and to wait and see whether the West could do the same.

Mr. Biden stopped short of two especially tough punishments — personal sanctions against Mr. Putin and excluding Russia from the SWIFT system of global money transfers. The latter in particular would do immediate and grave damage to the Russian economy. But it would also damage the countries with which it trades, including the European Union members and the United States. Mr. Biden said that all such sanctions remained on the table.

The president also effectively acknowledged that the sanctions would further increase energy costs for Americans at a time of steep inflation. He said the administration would do what it could to bring down oil and gas prices and warned American energy companies against profiteering.

Mr. Biden insisted that the United States and its allies and partners were in full accord on the response to Moscow, and for now there were no evident holdouts. Even Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, an unabashed fan of Mr. Putin, fell in line with E.U. sanctions.

It is less certain whether a politically divided American public will support Mr. Biden if, for instance, gas prices skyrocket. In keeping with his inexplicable fawning over Mr. Putin while he was president, Donald Trump issued more outrageous appreciation of the Russian’s actions even as the invasion was about to start, saying, “He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.”

Among many other questions around the invasion was the reaction of the Russian public. Thousands of Russians courageously took to the streets in Moscow and other cities on Thursday to protest the war and were met with a fierce police crackdown. How deep the resistance goes, or what it could achieve against Mr. Putin’s authoritarian rule, is unclear. It is also not known whether the antiwar outpouring had any tacit sympathy in the upper echelons of government.

There is also the matter of how the Chinese government may respond. The world inadvertently caught a glimpse when official guidance to the media on how to treat the Russian invasion was briefly posted online. A senior editor at Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, wrote on social media that China has to give Russia emotional and moral support but to refrain from “treading on the toes” of the United States and the E.U. In the future, the editor added revealingly, China will need Russia’s support on Taiwan, the independent island-state Beijing is determined to bring under its control.

These and other questions were certain to foment debate as the invasion unfolded. What is clear now is that Mr. Putin has thrust Europe into the most dangerous conflict since World War II, acting on a combination of misguided grievances, flawed history and illusions of grandeur. He has launched a sequel to the Cold War, a potentially more dangerous one because his claims and demands offer no grounds for negotiations, and because along with its nuclear arsenal Russia is capable of launching a massively destructive cyberwar.

Mr. Biden and other Western leaders are justified in saying they did all they could to try to deter Mr. Putin, meeting with him many times and searching for ways to meet his demands in ways that would not clash with their obligations and principles. But this is just the beginning: In coming days and weeks as Ukrainians fight for their lives, the West will also be sorely tested, and its leaders will need the utmost flexibility and strength to persevere and to guide their publics.

In his two televised addresses this week, Mr. Biden displayed the resolution and calm of a tested leader, and the Western alliance demonstrated a rare unity in the face of Russia’s attack. The West is strongest when it stands together for its shared values and against a common enemy. However difficult it may be, our pain will be nothing compared with the agonies of the Ukrainian people at the hands of an invading army.

New York Times

I’m in Kyiv, and It Is Terrifying

Veronika Melkozerova – February 25, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine — On Thursday, I woke up at dawn to the sound of blasts. I jumped out of bed, puzzled. Maybe it was a dream? But then I heard another loud blast, and then another one. Kyiv was shaking. I reached for my phone and read that President Vladimir Putin of Russia had ordered his army to attack Ukraine. They had started bombarding us.

My internet went down, and I felt fear crawling in my guts. I had never felt this way before. It was as if someone, maybe Mr. Putin himself, had grabbed my heart and squeezed it. This feeling has stayed with me: It is my new permanent condition.

It’s not that the Russian invasion came as a surprise, exactly. We’ve been expecting it, in some form, for weeks, even months. Mr. Putin’s moves earlier this week — recognizing the independence of two regions in eastern Ukraine and sending in troops to both — made plain that war was coming. To Mr. Putin, as he explained in his crazed speech on Monday, Ukraine is not a sovereign state and has no right to exist. It is to be folded up, by force, into Russia’s control.

The tanks and troops pouring into the country are intended to make Mr. Putin’s fantasy a reality. But we in Ukraine know otherwise. Some 43 percent of Ukrainians, according to a recent poll, are ready to fight the Russians — and more than 100,000 have already joined defense units across the country. We will fight, as our foreign minister said on Wednesday, for every inch of our land. Proud citizens of one of Eastern Europe’s democracies, we refuse to be ruled by military diktat.

Mr. Putin claims that he is a liberator, and that Ukraine will profit from the invasion. But even my 76-year-old granny, a typical Soviet babushka who still misses the Soviet Union and its “stability,” thinks he has gone mad.

I called her early on Thursday morning, while most of Kyiv was still sleeping. She sounded puzzled but was fully awake. Another sign of strangeness: A sleepyhead, she usually wakes up well after 10 a.m. “Save yourself, your husband and your dog,” she told me. “I will stay in my apartment. If a Russian missile hits my apartment, well, so be it. I had a long life. I would rather die in my perfectly decorated flat than in some dirty basement.”

I tried to urge her to pack her belongings and documents, but she refused. “I would rather cook some soup,” she said with sad laughter, and ended the call. This was devastating: My granny is everything to me, all the family I have left, and our lives are entwined. Though I’m not planning to leave the city, I want to be prepared if things get very bad. The thought of leaving my grandmother behind is almost too much to bear. To ward off despair, I took my dog, Hans, for a walk. Not even a Russian attack will stop Hans’s need for exercise.

As I stepped onto the street, I saw people everywhere. In the densely populated part of north Kyiv where I live, that’s not that unusual. But the atmosphere was peculiar. Neighbors were hurriedly loading their cars with belongings, while others were standing in lines for the grocery store and cash machine. People were moving fast: Some had huge backpacks and looked like they were going camping. Nobody smiled.

A woman, clearly anguished, stopped me. I recognized her: She was a neighbor and a fellow dog owner. “Can you please tell me what to do?” she asked me. “I don’t know what to do.” My terrier and her boxer started nervously barking at each other. Despite constant warnings from the media and the government that the Kremlin — which built up around 190,000 troops in and near Ukraine since October — was poised to invade, she had not believed Mr. Putin would dare to do it. She hadn’t checked if there was a bomb shelter nearby, she hadn’t stored any food.

I explained to her, as simply as I could, how to prepare for the invasion. Shelters would be hard to get to with a pet, but she should pack an emergency kit with documents and food. If there’s an airstrike, she should hide in a corridor or the bathroom of her apartment. She seemed to take the information in her stride. “Well, at least we will get to know each other,” she said. “We dog lovers should stick together.”

As I continued my walk, I saw people in all kinds of moods around me. Some of them were arguing while they waited their turn at the gas station. People were driving manically, and cars whizzed through the streets. Whenever there was a loud sound, people looked to the skies, fearing a Russian fighter jet. A young mother stood near her black Jeep, holding her daughter with one hand and talking on the phone. “Yes, mom, we are leaving. We are leaving!” she screamed.

I hurried home and went online, my internet thankfully restored. Russian troops, I read, had breached Ukrainian borders from Crimea and seized several border towns. Russian tanks had come close to Kharkiv, our second largest city. In a town right next to Kyiv, Russian helicopters attacked the local airport. And Russian forces captured Chernobyl, north of the capital. In the first hours of defending the country, more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded.

Their sacrifice was true to our country. In this dreadful time, its fortitude, resourcefulness and spirit of resistance will shine through. Ukraine is ours, no matter what Mr. Putin says. I’m 31, born in the year Ukraine became independent: My adult life has been lived in the shadow cast by Russian aggression. First Mr. Putin annexed Crimea, then he fomented the war in the Donbas that has killed more than 14,000 people. Now the battle for Ukraine has come to a climax.

But it’s about more than Ukraine. It’s a contest between democracy and autocracy, freedom and dictatorship, whose implications will scatter across the world. It’s not our fight alone. So please don’t leave us alone to fight it.

Reuters

Germany to offer troops, air defense systems, war ships to NATO -Der Spiegel

February 25, 2022

BERLIN, Feb 25 (Reuters) – Germany plans to offer troops, air defence systems and war ships to NATO to strengthen its eastern flank after Russia invaded Ukraine, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday without providing sources.

Germany could send an infantry company with around 150 soldiers and more than a dozen Boxer wheeled armored vehicles in a timely manner, according to a package that the military has put together for Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, the media outlet said.

The defense ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Germany also plans to offer “Patriot” anti-aircraft missile systems and a corvette and a frigate, it said. The ships would have to be withdrawn from other missions in the Mediterranean.

A fleet service boat with sensor technology is already on its way to the Baltic Sea, according to Der Spiegel.

Russia launched an invasion against Ukraine by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by Russian President Vladimir Putin. An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Dozens have been reported killed.

The United States and other NATO members have sent military aid to Ukraine, but there is no move to send troops to Ukraine for fear of sparking a wider European conflict.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle and Andreas Rinke Editing by Miranda Murray)

Time Magazine: from October 31, 2017

How Paul Manafort Helped Elect Russia’s Man in Ukraine

By Simon Shuster, Ukraine – Octobner 31, 2017

By the account of his lawyer, Paul Manafort went to work in Ukraine in 2005 with the most spotless of intentions. “[He] represented pro-European Union campaigns for the Ukrainians,” the attorney, Kevin Downing, said in a statement. “And in the course of that representation he was seeking to further democracy and to help the Ukrainians come closer to the United States and to the E.U.”

But that’s not how U.S. diplomats saw it at the time. A U.S. embassy cable sent from Kiev to Washington in 2006 described Manafort’s job as giving an “extreme makeover” to a presidential hopeful named Viktor Yanukovych, who had the backing of the Kremlin and most of Ukraine’s wealthiest tycoons. His Party of Regions, the cable said, was “a haven” for “mobsters and oligarchs.”

Making things harder for Manafort were the candidate’s rough manners and criminal past, which had dimmed his chances of winning elections. Oafish and inarticulate, Yanukovych had served jail time in his youth for theft and battery. He also had a hard time speaking Ukrainian – the national language – as he had grown up in the Russian-speaking province of Donetsk. Yet Manafort accepted the challenge of trying to make Yanukovych electable. The man paying the exorbitant bills for these efforts was an early backer of the Party of Regions, the coal and metals magnate Rinat Akhmetov, who soon began calling Manafort his friend.

Such relationships were nothing new to the American political consultant, who on Monday pleaded not guilty to charges of tax fraud and money laundering brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The indictment was among the first brought down as part of Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Though the charges were not tied directly to Manafort’s work as the chairman of that campaign in the summer of 2016, they showed that his work as a political gun for hire is very much in the spotlight.

Ukraine was by no means the roughest place Manafort ever worked. His roster of clients going back to the 1980s has included Congolese and Filipino dictators, along with a guerilla leader in Angola. But even this range of experience did not make the Party of Regions an easy customer for Manafort. The reputation of its leaders had been stained with blood since at least 2000, when some of Yanukovych’s political patrons were implicated in the murder of Georgy Gongadze, an investigative journalist who was abducted and beheaded that year.

Manafort arrived in Ukraine in the wake of the Orange Revolution, a popular uprising that blocked the pro-Russian Yanukovych from taking power in 2004. One of the leaders of that revolt, an economist named Viktor Yushchenko, fell suddenly ill as his movement for European integration was gaining momentum that fall; doctors determined that he had been poisoned with dioxin, a substance that turned his telegenic face into a mask of green and yellow scars.

Despite the poisoning, Yushchenko’s supporters carried him to victory in the 2004 presidential race, and the reformer put the country on a path to joining the European Union and the NATO military alliance. But these efforts were soon reversed.

With guidance from Manafort and backing from Moscow, the Party of Regions made an astonishing comeback over the next five years, culminating in Yanukovych’s successful bid for the presidency in 2010. Among the first official acts of his tenure was to legally bar Ukraine from seeking NATO membership – a move that effectively granted Russia one of its core geopolitical demands.

For his mastery of political campaigning, Manafort was dubbed a “mythical figure” in the Ukrainian press, and the country’s powerbrokers still give him much of the credit for turning the pro-Russian party around. “I can tell you he’s a real specialist,” says Manafort’s friend Dmitry Firtash, the Ukrainian billionaire and former partner to the Kremlin in the European gas trade. “He won three elections in Ukraine. He knew what he was doing.”

The alleged corruption of Manafort’s employers never made him abandon that job. Once installed in the presidency, Yanukovych began to amass an enormous fortune, easing cronies from his home region of Donetsk into key posts around the country. The President also built an opulent palace for himself outside Kiev, complete with a private zoo, a golf course and a restaurant in the shape of a pirate ship docked in his backyard.

Yanukovych’s political rivals quickly found themselves under arrest. Chief among them was the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the gold-braided heroine of the Orange Revolution, who was charged with abuse of office and sentenced to seven years in prison in 2011. “It’s normal practice,” Yanukovych told TIME the following summer, in reference to his jailing of the opposition leader. “The party is powerful. The voters support it. Today the President of Ukraine has the highest ratings of any politician.”

He owed those ratings at least in part to Manafort’s political coaching, which included a new wardrobe for the President, as well as a coiffed hairdo and elocution lessons. But the jailing of Tymoshenko, which U.S. and European leaders denounced as part of a political vendetta, still dealt a severe blow to Ukraine’s reputation in the West. It was Manafort’s job to fix that, too. With money from the Party of Regions and its financial backers, he hired lobbyists in Washington to spin the imprisonment of Tymoshenko as an example of Ukraine’s commitment to the rule of law. “Their job is to say that white is black and black is white,” Tymoshenko’s daughter Eugenia told TIME in 2012.

Such services did not come cheap. After another revolution in Ukraine forced Yanukovych from power in 2014, the national anti-corruption bureau discovered a secret ledger of off-the-books payments from the Party of Regions; Manafort’s name appears in the document 22 times, with payments worth $12.7 million designated for him between 2007 and 2012. The indictment released on Monday in the U.S. claims Manafort and an associate laundered the proceeds of his work in Ukraine through offshore accounts, and failed to pay U.S. taxes on the income.

Through lawyers and in televised interviews, Manafort has denied receiving any illegal payments for his work in Ukraine. His attorneys also denied on Monday that Manafort’s work had advanced Russia’s interests in any way.

But Manafort and his associates have not denied the lucrative side projects that he pursued while working for the Party of Regions. The biggest was an ultimately fruitless plan to purchase the Drake Hotel in Manhattan in 2008. One of the investors he approached for that project was Firtash, an early supporter of the Party of Regions, who says he was promised returns of as much as 50% as part of that deal. “It was partly our money, partly bank loans. That was the scheme,” he tells TIME. “But the deal didn’t go through.”

Details of the Drake Hotel negotiations remained secret until 2011, when Tymoshenko filed a lawsuit in Manhattan claiming that the project was in fact a money-laundering scheme cooked up by Firtash, Manafort and their associates. A judge in New York threw out that case on the grounds that it fell outside the court’s jurisdiction. Firtash, for his part, insists it was part of an effort by Tymoshenko to slander him and his allies in the Party of Regions. “By hitting me and Manafort, she wanted to hit Yanukovych and his electorate,” he says.

What the lawsuit revealed, at a minimum, is how deeply enmeshed Manafort became in Ukrainian business and politics during the decade he spent working for the Party of Regions. Even after the revolution of 2014 turned violent – with police shooting down dozens of protestors in the streets of Kiev that February – the American consultant continued to assist his Ukrainian patrons. He helped the party rebrand itself after it was blamed for the revolutionary bloodshed, which ultimately took more than a hundred lives. After the Party of Regions effectively broke apart that fall, Manafort advised some of its former members on how to win seats in the post-revolutionary parliament.

By that point, there was no longer any question over the party’s allegiance to Moscow. Yanukovych and his closest allies had fled to Russia as the uprising against them intensified, and President Putin guaranteed their security even as he moved to punish Ukraine’s new leaders for turning their backs on the Kremlin. In the spring of 2014, Russia sent troops to occupy and annex Ukraine’s Crimea region. It also sent weapons and fighters to spark a separatist rebellion in Donetsk and other parts of eastern Ukraine, fueling a conflict that killed thousands of people between 2014 and 2016.

Throughout this period, Manafort continued to get regular updates on the crisis from his close associate in Kiev, Konstantin Kilimnik, a dapper and eloquent English-speaker who studied at a Russian military institute. In an interview with Radio Free Europe in February, Kilimnik said that Manafort was open to returning to Ukraine “if there is a serious project that is pro-Ukrainian and can bring peace to this country.”

But as his legal troubles in the U.S. have mounted this year, Manafort’s connections in Ukraine have broken down. Even Firtash, the oligarch who worked alongside Manafort to secure power for the Party of Regions, says he no longer calls his American friend for advice. “If I were to call him now, I’m sure he’d come visit me and we’d sit down and talk,” he says. “But why would I do that? I know what’s going on. I can’t get any help from him now. He can’t help me.”

• Here’s What We Know So Far About Russia’s Assault on Ukraine
• Putin Wants Revenge Not Just on Ukraine But on the U.S. and Its Allies
• Photographs of Ukraine Under Attack
• The Russian Assault on Ukraine Poses Huge Risks for the Rest of Europe and the World
• How Open Source Intelligence Became the World’s Window Into the Ukraine Invasion
• Why Sanctions on Russia Won’t Work
• Column: How the West Can Stop Putin

Yahoo! News

Explainer: Does the Ukrainian military stand a chance against Putin’s invasion?

Niamh Cavanagh, Producer – February 25, 2022

Russian forces have faced stiffer-than-expected resistance in their attack on Ukraine, according to a Pentagon official briefing reporters on Friday. The advance toward Kyiv, ordered by President Vladimir Putin, “is going slower than the Russians would have had anticipated it going,” a Pentagon official told the New York Times. Tempering that assessment, however, there were also reports from Ukraine on Friday evening that Russian troops have reached the outskirts of Kyiv, where large explosions could be seen and heard in the night sky.

The attack itself had been predicted by U.S. intelligence analysts, but the sight of tanks rolling across the borders of one European country into another has left world leaders scrambling for a response. Already, leaders in the U.K and the United States have imposed strict sanctions against the Russian government, its economy and members of Putin’s inner circle. And on Thursday, President Biden promised that the United States would continue to support Ukraine militarily, saying, “We’re united in our support of Ukraine. We are united in our opposition to Russian aggression. And we are united in our resolve to defend our NATO alliance. And we’re united in our understanding of the urgency and seriousness of the threat Russia is making to global peace and stability.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared confident on Thursday when he introduced martial law across the country, reassuring civilians that the “army is working.” But many wonder if the sanctions are too little, too late to thwart Putin’s massive attack. The question now is whether Ukrainian forces have anything like the military equipment or prowess necessary to turn back the Russian attackers or even hold them at bay.

Since 2014, when Putin seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine without firing a shot, the Ukrainian military has clawed its way back, fighting separatists and putting a stop to hostilities in eastern regions. From 2014 to 2020, Ukraine went from allocating 1.5 percent of gross domestic product on military expenditure to 4.1 percent of GDP, according to World Bank figures.

Military experts estimate that the number of Russian troops that amassed on the Ukrainian border before the invasion was 190,000. That is just a small percentage of the 900,000 soldiers Russia has in its combined armed forces, compared with the 361,000 active soldiers in Ukraine. But this has massively grown since last June, when it was reported by the U.S. Congressional Research Service that Ukraine had increased its combat-ready soldiers from 6,000 to 150,000. Most male adults in Ukraine have at least basic military training.

As for reserves, Russia’s resources are more than double those of Ukraine, with 2 million to Ukraine’s 900,000. In relation to weaponry, Putin has 2,840 battle tanks, which outnumber those of its neighbor by more than 3 to 1, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. As for military aircraft, Ukraine has 200 attack aircraft, including helicopters, and two warships while Russia has at least 1,300 aircraft, 34 warships and 50 submarines.

Russia has the fourth-largest military in the world and has the largest stockpile of nonstrategic nuclear weapons. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, it has an estimated 6,257 nuclear warheads. The country inherited approximately 35,000 nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union. “As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states,” Putin warned ahead of Thursday’s invasion. “Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.” Another 977 strategic warheads and 1,912 nonstrategic warheads are in Russia’s reserve, the NTI reported.

Ukraine inherited a large number of nuclear weapons after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but denuclearized under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Also under Russia’s belt is a biological warfare program that was launched in 1928. With regard to chemical weapons, Russia announced the complete destruction of its stockpile in 2017, after possessing the world’s largest chemical weapons during the Cold War. However, in recent years it was accused of developing a new class of nerve agents, called Novichok, and using them in the U.K. in the 2018 attempted assassination of a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia.

On whether Ukraine could have a fighting chance against the Russian army, Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute told the BBC: “I think the Ukrainians are in a very difficult position.” But in recent years, Ukraine has made progress in modernizing its army. “There has been enormous progress in terms of training and preparation for combat,” Gustav Gressel, a specialist in Russian military issues at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told France 24. Gressel went on to say that one of the main weaknesses of the Ukrainian armed forces is that its military doctrines were developed during the Soviet era, and so “Moscow knew perfectly well what to expect and could prepare itself accordingly.” Ukraine still reportedly relies heavily on Soviet-era tanks, planes and armored cars.

Another asset for the Ukrainian army is that it is a young force. “Most of them enlisted in 2014-15,” Glen Grant, a senior analyst at the Baltic Security Foundation who has worked in Ukraine on the country’s military reform, told France 24. “So it’s a voluntary act to defend the homeland, which means they are highly motivated and have high morale.”

Ukraine is not facing Russia alone. Western countries have increased arms deliveries to Ukraine, although Kyiv has said it is in need of more. In November, the U.S. delivered 88 tons of ammunition as part of a military aid package that was worth $60 million. The U.K. supplied Ukraine with 2,000 short-range antitank missiles in January and sent specialists to deliver the training. Germany ruled out arms deliveries but said it would co-finance a $6 million field hospital. The Czech Republic said it has plans to donate ammunition. Estonia said it was sending Javelin anti-armor missiles, and Latvia and Lithuania said they were providing Stinger missiles. It remains to be seen whether this is enough to protect Ukraine and its people from Russia.

The Hill

Russia threatens ‘military and political consequences’ if Finland, Sweden try joining NATO

February 25, 2022

Russia threatened “military and political consequences” against Finland and Sweden on Friday if they attempted to join NATO.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned against other countries attempting to join NATO after Russia started a war with Ukraine Thursday.

“Finland and Sweden should not base their security on damaging the security of other countries and their accession to NATO can have detrimental consequences and face some military and political consequences,” Zakharova said in a viral clip of a press conference.

The ministry later posted the same threat on its Twitter. Finland and Sweden have given significant military and humanitarian support to Ukraine since Russia invaded.

One pretext Russia has given for attacking Ukraine is that NATO would not give any assurance that Ukraine would not be allowed to join the intergovernmental military alliance.

Ukraine has been adamant about joining but is now willing to discuss a different status with NATO after hundreds were killed in the first day of fighting the Russians.

Russia and Ukraine are both sending delegations to Belarus to discuss Ukraine potentially adopting a nonaligned status with NATO.

The talks come as Russia is closing in on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city. However, U.S. intelligence says Ukrainians are putting up a better resistance to Russian forces than expected.

Ukraine has been arming its citizens and telling them to create firebombs to resist Russia.

Russia threatens ‘serious military repercussions’ if Finland joins NATO

Yahoo! News

Russia threatens ‘serious military repercussions’ if Finland joins NATO

James Morris, Freelance news writer, Yahoo UK – February 25, 2022

Russia has warned of “serious military and political repercussions” if Finland joins Nato amid the Ukraine crisis.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the country’s accession to Nato, the military alliance currently made up of 28 European countries plus the US and Canada, could “have detrimental consequences”.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this week, Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin said the debate surrounding Finland’s membership of NATO “will change”.

Asked about this on Friday, Zakharova began with a veiled warning.

In translated remarks at a press conference, she said: “The Finnish government’s policy of military non-alliance is an important factor in ensuring security and stability in northern Europe.

“At the same time, we cannot help but note the targeted efforts of Nato and other members of this alliance to involve Finland as well as Sweden [a fellow non-member] in this alliance.”

She said “the intensity of practical interaction between Helsinki and Stockholm with Nato” is “nothing new”.

Watch: Volodymyr Zelensky announces death toll from first day of Russian invasion of UkraineScroll back up to restore default view.

She claimed “they have conducted NAato’s military exercises – these countries have provided territory for such manoeuvres of this military alliance.

“We have seen this policy over a number of years… and Finland and Sweden should not base their security on damaging security of other countries. Their accession to Nato can have detrimental consequences… and face military and political consequences.”

A follow-up tweet from the Russian Foreign Ministry read: “Finland’s accession to Nato would have serious military and political repercussions.”

Prime minister Marin previously said last month it is “very unlikely” Finland – which borders Russia – would apply for a Nato membership during her current term of office.

Read more: Ukrainian reporter sees footage of destroyed flat on live TV: ‘This building is my home’

“All in all, I believe the Nato discussion will increase in the coming years,” she had told Reuters.

On Thursday, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said that he “values the close partnership” with Finland and Sweden even if they are not members.

“This is a question of self-determination and the sovereign right to choose your own path and then potentially in the future, also to apply for Nato membership.”

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has seen Kyiv hit by air strikes, with fighting closing in on the capital.

Families were forced to hide in bomb shelters and subway stations as troops continued their assault in a bid to seize the city.

Tens of thousands of people have fled Ukraine’s major cities to try and escape the fighting, with the UN warning on Friday that millions could be displaced.

Armed forces minister James Heappey told MPs that 194 Ukrainians, including 57 civilians, are confirmed to have died.

NBC News

Biden admin carefully examining legal issues around providing arms to Ukraine

A Republican congressional aide said there was bipartisan frustration with the pace of aid, but Biden admin officials said legal review was not slowing things down.

By Ken Dilanian, Carol E. Lee, Courtney Kube and Dan De Luce

February 25, 2022

A Ukrainian serviceman walks by a deactivated Russian military multiple rocket launcher on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022.Vadim Ghirda / AP

Amid widespread calls to help Ukraine resist a Russian invasion, the Biden administration is carefully examining legal questions about whether the United States can provide certain weapons and intelligence, multiple Congressional officials briefed on the matter tell NBC News.

Biden administration officials insist the lawyering is part of a normal review process, while Republicans in Congress — and some Democrats — have complained that it is slowing down what should be an immediate effort to ramp up weapons deliveries to Ukrainian forces.

“There is no legal review or debate that is slowing anything down,” said Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council. “We are actively continuing to provide assistance to Ukraine.”

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Friday, “We know [the Ukrainians] have self-defense needs, we’re going to do our best to fill them. We are continuing to provide ways for them to defend themselves.”

But lawyers at the National Security Council have raised questions about whether providing lethal aid such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and even actionable intelligence that could help Ukraine target Russian forces, would make the United States a party to the conflict under international law, the officials say.

“The reasoning is it’s ‘escalatory’ — that’s the phrase I keep hearing,” said one Republican congressional aide. “I would characterize the frustration as bipartisan and wide-ranging.’

A senior Biden administration official disputed that, saying, “No NSC lawyers have raised objections to the provision of security assistance to Ukraine.”

A Democratic congressional aide had yet another take.

“Lots going on behind the scenes,” he said. “Careful about the partisans slinging mud. Lots and lots of rules on exports of lethal aid. Everyone wants to help, but there are those pesky laws that are in place because past administrations were too fast and loose with weapons transfers and sales.”

The internal legal debate over aid was first reported by FP.com.

The Biden administration did help Ukraine obtain a small number of stingers through Latvia and Lithuania, but the missiles came from the stocks of those countries, not directly from the U.S. Ukraine wants many more, but the U.S. so far has not accommodated that request. Officials say it takes time to train people to use the weapons system.

Hours after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, the country’s defense minister issued an appeal for countries to send Ukraine anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons through Poland.

“We need as much Stinger and anti-tank weapons as possible,” Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said in a video. “In order to provide for reliable procurement of equipment, you may deliver it to Poland. From there we will transport them across the land and quickly saturate our defense.”

Lawmakers, former U.S. national security officials and retired U.S. military officers have complained that the Biden administration has moved too slowly at times to provide military aid to Ukraine, despite repeated appeals from Kyiv. The White House held up a military aid package in December, to try to give more time for diplomacy with Moscow, NBC News previously reported. The military assistance was eventually released in January. 

The White House has rejected the criticism, saying it has acted rapidly to provide more than $650 million in military assistance over the past year.  Officials have also noted that President Donald Trump delayed a military aid package to Ukraine and never provided Stinger missiles or other air defenses, which require many months of training.

NBC News reported this week that decisions by three presidents — Obama, Trump and Biden — left Ukraine with substandard air defenses that are no match for Russian forces.

Now lawmakers and other observers are calling on the White House to answer Ukraine’s appeal for weapons and equipment, urging President Biden to ramp up military aid as the Ukrainians face a massive Russian onslaught.

Fmr. Defense Secy. Panetta: U.S. needs to ‘do everything we can’ to prevent ‘a total humanitarian disaster’

FEB. 25, 2022

“We’ve got to accelerate delivery of capabilities to the Ukrainians,” said Ben Hodges, a retired lieutenant general who oversaw U.S. Army forces in Europe.

“We’ve got to have something that looks like a Berlin airlift,” said Hodges, now at the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank. “Javelins and especially stingers would be very effective.”

Rep. Jason Crow, D.-Colo., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said: “I think we should continue to supply defensive weapons, ammunition, and other supplies via overland routes into Ukraine as quickly and expansively as possible.”

Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation that would create a “Ukraine Resistance Fund” to help Kyiv resist Russian efforts to seize control of the country.

“We’ve never been urgent enough, and we need to make sure that none of the Ukrainian resistance fighters have any fear that they are going run out of ammo,” Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said on Morning Joe. “There needs to be an urgency and the president needs to lead on that.”

Republicans in Congress argue Biden should have sent more weapons sooner. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, for instance, has been saying for some time — including privately in conversations with Biden — that the U.S. needed to get more weapons to Ukraine in advance of a Russian invasion. Republicans see similarities with what they view as the administration’s failure to plan coherently for extracting Americans and Afghan partners after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. 

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an email to NBC News that the administration needs to take urgent action to arm the Ukrainians.

“I have been saying for months that we needed to send more lethal assistance to Ukraine, including Stingers, ammo, small arms and other equipment that could help the Ukrainian people defend their country,” he said. “Now is not the time for feet dragging. This administration committed to supporting a resistance movement and they must follow through on the pledge.”

Democrats counter that given Trump’s record on Ukraine — he was impeached for delaying a lethal aid package for personal political reasons — Republicans have no leg to stand on in this debate.

CBS News

Ted Cruz says Russia is invading Ukraine because of Biden’s “enormous” mistakes

By Kathryn Watson – February 25, 2022

Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Thursday said Russia is invading Ukraime “because of enormous mistakes that the Biden administration has made.”

“What we’re seeing right now is the most serious military conflict in Europe since World War II,” Cruz told CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa on Thursday. “It is devastating, and unfortunately, I expect it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. What is frustrating is that what is happening right now was entirely avoidable. The reason that Russia is invading Ukraine is because of enormous mistakes that the Biden administration has made, and two in particular.”

In particular, Cruz, who was interviewed by Costa at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida,  blamed the president’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan last summer, claiming it made the Oval Office look weak to America’s enemies. He also pointed to the president’s earlier decision to waive sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring natural gas from Russia to Germany. Russia has long wanted to remake the old Soviet Union, but Cruz argued recent Biden administration actions have made that dream easier. 

“President Biden made a political decision to surrender to Putin, to waive sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is what has facilitated this invasion,” he said. 

Mr. Biden lifted sanctions on Nord Stream 2 last year, and Cruz placed a hold on the president’s State Department nominees until this week, when the president imposed sanctions on the company constructing the pipeline and its leadership. Germany announced it would halt Nord Stream 2 earlier this week, amid heavy international pressure, but Cruz argued Russia needs to hear with certainty the pipeline will never be used. 

“The way to stop the invasion is for Russia to believe that they will not be able to get their gas to Europe if they continue this invasion. And the only way to do that is impose the sanctions, and Joe Biden just did that, finally, but now the problem is Putin doesn’t believe those sanctions will stay,” Cruz said. 

Still, “there may be nothing” that stops Putin’s invasion at this point,” Cruz said. 

Moving forward, Cruz said sanctions “should include every tool we have,” and he added that “under no circumstances should American troops be fighting Russians in Ukraine.”

Given the chance, Cruz declined to directly criticize Trump’s comments about Putin and Russia in recent days. Trump called Putin “smart” in a radio interview with “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” on Tuesday, after the Russian president gave a speech that laid out his justification for Russia’s move into Ukraine. “I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. So Putin is now saying it’s independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper.” 

“His rhetoric I — with some regularity — disagree with,” Cruz said of Trump, but added that when it comes to Russia-related policy, Trump was superior to Mr. Biden. 

• Trump’s response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine reveals divisions among Republicans

Deadline

Late Night Hosts Rip Tucker Carlson’s Segment Praising Putin — Which Was Later Played On Russian TV

Tom Tapp – February 24, 2022

This week, amid overwhelming evidence that Russia would soon invade Ukraine, state-controlled Russian television network RT published an article on and aired a segment from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight in which the show’s host pushed back on the idea that Vladimir Putin is someone Americans should dislike. What’s more, RT took the trouble of translating the clip into Russian, ostensibly for its domestic market.

“It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?” said Carlson on his show Tuesday night. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?…Is he making Fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?”

Carlson answered his own queries.

“These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is ‘no.’ Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that,” he said. “So, why does permanent Washington hate him so much?”

Covering Ukraine: Five U.S. Journalists Talk About Their Experiences On-Air & In Country As Invasion Unfolded

Jimmy Kimmel responded on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night with a few questions of his own.

“So in order for you to despise a man who murders his rivals, who murders and poisons people, and who’s actively trying to destabilize our country, he has to do something to you personally? He has to eat your dog? That makes sense.

“How did we go from being the country that made Red Dawn and Rocky IV to this? It boggles the mind.”

He continued, “Can you imagine Ronald Reagan turning on Fox News?”

Russia Banned From Eurovision Song Contest 2022

Meanwhile, Stephen Colbert last night joked about what the White House’s announced sanctions would mean for Carlson’s show.

“That means no Russian money can come into the U.S. There goes Tucker Carlson’s sponsors,” he said.

The criticism of Carlson’s remarks did not stop there.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was born in Ukraine and a key witness in former President Trump’s first impeachment trial, directed a string of tweets at Carlson regarding the segment. His comments set the hashtag #tuckyorose trending.

The moniker is, of course, a play on Tokyo Rose, a name U.S. service-members gave to the English-speaking all-female troupe who broadcast pro-Japanese propaganda on the radio during WWII.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who also served in the military, added his own expression of shock in response to Carlson’s commentary.

“In 35 seconds here, @TuckerCarlson basically said: ‘Putin isn’t your enemy. Your fellow American is.’ This is beyond dangerous, to say the least,” Kiniznger tweeted.

In addition to Russian TV, state-owned propaganda web site Sputnik News yesterday used Carlson’s segment as the subject of a piece entitled “Tucker Carlson Slams Biden for Focusing on Putin, Ukraine Instead of US Domestic Problems.”

The piece maintains that U.S. sanctions were implemented “over [Russia’s] decision to recognise [sp.] the people’s republics in Donbass,” not over Russia amassing close to 200,000 troops on the border of a democratic state in Europe — that being Ukraine. The story further asserts that, while the sanctions will “affect Russian state debt, banks, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” they will at the same time “bring no benefit, but entail negative consequences for the American people.”

Donald Trump made his own Pro-Putin comments on a radio show Tuesday. Trump called the Russian president’s pre-invasion moves “brilliant…genius…smart.” His effusiveness was also the target of late-night hosts’ humor.

Stephen Colbert did a piece on The Late Show that used manipulated sound bites to joke that Trump’s love for “murderous villains” is more expansive, as it also includes Voldemort, Scar from The Lion King, Osama bin Laden and the Devil himself.