Ukraine War – Page 70 – The Tarbabys Blog

Russian troops’ poor performance and low morale may worsen during a winter of more discontent

The Conversation

Russian troops’ poor performance and low morale may worsen during a winter of more discontent

Liam Collins, Founding Director, Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy West Point – December 7, 2022

A man walks amid buildings damaged by Russian missiles in Ukraine on Nov. 28, 2022. <a href= — A man walks amid buildings damaged by Russian missiles in Ukraine on Nov. 28, 2022. Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

With Russian troops digging trenches to prepare for an expected winter standoff, it would be easy to conclude that fighting will slow in Ukraine until after the ground thaws in the spring.

But evidence from the Ukrainian battlefields point to a different trajectory.

As a career U.S. special forces officer who conducted field research on the 2008 and 2014 wars in Georgia and Ukraine, it is my view that this war has demonstrated that only one side, the Ukrainians, can execute effective combat maneuvers. I believe that the Ukrainians will attempt to launch a large-scale counteroffensive in late winter when the ground is still frozen.

Winter’s impact on war

Historically, the pace of fighting does slow in the winter.

Weapons and other equipment can freeze up in extreme cold, and it’s much more difficult to shoot a weapon while wearing thick gloves.

Shorter days are a factor. Despite technological advances, most of the fighting during this war has occurred during the day.

But this winter may be different for the Ukrainian military.

First, Ukrainian winters are not nearly as cold and snowy as many believe.

Donetsk, for example, has an average temperature of nearly 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius) in January and February.

Its snowiest month, January, averages only 4.9 inches of snow, or .12 meters. Both January and February average just as many rainy days as snowy days – roughly two days of each.

A brief history of Russian attack

Since the invasion began in February 2022, Russia made most of its gains in the first month of the war when it seized Kherson, surrounded Mariupol, and was on the doorsteps of Kyiv and Kharkiv.

But Russia soon gave up on Kyiv and withdrew all its forces from the north.

Failing to achieve quick victory, Russia instead settled on making incremental gains in the east and south. Over the next five months, Russia captured Mariupol, but little else of tactical or strategic value.

During this time, Ukraine built up its combat power with new weaponry from the West and planned a large counteroffensive, which it initiated on Aug. 28, 2022.

In the first week of the counteroffensive, Ukraine liberated more territory than Russia had captured in the previous five months.

A Ukrainian serviceman loads a truck with American Javelin anti-tank missiles on Feb. 11, 2022. <a href= — A Ukrainian serviceman loads a truck with American Javelin anti-tank missiles on Feb. 11, 2022. Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

The success of the counteroffensive showed that Ukraine’s military was superior to Russia’s in every category with the exception of size. It had better doctrine, leaders, strategy, culture and will – and it had just proved that it could effectively fight battles with a combination of artillery, tanks, soldiers and air attacks.

By Sept. 12, 2022, Ukraine had liberated much of Kharkiv Oblast as Russian troops routinely fled from their positions.

After liberating the entirety of Kharkiv Oblast in early October 2022, Ukraine turned its attention to Kherson in the south. This was a different fight, and in some ways Ukraine’s military followed Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s axiom of “winning without fighting.”

The Ukrainians were able to conquer much of the territory without using many troops on the ground.

Instead, Ukraine used long-range rockets supplied by the U.S. and NATO allies to bombard Russian bases and supply lines that were previously unreachable. These attacks left Russian forces west of the Dnipro River in an untenable position.

Realizing this, Russia shockingly announced on Nov. 9, 2022, that it was withdrawing from Kherson. Two days later, Russia had completed its withdrawal from the west bank of the river.

What to expect from Russia

Over the course of the war, Russia has demonstrated little ability to conduct effective combat operations. This is not something that Russia can change overnight or over the course of the winter.

Russia’s best forces have been decimated throughout the conflict, and it is now increasingly relying on untrained conscripts.

Likewise, Russia is exhausting much of its weaponry as international sanctions against them are limiting Russia’s wartime production. Aside from Iran, few nations are providing military aid to Russia.

Russia’s military is now less trained, has lower morale, and has significantly fewer weapons and less ammunition than it had at the beginning of the current war.

As a result, Russia lacks the ability to conduct large-scale attacks, and it is left with little option but to continue what it has been doing: conducting missile strikes against targets that are either defenseless or offer little strategic value.

Limiting Russia’s options further, these strikes have been less effective as the war has progressed.

Early in the war, most of Russia’s missiles made it through Ukraine’s limited air defenses. With the help of western air defense systems, Ukraine was shooting down 50% of Russian missiles in October and is now intercepting over 80% of them.

Winter should not affect these types of combat operations.

But snow will have an impact on Russia’s already stressed and underperforming logistical system, and the cold will further lower – if that is possible – the already low morale of Russia’s poorly outfitted and undertrained soldiers.

What to expect from Ukraine

As the smaller military, Ukraine cannot afford to take heavy losses.

Thus far, it has used a strategy of defending territory when it could, retreating when it should to preserve combat power, and attacking when the opportunities have presented themselves.

Ukrainian soldiers sitting on an armored vehicle near the the Russian front line in Donetsk in May 2022. <a href= — Ukrainian soldiers sitting on an armored vehicle near the the Russian front line in Donetsk in May 2022. Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Ukraine effectively employed this strategy to defend Kyiv in the first month of the war and during the September 2022 counteroffensive to reclaim the Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts.

An important question must be asked. Why did it take six months for Ukraine to launch its counteroffensive?

One reason is that Ukraine had to wait several months for promised Western aid to arrive at its bases. In my view, a significant factor is the lengthy amount of time it takes to plan large counteroffensives and to position supplies, equipment and forces.

The fact that Ukraine conducted the counterattacks in succession suggests that Ukraine lacks the combat power to conduct two large-scale counterattacks at the same time.

Ukraine is going to need time to regroup, refit and plan for its next large-scale operation.

Thus, it seems reasonable that Ukraine will have to wait at least 30 to 45 days – maybe more – before it is ready to execute its next counteroffensive, which would be in the heart of winter.

While conducting an attack in winter may be difficult, off-road movement in the spring could become impossible, as the Russians discovered during their initial invasion in muddy and wet terrain.

It seems reasonable to conclude that Ukraine may wish to initiate its next counteroffensive while the ground is still frozen – and Russian troop morale is at its lowest point since the invasion.

Russia, mired in war, faces economic pain and attempts to isolate it

Reuters

Russia, mired in war, faces economic pain and attempts to isolate it

Andrew Osborn – December 6, 2022

Russian conscripts depart for garrisons, in Omsk

LONDON (Reuters) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plunged Europe into its biggest land war since World War Two, igniting a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions, pulverised Ukrainian cities and damaged the global economy.

Despite warnings from U.S. intelligence in the run-up to Feb. 24, many European and Ukrainian officials did not believe it would happen. It was far too much for the Russian army to bite off, went the thinking.

Putin, who turned 70 in October, was, however, incensed by what he saw as Ukraine’s treacherous Westwards pivot, and ordered an invasion – which he called “a special military operation” – nonetheless.

His goal was to root out what he saw as excessive and potentially dangerous Western influence in an area where Moscow once held sway and to speed up what he saw as an inevitable historical shift to a multi-polar world.

When in September he announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions his troops partially controlled, a move the West declared illegal, his desire to enlarge Russia, already the world’s biggest country by territory, became explicit.

The war has so far not gone well for Putin. His forces were beaten back from the Ukrainian capital and then from the north-eastern Kharkiv region. In November, they were forced to quit the southern city of Kherson and the River Dnipro’s west bank.

As winter sets in, his army, which still controls a large chunk of Ukraine, has had more success at destroying Ukrainian infrastructure, inflicting prolonged power and water outages, something Moscow says has a military purpose. Ukraine has accused Russia of terrorism.

After overseeing the Kherson withdrawal, the commander of Russia’s forces is under pressure to deliver on the battlefield.

On the home front, where space for dissent has shrunk to nearly zero and hundreds of thousands of young men are missing from the workforce after fleeing abroad to avoid being called up, people are trying to get on with their lives.

But they cannot escape reminders of the war.

State TV schedules are dominated by rolling talk shows whose guests explain why the war is necessary and funerals for the war dead, whose number is a secret in Russia but estimated in the tens of thousands by the West, have become regular occurrences.

Despite military setbacks and political infighting, eight sources told Reuters in October that Putin’s grip on power remained firm and unofficial polls give him a 70-80% approval rating. Some said that could change fast if defeat beckoned.

WHY IT MATTERS

Russia’s invasion up-ended geopolitics.

NATO, an alliance that French President Emmanuel Macron said in 2019 was in the grips of “brain death”, is poised to add Finland and Sweden even though its further expansion was the very thing Putin opposed.

The United States, which the Democrats fretted had become too isolationist under former president Donald Trump, has provided Ukraine with the lion’s share of the financial and military aid required to keep it in the fight.

Ukraine, which before Feb. 24, had sometimes struggled to get the West interested in a slow-burning war against Russian proxies in its east, has received aid and Western support that once seemed unimaginable.

And Russia, one of the world’s biggest energy and commodity producers, has been hit with the harshest Western sanctions in its modern history.

That and its own retaliatory measures have shrunk its role as one of Europe’s biggest oil and gas suppliers, disrupted global grain and fertiliser markets, fuelled global inflation and increased nuclear tensions to their highest level since the Cuban Missile crisis.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR 2023?

With Ukraine adamant that Russia withdraw from its territory before any peace talks happen, including from annexed Crimea, even a temporary ceasefire looks hard to achieve.

For Russia, 2023 is likely to be a year when it tries to stave off more Western attempts to isolate it.

Political leaders in Iran, North Korea and Belarus remain staunch supporters. China and India have stepped in to buy heavily discounted Russian oil, though Beijing has not been as full-throated in its public support of Moscow as expected.

Cracks have meanwhile begun to open up in the former Soviet Union, where Moscow’s influence is under pressure as some countries try to change the status quo while Russia is busy in Ukraine.

At least two Central Asian countries have voiced public disagreement with Moscow, and Russia’s role as a mediator in a conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is being squeezed by the EU and Washington.

Moscow will have to manage its sanctions-hit economy too, a task made harder after the exodus of young men. Economic stability is linked to political stability, which the authorities have tried to ensure by intensifying a crackdown on anyone perceived a threat.

Reuters reported in November that Russia plans to spend nearly a third of its 2023 budget on defence and domestic security while slashing funding for schools, hospitals and roads.

As Putin pays up to keep the war in Ukraine grinding on, managing its fallout at home and abroad is likely to get harder.

Explore the Reuters round-up of news stories that dominated the year, and the outlook for 2023.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Angus MacSwan)

Why Putin Fears My Father Alexei Navalny

Time

Why Putin Fears My Father Alexei Navalny

Dasha Navalnaya – December 6, 2022

Appeal Hearing Held Over Navalny's 9-Year Sentence — Appeal Hearing Held Over Navalny’s 9-Year Sentence

Russian opposition politician, anti-corruption campaigner and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Alexey Navalny is seen on the screen during his legal appeal against his nine-year prison sentence, in Moscow’s City Court, on May 24, 2022, in Moscow, Russia. Appeal of Kremlin critic Navalny was rejected by the court on Tuesday. Credit – Getty Images

Over the past couple of years, the name Alexei Navalny has become known outside of Russia. You’ve read about him founding the Anti-Corruption Foundation to investigate the illicit wealth of Russian elites, getting detained numerous times over the years for attending protests against Putin’s regime, running for president in 2018, being poisoned in 2020, miraculously recovering and going back to fight for the better future of his country.

For you, these are just headlines around the world. For me, it’s the reality.

My name is Dasha Navalnaya. I’m a 21-year-old studying at Stanford University. My father—Alexei Navalny, became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by fighting the Kremlin’s corrupt and bloodthirsty regime.

Since 2011 the Anti-Corruption Foundation has been exposing the corruption of high-ranking government officials in Russia, one of the most famous investigations being Putin’s Palace. In August 2020, my father survived a chemical weapon poisoning with Novichok performed by FSB officers and, several months after recovering, successfully investigated his own assassination attempt.

Despite the dangers he faced, in January 2021, Alexei Navalny went back to Russia and was unlawfully arrested at the airport. He has since been serving his time in prison eye-to-eye with Putin’s jailers. Shortly after his arrest, the Anti-Corruption Foundation was recognized as an extremist organization in Russia. Its team members were prosecuted and forced into exile.

We all know that prison isn’t a place where you want to end up anywhere in the world, but, the conditions of the Russian prison system are far worse than those in the U.S. or Europe. There is nothing like a Russian prison to cripple even those in perfect health. My father survived a chemical weapons poisoning, which took a toll; he spent more than two weeks in a coma and over a month in intensive care. The rehabilitation took months. Shortly after the imprisonment, he started experiencing back pains and a gradual loss of control in his legs. He had to endure a 24-day hunger strike just to get access to medical help.

Barely surviving the hunger strike did not break his spirit—nothing ever will. But the solitary confinement conditions he is now subject to are clearly aimed at mentally breaking and physically killing him. My dad’s “residence” for over two months now – a 7 by 8 feet punishment cell, which is more of a concrete cage for someone of 6 ‘3 height. He spends days sitting on a low-iron stool (which exacerbates his back pain), with a mug being the only thing he’s allowed to keep. Even his bed is fastened to the wall from 6 AM to 10 PM.

Read More: The Man Putin Fears

On Thursday, November 17th, my dad was moved to the strict regime in a solitary housing unit. The rest of the prisoners live in barracks, which they can freely exit, but he will be permanently locked in the solitary cell. He wrote: “It is a regular cramped cell, like the punishment cell, except that you can have not one, but two books with you and use the prison kiosk, albeit with a very limited budget.” These new conditions will also prevent him from receiving any family visits—they are all completely banned. Being able to have a second book is definitely a bonus for an extremely fast reader like my dad.

I am proud to be my father’s daughter and walk tall knowing that despite the inhuman conditions, he has been standing up against Putin’s war in Ukraine and calling on the Russian people to do everything in their power to fight it.

Protesters hold a banner reading "FREE NAVALNY" as some 2,500 supporters of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny march in protest to demand his release from prison in Moscow on January 23, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.<span class="copyright">Omer Messinger-Getty Images</span> — Protesters hold a banner reading “FREE NAVALNY” as some 2,500 supporters of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny march in protest to demand his release from prison in Moscow on January 23, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.Omer Messinger-Getty Images

“Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There’s no one to do it for us. Let’s not ‘be against the war.’ Let’s fight against the war,”—he stated during the trial in March. It is now December, and since August my father has spent 78 days in the punishment cell, serving eight solitary confinement terms back-to-back.

Why was he sent to the solitary confinement punishment cell and now to a long term solitary confinement cell, you ask? Among the violations from the colony administration, my father has been sent to the punishment cell because: unbuttoning jumpsuit” (it is physically impossible to button as the jumpsuit is a few sizes smaller than his), refusing to mop the fence,” and “sweeping the exercise yard poorly and insulting the Сriminal Investigator Lieutenant by addressing him by title and surname instead of his first name and patronymic.” The most recent is simply being an “egregious offender” worthy of the “cell-type” room.

The real reason behind the constant punishments is and always has been, of course, Navalny’s condemnation of the Ukraine war and his opposition to the Putin regime. My father uses every appeal hearing as an opportunity to make an anti-war statement. During his recent hearing, he said: “Your Honor, I declare that I am an innocent person. And I believe that I and others like me did everything possible to prevent what is happening now. And we will continue to do so. And I call on all citizens of Russia to fight this regime, this war, and mobilization.”

“I will spend as much time in a punishment cell as will be necessary to defend my right to speak out against a historic crime Putin is committing” —is a sadly self-fulfilling prophecy in his case. The prison administration made it clear there’s no such thing as a glimpse of the rule of law when it comes to Navalny.

The latter is also attested by the fact that my father’s attorney-client confidentiality privilege no longer exists. The penal colony administration had simply decided to waive it. In recent months, all communication he has had with his lawyers goes through the prison administration. The window in the visiting room has been covered with an opaque film, so lawyers can only hear a voice and see their client’s silhouette as they discuss the defense in the new criminal cases against him (he currently is facing up to 30 years behind bars). My dad’s lawyers no longer have a visual understanding of his health and physical conditions. This is unique even by the low standards of the Russian judicial system.

To me, Alexei Navalny is not only a determined, hard-working, and charismatic leader but also a funny, caring, and incredible father. He taught me how to ride a bike; he helped with math equations and grammar questions when I simply could not wrap my elementary school brain around the concept of semicolons. In middle school, when I made my first attempt to cook porridge, when it turned out to be way too salty, my dad smiled, didn’t discourage me, and ate the whole thing. For hours he helped me learn the poem “The Prophet” by Alexander Pushkin so well it is still engraved in my mind. Every September, he walked my younger brother and me to school on the first day of class. My dad was there for our competitions, concerts, and graduations. And has always written me or anyone he holds close a loving and hilarious letter on our birthday if he was arrested and couldn’t be with us in person.

Now he can’t even do that.

Our family has always taken pride in its optimism: we prefer jokes over complaining when the worse comes. We’ve seen a lot over the years and made sure not to take it too close to heart. My father was detained at least once almost every year between 2011 and 2021, with time spent in prison longer and longer. My mother was detained and tried; my uncle served 3.5 years in prison for the simple crime of having the same last name. Our whole family, including my grandparents and great-grandparents, has been harassed and unlawfully prosecuted many times. Not to mention the “good old times” when the FSB poisoners were close to killing my mother and almost killed my father

It is impossible to get used to the idea that your loved ones can be imprisoned or killed at any time for a made-up reason, but over time it became part of our family routine. “So, I assume you won’t be coming to dinner tonight?” I’d ask my dad whenever he was getting ready to go to a protest. He would respond with a snicker.

The Russian regime has always been based on corruption and it is now based on war – for Putin, these are the two prerequisites for staying in power. That is why he is ready to destroy anyone who dares to expose them. And he treats my father with a personal hatred—as his most implacable opponent for many years.

As you read these lines, Navalny is in mortal danger, but he continues to stand by what he believes in. He has proven willing to sacrifice his freedom, health, and even his life to see Russia become a democratic, prosperous country. And right now, even from prison, he is fighting to make it peaceful. By his example, he supports and inspires millions of Russians who, like him, are unwilling to tolerate war and injustice.

Putin must be defeated. He is a threat not only to Russia and Ukraine but to the world. The very essence of authoritarian power involves a constant increase in bets, an increase in aggression, and the search for new enemies. In order not to lose in this struggle, we must unite.

My father is one of the leaders of this struggle, and he must be out there. He challenges Putin every day, but together we can ensure that his efforts are not in vain and that his words are heard around the world. I now turn to world leaders and ask them to support my call to the Russian government to release my father.

Let’s all strive for a better, more prosperous global future where we can choose our own leaders. Free Alexei Navalny!

Russian Cruise Missiles Were Made Just Months Ago Despite Sanctions

The New York Times

Russian Cruise Missiles Were Made Just Months Ago Despite Sanctions

John Ismay – December 6, 2022

Smoke rises after a Russian artillery bombardment in Kherson, Ukraine, on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. (Finbarr O'Reill/The New York Times) — Smoke rises after a Russian artillery bombardment in Kherson, Ukraine, on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. (Finbarr O’Reill/The New York Times)

Some of the cruise missiles that Russia launched at Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in late November were manufactured months after the West imposed sanctions intended to deprive Moscow of the components needed to make those munitions, according to a weapons research group.

Experts examined remnants of Kh-101 cruise missiles found in Kyiv, the capital, after an attack Nov. 23 that knocked out electricity and shut down water systems in large areas of the country. One of the missiles was made this summer, and another was completed after September, markings on the weapons show, according to a report released by investigators Monday.

That Russia has continued to make advanced guided missiles such as the Kh-101 suggests that it has found ways to acquire semiconductors and other materiel despite the sanctions or that it had significant stockpiles of the components before the war began, one researcher said.

The findings are among the most recent by Conflict Armament Research, an independent group based in Britain that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars. A small team of its researchers arrived in Kyiv just before the attack at the invitation of the Ukrainian security service.

In four previous research trips to Kyiv since the invasion, the investigators found that almost all of the advanced Russian military gear they examined — including encrypted radios and laser range finders — was built with Western semiconductors.

The investigators were unable to determine whether the Kh-101 remnants they studied were from missiles that reached their targets and exploded or were intercepted in flight and shot down.

The Kh-101 missiles were marked with a 13-digit numerical sequence. Investigators said they believe that the first three digits represent the factory where the missile was made, followed by another three-digit code indicating which of two known versions of the Kh-101 it is and two digits indicating when it was manufactured. A final string of five numbers is believed to denote the missile’s production batch and serial number.

Piotr Butowski, a Polish journalist who has written extensively about Russia’s warplanes and military munitions, said the group’s numerical analysis matched up with his research.

“The first three digits are always ‘315’ — this is the production facility code,” Butowski said in an email. “Kh-101 missiles are developed and manufactured by the Raduga company in Dubna near Moscow.”

In an interview before the report was released, a U.S. defense intelligence analyst said that Butowski’s analysis was consistent with the government’s understanding of how Russian missile producers — including those that make the Kh-101 — mark their weapons. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Russia was generally believed to be experiencing ammunition stockpile problems and may be using newer munitions alongside those that are much older.

The analyst said that reports from Russia indicate that the government has ordered employees at munition plants to work additional hours in an effort to produce more ordnance, and that it is clear that Russia is now firing fewer long-range weapons such as cruise missiles at a smaller number of targets in Ukraine.

Pentagon officials say Russia has fired thousands of long-range weapons including cruise missiles as well as short- and medium-range ballistic missiles at targets in Ukraine since the war began.

Whether Russia has depleted its inventory of older cruise missiles is unclear. But militaries often use older munitions first in combat because they typically make up a majority of a nation’s stockpile.

On Nov. 23, the same day as the cruise missile attack on Kyiv, Lloyd Austin, the U.S. secretary of defense, told reporters that Russia’s supply of precision-guided weapons had been “significantly reduced” and that it would be more difficult for Russia to rapidly produce them “because of the trade restrictions they have on microchips and other types of things.”

But Damien Spleeters, who led Conflict Armament Research’s investigation, said it would be difficult to say that the Russians are running short on weapons.

“Those claims have been made since April,” he said, “so we’re just pointing to the fact that these cruise missiles being made so recently may be a symptom of that, but it’s not a certainty.”

Kyiv residents shelter in metro amid strikes

Reuters

Kyiv residents shelter in metro amid strikes

December 5, 2022

STORY: Men, women and children sat on the metro platform wrapped in warm hats and thick coats as temperatures hovered at around -5 degrees Celsius (23°Fahrenheit).

The governor of the Kyiv capital region said its air defenses were working there.

The Russian attacks later on Monday killed two people in the Zaporizhzhia region where several houses were destroyed, the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said in one of the first reports of the damage.

Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ‘becoming more informed’ about challenges, U.S. intel chief says

Yahoo! News

Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ‘becoming more informed’ about challenges, U.S. intel chief says

Niamh Cavanaugh – Reporter – December 5, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin. — Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Nov. 29. (Sergei Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russia’s war in Ukraine has now entered its 10th month, and as the weather drops below freezing, the invasion enters a new phase. According to the head of U.S. intelligence, the war is running at a “reduced tempo.” Meanwhile, a Kremlin official defended Russia’s repeated strikes against Ukraine’s crucial energy facilities, which the civilian population needs to stay warm this winter. Here are the latest developments.

Putin more ‘informed’ about military difficulties, says intelligence chief

The U.S. director of national intelligence said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has become “better informed” about the challenges the military is facing. Speaking at a defense forum, Avril Haines indicated that the Kremlin leader was no longer shielded from negative information about Russia’s standing in the war. Haines also stated that the conflict seemed to be operating at a “reduced tempo” as both sides resupply for a possible spring counteroffensive.

‘Massive missile attack’ launched in Ukraine

Ukrainian officials said Monday that Russia’s military had begun a “massive missile attack” across the country. The deputy head of the president’s office said that two buildings had been hit in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, killing two people and injuring three others, including a small child, the Ukrainian official said. Air raid sirens sounded in cities such as Kyiv, where locals were forced to take shelter in the underground subway system. Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s energy provider, said its facilities had been struck, causing blackouts amid “the eighth massive missile attack by a terrorist country.”

Explosions at Russian military bases

Russian state-linked media outlets reported Monday that two explosions had occurred at air bases in Russia. According to Astra, two aircraft were destroyed and two soldiers were injured and hospitalized after a drone attack. One of the strikes occurred at the Engels-2 air base, which is located hundreds of miles from Russia’s border with Ukraine, the New York Times reported. The other, according to RIA Novosti, happened in an airfield near Ryazan when a fuel truck exploded. Three people died, and at least six others were wounded.

Kremlin defends infrastructure strikes

The silhouette of a person sitting in a tent. — A local resident whose house has been destroyed sits in a tent for warmth in Borodyanka, near Kyiv, on Sunday. (Dimitar Dilkov/AFP via Getty Images)

Sergey Lavrov, the Kremlin’s foreign minister, defended Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, stating that they were legitimate targets. “This infrastructure supports the combat capability of the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalist battalions,” Lavrov said Thursday during a video call with reporters. Removing the energy facilities, he said, would in turn minimize the number of Russian casualties, as these infrastructures “allow you to keep pumping deadly weapons into Ukraine.”

Macron talks peace negotiations

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at a news conference with President Biden. — French President Emmanuel Macron at a news conference with President Biden at the White House on Dec. 1. (Susan Walsh/AP)

During a state visit to the U.S., French President Emmanuel Macron said that the West should consider Russia’s need for security guarantees if peace talks are to take place again. Speaking in an interview with French media on Saturday, Macron stated that Europe should prepare a “dialogue” for both Russian officials and Ukrainian officials to “return to the table.”

“One of the essential points we must address, as President Putin has always said, is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said. He added that preparation must be done so that Europe knows “what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states.”

Russia lost 60 aircraft likely from Ukrainian ‘air defense’

The wreckage of a Russian aircraft shot down in a field. — The wreckage of a Russian aircraft in a field near the town of Izium, Kharkiv region, on Sept. 30. (Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters)

The U.K.’s Ministry of Defense revealed on Monday that Russia has lost over 60 fixed-wing aircraft so far in the invasion. At the start of the war, Russia was operating as many as 300 missions per day but is now “conducting significantly” fewer missions per day. “The decrease in sorties is likely a result of continued high threat from Ukrainian air defenses, limitations on the flying hours available to Russian aircraft, and worsening weather,” the Defense Ministry tweeted. “With Russia’s ground attack tactics largely reliant on visual identification and unguided munitions, the Russian air force will likely continue a low rate of ground attack operations through the poor winter weather.”

Finnish leader says the brutal truth is Ukraine shows Europe isn’t ‘strong enough’ without the US

Business Insider

Finnish leader says the brutal truth is Ukraine shows Europe isn’t ‘strong enough’ without the US

John Haltiwanger – December 2, 2022

Sanna Marin meets with Volodymyr Zelenskyy — Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine.Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP

Finland’s prime minister said Ukraine showed Europe was too reliant on the US for security.
“I must be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough right now,” Sanna Marin said.
“We would be in trouble without the United States,” she added.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Friday the Ukraine war showed Europe was too reliant on the US for its security.

“I must be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough right now,” Marin said in remarks at a think tank in Sydney, according to Reuters. “We would be in trouble without the United States.”

She added: “The United States has given a lot of weapons, a lot of financial aid, a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and Europe isn’t strong enough yet.

“We have to make sure that we are building those capabilities when it comes to European defense.”

The US has provided Ukraine with far more security assistance than any other country — roughly $19.1 billion since Russia launched its invasion in late February.

Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine marks the first major conflict in Europe since World War II, and it has prompted more urgent discussions on European security and the continent’s reliance on the US. It also pushed Finland and Sweden — two countries that have historically been neutral or militarily nonaligned — to join NATO (the process for their accession is ongoing).

In a speech last month to European diplomats, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, questioned how the US would’ve handled the Ukraine war if former President Donald Trump were in office instead of President Joe Biden.

Trump was often critical of US security commitments in Europe and frequently chastised NATO allies over their lower levels of defense spending compared with the US. His first impeachment was also related to his dealings with Ukraine, including freezing aid to Kyiv, its capital, as he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into Hunter Biden, the president’s son, over allegations of corruption.

Along these lines, Borrell said Europe needed to take more steps to ensure it’s not so reliant on Washington.

“What would have happened if, instead of Biden, it would have been Trump or someone like him in the White House? What would have been the answer of the United States to the war in Ukraine? What would have been our answer in a different situation?” Borrell said, adding: “These are some questions that we have to ask ourselves. And the answer for me is clear:

“We need to shoulder more responsibilities ourselves. We have to take a bigger part of our responsibility in securing security.”

Winter comes to Ukraine: Civilians forced to face ‘extremely difficult few months ahead’ as Russian invasion grinds on

Yahoo! News

Winter comes to Ukraine: Civilians forced to face ‘extremely difficult few months ahead’ as Russian invasion grinds on

Niamh Cavanagh, Reporter – December 1, 2022

TBILISI, Georgia — It’s been nine months since Russia launched its “special operation” in Ukraine in what President Vladimir Putin claimed was done to “de-Nazify” the region. Since February, millions of Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries, while others, unable to leave, have taken shelter in train stations and in the basements of buildings from heavy shelling and invading forces.

As the weather in Ukraine drops below freezing, with average temperatures this time of year around 20°F, civilians will be forced to defend themselves against another threat: the oncoming winter. In recent weeks, Russia’s military has ramped up attacks on critical infrastructures in cities such as Kyiv and Lviv. In just one day last month, Russia’s military launched between 60 and 100 missiles at several major cities.

Among the targets was the national power grid, its operator said. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, CEO of Ukrenergo, said the attacks on the grid had been “colossal.” In a briefing to reporters, he stated that Ukrainians could face power outages as the grid could not “generate as much energy as consumers can use.”

A view of damaged electrical wires after the Ukrainian army retook control from Russian forces in Lyman, Ukraine, on Nov. 27. (Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

As a result of the colder weather and lack of basic necessities in Ukraine, a World Health Organization regional director said that at least 3 million people would be displaced in the coming months. “This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine,” Hans Henri P. Kluge said in a statement. “We expect 2–3 million more people to leave their homes in search of warmth and safety.”

Similarly, the top U.S. general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said there would be “incalculable human suffering” as families are left without electricity and heat. “Basic human survival and subsistence is going to be severely impacted, and human suffering for the Ukrainian population is going to increase,” Milley said. He went on to say that the Russian strikes on energy infrastructure would “undoubtedly hinder Ukraine’s ability to care for the sick and the elderly. … The elderly are going to be exposed to the elements.”

Elderly residents are evacuated from the southern city of Kherson, Ukraine, on Nov. 27. (Bernat Armangue/AP)

On Tuesday, during a NATO two-day conference held in Romania, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg accused Putin of trying to “weaponize winter.” “Russia is using brutal missile and drone attacks to leave Ukraine cold and dark this winter,” Stoltenberg said. Now Ukrainians are either forced to “freeze or flee.”

And there are some who are deciding to stay. Yahoo News spoke to a mother of two based in Lviv, where she runs a bakery with her husband. Asked why she wanted to stay despite the bombings and the looming bitter winter, Kateryna Humenyuk said: “Of course, we are worried. But as long as it is possible to live here, we will raise the economy of our country and look for all possible options for the safety of our children.”

In the residential area where she lives, Humenyuk said that the infrastructure had been “badly damaged” from a previous bombing. “There was no light and therefore no heat.” She added: “But fortunately, our energy workers have restored everything and there is still light, although there are still intermittent blackouts.” For those, Humenyuk explained how her husband connected an ordinary lightbulb to a car battery. ”It’s a pity it does not give warmth,” she said.

Kateryna Humenyuk with her husband and children. (Courtesy of Kateryna Humenyuk)

Across Ukraine, there are organizations, both local and international, that are helping those who will stay during the long winter. One organization on the ground in Ukraine is Plan International, which, among other services, provides Ukrainians with thermal blankets, winter clothing, heat appliances and fuel ahead of the winter months.

Speaking to Yahoo News, Mia Haglund Heelas, Plan International’s head of Mission Ukraine Crisis Response, said that the freezing temperatures will have a “brutal impact” on the lives of millions of Ukrainian children and their families. “Many are living in homes that are damaged and are not able to provide the protection that you need when you meet very harsh winter conditions,” she said. “Now, with the beginning of winter, and the below-zero temperatures, this is the start of an extremely difficult few months ahead.”

With the charity being a children’s rights organization, Heelas said it also provides protective gear for children making their way to school during the harsh winter conditions. So far the organization has supported around 14,000 individuals, particularly those living in isolated areas.

A woman is seen making her way through the snow on Nov. 27 in Kyiv. (Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

Satellite images show Russia is making a big gamble on how it plans to defend territory near Crimea from Ukraine

Business Insider

Satellite images show Russia is making a big gamble on how it plans to defend territory near Crimea from Ukraine

Jake Epstein – December 1, 2022

Close-up view of Russian trenches and tank obstacles in Novotroitsky, Ukraine, captured on November 15, 2022.Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies.
Satellite images show Russia is making a big gamble on how it plans to defend territory near Crimea from Ukraine

Russian forces have set up defensive lines and positions in territory leading toward Crimea.
But their fortifications focus on roads and highways, rather than fields and open terrain.
This is a gamble for Putin’s troops and could make them vulnerable to Ukrainian offensives.

In the wake of its recent humiliating defeat in Kherson, a key southern city that was under Russian occupation since the early days of the war, Russia is now gambling big on how it intends to defend against further Ukrainian advances.

Recent satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies and obtained by Insider show multiple Russian defensive positions in the eastern Kherson region, above the occupied Crimean peninsula, as Moscow tries to hold ground in the face of Ukraine’s rolling battlefield successes.

Russian defensive positions have been built along critical ground lines of communication like roads and highways and connect Russian forces at the Dnipro River with other occupied areas to the southeast, like Crimea and the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, according to an assessment this week from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.

These positions exist in the form of trenches and dragon’s teeth anti-tank defenses, the ISW assessment said, referring to a decades-old strategy consisting of hardened fortifications that are built to slow and stop heavy armor. But instead of connecting communication lines across the battlefield, the positions appear more like “elaborate roadblocks” that don’t stray too far from the roads or into the fields.

Overview of Russian trenches, fortifications, and tank obstacles in Stepne, Ukraine, captured on November 15, 2022.Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies.

Close up of Russian trenches, fortifications, and tank obstacles in Velyka Blahovischenka, Ukraine, captured on November 15, 2022.Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies.

Close-up view of Russian defensive positions in Novotroitsky, Ukraine, captured on November 15, 2022.Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies.

ISW assesses that the defensive positions indicate that Russian military leadership is concerned that Ukrainian forces could advance across the Dnipro River and into the lower Kherson region. The nature of these positions is a gamble, however, because while Russia is focusing on defending roads and highways, it is ignoring the real possibility that Ukraine could advance across open terrain.

Ukraine’s tanks and tracked vehicles could cut through fields and bypass them or assault the Russian positions from their more vulnerable flanks.

“They are not arrayed in such a way to create necessarily long, coherent defensive lines that cut across cross-country into the fields and things of that nature,” George Barros, an expert with the ISW, told Insider. This “suggests that the Russians expect that they have vulnerabilities on the road and the highways, and they’re not expecting a cross-country drive.”

Given the “battlefield geometry” and how the positions are set up, Russian forces may also be vulnerable to Ukrainian encirclement if they’re able to advance from the eastern and western flanks in southern Kherson, Barros said. Additionally, Ukraine could use precision strikes to threaten Russia’s communication lines.

Beyond this, Barros said that in establishing these defensive lines, Russian forces are also limiting themselves in their ability to conduct offensive operations in the area.

It remains to be seen exactly how Ukraine will build off its success in retaking Kherson — a counteroffensive that began months ago and went hand-in-hand with lightning-fast advances in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv region. Since late summer, advancing Ukrainian forces have managed to liberate thousands of square miles of territory from under Russian occupation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously and repeatedly vowed to expel Russian troops from the entirety of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. On Thursday, a top Ukrainian military official said Russia does not plan to relinquish territory adjacent to the occupied Crimean peninsula, signaling that a tough fight lies ahead given Russia’s reluctance to abandon these holdings.

Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Hromov, the deputy chief of the main operational department at the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told reporters, per state news agency Ukrinform, that “the priority of the Russian Federation remains to maintain positions in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the land corridor to the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.”

Only women who suffered in Russian prisons can know Brittney Griner’s agony

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

Only women who suffered in Russian prisons can know Brittney Griner’s agony

Phil Boas, Arizona Republic – December 1, 2022

The story of Brittney Griner may ultimately turn out to be an historic marker that shows just how completely ignorant Americans were of their world in the early 21st century.

It may show how the people of this country were so removed from history and hard facts we could not comprehend the story of a Phoenix pro basketball player taken prisoner by the Russians.

This is not a story about a woman who did the crime and now must do the time.

If you believe that, you’re not only a fool, you’re a mean and ignorant lout.

Nor is this the story of U.S. indifference to women of color or LGBTQ people, or some sign we need to reform America’s draconian marijuana laws.

If you believe that, you’re indecent. You’re exploiting someone else’s suffering to advance your politics.

The Brittney Griner story is really an old story, a soul crushing tale of how historic events are indifferent to the agony of a single human being.

Brittney Griner could spend her life in prison

WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner stands in a cage at a court room prior to a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow on July 26, 2022.

We all know Griner’s predicament could end tomorrow with a U.S.-Russian prisoner swap. But what few are saying and must know is that it might never end, that Brittney Griner is caught in the awakening gears of a changing world and could conceivably spend the rest of her life in captivity.

Even before the Russians seized upon her as a bargaining chip exactly one week before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, people were writing and speaking about what she is facing.

They are the only people who truly understand Brittney Griner. They’re women, they’re mostly Russian, and they have endured one of the worst penal systems on earth − the Russian gulag.

After Griner’s sentence:Russian media plays the international victim card

They know that what is in store for her is utterly hair-raising – a misery that few civilized people will ever know or comprehend.

Wait a minute, you say. The gulag? Isn’t that a relic of Soviet communism and Alexander Solzhenitsyn and “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”?

No.

The Russian gulag lives. And Brittney Griner is trapped in its gear train.

Human rights violations, torture are common

“Our prison system was never reformed,” said “Nadya” Tolokonnikova, a member of the Russian punk band and activist group Pussy Riot and one of Griner’s fiercest advocates.

In March 2012, “Nadya” was arrested with other members of her band after protesting 40 seconds against Vladimir Putin’s Russia at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. She was sentenced to two years in prison.

“There was no period after gulag time,” she told the Oxford Union Society. There was talk of reforming Russian prisons, but “they never did it. That’s why we still live in barracks. Still live like slaves. One hundred women are sharing three toilets, and you can imagine what kind of mayhem (that causes) in the morning. It’s no fun.”

Jan Strzelecki, writing in 2019 for The Centre for Eastern Studies, noted that “most Russian penal colonies and prisons were built back in Stalinist times. Despite several attempts to reform the prison system in Russia, they still resemble the Soviet Gulag: human rights violations and torture are common.”

If Russian prisons are bad, Griner is getting the worst of it.

She is serving her nine-year sentence in IK-2, part of a notorious system of Russian penal colonies near Mordovia, a region about 300 miles east of Moscow, The (London) Guardian reports. “The prisons were built in the early 1930s as part of the gulag system of the Stalin era and together make up one of the largest penal complexes in Europe.”

Griner was sent to Russia’s ‘worst’ penal colony

Griner was arrested and later convicted of possessing vape cartridges with tiny amounts of marijuana. Yet, that is immaterial. Her sentence is a sham, because there is no Russian justice system.

In 2016, the acquittal rate in Russia’s criminal courts was a “merciless” 0.36%, reports the news-commentary site Riddle. The prison where Griner is serving her sentence cares nothing about justice or human dignity.

When Pussy Riot learned where Griner was headed, it tweeted out to its 243,000 followers, “Brittney Griner was transported to IK-2 Mordovia, the WORST penal colony in Russia.”

“Nadya” Tolokonnikova told MSNBC, “I’m terrified that Brittney Griner was moved to IK-2. … I was protesting terrible conditions in my penal colony, but I know (about) every chief official who works at IK-2 and I know exactly what human rights abuses they perform on a daily basis and the kinds of tortures that they use against prisoners.”

It has become a common phrase among Russian inmates that “If you haven’t served time in Mordovia, you know nothing about prison.”

Gelena Alekseyeva, a former government minister in Saratov, a port city on the Volga, served 3½ years in Mordovia for abetting commercial bribery.

“When the girls find out that they’re going to Mordovia, they cut their wrists, do everything possible: get sick, swallow nails, just so they don’t have to go there,” she told RadioFreeEurope.

Prisoners are punished psychologically

In a September 2013 letter, Pussy Riot’s “Nadya” described how Russian internment is not just a prison of walls and barbed wire.

It’s a prison of forgotten history, of remote geography; a prison of the mind and of physical deprivation; a prison of concentric circles that surround each inmate and make their lives a living hell.

The female wards of Mordovia are caught in a “medieval” system that most of the rest of the world left behind many decades ago.

To demonstrate that point, “Galena” told the story of the cats.

In Russian prisons cats are common because the places are overrun with vermin. “Mice lived with us. Rats lived with us in the industrial zone. Before you went into the bathroom, you needed to knock – there were special poles for that. So that the rats would scatter, you understand.”

To attack the problem, the prisons introduced cats to kill the rats. But the cats would reproduce and create their own problem, she told RadioFreeEurope. The Russians solved that by gathering up the kittens and throwing them into a sack and then into a furnace.

Starved for companionship, Russian women inmates grow fond of the cats. “There is nothing more dear to the inmates than these kittens and cats. But they can also be used for punishment. So, if you sewed badly today then we will burn the cats! They don’t punish one or two people − they punish a whole brigade.”

They also engage in slave labor

The sewing is a reference to the day labor of Russian women prisoners. In her letter on prison conditions, “Nadya” wrote, “My brigade in the sewing shop works 16 to 17 hours a day. From 7.30 am to 12.30 am. At best, we get four hours of sleep a night. We have a day off once every month and a half. We work almost every Sunday.”

The sewing machines are “ancient” and dangerous, she wrote. “Your hands are pierced with needle marks and covered in scratches, your blood is all over the work table, but still, you keep sewing.”

“Galena” explained how the old industrial sewing equipment makes it very easy to make a mistake.

“The saw cuts the fabric along a chalk line continuously. God forbid, if the saw cuts somewhere else [and not on the chalk line], then all 100 cuts are ruined. I can say that fingers on the saw are chopped off, cut, blood flows. This is definitely unsafe, requiring some training.”

Miss a quota and not only you, but your entire brigade of prisoners is punished. This breeds anger and resentment.

“Prisoners are always on the verge of breaking down, screaming at each other, fighting over the smallest things. Just recently a young woman got stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors because she didn’t turn in a pair of pants on time.”

Prisons turn prisoner against prisoner

Those who disobey orders can be sent outdoors into the Russian winter.

“Nadya” told of one woman from a brigade of disabled and elderly prisoners who was punished this way for an entire day. Her frostbite was so bad “they had to amputate her fingers and one of her feet.”

One of the age-old techniques of Russian prisons is to turn prisoner against prisoner.

In their book “Before and After Prison: Women’s Stories,” a group of Russian sociologists explained that the heavy surveillance in Russian women’s prisons is enhanced by a less formal system of snitching.

“The system of squealing and earning high marks with the management for snooping on others, which was originally created in the Gulag [Soviet-era labor camps], has effectively survived until the present day,” St. Petersburg sociologist Yelena Omelchenko told The Moscow Times.

The result is an inmate population that doesn’t trust one another and routinely acts out in retribution.

“Women are cruel, and they are extremely nasty to each other, vicious as hell,” said Yulia, a prisoner whose story is included in the book. “If you are ill, or weak or old, they will be sure to exploit you, humiliate you, harass you, sometimes just for fun.

“… We were working in a sewing workshop in the colony, and some vicious inmates would cut the items that the girls in my team made so that we would fail to fulfill the plan.”

It’s all designed to dispirit inmates

That cruelty starts at the very beginning.

When Veronika Krass entered prison IK-14 in Mordovia in 2014, her eyes were drawn to the words on the entrance wall.

“Welcome To Hell.”

“When someone enters the colony, there’s a lineup in the yard,” she told RadioFreeEurope. “Everyone yells, ‘Fresh meat has arrived.’ The (new) inmates react of course to this − they are afraid.”

Soon they will be caught up in a system that deprives them of privacy, self-respect, food and their own humanity.

“The food and hygiene were unspeakable,” wrote “Nadya.” “It was a degrading and humiliating experience, and a great trauma for everyone who went through it.

Food consisted of rotten “slimy blackened” potatoes, stale bread and watered-down milk and rancid porridge, she said.

Know what Griner is facing before you speak

In her prison, “Galina” said, “It was awful, and really felt like barracks. And there was only one toilet room − with two toilets in it − per one detachment of three hundred people, who had a total of half an hour in the morning to use this toilet. It was surreal. […] We hardly ever had hot water, and the toilets, if they broke, would not be repaired. It was a concentration camp.”

Wrote “Nadya” in her letter, “Life in the colony is constructed in such a way as to make the inmate feel like a filthy animal who has no rights.”

“When the pipes get clogged, urine bursts forth from the washrooms and feces fly. We have learned to clean the sewage pipes ourselves, but the results do not last long: the pipes get backed up again. The colony does not have a cable for cleaning pipes. We can wash our clothes once a week, in a small room with three faucets from which cold water drips.”

In women’s prisons, toilets and showers do not have partitions. The sociologist Omelchenko said the “devastating lack of personal space” was intentional. “Whether you are eating or working or sleeping or showering, and even when you are using the toilet, you are exposed to others.”

“When I discovered, during the course of my research, how they renovated a toilet in one colony, I was stunned,” Omelchenko recalled. “In front of a row of holes in the ground − not separated by partitions − they placed a large mirror. I am still not fully convinced that the person who was responsible for that interior design solution was not in fact a moral sadist.”

Before you condemn Brittney Griner for breaking Russian law or before you use her story to score cheap political points, you need to understand what she is facing.

You need to know that the one man who holds the key to her release, a tyrant name Vladimir Putin, is also the man most responsible for the barbaric conditions in which she now lives.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic.