Former commander of U.S. forces in Europe predicts Russia won’t take Kyiv
Tucker Reals – March 7, 2022
Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army forces in Europe, said he believes Russian forces will be unable to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, due to the city’s sheer size and the resistance being mounted not only by Ukraine’s military, but by its citizens.
Hodges said he foresaw “lots more destruction and fighting” in and around Kyiv, but he predicted the capital “will not fall” and the “Russians will not be able to take it.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “initial strategy” when he invaded Ukraine — to quickly storm major cities, oust pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelensky and replace him with a Russian-friendly alternative — “has failed,” said Hodges.
He noted that Russia’s military had resorted to “an attrition strategy to bring about the same aim,” and acknowledged that the steady barrage of rocket fire on Ukraine’s cities had “helped make up for their poor planning, terrible logistics, inability to conduct effective joint operations at the operational level, and their poor estimation of Ukrainian fighting power.”
“But I don’t think they can sustain this ‘overwhelming’ firepower as their logistical challenge worsens and the logistics for Ukraine get better,” said Hodges. “I don’t think they have the manpower, logistics, or time to conduct this approach effectively.”
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Monday that nearly 100% of the Russian combat power that had amassed at the Ukrainian border in the weeks leading up to the invasion has now been committed inside the country. The Russians have launched more than 625 missiles in the 11 days of fighting, the official said, and appear to be increasing their use of long-range strikes to supplement or make up for the lack of ground movement and lack of air superiority.
Some allied military leaders are likewise indicating that Ukrainian forces and civilians might be able to withstand the Russians’ advances.
“I think we’ve seen a Russian invasion that is not going well. I think we’re also seeing a remarkable resistance by Ukraine, both its armed forces and its people,” Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defense staff in the U.K., told BBC News on Sunday. “We do know that some of the lead elements of Russian forces have been decimated by the Ukrainian response.”
Hodges, the retired U.S. commander, said that Putin’s adopted tactics could start to increase pressure on the Russian leader not only from other countries, but from within his own.
“The great unknown for me is if the Russian population will continue to support this once they understand what’s really going on,” Hodges said. “And I’m sure they’ll begin to understand it soon, despite Putin’s blackout on news/social media.”
David Reiter and Eleanor Watson contributed reporting.
Some Russian officials think invading Ukraine was ‘a mistake,’ and are ‘discouraged, frightened’ and ‘making apocalyptic forecasts’: report
Jake Lahut – March 7, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin.MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
Some Russian officials are reportedly unhappy about Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine on February 24.
Farida Rustamova, formerly of the BBC, spoke to Kremlin officials for a March 1 story.
An English translation of her article says many are “discouraged, frightened.”
President Vladimir Putin has alienated some top Russian officials ever since the early stages of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to Russian journalist Farida Rustamova.
“In reality, the attitude toward the war within the corridors of power is ambiguous,” Rustamova wrote, according to Lozovsky, whose translation she shared on Twitter and reposted on her Substack newsletter. “I came to this conclusion after speaking with several members of parliament and officials at various levels. Many of them are discouraged, frightened, and are making apocalyptic forecasts.”
Rustamova recently fled the country, and has previously worked for the BBC Russian Service — which has since been suspended by the London-based network — as well as Meduza and the RBC, an investigative outlet that saw a a mass resignation in 2016.
“No one is rejoicing,” a source described as “close to the Kremlin” told Rustamova, per Lozovsky’s translation. “Many understand that this is a mistake, but in the course of doing their duty they come up with explanations in order to somehow come to terms with it.”
“Some officials aren’t associating themselves with what’s happening at all, viewing Putin’s decision as a historical choice over which they have no influence, and the meaning of which no one will understand for a some time to come,” Rustamova wrote.
Another source granted anonymity said Kremlin officials are “carefully enunciating the word clusterf*ck” when describing the invasion.
Rustamova wrote that every source she talked to believed Putin wouldn’t follow through on invading Ukraine, and was instead looking to gain leverage for concessions, such as declaring Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics.”
“Everyone had some scattered information that did not provide an answer to the main question: will we start bombing or not?” another source “close to the Kremlin” told Rustamova.
The Russian reporter also outlined how Putin has been limiting information to a close circle of advisors.
“Most likely, my sources say, only the narrowest circle had been informed: Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and the leaders of the counterintelligence service,” she wrote, according to Lozovsky’s translation. “For example, the head of the presidential administration Anton Vaino, whose role, unlike his more influential predecessors, is more akin to a private secretary, is not informed about such decisions, my sources say.”
A different source Rustamova called “a good acquaintance of Putin’s” said the Russian president’s mood has gotten worse.
“Here he is in a state of being offended and insulted,” the source said. “It’s paranoia that has reached the point of absurdity.”
Alexander Vindman says Ron Johnson, others have ‘blood on their hands’ over Russian invasion of Ukraine
Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – March 7, 2022
Then-Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert for the National Security Council, prepares to testify on Nov. 19, 2019, before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in a public hearing in the impeachment inquiry into allegations President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.
Former national security aide Alexander Vindman accused Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and others of having “blood on their hands” as Ukraine withstands a withering assault from Russian troops.
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel, Vindman included Johnson on a list with former President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, claiming they undermined U.S. national security.
“Civilians are dying, Ukrainians are providing a formidable defense, defending democracy for Americans as well as for themselves and their homes. And Ron Johnson is trying to distract and obfuscate,” Vindman said.
Vindman was responding to comments made Feb. 27 by Johnson on Fox News.
Vindman had been with Johnson on a key trip to Ukraine in May 2019, in which the senator sought to assure the newly elected government of congressional support.
A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Vindman also blamed Johnson and others for ending his military career.
Vindman was a key witness in the first U.S. House impeachment of Trump. He listened in on the 2019 call when Trump asked Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Joe Biden while withholding U.S. military aid to the country. Trump later released about $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.
“I don’t think Vladimir Putin would have moved on Ukraine were it not for the weakness displayed ― certainly by the Biden administration, but by the West in general,” Johnson said in the interview. “I’m certainly hoping that Col. Vindman, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi ― who used Ukraine as a pawn in their impeachment travesty ― are also recognizing and reflecting about how they weakened Ukraine, weakened the West, weakened America by the divisive politics that they play.”
“There’s much blame to go around, but in terms of atrocities, that falls squarely on the shoulders of Vladimir Putin and his cronies,” Johnson said.
Johnson stands by comments
According to a statement from his office, Johnson stands behind his Fox News comments. In addition, the statement asserted, Pelosi, Schiff and Vindman “weakened Ukraine by harming its relationship with the U.S. and therefore made Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian aggression, destabilization efforts, and ultimately invasion.
“Lt. Col Vindman’s actions demonstrated disloyalty to both the U.S. President he served and the Ukrainian people we were trying to help,” the statement from his office said.
“He’s responsible more so than many of his colleagues for creating a situation in which the U.S. actually might find itself in a hot war,” Vindman said.
Asked if Johnson believed he held any responsibility for what is now occurring in Ukraine, the senator’s office responded: “Absolutely not. Senator Johnson has been consistently supportive of the people of Ukraine who want to rid their nation of corruption and live in freedom, peace, and prosperity.”
Johnson’s office noted the senator has made seven trips to Ukraine since 2011 and co-sponsored multiple resolutions and bills in support of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian-born Vindman and Johnson have a history.
“There was a time when I thought he was a good actor, a good guy,” Vindman said.
They were in the Ukraine capital of Kyiv in May 2019 as part of the U.S. delegation attending Zelensky’s inauguration.
“I tried to make him feel at home, make him feel welcome,” Vindman said.
He recalled having a conversation with Johnson.
“He was pretty aggressive in providing support for Ukraine in arming the Ukrainians, giving this new president d everything you need to resist Russian coercion at that point, Russian aggression in a war that had been unfolding for the preceding five years,” Vindman said.
Vindman said he told Johnson that Trump was “not necessarily supportive of such a forward-leaning approach.”
“This was a very awkward position to be in because I had to point this out to the senator,” Vindman said. “That I also don’t agree with the policy. But I have to carry the water of the president. The president was already kind of testing the waters on withholding security assistance.”
Vindman added: “I wanted him (Johnson) to understand that while he might feel strongly about this and that it’s the right thing to do, the chief executive might not be on board.”
“He gave me this quizzical look, like I was a crazy person, like I was the one that was out of step,” Vindman said.
Vindman’s ‘assertions are completely false’
Johnson’s office said in a statement that Vindman’s “assertions are completely false,” and pointed to a Nov. 2019 letter Johnson wrote House Republicans. In that letter, he recalled a conversation he had with Vindman in Ukraine.
“I had just finished making the point that supporting Ukraine was essential because it was ground zero in our geopolitical competition with Russia,” Johnson wrote. “I was surprised when Vindman responded to my point. He stated that it was the position of the NSC (National Security Council) that our relationship with Ukraine should be kept separate from our geopolitical competition with Russia.
“My blunt response was, ‘How in the world is that even possible?’ “
Johnson wrote he didn’t know if “Vindman accurately stated the NSC’s position, whether President Trump shared that viewpoint, or whether Vindman was really expressing his own view.”
Johnson wrote he believed “that a significant number of bureaucrats and staff members within the executive branch have never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent his unorthodox style and his intrusion onto their ‘turf.’ They react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office. It is entirely possible that Vindman fits this profile.”
Vindman charged Johnson wrote the letter to undermine his credibility before he gave testimony in the impeachment.
He said Johnson “scurried back to his comfort zone, which is how a political creature, a political animal that saw his political survival in pandering to Donald Trump.”
Ukrainians Find That Relatives in Russia Don’t Believe It’s a War
Many Ukrainians are encountering a confounding and frustrating backlash from family members in Russia who have bought into the official Kremlin messaging.
By Valerie Hopkins – March 7, 2022
Photographing the debris of a building hit by missiles in Kyiv, Ukraine, last month.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
LVIV, Ukraine — Four days after Russia began dropping artillery shells on Kyiv, Misha Katsurin, a Ukrainian restaurateur, was wondering why his father, a church custodian living in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, hadn’t called to check on him.
“There is a war, I’m his son, and he just doesn’t call,” Mr. Katsurin, who is 33, said in an interview. So, Mr. Katsurin picked up the phone and let his father know that Ukraine was under attack by Russia.
“I’m trying to evacuate my children and my wife — everything is extremely scary,” Mr. Katsurin told him.
He did not get the response he expected. His father, Andrei, didn’t believe him.
“No, no, no, no stop,” Mr. Katsurin said of his father’s initial response.
Misha Katsiurin, right, with his father, Andrei.Credit…Misha Katsiurin
“He started to tell me how the things in my country are going,” said Mr. Katsurin, who converted his restaurants into volunteer centers and is temporarily staying near the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil. “He started to yell at me and told me, ‘Look, everything is going like this. They are Nazis.’”
As Ukrainians deal with the devastation of the Russian attacks in their homeland, many are also encountering a confounding and almost surreal backlash from family members in Russia, who refuse to believe that Russian soldiers could bomb innocent people, or even that a war is taking place at all.
These relatives have essentially bought into the official Kremlin position: that President Vladimir V. Putin’s army is conducting a limited “special military operation” with the honorable mission of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. Mr. Putin has referred to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a native Russian speaker with a Jewish background, as a “drug-addled Nazi” in his attempts to justify the invasion.
Those narratives are emerging amid a wave of disinformation emanating from the Russian state as the Kremlin moves to clamp down on independent news reporting while shaping the messages most Russians are receiving.
An estimated 11 million people in Russia have Ukrainian relatives. Many Ukrainian citizens are ethnic Russians, and those living in the southern and eastern parts of the country largely speak Russian as their native language.
Russian television channels do not show the bombardment of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and its suburbs, or the devastating attacks on Kharkiv, Mariupol, Chernihiv and other Ukrainian cities. They also do not show the peaceful resistance evident in places like Kherson, a major city in the south that Russian troops captured several days ago, and certainly not the protests against the war that have cropped up across Russia.
Instead they focus on the Russian military’s successes, without discussing the casualties among Russian soldiers. Many state television correspondents are embedded in eastern Ukraine, and not in the cities being pummeled by missiles and mortars. Recent news reports made no mention of the 40-mile-long Russian convoy on a roadway north of Kyiv.
On Friday, Russia also banned Facebook and Twitter to try to stem uncontrolled information.
All this, Mr. Katsurin said, explains why his father told him: “There are Russian soldiers there helping people. They give them warm clothes and food.”
A Russian military vehicle destroyed in fighting near Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on Saturday. Images of Russia’s losses are not being seen widely inside the country. Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Mr. Katsurin is not alone in his frustration. When Valentyna V. Kremyr wrote to her brother and sister in Russia to tell them that her son had spent days in a bomb shelter in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha because of the intensive fighting there, she was also met with disbelief.
“They believe that everything is calm in Kyiv, that no one is shelling Kyiv,” Ms. Kremyr said in a phone interview. She said her siblings think the Russians are striking military infrastructure “with precision, and that’s it.”
She said her sister Lyubov, who lives in Perm, wished her a happy birthday on Feb. 25, the second day of the invasion. When Ms. Kremyr wrote back about the situation on the ground, her sister’s answer via direct message was simple: “No one is bombing Kyiv, and you should actually be afraid of the Nazis, whom your father fought against. Your children will be alive and healthy. We love the Ukrainian people, but you need to think hard about who you elected as president.
Ms. Kremyr said she sent photos from trusted media sites of mangled tanks and a destroyed building in Bucha to her brother, in Krasnoyarsk, but was met with a jarring response. “He said that this site is fake news,” she said, and that essentially the Ukrainian Army was doing the damage being blamed on Russians.
“It is impossible to convince them of what they have done,” Ms. Kremyr said, referring to Russian forces.
Anastasia Belomytseva and her husband, Vladimir, have been encountering the same problem. They are residents of Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s north near the Russian border, which has been hit hard by Russian bombs. But they said in an interview that it was easier to explain the invasion to their 7-year-old daughter than to some of their relatives.
Anastasia Belomytseva and her family. Credit…Anastasia Belomytseva
“They totally don’t understand what is happening here, they don’t understand that they just attacked us for no reason,” Ms. Belomytseva said. Her grandmother, and Mr. Belomytsev’s father, are in Russia.
Asked whether they believe that an attack is happening, Ms. Belomytseva responded “NO!”
Parts of Kharkiv have been reduced to rubble, and its city hall is a burnt-out shell. Ms. Belomytseva said she was sending videos of the bombings to her relatives on Instagram, but they just responded with the Kremlin’s oft-repeated claims that the invasion is just a “special military operation” and that no civilians would be targeted.
In reality, more than 350 civilians had died as of Saturday night, according to the United Nations. The real toll is probably much higher.
For Svetlana, a 60-year-old woman living in Cherkasy, the hardest thing to accept is the advice she has received from her sister, who lives in Belarus, and her cousins in Tomsk, Russia: that she and other Ukrainians should not concern themselves with what is going on.
A third round of talks. Ukrainian and Russian delegations met for another negotiating session and agreed to try again to open humanitarian corridors for civilians leaving Ukrainian cities under attack, but made no progress on ending the war.
“It’s not that they don’t believe it is happening, but they think that the high-level politicians should figure it out,” said Svetlana, who was uncomfortable providing her last name.
“I tell them that we are people too, and this has affected us,” she said. “I asked them not to hide their heads in the sand, I asked the mothers to think about not sending their sons to the army. The response was amazing to me. That is, that politicians are to blame for everything.”
She displayed a WhatsApp exchange with her cousin showing that her cousin had also been swayed by a narrative being pushed by Russian state TV: that the West fomented this war, was thrilled to see two “brotherly nations” fighting each other and was expecting to reap a significant profit from it.
Her cousin sent a string of messages asserting that Western defense companies were raising their profits, and that alternate sources of energy were being procured for the West.
It was not the response she had hoped for — no recognition of the gravity of the situation for Ukrainians or sympathy for the loss of human life.
Ukrainian refugees at the border with Poland in Medyka on Sunday.Credit…Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
“Every day I send them the necessary information, but the response is that ‘This is some kind of fake information, that this cannot be the case at all, that no one can or will shoot at civilians,’” she said.
Ms. Belomytseva, from Kharkiv, said that while her husband was still trying to communicate with his family in Russia, she had cut off most of her relatives there eight years ago, after the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine.
But Mr. Katsurin said he could not push his closest family members out of his life.
“They are our relatives, they’re the closest people we have, and this is not about them,” he said. “I am not angry at my father — I am angry at the Kremlin. I’m angry about the Russian propaganda. I’m not angry at these people. I understand that I cannot blame them in this situation.”
He said he thought about cutting his father off but decided that was the wrong response. “The easiest thing to do would be to say, ‘OK, now I don’t have a father,’” he said. “But I believe that I need to do this because it is my father.”
He said that if everyone worked to explain the truth to their families, the narrative could change. After a post on Instagram complaining about his father’s disbelief went viral, he launched a website, papapover.com, which means “Papa, believe,” with instructions for Ukrainians about how to speak to their family members about the war.
“There are 11 million Russians who have relatives in Ukraine,” he said. “With 11 million people, everything can happen — from revolution to at least some resistance.”
Russia-Ukraine war could bring ‘biblical event’ as global wheat supply disrupted: Expert
Julie Hyman, Anchor – March 7, 2022
Grain prices were already rising before Russia invaded Ukraine, and recent days have seen unprecedented further gains as two of the world’s biggest producer are at war.
Wheat closed in Chicago at the highest price ever on Monday. Benchmark corn and soybean futures have each surged by 26% this year. Those kinds of increases in food-staple commodities have been associated with social unrest throughout history.
“Remember, bread riots are what started the Arab Spring, bread riots are what started the French Revolution,” said Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium, the largest U.S. exchange-traded fund issuer focused solely on agriculture funds. “It is a biblical event when you run low on wheat stocks. You won’t see a global food shortage. Unfortunately, what you’re going to see globally is that billions of people might not be able to afford to buy the food.”
Gilbertie doesn’t think the world will run out of wheat — but prices could continue to rise, and that will be most problematic for vulnerable global populations. “Ukraine dominates what they call the sun-seed market,” he said. “Sunflower oil is a major component of cooking oil and food, and you see palm oil rising, and soybean oil rising. That is a big deal, especially for the poorest of the poor, where cooking is a big part of the daily budget.”
Let’s bring it back to wheat as an example of the impact of the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia. According to the same organization, Russia was the top exporter of wheat by metric tonnes shipped in 2020 and Ukraine the fifth largest. By contrast, China and India top Russia when it comes to production — but consume most of the crops domestically.
The owner of a warehouse of wheat and grains displays Ukrainian wheat in Hasbaya, southern Lebanon, on Feb. 28, 2022. People have raised concerns that Lebanon’s food supply could be impacted by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, given that they are the country’s two top foreign sources of wheat. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Sanctions imposed on Russia by many nations now means wheat already harvested and stored there isn’t being bought.
As for Ukraine, the market has adjusted to the probability that wheat harvested and stored last season won’t be shipped, Gilbertie said. What’s now in question is what happens to the wheat currently in the ground. It’s mostly winter wheat, he said; it’s planted in autumn, then sprouts, grows and is harvested in spring.
“What the market’s trying to do is price in the potential of there not being a harvest season for wheat, and not being able to get the wheat out of the fields and/or shipped out of Ukraine,” he said.
Crops like sunflower and corn are planted in spring, so it’s unclear whether farmers will be able to plant at all, between the Ukrainian war draft, the invasion itself, and supply shortages of fuel and fertilizer.
High-powered dark money group seeks to disbar 100+ Trump election lawyers
Lachlan Markay – March 7, 2022
A dark money group with ties to Democratic Party heavyweights will spend millions this year to expose and try to disbar more than 100 lawyers who worked on Donald Trump’s post-election lawsuits, people involved with the effort tell Axios.
Why it matters: The 65 Project plans to begin filing complaints this week and will air ads in battleground states. It hopes to deter right-wing legal talent from signing on to any future GOP efforts to overturn elections — including the midterms or 2024.
The group takes its name from a count of lawsuits that sought to invalidate the 2020 results.
Details: David Brock, who founded Media Matters for America and the super PAC American Bridge 21st Century and is a Hillary Clinton ally and prolific fundraiser for Democrats, is advising the group.
Advisory board members include former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.); and Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative and member of the Federalist Society who was former senior counsel for Ken Starr’s Clint0n-era Whitewater investigation and served in George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security.
Former Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham; and Roberta Ramo, the first woman to serve as president of the American Bar Association, are also members.
The project was devised by Melissa Moss, a Democratic consultant and former senior Clinton administration official.
The other side: Some of the lawyers targeted describe the tactics as naked political intimidation.
“This move is nothing more than a desperate attempt by leftist hacks and mercenaries…” Paul Davis, a Texas attorney targeted for his presence at the Capitol on January 6, wrote in an email to Axios.
He described an effort “…to neutralize anyone on the right with the ability to stand in the way of the left’s efforts to hide malfeasance in the 2020 elections and to clear the path for a repeat of similar malfeasance in the 2022 mid-terms.”
How it works: The 65 Project is targeting 111 attorneys in 26 states who were involved to some degree in efforts to challenge or reverse 2020 election results. They include lawyers at large national law firms with many partners and clients and lawyers at smaller, regional firms.
It will air ads in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
It also will push the ABA and every state bar association to codify rules barring certain election challenges and adopt model language stating that “fraudulent and malicious lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results violate the ethical duties lawyers must abide by.”
It plans to spend about $2.5 million in its first year and will operate through an existing nonprofit called Law Works.
Brock told Axios in an interview that the idea is to “not only bring the grievances in the bar complaints, but shame them and make them toxic in their communities and in their firms.”
“I think the littler fish are probably more vulnerable to what we’re doing,” Brock said. “You’re threatening their livelihood. And, you know, they’ve got reputations in their local communities.”
What they’re saying: “With great power comes great responsibility. Lawyers have a special role in and special obligation to society,” Rosenzweig told Axios in an email.
“It is all the worse, then, when they use their special position to attack the foundations of the rule of law.”
The group has three categories of targets, according to plans reviewed by Axios.
Trump’s legal inner circle, including lawyers such as campaign hands Jenna Ellis and Boris Epshteyn and post-election lawyers like Sidney Powell and Joe DiGenova.
Lawyers who signed on as “alternate electors,” who planned to submit their names to the Electoral College in lieu of legitimate elector slates if Trump-aligned legal challenges succeeded.
Licensed attorneys who participated in or were present at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Between the lines: Some of the attorney targets already have been hit with bar complaints. One going after Georgia attorney Brad Carver for his role as an alternate elector was dismissed for lack of evidence. Carver, in an email to Axios, reiterated his position that his involvement was legally appropriate.
But The 65 Project is focused on starving any future efforts of legal talent as well as focusing on 2020.
“This is mostly important for the deterrent effect that it can bring so that you can kill the pool of available legal talent going forward,” according to a person involved with the effort, who asked to remain anonymous.
Cleta Mitchell, who resigned from Foley & Lardner as she assisted the Trump campaign’s post-election legal efforts, characterized The 65 Project’s effort as hypocritical.
“I’m betting Marc Elias isn’t on the list,” she said in a text message, linking to a story about the Democratic attorney’s challenge to the results of a House race in Iowa last year and one about his claims of voting machine “irregularities” in another in New York.
“Ok for Dem lawyers to file election challenges. Of course.”
John Eastman, who crafted a legal memo detailing Trump’s options for overturning the election, already is facing a bar complaint in California.
He “expects the Bar’s investigation into these matters will fully exonerate him from any charges,” his attorney said in an emailed statement.
“As was his duty as an attorney, Dr. Eastman zealously represented his client, comprehensively exploring legal and constitutional means to advance his client’s interests.”
‘A major breaking point’: Echoes of the Cold War reverberate in the West’s standoff with Russia
Dan De Luce and Abigail Williams – March 6, 2022
Andrey Rudakov
The United States and its allies are girding for a long-term confrontation with Russia, a contest of wills reminiscent of the Cold War, triggered by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, current and former U.S. and European officials say.
With Putin showing no sign he is ready to pull back Russian troops shelling Ukrainian cities, and with the United States and Europe vowing to arm Ukrainian forces and wage unlimited economic warfare on Russia, there is no end in sight to the emerging duel between the West and Russia.
“I think we are going to have to face it as something that we’re going to have to deal with for quite some time and be quite resolute and creative about confronting it,” said Eliot Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, who served in George W. Bush’s administration.
As in the Cold War, countries are being forced to choose sides in a clash that President Joe Biden and European leaders describe as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, between the rules-based order set up after World War II and the “law of the jungle” where might makes right.
“Any nation that countenances Russia’s naked aggression against Ukraine will be stained by association,” Biden said in his State of the Union address last week.
His speech carried echoes of past presidents during the Cold War, who also vowed to lead the “free world” against the threat from Moscow. And Biden’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, also employed similar rhetoric that recalled the Cold War years.
“With this brutal invasion, we, our European allies and partners and people everywhere are being reminded of just how much is at stake. Now, we see the tide of democracy rising to the moment,” Secretary of State Blinken said on Friday in Brussels.
Mary Elise Sarotte, a historian of the U.S.-Soviet conflict who recently published the book “Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Stalemate,” said she is stunned by how quickly the ground has shifted in a matter of days, and the many parallels with the Cold War.
“It’s kind of shocking how fast this has happened. This new Cold War has ramped up really quickly,” Sarotte, who is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said. “This is a major breaking point in history.”
After Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, European leaders rallied in a united front, marking a historic shift. Germany and other European governments recast their foreign policies to begin sending weapons to Ukraine and enact unprecedented sanctions on Russia that would have been unthinkable two weeks ago.
Unlike the Cold War, Moscow cannot rely on a large bloc of countries in its camp, or a communist ideology that had resonance for many around the world who saw it as an attractive alternative to capitalism or colonialism.
The wild card is how China will respond as the crisis drags on. So far, Beijing seems ready to support Russia and to buy its fossil fuels. But economic sanctions could force China to choose between trading with the developed world, or trading with an isolated Russian economy, some analysts say.
Putin’s Russia is arguably in a weaker position than the former Soviet Union, and unlike its economically closed predecessor, vulnerable to international sanctions, experts said.
A campaign of intense economic pressure against Russia is a distinguishing feature of this new showdown with Russia, an option that could not have worked against the old Soviet state that was mostly closed off from global markets.
“There wasn’t anything we could really do during the Cold War that was going to really punish the Russian economy. Well, now there is,” Cohen said.
Even so, Russia is “unquestionably dangerous, and it’s unquestionably deeply malevolent,” he added.
The Cold War emerged more gradually than the current crisis, and over time the two sides developed de facto codes of conduct and, eventually, elaborate arms control treaties, according to Sarotte.
But the current standoff represents uncertain territory without mutually accepted “rules of the game,” and a volatile Russian leader ready to flout international norms.
“There were times during the Cold War that were more stable than we see today,” said Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution think tank.
“This feels like a very dangerous moment, especially given the personality of Putin. That might be the biggest difference” between the current crisis and the U.S.-Soviet contest, Wright said. “So much of this seems to be about Putin personally.”
Putin almost certainly will retaliate for the sweeping financial sanctions imposed against Russia, Wright said.
“I don’t think he is just going to let our response unfold on our terms,” he said. “He’s likely to try to escalate and put pressure on us.”
Not since the Soviet Union dissolved has the world had to contemplate the unthinkable, a potential clash between the world’s foremost nuclear superpowers.
“This is clearly an unprecedented situation,” said Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I can’t think of another event other than the fall of the Soviet Union in my lifetime that has been so consequential when it comes to nuclear weapons.”
Despite the current tensions, Drozdenko said it’s crucial the two superpowers renew arms control talks to lower the risk. The New START treaty, the sole remaining arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia, expires in 2026.
The presence of U.S. and Russian forces in close proximity around Ukraine raises the risk that an accident or miscalculation could spark an armed conflict between NATO and Russia. To try to avoid an unintended clash, the Pentagon announced Thursday it had set up a hotline between U.S. and Russian military top brass to “deconflict” forces in the area.
“You could imagine all kinds of ways in which this could get out of hand and suddenly become a NATO-Russia confrontation,” said Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense in Barack Obama’s administration. “And in that instance, if that escalates, then the nuclear shadow becomes much more real.”
After the U.S. and the E.U. unveiled punishing financial sanctions on Russia following the start of the Russian invasion, Putin announced he had put his nuclear forces on alert.
Russian military doctrine openly embraces the idea of “escalating to de-escalate,” promoting the idea of invoking the nuclear arsenal to force an adversary to back off.
“I think this is the first time we’re seeing Putin actually put it into practice,” said Flournoy, now co-founder and managing partner of WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm.
Instead of responding in kind, the Biden administration made it clear the United States was not placing the nuclear deterrent forces on higher alert, and even canceled a scheduled test launch of a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile to make it crystal clear that Washington was not interested in escalating nuclear tensions.
In what could be a long struggle ahead, Sarotte said, the U.S. would do well to draw on the lessons of the Cold War, including the need to support resistance fighters against troops sent from Moscow.
Historians say the U.S. won the Cold War by containing the Soviets, building a more prosperous economic model and by cultivating a vast network of alliances.
To prevail against Putin’s Russia also will require maintaining solidarity among allies, even when the economic blowback from Moscow inflicts some pain at home, former officials said.
“The main thing is, you just have to steel yourself for what’s going to be a long, difficult time,” Cohen said. “That’s not something that comes completely naturally to us. We would rather things that were short, decisive, get it over with and move on to the next thing. Well, that’s not going to be our world, and we just have to accept that.”
Russian ‘brain drain’ of academic, finance, and tech workers ‘might be the most important problem’ for its economy, experts say
Jason Lalljee – March 6, 2022
Young Russians who work in finance, tech, and academia may simply follow foreign institutions out of the country, an economics professor said.Kirill Kukhmar/TASS via Getty Images
Economists say more educated, middle-class Russians are likely to leave over Western sanctions.
They’ve been leaving for years, and their exodus will likely hurt the country’s economy.
One economist says Russia may resemble Iran, whose economy has been crippled by sanctions.
It’s not a question of whether people want to leave Russia, Oleg Itskhoki, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Insider. It’s a matter of when they will — and whether they can.
“People want to leave in mass quantities now, but there are severe restrictions on mobility as a result of sanctions,” he said, citing “closed embassies, closed skies for flying.”
“So, in fact, fewer people will be able to leave even if more people are trying harder to leave now,” he added. “This is particularly relevant for educated, informed people.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, Western countries enacted a wave of sanctions that left Russia isolated and financially restricted. Foreign governments have even left Russians physically isolated: At least 33 foreign airlines have stopped flying to Russia, and most European countries have prohibited Russian planes from entering their airspace.
That’s as thousands of Russians have fled the country in the past week, The Telegraph reported. Most of the people leaving are those who can afford to, including Russia’s well-educated urban middle class. But the country has barred its citizens from leaving with more than $10,000 in tow, in an attempt to keep them — and their money — homebound.
It’s a problem that’s plagued Russia for years: The country’s “brain drain” is its mass emigration of highly trained and highly educated citizens to new regions, particularly Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and the US. As of 2019, as many as 2 million people had left Russia since Vladimir Putin became president, and many are entrepreneurs, creatives, and academics, the Atlantic Council, an international-affairs think tank, found.
Economists told Insider Russia’s military action against Ukraine — and subsequent Western sanctions — was going to make this problem worse in the long term. And brain drain, along with general isolation, is likely to dramatically reverse the country’s advancements from recent years, they said.
“In the long run, brain drain might be the most important problem for Russia,” when it comes to its economic future, Nikolai Roussanov, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Insider.
Foreign institutions will likely leave Russia — and young, wealthy people may follow them
It’s too early to see the influence of the latest Western sanctions on Russian brain drain, Roussanov said. But he added that it was inevitable for the exodus that began in the past few years to ramp up.
“We’ve seen a slow trickle over the last decade of people leaving,” he said, adding that it would “accelerate, especially as foreign academic institutions break off their relationships with Russian ones — tech, finance, too.”
Roussanov and Itskhoki said young Russians who work in these industries would simply follow foreign institutions out of the country to continue their collaborations, also influenced by their opposition to war.
“Educated people do not like living in a dictatorship with censorship and other limitations of basic human rights, and this results in brain drain,” Itskhoki said.
Their departure will compromise the health of the Russian economy, Roussanov said.
Brain drain “will, of course, have extremely negative consequences on the human capital of the country, which drives growth through innovation and creation,” he said, adding that it would also “reduce consumption demand because these are the people that do a lot of consumer spending, and they will not support that once they leave.”
Isolation and brain drain could make Russia unrecognizable
Itskhoki said brain drain was not Russia’s “most acute” problem.
But it “is indeed a catastrophe in many different ways, an economic catastrophe being only one of them,” he said, adding that the country’s economy was also worse than it was just 20 years ago.
“There was zero economic growth on average over the last 12-plus years, and fewer and fewer opportunities for young people,” he said. “Younger cohorts were being disproportionately squeezed out and did not have the opportunities that people did during the first decade of the 2000s.”
Itskhoki said the nature of Russia’s invasion of a neighboring European democratic country was why government sanctions and company departures had been so immediate and widespread. This positions Russia for “economic, political, academic, cultural, and other isolation of the type we have not really seen,” he said, adding that Russia could in the near future resemble Iran, whose economy Western sanctions have crippled.
“This would be incredibly costly and painful for ordinary Russians,” Itskhoki said. “The duration of this isolation can be decades.”
US says Russia is recruiting Syrian fighters to aid in the Ukraine invasion and help take Kyiv: report
Kelsey Vlamis – March 6, 2022
US officials told The Wall Street Journal that Russia was recruiting Syrians to fight in Ukraine.
One official told the outlet some Syrians were already in Russia preparing.
Fighters from the US and the UK have also joined the war to fight on behalf of Ukraine.
The US says Russia is recruiting fighters from Syria to aid in its invasion of Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Russian tanks during military drills in Russia last month.Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, File/Associated Press
The Journal cited four US officials as saying Moscow was interested in Syrians with experience in urban combat who might help Russian forces take Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital and largest city.
It’s unclear how many Syrian fighters have been recruited or whether any have already been deployed to Ukraine, though one official told The Journal some were already in Russia preparing.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the Journal report.
Deir Ezzor 24, a media outlet based in Syria, reported last week that Russia was offering $200 to $300 for Syrian mercenaries willing to go to Ukraine for six months to “operate as guards.” The outlet said Russia was contracting Syrians who fought in Libya’s civil war. Reuters reported in 2020 that Russia had hired hundreds of Syrian mercenaries to fight in Libya.
British and American veterans are among those who have traveled to the country. Ukrainian officials said last week that 3,000 Americans had applied to fight. Several hundred arrived in Ukraine as of last week, Military Times reported.
