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Yahoo! News

Putin is determined to ‘burn down Ukraine’s house,’ former CIA operative says

Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent – March 2, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin is now determined to ruthlessly crush Ukrainian resistance no matter what the cost to his country, and the Ukrainians fighting Russian forces are “all going to die,” says a former CIA station chief in Moscow.

In an interview on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast, Daniel Hoffman — for years, one of the CIA’s top experts on Russia — said the Russian president is “not the Vladimir Putin I was tracking back in the day at the CIA. He’s a different guy.” He says that Putin has dug himself into such a deep hole with the Ukraine invasion that he now no longer believes he has any choice but to level the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has inspired his country and much of the world, becoming “the great 21st century communicator” in resisting Putin’s invasion, he said. But, in the end, “I think Ukraine’s darkest days are ahead of them, tragically,” Hoffman said. “So, Vladimir Putin, he’s going to burn down Ukraine’s house.”

What follows is an edited transcript of Hoffman’s conversation with Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent for Yahoo News, Daniel Klaidman, Yahoo News Editor in Chief, and Victoria Bassetti, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Isikoff: As we sit here today, the reports are of this Russian military convoy, 40 miles long, headed right to Kyiv. What do you expect over the next 24 to 48 hours from the Russians? How far is Vladimir Putin going to go?

I think Ukraine’s darkest days are ahead of them, tragically. I will tell you that this isn’t the Vladimir Putin I was tracking back in the day at CIA. He’s a different guy. He won a lot of wars — a brutal war in Chechnya. He invaded Georgia in 2008, but didn’t try to take Tbilisi. He invaded Ukraine in ’14 and annexed Crimea, and invaded the Donbas, and kind of settled on a frozen conflict there.

All those things were Vladimir Putin playing chess with limited but achievable objectives. This one, Vladimir Putin has altered his risk calculus. He’s playing poker where he might not have the strongest hand. But I am deeply fearful we’re going to see something like Grozny or Aleppo, where Russia goes scorched earth, because they have failed, utterly failed, thus far.

Klaidman: We’ve seen this incredible resistance from the Ukrainians, very inspiring. How does [Putin] deal with that? And, ultimately, is he going to try to just break their spirit by going after civilians?

Russia has a different view of collateral damage, and they have a different view of casualties for their own. In our rules of engagement in the U.S., we do the best we possibly can not to strike civilian targets. For the Russians, just look at the battle of Stalingrad. That’s kind of the way Vladimir Putin sees the world. Think about the poisoning of [Russian dissident Alexander] Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210. He created a human dirty bomb. There just is an “ends justify whatever means you want to use.” That’s kind of the way that they do things.

And I’ll just tell you a quick story. I asked once, a long time ago, a Russian intelligence officer, I asked him, “What is it about your neighbors and your tactics for dealing with them?” And he said to me, “Listen, let’s just say you have a really nice house, and I don’t. My house is a crappy house. I’m just gonna go burn yours down. That’s kind of the way we think.”

So Vladimir Putin, he’s going to burn down Ukraine’s house, and he feels like he can’t exist on this planet if Ukraine is striving for freedom, liberty, and democracy and economic links to the West. That was where they were headed, and Vladimir Putin can’t let that happen. … And this is why I get back to the risk calculus for Vladimir Putin. He could have probably gotten autonomy for Donbas. He could’ve probably eliminated a bunch of sanctions, and he might’ve been able to extract other concessions from us. … There was no way a week ago that France and Germany were going to admit Ukraine [to NATO].

And now, thanks to Zelensky, who’s an extraordinary leader, it’s NATO joining Ukraine in a fight for freedom. Standing up for what matters. It’s like Zelensky jolted Western democracies out of a post-Cold War slumber, and here they are, taking on a brutal dictator who is an anathema to everything that we believe in. That’s the story for me.

Bassetti: So if Putin is no longer the man that you’ve been studying for the majority of your career, how are Western states today adapting to this new understanding?

I can tell you, the No. 1 recurring question that President Biden is asking the intelligence community is, “Give me the leadership profile on Vladimir Putin. No, no, no, no, no. Not the one from February ’22. I need the one from today.” Because he’s not the same guy. There are all kinds of rumors about whatever might be wrong with him medically. Sen. Marco Rubio said that he had neuropsychological issues. Rubio sits on a Senate intel committee, wouldn’t go into detail about sources and methods, wouldn’t go into further detail about exactly what that means. But that’s a very important statement that he made. … And so what we might see are the Russian elites changing their assessment of Vladimir Putin. Those elites who are watching him and thinking, “Holy s***, we thought this was brinkmanship. And he’s taken us to a war that is destroying our economy.”

Isikoff: You say he’s not the guy you tracked for many years. And yet, many of the examples you cited about Putin’s brutality have been a matter of public record for decades — the horrific leveling of Chechnya, the polonium poisoning of Litvinenko. That was 2006. Then the invasion of Georgia was 2008. And as you look back, did we not do enough to deter him much much earlier?

So you have a good long list there. I’ll add a few more. Downing a Malaysian airliner. Interfering in our elections. And European elections. He has gotten away with a lot. And it’s telling that after — I remember this extremely well — after Russia invaded Georgia, and what’s the policy of the Obama administration? Reset. Excuse me, but at the time, I was thinking, like, “What the f***, reset? Are you kidding me? With this guy, after what he just did?”

Isikoff: One quick follow up on U.S. policy over the years. In 1991, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. And the United States and Western allies went to war to expel him. Now, we have Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine, and President Biden has taken the use of U.S. troops off the table. How do you square the way we responded to Saddam Hussein in 1991, with how we are responding to Vladimir Putin in 2022?

I’m glad you asked that, because I’ve thought so much about it. I had already begun serving in the government when Saddam invaded Kuwait. And President George Herbert Walker Bush built a global coalition. And we deployed in defense of Saudi Arabia, and then launched that invasion. But it was a global coalition. And we took the lead. … The difference obviously is that Russia has nuclear weapons.

And what this administration is trying to do is thread the needle. … So we’re going to try to provide Ukraine with the military and humanitarian assistance that they need. We’re going to use lots of economic pressure on Russia. But direct, kinetic conflict? No. … And so I think, if it were me, I would have suggested that President Biden not rule anything out. I don’t know why he said we aren’t going to put troops there. You don’t need to tell the enemy what we’re doing or what we’re thinking about. He should’ve said, “Look, everything’s on the table.”

And the other thing I would just say is, in contrast to 1990-1991, the guy who’s built the coalition? It’s Zelensky. … What has brought us all together has been this Ukrainian freedom fighter, a Jewish comedian is kicking the s*** out of Vladimir Putin. He is a 21st century leader who understands social media and understands how to get the message out to his own people and to get the kind of support that he needs internationally. If you listen to his speech today to the European Parliament, I mean, just extraordinary ability that he has to communicate. He is the great 21st century communicator. … He’s got the world — at least those of us in the West who believe in freedom, liberty and democracy — rising up in support of those sacred principles, enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Klaidman: So, Dan, when you were in the intelligence community, you were paid to understand the leaders of rival nations, including Putin. I know that you can’t be inside his head, but you must have theories as to why he has evolved the way he has. I mean, you know, from being this calculating, cunning person who knows where the limits are, to what he’s doing now. What is your theory?

So my theory is he’s a guy who likes to project strength. He’s a guy who likes to ride his horses half-naked and do judo throws and look like a tough guy. But time is not on Russia’s side, and he’s weaker [than] before he attacked Ukraine. He is weaker than he was five years ago, 10 years ago. He is haunted by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Arab Spring, neighbors that are prosperous, NATO members like the Baltic states that are prosperous economically. And he’s haunted by the fact that his own country, men and women, are extremely disenchanted with his leadership. And, so he sees this threat from Ukraine that is going to blow right back on his regime’s security in a way that he just can’t allow, because he’s weaker. He can’t withstand it anymore.

You know, he killed Boris Nemtsov in 2015. … I mean, good guy. I met him in Estonia. Smart guy. Why did he do that? Well, he did it ’cause he’s gotta show he’s the most ruthless guy. You know, that’s the reason. Why did he try to kill [Alexei] Navalny with a banned chemical nerve agent that’s got bread crumbs leading all the way back to the Kremlin? Same thing with [Sergei] Skripal. Because you’ve gotta show that, “If you mess with me, if you betray me, I will kill you, and I’m gonna do it in a way that you’re not gonna like.”

You know, he could have taken a hammer to Skripal’s head and killed him. Same thing with Navalny. But they had to show, Putin had to show that he was still the most ruthless guy. He’s gotta show his own, his own guys, that he’s that. And he’s gotta show the population writ large.

The last thing I wanna tell you is he lived through the KGB coup in 1991 against [Mikhail] Gorbachev when the population was up in arms about the failures, the expectations were rising with glasnost and perestroika. But then they realized, behind that, is zero.

And, so, the KGB saw that Gorbachev just wasn’t the guy. You had to be more ruthless, not less ruthless. And they removed him. And that is why Vladimir Putin ultimately — perceiving himself as weaker than he’s ever been, in my estimation — lashes out at Ukraine. And that has ramifications for how this ends, which is only gonna get worse. And the ultimate question is whether the Russian military decides they’ve had enough committing war crimes and they decide, “You know what? This Vladimir Putin guy is gonna have to be thrown off to the side, cast aside, take the blame for all of this. ‘We were just following orders, sir,’” and move on.

Bassetti: Is there any off-ramp from this right now, aside from what you just described, which is either complete devastation to Ukraine or an internal coup?

Vladimir Putin is superclose to not having an off-ramp. Could he have one today? He might. But he’s also got to know that even if he goes and chooses the diplomatic off-ramp, his own inner circle is going to say, “What the f*** did you just do to our economy and our standing in the world? And you made us look pretty bad too.” And then the knives come out and he gets stabbed in the back and the face, and he’s done.

Isikoff: You have been a Fox News contributor for a number of years now. I’d like to know what goes through your mind when you hear somebody like Tucker Carlson on Fox News defending Vladimir Putin, saying, “He’s never done anything to you or me. Why should we support Ukraine over Russia?” Which is a message that is resonating with some large segment of the Fox News audience.

I’ve never been on Tucker’s show, but I’ll leave my Fox News colleagues out of it. I’ll just say that, probably like everybody, when I watch the news — and I watch lots of different programs, and I am a faithful listener of the “Skullduggery” podcast — there’s things that I agree with, and there are things that I don’t agree with. And at the end of the day, all I can do — and I found this at CIA too — all I can do is deliver my analysis with no predisposed ideological bias.

Isikoff: Let me just ask it another way, leaving aside your Fox News colleagues. Are you concerned that Russian propaganda is permeating the American political dialogue, and we have folks in this country who are effectively fifth columnists — opposing U.S. policy, supporting Russian policies?

I think there’s a spectrum there. So, in our domestic scene, there is a swath of people in this country who say, “I’m tired of the Iraq, Afghanistan wars. I want out.” Very similar to the isolationism that we saw in the ’20s and ’30s. … And that’s a swath of our population [that] are susceptible to the, “Hey, Ukraine’s far away. Why should we care about Ukraine? What does that matter?” What I always tell people is the lesson of the last century was that when we are not involved with the major issues of the world, then we pay the price.

Klaidman: Before we wrap here, I just want to go back to Putin’s tactics against the Ukrainians. There was a lot of talk about how he was going to send in teams of saboteurs and assassins and either kidnap or assassinate Zelensky. That hasn’t happened yet.

Look, I think that would have been part of the plan, to send in mercenaries to conduct a “non-attributable decapitation strike” against Ukrainian government leadership. They would’ve sent them in weeks, months before the attack in order to be there to conduct surveillance and mount these attacks. The fact that Zelensky is still alive means they haven’t been successful. But I don’t doubt that they’re there. I don’t doubt that the FSB is there. … I also think Ukraine knows their neighbor. And so they’ve taken countermeasures, and good on ’em for doing it.

Bassetti: I have a question for you. You said there are really dark days ahead for Ukraine. Now, how do you assess how long they’re gonna be able to hold out?

They’ll all die. They’ll hold out to the end, until they’re all dead.

The New York Times

Some Russian Troops are Surrendering or Sabotaging Vehicles, Pentagon Official Says

Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes – March 2, 2022

WASHINGTON — Plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages, some Russian troops in Ukraine have surrendered en masse or sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.

Some entire Russian units have laid down their arms without a fight after confronting a surprisingly stiff Ukrainian defense, the official said. A significant number of the Russian troops are young conscripts who are poorly trained and ill-prepared for the all-out assault. And in some cases, Russian troops have deliberately punched holes in their vehicles’ gas tanks, presumably to avoid combat, the official said.

The Pentagon official declined to say how the military made these assessments — presumably a mosaic of intelligence including statements from captured Russian soldiers and communications intercepts — or how widespread these setbacks may be across the sprawling battlefield. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational developments.

But taken together, these factors may help explain why Russian forces, including an ominous 40-mile convoy of tanks and armored vehicles near Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, have come to a near crawl in recent days, U.S. officials said.

Besides dealing with shortages of fuel, food and spare parts, the Pentagon official said, Russian commanders leading that armored column toward Kyiv may also be “regrouping and rethinking” their battle plans, making adjustments on the fly to gain momentum for what U.S. intelligence and military officials say is an inevitable push in the next several days to encircle and ultimately capture the capital.

“They have a lot of power available to them,” said the Pentagon official, adding that 80% of the more than 150,000 Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s borders have now joined the fight.

But U.S. analysts have been struck by the “risk-averse behavior” of such a large force, the Pentagon official said. Russia launched an amphibious landing to seize Mariupol, a pivotal port city on the Sea of Azov, but landed forces around 40 miles from the city. That allowed the Russians extra time and space to mount an invasion, but also gave the city’s defenders time to prepare. Overnight, Russian troops surrounded Mariupol.

Russia’s vaunted air force has yet to gain air superiority over Ukraine, with Russian warplanes thwarted by Ukrainian fighter jets and a surprisingly resilient and potent array of air defenses, from shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to much larger surface-to-air weapons, the Pentagon official said.

For Russian forces coming out of Belarus, logistics problems have proved stubborn, a European official said Tuesday.

Before the invasion, U.S. and British intelligence had raised questions about the supply chain for the Russian troops in Belarus. During military exercises there, some of the soldiers were getting inadequate supplies of food and fuel, according to independent analysts. But U.S. officials told allies that the Russians had fixed those problems by mid-February, which was one reason that U.S. warnings about the invasion intensified in the middle of last month, according to the European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational developments.

But the challenges that Russian forces have faced show that their supply chain troubles have not been completely resolved, the European official said.

The logistics failures may help explain the presence of the long, slow-moving convoy of military equipment that is coming toward Kyiv, a tactical failure that is presenting a key target for the Ukrainian military, the European official said.

Russian officials, the European official said, expected to have secured air supremacy, at least around Kyiv. But the fact that Ukrainian air defense systems were still operating has put both Russian aircraft and the convoy of equipment in danger.

The New York Times

Russian Troop Deaths Expose a Potential Weakness of Putin’s Strategy

Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt – March 2, 2022

WASHINGTON — When Russia seized Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin was so worried about Russian casualty figures coming to light that authorities accosted journalists who tried to cover funerals of some of the 400 troops killed during that one-month campaign.

But Moscow may be losing that many soldiers daily in Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine, American and European officials said. The mounting toll for Russian troops exposes a potential weakness for the Russian president at a time when he is still claiming, publicly, that he is engaged only in a limited military operation in Ukraine’s separatist east.

No one can say with certainty just how many Russian troops have died since last Thursday, when they began what is turning into a long march to Kyiv, the capital. Some Russian units have put down their arms and refused to fight, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Major Ukrainian cities have withstood the onslaught thus far.

American officials had expected the northeastern city of Kharkiv to fall in a day, for example, but Ukrainian troops there have fought back and regained control despite furious rocket fire. The bodies of Russian soldiers have been left in areas surrounding Kharkiv. Videos and photos on social media show charred remains of tanks and armored vehicles, their crews dead or wounded.

The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, acknowledged on Sunday for the first time that “there are dead and wounded” Russian troops but offered no numbers. He insisted Ukrainian losses were “many times” higher. Ukraine has said its forces have killed more than 5,300 Russian troops.

Neither side’s claims have been independently verified, and Biden administration officials have refused to discuss casualty figures publicly. But one American official put the Russian losses as of Monday at 2,000, an estimate with which two European officials concurred.

Senior Pentagon officials told lawmakers in closed briefings on Monday that Russian and Ukrainian military deaths appeared to be the same, at around 1,500 on each side in the first five days, congressional officials said. But they cautioned that the figures — based on satellite imagery, communication intercepts, social media and on-the-ground media reports — were estimates.

For a comparison, nearly 2,500 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan over 20 years of war.

For Putin, the rising death toll could damage any remaining domestic support for his Ukrainian endeavors. Russian memories are long — and mothers of soldiers, in particular, American officials say, could easily hark back to the 15,000 troops killed when the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan, or the thousands killed in Chechnya.

Russia has deployed field hospitals near the front lines, say military analysts, who have also monitored ambulances driving back and forth from Russian units to hospitals in neighboring Belarus, Moscow’s ally.

“Given the many reports of over 4,000 Russians killed in action, it is clear that something dramatic is happening,” said Adm. James G. Stavridis, who was NATO’s supreme allied commander before his retirement. “If Russian losses are this significant, Vladimir Putin is going to have some difficult explaining to do on his homefront.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, added, “There are going to be a lot of Russians going home in body bags and a lot of Russian families grieving the longer this goes on.”

In particular, Pentagon officials and military analysts said it was surprising that Russian soldiers had left behind the bodies of their comrades.

“It’s been shocking to see that they’re leaving their fallen brethren behind on the battlefield,” said Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration. “Eventually the moms will be like, ‘Where’s Yuri? Where’s Maksim?’”

Already, the Ukrainian government has begun answering that question. On Sunday, authorities launched a website that they said was meant to help Russian families track down information about soldiers who may have been killed or captured. The site, which states it was created by Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, says it is providing videos of captured Russian soldiers, some of them injured. The pictures and videos change throughout the day.

“If your relatives or friends are in Ukraine and participate in the war against our people — here you can get information about their fate,” the site says.

The name of the site, www.200rf.com, is a grim reference to Cargo 200, a military code word that was used by the Soviet Union to refer to the bodies of soldiers put in zinc-lined coffins for transport away from the battlefield; it is a euphemism for troops killed in war.

The website is part of a campaign launched by Ukraine and the West to counter what American officials characterize as Russian disinformation, which includes Russia’s insistence before the invasion that the troops surrounding Ukraine were simply there for military exercises. Information and the battle for public opinion around the world have come to play an outsize part in a war that has come to seem like a David vs. Goliath contest.

On Monday, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, read out before the General Assembly what he said were the final text messages from a Russian soldier to his mother. They were obtained, he said, by Ukrainian forces after the soldier was killed. “We were told that they would welcome us and they are falling under our armored vehicles, throwing themselves under the wheels and not allowing us to pass,” he wrote, according to Kyslytsya. “They call us fascists. Mama, this is so hard.”

The decision to read those texts, Russia experts and Pentagon officials said, was a not-so-veiled reminder to Putin of the role Russian mothers have had in bringing attention to military losses that the government tried to keep secret. In fact, a group now called the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia played a pivotal part in opening up the military to public scrutiny and in influencing perceptions of military service, Julie Elkner, a Russia historian, wrote in The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.

On Tuesday, a senior Pentagon official said entire Russian units have laid down their arms without a fight after confronting surprisingly stiff Ukrainian defense. In some cases, Russian troops have punched holes in their vehicles’ gas tanks, presumably to avoid combat, the official said.

The Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operational developments, declined to say how the military had made these assessments — presumably from a mosaic of intelligence including statements from captured Russian soldiers and communications intercepts — or how widespread these setbacks might be across the sprawling battlefield.

Images of body bags or coffins, or soldiers killed and left on the battlefield, a Biden administration official said, would prove the most damaging to Putin at home.

Ukrainian officials are using the reports and images on social media of Russian casualties to try to undercut the morale of the invading Russian forces.

On Monday, Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, offered Russian soldiers cash and amnesty if they surrendered.

“Russian soldier! You were brought to our land to kill and die,” he said. “Do not follow criminal orders. We guarantee you a full amnesty and 5 million rubles if you lay down your arms. For those who continue to behave like an occupier, there will be no mercy.”

The Week – Opinion

Putin’s brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine

Do those fights preview the present war?

Jason Fields – March 2, 2022

Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock

Wars aren’t civilized. The very definition of war includes death and cruelty, and everyone who dies has loved ones who mourn them.

But some wars are more brutal than others, more deadly to civilians, and Russia’s recent wars in Chechnya and Syria stand out. Can those fights offer a preview of what the world can expect in Ukraine?

The Russian Federation fought its first war against Chechnya in 1994. It went on until 1996, was hugely unpopular at home, and showed that what had been a Soviet bear of a military was now a toothless Russian tiger. Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin had to settle for a ceasefire over a definitive victory.

The second Chechen war began in 1999. It was then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s war, and it was to the death. A “they make a desert and call it peace” kind of war. The Chechen capital of Grozny — already damaged by the first war — was left as a hole in a map, called the most destroyed city on the planet by the United Nations. Almost nothing was left standing, nearly no one spared.

As many as 250,000 civilians were killed in the combined Chechen wars, along with many thousands more combatants on both sides. Reports of rape, arson, torture, and other crimes by Russian soldiers were widespread — and cast as a wholly necessary evil by those forces. “Without bespredel [no limits warfare], we’ll get nowhere in Chechnya,” a 21-year-old Russian conscript told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “We have to be cruel to them. Otherwise, we’ll achieve nothing.”

The Russians employed infantry, special forces, tanks, and artillery, as well as carpet-bombing parts of Chechnya, with seemingly little regard for whether civilians were underneath their planes.

There’s also evidence of cluster bombs being employed. These are larger bombs that contain smaller explosive munitions inside; when the larger shell detonates, the smaller bombs spread with no control over where they will land. They’re banned by international treaty largely because they typically cause more civilian casualties than other bombs, though neither Russia nor the United States have signed that pact.

Russia again used cluster bombs in Syria, a war it joined in 2015, a war Putin, now president, fought largely through the air, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops providing ground forces.

The bombing was not indiscriminate. It was worse: Hospitals were considered legitimate targets by Russian commanders. Even civilians whose only concern was the safety of others — rescue workers called the White Helmets because of the hardhats they wore — were killed while they were responding to earlier attacks.

Russia denies civilian deaths from any of the air strikes.

The city of Aleppo, Syria, was particularly hard hit in a siege that went on for four years. It was ended in 2016 in large part by Russian air power. And what had been an ancient center of culture and the largest city in modern Syria was a sea of broken concrete and bent rebar. 

Thousands of civilians died. That was inevitable given the tactics chosen: “Using that amount of firepower in an urban area with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of civilians, predictably killed hundreds of civilians,” Human Rights Watch reported in 2016. “Those who ordered and carried out unlawful attacks should be tried for war crimes.”

So what about Ukraine? Rocket attacks have hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killing dozens of people. Bombs are falling on Kyiv, the capital. But, so far, Russia hasn’t churned these cities into rubble, though it has the power to do so a thousand times over. 

But that says nothing about the future as Putin becomes more frustrated and angry. The war isn’t going the way he expected. And historically, Russian tactics have varied little, with cities being pounded before the ground assault begins, Russia expert Mark Galeotti told The Week.

“They bomb them into rubble and put a flag on top,” he said. “In Ukraine, they have mass firepower in the van, and we fear that this is going to get very ugly.”

engadget

Russia threatens to block Wikipedia over Ukraine invasion article

Kris Holt, Contributing Writer – March 2, 2022

Editors at the Russian version of Wikipedia say the country’s communications regulator has threatened to block the site. They shared a notice from Roskomnadzor, which claimed a page about the Ukraine invasion includes “illegally distributed information,” such as the number of Russian military casualties and those of Ukrainian civilians and children, according to Reuters.

The regulator demanded that editors remove that information from the article, which is called “Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022).” Roskomnadzor said that if editors don’t comply, it will block all of Wikipedia in Russia. Currently, new and unregistered users aren’t able to edit the article in order to protect it from vandalism.

The article includes casualty estimates from both the Ukrainian and Russian governments, as Motherboard notes. As of Tuesday, it included claims from Ukraine that 352 civilians and more than 110 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, while 1,684 civilians had been wounded. The country said Russia had sustained 5,710 Russian military casualties. Russia, however, claimed two of its soldiers and 200 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.

Editors of Wikipedia’s Russian site may add more sources for the information, but one told Motherboard they likely won’t respond to the threat otherwise. Roskomnadzor has issued several other warnings to the site over the years.

“The invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the senseless loss of life and has also been accompanied by information warfare online,” the Wikimedia Foundation said on Tuesday. “The spread of disinformation about the ongoing crisis affects the safety of people who depend on facts to make life-and-death decisions and interferes with everyone’s right to access open knowledge.”

It added that it’s “working with affected communities to identify potential threats to information on Wikimedia projects, and supporting volunteer editors and administrators who serve as a first line of defense against manipulation of facts and knowledge.”

Since the start of the invasion, Russian regulators have restricted access to Twitter and Facebook. They have also demanded that tech companies remove restrictions on state media channels. Facebook, YouTube and TikTok all blocked RT and Sputnik in Europe. Twitter has placed labels on tweets from Russian state media outlets.

Meanwhile, the former head of Yandex’s news operations has accused the Russian search giant of censoring information about the invasion. In a note to his former colleagues posted on Facebook, Lev Gershenzon urged them to “stop being accomplices to a terrible crime” and, if they were unable to do anything else to change things, to quit.

The Ukraine Battle That Had Us Filming Our Dying Words

A gory onslaught in the south of Ukraine will haunt us for the rest of our lives. For the people of Ukraine, it’s only the beginning.

Will Cathcart, William Cooper – March 2, 2022

KHERSON, Ukraine—We hid in a town called Kherson, in the south of Ukraine, for 18 hours caught in the middle of a horrific battle. Russians attacked a vast line of Ukrainian tanks, transport vehicles, and personnel carriers from two directions. When a tank we passed was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, we ditched our car. We ran from one place to another only to be turned back by rockets and artillery. We jumped into the bed of an old Soviet transport truck and cowered among stacks of tires. Bullets whizzed by above.

We were still in Mariupol when Russia invaded Ukraine—though it has been invading since 2014. We headed west as fast as we could, but that drove us straight into Kherson, in that truck right in the middle of the worst battle Ukraine had seen in a long time.

It was one of the first major clashes since Russia had invaded Ukraine early that morning. At this stage, Russia was making massive land grabs. Troops from Crimea had come north to seize a nearby airport.“The corpses of dead Russian soldiers were left out on display.”

The attack began at an overpass on the P-47 highway at 3 p.m. on Feb. 24, just outside Kherson, a strategic juncture near a small airport 100 km from the northern border of Crimea. As the explosions grew closer, we took out our phones and recorded videos saying goodbye to our 2-year-old sons and our families.

When we watch those videos now, we are overcome with shame and loathing for putting ourselves in that position.

In front of us was a dilapidated concrete structure. We ran for it, crawled beneath, and hid in the dirt. A truck driver and a farmer followed us. There were no windows or blankets, but the farmer found a moldy bed lining for us. And though magnificent flames reached into the sky around us in every direction, there would be no fire for us.

It was the longest and coldest night of our lives, and we didn’t sleep a wink. In the days since, when we can sleep, we dream of the dismembered, mutilated bodies we passed on our way out of that place. We spent the night freezing in the room above, uploading and deleting videos, photos, and interviews from our 14-hour embed the day before.

That day was spent with the volunteer Ukrainian paramilitary team Third Force, on the front near Mariupol. We had bonded with these men, an almost mythic team of 15 fighters, whose commander goes by the codename Groz. He knows that even guerrilla warfare is a war of hearts and minds. It is the first thing that he told us, and the last.

Ukraine has been at war for about eight days, but these guys had been at war for eight years. They have been fighting the Russian-backed separatists and FSB agents who attack them from the other side of the line just east of Mariupol, in the breakaway territory called the Donetsk People’s Republic, which Russia recognized as independent of Ukraine the day before we embedded with them. In our time together, they showed us everything: their methods and tactics, their improvisation, their tech campaigns, and their tremendous cache of ammo. They fed us and told us about themselves.

Earlier that day, they led us down a road lined with minefields on either side. The mines were left by Russian-backed separatists who took control of this area but knew they would not have it for long. There are ominous warning signs posted along the field. As we were walking, Groz yelled at me to stay on the road—with genuine panic in his eyes.

Eventually, we reached a strikingly beautiful beach on the sea of Azov where we were given a demonstration of their drones. One of the younger soldiers slips on the VR headset. Groz scans the area with his assault rifle. The drone takes off at 90 mph, straight to the front line. Soon afterwards, we heard bursts of gunfire, and the fighter with the VR headset began laughing. The drone came back unharmed, and we walked back to the base more carefully than we’ve ever walked in our lives.

That night, we met the head of an NGO called Blue Yellow, which delivers supplies to various battalions on the front. His codename is Panda. The work of Blue Yellow has become the stuff of legend, and for those seeking to help the front lines Blue Yellow would be a good place to start. Groz and Panda tell me that nearly all of the funding from the United States government never makes it to its destination. They believe that this is a matter of inefficiency rather than corruption.

When Groz dropped us off at the hotel that night, he hugged us. He removed the signature arm patch of the battalion from his shoulder and handed it over to us. Then he was gone.

Several hours later, the real war began. We realized the danger we were in and also the danger that Third Strike could face if we were detained. We knew we wouldn’t be treated like journalists. For the Russian forces currently targeting civilian dwellings, the Geneva Conventions are just a punchline. The easy thing to do would be to delete everything. But Groz went to great risk in giving away his position and tactics,and for a reason: He was counting on us to tell his story. Groz wants the world to know that this fight will not be the fight Russia is expecting. These men are ready for all types of warfare. They are innovative. And there are many more like them.

In seeking to put as much distance between ourselves and Mariupol, we drove straight into the hell in Kherson that has followed us both home and will likely drag us back.

In that concrete structure in Kherson, we watched as Russian tanks rolled by just outside the window and forces from both sides roamed around the surrounding forests. The battle shifted to a nearby bridge, which Ukrainian forces were trying to take back. We were in Russian-controlled territory, and this bridge was our only way out. All night, Russian jets bombed Ukrainian forces as they struggled to maintain control. Somehow, the Ukrainians prevailed.

Just before dawn, we received a message from an intelligence contact who had been checking in on us all night looking for a way to get us out. He said that Ukrainians had taken back the bridge but he had no idea if it was safe to get there. We knew this might be our only chance. So, we made a mad dash for that bridge.

As we drove back onto the highway towards the overpass where we had been when the fighting broke out, we were witness to a charred wasteland. Bombed-out Ukrainian tanks were everywhere. The corpses of dead Russian soldiers were left out on display. As we got closer to the bridge, the scenery grew worse. We passed pieces of dead Russian soldiers. Near the top of the bridge, in the middle of the road was the nude upper torso of a bifurcated human being.

We were told that 30 minutes after we crossed that bridge, Russian forces took it back. We headed west for Odessa. But we knew we couldn’t stay there long. There were reports of Russian groups roaming the city at night, creating havoc. We hired a driver to take us to the Moldovan border. But refugee crises had already begun. Traffic was backed up for miles.

So instead, we headed for the unrecognized state of Transnistria, a narrow strip of Russian-backed breakaway Moldovan territory along the Ukrainian border. Upon entry, we were detained by the Transnistria KGB and politely interrogated. They didn’t know what to make of us. The suspicion quickly turned to fascination and bafflement. Eventually, they let us go, and we crossed into Moldova. Our relief to be on EU territory was immeasurable. But Moldovan airspace was closed, and it would be days before we would get back home.

Many more have died since that night on Feb. 24, and many more are likely to die in the days and weeks to come. It’s been a long time since one man held the Free World hostage with his own self-serving pragmatism. But as Putin deprives 44 million people of their humanity and their allies of our honor and integrity, the least we could do, as journalists, was put his depravity on full display.

Daily Beast

Russia Threatens ‘Nuclear’ World War as Its Paratroopers Descend on Ukraine

Barbie Latza Nadeau – March 2, 2022

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that a third world war would be “nuclear” and “destructive,” essentially warning NATO not to intervene militarily in Ukraine, a day after peace talks failed to temper the bloodshed and as Russian paratroopers descended on the city of Kharkiv, the second largest city in the nation and the epicenter of fierce fighting.

Ukraine’s defense ministry confirmed the arrival of Russian airborne troops on Telegram, though it is unclear if they are involved in a ground battle just yet. “There is an ongoing fight between the invaders and the Ukrainians,” they said. Authorities confirmed Wednesday midday that “massive shelling and bombing” as well as urban warfare was underway. Images showed municipal buildings in the city center on fire.

Ukraine’s interior minister said that more than 2,000 civilians had already been killed in the six-day-old conflict.

Kharkiv was paralyzed by increased fighting Wednesday morning, with Ukrainian Interior Ministry Adviser Anton Gerashchenko confirming that a Russian airstrike ignited the barracks of a flight school that housed some Ukrainian troops. “Practically there are no areas left in Kharkiv where an artillery shell has not yet hit,” he said in a statement on Telegram Wednesday morning.

The mayor of Kharkiv said Wednesday that 21 people had been killed in overnight fighting, pushing the death toll higher.

Russia also claimed early Wednesday to have taken control of the port city of Kherson, which the Ukrainian military denies. “According to the information from our brigade the battles are going on now,” a Ukrainian military spokesman told CNN. “The city is not captured totally, some parts are under our control.”

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Russian troops in a 40-mile long convoy are now around 15 miles from the capital Kyiv as precision attacks slammed a TV tower and devastated a Holocaust memorial site and private maternity clinic on Tuesday continue to “soften” the city for what many believe is an imminent ground invasion. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky gave CNN and Reuters interviews from a fortified bunker deep below a building in Kyiv on Tuesday, the first face-to-face interactions he has had with Western journalists. He told CNN, “Everyone has to stop fighting before we’re ready to talk about peace.” When asked if the negotiations were a waste of time if Russia continued shelling, he said, simply, “We’ll see.”

A number of military analysts say that the existence of the convoy backs up Russia’s claim that it does indeed control Ukrainian air space, leaving them unable to attack the somewhat vulnerable convoy. Kyiv mayor, the former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, vowed to hold the city. “We stayed in front of one of the strongest armies in the world. The will to be independent is (the) main priority for us. And we’re defend(ing) our families, our city, our country and our future,” he told CNN Wednesday. “There is a huge patriotic movement right now. Old people—can you imagine—doctors, actors, actors from theater, many professions that never had expectation to fight, to keep weapons, but right now they (are) coming to us. They’re ready to fight. It’s amazing.”

Reaction inside the war theater to President Joe Biden labeling Vladimir Putin a “dictator” in his State of the Union speech was muted, with analysts predicting the Russian president would not react. “I think those personal comments by Joe Biden were probably things that would get under—into the craw of the Russian president,” CNN’s former Moscow bureau chief and expert on Russian affairs Jill Dougherty said. “Things like ‘dictator, Putin alone is to blame, more isolated than ever.’ But I don’t think they’re going to engage in that. You know, you can’t really defend yourself by saying ‘No, I’m not a dictator.’ But what they can do is try to pick apart the argument.”

Meanwhile, inside Russia, clearly fearing an exodus of the country’s wealthy multinationals who have secured European passports through residency, Putin has signed a decree to block anyone from leaving the country with more than $10,000 in foreign currency to “ensure Russia’s financial stability,” according to the Kremlin.

Oleksiy Arestovich, a top aide to Zelensky, noted Wednesday that Russian soldiers were getting increasingly younger. “The Russian Army is running out of resources,” he told the UNIAN news agency. “They are sending cadets from military academies to war, a troop of second-year cadets of a military school has surrendered to us.” If confirmed, it would help explain why Russia’s much-feared military is not able to move faster.

On Wednesday morning, Russia announced its delegation “would be in place” for new talks with Ukraine negotiators later in the day, though no location was announced. Tass news agency later confirmed that an aide to Zelensky said the Ukrainian delegation would be at the table for a second try to reach a peace accord to stop the deadly conflict.

Air Force Times

Ukraine jets hit Russian column; Russia has used thermobarics, Ukraine military says

Howard Altman – March 2, 2022

Ukraine armed forces have been striking that long line of Russian troops heading to Kyiv while the Russians have used thermobaric weapons against Ukrainian cities, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency tells Military Times.

“We are striking the enemy’s columns,” Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Military Times in an exclusive interview Wednesday morning. “We burn many columns of the enemy.”

The strikes, he said, are being conducted by Ukraine Su-24 and Su-25 fighter jets, artillery and missile barrages.

“My intelligence officers and agents are directing and calling the strikes,” he said.

Marine Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday morning he “would not speak to intel assessments.”

Ukraine invasion live updates: March 2

The Russian troops staged around the outside of Ukraine’s capital city appear to be in a holding pattern of some kind, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Tuesday.

Formations that had been moving toward Kyiv are essentially in the same spot today as they were Monday, the official said, roughly 17 miles outside the city center.

“We believe that that’s for a number of reasons,” the official said. “Obviously, the resistance that they’re facing, the fuel and sustainment problems that they’re having. We are also picking up signs that they’re having problems feeding their troops, that they’re not only running out of gas, but they are running out of food.”

The Pentagon’s assessment echoes multiple reports from recent days that Russian troops are looking for fuel and sustenance as they roll toward Kyiv.

There’s also the possibility, the official said, that the Russians are taking a strategic pause to regroup, possibly after a stiffer defense than anticipated from the Ukrainian armed forces.

Budanov also told Military Times that the Russians have been using thermobaric weapons in the assault on Kharkiv and near Kyiv.

They were fired, he said, by TOS-1M weapons systems.

Thermobaric weapons produce more heat and overpressure than conventional weapons by exploding a vapor in the blast zone, according to the Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health. Such weapons create tremendous damage to the human body, according to the journal.

The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately return a request seeking comment on both claims by Budanov.

Human Rights Watch condemned Russia’s reported used of the weapons a year earlier in Chechnya in 2000, according to The Guardian, as “a dangerous escalation” with “important humanitarian implications”.

The Guardian described the weapons as effective at their “specific purpose” of “primarily destroying defensive positions.” While they would not be used to penetrate a tank, they could be a “”very destructive weapon” against an apartment complex or other building.

“They are not illegal, even though their effects can be pretty horrific because of … creating a vacuum and sucking the air out of the lungs of defenders,” Marcus Hellyer, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told The Guardian.

A senior U.S. defense official on Tuesday said the Pentagon has seen weapons systems that can launch themobaric weapons inside Ukraine, but could not confirm the thermobaric weapons are actually in Ukraine or their use. Semelroth on Wednesday told Military Times there was no update to that assessment.

Military Times Pentagon Bureau Chief Meghann Myers contributed to this report.

Bloomberg

Russian Oligarchs’ Yachts Head for Maldives as Sanctions Levied

Kevin Varley – March 2, 2022

A growing number of superyachts belonging to Russian tycoons have made their way to the Indian Ocean, cruising around the Maldives and Seychelles just as sanctions are imposed on their homeland following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The four biggest luxury yachts in the Maldives right now are Russian-owned, according to an analysis of vessel data by Bloomberg News. The largest, the 459-foot (140-meter) Ocean Victory, belongs to steel magnate Victor Rashnikov, according to SuperyachtFan.com, while another — the 238-foot Clio — is linked to aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

The 465-foot Nord, owned by Alexei Mordashov, another steel billionaire, is in the Seychelles after sailing from the Maldives, the data show. Russian banker Andrey Kostin’s Sea Rhapsody is heading to the island chain after departing Turkey on Feb. 18.

An estimated 7% to 10% of the global superyacht fleet is owned by Russians, according to industry watcher Superyacht Group. Overall yacht counts have dipped to 10 from 19 this time last year in the Maldives, while they’ve climbed from five to 12 in the Seychelles, a former British colony known for its palm-fringed islands and sandy beaches. 

The movements come as the U.S. signals it will take aim at Russian business leaders’ assets as part of its economic campaign against Moscow over the invasion. In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Joe Biden said that the U.S. and its allies are preparing to seize the yachts, luxury apartments and private jets of wealthy, politically connected Russians.

“We are coming for your ill-begotten gains,” Biden said. 

People

School Superintendent Responds After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Scolds Students For Wearing Masks

Virginia Chamlee – March 2, 2022

Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

A school superintendent is responding after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was filmed berating students for wearing face masks during a visit to the University of South Florida on Wednesday.

Before a speech, DeSantis was filmed telling a group of high school students standing behind him, “You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”

While some of the students could be seen removing their masks in response to the comments, others kept them on.

In a statement sent to PEOPLE, Hillsborough Schools Superintendent Addison Davis said the district was “proud of the manner in which our students represented themselves,” noting that it is their choice “to protect their health in a way they feel most appropriate.”

According to the district seven children were in attendance at the press conference, which was held to announce funding for cybersecurity education. All of the students attend Tampa’s Middleton High School.

“We are excited our students from Middleton High School were highlighted as part of the statewide focus around cyber security education,” Davis said in the statement. “Our Cyber Security pathway at MHS has had tremendous success through student’s earning industry certifications, participating in internships and leading the way in computer systems and information technology.”

The statement continued: “As always, our students should be valued and celebrated. It is a student and parents’ choice to protect their health in a way they feel most appropriate. We are proud of the manner in which our students represented themselves and our school district.”

While DeSantis is widely rumored to be preparing a 2024 presidential run, he is shot down that speculation, saying in previous interviews that he is “not considering anything beyond doing my job.”

The Republican governor, who narrowly won his 2018 election, is not without controversy.

Still, he’s worked to raise his national profile over the past few years, sometimes by fueling culture-war conflicts similar to former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis has touted his decision not to impose widespread restrictions during the pandemic (though it’s worth noting he did order a statewide lockdown in April 2020) but he has faced much scrutiny for his handling of the virus. He opposed mandating public health measures in the state and attempted to block local leaders’ authority to issue mask mandates in municipalities throughout the state.

Last July, DeSantis issued an order barring local school districts from requiring students to wear masks, despite federal recommendations that all students in kindergarten through 12th grade wear face coverings when they return to the classroom in the fall.

A fundraising group affiliated with DeSantis also released a line of merchandise that takes aim at masks and White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci, such as a $12 “Don’t Fauci My Florida” koozie.