KYIV, Ukraine — In the occupied city of Kherson, some Ukrainian men believe that if they break their own arms, maybe the Russians will not force them into military service. Others are hiding in basements. Some are trying to run even though they are forbidden to leave the city, residents said, and virtually everyone is […]
Read MoreTag: Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)
Olaf Scholz of Germany Won’t Send Battle Tanks to Ukraine
NEW YORK — Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany gets right to the point when asked why his country will not send battle tanks to Ukraine: It is “a very dangerous war,” he said. Ukraine has made gains recently against Russia, which invaded the country in February, and has been asking the West for reinforcements. But […]
Read MoreUkraine Fights to Reclaim Territory as Russia Holds Annexation Referendums
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces defiantly pushed back against threats by Russia to annex territory it controls on Saturday, while Moscow replaced a top general in charge of logistics after a series of snafus that contributed to recent battlefield losses by Russian troops. The fighting raged as Russian proxies in four Ukrainian provinces conducted the […]
Read MoreWhat Putin’s Nuclear Threat Means for Ukraine and the U.S.
At a 1985 banquet marking the 30th anniversary of National Review, with Ronald Reagan in attendance, William F. Buckley Jr. gave a speech celebrating the American nuclear deterrent, and the willingness of the American president to use it. Those weapons and that willingness, Buckley declaimed, had sustained American freedom through the Cold War, so that […]
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Putin and Trump, the Solo Soulless Saboteurs
WASHINGTON — In the internet age, it’s almost impossible to get away with anything. (See: Adam Levine.) And yet, some people still manage to pull off solo flights of destruction worthy of a megalomaniacal supervillain. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, long entwined, continue on vile parallel paths: They would rather destroy their countries than admit […]
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Vladimir Putin Gets More Involved in Ukraine War Strategy
The divisions over Kherson are only the latest disagreements between Mr. Putin and his top commanders. Senior Russian officers repeatedly questioned the early plans for the war, American officials said, particularly an initial stage that envisioned a quick strike on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. The Russian officers believed Mr. Putin was going to war with […]
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Russia Begins Staged Referendums In Occupied Areas of Ukraine
He and other top officials also suggested that Russia could use nuclear weapons in the conflict, particularly after annexation of Ukrainian territory, when it would call any enemy action there an attack on Russian soil. “This is not a bluff,” Mr. Putin said in a speech to the nation on Wednesday. But in an interview […]
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Putin’s Draft Draws Resistance in Russia’s Far-Flung Regions
President Vladimir V. Putin’s surprise draft to reinforce his invasion of Ukraine ran into growing resistance across Russia on Friday as villagers, activists and even some elected officials asked why the conscription drive appeared to be hitting minority groups and rural areas harder than the big cities. Some of the greatest anguish played out hundreds […]
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How Do You Handle a Wounded Putin?
The world shifted this week. Vladimir Putin showed that he knows how deeply wounded he is. He knows that his rule is under existential threat if Russia is completely humiliated in Ukraine. He also showed the world that his strategy in this context is to escalate. He is signaling that his best bet for survival […]
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Oil Prices Tumble to Their Lowest Level Since January
The U.S. benchmark oil price tumbled below $80 a barrel on Friday for the first time since January as traders grew increasingly worried that much of the world was headed into a recession or was already in one. The steady fall in prices from over $120 a barrel a few months ago could easily reverse […]
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On a Corpse’s Wrist, an Emblem of Ukrainian Fortitude
KYIV, Ukraine — The body pulled from a pit in Izyum was in a bad state of decomposition, the skin peeling from the bone and drained of color. But one thing stood out: the blue and yellow bracelet around the dead man’s wrist. The colors of the Ukrainian national flag had barely faded. The corpse, […]
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Why Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine
Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the question most analysts were asking was not whether Russia would win. It was how fast. On almost every quantifiable metric from military strength to economic size, Russia has decisive advantages over Ukraine. A swift Russian victory appeared inevitable. Of course, that swift […]
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Putin Is Not Liberating My Family. He Is Subjugating Them.
Starting this weekend, people in four occupied regions of Ukraine will “vote” on whether to join Russia. For many people, including my aunt and uncle, in Donetsk, what that really means is they will be forcibly absorbed into a country they do not want to be a part of. Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as […]
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Ukraine War Comes to Russia as Putin Imposes Draft
After Mr. Putin’s speech Wednesday, a backlash did indeed burst into the open, though there was no immediate sign of a nationwide anti-draft movement emerging. In the city of Baksan in the North Caucasus region of Kabardino-Balkaria, more than a hundred people gathered near the city administration to protest the conscription of their loved ones, […]
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War, Inflation and Squandered Credibility
Putin obviously doesn’t have similar concerns. His Wednesday speech was full of apocalyptic rhetoric, portraying Russia as a nation under attack by the whole West. But he didn’t announce the kind of full-scale mobilization that rhetoric would seem to imply. Instead, he announced a series of half-measures that defense experts doubt will do much to […]
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Central Banks Accept Pain Now, Fearing Worse Later
A day after the Federal Reserve lifted interest rates sharply and signaled more to come, central banks across Asia and Europe followed suit on Thursday, waging their own campaigns to crush an outbreak of inflation that is bedeviling consumers and worrying policymakers around the globe. Central bankers typically move slowly. That’s because their policy tools […]
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Russian Men, Fearing Ukraine Draft, Seek Refuge Abroad
A little more than 12 hours after he heard that Russian civilians could be pressed into military service in the Ukraine war, the tour guide said he bought a plane ticket and a laptop, changed money, wrapped up his business, kissed his crying mother goodbye and boarded a plane out of his country, with no […]
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Putin’s Escalation of the War in Ukraine
Anton Troianovski contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, […]
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As Russia Retreats, a Question Lingers: Who Counts as a Collaborator?
IZIUM, Ukraine — Russian officials came to Ina Mandryka with a simple proposition: If she agreed to open her school in a town in occupied territory, and teach in Russian, she would be promoted from deputy principal to principal. For Ms. Mandryka, it was an easy choice. “I refused,” she said. “To teach the Russian […]
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Russia’s Putin Is in Trouble
The party of war has been very vocal since April, when it became clear that the Russian Army was unable to conquer Kyiv and overthrow the Zelensky government. Moscow’s more modest goal — conquering the Donbas and securing a land bridge to annexed Crimea — appeared to be an intolerable retrenchment. Throughout, Russia’s hawks have […]
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Biden Paints Russia as a Threat to the World in U.N. Speech
President Biden used his first speech at the United Nations since the invasion of Ukraine to accuse one man, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, of seeking to “erase” another nation from the map and of trying to drag the world back to an era of nuclear confrontation. Hours after Mr. Putin mobilized reservists for […]
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Putin Raises Stakes in the War, With Direct Challenge to the West
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accelerated his war effort in Ukraine on Wednesday, announcing a call-up of roughly 300,000 reservists to the military, while also directly challenging the West over its support for Ukraine with a veiled threat of using nuclear weapons. In a rare address to the nation, Mr. Putin said he was […]
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U.S. and Allies Condemn Putin’s Troop Mobilization and Nuclear Threats
Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a defense research institute in Arlington, Va., said the Kremlin’s first step would likely be to call up reserve officers and others with more recent military experience to replenish badly depleted units in the field, perhaps in the next month or so. The Russian military has been […]
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Ten Prisoners, Including Americans, Have Been Released in a Russia-Ukraine Exchange
Ten prisoners of war, including U.S. and British citizens, have been transferred to Saudi Arabia as part of an exchange between Russia and Ukraine, Saudi officials said on Wednesday. The Saudi foreign ministry said on Twitter that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, had mediated the release. The timing of the release was striking, […]
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Analysis: A Cornered Putin Is More Dangerous Than Ever
PARIS — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, in a speech on Wednesday that was a reminder of how easily the war in Ukraine could spread, doubled down on his nuclear threat, accused the West of seeking to “destroy” his country, and suggested that Ukrainians are mere pawns of the “military machine of the collective […]
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Russia Signals Annexation of Parts of Ukraine, Raising Stakes in Fighting
After stunning battlefield setbacks, Russia moved to cement its grip on territory it occupies in eastern and southern Ukraine, as Kremlin proxies there announced plans on Tuesday for referendums on annexation to Russia, indicating a possible escalation of the war. The Kremlin signaled that if Russia were to go forward with annexation — even if […]
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Letter From Europe: We Still Don’t Know How the Ukraine War Ends
Outcome 3: This IS a less dirty deal, but with the Russian people, not Putin. In this scenario, NATO and the Ukrainians propose a cease-fire on the basis of the Feb. 24 lines: where Russia and Ukrainian forces stood before Putin’s invasion. Ukraine is spared more destruction, and the principle of the inadmissibility of changing […]
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Russia’s Invasion Shadows U.N. Assembly Amid ‘Colossal Global Dysfunction’
Divided by war, strained by shortages and faced with the cataclysm of global warming, dozens of world leaders convened at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday for the first full, in-person General Assembly since the pandemic began. Among all the global crises, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominated the day, with heads of state […]
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The Ukrainian Frontline Town of Siversk Is Cut Off From the World
SIVERSK, Ukraine — The eastern Ukrainian town of Siversk, for weeks the northernmost Ukrainian-held settlement in the Donbas before Russian-occupied territory began, was a military way station for much of the spring and into summer. The gas station awning on its eastern outskirts provided shade for soldiers waiting to go to the front. A small […]
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War and Griner’s Arrest Don’t Deter U.S. Men From Russian Basketball
The war in Ukraine and the imprisonment of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner in Russia have roiled geopolitics and all but shut down the pipeline of American female professionals playing in Russian leagues to earn far more than they can make in the United States. But Russians can still see Americans on their courts: Dozens […]
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U.S. Shores Up Ukraine Aid as Energy Crisis in Europe Looms
In promising Ukraine billions of dollars in long-term military aid, the Biden administration is seeking to prove that U.S. support in the war can outlast Russia’s determination. Rallying American lawmakers and the public around that assistance, and billions in more immediate help, has been relatively painless for President Biden. But he must also keep Europe […]
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