The US Democratic Party's Troubling Recent History Concerning Russia

 From Brookings:

"Why it’s hard to take Democrats seriously on Russia

James Kirchick Former Brookings Expert

July 27, 2017

Democrats are exasperated that Republicans don’t share their outrage over the ever-widening scandal surrounding Donald Trump and Russia. The president’s personal solicitousness toward Vladimir Putin, the alacrity of his son in welcoming potential assistance from Russians during the 2016 campaign, and mounting questions as to whether Trump associates colluded with Russia as part of its influence operation against Hillary Clinton are leading Democrats to speak of impeachment and even treason.

As a longtime Russia hawk who has spent most of the past decade covering Kremlin influence operations across the West, I share their exasperation. Over the past year, I have authored pieces with headlines like “How Putin plays Trump like a piano,” “How Trump got his party to love Russia,” and, most recently in this space, “How the GOP became the party of Putin.” As I see it, conservatives’ nonchalance about Russia’s attempt to disrupt and discredit our democracy ranks as one of the most appalling developments in recent American political history.

But as much as Democrats may be correct in their diagnosis of Republican debasement, they are wholly lacking in self-awareness as to their own record regarding Russia. This helps explain why conservatives have so much trouble taking liberal outrage about Russia seriously: Most of the people lecturing them for being “Putin’s pawns” spent the better part of the past eight years blindly supporting a Democratic president, Barack Obama, whose default mode with Moscow was fecklessness. To Republicans, these latter-day Democratic Cold Warriors sound like partisan hysterics, a perception that’s not entirely wrong.

Consider the latest installment of the unfolding Trump-Russia saga: Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting last summer with a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Clinton. Before inexplicably publicizing his own email correspondence, which revealed him eager to accept information that would allegedly “incriminate” his father’s opponent, Trump Jr. claimed the confab concerned nothing more salacious than the issue of “adoption.” Democrats have rightly pointed out that this was a ruse: When the Russian government or its agents talk about international adoption, they’re really talking about the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 measure sanctioning Russian human rights abusers named after a Russian lawyer tortured to death after exposing a massive tax fraud scheme perpetrated by government officials. The law’s passage so infuriated Putin that he capriciously and cruelly retaliated by banning American adoption of Russian orphans. Five years after its enactment, the law continues to rankle Russia’s president. According to Trump himself, it was the ostensibly innocuous issue of “adoption” that Putin raised with him during a previously undisclosed dinner conversation at the G-20 summit in Hamburg earlier this month.

Yet for all the newfound righteous indignation in defense of the Magnitsky Act being expressed by former Obama officials and supporters, it wasn’t long ago that they tried to prevent its passage, fearing the measure would hamper their precious “reset” with Moscow. In 2012, as part of this effort, the Obama administration lobbied for repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Cold War-era law tying enhanced trade relations with Russia to its human rights record. Some voices on Capitol Hill proposed replacing Jackson-Vanik with Magnitsky, a move the administration vociferously opposed. Shortly after his appointment as ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul (today one of the most widely cited critics on the subject of Trump and Russia) publicly stated that the Magnitsky Act would be “redundant” and that the administration specifically disagreed with its naming and shaming Russian human rights abusers as well as its imposition of financial sanctions. McFaul even invoked the beleaguered Russian opposition, which he said agreed with the administration’s position.

This was a mischaracterization of Russian civil society, the most prominent leaders of which supported repeal of Jackson-Vanik only on the express condition it be superseded by the Magnitsky Act. “Allowing [Jackson-Vanik] to disappear with nothing in its place … turns it into little more than a gift to Mr. Putin,” Russian dissidents Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov wrote for the Wall Street Journal days after McFaul’s remarks. (Nemtsov, one of Putin’s loudest and most visible critics, was assassinated in 2015 just a few hundred meters from the Kremlin walls). Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, meanwhile, wrote that while he supported repealing Jackson-Vanik, “no doubt the majority of Russian citizens will be happy to see the U.S. Senate deny the most abusive and corrupt Russian officials the right of entry and participation in financial transactions in the U.S., which is the essence of the Magnitsky Bill.”

Nevertheless, the Obama administration not only persisted in opposing Magnitsky, but continued to claim that it had the support of the Russian opposition in this endeavor. “Leaders of Russia’s political opposition,” then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, “have called on the U.S. to terminate Jackson-Vanik, despite their concerns about human rights and the Magnitsky case.” Despite administration protestations, Congress passed the Magnitsky Act and Obama reluctantly signed it into law. Reflecting on the legislative battle two years later, Bill Browder, the London-based investor for whom Magnitsky worked and the driving force behind the bill, told Foreign Policy, “The administration, starting with Hillary Clinton and then John Kerry, did everything they could do to stop the Magnitsky Act.”

Today’s liberal Russia hawks would have us believe that they’ve always been clear-sighted about Kremlin perfidy and mischief. They’re displaying amnesia not just over a single law but the entire foreign policy record of the Obama administration. From the reset, which it announced in early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that year, to its ignoring Russia’s violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian military intervention, the Obama administration’s Russia policy was one, protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow. Throughout his two terms in office, Obama played down the threat Russia posed to America’s allies, interests and values, and ridiculed those who warned otherwise. “The traditional divisions between nations of the south and the north make no sense in an interconnected world nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War,” Obama lectured the United Nations General Assembly in 2009, a more florid and verbose way of making the exact same criticism of supposed NATO obsolescence that liberals would later excoriate Trump for bluntly declaring.

When it abandoned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic that same year—announcing the decision on the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland, no less—the Obama administration insisted that the move wasn’t about kowtowing to Moscow but rather more robustly preparing for the looming Iranian threat. Notwithstanding the merits of that argument, perception matters in foreign policy, and the perception in Central and Eastern Europe was that America was abandoning its friends in order to satiate an adversary. That characterizes the feelings of many American allies during the Obama years, whether Israelis and Sunni Arabs upset about a perceived tilt to Iran, or Japanese concerned about unwillingness to confront a revisionist China. Liberals are absolutely right to criticize the Trump administration for its alienation of allies. But they seem to have forgotten the record of the man who served as president for the eight years prior.

Three years later, in the midst of what he thought was a private conversation about arms control with then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Obama was famously caught on an open microphone promising that he would have “more flexibility” (that is, be able to make even more concessions to Moscow) after the presidential election that fall. (Imagine the uproar if Trump had a similar hot mic moment with Putin.) Later that year, after Mitt Romney suggested Russia was America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe,” Obama ridiculed his Republican challenger. “The 1980s are now calling and they want their foreign policy back,” Obama retorted, in a line that has come back to haunt Democrats. An entire procession of Democratic politicians, foreign policy hands and sympathetic journalists followed Obama’s lead and repeated the critique. According to soon-to-be secretary of state John Kerry, Romney’s warning about Russia was a “preposterous notion.” His predecessor Madeleine Albright said Romney possessed “little understanding of what is actually going on in the 21^stcentury.”

This wasn’t merely a debate talking point. Downplaying both the nature and degree of the Russian menace constituted a major component of mainstream liberal foreign policy doctrine until about a year ago—that is, when it became clear that Russia was intervening in the American presidential race against a Democrat. It provided justification for Obama’s humiliating acceptance in 2013 of Russia’s cynical offer to help remove Syrian chemical weapons after he failed to endorse his own “red line” against their deployment. Not only did that deal fail to ensure the complete removal of Bashar Assad’s stockpiles (as evidenced by the regime’s repeated use of such weapons long after they were supposedly eliminated), it essentially opened the door to Russian military intervention two years later.

Even after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, the first violent seizure of territory on the European continent since World War II, Obama continued to understate the severity of the Russian threat. Just a few weeks after the annexation was formalized, asked by a reporter if Romney’s 2012 statement had been proven correct, Obama stubbornly dismissed Russia as “a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness.” Truly. Russia is such a “regional power” that it reached across the Atlantic Ocean and intervened in the American presidential election, carrying out what Democrats today rightly claim was the most successful influence operation in history. “It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend,” a senior Obama official, speaking of the administration’s halfhearted response to Russia’s intrusion, told the Washington Post. “I feel like we sort of choked.”

Yet rarely in the course of accusing Trump of being a Kremlin agent have liberals—least of all the president they so admire—reflected upon their hypocrisy and apologized to Romney, whose prescience about Russia, had he been elected in 2012, may very well have dissuaded Putin from doing what he did on Obama’s watch. In Obama, Putin rightly saw a weak and indecisive leader and wagered that applying the sort of tactics Russia uses in its post-imperial backyard to America’s democratic process would be worth the effort. The most we’ve seen in the way of atonement are Clinton’s former campaign spokesman Brian Fallon admitting on Twitter, “We Dems erred in ’12 by mocking” Romney, and Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau sheepishly conceding, with a chuckle, “we were a little off.” If Obama feels any regret, maybe he’s saving it for the memoir.

But even if liberals do eventually show a modicum of humility and acknowledge just how catastrophically wrong they were about Romney, this would not sufficiently prove their seriousness about Russia. For their current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave intonations about “active measures,” “kompromat” and other Soviet-era phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance of being motivated solely by partisan politics.

For now, the newfangled Democratic hawkishness on Russia seems motivated almost entirely, if not solely, by anger over the (erroneous) belief that Putin cost Clinton the election—not over the Kremlin’s aggression toward its neighbors, its intervention on behalf of Assad in Syria, its cheating on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty, or countless other malfeasances. Most Democrats were willing to let Russia get away with these things when Obama was telling the world that “alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War” are obsolete, or that Russia was a mere “regional power” whose involvement in Syria would lead to another Afghanistan, or when he was trying to win Russian help for his signal foreign policy achievement, the Iran nuclear deal. If the Democrats’ newfound antagonism toward the Kremlin extended beyond mere partisanship, they would have protested most of Obama’s foreign policy, which acceded to Russian prerogatives at nearly every turn. As the former George W. Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer cleverly imagined in these pages, had Trump ran for president and won with the assistance of Russia but as a Democrat instead of a Republican, it’s not difficult to imagine Democrats being just as cynical and opportunistic in their dismissal of the Russia scandal as Republicans are today.

Democrats’ lack of introspection about their past policy failures, along with their amateurish, newfound zeal for opposing Russia, hurts the wider effort to convince the American public that Russian meddling in our democracy is a serious issue. The most credible voices in this discussion are those genuinely knowledgeable about Russia’s grand strategy to disrupt Western democracy, of which the Trump case is but one element of a long-running global campaign. Not coincidentally, these people have also been consistent in their hawkishness across presidential administrations, as willing to confront the Obama administration over its failures as they are today lambasting Trump. Yet largely because of a media preference for sensationalism, these nuanced voices are being drowned out in favor of Democratic partisans and internet conspiracy theorists peddling wild accusations of “treason.” Most liberals, to put it bluntly, are new to the cause, and their obvious overcompensation and shrill rhetoric is degrading our civic culture. “We were and are under attack by a hostile foreign power and … we should be debating how many sanctions we should place on Russia or whether we should blow up the KGB, GSU [sic], or GRU,” Democratic factotum Paul Begala recently blathered on CNN, referring to, successively, the Soviet-era intelligence service, a non-existent agency, and Russian military intelligence. On Twitter, MSNBC host Joy Reid recently opined, apropos of nothing, that “Donald Trump married one American (his second wife) and two women from what used to be Soviet Yugoslavia: Ivana-Slovakia, Melania-Slovenia.”

Put aside the weird, inquisitorial implication that Trump, solely by virtue of his having married two women from the former Eastern bloc, must therefore be a Russian mole. Reid’s assertion managed to fit three basic errors into a single sentence: 1) Ivana Trump was born in the present-day Czech Republic, not Slovakia 2) Slovakia, furthermore, was never part of Yugoslavia and 3) Yugoslavia, though socialist, was never part of the Soviet Union and famously resisted incorporation into the Warsaw Pact. This is what happens when partisan Democrats who never expressed an iota of interest in Russia before June 2016 try to impersonate Scoop Jackson: They end up sounding like a less methodical Joe McCarthy.

Taken too far, liberals’ Russia obsession could hurt them. Many Democrats seem to genuinely believe that Putin is the only reason Clinton isn’t America’s first female president. Seeing Russian meddling as the single or most significant explanation for their electoral woes conveniently lets Democrats ignore the many other factors—a lousy candidate, an uninspiring and unconvincing platform, a left-wing identity politics that alienates many Americans, just to name a few—that thwarted what ought to have been an easy victory against the most toxic and unqualified individual ever to run for president. While the American people certainly need to be better educated about the breadth of Kremlin influence operations and the multifarious ways Russia threatens the free world, a fixation on Russia to the exclusion of all else will not win elections.

Hypocrisy is no stranger to politics, of course, and it’s never too late for people to come around to the realization that Russia poses a danger. But with Democrats seriously talking about impeachment or even treason, a reckoning is in order. Constantly harping on Trump’s strange affinity for Putin and suspicious connections to Russia isn’t sufficient; the far more substantive policy concessions made to Russia by the previous administration did at least as much damage to American interests, if not more. Are liberals willing to admit the reset was a giant miscalculation from the start? Are they willing to support sending arms to Ukraine? To redeploy missile defense systems to allies in Eastern Europe? Are they willing to concede that Obama’s Syria policy was an epic disaster that paved the way for Russia’s reemergence as a Middle Eastern military power? Are they, in other words, willing to renounce the foreign policy legacy of one of their most popular leaders? Because only that will demonstrate they’re serious about confronting Russia. Anything short reeks of partisanship."

 

Ukraine abandoned

 From the Los Angeles Times:

"Congress has left Ukraine in the cold. The consequences will be dire if aid isn’t renewed soon

By Doyle McManusWashington Columnist 

Dec. 24, 2023

Ukraine’s war to repel Russia’s invasion suffered two major setbacks this year.

The first was on the battlefield, where a long-promised Ukrainian ground offensive was stymied by Russian fortifications that were stronger than expected.

The second is underway in Washington, where Republicans in Congress have held up President Biden’s request for $61 billion to keep Ukraine’s war effort going in 2024.

The battlefield setback was a painful disappointment for Ukrainian leaders, who hoped the offensive could turn the tide of the war.

The political problem could be even worse. If U.S. funding isn’t approved quickly, aid from Europe could dry up as well, and Ukraine’s ability to fight could erode dramatically.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told an audience in Washington that if the deadlock persists, it will create a “big risk to lose this war.”

His warning was for naught. Republican leaders in both houses of Congress say they support helping Ukraine in principle, but they‘re holding the aid hostage to bargain for tougher immigration rules, especially toward asylum seekers. .

The House of Representatives went home 10 days before Christmas without acting on the administration’s request. Senate negotiators from both parties stayed behind last week to try to strike a deal, but they fell short, too.

As a result, Ukraine doesn’t know whether it can count on more funding for the artillery shells and air defense weapons it needs to defend its cities from Russian onslaught.

Military experts say Ukraine’s armed forces can keep fighting until the end of January with ammunition they already have. But the uncertainty over future supplies has forced them to scale back operations and reduce their rate of artillery fire.

“A lower level of resources is going to mean a lower chance of success,” said Michael Kofman, a military analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The effect of delayed funding … will result in tangible deficits at the front line.”

There’s a broader political impact, too.

If Congress doesn’t approve funding quickly, the lesson to other countries will be that domestic politics has made the United States an unreliable ally.

For almost two years, Biden promised that the United States would support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” and urged other governments to do the same.

This month, faced with pushback, he downsized the commitment. Now it’s “as long as we can.”

“If Congress passes new funding by the end of January, it won’t be a major blow to our credibility,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow. “But if it drags on for months, it will be a disaster.”

GOP leaders said their decision to delay the funding was ordinary legislative hardball — a bargaining chip to win concessions on immigration, which most voters consider more important than Ukraine. But their willingness to stiff-arm Zelensky also reflected eroding support among GOP voters for Ukraine’s battle against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Polls show most Americans support helping Ukraine at current or higher levels of aid. But conservative Republican voters — the ones most likely to turn out for primary elections — are disproportionately opposed.

The logjam has left Ukraine in the cold, literally and figuratively.

The Ukrainians’ short-term military goal is to survive Russia’s winter offensive, which is likely to focus on civilian targets such as cities, electrical power plants and other economic infrastructure.

After that, the Ukrainians hope to use long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. and other countries plus home-grown drones to strike Russian targets.

In a recent interview with the Economist, Ukraine’s military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, called the situation a “deadlock,” adding that trench warfare does not favor Ukraine in the long run.

Without a technological breakthrough, he warned, “Sooner or later, we are going to find that we simply don’t have enough people to fight.”

In some wars, a deadlock might open the way for peace negotiations. Not this one.

At his four-hour-long news conference Dec. 14, Putin buoyantly declared: “Victory is ours.”

One reason for his confidence, he said, is how shaky Ukraine’s Western support appears.

Ukraine is “getting everything as freebies,” he said. “But those freebies can run out at some point, and it looks like they’re already starting to run out.”

He did not sound interested in seeking a compromise settlement. “There will be peace when we achieve our goals,” he said.

Those goals, he added, include replacing Zelensky’s government and disbanding Ukraine’s armed forces.

He doesn’t sound ready to give up his ambition to absorb Ukraine into Russia.

Our aid to Ukraine isn’t an act of charity. It’s in our interest to prevent Putin from expanding his empire.

Putin still thinks he can wait out the West — that the United States and Europe will tire of helping Ukrainians defend themselves and walk away.

The grim lesson of the last few weeks is that he may turn out to be right."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grief, anger and hope on Chanukah

 Today is the last day and culmination of Chanukah (Hanukkah), the Jewish festival of light. Here is the synagogue in my city of  Sofia, illuminated for the occasion:

This year, sadly, the festival is passing under the shadow of the Oct. 7 massacre when Hamas launched a massive attack and killed about 1,200 innocent Israelis - the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. A young man from the kibbutz Kfar Aza was a guest of the Jewish community of Sofia. He had suffered from Palestinian terrorists before, having lost an eye in Gaza during his military service in 2014. He told how on Oct. 7, together with other residents, he desperately fought to protect his kibbutz from the surprise attack, while his wife and baby were hiding in the "safe room" for 30 hours. Many people of the kibbutz were killed, and some were taken hostage. The survivors became refugees in their own country because it is still too dangerous to return to Kfar Aza. The young man angrily condemned the hypocrisy of the world which pressures Israel for cease-fire while the terrorists are still holding Israeli hostages. I am glad that two days ago in the UN, my Bulgaria abstained when an anti-Israeli resolution in this line was voted:

 Throughout the world, a terrifying anti-Semitic orgy has been raging since the Oct. 7 massacre, with Arab immigrants and morally and intellectually degraded Westerners celebrating it and condemning Israel and the Jews. In these dark times, anyone who has at least a little integrity should support Israel to its victory.

May light banish darkness!

Happy Chanukah!

Artifacts Discovered after the Kakhovka Dam Destruction

On June 6, Russian troops destroyed the Kakhovka Dam, inflicting an ecocide on downstream Ukrainian territory in an attempt to stop the Ukrainian counter-offensive. For all the horror of this man-made disaster, Ukrainian archaeologists saw in it a silver lining. As said one of them, Dmitriy Nikonenko (source in Russian):

“The draining of the Kakhovka Reservoir will reveal the submerged Zaporozhian Sich, settlements and necropols of many archaeological cultures, the Kuchugurski Islands with their medieval landmarks, the villages submerged in the 20th century. Water has preserved even the giant trees on the island opposite the Zaporozhian Sich. I’ll be lying if I say that archaeologists didn’t dream of draining the Kakhovka Reservoir. But not this way, of course, because we cannot yet even imagine the level of problems that Ukraine will face.”

These hopes seem to have been fulfilled. From the New Voice of  Ukraine from June 13, only days after the man-made disaster:

"Ancient Byzantine amphora discovered on Odesa beach

An ancient Byzantine amphora has been discovered on an Odesa beach following the Russian destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, the Kherson Local History Museum reported on Facebook on June 12.

The ancient jar was found by an internally displaced resident of Kherson, Yuriy Poslovskyi, who has been rescuing freshwater turtles drifting downstream on the Dnipro River to Odesa. Together with his family, he spotted a jar in the water. It was floating because a mud plug spontaneously formed in its neck.

Being a historian, Poslovskyi immediately realized the value of the find. He handed over the ancient artifact to the Kherson Local History Museum. Later analysis established the object to be a Byzantine amphora that may have washed down due to floodwaters from the coastal area, or from an ancient shipwreck.

"Anyway, the generous southern land has shared its treasures with Kherson residents," the message on Facebook reads.

Other amphoras have also been recently found in Odesa Oblast, one of which was discovered by a Territorial Defence unit building fortifications in the area.

These artifacts have been passed to the Odesa Archaeological Museum."

Below is a photo of the family with the amphora from the linked report:

And here is the more recent report about findings on land emerging from subsiding waters, which actually directed me to the story of the amphora:

"Over one thousand artifacts discovered on Khortytsia Island because of Russia’s blast at Kakhovka Dam

Russia’s ecocidal destruction of Ukraine’s Kahkovka Dam is proving to be a boon for the understanding of Ukrainian history.

Over one thousand artifacts have been discovered on the island of Khortytsia in Zaporizhzhia Oblast because of flooding after Russia caused an explosion at Ukraine’s Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam...

Examples of newly discovered artifacts include ceramic fragments of various sizes, coins, bullets, buckles, and buttons. While these items may not be considered treasures in the traditional sense, they hold valuable historical information connected to Ukrainian culture and history...

These archaeological excavations became possible due to the destructive impact of the explosion at Kakhovka Dam. The efforts open new horizons for scientific research and expand our understanding of the history of this unique territory."

Below is a map of the disaster zone and a photo of the beautiful landscape of the island:

 

I wonder whether there are truly ancient artifacts among the finds; in the Antiquity, there were Scythian lands.

Zelensky says harsh truths about the West

 Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to Der Spiegel, through Ukrainian Pravda:

"We are all afraid of war, this is an instinct. I am not blaming anyone here. People feel really sorry for us Ukrainians. But the worst outcome would be if the war were to come to them [other countries – ed.].

Citizens and their leaders see a potential threat to the stability of their countries, specifically to their political leadership. This is why they want to stop the war. The best way to do so is at the expense of others, and certainly not at the expense of any victims in their home country...

The easiest way to end the war is to cede Ukrainian territories to Russia. To give them back the influence on Ukraine and inside Ukraine that they used to have for many years. This is why the Minsk agreements were created…I think, the Minsk agreements were a concession."

He is right.

Merry Christmas, with thoughts of Ukraine

 Merry Christmas everyone!

The public Christmas tree of Kyiv (source).

Ukrainian air forces detected Santa's sledge in the air space of the country (generally closed for civilian aircraft) and guaranteed him a safe flight (source).

Winter Is Coming

The hat and scarf that I decided to keep because of their problematic color pattern. The hat is an industrial product, and the scarf has been knit by me to match (but I hadn't the exact same red yarn).

It is late October, and Europe is bracing itself for a difficult winter, with fuel and electric shortages due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Among the most vulnerable are the Ukrainian refugees. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, yesterday asked them to stay where they are until the spring. The reason is that Ukraine’s energy system, all but destroyed by recent Russian attacks, would not cope if they return. However, in a relatively poor and disorderly country such as Bulgaria, their situation is precarious even in peacetime. Volunteers try to help as best as they can. 

Near my workplace is a bar run by Vasko Krapkata ("Vasko the Patch"), a renowned freedom-loving blues singer. His people periodically collect items and money donations and then distribute them among Ukrainian mothers and children who have found refuge in Bulgaria. In addition to new purchases, reused clothes, blankets and toys are welcome. This is also a nice opportunity to part with things that we no longer need but cannot simply discard because of their good quality and/or sentimental value.

Today, I gave away some things, including a baby blanket which I had kept unused for more than a decade. It is surprisingly difficult to find a nice baby blanket to buy. So what? I am well into post-reproductive age, and shall never have another baby. If in a vague and distant future a baby of a new generation appears in the family, we'll find a new blanket somehow. The same is valid for a ton of my sons' toys and puzzles which I had kept until now.

A vest which was an early knitting success for me. Off it goes!

A coat which I bought long ago for another difficult winter. It was too thin, but a true winter coat simply couldn't be found at the market. My late mother modified it and made it warm by adding a layer of woolen cloth from inside. I wore this coat for years, even during my honeymoon. But I haven't worn it recently, though it is still good. Off it goes!

My sons' childhood winter hats, and scarves I have knit to match them. Off they go! My sons are in their late teens now. In the last moment, I brought a hat and a scarf out of the bag because I realized that their broad blue, red and white stripes resembled the Russian flag. Putin has created aversion to an otherwise nice combination of colors (though this is the very least of his evils). So this particular set may not be the best for a Ukrainian refugee child. It will go to someone else.

I was just a little bit sad to part with these material traces of the past, but now I feel lighter. It is true that memories can weigh you down. For their new owners, they will be nothing more than means to help make it through the winter, probably to be discarded in spring.

Edward Snowden Adopted by Putin's Russia

Russian president, bloody dictator and genocidal warmonger Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to the wretched US traitor Edward Snowden. I think that these two creeps fully fit and deserve each other. It would be best if they embrace as good buddies and together embark on the well-known route of the Russian warship.

In Iran, another victim of the Islamic headscarf

 

As we all know, theocrats in Iran insist that women cover their heads with hijabs (Islamic headscarves), whereas many women do not want this at all. That's why the theocrats maintain morality police to enforce the Islamic dress code. Mahsa Amini (22, pictured) was arrested by the morality police on Tuesday for "education about the hijab", beaten inside the police van, and brought to a hospital several hours later in a coma. She died today.

Putin abandoned rhetoric, admitted land grab

 From the Daily Star:

"Putin hails Peter the Great, admits his own war on Ukraine is land grab

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute on Thursday to Tsar Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of his birth, drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands.

"Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned (what was Russia's)," Putin said after a visiting an exhibition dedicated to the tsar.

In televised comments on day 106 of his war in Ukraine, he compared Peter's campaign with the task facing Russia today.

"Apparently, it also fell to us to return (what is Russia's) and strengthen (the country). And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face."

...Putin has repeatedly sought to justify Russia's actions in Ukraine, where his forces have devastated cities, killed thousands and put millions of people to flight, by propounding a view of history that asserts Ukraine has no real national identity or tradition of statehood...

In July 2021, the Kremlin published a long essay by Putin in which he argued that Russia and Ukraine were one nation, artificially divided. It laid the groundwork for his deployment of troops to Ukraine.

Moscow says it acted to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour. Ukraine and its allies say Putin has launched an unprovoked war of aggression.

In the run up to what Russia calls its "special military operation", Putin blamed Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, for creating Ukraine on what Putin said was historically Russian territory."

 

 

Western leaders criticized over war in Ukraine

 From Simon Tisdall at the Guardian:

"Timid Biden condemns Ukrainians to an agonising war without end

It seems odd, to put it mildly, that Joe Biden is happy to supply Ukraine with advanced rockets as long as it does not fire them at Russia. Vladimir Putin can aim missiles at Ukrainians from across the border whenever he wants – but Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s troops can’t shoot back at their tormentors.

Strange, too, that the UN is seeking Russia’s agreement for convoys to escort grain from Odesa and other Ukrainian ports. It’s Putin who is preventing 22 million tonnes of grain reaching the Middle East and Africa, where millions face famine. Don’t ask permission. Send a multinational force to smash his illegal blockade.

The US and UK have made a big fuss in the past about preserving freedom of navigation in international waters, including the Black Sea. Puzzlingly, they in effect ceded these waters on 24 February to Russia, whose navy bombards and besieges Ukraine’s cities and ports at will...

Left to fight alone, Zelenskiy pleads for heavy weapons but his pleas still often go unmet or responses are delayed. “We need to get serious about supplying [Ukraine’s] army so that it can do what the world is asking it to do: fight a world superpower alone on the battlefield,” says US Gen Philip Breedlove, formerly NATO commander in Europe. He’s right.

It’s no good relying on sanctions, as the EU proved again last week. Its decision to let Hungary’s mini-Putin, Viktor Orbán, water down an oil embargo was weird. Yet Germany’s Olaf Scholz and fellow euro-wobblers are content. Duty done on oil, they will now more stubbornly resist what their bankers and businessmen most fear: sanctions on gas.

Hardest of all to understand, perhaps, is why some Western governments persist in attempting business as usual with Putin, who they know, for certain, is overseeing atrocities and war crimes. Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron hold regular phone chats with him. It’s said they are realists seeking peace. No. They are dupes, normalising mass murder...

Another puzzle: why is Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s shameless spewing of disinformation tolerated around the world? Why do Russia’s ambassadors get free airtime to spin their lies?...

One reason such impunity endures is that China and India, though sworn to uphold the UN charter and international law, prefer instead to profit from Ukraine’s agony by buying cut-price Russian energy...

But, ultimately, it’s the western allies’ own policy contradictions and timidity that most undermine Kyiv at a critical moment, 100 days into the war. Half-measures are their default position. They won’t go the whole hog.

Intimidated by Putin’s nuclear hints, fearful of escalation, and alarmed at rising domestic costs, western leaders are scared, deep down, that Ukraine may win. At the same time, they are committed – politically, morally, rhetorically – to ensuring it does not lose.

The resulting confusion, representing the worst of both worlds, is personified by Biden. Ostensibly clarifying US war aims last week, he insisted Russia that must “pay a heavy price”. If it went unpunished, it would “open the door to aggression elsewhere, with catastrophic consequences the world over”.

Yet even as he raised the stakes, Biden avoided any mention of Ukrainian victory. There was nothing about winning. Instead, he spoke vaguely of future negotiations while offering personal assurances to Putin. The US did not seek his overthrow, he said. Nor would NATO attack unless attacked...

Biden’s too-modest war aims are a manifesto for the muddled middle. Where does this leave Ukraine? Still solitary, still lacking essential modern weapons, and still fighting for its life with one hand tied behind its back – by its closest friends.

And where does it leave the West? Afraid, in equal measure, of victory and defeat, and hoping, fingers crossed, for some form of shabby compromise...

This weak-kneed approach guarantees only one thing: the war will run and run. Diplomacy is stalled. Sanctions are having limited effect and, in terms of energy prices, are harming Europe more than Russia. Only increased direct and indirect NATO military pressure can shift this dynamic.

Campaigning in 2020, Biden pledged an end to what he called America’s “forever wars”. Now, tremulously pulling their punches, he and other Western leaders condemn Ukrainians to exactly that."

Diplomatic solution in Ukraine "augurs horrifying prospects"

 From Benjamin Teitelbaum, Daily Beast / Yahoo!News:

"Russia won't return occupied land. So don't ask

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently roiled the foreign policy community by becoming the most prominent voice urging Ukraine to pursue peace talks with Russia.

Kissinger prioritized Putin appeasement over Ukrainian victory, critics alleged, exposing his wanton priorities in the process. But critics did him a favor by ignoring the specifics of his vision...

Kissinger stands out among advocates of a ceasefire because of how much detail he was willing to offer. Most others avoid discussing specifics about the content, prospects, and consequences of their diplomatic solutions. You won’t hear meaningful details from leftist academics like Noam Chomsky, nor The New York Times editorial board, nor foreign policy experts like Charles Kupchan, nor the ragtag gang of German intellectuals urging their country’s chancellor to withhold military support for Kyiv...

Voices pushing Ukraine to trade land for peace rarely specify how much territory should be sacrificed, or where.

Russian forces currently occupy an area stretching from pieces of the Kharkiv region in Ukraine’s north, circling around the Donbas in the east, and extending along the country’s southern Black Sea coast near the city of Mykolaiv. The occupied territories include rich agricultural land, multiple seaports, and a nuclear power plant. Russia has sacrificed considerably for some of it, especially in places like Mariupol, along front lines in the Donbas, and on the outskirts of Kherson city. Putin is building local governments in some of these areas, too, and his share of the Donbas is increasing.

If this is the territory Ukraine should sacrifice, hardly anyone seems willing to say so. Kissinger came close, as did Columbia University professor Jeffrey D. Sachs...

Perhaps one reason nobody wants to talk specifically or realistically about a diplomatic solution is that it, like war, augurs horrifying prospects.

Consider a peace that leaves all occupied territory in Russian hands. In reality, this would mean Ukraine loses seaports, much of its core agricultural base, and substantial, vital energy sources. Alternatively, any deal that incentivized Russia to return to the 2014 boundaries would likely entail spectacular concessions.

Indeed, it is hard to conceive of a settlement that maintains Ukraine’s fundamental nationhood while not emboldening Russian expansionism. Rather, toleration of Putin’s land-grab or offering major bounty in exchange will likely forge a new order not simply honoring Russia’s borders, but also accepting that its foreign escapades—however immoral or poorly executed—get to succeed.

Why would an agreement hold? To abandon military resistance in favor of diplomacy at this point is to put exceptional faith in the Russian government. This is the same government that, in recent decades, habitually invaded its neighbors while lying about its actions and intentions up to and during the operations themselves.

Forget the emotional impact of trying to engage in a dialogue with the unrepentant perpetrators of the massacre of civilians in Bucha. Can Kyiv trust a military that marched into Crimea in 2014 with unmarked uniforms; that told the world it was withdrawing its troops from Ukraine’s borders before invading this year; and whose obvious battlefield effort to take Kyiv diverged from its stated war aims?

Then there’s the long-term challenge of ideology. Western commentators seldom take seriously the depth of Russian nationalists’ assertion that Ukrainians are an artificial people maintaining an artificial state. Russia’s pseudo-religious claims to Ukraine are not only the pastime of obscure fanatics; they animated Putin’s speech at the outset of the invasion (“Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia,” he said). Why would this Russian leadership and intelligentsia ever affirm Ukraine’s sovereignty?

The advocates of “negotiation” should not be excused from addressing these topics.

Perhaps they think that Ukraine should be sacrificed and crimes against humanity tolerated for the sake of preventing inflation, food and energy crises, or a power vacuum in Russia. Fine. Let them then argue for it.

But the current strategy of proclaiming the consequences of war but not its alternatives amounts to little more than a petulant moan. At best, generic odes to diplomacy will be meaningless, given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledges that the war will end in negotiations.

A more concerning prospect is that these calls will distract from the urgent task of assisting a society under heinous attack from a nuclear-armed madman."

Fundraising campain in support of Raif Badawi

 I have written before (e.g. here) about the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes for posts that the authorities did not like. After the first 50 lashes led to worldwide protests, this part of the sentence was quietly abandoned but the prison term remained.

These days, I checked to see whether Raif has been released. It turned out that he has, but he is not allowed to emigrate to Canada where his family is until he pays the hefty fine that was also included in the sentence. Therefore, a fundraising campaign is underway, under the auspice of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. I believe that nobody who reads this blog likes the idea of pouring money into the budget of Saudi Arabia of all states, but for the sake of Raif, you might consider it if you wish.

Russian invaders booby-trap dead bodies

When Ukrainian troops liberate a town from Russian invaders, they warn residents to return with caution because retreating Russians often booby-trap homes, cars, playgrounds, and even dead bodies. An example is described by Azmi Haroun, Yahoo!News:

"Russian soldiers killed a Ukrainian army volunteer on the outskirts of Kyiv and left his dead body in his car trunk fitted with a mine that later exploded when Ukrainian forces attempted to move him, according to Politico.

Lyudmyla Kyrpach, the soldier's widow, told Politico... that the day after the invasion began in late February, Oleksandr, a mechanic, organized volunteer fighters in his village of Kalynivka, near Kyiv.

By March 1, days after Russian troops had encroached on their village, Oleksandr's friends set out driving to see if they could source more intel about Russian troop movements up close... After they failed to return, he set out to find them.

"He said he would be right back," Lyudmyla told Politico. Oleksandr never returned, and unable to sleep, Lyudmyla set out the following day with her friends to find him.

She noticed his sedan on the road, with the keys in the ignition but no passengers in the car, she told Politico.

Lyudmyla's friend noticed that the trunk was riddled with bullets... and they opened the trunk to find Oleksandr's dead body. Her friend pulled her away from the car in fear that the trunk could be booby-trapped...

 

By March 4 they returned to the scene with Ukrainian soldiers.

 

According to the report, the soldiers tied ropes to his limbs and moved far from the car to pull slowly and see if the car was rigged. As soon as they pulled, the "car exploded in a ball of flames." Russian soldiers had placed weight-triggered mine under Oleksandr, Lyudmyla told Politico.

 

"Lyudmyla picked up the pieces of the man she had spent decades with and placed them in a box," Politico reported. Later, she buried him in the garden where they used to plant vegetables together."

A Russian Antigone

 From Allison Quinn at the Daily Beast:

"Russian authorities in Ukraine’s occupied city of Donetsk are tossing the bodies of their dead soldiers in a secret dump “by the thousands” and charging their loved ones money to find them.

That’s according to a new audio recording released by Ukraine’s Security Service on Tuesday, which is purportedly an intercepted telephone conversation between two Russians discussing how one of their missing friends was finally found.

In the two-and-a-half minute recording, an unidentified man tells his female relative that the fate of “Inna’s brother” is finally known after he went missing a month ago.

“It’s better that you don’t hear this,” the man says at first, reluctant to spill all the grim details.

After more urging, he finally explains that the unidentified dead man’s “sister went to Donetsk, and there, basically, roughly speaking, is a dump.”

“They just toss them there. And then later it’s easier to make as if they disappeared without a trace. It’s easier for them to pretend they are just missing, and that’s it,” he said, noting that “there are thousands.”

“There’s nowhere left to place them. It’s a dump. I’m telling you in plain Russian—a dump. It’s as tall as a person,” he said, adding that the site is “fenced off, sealed, they don’t let anyone in.”

According to him, the only reason local authorities at the dump site let the woman find her brother was because she paid “good money.”

After that, he said, “they rearranged it until she found [the body.]”

“It’s not a morgue, it’s a dump.… They are bringing [bodies] by the thousands,” he said, calling it a “shitshow.”...

The disturbing intercept comes after Al Jazeera on Monday released footage of refrigerated train cars holding the unclaimed bodies of Russian troops killed in Ukraine. Inside, there appeared to be human-size bodies stacked on top of each other in white bags. Ukrainian authorities said Moscow has refused to take the bodies back home, apparently to keep the lid on the sky-high death toll..."

Wake up, Russia!

Bulgaria now to give Ukraine "phantom" military aid

 From Tsvetelia Tsolova / Reuters:

"Bulgaria approves repairs to Ukrainian military equipment, not military aid

Bulgaria's parliament voted on Wednesday to allow repairs of Ukrainian heavy military equipment and seek ways to help Ukrainian exports of grains and electricity, sidestepping proposals to provide direct military aid to Kyiv.

 

European Union and NATO member state Bulgaria has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, supported sanctions against Moscow, refused to pay for Russian gas with roubles and hosted over 90,000 Ukrainian refugees.

 

But the Black Sea country remains one of the few in the 27-member EU to have not sent arms and ammunitions to Kyiv as one of the four coalition partners, the Russia-friendly Socialists, opposed the move and threatened to bolt if it were approved.

 

Lawmakers voted to allow the government to provide military-technical support to Ukraine and see how it can repair Ukrainian heavy military equipment...

 

Two other proposals that supported sending military aid to Ukraine did not win enough support in the chamber."

Repairmen who showed Hunter Biden's laptop now suing media

 From Caroline Downey / National Review:

 

"Hunter Biden Laptop Whistleblower Sues Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast , Politico

 

The Delaware computer repairman who alerted authorities to the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop sued on Tuesday Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast and Politico, claiming that he suffered financial and reputational damage after they alleged that the leak was Russian disinformation.

 

Business owner John Paul Mac Isaac filed for the suit, he told the New York Post, because his livelihood was significantly disrupted by tech platforms, mainstream media, and Delaware locals after he turned in the laptop, which would eventually become the subject of a federal investigation.

 

“After fighting to reveal the truth, all I want now is for the rest of the country to know that there was a collective and orchestrated effort by social and mainstream media to block a real story with real consequences for the nation,” Mac Isaac told the Post...

Mac Isaac said he came into possession of the laptop when President Biden’s son Hunter dropped it off at his shop for repairs in April 2019 and never came back to claim it. Authorities have since unearthed questionable content on the device relating to Hunter’s foreign business dealings and the president’s knowledge of them. The store owner first gave the laptop hard drive to the FBI in December 2019 and then to former head of the Trump campaign legal team Rudy Giuliani, who provided a copy of the hard drive to The Post.

 

After the story surfaced in October 2020 right before the presidential election, Twitter and Facebook made a concerted effort to bury it and censored the Post’s article, arguing it was unsubstantiated and illegitimate reporting. Biden and over 50 former intelligence officials smeared the laptop revelation as part of a Russian disinformation operation. Over a year later, the New York Times and the Washington Post finally confirmed the story after dismissing it as unsubstantiated for months. Hunter Biden had previously admitted that the laptop did in fact belong to him.

 

Some Republicans have argued that the early tech and liberal media suppression of the story misled the public and may have effected the results of the 2020 election. Mac Isaac said he suffered great harm as a result of the conduct of the social media companies after the story went live.

 

“Twitter initially labeled my action hacking, so for the first day after my information was leaked, I was bombarded with hate mail and death threats revolving around the idea that I was a hacker, a thief and a criminal,” he told The Post. Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, “has some explaining” to do after he rejected the new information outright back in October 2020 in what looks like an act of political favoritism, Mac Isaac noted.

 

“Without any intel, the head of the intel committee decided to share with CNN and its viewers a complete and utter lie,” Mac Isaac said. “A lie issued in the protection of a preferred presidential candidate.”

 

Mac Isaac alleges that Schiff and those around him unfairly labeled him a prop of the Russian regime for submitting the laptop to the FBI. The lawsuit includes a defamation allegation stemming from Schiff’s interview with CNN two days after The Post broke the story, during which he claimed Moscow was involved.

 

“Well we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin. That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the Vice President and his son,” Schiff told CNN host Wolf Blitzer, according to the suit...

 

As a result of the false accusations, Mac Isaac says he faced intimidation and hostility at his business. He shut down the shop after people started throwing vegetables, eggs and dog excrement at his store, he told the Post. Mac Isaac is seeking “at least $1 million in compensatory damages [and] punitive damages which will be the much bigger number and will be determined at trial,” his lawyer Brian Della Rocca confirmed to the publication."

The Pope is mad

From today's article Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’by Barbie Latza Nadeau / Daily Beast: 

"Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper.

“I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told Corriere Della Sera in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting would not exactly be to condemn Putin, based on what he told the paper. He said that the real “scandal” of Putin’s war is “NATO barking at Russia’s door,” which he said caused the Kremlin to “react badly and unleash the conflict.”

Never mind that the 85-year-old pontiff is unable to walk after tearing a ligament in his knee (for which he says he will soon have surgery), or that Putin won’t even answer his calls. Francis repeated comments he has made in general audiences and in other interviews that the war is nothing more than a giant opportunity for a “trade in arms” and that it is still ongoing because of the constant shuttling of weapons to Ukraine. He has spoken twice by phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but mostly to urge him not to fight back...

“I don’t know how to answer—I’m too far away—the question of whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians,” he told the paper. “The clear thing is that weapons are being tested there. The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking of other things. This is why wars are waged: to test the weapons we have produced. Few people are fighting this trade, but more should be done.”

Whether the Italian journalists didn’t ask—or whether he didn’t answer— there was no mention about what would happen if Ukrainians were not fiercely fighting back, whether it would mean a full annexation of the entire country, millions of deaths, or empowering an already insatiably power-hungry Putin.

Francis veered toward conspiracy theory as he blamed the international community for instigating the war. “You cannot think that a free state can make war on another free state,” he said. “In Ukraine, it seems that it was others who created the conflict. I am pessimistic but we must do everything possible to stop the war.”..."

Russia learned the wrong lessons from previous wars

 From David Volodzko / Daily Beast, The Embarassing Truth Behind Putin's War Failures:

"Russia has been forced, humiliatingly, to withdraw some 40,000 troops from around Kyiv and Chernihiv, having failed to make any significant progress in those regions—falling back to their old targets in eastern Ukraine. This raises the question of exactly what the Kremlin learned in Syria and, more importantly, what it should have learned but obviously has not...

Some of the lessons that were not learned well enough include use of drones for artillery spotting, the danger of MANPADS on the contested battlefield, and the need for secure supply lines. Each of these factors has proven devastating for Russian forces in Ukraine...

Russia learned a few more things in Syria. Namely, how to destroy cities, terror tactics to make civilians flee, and the use of proxies as holding forces/cannon fodder.

So what went wrong? For one thing, Russia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and by far the most corrupt major power. Ruling a mafia state has its advantages if you’re the Godfather, but it’s hard to know whom to trust. Moscow recently purged 150 Federal Security Service (FSB) agents and sent Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB’s 5th Service, which handles intelligence in Ukraine, to Lefortovo Prison, which was used under Stalin to conduct torture-based interrogations and mass executions. One theory says Beseda gave information to the CIA, but the official reason, which may very well be true, is that he lied to the state and stole funds meant for espionage activities in Ukraine. If true, this means Putin’s own spy chiefs not only let him bring a knife to a gun fight—they sold off the combat blade and bought a cheap butter spreader...

Russian communications are very lowbrow, and they are using unencrypted mobile phones in Ukraine, a bad habit picked up in Syria, where few opponents could understand Russian or had the technical competence to intercept...

One thing’s for certain, Russia looked at Ukraine and mistook a tiger for a cat. Now even if it decides to cut its losses and completely withdraw, it may not be so easy. As the old Chinese saying goes, when you’re riding a tiger, the hard part is getting off."

Bulgaria still refuses military aid to Ukraine

 From a yesterday's report by Tsvetelia Tsolova / Reuters:

"Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appealed to NATO and EU member Bulgaria on Thursday to provide sorely needed military aid to help his country survive Russia's invasion.

Bulgaria has condemned the invasion, voted to support European Union sanctions against Russia and is hosting more than 90,000 Ukrainian refugees, but the four-party ruling coalition remains split over whether to send arms and ammunition to Kyiv.

Kuleba, who arrived in the Black Sea country on Tuesday, said he has still not received a clear answer from Sofia on military aid.

"The best way to bring peace closer today is to stand by Ukraine, not to stand neutral," Kuleba said in the Bulgarian parliament at the opening of a photo exhibition depicting the war in Ukraine.

"Sometimes you have to make a choice, you cannot be in between, you cannot come up with endless arguments. You have to take a side and you have to take the side of truth. So all I can say is it is time to make a choice," he said...

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov's centrist PP party has proposed a compromise of sending "technical assistance for defence purposes" to Ukraine... Kuleba dismissed the PP's compromise proposal.

"If you have a helmet and a bulletproof vest, but you do not have a gun in your hands, you are doomed. So this half-measure is nice politically, but basically the message is: 'We want you to die protected'," he said.

Thousands of people have died, cities and towns have been heavily bombarded and some 11 million people - about a quarter of Ukraine's population - displaced in the war since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24.

Bulgaria's parliament is expected to debate next week, after the Orthodox Easter weekend, how to support Ukraine further.

Bulgaria was Moscow's closest ally in eastern Europe in Communist times. It has retained important cultural, tourism and trade links and is still heavily reliant on Russian gas and oil."

"Wholesale destruction of civilian neighborhoods" by Russian military

 Scott Pelley, a correspondent and anchor at CBS News and 60 Minutes, to Jack Holmes:

"In Kyiv, we went all the way up into the northern suburbs yesterday, including Bucha and Irpin. And I'll tell you, Jack, in 40 years of covering wars, I have never seen such wholesale destruction of civilian neighborhoods, absolutely senseless. It could only have been done to kill the people. There's no military reason for it. 10-story apartment buildings, blown to bits, entire neighborhoods [destroyed]. I was talking to the residents about what happened to a very large 10-story apartment building that was completely a burned out shell. And they said it had been hit by a helicopter gunship that launched rockets into it.

"Behind a church, the St. Andrew's Orthodox church, we found a mass grave. The Russians had left and retreated in such haste that they didn't bother to bury the evidence. And so the grave was open, and there were a number of people in the grave, a number of bodies in the grave, all clearly civilian women and men, elderly men, just piled up there, just waiting for mercy, just waiting for someone at some point to lift them out of that trench that they were lying in and properly bury them."

Russian teacher betrayed by students faces jail for anti-war views

 From Matthew Loh / Business Insider through Yahoo!News:

 

"A Russian teacher is facing a prison sentence, and several others were fined or fired after their students reported them for making anti-war comments, BBC Russia first reported.

Irina Gen, 55, an English teacher in the western Russian city of Penza, was speaking to eighth-grade athletes who complained that they couldn't compete in international sporting events, per the BBC, who spoke with Gen's lawyer. Many sporting bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, banned Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

Gen was recorded on March 18 telling the schoolgirls that she believed the West's decision was correct. "Until Russia starts behaving in a civilized way, this will go on forever," she said. "We are living in a totalitarian regime. Any dissent is considered a crime."

According to the BBC, she told the students that Russia intended to overthrow another nation's government and that Ukraine is a sovereign state.

The teacher received a call from Russia's federal security service five days later and was told by the authorities that they had received footage of her criticizing Moscow's direction, The Guardian reported.

Gen told The Guardian she had "no idea" she was being recorded. She said she told authorities she was "merely citing respected western outlets like AP and BBC," which she believed were professional and objective.

An excerpt of her conversation with the students was posted to the Russian Telegram channel Baza. Baza reported that the schoolgirls had disagreed with Gen and handed the recording to the law."

 

Reporting any words of disagreement with the party line to the authorities is a tradition in Russia, as it was in Bulgaria during communism. To Westerners, the incident may be reminiscent of the murder of French teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist over blasphemous cartoons shown in the classroom.

Resume of Russian military activities around Kyiv

 Reporter Illia Ponomarenko: 

“Russians basically came to Kyiv with an unbelievably stupid and unrealistic plan, killed a lot of people, ruined a lot of homes, and sustained heavy casualties. No results, no reserves.

Now they just have to leave before they get slaughtered in a pocket northwest of Kyiv.”

Nevzorov: Let Putin steal lest he murders!

 From Amy Kellogg / Fox News, March 27:

"A case has been opened against Alexander Nevzorov for calling the bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital...the bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital.

 Russia's Investigative Committee accuses Nevzorov, a Russian journalist and former MP, of deliberately spreading false information about the event which happened in Mariupol, Ukraine earlier this month. Conviction for such a crime could carry fifteen years in prison...

Nevzorov is out of the country... Meantime, he has a wish for President Vladimir Putin.

"For God's sake, give him 100 more palaces, give him 500 more female gymnasts!" he says, gymnasts being a reference to Alina Kabaeva...

"Just," Nevzorov continued his train of thought, "so he will not carry out his schizophrenic schemes to become lord of the world. Let him play with such palaces, let him be engaged with his personal life, let him steal as much as he wants just to take his mind off his mania to murder."

...He said most average Russians don't grasp Putin's motivations.

"Our people are in an absolute zombie state, in an absolutely false and extremely grave state of mind," Nevzorov said. "And Putin has the ability to constantly feed on this state... They want to remain trapped by propaganda.""

Ukrainian couples training together for war

Instead of planning their weddings or enjoying their marital life, these young people are preparing to fight. Source: Natalie Thomas / Reuters, reporting from Odessa on March 19.

Ukrainian defenders bid their wives and children farewell

 The photos are from the railway station in Kyiv. Men who will fight for their country say goodbye to their wives and children who evacuate by trains. Source: a March 4 report by Dylan Stableford.