Saturday, April 09, 2022

News: April 9 (2)

https://www.100x.vc/team

How 100X.VC takes startups from zero to one and beyond The Mumbai-based investment firm has created a new model for funding and nurturing early-stage startups. The $3 million it has put into 70 companies so far has snowballed into $43 million of follow-on funding from marque angels, family offices and big name VCs .......... “There is a big gap of a platform / community along with the first cheque in any startup. Y Combinator has been sub-par in India. Angel money is rarely high quality. 100X is filling a huge gap here, particularly in Mumbai and also pan-India.” ........ I00X.VC receives 50 to 100 pitches per day on average. The initial screening is done by Mehta and Karpe. If they like what they see, they get in touch with the founders for additional information or meetings. At that stage, all five 100X co-founders weigh in on the decision to invest or not. ........ The team has basic filters in place, he adds, like the founding team’s background, size of the market opportunity, strength of the business model, its moat, and a conviction that returns will be at least 20x. ........ “For the value that 100X gives us, seven percent is hardly anything,” shrugs Lodha of Super Scholar. .



Imran Khan: What led to charismatic Pakistan PM's downfall A national hero from his cricketing days, he had transformed into a charismatic politician and, after years of struggle, managed to supplant the two rival established political dynasties that had dominated Pakistan for decades. ....... He emerged as a fresh force, with vibrant rallies full of catchy songs which, along with his huge social media presence, amplified his staunch anti-corruption message. Mr Khan promised to bring "change" to the country, creating a "new Pakistan". ....... Both sides deny it, but it's widely acknowledged he came to power with the help of Pakistan's powerful army and intelligence services - and now he has fallen out with them. ....... But he also had the covert backing of what in Pakistan is referred to as "the establishment" or the military. The army has either directly or indirectly controlled the country for most of its existence, and critics labelled Imran Khan's government a "hybrid regime". ........ During the 2018 election campaign, media outlets reporting sympathetically on his opponents had their distribution curtailed, while some candidates standing for election were either cajoled or coerced into joining his party. ....... "He was made by them," one defecting member of Imran Khan's party told the BBC, referring to the military. "They were the ones that brought him into power." ...... After coming to power, Mr Khan, by contrast, proudly proclaimed he and the army were on "one page" when it came to policy decisions. ........ The results worried civil society activists, with a spate of attacks and abductions targeting journalists and commentators critical of both Mr Khan's government and the intelligence services. ....... Mr Khan has insisted his focus is on improving governance, and he has made some impressive expansions to the social welfare system, introducing a health insurance scheme in large parts of the country ........ The cost of living in Pakistan has been rocketing up, with sharp rises in food prices and the rupee falling against the dollar. ....... for a while, the prime minister looked to be the best bet for the military. He cut an impressive figure on the world stage and his decision not to order a complete lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic was vindicated by fewer than expected deaths - though no-one can still be exactly sure why. ......... his opponents were becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to the military, naming the army chief, Gen Bajwa, and the head of the intelligence services (ISI), Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, as being responsible for "selecting" Imran Khan to office. .......... The dynamic changed dramatically last year. A number of observers told the BBC the army began to grow increasingly frustrated with Mr Khan's failure to deliver good governance, particularly in Punjab, and perhaps at how they were being publicly blamed for bringing him into power by the opposition. .......... Although he defended visiting Moscow on the day Russian troops crossed into Ukraine and brusquely rejected attempts by Western officials to issue a condemnation of President Vladimir Putin's behaviour, Gen Bajwa said last week that the invasion "must be stopped immediately". ......... Imran Khan had also earlier "scuttled" an attempt championed by Gen Bajwa to partially restore trade with regional rival India, "because of the political cost". ........ He alleges he is the victim of a US-led attempt to affect "regime change" in Pakistan, because of the anti-Western tilt in his foreign policy, which has included criticism of America's war in Afghanistan. ....... It's a narrative, however, that does appear to be resonating with Mr Khan's supporters, tapping into a reservoir of anti-Americanism in the country. ........ Mr Khan once told his cricket team to "fight like cornered tigers" and he looks set to be a formidable character in opposition.

Imran Khan: Support for Pakistan PM despite likely defeat it's unlikely to be the end of his political career. ........ The former cricketer turned politician won in this constituency in 2018. Mujahid voted for him, hoping he could deliver change as a new, third force in Pakistan's politics, which has long been dominated by two rival established political dynasties. But now he blames Mr Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party for the rising cost of living. ........

"You work all day and earn 500 rupees ($2.70; £2.06)," he tells the BBC. "But now a kilogram of butter costs 500 rupees. Before it was 180."

...... Some, like him, dismiss Mr Khan as "incompetent," but others, such as housewives Iram and Noreen, browsing at a stall selling hairbands, accept his justification that prices have risen across the world following the coronavirus pandemic. ........ The truth is, price rises have been significantly sharper in Pakistan than in most of its neighbours. Yet however disgruntled many may be with Mr Khan's policies, the move to oust him is not based on a sudden wave of popular sentiment. It's down to elite political manoeuvring. ........ Mr Khan is widely regarded as having come to power with the help of Pakistan's army, but now observers say they have fallen out. ...... He claims US officials warned Pakistani diplomats he would need to be removed from power because of his foreign policy decisions, such as recently visiting Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin and his previous criticism of America's "War on Terror". Opposition politicians ridicule the allegation, and the US has denied there is any truth to it. ........ It appears Mr Khan is attempting build a populist, anti-Western narrative and many of his most ardent followers appear to be buying into it. ........ "I wanted Pakistan to be respected on the world stage," he says. "And now that's happened." ....... "Look out how he has spoken out against Islamophobia," chimes in Mohammad, a civil servant. "Before we used to be like slaves." ...... Until recently, Imran Khan proudly proclaimed he and the army were on "the same page," and many of his followers view themselves as "patriots" who firmly back the military. ...... No Pakistani prime minister has ever completed their full five-year term, and it looks likely Mr Khan won't either. ..... whilst, the poor state of the economy has undoubtedly diminished his popularity, Mr Khan looks set to remain a formidable force in the country's politics.





Pakistan Parliament Ousts Imran Khan as Prime Minister The country will now face early elections after days of brinkmanship in which Mr. Khan tried to dissolve Parliament to head off the no-confidence vote. ....... The vote, coming amid soaring inflation and a rift between Mr. Khan’s government and the military, capped a political crisis that has embroiled the country for weeks and came down to the wire in a parliamentary session that dragged into the early morning hours. Pakistan remains in a state of turmoil as it heads into an early election season in the coming months. ....... While no prime minister in Pakistan has ever completed a full five-year term in office, Mr. Khan is the first to be removed in a no-confidence vote. ......... Late Saturday night, with the two political factions at an impasse, the country’s powerful Army chief met with Mr. Khan. ...... At 11:45 p.m., in protest of the no-confidence vote, lawmakers in Mr. Khan’s political coalition stormed out of the National Assembly hall. ........... “Your future is at stake,” Mr. Khan said in a televised address on Friday night. “If you do not take a stand to protect the sovereignty of our country, we will continue to remain subservient.” He added: “The nation has to rise together to save Pakistan.” ....... Mr. Khan, 69, had parlayed his athletic stardom into a populist political career, promising to rid the country of endemic corruption, set the sputtering economy back on track, and build a “new Pakistan” that he described as an Islamist welfare state. ........ But economic realities, including huge government debt and three straight years of double-digit inflation, thwarted his plans and undermined his popularity. Tackling corruption proved easier said than done. His shift away from the West and closer to China and Russia was polarizing. ........ “He’s already in a better position, he’s completely distracted attention from inflation, from the economy, to this question of foreign conspiracy, and it’s benefiting him.” ....... Born to an affluent family in Lahore, Mr. Khan first rose to prominence in the late 1970s as an international cricket star, becoming the face of the sport at a time when cricketers from the former British Empire were beginning to regularly beat their former colonizer. Mr. Khan helped lead Pakistan to win the Cricket World Cup in 1992 — the country’s greatest sporting achievement. ....... His success on the cricket field and upper-class upbringing gave him a life of privilege and glamour. Throughout the 1980s, Mr. Khan was a regular fixture in London’s fashionable crowd, and he earned a reputation as a playboy. ......... Despite his mass popularity and appeal, he struggled to make political inroads for over a decade. ......... In 2018, he was elected prime minister — a victory many of his rivals attributed to a back room deal struck with the military. Politicians with other parties described a campaign of coercion and intimidation by the security forces that effectively narrowed the election field and sent a message that opposition to Mr. Khan was strongly discouraged. ......... Still, unlike many of his predecessors, he has not been accused of corruption himself. ....... his supporters have defended his record, which includes doling out government subsidies, building shelters and soup kitchens for the poor, and providing health care to low and middle-income households. ........ During his term, Pakistan weathered the coronavirus pandemic relatively well, spared the devastation witnessed in some other parts of the world despite early problems with an overwhelmed and undersupplied health care system. Mr. Khan attributed the success to a well-coordinated national effort, amplified by help from the military. ....... his foreign policy decisions became a point of contention. ...... Last June, he said Pakistan would “absolutely not” allow the C.I.A. to use bases inside Pakistan for counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. ..... After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last year, even before American troops and officials had fully withdrawn from the country, he praised Afghans for having “broken the chains of slavery.” ........ In recent months, the military establishment has eased its grip on opposition parties, analysis say, paving the way for the no-confidence motion. ........ He urged Pakistanis to stand up to the “forces of evil” and exhorted them to stand against his opponents, whom he called “slaves of America.” .



Plotting From The Wings: Key Players Behind Imran Khan's Ouster The drama caps weeks of machinations by the opposition aimed at unraveling the tenuous coalition Imran Khan built around his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to become premier in 2018. ...... Shehbaz Sharif ... A tough administrator with a reputation for passionate outbursts, he is known for quoting revolutionary poetry in speeches and is considered a workaholic. ...... He remains popular despite lurid tabloid headlines about multiple marriages and a property portfolio that includes luxury apartments in London and Dubai. ..... Asif Ali Zardari ..... He took to politics with gusto, earning himself the nickname "Mr Ten Percent" for the cut he allegedly took from government contracts ....... Bilawal Bhutto Zardari .... The son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari is political royalty and became chairman of the PPP aged just 19 following his mother's assassination. ..... The Oxford-educated 33-year-old is considered a progressive, in his mother's image, and has frequently spoken out on the rights of women and minorities. ..... With more than half of Pakistan's population aged 22 or below, Bhutto's social media savvy is a hit with the young, although he is frequently mocked for a poor command of Urdu, the national language. ....... Maulana Fazlur Rehman .. Khan, in return, calls him "Mullah Diesel" for his alleged participation in graft involving fuel licenses. .

เคšเคฐเคฎ เคตिเคตाเคฆिเคค เคต्เคฏเค•्เคคिเคฒाเคˆ เค•ांเค—्เคฐेเคธเค•ो เคšुเคจाเคต เคช्เคฐเคšाเคฐเค•ो เคœिเคฎ्เคฎेเคตाเคฐी, เคตिเคฆेเคถเคฎा เค…เคธเคจ्เคคुเคท्เคŸि

Taliban Outlaw Opium Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan The move will have far-reaching consequences for the many farmers who turned to the illicit crop as a brutal drought and economic crisis have gripped the country. .

Putin’s War in Ukraine Shatters an Illusion in Russia Russians long lived with an understanding: Stay away from politics, and live your life as you choose. The war in Ukraine wrecked that idea......... Fifteen years earlier, Boris Yeltsin had left power in shame, apologizing on national television “for having failed to justify the hopes of the people who believed that we would be able to make a leap from the gloomy and stagnant totalitarian past to a bright, prosperous and civilized future at just one go.” ........ By the summer of 2015, his successor, President Vladimir V. Putin, had seemingly made Russia bright and prosperous. The political system he built was increasingly restrictive, but many had learned to live with it. ...... Big politics were hopeless, the thinking went, but one could make a real difference in small acts. ....... Political action may have been forbidden, but there was tolerance when it came to other things, for example religion, culture and many forms of expression. His own calculus for the system to run smoothly meant he had to make some room for society. ....... I lived in Russia for nine years, and began covering it for The New York Times in 2000, the year Mr. Putin was first elected. I spent lots of time telling people — in public writing and in my private life — that Russia might sometimes look bad, but that it had a lot of wonderful qualities, too. .......

But in the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, I have felt like I am watching someone I love lose their mind.

Many of the Russian liberals who had turned to “small acts” are feeling a sense of shock and horror, too, said Alexandra Arkhipova, a Russian anthropologist. ....... “People have a metaphor. They say, ‘We were trying to make some cosmetic changes to our faces, when the cancer was growing and growing in our stomachs.’” ....... Yevgeniya Albats, a Russian journalist who had warned of the dangers of a K.G.B. resurgence as early as the 1990s. Ms. Albats kept staring into the glare of the idea that at certain points in history, everything is at stake in political thought and action. She had long argued that any bargain with Mr. Putin was an illusion. ........ 2008 was a turning point, the moment Mr. Putin divorced the West, even invaded another country ...... Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, which came shortly after President George W. Bush began to talk about NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. ......... I covered that war, and spent the night with a Russian unit in the Georgian town of Gori and remember how invigorated the soldiers seemed, laughing, joking. The Soviet defeat in the Cold War had left a bitter sense of humiliation and loss. The invasion seemed to have renewed them. ......... Ms. Albats sounded tired but determined. The day we talked, she had traveled to a Russian penal colony to be present for the sentencing of her friend Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s popular opposition leader, who used his allotted time to give a speech against the war. ......... Navalny never accepted the turn away from direct confrontation and was building a nationwide opposition movement, leading people into the streets. He rejected the bargain and was willing to go to prison to defy it. ....... his mantra, that the fight was not of good against evil but of good against neutral, was a direct challenge to the political passivity that Mr. Putin was demanding. ....... it was the political opposition’s success, which began to accelerate in 2018 and 2019, that tipped Mr. Putin toward war. ....... it was inconceivable to Mr. Putin that there could be people inside Russia who wanted the best for their country, yet were against him. So he looked for traitors and nursed an obsession with the idea that the West was after him. ........ “It’s a feature of this kind of regime,” Professor Yudin said. “It recodes internal dissent into external threats.” ........ Many liberals have left. Many of those who have not left face fines or even jail. In the weeks after the invasion, the police detained more than 15,000 people nationwide ...... the protests in 2012, when about 5,000 people were detained over 12 months ....... “Choosing between jail and not jail, I’d rather choose not jail,” Ms. Albats said, adding that she already faces thousands of dollars in fines just for reporting about the war........ “The best comparison is Germany in 1939,” he said. “What kind of democratic movement would you expect there? This is the same. People are basically right now trying to save their lives.” ....... about two-thirds of people nationwide approve of Mr. Putin’s actions in Ukraine. ..... “It is a less-educated, older part of the population, mainly living in rural areas or in small and medium-sized cities, where the population is poorer and more dependent on power,” he said, referring to those who rely on public funds like pensions and state jobs. “They also receive their whole construction of reality exclusively from television.” ........... “if you look at 20 years of our research since Putin came to power, then the peaks of support for Putin and his popularity have always coincided with military campaigns.” ....... One such campaign was the war in Chechnya, a particularly brutal subduing of a population that in 1999 was Mr. Putin’s signature act before being elected president the first time. We are starting to see some of the features of that war in Ukraine: bodies with hands bound, mass graves, tales of torture. In Chechnya, the result was the systematic elimination of anyone connected to the fight against Russia. It is too soon to say whether that was the intent in Bucha.......... Yudin argues that Russia is moving out of authoritarianism — where political passivity and civic disengagement are key features — into totalitarianism, which relies on mass mobilization, terror and homogeneity of beliefs. He believes Mr. Putin is on the brink, but may hesitate to make the shift. ........ “In a totalitarian system, you have to release free energy to start terror,” he said. Mr. Putin, he said, “is a control freak, used to micromanagement.” ....... if the Russian state starts to fail, either through a collapse of Russia’s economy or a complete military defeat in Ukraine, “unleashing terror will be the only way for him to save himself.” ......

“Putin is so convinced that he cannot afford to lose

, that he will escalate,” Professor Yudin said. “He has staked everything on it.” .

เคœเคจเคคा เคช्เคฐเค—เคคिเคถिเคฒ เคเค•्เคฒै เคšुเคจाเคตเคฎा เคญिเคก्เค› – เค…เคง्เคฏเค•्เคท เคค्เคฐिเคชाเค ी

How 100X.VC takes startups from zero to one and beyond The Mumbai-based investment firm has created a new model for funding and nurturing early-stage startups. The $3 million it has put into 70 companies so far has snowballed into $43 million of follow-on funding from marque angels, family offices and big name VCs ....... Going forward, 100X has announced that it will give each of its portfolio companies Rs1.25 crore, up from Rs 25 lakh, in return for a 15 percent stake in the startup at its next fund raise. “We believe capital is firepower in this environment,” explains Mehta of the move. ........ Alongside, it is also scaling up its not-for-profit initiatives such as ‘100X Gurukul’ a free, 12-week programme comprising live and recorded sessions to help entrepreneurs scale their ideas rapidly and sustainably. Founders’ Dating is another not-for-profit initiative to help founders find the right co-founders for their businesses. ...... Separately, Mehta conducts a five-weekend long, pro-bono venture investing masterclasses at regular intervals to help individuals break into angel investing. Although he won’t say it in so many words, for Mehta, it always has been and will be about building and growing the ecosystem. .

Inside Sanjay Mehta's ambition to build India's Y Combinator at 100X.VC Entrepreneur-turned-investor Mehta is making life easier for early-stage startups, helping them to focus on their ideas, while handholding them to raise money ....... While Mehta (50) has invested his personal wealth in over a hundred startups through his family office, Mehta Ventures, his most interesting innings might have started only two years ago. In December 2019, 100X.VC, which Mehta started with like-minded partners, took in its first ‘class’ of startups—20 of them. Today Class 05 is open, and the first four classes add up to a portfolio of 50 startups. ......... Eventually 100X will become a place where other investors and investment firms looking to fund promising startups can discover such ventures ....... and Vatsal Kanakiya, a computer science engineer, who is CTO and also happens to be Mehta’s nephew. ....... Over the last 10 years, Mehta has had a ringside view of the challenges India’s nascent startup ecosystem faces. One problem in particular was the time it took for a startup to get money in the bank even when investors had reached an agreement to fund the venture. ......... “Typically, a term sheet to money in the bank would take three to four months. That was crazy.” ....... Then there were all kinds of ways in which others were sucking away precious money from the founders, in the name of deal sourcing, investment banking fees and so on. ........ early-stage startups, when founders often had little more than an idea, making things like valuation tricky. ....... On the funding front, Mehta decided to take a cookie-cutter approach and simplify the seed funding process. It became a motto: “Funding simplified”. And then, 100X became the “social proof” for its portfolio companies. Both the VC firm and the startups could say they already have skin in the game in approaching other investors. Then it isn’t shallow marketing anymore, but a proclamation that “we believe in this startup and in these founders” ......... The next stage was about helping the startups get off the ground and grow. This became the “mentoring unlimited” motto of the firm. From the time a startup becomes a portfolio company of the VC firm, there is continuous engagement between the two on various aspects beyond funding raising—from hiring the right recruits to pricing products, developing the right business models; also supporting founders who’ve reached the point where they know they have to make course corrections or even drastically change their business models—a process popularly called ‘pivoting’ in startup parlance. ........ To give simplified funding a formal structure, Mehta created a simple document not very different from a convertible note, called the iSAFE note, an abbreviation for India simple agreement for future equity. The advantage is it doesn’t reflect a debt on the books of the startup, so if the venture doesn’t work out, there’s no loan to pay back ........... the VC firm doesn’t decide on a valuation of the company right away, but typically invests about Rs 2.5 million in each portfolio company to start with, securing a right for some future equity whenever the startups do subsequent pricing rounds of funding. .......... The iSAFE note, on the other hand, allows angel investors to strike one-on-one deals with the startup, so the founders can focus on starting work sooner. ........ with the rights secured for equity in a future pricing round, it also saves investors from at least one round of valuation-driven dilution of their stake. ....... In the absence of such notes, Mehta says he has come across ventures where the founders ended up losing as much as 10 percent of their funding to legal and other fees. ....... The iSAFE note is about five to six pages and a typical shareholder agreement can easily run into 60 or more. ....... “I had heard about 100X with their Y Combinator style model. I just sent them a cold email with my pitch deck and no introductions,” Snigdha Kumar, a former Flipkart executive, who is now CEO of her own startup, Cora Health, tells Forbes India. 100X invested in her startup last December. ......... He started with a bespoke software company Globalware Systems and Solutions around 1993. It didn’t scale ....... A couple of dotcom failures followed and took a big chunk of his personal wealth. ...... “Yes, I made money on those exits but they were not the kind of thumping exits you see today in the news,” Mehta says. ...... The switch to venture investing happened by accident, he says. ....... As a tech-oriented entrepreneur, he saw a lot of deals in 2010-11 in Mumbai, as many financial investors saw him as the go-to person on tech startup deals. ....... “It grew on me,” he says. “When you have experienced that yourself, you can empathise with the founders.” The process is a big high because it gives one a chance to foster many ideas, he says. “My day is made when I hear a great idea and I’m able to invest in it. And founders’ enthusiasm is contagious—when you meet good founders, you are inspired by them.” ........ In May 2019, Block.One gave returns of 6,567 percent to investors including Mehta, via a sale. Block.One has now launched a crypto exchange called Bullish that is “capitalised with almost $10 billion … crazy stuff, so holding onto that, big one.” ....... Then there is the ex-NASA engineers-founded Axiom Space, which is building a commercial space station. “I get my adrenaline rush meeting all these founders and I get financial returns, what better work can you think of,” says Mehta. ......... “The way I see it, did I really know that Oyo would become what it is? No, I didn’t. Otherwise, I would have put all my money over there” ......... In fact, there are Mehta’s investees, whose first ideas didn’t pan out as expected. Block.one is one such company, where the founders had a different idea the first time, but they had to shut it down. But Mehta continued to invest in them. The idea here is that VCs bet on founders in the early stage, more than anything else. ...... Kroop AI that detects deep fakes, which are now growing at an alarming rate. Another example is Talkie, which is developing a voice-only collaboration tool. ....... 100X.VC is a sector-agnostic fund ....... the firm has invested in everything, from a banana chips venture from Kerala to robotics and drone companies. ...... Then there is crypto-currency, which could be a huge opportunity for India. “We’ll see many crypto billionaires in India soon,” he says. ........ In any investment, the trick is to pick the problem first, to identify if what the founders aim to solve represents a substantial opportunity. In other words,

he may not invest in an AI company for the sake of the technology, but only if that particular application of AI is likely to solve an important problem for a large number of customers

. ....... .



Romney Was Right About Putin A conversation with the Republican senator about Russia’s threat to the world, the members of the GOP who praise Putin, and how this conflict ends ...... Donald Trump’s role in the crisis, and how Romney sees it ending. ....... Russia was supporting all of the dictators in the world, whether in Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea. They were opposing us at the UN whenever a critical measure came forward. They were our geopolitical adversary ........ Clearly, today, China is a greater threat to our security and our economic vitality. But they weren’t a geopolitical player in the sense that Russia was back in 2012. ......... We’ve seen this for many years. We had not sufficiently responded to villainy in the past, whether in Georgia, Ukraine, with the Crimea, with Syria, and with assassinations. We’ve downplayed those things and somehow pretended that if we just reset, that everything would be fine. President Trump invited Russian ambassadors and foreign ministers to the White House as soon as he got there. He said, “Why don’t we have Russia brought back into the G7?” ........ Putin has seen us reduce our military footprint in Europe, pull out of Afghanistan in a disastrous way, slow-walk getting defensive arms to Ukraine. ....... I don’t think that, by any means, I was the only person who saw Russia’s intent. I remember John McCain said he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw the KGB. I mean, there are many, many people who saw Putin for what he was. ......... you’re seeing a fringe of our party that still admires Putin. But the larger group that was celebrating his audacity has, from what I can tell, changed their pleadings and are suddenly coming to the support of Ukraine. ........ the new world of media, where everybody has a cellphone, and people are seeing real human beings suffer. And they recognize, this is not a war. It’s not a battle between two militaries. This is a brutal invasion of a free democratic people by an authoritarian thug, and there’s no justification for it. And its brutality and vile nature is able to be seen by people all over the world. ......... when you see mothers and children and women in the street holding Molotov cocktails against tanks, it’s hard to argue, “This doesn’t matter to me.” ....... the administration should have been much more aggressive in sending defensive weapons to Ukraine. The fact that there are not huge stockpiles of anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers—I just find that to be extraordinarily disheartening. ....... I’m critical of the continuation of under-arming Ukraine during this president’s term, and in the terms of the prior presidents, both Trump and Obama. And as you recall, President Trump withheld funding and arms to Ukraine in order to get an investigation into the Bidens. It’s unthinkable that this has been the posture of our country. ......... I have a very sensitive antenna toward those who promote authoritarianism. The default setting in world history is authoritarianism. Freedom is a rare appearance on the historical map of the world, and requires extraordinary, extraordinary vigilance and effort to preserve it. And when I see leaders here or elsewhere moving toward authoritarianism, it sets off alarm bells. Because I do read history. The history of the world is strongmen lying to people, gaining power over them through the use of force, and oppressing others for centuries. ........ One is that the Ukrainians fight bravely on and Russia tires of the conflict and pulls back but says it won its objective to save face. That’s what I hope for. ....... President [Volodymyr] Zelensky is one of the most courageous people of our century. He is the face of good and Putin is the face of evil. Zelensky is on the streets in Ukraine, wearing battle fatigues, ready to fight for his country. And Putin is sitting behind this massive table in this huge white room; it looks like a mausoleum where honesty and honor went to die. Putin is becoming smaller and smaller on the world stage. .

Why Ukraine Is Winning Ukraine’s success illuminates a strategy that has allowed a smaller state to—so far—outlast a larger and much more powerful one......... Battles reveal more than they decide. Battles in which the outcome is truly up for grabs are rare, and battles that prove decisive in achieving a political goal are rarer still. Instead, battles demonstrate how effectively combatants planned, prepared, and executed before the fighting began. The result of a battle exposes not only how well matched the sides are but also how the war might unfold in the future. In that sense, the outcome of the Battle of Kyiv was never in doubt. Russia’s and Ukraine’s preparations for the fight essentially preordained the result. But the Battle of Kyiv has revealed a great deal about why Ukraine has done so much better in the war than many analysts predicted. ............

How and why Ukrainian forces outperformed expectations is perhaps the most important story of this war.

....... The Ukrainian way of war is a coherent, intelligent, and well-conceived strategy to fight the Russians, one well calibrated to take advantage of specific Russian weaknesses. It has allowed the Ukrainians to maintain mobility, helped force the Russians into static positions for long periods by fouling up their logistics, opened up the Russians to high losses from attrition, and, in the Battle of Kyiv, led to a victory that has completely recast the political endgame of the Russian invasion. ..........

Contesting air supremacy over the area of battle; Denying Russia control of cities, complicating the Russian military’s communications and logistics; Allowing Russian forces to get strung out along roads in difficult-to-support columns; and Attacking those columns from all sides.

........... Denying the Russians air superiority is the foundation of Ukrainian success. Contesting control of the skies allows Ukrainian forces to maneuver while making Russian forces nervous that they could be subject to Ukrainian air assault. ......... the Ukrainian plan has made it difficult for Russian airpower to patrol over areas of battle. Ukrainian forces prevented Russia from winning control of Ukraine’s airspace by combining a range of systems, including a small number of highly effective MiG fixed-wing aircraft, advanced antiair systems, and a plethora of handheld antiair weapons, such as Stinger missiles. Russian aircraft can and do bomb Ukrainian positions, but these missions seem very much to be of the in-and-out variety, and don’t involve the continual exercise of airpower. ......... As the Ukrainians have thus maintained mobility for their forces, they have turned their cities into fortresses and roadblocks, complicating Russian logistics and communications. ...... the Ukrainian victory in the Battle of Kyiv, the country’s ministry of defense noted that the capital was “largely saved by the heroic fighters in Chernihiv and Sumy Regions.” These two cities sit astride the main road systems running from the northeast into Kyiv, and both cities withstood Russian attempts to take them early in the campaign. By holding these cities, and almost all others close to the borders of Russia and Belarus, the Ukrainians have not only forced Russian troops to contemplate street-by-street fighting but also made it impossible for Russia to move troops by rail into the Ukrainian heartland. Russia can still move troops by road, but having to avoid Ukrainian-controlled cities forces its troops to take longer and trickier routes. The cities that Russian forces bypassed on their way to Kyiv can also be used to launch attacks behind Russian lines. ................ The Russians made their situation worse by invading during the muddy season, confining them to narrow paved roadways and further limiting their ability to move. With their enemies in such a vulnerable position, the Ukrainians then launched attacks on the long Russian columns. The attacks took a number of different forms, including airpower (most famously the Turkish-made Bayraktar drones), special forces, long-range artillery, and even large conventional formations. The Ukrainians stretched Russian personnel so thinly that they sometimes failed to defend the columns themselves. .........

The casualties caused by Ukraine’s harassing attacks hampered Russian attempts to build up enough forces to assault Kyiv.

.......... Using handheld weapons operated by small groups, the Ukrainians have regularly disabled Russian tanks and trucks. ....... (The number of Russian vehicles that have been abandoned intact but without fuel is particularly striking.) ......... In using light forces this way, the Ukrainians have shown that even in a conventional war between states—as opposed to an insurgency—a smaller force can engage the conventional forces of a larger and more technologically advanced enemy and fight them to a standstill. The Ukrainians have also reminded everyone that the American military, with its lavish logistical support and ability to dominate the air war and the electronic battlefield, is unusual. The Russian military is not some smaller, less-efficient version of the U.S. military. It is a significantly less advanced and less capable force that struggles to undertake many of the operations that the U.S. handles with relative ease. The Ukrainians did not make the mistake of overestimating the Russians, and were able to deal a huge blow to Russian power. .......... Ukraine, however, has not yet won the war. With their defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, the Russians have started to concentrate in the east and south of Ukraine, hoping to set up a defensive perimeter that the Ukrainians will have to attack if they hope to regain lost territory. The Ukrainian way of war will have to adapt. The Ukrainians, having witnessed the Russian failures in heavy assault, may decide to avoid making the same mistakes and instead continue their light, attritional warfare. This will probably not result in a swift end to the war, but it offers the possibility of draining Russian military and political will, allowing Ukraine to achieve many of its aims in negotiations.

The Ukrainian way of war could yet achieve what once seemed all but impossible: victory.

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