the war has moved to a new stage
........ In addition to antiaircraft systems like the Stinger, Ukraine is requesting mobile air defense systems that can hit planes flying at higher altitudes, like the bombers that struck a training ground near the Polish border on Sunday. ......... Mr. Zelensky asked for the S-300, a Russian-made air defense system, which the United States could ask other nations to provide. ......... The Ukrainians have been able to destroy so many Russian tanks and armored vehicles in large measure because they have good conceptual plans of how to use the antitank missiles and the bravery to employ them up close in battle .........“are fighting against an existential threat and they aren’t giving up. They have the will.”
.As Russian Troop Deaths Climb, Morale Becomes an Issue, Officials Say More than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed in less than three weeks of fighting, according to conservative U.S. estimates. ........ The conservative side of the estimate, at more than 7,000 Russian troop deaths, is greater than the number of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. ........ a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks. ......... the estimated 14,000 to 21,000 injured ....... the Russian military has also lost at least three generals in the fight ........ a high, and rising, number of war dead can destroy the will to continue fighting ... One recent report focused on low morale among Russian troops and described soldiers just parking their vehicles and walking off into the woods. .......... The high rate of casualties goes far to explain why Russia’s much-vaunted force has remained largely stalled outside of Kyiv ........... That aerial bombardment, officials say, has helped camouflage the Russian military’s poor performance on the ground. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this week that an estimated 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war. ........ Putin had put two of his top intelligence officials under house arrest. The officials, who run the Fifth Service of Russia’s main intelligence service, the FSB, were interrogated for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion ........... “They were in charge of providing political intelligence and cultivating networks of support in Ukraine,” Mr. Soldatov said in an interview. “They told Putin what he wanted to hear” about how the invasion would progress. .......
some Russians have access to virtual private networks (VPNs) and are able to get news from the West.
......... around 20 Russian generals were in Ukraine as part of the war effort ......... “Three generals already — that’s a shocking number” ........... a fourth general, Maj. Gen. Oleg Mityaev, the commander of the 150th motorized rifle division, had been killed in fighting. ...... many Russian generals are talking on unsecured phones and radios. In at least one instance, they said, the Ukrainians intercepted a general’s call, geolocated it, and attacked his location, killing him and his staff. ........... the Russian toll, some military specialists and lawmakers say, is unlikely to change Mr. Putin’s strategy. ......... “It is stunning, and the Russians haven’t even gotten to the worst of it, when they hit urban combat in the cities” .Russia Is Destroying Kharkiv Residents describe what has been lost after three weeks of attacks. ......... a vibrant, youthful city of nearly 1.5 million people steeped in academia, art and literature. ......... Unable to take control of the city, Russia has resorted to destroying it. As in Syria and Chechnya, Russia aims to demoralize the city’s inhabitants with overwhelming and indiscriminate firepower. It is following a similar plan in other Ukrainian cities, such as Mariupol and Mykolaiv. ......... Russia has attacked Kharkiv with artillery, rockets, cluster munitions and guided missiles on at least 13 different days, a relentless barrage, lately targeting the city at night.
Most Kharkiv residents are Russian speakers, and many are ethnic Russians.
......... “You would see so many young people on the streets; it gave the city this kind of energetic, vibrant feeling because of the youth,” said Maria Avdeeva, a disinformation and security expert. “Imagine tomorrow, life goes back to normal in Kharkiv. Where will they live? Where will they go to university?” ........ For Ms. Avdeeva and other lifelong residents, the annihilation of the city is incomprehensible. She remains in Kharkiv, documenting its destruction. Last weekend she walked around in search of stores still selling food. ........ “They are maximizing the terror. They are shelling or bombing random objects now,” said Ms. Zubar. “But we would rather die fighting for the city than leave.” .
The Price of Putin’s Belligerence . As his ruthless invasion continues, Vladimir Putin is trying to break Ukraine by demolishing its cities and brutalizing its people. Each day brings fresh horrors. ........ The United States, the European Union and other countries, including Australia and Switzerland, have responded by imposing economic sanctions on Russia with a severity that has few parallels among nations not at war. .......... the United States would join the European Union and other allies in moving to suspend permanent normal trade relations with Russia, which would put it in the company of Cuba and North Korea. ......... McDonald’s first Moscow restaurant, opened in 1990, was a powerful symbol of Russia’s openness to the West. On Tuesday, McDonald’s temporarily closed all of its nearly 850 restaurants in the country. ........ Russia is already facing a devastating economic crisis from the sanctions in place now. ....... the need for America and Europe to loosen the economic ties with Russia that were so carefully built over the past three decades ...... Europe, in particular, is confronting the grim reality that its dependence on Russian gas means that it is funding Mr. Putin’s war. .......... nations regretting their reliance on Putin’s Russia can simultaneously pursue a shift away from dependence on any petrostates by accelerating the development of renewable energy sources ....... Mr. Putin’s savage invasion of Ukraine has shattered the post-Cold War project of interlacing Russia with the democratic nations of Europe. As the West once again finds itself pitted against Russia, it is worth remembering that the Cold War was won by those who took better care of their own people and held out the prospect of a better life to those on the other side of the divide.
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