Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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      France’s Army Is Singing for Ukraine

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      The Choir of the French Army will join the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Paris to show support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.When President Emmanuel Macron of France refused in February to rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, he shattered a taboo and spooked his NATO allies. But five months later, his statement looks more like a provocation than a promise, and the idea of French boots on the ground seems a distant prospect.There are other ways, however, that France’s military can aid the Ukrainian cause.In a Paris church on Friday, 30 members of the Choir of the French Army will lend their voices to a free concert to honor Ukraine’s fighting spirit.“We are here on a mission,” said the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson during a recent rehearsal for the concert, “a mission to support Ukraine, on the artistic and cultural front.”Then she led the singers of the all-male military choir, joined by 30 female members of a Ukrainian vocal ensemble, through a rendition of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the famous “Ode to Joy.” The massed voices soared in the echoing space.At Friday’s concert, Wilson, a Canadian with Ukrainian roots, will conduct the singers alongside the 74-musician Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Saint-Eustache church. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the orchestra — some of whose members still live in the country at war — have been coming together each summer to perform across Europe, with Wilson conducting.The concert in Paris is the first stop on the orchestra’s third tour. The ensemble will perform with local choirs when it plays concerts in London, Poland and the United States, where it will perform in Washington and, on Aug. 1, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine’s President Pleads for More Weapons With Fewer Restrictions

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      “America doesn’t shy away from its friends,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech in Washington as leaders gathered in the city for a NATO summit.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived in Washington on Tuesday with words of gratitude and praise for American support, and pleas for more weapons and fewer restrictions on using them in his country’s war against Russia.Mr. Zelensky credited American missiles — and permission to fire them across the border into Russia — with helping his forces hold off an attack on the city of Kharkiv, stopping a Russian offensive this spring.But he asked for other restrictions to be lifted, so that Ukraine could fire at Russian military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia to destroy aircraft that fire weapons and drop bombs that he said were killing civilians and children.With more American assistance, he said, Ukraine can continue to strike against Russian targets in Crimea and help “push the occupiers” out of the southern part of the country.There were questions of which version of Mr. Zelensky would show up in Washington as leaders of NATO members gathered for a summit. Last year, he flew to the NATO summit in Lithuania after making an angry social media post criticizing alliance members for failing to offer a timeline for Ukraine to join the alliance, prompting complaints from the Biden administration and other allies.There was no sign of anger this year. Mr. Zelensky praised the United States for its early support in the war and pushed back against those who have started to think that “it’s better to delay than act.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. and Allies Target Russian Bots Working to Spread Propaganda

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      Intelligence officials from three countries flagged a Russian influence campaign that used artificial intelligence to create nearly 1,000 fake accounts on the social media platform X.The Justice Department said on Tuesday that it had moved to disrupt a covert Russian influence operation that used artificial intelligence to spread propaganda in the United States, Europe and Israel with the goal of undermining support for Ukraine and stoking internal political divisions.Working with the governments of Canada and the Netherlands, as well as officials at Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, the department said it seized two internet domains in the United States and took down 968 inauthentic accounts that the Russian government created after its attack on Ukraine began in 2022.In affidavits released with the announcement, officials with the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and the Pentagon’s Cyber National Mission Force linked the effort to Russia’s Federal Security Service and RT, the state television network that has channels in English and several other languages.The disclosure of such a large, global network of bots confirmed widespread warnings that the popularization of rapidly developing A.I. tools would make it easier to produce and spread dubious content. With A.I., information campaigns can be created in a matter of minutes — the kind of work that in the months before the 2016 presidential election, for example, required an army of office workers.The Russian network used an A.I.-enhanced software package to create scores of fictitious user profiles on X. It did so by registering the users with email accounts on two internet domains, mlrtr.com and otanmail.com. (OTAN, perhaps coincidentally, is the French acronym for the NATO alliance). The software could then generate posts for the accounts — and even repost, like and comment on the posts of other bots in the network.Both domains were based in the United States but controlled by Russian administrators, who used the accounts to promote propaganda produced by the RT television network. In a statement, the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, called it “a generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      More Ukrainians May Die in Attacks on Medical Sites in 2024, W.H.O. Data Suggest

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      A Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday highlighted the growing number of deadly attacks on medical facilities, vehicles and workers.A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital on Monday highlighted the growing number of deadly attacks on medical facilities, vehicles and workers in the country this year. It adds to data from the World Health Organization and suggests that more Ukrainians may be on track to be killed in such attacks this year than last year.Before the strike on the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, the W.H.O. documented 18 deaths and 81 injuries from more than 175 attacks on health care infrastructure in Ukraine for the first half of 2024. The organization also recorded 44 attacks on medical vehicles in that period.In all of 2023, the organization tallied 22 deaths and 117 injuries from 350 such attacks, and 45 more specifically on medical vehicles like ambulances. Other organizations put the death toll even higher.In the attack on Monday, at least one doctor and another adult were killed at the hospital, and at least 10 other people, including seven children, were injured during a Russian barrage across the country. In all, the bombardment killed at least 38 people, including 27 in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, local officials said. Attacks on civilian hospitals are prohibited under Article 18 of the Geneva Convention, which was ratified by United Nations member states after World War II. And Article 20 of the convention says that health care workers must be protected by all warring parties.Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian health care infrastructure, experts say, in a campaign that some say amounts to war crimes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fact-Checking Biden’s ABC Interview

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      The president defended his debate performance with exaggerations about polling, his recent appearances and his opponent.President Biden rejected concerns about his fumbling performance in the first presidential debate last month in a prime-time interview on Friday.In the interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Mr. Biden downplayed and misstated polls showing him falling farther behind former President Donald J. Trump since the debate, exaggerated Mr. Trump’s proposals and made hyperbolic statements about his own record and recent events.Here’s a fact check.what Was SAID“After that debate, I did 10 major events in a row, including until 2 o’clock in the morning after the debate. I did events in North Carolina. I did events in — in — in Georgia, did events like this today, large crowds, overwhelming response, no — no — no slipping.”This is exaggerated. Since the debate on June 27, Mr. Biden has traveled up and down the East Coast and participated in more than a dozen events, according to his public calendar. Whether or not the events can be considered “major” and crowds “large” are matters of opinion, but Mr. Biden did misspeak at several.Before the interview on Friday, Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump at a rally in Wisconsin that he would “beat him again in 2020.”At a Fourth of July barbecue with military members and their families, Mr. Biden referred to Mr. Trump as “one of our former colleagues” before correcting himself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Says It Foiled Russian Plot Echoing String of Coup Bids

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      While the viability of the plan was not immediately clear, officials said it was a reminder that the Kremlin remained determined to bring down President Volodymyr Zelensky.Ukraine’s security service said on Monday that it had foiled yet another Russian plot to stir public unrest and then use the ensuing turmoil to topple the government, outlining a familiar tactic that Kyiv claims has been employed in string of coup attempts in recent years.The Ukrainian domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U., said that it had discovered a “group” of conspirators it accused of planning to spark a riot, seize the Parliament building and replace the nation’s military and civilian leadership. Four people have been arrested and charged, according to the authorities.While offering little detail on how such an ambitious plan could have succeeded, officials said it was a reminder that more than two years after launching a full-scale invasion of the country, the Kremlin remained determined to bring down President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government by any means.On the battlefield, Russia continues to send tens of thousands of new soldiers to the front to replace those killed in the hopes of exhausting Ukraine’s military and Kyiv’s Western backers. At the same time, Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure is designed, in part, to throttle the economy and undermine the state’s ability to function.The Kremlin has also long been directing more covert campaigns aimed at destabilizing the government in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian and Western officials, in some cases attempting to stir discontent with disinformation.The plot outlined by Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency and prosecutors on Monday fit squarely in that pattern.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Maintains Punishing Pace of Deadly Strikes on Ukrainian Cities

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      A barrage on Vilniansk, a town in the south, killed seven, including three children, as attacks across Ukraine in the past few days have left dozens dead, according to local authorities.A Russian missile attack on a small town in southeastern Ukraine and the fiery inferno that followed killed at least seven civilians, including three children, the country’s authorities said as they surveyed on Sunday the deadly toll of two days of fierce Russian assaults.Yuriy Borzenko, chief doctor of Zaporizhzhia Regional Children’s Hospital, said in a phone interview that, aside from those killed, dozens of others, including a pregnant woman and five 14-year-old girls, were being treated for wounds after the attack on the southeastern town, Vilniansk, which took place on Saturday.The girls were out for a walk together in the afternoon sunshine, Dr. Borzenko said, when explosions from the projectiles tore through the center of the town, engulfing shops, cars and homes in flames. Shrapnel had embedded in the skull of one of the girls, who was left in a coma, he said, “still in between life and death.”“Her parents are in really bad shape, I just saw them,” he added.As the attacks have rained down, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has reiterated his plea to loosen restrictions on the use of long-range American missiles known as ATACMS so that Ukraine can target warplanes at Russian air bases before they take to the sky on bombing runs.“Long-range strikes and modern air defense are the foundation for stopping the daily Russian terror,” he said on Sunday in a statement accompanying videos said to show the aftermath of a number of the week’s worst attacks.The strike in Vilniansk was one of a series of attacks across Ukraine, which have killed at least 24 civilians since Friday evening, according to local officials and emergency workers, who said that scores more had been wounded.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russian Casualties in Ukraine Mount, in a Brutal Style of Fighting

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      More than 1,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine were killed or wounded on average each day in May, according to NATO and Western military officials.May was a particularly deadly month for the Russian army in Ukraine, with an average of more than 1,000 of its soldiers injured or killed each day, according to U.S., British and other Western intelligence agencies.But despite its losses, Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month — roughly as many as are exiting the battlefield, U.S. officials said. That has allowed its army to keep sending wave after wave of troops at Ukrainian defenses, hoping to overwhelm them and break through the trench lines.It is a style of warfare that Russian soldiers have likened to being put into a meat grinder, with commanding officers seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are sending infantry soldiers to die.At times, this approach has proved effective, bringing the Russian army victories in Avdiivka and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. But Ukrainian and Western officials say the tactics were less successful this spring, as Russia tried to take land near the city of Kharkiv.American officials said that Russia achieved a critical objective of President Vladimir V. Putin, creating a buffer zone along the border to make it more difficult for the Ukrainians to strike into the country.But the drive did not threaten Kharkiv and was ultimately stopped by Ukrainian defenses, according to Western officials.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More