Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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      Senators Work Into Weekend on Ukraine and Israel Bill as G.O.P. Slows Progress

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      The $95 billion package appeared on track for eventual passage, but Republicans who killed a bipartisan version were still trying to make changes.The long-stalled emergency national security package to send aid to Ukraine and Israel is back on track in the Senate and headed toward passage within days — but not before Republican senators try to take a few partisan shots at the legislation.The senators are slowing progress on the $95 billion measure as they seek votes on proposed revisions, particularly concerning border security — despite having voted this week to kill a version of the bill that included a bipartisan deal to crack down on immigration.The demands amount to an exercise in political face-saving. Republicans said for months that they would never approve funds to help Ukraine fight off a Russian invasion without simultaneously taking significant steps to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. But their decision to kill a proposal to do just that means the aid will move forward without immigration restrictions.Now, they are settling for staging a series of votes that aim to show the right-wing Republican base, the G.O.P.-led House and former President Donald J. Trump that they tried to muscle through tough new border policies — and blame Democrats for blocking them.Senators planned a rare weekend session to work through the bill, with a critical vote on the legislation expected Sunday.“Democrats are willing to consider reasonable and fair amendments here on the floor,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on Friday.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 Has a New Military Commander but the Problems Haven’t Changed

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      As Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky assumes his role, he must reckon with a grim calculus: When does the cost of defending ground outweigh any benefit gained by inflicting pain on the enemy?Russian forces are razing the already battered city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine to the ground and sending waves of assault units to overwhelm outgunned Ukrainian troops. After months of brutal fighting, the Russian military is threatening to cut off a vital supply line to the city, which could render further defense impossible.As Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky assumes his role as Ukraine’s top military commander — after a broad shake-up of army leadership on Thursday — he could soon be confronted again with the grim calculus that has been a feature of the two-year war: When does the cost of defending ground outweigh any benefit gained by inflicting pain on the enemy?It is a bloody equation that General Syrsky has had to try to work out many times as the commander of ground forces in eastern Ukraine, and it is one that critics — including American military officials — contend he has not always gotten right, particularly in the battle for Bakhmut.Assessing that strategy will be only part of the “renewal” that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was necessary when he dismissed his commanding general, Valery Zaluzhny, on Thursday and named General Syrsky to replace him. Mr. Zelensky also named five generals and two colonels he intends to promote as part of the sweeping overhaul.Ukraine’s military challenges go well beyond any single battle. American assistance, urgently needed, remains in doubt. Ukrainian troops are exhausted, and they lack weapons and ammunition. Air defense systems, crucial to protecting civilians from Russian missiles, are being steadily exhausted by repeated bombardments.Ukrainian soldiers from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade in Vuhledar, eastern Ukraine, last month.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesWe 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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      Putin Calls on U.S. to ‘Negotiate’ on Ukraine in Tucker Carlson Interview

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      In a two-hour interview, President Vladimir Putin of Russia was more direct than usual about how he sees his Ukraine invasion ending: not with a military victory, but a deal with the West.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has worked for decades to win allies in the West, using his spy agencies to interfere in elections and deploying diplomats to build links with Kremlin-friendly politicians.On Thursday, the world witnessed a new, verbose chapter in those efforts: Mr. Putin’s two-hour interview, taped in a gilded hall at the Kremlin, with one of America’s most prominent and most divisive conservative commentators.Speaking to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Mr. Putin called on the United States to “make an agreement” to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in order to end the war. He sought to appeal directly to American conservatives just as Republican lawmakers are holding up aid to Ukraine on Capitol Hill, echoing the talking points of politicians like former President Donald J. Trump who say that the United States has more pressing priorities than a war thousands of miles away.“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Mr. Putin said in response to Mr. Carlson’s question about the possibility of American soldiers fighting in Ukraine. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt.”He went on: “Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia?”Much of the interview constituted a familiar Kremlin history lesson about Russia’s historical claim to Eastern European lands, beginning in the ninth century, that Mr. Putin made little effort to distill for American ears. He opined on artificial intelligence, Genghis Khan and the Roman Empire. He also laid out his well-worn and spurious justifications for invading Ukraine, asserting that Russia’s goal was to “stop this war” that he claims the West is waging against Russia.But Mr. Putin was more direct than usual about how he sees his Ukraine invasion ending: not with a military victory, but through an agreement with the West. At the interview’s end, Mr. Putin told Mr. Carlson that the time had come for talks about ending the war because “those who are in power in the West have come to realize” that Russia will not be defeated on the battlefield.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 Creative Use of Weapons Carries Promise and Risk

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      A Russian plane shot down with a Patriot missile was probably carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, U.S. officials say.U.S. officials say Ukraine should continue to develop innovative ways to strike at Russian forces as the war approaches its third year. But Ukraine’s use of a Patriot missile to take down a plane last month is an example of how novel battlefield tactics can be fraught with peril as well as promise.Unbeknown to Ukraine’s military, the Russian aircraft it targeted may have been carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to U.S. officials.The Patriot is a defensive system, usually used to protect a location and not to shoot down planes. A European partner provided the Patriot interceptor that hit the Russian Ilyushin-76 cargo plane on Jan. 24, according to American officials briefed on the incident.Russian officials immediately claimed the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were to be exchanged for Russian service members.Publicly, American officials will not comment on what brought down the plane, though officials who spoke privately on the condition of anonymity said the reports of a Patriot missile being used were accurate.The question of who was on the plane is less clear. American officials have not confirmed the identities of the passengers, but they said it appeared probable that at least some of them were Ukrainian prisoners. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia may have overstated the number of deaths.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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      For First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China

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      The United States bought more goods from Mexico than China in 2023 for the first time in 20 years, evidence of how much global trade patterns have shifted.In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container to China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity.In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found a client in Hisun, a Chinese producer of all-terrain vehicles, which hired Mr. Villarreal to establish a $152 million manufacturing site in Saltillo, an industrial hub in northern Mexico.Mr. Villarreal said foreign companies, particularly those seeking to sell within North America, saw Mexico as a viable alternative to China for several reasons, including the simmering trade tensions between the United States and China.“The stars are aligning for Mexico,” he said.New data released on Wednesday showed that Mexico outpaced China to become America’s top source of official imports for the first time in 20 years — a significant shift that highlights how increased tensions between Washington and Beijing are altering trade flows.The United States’ trade deficit with China narrowed significantly last year, with goods imports from the country dropping 20 percent to $427.2 billion, the data shows. American consumers and businesses turned to Mexico, Europe, South Korea, India, Canada and Vietnam for auto parts, shoes, toys and raw materials.Imports from China fell last yearU.S. imports of goods by origin

      Source: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic AnalysisBy The New York TimesWe 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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      Germany Braces for Decades of Confrontation With Russia

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      Leaders are sounding alarms about growing threats, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz is wary of pushing the Kremlin, and his own ambivalent public, too far.Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia — and that they must speedily rebuild the country’s military in case Vladimir V. Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine.Russia’s military, he has said in a series of recent interviews with German news media, is fully occupied with Ukraine. But if there is a truce, and Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, has a few years to reset, he thinks the Russian leader will consider testing NATO’s unity.“Nobody knows how or whether this will last,” Mr. Pistorius said of the current war, arguing for a rapid buildup in the size of the German military and a restocking of its arsenal.Mr. Pistorius’s public warnings reflect a significant shift at the top levels of leadership in a country that has shunned a strong military since the end of the Cold War. The alarm is growing louder, but the German public remains unconvinced that the security of Germany and Europe has been fundamentally threatened by a newly aggressive Russia.The defense minister’s post in Germany is often a political dead end. But Mr. Pistorius’s status as one of the country’s most popular politicians has given him a freedom to speak that others — including his boss, Chancellor Olaf Scholz — do not enjoy.As Mr. Scholz prepares to meet President Biden at the White House on Friday, many in the German government say that there is no going back to business as usual with Mr. Putin’s Russia, that they anticipate little progress this year in Ukraine and that they fear the consequences should Mr. Putin prevail there.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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      HBO Drops Milos Bikovic, ‘White Lotus’ Actor Criticized by Ukraine

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      The casting of Milos Bikovic, a Serbian actor, had been denounced by Ukraine’s foreign ministry, who pointed to his ties to Russia.HBO has parted ways with Milos Bikovic, a Serbian actor whose casting in the third season of “The White Lotus” had drawn criticism from Ukraine’s foreign ministry for his ties to Russia, according to an HBO spokeswoman.Bikovic’s role in the dark comedy will be recast, the spokeswoman said.In a statement provided through a spokesman on Friday, Bikovic said that he was leaving because of external pressure.“Today, a targeted campaign has been unleashed against me, seemingly as an external maneuver to influence decisions that can create a disturbing precedent shadowing the essence of artistic freedom,” Bikovic said in the statement. “The result of such a narrative is the triumph of absurdity and the defeat of art.”HBO announced on Jan. 12 that Bikovic, 36, would be joining the “White Lotus” cast. Ukraine’s foreign ministry criticized the decision on social media weeks later, writing on X, “HBO, is it all right for you to work with a person who supports genocide & violates international law?”On Instagram in 2022, in a post shared the day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Bikovic said that he wished the war had not happened. “War and bloodshed on any side reminds us of how far humanity is from global unity and love,” he wrote in Russian and Serbian. “God save the lives of all those who are now in danger!”Bikovic has been celebrated by Russia’s leadership. He was awarded the Pushkin Medal, which honors contributions to Russian arts and culture, by President Vladimir V. Putin in 2018. The following year Ukraine barred Bikovic from entering the country for what it called national security reasons, prompting him to tell a Serbian publication that “the situation is absurd.” He received Russian citizenship by presidential decree in 2021.Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Before he was cast in “The White Lotus,” Bikovic acted in movies including “South Wind,” which follows a gang member in Belgrade; “Sunstroke,” about military officers remembering the collapse of the Russian Empire; “Ice,” in which he plays a figure skater; and “The Balkan Line,” about a military operation during the Kosovo war.In his statement, he referred to his childhood growing up in a war-torn country and expressed his opposition to all armed conflict.“There are more and more active conflicts in the entire world,” he said. “Each one is different. Each one is heartbreaking. I wish all of them to stop and principles of love to prevail.”Season 3 of “The White Lotus” is set to begin production in Thailand this month and is scheduled to air in 2025. The ensemble will include Walton Goggins, Carrie Coon, Parker Posey and the returning cast member Natasha Rothwell. More

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      Ukraine’s Latest Challenge: Festering Tension Among Top Leaders

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      Rampant speculation that President Volodymyr Zelensky will fire his top military commander has consumed Ukraine’s capital at a precarious moment in the war.As Ukraine fights against a fierce Russian offensive and its leaders wait to see whether the West will approve more than $100 million in much-needed assistance, the government in Kyiv is dealing with a festering distraction: tumult in its top ranks centered on the fate of the top military commander.Speculation raged on Monday in political and military circles, the news media and online that President Volodymyr Zelensky had fired the commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, with rumors becoming so widespread that the president’s office was forced to issue a public denial.“There was no dismissal,” the president’s spokesman, Serhiy Nikiforov, told the Ukrainian media.“I cannot say anything else,” he said. When asked whether the president intended to dismiss the general, Mr. Nikiforov replied: “I repeat to you once again — there is no subject of conversation.”The curt response only fueled further speculation, and on Tuesday the capital was still consumed with whether the general would be staying or going.A former senior Ukrainian official said Mr. Zelensky’s government had been planning on dismissing the general, but backed off Monday evening when the news was leaked. Now they were slowing down the process, the official said. A Ukrainian member of Parliament who had been briefed on the plans gave a similar account, saying the two men met Monday night but no decision was made. One of the sticking points for the government was that there was no immediate replacement to take General Zaluzhny’s place, the person said.Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal military matters.The general’s job has been in doubt since it became clear in the autumn that Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the country’s south had failed.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?  More