Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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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

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      President Biden and Donald Trump, Some Tough Questions for Each of You

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      The stakes in this year’s presidential election are the greatest in my lifetime. So as a way to frame the choice before voters, I offer these foreign policy questions for President Biden and Donald Trump in the debate on Thursday:President Biden, for months you called on Israel to refrain from invading Rafah and to allow more food into Gaza. Yet Israel did invade Rafah, and half a million Gazans are reported starving. Haven’t you been ignored? And isn’t that because of your tendency to overestimate how much you can charm people — Senate Republicans, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu — to cooperate with you? When will you move beyond charm and use serious leverage to try to achieve peace in the Middle East?Mr. Trump, the Abraham Accords you achieved among Israel and several Arab countries were a legitimate foreign policy success, but you largely bypassed Palestinians. Perhaps as a result, those accords may have been a reason Hamas undertook its terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, to prevent Saudi Arabia from joining and recognizing Israel. So did the Abraham Accords bring peace or sow the seeds of war? Isn’t it a mistake to ignore Palestinians and to give Israel what it wants, such as moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, without getting anything in return?President Biden, you have been pushing a plan for Gaza that involves a cease-fire and a three-way deal with Saudi Arabia, America and Israel ending in a path to Palestinian statehood. Maybe it’ll come together, but if not, what’s your Plan B? If this war drags on, or expands to include Lebanon and perhaps Iran, how do you propose to deal with the Middle East more effectively than you’ve dealt with it so far?Mr. Trump, you’ve suggested that Israel is taking too long to finish the war in Gaza. So what precisely are you advocating? Are you saying that Israel should use more 2,000-pound bombs to level even more of Gaza and kill many more civilians? Or are you saying that Israel should cut a deal that leaves Hamas in place and then pull out?President Biden, Iran has enriched uranium to close to bomb-grade levels. In days or weeks, it could probably produce enough fuel for three nuclear weapons (though mastering a delivery system would take longer). Can we live with an Iran that is a quasi-nuclear power? What is the alternative?Mr. Trump, the reason Iran is so close to having nuclear weapons is that you pulled out of the international nuclear deal in 2018, leading Iran to greatly accelerate its nuclear program. Since you created this dangerous situation, how do you suggest we get out of it? If you are president again, do you contemplate solving this problem through a war with Iran — one that might now involve nuclear weapons? Or will you accept a nuclear Iran as the consequence of your historic mistake?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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      NATO, at Washington Summit, Will Offer Ukraine a ‘Bridge’ to Membership

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      Officials say Kyiv won’t get membership negotiations at the coming NATO summit, but the alliance will announce a structure to coordinate aid over the longer term.NATO will offer Ukraine a new headquarters to manage its military assistance at its upcoming 75th anniversary summit in Washington, officials said, an assurance of the alliance’s long-term commitment to the country’s security that has been heralded as a “bridge” to Kyiv’s eventual membership.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — along with some Central European nations — had fervently hoped his country would be offered membership negotiations by NATO at the summit, which runs from July 9 to 11.Instead, the alliance will announce that it has agreed to set up a mission in Germany to coordinate aid of all kinds to Ukraine over the longer term, American and NATO officials said. The move is intended to send a strong signal of allied commitment, both to Kyiv and to Moscow, which hopes the West will grow tired of supporting the war.Because the mission will be under NATO’s auspices, it is designed to function even if Donald J. Trump, a sharp critic of the alliance and of aid to Ukraine, wins the U.S. presidency in November.The Biden administration and NATO officials came up with the idea as a way to give something solid to Kyiv at the summit even as they maintain the time is not right for Ukraine to join. It is not just that the country is still at war, which could make NATO an active participant in the fighting. President Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany have said that Ukraine must make important reforms to reduce corruption and improve its democracy and rule of law.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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      Zelensky Removes Gen. Yurii Sodol Amid Criticism of Excessive Casualties

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      The announcement by Ukraine’s president on Monday came hours after a scathing social media post implicitly accused the general of “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.”President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine removed one of his top generals from his post on Monday amid public criticism that the commander’s decisions had led to excessive casualties.The dismissal of the general, Yurii Sodol, as commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces, was a clear indication that the discord that had rankled the army since Mr. Zelensky replaced his commanding general, Valery Zaluzhny, with Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky in February, continued to threaten military cohesion.Mr. Zelensky announced that he was replacing General Sodol with Brig. Gen. Andrii Hnatov.General Sodol was appointed by General Syrsky as part of a broader shake-up in February, and Mr. Zelensky did not say why he had dismissed the commander or what position he would now hold.But the president’s announcement came after Bohdan Krotevych, chief of staff of the Azov brigade — a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard — wrote a letter to the State Bureau of Investigation calling for an investigation into the general’s conduct.Then, just hours before the general’s dismissal. Mr. Krotevych posted an unusually blunt and scathing open letter on social media, implicitly accusing the general of, through his poor leadership, “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.”While Mr. Krotevych did not name General Sodol directly in the public letter, he suggested that all of Ukraine’s forces knew to whom he was referring. “Everyone in the military understands because 99 percent of the military hate him for what he does,” he wrote.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 Urges West to Allow Use of Weapons to Hit Russian Air Bases

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      After bombs again rained on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Western partners to permit the use of their weapons against air bases inside Russia.As bombs dropped by Russian warplanes tore through residential districts in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv this weekend, killing at least four people and injuring dozens more, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday called on allies to further ease restrictions on the use of Western weapons so that his forces could use them against Russian air bases.The Biden administration’s recent decision to allow Ukraine to use certain weapons to hit forces inside Russia has had an immediate impact, helping Ukraine thwart Moscow’s offensive north of Kharkiv and slowing the bombardment of the city, Ukraine’s second-largest, which is only about 25 miles from the border.But the lifting of U.S. restrictions does not apply to the use of Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, some of which have a range of around 190 miles. Those longer-range weapons would be needed to hit air bases deep in Russian territory that are used by the bombers. Kyiv has been left to rely largely on its own expanding fleet of domestically produced drones to go after those bases.Ukraine’s air defenses are gradually being strengthened after months of delays in American military assistance, but Russia continues to mount daily bombardments and Mr. Zelensky is desperate to find ways to thwart the attacks before they begin.“We have enough determination to destroy terrorists on their territory — it is only fair — and we need the same determination from our partners,” he said in a post on social media on Sunday.“Just this day alone, our warriors shot down two Russian Kalibr missiles,” he wrote. “Yesterday — 12 Russian missiles and 13 attack drones. And so on — every night and every day.”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