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      Wagner rebellion reveals ‘cracks’ in Putin government, says Blinken

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      A day after renegade Wagner mercenaries almost sparked a civil war in Russia, the top US diplomat has said the uprising showed “real cracks” in Vladimir Putin’s government and may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war.Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the upheaval triggered by the aborted advance on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries on Saturday was far from over. Neither Prigozhin nor Putin have been heard from since coming to a last-minute agreement on Saturday to avert clashes near Moscow between mercenaries and regular Russian troops.“This is an unfolding story and I think we’re in the midst of a moving picture,” Blinken told the CBS News programme Face the Nation. “We haven’t seen the last act.”The rebellion, fuelled by anger at the Kremlin’s leadership of the invasion and occupation of Ukraine, represented the most direct threat to Putin’s grip on power since he first became president 23 years ago.With no word from Putin or Prigozhin throughout the day, it was unclear whether Russia’s immediate crisis had passed, let alone what implications it had for the vast country’s longer-term stability. Wagner troops abandoned the positions they had held in the city of Rostov-on-Don and near Moscow, while Russian officials claimed to have dropped criminal charges against Prigozhin and reopened Wagner recruiting centres.Russian military insiders eagerly discussed rumours of an impending shake-up at the ministry of defence, one of the main demands issued by Prigozhin during his uprising.However, the Kremlin appeared keen to slow down developments, saying that Putin had no more plans to address the country and that the invasion of Ukraine would continue as planned.Other top Russian officials and propagandists also remained quiet, leaving an information vacuum that has been filled with rumours about the deal hammered out with Prigozhin, and whether the Kremlin will seek revenge once the immediate threat to Putin’s power recedes.Blinken described the weekend’s events as “a direct challenge to Putin’s authority”.“So this raises profound questions,” he said. “It shows real cracks. We can’t speculate or know exactly where that’s going to go. We do know that Putin has a lot more to answer for in the weeks and months ahead.”He said there was no sign so far of senior Kremlin figures being dismissed as part of any deal between Prigozhin and Moscow. Prigozhin had demanded the removal of the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.Russian military bloggers focused attention on Aleksey Dyumin, the Tula region governor and former Putin bodyguard who is said to have a close relationship with Prigozhin and to have taken part in Saturday’s negotiations. He said he had not participated in the discussions.In the wake of the uprising, an uneasy calm descended across Russia, with regional authorities cancelling emergency measures, fixing roads that had been barricaded against the Wagner convoy, and reopening public spaces such as museums and parks.According to the New York Times, US intelligence agencies briefed senior Biden officials on Wednesday that Prigozhin was preparing to take military action against the defence leadership in Moscow.Nothing was made public about the intelligence at the time, the officials said, for fear of Putin accusing Washington of orchestrating a coup, and there was no incentive for the US to help Putin avoid a big dent in his authority.Under the few reported terms of the agreement, Wagner troops turned around on the road to Moscow and returned to their camps in eastern Ukraine. Prigozhin is to move to Belarus with immunity from reprisals, but it is not clear who, if anyone, is allowed to accompany him. Wagner fighters who took part in the uprising are to be pardoned, and those who took no part are to be absorbed by the regular army.With Wagner forces returning to Ukraine, where they have spearheaded some key offensives, it was also far from certain what impact the rebellion would have on the conflict in the midst of a slow-moving and gruelling Ukrainian counteroffensive.Blinken said: “To the extent that it presents a real distraction for Putin, and for Russian authorities, that they have to mind their rear … I think that creates even greater openings for the Ukrainians to do well on the ground.”The secretary of state said US officials had been in touch with their Russian counterparts throughout the crisis to remind them of their legal obligations to protect US citizens on their territory.“A number of people have engaged to make sure that the Russians got that message,” he said.As for concerns that any of Russia’s substantial nuclear arsenal could become the focus of internal power struggles, Blinken said: “We haven’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture. There hasn’t been any change in ours, but it’s something we’re going to watch very, very carefully.”As of Sunday evening, the whereabouts of Prigozhin, a media addict who issues a steady stream of commentary in voice messages on his Telegram page, were unknown. The Wagner leader had gone silent for almost 24 hours. His last post came at 6.30pm on Saturday, when he said that his troops were standing down after holding a “march of justice” and having “not spilt one drop of blood”. Reports in Russia said Wagner fighters had shot down seven helicopters, resulting in the deaths of 20 Russian soldiers.“Now is the moment when blood can be shed,” he said. “Therefore, realising the full responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed … we will turn our columns and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”Prigozhin was then photographed leaving Rostov-on-Don alongside his men, and given the kind of rapturous reception that would resemble the departure of a rockstar after headlining a concert. Local men grasped his hand through the window of an SUV and posed for selfies. They berated the police who took up the positions previously held by Wagner, chanting “disgrace” and clapping their hands.Then, Prigozhin went silent, apparently on his way to a Belarusian exile that observers said seemed unlikely for the ambitious Kremlin hanger-on.Putin was also silent on Sunday, a day after he appeared on Russian television and said Prigozhin’s uprising would be put down “brutally”, calling it an “internal treason”.The Russian president did not directly comment on the deal that Lukashenko said he had negotiated with Prigozhin. Lukashenko’s press office said the Belarusian president spoke with Putin on Sunday morning, but did not confirm that they had discussed the uprising.Late on Saturday evening, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said Prigozhin would be allowed safe passage to Belarus, as confirmed by the Russian president.“If you ask what the exact guarantee of the fact that Prigozhin will be able to leave for Belarus is, it is the Russian president’s word,” Peskov told journalists.Additional reporting by Adam Gabbatt More

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      Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and Putin | Rebecca Solnit

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      Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and PutinRebecca SolnitLike all abusive men, dictators seek to control who can speak and which narratives are believed. The only difference is scaleAs the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolded, I was reminded over and over again of the behaviour of abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends. At first he thinks that he can simply bully her into returning. When it turns out she has no desire to return, he shifts to vengeance.Putin insisted that Ukraine was rightfully part of Russia and didn’t have a separate existence. He expected his army to grab and subjugate with ease, even be welcomed. Now his regime seems bent on punitive destruction – of energy infrastructure, dwellings, historic sites, whole cities – and rape, torture and mass murder. This too is typical of abusers: domestic-violence homicides are often punishment for daring to leave.Everything I needed to know about authoritarianism I learned from feminism, or rather from feminism’s sharp eye when it comes to coercive control and male abusers. Sociologist and gender violence expert Evan Stark, in his book Coercive Control, defined the title term as one that subsumes domestic violence in a larger pattern of isolation, intimidation and control. (The book has been so influential that in the UK, coercive control is now recognised as a crime.) The violence matters, Stark writes, “but the primary harm abusive men inflict is political, not physical, and reflects the deprivation of rights and resources that are critical to personhood and citizenship”. This connects it directly to what dictators and totalitarian regimes do to the people under their rule – it’s only a matter of scale. And the agenda at all scales is to control not just practical matters, but fact, truth, history; who can speak and what can be said.The antithesis of this is, of course, democracy, which is likewise a principle that works at all scales. A marriage can be called democratic if both parties exercise power equally and are unconstrained and unintimidated by the other. Equally, a marriage can be a little tyranny in which one gains and the other surrenders rights and powers through the union, which was until recently how marriage was defined legally and socially. Likewise we call democratic those nations in which national decisions are (however imperfectly) made by representatives elected by, and accountable to, the public.At the very root of tyranny, no matter whether it’s personal or public life, lies the belief that the agency and agenda of others is illegitimate, that only the would-be tyrant should control the household or the nation. You can see this in authoritarian politicians’ rejection of the outcome of elections – Donald Trump, or in the Maga candidate Kari Lake’s unsuccessful run for Arizona governor, or the 8 January riot in Brasília to reject Lula’s victory.One term formerly used to describe relationships between an abusive man and a manipulated woman, gaslighting, became an indispensable word in public life when Trump became president. The gaslighting, the bullying, the fury to crush dissent, the assumption that he should be in charge of everything including facts, the rage, the insistence that every other power and voice is illegitimate: these are all hallmarks of dictators in the domestic and the political sphere. He began his presidency in the shade of a recording in which he infamously advocated grabbing women “by the pussy”; he ended it in the shadow of an insurrection that was a refusal to accept the verdict rendered by more than 80 million voters and the rules laid down by the US constitution.What’s striking about gaslighting is that it’s an attempt to push a lie or a distortion by using advantages of power, including credibility and social status, to overwhelm the gaslit person or people – or populace. It’s another kind of violence, not against bodies, but facts and truth. In stories of abusive households, the Trump administration and histories of authoritarianism, the men in charge regarded fact, truth, history and science as rival systems of power to be crushed or overwhelmed. And they are rival systems: a democracy of information means what prevails is what’s demonstrably true and substantiated, whether or not it’s convenient to whoever’s in power.That gaslighting was a staple of the Soviet Union is well known through the work of George Orwell and later historians (when I wrote about Orwell, I found a striking example cited by Adam Hochschild: that when Stalin’s demographers showed that the Soviet population was declining, he had them killed, causing the next round of demographers to offer more pleasing numbers). It’s also true in brutal households, where the first rule is that one must not say that it’s brutal, lest more violence transpire.Another way that studies of domestic abuse inform our political understanding is “Darvo”, an acronym that the domestic violence expert Jennifer Freyd coined in 1997 for how abusers respond in court or when otherwise challenged. It stands for deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. You insist that anyone mentioning what you’ve done is insulting you, is a liar, then insist that your accuser is the abuser and you are the victim, and keep shouting it until you believe it and maybe convince others. Freyd herself, with another psychologist, recently noted “a growing trend in the world of civil litigation: alleged perpetrators of interpersonal violence are filing defamation lawsuits against the individuals who have named them as abusers … For abusers, these lawsuits are an opportunity to enforce Darvo through civil litigation.”Trump is trying to make a comeback. It’s not working | Lloyd GreenRead moreDarvo happens all the time in political life. In the US, the Republicans have a pattern of claiming to defend what they’re attacking and to be the victims of what they’re perpetrating. Or as the New York Times columnist Charles M Blow put it in January, describing the agenda of the new Republican majority in the lower house of Congress: “Understanding that they can’t throw federal investigators off the trail of multiple conservatives – including, and perhaps principally, Donald Trump – they have decided to complicate those investigations by kicking up so much dust that the public has a hard time discerning fact from fiction.” The very mention of those crimes is treated as an insult and an outrage, with those complicit the offended parties, and so they shout down the evidence. Prolonged loud noise is an effective tactic.Blow mentions that the Republicans in the house are creating the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, which will label the pursuit of Republican crimes, notably Trump’s around January 6, as baseless political vendettas. It’s, of course, a cover-up masquerading as a crusade. He continues: “The Republicans are using a fundamentally Trumpian tactic, accusing others of that which one is guilty of. It was Donald Trump, not the Democrats, who attempted to weaponize the federal government against his enemies.” That’s Darvo at its purest.Individuals can be bullied into silence and obedience. So can whole populations. And so can facts and truth. Democracy matters at all scales.
      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionRepublicansVladimir PutinFeminismDomestic violenceUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      ‘Deeply personal’ Zelenskiy-Biden meeting cemented their bond, says top adviser

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      ‘Deeply personal’ Zelenskiy-Biden meeting cemented their bond, says top adviserExclusive: Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s top adviser, describes the significance of this week’s White House visit

      Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates
      Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the White House confirmed that Ukraine and the US are “strategic partners” for the first time in history, the Ukrainian leader’s most senior adviser has said in an interview on his return home.Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainan president’s office, told the Guardian that the trip on Wednesday had cemented Zelenskiy’s bond with the US president, Joe Biden – and with senior US Republicans, despite “dirty” comments made by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson.The summit and press conference between the two leaders this week demonstrated “how deeply in personal attitude President Biden feels everything which is connected to Ukraine”, Yermak said, and that the US was “a real leader of the free world and democracy”.Secret train and a government plane: how Zelenskiy made his high-security trip to the US Read moreYermak’s emphasis on the personal links forged by the surprise visit, the first time Zelenskiy had been outside Ukraine since the start of the war, comes despite a failure to immediately obtain the US Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets and long-range army tactical missile system ATACMS that Ukraine has said it needs to defeat Russia.But it demonstrates a belief in Kyiv that Ukraine must emphasise the moral dimension of its fight against the invading Russian army and its faith in its relationship with the US to unlock more and more of the military aid it badly needs as the war heads towards its first anniversary in February.“It’s [the] first time in history that Ukraine and [the] United States are close as strategic partners. There is a very warm, very friendly relationship, [a] personal relationship between [the] two presidents,” said Yermak, who was by Zelenskiy’s side during the trip.As well as the meeting with Biden, Yermak highlighted meetings Zelenskiy had with US congressional leaders, including those with senior Republicans Mitch McConnell, the senate minority leader, and Kevin McCarthy, the leading candidate to become House speaker next month.The Ukrainian contrasted that with the attitude of Carlson, who said Zelenskiy looked like “a manager of a strip club” who should have been thrown out of Congress for wearing his trademark khaki fatigues when he addressed the country’s lawmakers.Carlson was “saying dirty things”, Yermak said, but “he’s not the voice of the Republican party, he’s not the voice of [the] GOP and I can make that conclusion after we met with representatives of [the] GOP in the Congress”.01:22During the visit, Biden did announce $1.85bn (£1.54bn) in new military assistance to Ukraine, including the delivery of a single Patriot missile defence system, a longstanding request from Kyiv to help it better defend its cities and electricity grid, now prone to repeated blackouts after sustained Russian bombing.Now back in Kyiv, speaking via a video call, Yermak said he believed this would help unlock other military support. “I hope that we will receive everything which we need and this visit will send a very strong signal for all allies that our United States believes in our victory,” the presidential aide said.Kyiv has been calling for a mixture of US and European weapons, such as the German-made Leopard tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, as it tries to find a way to break through Russia’s frontlines in the new year.The leaders of the free world. A historic meeting of the Presidents of 🇺🇦 and the 🇺🇸 – @ZelenskyyUa and @POTUS.A great victory is ahead. 💪 pic.twitter.com/k6IIN5l9rP— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) December 21, 2022
      Yermak declined to say when or where Ukraine might launch its next counterattack, but he predicted 2023 would be a decisive moment in the war. “We will do everything we can to retake our territory. I understand it will be difficult and hard work. Our great, brave nation will continue to fight. I’m sure next year really will be victory year.”Asked if victory included taking back Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, he replied: “Absolutely.” The US administration has not explicitly backed Zelenskiy’s vow to reclaim the peninsula – a mission that most analysts believe would be difficult for Ukraine’s army. The chief of staff said he did not want to speculate on Vladimir Putin’s trip this week to meet Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, in the capital, Minsk. A recent buildup of Russian troops along the border with Ukraine has fuelled fears Putin may be planning to again attack from the north, in another attempt to seize Kyiv, similar to Russia’s doomed advance in February.“We have danger along the whole border,” Yermak said, adding: “I’m not keen to know what’s going on inside Putin’s head.” He said Kyiv had received intelligence from its partners and from its frontline soldiers, and was ready for “any kind of provocation”. On Friday, the US also accused North Korea of supplying “an inital arms delivery” of missiles and rockets to the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which is fighting on behalf of the Kremlin in eastern Donbas. North Korea and Wagner have denied the report.Asked how Zelenskiy was bearing up as the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion loomed, Yermak said: “He’s OK.” He added: “Of course he’s working a lot. For him this is normal. He has worked his whole life. He’s a responsible person and deeply involved in everything: weapons, military strategy, energy and economic issues. He’s the best choice of the Ukrainian people.”A former film producer and lawyer, Yermak joined the presidential administration in 2019 after Zelenskiy’s landslide election victory. Early the following year he became chief of staff. He described his boss as the “best president” in the “current history of Ukraine”.Russia’s unprovoked invasion, he said, had propelled Zelenskiy to a level of extraordinary global acclaim: “Now Ukraine is the leader of the free world and the leader of our region. We have a strong military. We are liberating our territory and we are fighting the so-called second biggest army on the planet.”Yermak concluded: “There are terrible tragedies: we are losing the best people. But we will definitely win.”TopicsUkraineVolodymyr ZelenskiyJoe BidenVladimir PutinRussiaBelarusUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin admits interfering in US elections

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      Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin admits interfering in US electionsRussian businessman and founder of Wagner Group says interference will continue as midterms loom

      Analysis: We shouldn’t take Prigozhin’s admission at face value
      US midterms – live
      The powerful Russian businessman and a close Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted to interfering in US elections on the eve of a midterm vote in which Republicans will seek to take control of Congress and state-wide offices across the country.“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere,” Prigozhin, who has previously been accused of influencing the outcome of elections across continents, said in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord.“Carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can,” Prigozhin, 61, added.Prigozhin was responding to a request to comment on a recent Bloomberg report saying Russia was interfering in Tuesday’s US midterm elections. The vote is crucial for the legislative agenda in the rest of US president Joe Biden’s term – and could pave the way for a White House comeback by Donald Trump.The US social media analysis firm Graphika last week said that suspected Russian operatives have used far-right media platforms to criticise Democratic candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections in a number of US states, including Georgia, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.Prigozhin, with a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies, was indicted in 2018 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.Prigozhin was charged with inciting discord and dividing American public opinion before the 2016 US presidential election, accusations Prigozhin, as well as the Kremlin, has previously denied.Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the White House was not surprised by Prigozhin’s remarks. “It’s well known and well documented in the public domain that entities associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin have sought to influence elections around the world including the United States,” she said.The once-secretive businessman has emerged as one of Russia’s most visible pro-war figures since the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to speculation he is seeking a role in the government.In September, Prigozhin, also known as “Putin’s chef” because his catering business hosted dinners attended by the Russian president, admitted to founding the notorious Wagner Group private military company in 2014. The US and EU have previously imposed sanctions on Prigozhin for his role in Wagner.The series of brazen admissions by the businessman is remarkable given the geopolitical implications of the acknowledgments and the fact that Prigozhin has previously pursued several Russian and western outlets for reporting his links to Wagner.Prigozhin has frequently boasted about Wagner’s role in the war in Ukraine, where the group is believed to have played a central part in the capture of several cities and towns in the east of the country.He has also criticised the country’s senior military leadership and has vouched to create his own “militia training centres” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine.Last week, Wagner opened a “military technology” centre in St Petersburg, which was widely seen as another effort by Prigozhin to promote his military credentials and take a more public role in shaping Russia’s military strategy.TopicsRussiaUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022Vladimir PutinnewsReuse this content More

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      We can’t keep treating talk of negotiations to end the Ukraine war as off limits | Rajan Menon and Daniel R DePetris

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      We can’t keep treating talk of negotiations to end the Ukraine war as off limitsRajan Menon and Daniel R DePetrisBroaching the subject of peace negotiations invites accusations of helping Putin – but that’s misguided The war in Ukraine shows no sign of abating, let alone ending. Unable to make headway on the battlefield, Russia has been bombarding Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure in hopes of freezing Ukrainians into submission as winter looms. The Ukrainians continue to press their offensive against Russian troops, many ill-trained and poorly motivated, to gain as much territory as possible before the cold sets in.The United States continues to provide economic aid and armaments to Kyiv. Another $275m in weapons and ammunition was pledged on 27 October, taking total US financial, military and humanitarian aid to more than $50bn since January. Additional assistance is certain.Could Ukraine’s drone attack on Russian ships herald a new type of warfare?Read moreAs the war drags on, the debate back home on how the US should handle it is likely to get more pointed and accusatory. Indeed, we may have already reached that point. Today, anyone broaching the subject of peace negotiations, let alone proposing ideas for a settlement, invites accusations of furthering Vladimir Putin’s narrative or providing aid and comfort to the enemy. The Congressional Progressive Caucus learned this the hard way recently, when its letter to President Biden proposing diplomacy to end the war was immediately vilified.That’s more than lamentable; it’s harmful. It’s during times of war that serious, unfettered discussion about the stakes, costs and risks of a particular policy choice is not only appropriate but absolutely essential. Arbitrarily policing the debate not only does a disservice to free thought but potentially leads to a situation whereby common-sense policy options are dismissed. Reasoned debate becomes a casualty.Facts on the ground make clear that the likelihood of immediate negotiations are virtually nil. Ukraine’s forces are making slow but steady progress and are trying to push Russian troops out of Kherson, so Kyiv has no reason to sue for peace. Moreover, Ukraine rightly fears that a ceasefire would leave about a fifth of its territory in Putin’s hands and give him a respite to regroup his army and then resume the offensive.Alleged Russian war crimes in Bucha, Mariupol and elsewhere have made Ukraine all the more determined to win the war. Meanwhile, Putin’s unlawful annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson last month have further convinced Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that talks aren’t possible.Still, although talks may be infeasible now, they may be possible later on.War is inherently unpredictable. The side advancing today could be retreating tomorrow – or six months later. The course of this war makes this evident. Early this summer, the Russian army, using its superiority in artillery, pummeled Ukrainian positions in Luhansk and captured the towns of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk; Ukrainian troops suffered heavy losses. Two months later, Russian troops were beating a chaotic retreat and the Ukrainian army regained more than 3,000km of land in Kharkiv province within days.The tide could turn again once as tens of thousands of new Russian recruits (even if many are poorly armed, equipped and trained) join the fray and enable a Russian counteroffensive. The same Ukrainian government that now regards talks as pointless may then be open to them if it helps them avoid losing even more land. This may not happen, but the possibility that it could means that suggestions for a settlement should not be demonized.As the war continues – for months, perhaps years – the economic costs to the west in arms and economic aid to Ukraine, already substantial, will increase, particularly if Russia continues its relentless attacks on Ukrainian economic assets. Moscow’s slashing of energy exports has already contributed to an economic crisis in Europe. Germany, the EU’s largest economy, risks slipping into a recession and has had to mobilize $200bn to help consumers and businesses battered by high energy prices. France and Spain saw their GDPs contract in the July-to-September quarter. Eurozone inflation reached 10.7% in October, a record high. In the Baltic countries, the rate exceeds 22% as fuel and food prices have rocketed.If Europe’s economic conditions get even worse and a recession occurs in the US, it isn’t far-fetched to imagine calls for a settlement becoming more palpable if it helps reduce the economic burden.Moreover, there is always the possibility that the war could escalate, potentially drawing Russia and Nato into a direct confrontation. Hence proposals to prevent this denouement through diplomacy should be welcomed.Many dismiss the risk of escalation and Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling as empty rhetoric. Perhaps it is. But none of us can know what Putin would do if Russian conventional forces continued to lose ground or were facing a complete defeat. Policymakers don’t have the luxury of planning for the best-case scenario or hoping Putin will respond the way we expect him too. We should be humbler about our powers of prognostication: two years ago, who would have foreseen Europe witnessing its worst war in nearly eight decades?None of this means a deal with Putin should be cut behind Ukraine’s back. Nor should the US necessarily lead the process; simple geography suggests that Europe should play a larger role on all fronts in addressing the gravest threat to its security in a generation.The notion that offering proposals for ending the war betrays Kyiv and aids Moscow is absurd. We need constructive discussions about diplomatic solutions. One day, they will be needed.
      Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York, and a senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He is the co-author of Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order
      Daniel R DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek, among other publications
      TopicsUkraineOpinionUS politicsForeign policyUS CongressVolodymyr ZelenskiyVladimir PutinRussiacommentReuse this content More

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      Progressive Democrats retract Biden Ukraine letter after furious debate

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      Progressive Democrats retract Biden Ukraine letter after furious debateDramatic U-turn from progressive caucus, withdrawing letter sent to US president urging talks to end war in Ukraine The chair of the progressive caucus of the US House of Representatives, Pramila Jayapal, has retracted a letter sent by 30 of the members urging Joe Biden to engage in direct talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine following a heated debate within the Democratic party about future strategy over the conflict.We need direct talks with Russia and a negotiated settlement | Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Barbara Lee, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and othersRead moreIn a statement issued on Tuesday afternoon, Jayapal made a dramatic U-turn, scrapping the letter that had been sent to the White House the previous day and implying it had all been a mistake. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting,” she said.Jayapal went on to regret what she said was conflation of the progressive Democratic call for a diplomatic end to the Ukraine war with a recent statement by the Republican leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, which threatened an end to aid for the stricken country should the Republican party take back the House in next month’s midterm elections.Jayapal said: “The letter sent yesterday has been conflated with GOP opposition to support for the Ukrainians’ just defense of their national sovereignty. As such, it is a distraction at this time and we withdraw the letter.”Jayapal’s retraction is the latest twist in a strange 24 hours of Democratic politics, which has seen the progressive caucus apparently lend its name to a call for direct talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, followed by a fierce backlash and then staged walking back of the position.In the original letter, sent to the White House on Monday and first reported by the Washington Post, the progressive Democrats called on Biden to make “vigorous diplomatic efforts” towards a “negotiated settlement and ceasefire”. They highlighted the global hunger and poverty that could ensue from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine as well as “elevated gas and food prices at home”, concluding that America’s top priority should be to seek “a rapid end to the conflict”.Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the letter was the proposal that Biden should explore “incentives to end hostilities, including some form of sanctions relief” for Russia.The letter provoked fierce pushback from several Democratic lawmakers – including one of its own signatories – and elicited a frosty White House response. It was interpreted as the first sign of friction over Ukraine within the Democratic party, which has until now stood firm behind Biden’s unconditional backing of Kyiv in its battle to defend and retrieve its sovereign territory from Moscow.The timing of the correspondence was also criticised, coming at a crucial stage in the war and just a week after Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, said that Congress was “not going to write a blank check to Ukraine”.The blowback from Democrats was so intense that within hours of the letter being dispatched, Jayapal was forced to issue a “clarification”.“Let me be clear: we are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support,” she said.The original letter was signed by several of the most prominent leftwing Democrats in the House, including the so-called “Squad” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, was also among the 30.The White House responded by repeating Biden’s central approach – that Ukraine will decide for itself when and how to negotiate with Russia. The press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, reiterated that there would be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”.Individual Democratic lawmakers were more pointed in their reaction – including signatories. Mark Pocan, a congressman from Wisconsin who signed the letter, said it had first been drafted in July and indicated that he had been caught off guard by its publication.“I have no idea why it went out now. Bad timing,” he said.A second signatory, Mark Takano of California, put out a statement after the letter was revealed saying he remained “steadfast in support of the Ukrainian people”.Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a member of the progressive caucus who declined to sign the letter, posted an acerbic response on Twitter. He wrote: “The way to end a war? Win it quickly. How is it won quickly? By giving Ukraine the weapons to defeat Russia.”The sharpest comment from any Democrat came from the former marine and representative from Massachusetts, Jake Auchincloss. He condemned the letter as “an olive branch to a war criminal who’s losing his war. Ukraine is on the march. Congress should be standing firmly behind [Biden’s] effective strategy, including tighter – not weaker! – sanctions.”After the initial eruption of criticism, some of the progressive signatories defended their action. Ro Khanna of California, who pointed out that he had voted for each of the aid packages to Ukraine, said: “Our nation should never silence or shout down debate.”House Republicans divided over aid to Ukraine ahead of midtermsRead moreCongress has so far approved about $66bn for Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in February, including military, humanitarian and economic help. With Ukraine stepping up its advance on Russian positions as a potentially punishing winter approaching, and with the US midterm elections looming on 8 November, the progressives’ letter could not have landed at a more sensitive time.Russia specialists warned that the intervention could embolden Putin and loosen US commitment to lead the international coalition in support of Ukraine. Yoshiko Herrera, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “The biggest problem in the letter is that it may weaken US support for Ukraine by fostering the appearance of divisions among those who support Ukraine.”Cracks, albeit fine ones, are already clearly visible on the Republican side. The largest aid package for Ukraine, amounting to $40bn, was passed in May with 57 Republicans in the House and 11 in the Senate voting against.Supporters of the letter said that it reflected a desire to end the war through diplomacy – an aspiration which Biden himself has championed. He was explicit about that goal in a speech he made in Delaware in June.Biden said: “It appears to me that, at some point along the line, there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement here. And what that entails, I don’t know.”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsRussiaUkraineJoe BidenUS foreign policyVladimir PutinnewsReuse this content More

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      Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘armageddon’

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      Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘armageddon’ John Kirby says Biden’s warning about threat of a nuclear attack from Russia were not based on specific new information The US military’s top spokesperson tamped down concerns of an imminent nuclear threat from Russia, days after Joe Biden warned of a potential nuclear “armageddon”.Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser this week, Biden talked bluntly about the threat of a nuclear attack from Russia. “We have not faced the prospect of armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” the president said. He added that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming” after invading Ukraine earlier this year.Echoing comments from the White House earlier this week, top Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Biden’s comments were not based on specific new information.“His comments were not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons,” Kirby told Martha Raddatz in an interview on ABC News’ This Week. “Quite frankly, we don’t have any information that he has made that kind of decision. Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture.”U.S. has not “seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture” following Putin’s threats in Ukraine, NSC spokesman Kirby tells @MarthaRaddatz. “We don’t have any indication that he has made that kind of decision.” https://t.co/OpYwwOBhrk pic.twitter.com/RHNNlj06Ar— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 9, 2022
      Biden’s remarks invoking Armageddon drew a sharp rebuke from former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, a member of the Donald Trump White House’s cabinet who is mulling a 2024 presidential run.“Those comments were reckless” and “a terrible risk to the American people”, Pompeo said on the Republican-friendly Fox News network.Kirby on Sunday also declined to weigh on a recent explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and Crimea, the Ukrainian territory under Russian control.The explosion dealt a blow to Russian military logistics and embarrassed Putin, for whom the bridge had symbolic personal importance. Ukraine has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but it has been celebrated by senior leaders in the country.“We don’t really have anything more to add to the reports about the explosion on the bridge,” Kirby said. “I just don’t have anything more to contribute to that this morning.”Kirby also addressed Biden’s comments last week that the US was trying to find where Putin could get an “off ramp” to the war on Ukraine.“Mr Putin started this war and Mr Putin could end it today, simply by moving his troops out of the country,” Kirby said. “He’s the one who chose to start this conflict again and he can choose to end it.”Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February. But Ukraine’s defenders in recent weeks have taken back some of the territories it had lost control of during the invasion.With its hold on Ukraine weakening, Putin recently ordered the mobilization of reservists to reinforce the invasion, which ignited protests in dozens of cities across Russia and has led to long lines at its land borders with other countries.TopicsUkraineJoe BidenVladimir PutinRussiaUS politicsUS militaryEuropenewsReuse this content More

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      Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine

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      Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in UkraineFormer CIA director and retired army general says Moscow’s leader is ‘desperate’ and ‘battlefield reality he faces is irreversible’ The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black sea fleet – if Russian president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in the country, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday. Petreaus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow.He told ABC News: “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black sea.”The warning comes days after Putin expressed views that many have interpreted as a threat of a larger war between Russia and the west.Asked if the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine would bring America and Nato into the war, Petreaus said that it would not be a situation triggering the alliance’s Article 5, which calls for a collective defense. That is because Ukraine is not part of Nato – nonetheless, a “US and Nato response” would be in order, Petreaus said.Petreaus acknowledged that the likelihood that radiation would extend to Nato countries under the Article 5 umbrella could perhaps be construed as an attack on a Nato member.“Perhaps you can make that case,” he said. “The other case is that this is so horrific that there has to be a response – it cannot go unanswered.”Yet, Petreaus added, “You don’t want to, again, get into a nuclear escalation here. But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”Nonetheless, with pressure mounting on Putin after Ukrainian gains in the east of the country under last week’s annexation declaration and resistance to mobilization efforts within Russia mounting, Petreaus said Moscow’s leader was “desperate”.“The battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible,” he said. “No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it; no amount of annexation; no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get him out of this particular situation.“At some point there’s going to have to be recognition of that. At some point there’s going to have to be some kind of beginning of negotiations, as [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy has said, will be the ultimate end.”But, Petreaus warned, “It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia. And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all.” Still, he added, “You have to take the threat seriously.”Senator Marco Rubio, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told CNN that Putin was down to two choices: established defensive lines or withdraw and lose territory.Rubio said he believed it “quite possible” that Putin could strike distribution points where US and allied supplies are entering Ukraine, including inside Poland. The senator acknowledged the nuclear threat, but he said most worries about “a Russian attack inside Nato territory, for example, aiming at the airport in Poland or some other distribution point”.“Nato will have to respond to it,” he said. “How it will respond, I think a lot of it will depend on the nature of the attack and the scale and scope of it.”But as a senator privy to Pentagon briefings, Rubio resisted being drawn on whether he’d seen evidence that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.“Certainly, the risk is probably higher today than it was a month ago,” Rubio said, predicting that Russia would probably take an intermediate step.“He may strike one of these logistical points. And that logistical point may not be inside … Ukraine. To me, that is the area that I focus on the most, because it has a tactical aspect to it. And I think he probably views it as less escalatory. Nato may not.”TopicsUkraineUS politicsRussiaEuropeVladimir PutinnewsReuse this content More