Zelensky, Volodymyr

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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

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      At Davos, War Is on the Agenda, but the Focus Is on A.I. and Elections

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      The leaders and executives gathering at the World Economic Forum are obsessed with elections and artificial intelligence, not Ukraine or Gaza.Each day this week has brought a new and fleeting reminder to the executives and politicians at the annual World Economic Forum meeting of the two wars threatening global security and clouding the economy. Ukraine’s president spoke on Tuesday. Israel’s spoke on Thursday.Neither was able to hold the collective attention of a gathering that this year has focused overwhelmingly on artificial intelligence and populist politics.Gaza and Ukraine have made daily appearances on the public agenda in Davos, along with climate change and economic inequality. But in the warm halls and slushy streets around town, conversations almost inevitably turn to the two accelerating trends that are destabilizing business models and democracies.Everyone wants to talk about how A.I. and this year’s elections, especially in the United States, could shake up the world. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel led by Hamas or the ensuing Israeli bombing of Gaza? Drowned out in comparison.“No one is talking about Israel,” said Rachel Goldberg, who came to Davos to urge action to free the more than 100 hostages who were taken on Oct. 7 and continue to be held by Hamas, including her 23-year-old son, Hersh.In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Goldberg said she was not surprised the war had taken a back seat here. “I think it’s complicated,” she said. “And I think it’s very polarizing.”Davos is many things layered on top of one another. It is a font of wealthy idealism, where the phrase “committed to improving the state of the world” frequently adorns the walls of the main meeting center.The forum is a networking event where chief executives, world leaders, celebrities, philanthropists and journalists speed-date through half-hour coffee meetings. It is a trade show for big ideas, with overlapping panel discussions on topics including gender equity, media misinformation and the transition to green energy.It is also a venue for top government officials to speak on grave issues, including war. That is where much of the Gaza and Ukraine discussion played out this week.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, meeting on Tuesday.Laurent Gillieron/Keystone, via Associated PressPresident Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for international aid — but not more weapons — in a packed-house address on Tuesday to hundreds of people. He also took questions from reporters afterward.Without more assistance from the United States and others, Mr. Zelensky said, “a huge crisis will happen.” He added: “We have a war now, and we will have a huge crisis — a crisis for the whole of Europe.”Several leaders spoke about Gaza and the broader conflict it has spawned in the Middle East, though typically to smaller crowds. In a room of about 60 attendees on Wednesday, Mohammad Mustafa, the chairman of Palestine Investment Fund and the former deputy prime minister of Palestine, called for additional international aid for the people in Gaza and for an end to the war.“The military action has got to stop very quickly,” Mr. Mustafa said. “There is no need for anyone to build their political careers at the expense of more Palestinian people.”Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the foreign minister of Iran, blamed Israel for raising tensions in the Middle East in the past several months. “If the genocide in Gaza stops, then it will lead to the end of the other crises and attacks in the region,” he said.In his Thursday speech, President Isaac Herzog of Israel called Iran the center of an “empire of evil” destabilizing the Middle East and displayed a photograph of Kfir Bibas, a 1-year-old hostage being held in Gaza. “We have a very cruel, sadistic enemy who has taken a decision to try to torture the Israeli national psyche as well as the hostages themselves,” Mr. Herzog said.But those speeches rarely dominated the conversations on the sidelines of the event, at the nightly private dinners after the day’s agenda concluded or in most of the storefronts that large corporations paid to transform into branded event spaces along the main promenade in town.President Isaac Herzog of Israel with a picture of Kfir Bibas, a child who was taken hostage by Hamas, on Thursday.Denis Balibouse/ReutersOne possible explanation: Attendees and leaders here do not view either war as a significant threat at the moment to the global economy. Neither Gaza nor Ukraine cracked the Top 10 near-term concerns in the Global Risk Report — a survey of 1,500 global leaders — that the forum released on the eve of the gathering. A World Economic Forum chief economists’ report released this week suggested that growth forecasts for the Middle East had “slightly weakened” amid uncertainties about the war between Israel and Hamas. It did not mention Ukraine.In private conversations around Davos this week, corporate leaders acknowledged the wars in Gaza and Ukraine as one of many concerns. But they grew much more animated about other topics that they said they expected to affect their businesses in the near term — potentially enormously, for good or ill.A.I. topped that list. In interviews, executives expounded, usually with significant enthusiasm, on the benefits and drawbacks of the technology. They also talked politics, exhaustively. Over dinner, they and other attendees debated whether former President Donald J. Trump would win back the White House in November — and how his populist, protectionist policy could roil markets and upend their business models.Some executives explicitly ranked Gaza and Ukraine lower than the American elections on their list of geopolitical concerns. Many attendees lamented that there was not more energy behind war discussions, or recognition of the risks the wars pose to the economy and global security. Last year, concerns about Ukraine shared the spotlight at the gathering, along with a surge of A.I. interest.This year, “everyone is focusing on other subjects,” Pascal Cagni, France’s ambassador for international exports, said in an interview. Economically and politically, he added, Ukraine is “a critical issue.”There were a few exceptions. Supporters of Ukraine opened their own storefront space on the main promenade and staged several events each day to draw attention to the conflict. The technology company Palantir and its chief executive, Alex Karp, hosted Ms. Goldberg and other parents of hostages for events and interviews.Waiting for the arrival of Mr. Zelensky at the Ukraine House in Davos on Tuesday.Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA, via ShutterstockSeveral governments sent leaders to Davos in an attempt to quietly advance back-channel diplomacy in Ukraine or Gaza. That was true of the Biden administration, which sent Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, to Davos for a flurry of meetings centered on Gaza.In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Goldberg said she was grateful for all efforts to bring her son and the other hostages home. She wore “103” taped to her sweater, which represented the number of days since her son had been taken.In Davos, Ms. Goldberg was sharing a house with other parents of hostages. “I walked out this morning and here, you know, you have these, like, gorgeous views and beautiful mountains,” she said. She said she had turned to another mother and said: “It’s so beautiful. It’s perverse.”But, she added a moment later: “I’m very grateful that I’m here. Because I am having access to people that I would never have access to. And the goal is to save Hersh’s life, and everyone who is there, their lives. I can only do that if we have access to people who have power. And that’s people who are here.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      The Volodymyr Zelensky-Donald Trump Divide Looms at Davos

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      Ukraine’s leader and the potential re-election of Donald Trump as president are dominating discussion at the World Economic Forum. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, tried to tamp down worries about Donald Trump, and whether his potential re-election would lead to a drop in support for his country.Radek Pietruszka/EPA, via ShutterstockZelensky and Trump loom over Davos Two people are having an outsize impact at the World Economic Forum, and one of them isn’t even there.One is Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, who put on a full-court press of business and global leaders at the forum in Davos, Switzerland. The other is Donald Trump, whose potential re-election is dominating the discussion among attendees.Zelensky used an expletive to describe a Trump claim about containing Vladimir Putin. At a Q. and A. with journalists that Andrew moderated, Zelensky dismissed the idea that Trump could stop the Russian president from going after other parts of Europe. Putin, he added, “will not stop — but the question is what will the U.S. and Trump do after this point, because in this case it will mean that Europe lost the most useful and most strong army in Europe because we lost Ukraine.”Zelensky initially sought to tamp down worries about Trump, and whether his potential re-election would lead to a drop in support for Ukraine. But he also appeared somewhat fearful about the prospect. “One man cannot change the whole nation,” Zelensky said in the Q. and A., adding that deciding on the next president is “a choice for the American nation and only the American nation.”The Ukrainian leader acknowledged that a win for Trump, who has opposed U.S. aid to Ukraine, could affect his country’s military campaign or settlement talks. “Radical voices from the Republican Party” have created tension and pain for the Ukrainian people, he said.Zelensky isn’t the only leader at Davos worried about Trump. Multiple attendees have told DealBook that the outcome of the election is a potential risk for business, particularly after the former president thumped his Republican rivals in the Iowa caucuses.The Ukrainian leader has sought to shore up global business support. He spoke at a private gathering of executives organized by JPMorgan Chase, which is advising Ukraine on its reconstruction efforts.In the audience at the Congress Center for the talk were Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, David Rubenstein of Carlyle and Michael Dell of Dell, DealBook hears.Zelensky also spoke about how U.S.-China tensions are affecting Ukraine. Bringing Beijing on board with the country’s reconstruction is important, given China’s size and influence on Russia, he told the C.E.O.s. But Ukraine is seen as an American concern, not a global one.Seen and heard around town: The traffic on the main street was so bad that John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, hoofed it to a meeting. And the annual wine tasting hosted by Anthony Scaramucci, the financier and former Trump official, well, ran out of wine.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Rate-cut concerns rattle the markets. European stocks and bonds are down this morning, after Christine Lagarde, the European Central Bank president, warned that interest rates may not fall until the summer, and inflation in Britain rose unexpectedly. U.S. futures are also down after Christopher Waller, a Fed governor, signaled yesterday that it was premature to consider a rate cut in the first quarter.Disney formally rejected Nelson Peltz’s board nominees. The entertainment giant has submitted a slate of directors — including James Gorman of Morgan Stanley and Mary Barra of General Motors — and snubbed the activist investor, who has criticized Disney over strategy and succession planning. Separately, compensation for Bob Iger, Disney’s C.E.O., for fiscal 2023 topped $31 million.BP appoints a new C.E.O. The energy giant today named as its new chief Murray Auchincloss. The former C.F.O. stepped in as interim chief four months ago after his predecessor, Bernard Looney resigned for failing to disclose relationships with employees. Auchincloss has indicated that he will follow Looney’s strategy to build up the company’s renewables business and cut back its oil and gas production by the end of the decade.China’s conundrum China delivered a double dose of bad news this morning, pushing down markets in Asia. Official data shows that the economy grew last year at its slowest pace in decades and that the country’s population declined again.The readings are another sign of deeper problems in the world’s second-largest economy, as it grapples with a property crisis, weak consumer confidence, falling exports, deflationary pressures and big demographic challenges.The economy grew 5.2 percent last year, up from 3 percent in 2022 when strict coronavirus restrictions were in place. That was better than the official target of about 5 percent but 2024 is expected to be tougher, with a Reuters poll of analysts forecasting growth that will probably slow to 4.6 percent.The population decline points to bigger challenges. The country recorded more deaths than births for a second straight year. Beijing is worried because fewer people means fewer consumers, and it needs working-age people to fuel growth. Retail sales in December were lower than expectations, too, while industrial output barely surpassed them.A post-Covid boost hasn’t materialized. “Chinese authorities and some international economists believed that China’s economic downturn in the past few years was caused by the “zero Covid” policy,” Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an expert on Chinese demographics, told DealBook. “But China’s economic recovery was much weaker than expected last year, as the core drivers of the downturn were aging and a declining work force.”Structural reforms are needed to address these new realities. But for the short term, China will continue to rely on export-led growth at a time when many Western companies are already looking to move parts of their supply chains elsewhere.A federal judge has struck down JetBlue’s proposed $3.8 billion deal to buy Spirit Airlines, which would have been the biggest such tie-up in a decade.Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockAn airline deal hits turbulence The Biden administration scored a major victory yesterday after a federal judge struck down JetBlue’s proposed $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines, a low-cost rival, ruling that the merger would harm competition.The decision blocks the airline sector’s biggest attempted tie-up in the U.S. in over a decade, and throws into question the industry’s efforts to consolidate. President Biden hailed the ruling as “a victory for consumers everywhere who want lower prices and more choices.”The Biden administration says airline mergers have made travel more costly. Last year, the Justice Department won a lawsuit that forced JetBlue and American Airlines to end a regional code-sharing alliance.The Justice Department argued that a JetBlue-Spirit combination would remove a low-cost competitor from the market, messing with the economics of airfares. The judge, William Young, agreed, saying that combining forces would “likely incentivize JetBlue further to abandon its roots as a maverick, low-cost carrier.”Shares in Spirit plunged after the decision. Stock in the budget airline, which received bailout funding during the coronavirus pandemic’s early days and is known for its yellow planes and no-frills service, sank 47 percent yesterday. The companies have not yet said whether they will appeal.What next? Alaska Airlines’s $1.9 billion deal to acquire Hawaiian Airlines could also face tough scrutiny.Big fish to fry at the Supreme Court The Supreme Court justices will hear a case today that started with commercial herring fishermen challenging a rule about paying the regulators who oversaw them. The legal fight is hugely consequential, and could ultimately limit the powers of federal agencies.The case challenges the power of administrative law. Courts today must defer to the hundreds of agencies that interpret a mountain of federal rules in regulating industry. Critics say this doctrine — known as Chevron deference — handcuffs judges, robbing them of the power to review and reverse agency actions.Lawyers for the fishermen are expected to argue that the principle should be overruled, or at least simplified. The arguments won’t fall on deaf ears. Justice Neil Gorsuch has written that the Chevron deference doctrine “deserves a tombstone.”The death of the principle could hobble regulators because their decisions could be overturned in court. Such a prospect is key to conservatives seeking a weaker administrative state. Court records show that the fishermen’s lawyers have links to Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the petrochemicals billionaire Charles Koch, The Times’s Hiroko Tabuchi reports. Koch, the chairman of Koch Industries, is a longtime supporter of anti-regulatory causes.This case is part of a larger conservative campaign. A 2022 Supreme Court decision that constrained the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority on emissions regulation bolstered right-leaning activists. That case has helped opened the door to further legal challenges to regulators’ powers, including one this term involving the S.E.C.What to watch for in 2024 The Atlantic Council, an international affairs research organization, gave DealBook a first look at its annual list of the top risks, opportunities and under-the-radar phenomena to watch this year.Geopolitical conflict is a big focus. There is a “medium to high” probability that the Israel-Hamas war widens, according to the analysis, and that is underscored by intensifying U.S.-led strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels who are attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea corridor.Other hot spots include Ukraine and Taiwan. The West could pull back funding for Ukraine, the report’s authors write, making a Russian victory more likely. Meanwhile, China could choke off Taiwanese ports with a naval blockade rather than risking an invasion of the self-governed island nation.“Smartifacts” may be an opportunity. Cars, appliances and personal electronics will increasingly be equipped with artificial intelligence to better interact with the physical world, the analysts write. They predict that “2024 will be the year when A.I. goes mainstream, and not just on our screens,” potentially yielding an “entirely new class of devices.”Could white paint be an under-the-radar opportunity? The Atlantic Council also compiles an annual list of underappreciated risks and opportunities that it calls “snow leopards,” named for the well-camouflaged mountain cats.This year, the list includes super reflective white paint that can help reduce emissions and reliance on energy by reflecting 98 percent of the sun’s rays. “It’s one of those things that seems pretty simple, but it could have an outsize impact,” said Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the organization.THE SPEED READ DealsUber is shutting Drizly, the alcohol-delivery business it bought in 2021 for $1.1 billion. (WSJ)Investors are raising billions to buy discounted stakes in venture capital-backed tech start-ups. (FT)Synopsys, a supplier to the chips sector, has agreed to buy Ansys, a software firm, for $35 billion. (NYT)PolicyThe Supreme Court denied a request to hear an antitrust case between Epic Games and Apple, leaving a lower-court ruling that was seen as a win for Apple in place. (Axios)Congressional leaders agreed a $78 billion deal to expand the child tax credit and other popular expired business tax breaks. (NYT)Best of the restHarvard is trying to smooth relations with Silicon Valley after turmoil over antisemitism on campus. (WSJ)“Airbus Is Pulling Ahead as Boeing’s Troubles Mount” (NYT)Hockey die-hards are building snazzy new rinks in their backyards. (WSJ)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Artificial Intelligence, Ukraine, China — The Big Buzz at Davos

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      C.E.O.s and world leaders gather in the Swiss Alps this year as war, trade risks and disruptive new technologies loom large.The topics on the mind of attendees at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, include artificial intelligence, the war in Gaza and the future of Ukraine.Denis Balibouse/ReutersThe meetings behind the meeting Thousands of global leaders have once again descended on snowy Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. The theme of this year’s event: “rebuilding trust.”But there are the public meetings, and then there are the real ones behind closed doors that the attendees are talking about most. These include discussions touching on U.S.-China tensions, the war in Gaza, artificial intelligence and the future of Ukraine.There is a kind of game that some C.E.O.s play with one another: How many public panels are you on, or how many times have you been in the Congress Center, the main hub for the forum’s big presentations? If the answer is zero, you’ve won. Top U.S. officials are set to appear on the main stage, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. But speculation abounds about whom they’re seeing behind the scenes.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

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      Ukraine Faces Critical Tests as It Duels With Russia for Stamina

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      With Western support for Kyiv softening and Congress holding up urgently needed aid, Vladimir Putin’s bet on outlasting Ukraine and its allies is looking stronger.Ukraine faces dwindling reserves of ammunition, personnel and Western support. The counteroffensive it launched six months ago has failed. Moscow, once awash in recriminations over a disastrous invasion, is celebrating its capacity to sustain a drawn-out war.The war in Ukraine has reached a critical moment, as months of brutal fighting have left Moscow more confident and Kyiv unsure of its prospects.The dynamic was palpable last week, as Vladimir V. Putin casually announced plans to run for six more years as president of Russia, swilling champagne and bragging about the increasing competence of Russia’s military. He declared that Ukraine had no future, given its reliance on external help.That air of self-assurance contrasted with the sense of urgency in this week’s trip to Washington by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who pressed Congress to pass a stalled spending bill that includes $50 billion more in security aid for Ukraine.Speaking at the White House alongside Mr. Zelensky, President Biden said lawmakers’ failure to approve the package would “give Putin the greatest Christmas gift they could possibly give him.”But Mr. Zelensky’s pleas fell flat, at least for now, with congressional Republicans, who are insisting that additional aid to Ukraine can come only with a clampdown on migration at the United States’ southern border. After meeting with Mr. Zelensky, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, said his skepticism had not changed.The messages from Moscow and Washington illustrated the growing pressure on Ukraine as it shifts to a defensive posture and braces for a harsh winter of Russian strikes and energy shortages. Kyiv is struggling to maintain support from its most important backer, the United States, a nation now preoccupied with a different war, in Gaza, and the 2024 presidential campaign.Looming over Kyiv’s prospects is the possible return to office in 2025 of former President Donald J. Trump, a longstanding Ukraine detractor and praiser of Mr. Putin who was impeached in 2019 for withholding military aid and pressuring Mr. Zelensky to investigate Mr. Biden and other Democrats.Almost 22 months into the war, polls broadly have found waning United States support for continued funding of Ukraine, particularly among Republicans. A recent Pew Research Center survey found just under half of Americans believe the United States was providing the right amount of support to Ukraine or should be providing more.Ukrainian soldiers firing at Russian positions in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine last month.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesMr. Johnson said money for Ukraine required more oversight of spending, and “a transformative change” in security at the U.S. border with Mexico. “Thus far, we’ve gotten neither,” he said.But the White House still has time to try to work out an agreement that includes border security, and Mr. Zelensky said he remained optimistic about bipartisan support for Ukraine, adding, “It’s very important that by the end of this year we can send a very strong signal of our unity to the aggressor.”A rupture in U.S. funding would risk proving Mr. Putin correct in his longstanding conviction that he can exhaust Western resolve in global politics and conflicts. Though his government bungled the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has regrouped, in part because Mr. Putin was willing to accept enormous casualties.“Putin, soon after the initial offensive didn’t produce the results that Russia had hoped, settled in for a long war and estimated that Russia at the end of the day would have the biggest stamina, the longest staying power, in this fight,” said Hanna Notte, an expert on Russian foreign and security policy at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.Russia has adapted, pumping up its domestic production of ammunition and weaponry, and importing critical matériel from Iran and North Korea, all with the goal of sustaining a long war, Ms. Notte said.“I think there was sort of a dismissiveness, ‘Let the Russians get together with these pariahs, with these global outcasts, and good luck to them,’” Ms. Notte said.But that support has been meaningful for Moscow on the battlefield, she said, particularly with Iran helping Russia enhance its domestic drone production. Ukraine, meanwhile, is struggling to obtain a sufficient flow of ammunition and weaponry from the West, where nations aren’t operating on a wartime footing and face significant production bottlenecks.Ukrainian troops gathered to test-fire their German-made Leopard tanks before moving toward the front line in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine last week.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesDespite his advantages in numbers and weaponry, Mr. Putin also faces limitations, and military analysts say Russia is in no position to make another run at the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, or other major cities.Russia lost huge numbers of personnel in its offensive maneuvers in the past year, and won little territory apart from the city of Bakhmut. With Mr. Zelensky ordering his troops to build defensive fortifications along the front, Russia may continue to suffer heavy losses without gaining much in return.Facing continued signs of displeasure with last year’s mobilization, the Kremlin appears loath to do another forced call-up before the Russian presidential election in March, if at all.“What we have seen in this war is the defense usually has significant advantages,” said Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.Still, Ukraine, reliant on the West for weaponry and funding, faces short-term pressures that Russia does not. Kyiv’s allies don’t have the ammunition and equipment to arm another counteroffensive, making a major new campaign unlikely for most of 2024, according to analysts and former U.S. officials.The United States is by far Ukraine’s most important backer, accounting for about half of its donated weaponry and a quarter of its foreign aid funding. The congressional fight, bogged down in a partisan dispute about border security, has unnerved many Ukrainians.“Today, Ukrainians are beginning to suspect that the U.S. wants to force us to lay down our arms and conclude a shameful truce,” Yuriy Makarov, a political commentator for Ukrainsky Tyzhden, a Ukrainian magazine, said in an interview. “That the Ukrainians practically destroyed the professional army of Russia, which until recently was the main enemy of the United States, does not seem to be taken into account.”Hanna Yarotska, second from left, and her husband, Vasyl, left, mourn at the coffin of their son Yaroslav Yarotskyi, 25, a fallen Ukrainian soldier, at the cemetery in Boryspil, Ukraine, last month.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesThe failure of this year’s counteroffensive has exacerbated political friction in Ukraine, most notably between Mr. Zelensky and the military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny. A month after Mr. Zelensky publicly chastised the commander for saying the war had reached an impasse, the two have yet to appear together in public.There are signs Russia intends to be more aggressive through the winter. After weeks of focusing attacks on the city of Avdiivka, Russia over the weekend began a general offensive along the eastern front, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, told Ukrainian news media.The fighting favors Russia’s greater access to artillery ammunition. Earlier this year, the NATO general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, estimated that Ukraine fired 4,000 to 7,000 artillery shells a day, while Russia fired 20,000.The United States has provided more than two million 155-millimeter artillery shells and brokered deliveries from other nations. But stocks in Western militaries, which had not anticipated fighting a major artillery war, are dwindling.Ukraine also needs ammunition for air defenses, lest Russia’s volleys of exploding drones and cruise and ballistic missiles break through the air-defense blanket over the capital and key infrastructure.Ukrainian soldiers grabbing their rifles after firing an artillery shell at a Russian position near Borova-Svatove in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region last week.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesThe United States and its allies have provided a dozen or so types of air defenses, sophisticated NATO systems that have allowed businesses to open and cities to resume mostly normal rhythms of work and sleep. But as Russia fires thousands of cheap, Iranian-made Shahed drones, Ukraine’s air-defense ammunition is being exhausted.A tipping point looms if Russian missiles can reliably penetrate gaps, hitting military targets like airfields and blowing up electrical and heating infrastructure to dampen economic activity with blackouts, deepening Ukraine’s reliance on Western aid.“They can keep doing it as long as needed,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former Ukrainian minister of economy, said of the Russian assaults. Over time, diminishing political backing for Ukraine in the West provides an incentive to keep whittling away at Kyiv’s arsenal, he said. “If they feel Ukraine will lose support, they will try harder.”Ukraine also faces challenges from the attrition of its personnel.Kyiv does not announce mobilization targets or casualties, but a former battalion commander, Yevhen Dykyi, has estimated that Ukraine will need to enlist 20,000 soldiers a month through next year to sustain its army, both replacing the dead and wounded, and allowing rotations.“Unfortunately,” he said, “with all the military tricks and technologies, some things cannot be compensated for by anything but sheer numbers.”A memorial for Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv last month.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times More

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      Ukraine Indicts Officials Linked to Efforts to Investigate the Bidens

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      Three officials were accused of operating at the behest of Russian intelligence when they aligned with efforts by Rudolph W. Giuliani to tie the Biden family to corruption in Ukraine. Ukrainian police and prosecutors have accused two politicians and a former prosecutor of treason, saying they colluded with a Russian intelligence agency in aiding an effort by Rudolph W. Giuliani several years ago to tie the Biden family to corruption in Ukraine.Those accused include Kostyantyn Kulyk, a former Ukrainian deputy prosecutor general who had drafted a memo in 2019 suggesting Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, for his role serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Also implicated were a current member of Ukraine’s Parliament, Oleksandr Dubinsky, and a former member, Andriy Derkach, who had publicly advocated for an investigation in Ukraine into Hunter Biden. They had also promoted a spurious theory that it was Ukraine, and not Russia, that had meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the United States.The three were indicted on charges of treason and belonging to a criminal organization. The charges refer to “information-subversive activities” and focus on actions in 2019 before the American presidential election. They do not say if or when the activity stopped. In the run-up to the 2020 election in the United States, Mr. Giuliani and later former President Donald J. Trump had encouraged Ukrainian officials to follow up on the allegations against Hunter Biden. The effort included a phone call by Mr. Trump to President Volodymyr Zelensky in July of 2019 urging an investigation into the Bidens, at a time when the Trump administration was withholding military aid for the Ukrainian Army. Andriy Derkach attends a news conference in Kyiv in 2019.Gleb Garanich/ReutersCritics say that pressure to investigate the Bidens was politically motivated, aimed at harming the elder Mr. Biden’s chances against Mr. Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani denied that there was anything inappropriate about their contact with Ukrainian officials, with Mr. Trump describing his phone call to Mr. Zelensky as “perfect.” The administration said military aid to Ukraine was withheld over concerns about corruption in the Ukrainian government. The events led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment in the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate.Ukrainian media on Tuesday suggested the indictments, too, had a political component for Mr. Zelensky: that they were intended to send a signal to Mr. Biden now, as his administration is pressing Congress for military assistance to Ukraine, that Kyiv will root out accused Russian agents, including those who had promoted accusations against his family.In statements released on Monday, Ukrainian police and the country’s domestic intelligence agency said all three men were members of a spy network established inside the Ukrainian government and handled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the G.R.U.The intelligence agency’s statement said the Russians paid members of the group $10 million. An aide to Mr. Derkach, Ihor Kolesnikov, was detained earlier and convicted on treason charges.Two members of the group, Mr. Derkach and Mr. Kulyk, fled Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the statement said. Mr. Dubinsky was remanded to pretrial detention in a Ukrainian jail on Tuesday.Mr. Dubinsky, in a statement posted on the social networking site Telegram, said that the prosecutors had “not presented one fact” to support the accusations, and that the charges were retribution for criticizing Mr. Zelensky’s government in his role as a member of Parliament. He said that he testified a year and a half ago as a witness in a treason investigation of Mr. Derkach but at the time had not been accused of any wrongdoing. Mr. Dubinsky was expelled from Mr. Zelensky’s political party, Servant of the People, in 2021 after the United States sanctioned him for meddling in the American political process. The Ukrainian intelligence agency’s statement said that Mr. Kulyk had used his position in the prosecutor general’s office to promote investigations that worked “in favor of the Kremlin,” without specifying any cases.In late 2018, Mr. Kulyk compiled a seven-page dossier asserting that Ukrainian prosecutors had evidence that “may attest to the commission of corrupt actions aimed at personal unlawful enrichment by former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden,” according to a copy leaked by a Ukrainian blogger.The dossier suggested that Mr. Biden, when he had served as vice president, had tried to quash a corruption investigation into the natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, where his son served on the board. Former colleagues of Mr. Kulyk at the prosecutor’s office confirmed he had written the document, which helped set in motion an effort by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and other supporters to press for an investigation in Ukraine.In a phone call with Mr. Zelensky that became central to the impeachment case, Mr. Trump had asked the Ukrainian president to investigate supposed conflicts of interest by Mr. Biden when he was vice president, according to White House notes of the call. Mr. Trump denied he had linked military aid to Ukraine to the investigation of the Biden family.Allegations of corruption and ties to Russia had trailed Mr. Kulyk for years in the Ukrainian media and among anti-corruption watchdog groups before he compiled the dossier.In 2016, he was indicted in Ukraine on charges of illegal enrichment for owning apartments and cars that seemed beyond the means of his modest official salary. One car, a Toyota Land Cruiser, had been bought by the father of a military commander fighting on the Russian side in the war in eastern Ukraine. More

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      Ramaswamy Seemed to Call Zelensky a Nazi. His Campaign Says That’s Not What He Meant.

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      Vivek Ramaswamy drew shock and criticism online on Wednesday when he appeared to accuse the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, of being a Nazi — but Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign insisted that wasn’t what he meant.The remark came in response to a question about Mr. Zelensky’s recent plea for more American aid toward Ukraine’s war with Russia, a request several of the Republican presidential candidates have said that they support. Mr. Ramaswamy, however, has opposed giving further assistance to Ukraine. Congress has approved about $113 billion so far.“Ukraine is not a paragon of democracy,” Mr. Ramaswamy said, reeling off a litany of critiques, including: “It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks. A comedian in cargo pants. The man called Zelensky. That is not democratic.”The statement raised eyebrows both in the room in Miami and on the internet, where hundreds of stunned viewers made posts on social media. One such post, from the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group, called Mr. Ramaswamy an “unserious candidate.”Mr. Zelensky, who is Jewish, lost family members in the Holocaust.A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy, Tricia McLaughlin, said that he had not called Mr. Zelensky a Nazi. Instead, Ms. McLaughlin said, he was referring to an event in September in which Mr. Zelensky visited Canada’s Parliament and joined a standing ovation honoring a 98-year-old Ukrainian Canadian war veteran. The problem, it turned out, was that the veteran, Yaroslav Hunka, had served in a division that was under Nazi control during World War II.The ovation was widely condemned by Jewish groups, which called it “beyond outrageous.” Ms. McLaughlin said that Mr. Ramaswamy was referring to Mr. Zelensky’s joining in the applause and waving to Mr. Hunka.But she acknowledged that, without context, the remark could be easily misunderstood. “He was talking quickly and kind of oscillated in his words,” she said. More

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More