Friday, April 15, 2022

RSN: FOCUS: Michael McFaul | The West Must Help Ukraine to Win the Next Phase of the War

 


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A Ukrainian military vehicle speeds by on a main road near Sytnyaky, Ukraine. (photo: Marcus Yam/LA Times)
FOCUS: Michael McFaul | The West Must Help Ukraine to Win the Next Phase of the War
Michael McFaul, The Washington Post
McFaul writes: "President Volodymyr Zelensky, his Ukrainian warriors and his courageous people fight on. Against all odds, they defeated Vladimir Putin's army in the Battle of Kyiv."

This next phase of the war will differ sharply from the one before it. The flat and empty steppes of the east will make it harder for the Ukrainians to use the hit-and-run tactics that have served them so well until now. Now they have an urgent need for tanks, including first and foremost Soviet-era T-72s (which can be supplied by several of NATO’s former Warsaw Pact member countries), as well as other armored vehicles. They also need long-range artillery amply provided with 152-millimeter and 155-millimeter shells, multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), air defense systems such as S-300s, anti-ship missiles to defend coastline cities and MiG-29 fighter aircraft. After six weeks of fighting, Ukraine also needs replenishment of every sort of equipment — from helmets to bullets.

President Biden, NATO allies, and a few other partners have delivered a lot of weaponry already. Biden facilitated the transfer of Slovakia’s S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine by agreeing to reposition more modern Patriot surface-to-air systems to protect Bratislava. Other allies have announced pledges to send armored vehicles, anti-ship missile systems and even tanks. These are great achievements.

The Ukrainians don’t only need Soviet-era heavy weapons. They also need more modern and effective weapons from the West, even if soldiers would have to train for their use off the battlefield. As Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has argued, “The more weapons we get, and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved.”

He’s right. But Western leaders are still concerned about Russian threats of escalation. Western intelligence assessments say that delivering fighter jets, for example, will be unacceptable to Putin. Few in Washington, Berlin, Brussels or London want to escalate this war.

This threat of escalation, however, is cheap talk. Putin is bluffing. He is deliberately allowing the U.S. intelligence community to discover data about escalation in order to scare us away from helping Ukrainians win.

Putin’s first bluff was his scariest. Several weeks ago, he threatened consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history” against countries that interfered in Ukraine, and vowed to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

We now know that these words were empty threats, described by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as “nuclear saber-rattling.” According to senior Biden officials with whom I’ve spoken personally, it turns out that Putin did not change the alert status of his nuclear forces. A week later, former president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Russian Security Council, explained that Russia “reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if it faces an existential threat, even if the other side has not employed nuclear weapons.” No country is threatening to attack, let alone eliminate, Russia.

There is also concern that Moscow might try using tactical nuclear weapons within Ukraine. If faced with defeat, so the argument goes, Putin might be compelled to terrorize Zelensky and Ukrainians into capitulation.

Yet this scenario is also highly unlikely. Crossing this threshold would alienate many counties currently sitting on the sidelines, including first and foremost China. Russia would become even more isolated internationally. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons would endanger domestic support for the war. Russians do not condone the use of nuclear weapons. Most analysts assume that this second use of nuclear weapons in world history would force Kyiv to surrender. I’m not so sure. The Ukrainians’ cause is just; their will to fight is extraordinary. After a nuclear attack, Ukrainians would be more likely to double down than capitulate, and could even try to take the war to Russia.

Russia has also been making non-nuclear threats. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia would see any weapons transports into Ukrainian territory as “fair game.” Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov similarly commented that Western armaments shipments to Kyiv were “not just a dangerous move” but turned “these convoys into legitimate military targets.”

Yet here, too, there is little substance to the bluster. Russia’s army is struggling mightily in a war against a smaller and lesser-armed Ukrainian army. Under such circumstances, Putin is highly unlikely to attack the largest military alliance in the world, anchored by the most powerful military in the world, the United States. Putin is angry and unhinged, but not suicidal.

Biden and his national security team might have classified intelligence that suggests that these risks of escalation are greater than I can assess through open sources. If not, however, then the free world needs to provide Ukrainians with the quality and quantity of weapons to prevail in Donbas. A Ukrainian win or stalemate in that battle will make us and our NATO allies more secure. A loss will produce the opposite.


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POLITICO NIGHTLY: How a bill becomes a law, without wine and cheese

 


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BY ELANA SCHOR

Presented by

ACT|The App Association

A view of the U.S. Capitol Building from the U.S. Supreme Court.

A view of the U.S. Capitol Building from the U.S. Supreme Court. | Paul Morigi/Getty Images for MoveOn

PARTY’S OVER — The term “MacGuffin” is most commonly associated with Alfred Hitchcock, used to define a trope that’s common in his movies — a sought-after item that propels the tension of the plot but has little importance on its own. Other directors have used their own MacGuffins to great effect, too: Take the Ark of the Covenant in Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” craved by every character but ultimately stashed away on the dusty shelves of an Army intelligence warehouse.

Politics has its share of MacGuffins, too. One might argue that Obamacare repeal became a MacGuffin for the GOP during the first two years of the Trump administration, as Republicans warred among themselves over their own inability to achieve an unpopular goal that some senior members of their party are now openly disavowing.

But I’m here to identify another MacGuffin: socializing across the aisle.

It’s common to hear mourning from some of Congress’ more senior members — most recently voiced by new dean of the House Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) — for a bygone era, in which the two parties maintained better relationships by breaking bread together. Earlier in Rogers’ career, he told Spectrum News this week, lawmakers’ families stayed in Washington and “found ways to socialize — play at golf together, making dinner together. Democrat and Republican. Families sharing this and that and so forth.”

The reality, as our Congress Minutes author Anthony Adragna explained in a response to Rogers, contains far more shades of gray. Shared gatherings didn’t stop the Watergate scandal from coarsening politics 50 years ago, nor did such glass-raising deter outright violence on the House floor during the runup to the Civil War.

And particularly now, with a new pandemic wave that’s pushed Covid cases higher in the capital in recent weeks, it’s naïve to assume that a return to bipartisan bonhomie would do anything to lessen the bleak deterioration of relationships between the parties.

If anything, it’s reasonable to suspect that the pre-virus dynamics of lawmaker social engagements may never return to the Hill, as mask-wearing and mandate-heeding becomes another tool of polarization. And beyond Covid, let’s not forget how frayed relationships got over the past year thanks to the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Just like Indiana Jones’ artifact in “Raiders,” Cary Grant’s mistaken identity in “North By Northwest,” and that suitcase full of … something shiny in “Pulp Fiction,” the idea that socializing can restore bipartisanship is merely a plot device without actual substance.

Now, bipartisanship is not dead just because socializing to achieve it is a MacGuffin — nor is the socializing itself. Less than a year ago, the Senate passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill (which proceeded to earn a thrashing from conservatives who’d have preferred not to give the Democratic president a victory). The 10 negotiators of that bill even held their share of Rogers-style get-togethers, as POLITICO reported at the time.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other, much-easier-to-achieve bipartisan deals available to lawmakers. Our Marianne LeVine wrote about one today : a bill that would take a significant step on racial justice by eliminating the federal sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine offenses. That legislation has ample Democratic backing and 11 Republican cosponsors in the Senate — enough to surmount a filibuster — but it faces an uncertain path to a floor vote.

More wine and cheese or book clubs for the Judiciary Committee’s Democrats and Republicans won’t fix that. The only thing that will shake loose that bill, or the other broadly popular proposals that fail to translate bipartisan cosponsorship into passage, is tough decisions by party leaders to burn time on trying to take them up.

Some of those bipartisan bills may feel small in scope or politically irrelevant to one or both parties’ bases, but they’re around for the taking if Congress wants a debate. There’s no shortcut to more bipartisan legislating, in other words — besides doing more of it.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at eschor@politico.com, or on Twitter at @eschor.

 

A message from ACT|The App Association:

Open and fair competition in the digital marketplace drives our members’ success, but the proposals in the Open App Markets Act will hinder our small business members’ opportunity for continued prosperity. https://actonline.org/2022/04/04/give-small-developers-a-chance-not-higher-barriers-to-entry/

 
WHAT'D I MISS?

— Musk mounts bid to buy Twitter: SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who last week became Twitter’s biggest shareholder, is now offering to buy the social media company, he announced today . “I made an offer,” Musk wrote in a tweet, which included a link to a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That filing contained a letter from Musk to Bret Taylor, the chair of Twitter’s board of directors, presenting his proposal to purchase the remaining shares of Twitter’s stock — those that he does not already own — at a rate of $54.20 per share.

— Pentagon confirms explosion aboard Russian warship: Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby confirmed an explosion aboard the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet — which Ukraine said was the result of a missile strike and Russia said was caused by an internal fire detonating ammunition. Kirby later appeared to also back reports that the damaged Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva, which he said is one of three cruisers in the Russian fleet, had sunk. The Pentagon press secretary still couldn’t confirm conflicting claims from the Russians and Ukrainians about what ultimately led to the ship’s demise. While the Russian side claimed there was a fire on board and a storm sank the ship, the Ukrainians said the damage from their Neptune missiles sent the ship underwater.

Scene at Brooklyn subway shooting

— Adams slams activist movement over NYC crime: When asked how his administration would get a handle on an uptick in shootings, New York City Mayor Eric Adams criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for failing to mount large-scale protests against ongoing gun violence. Adams was speaking on NY1 about the arrest of Frank James, who is accused of carrying out the shooting on a Brooklyn subway car Tuesday , when he was asked about more than a dozen other incidents of gun violence that happened in other parts of the city Tuesday night through Wednesday morning and what he would do to get a handle on crime.

— DOJ urges jury to reject Jan. 6 defendant’s Trump claim: Federal prosecutors urged a jury today to reject a Jan. 6 defendant’s claim that Donald Trump caused him to breach the Capitol and help ransack the Senate parliamentarian’s office. In closing arguments in the case of defendant Dustin Thompson, the Justice Department attorneys called Thompson’s argument a “sideshow” meant to whip up the jury’s anger at Trump rather than focus on the obvious violations of law that Thompson committed.

 

INTRODUCING DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED:  Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.

 
 

— DeSantis approves 15-week abortion ban: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in Florida , calling it the most significant restriction in a generation. The law will take effect on July 1. DeSantis signed the bill, HB 5, at a Spanish-speaking church in Kissimmee. The measure represents the most significant restriction on abortion in state history and comes amid other Republican-controlled states taking steps to limit abortion.

— NASA’s astronauts aren’t ready for deep space: NASA says it needs a new breed of “explorer-astronaut” to build and operate an outpost on the moon. But with the longest human journey into deep space only two years away — a 30-day mission to orbit the moon — the astronaut corps is nowhere near prepared for the expeditions NASA has planned. Over the next five years, NASA intends to start mining the lunar surface for water and other resources in preparation for a long-term human presence on the moon’s surface.

 

A message from ACT|The App Association:

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NIGHTLY NUMBER

0

The number of debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates that Republican presidential candidates will participate in in the foreseeable future , the Republican National Committee announced. The RNC voted unanimously today to withdraw from the primary organizer of general-election presidential debates, calling the CPD “biased” and unwilling to “serve the interest of the American people.”

 

DON'T MISS ANYTHING FROM THE 2022 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO is excited to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider" newsletter featuring exclusive coverage and insights from the 25th annual Global Conference. This year's event, May 1-4, brings together more than 3,000 of the world’s most influential leaders, including 700+ speakers representing more than 80 countries. "Celebrating the Power of Connection" is this year's theme, setting the stage to connect influencers with the resources to change the world with leading experts and thinkers whose insight and creativity can implement that change. Whether you're attending in person or following along from somewhere else in the world, keep up with this year's conference with POLITICO’s special edition “Global Insider” so you don't miss a beat. Subscribe today.

 
 
PARTING WORDS

A CANDIDATE’S UNIQUE ROAD TO SUCCESS — Dozens of wealthy candidates run for Congress every election cycle. What sets Cory Mills apart are some of the mileposts on his road to riches: Selling tear gas that was used against Black Lives Matter demonstrators and purchasing a company that sold rubber bullets to Hong Kong to crack down on protesters, Brittany Gibson and Daniel Lippman write.

Mills, a first-time Republican candidate running in a competitive primary in Florida’s 7th district, is the co-founder of PACEM Solutions. The company sells arms and riot-control gear and provides law enforcement training and private security consulting in the U.S. and around the world.

Legally there’s no issue with the firm’s activities. Politically, though, its sales of tear gas and rubber bullets could put Mills — a military combat veteran and Bronze Star recipient who launched PACEM Solutions in 2014 after many years spent in combat zones as a contractor — in a dicey position.

Anti-riot bullets sold by what later became a PACEM subsidiary, ALS Less Lethal, were photographed in 2019 after being used against protesters by Hong Kong police, according to reports in the Hong Kong Free Press and the Miami New Times.

The demonstrations in 2019 and 2020 against an extradition plan being pushed by mainland China drew almost two million people and were backed by numerous members of Congress in the U.S.

 

A message from ACT|The App Association:

When the largest sellers on the app stores, with multi-billion-dollar valuations, come to Congress with proposals to reshape the mobile marketplace to suit their needs, policymakers should be rather skeptical. We urge Congress not to sacrifice consumers’ most important privacy and security protections–and with them, the competitive prospects of small app companies–in order to further advantage the app stores’ biggest winners. https://actonline.org/2022/04/04/give-small-developers-a-chance-not-higher-barriers-to-entry/

 

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Thursday, April 14, 2022

Video was just released showing the brutal execution of Patrick Lyoya.

 

Real Justice

Video was just released yesterday showing a Grand Rapids cop brutally executing Patrick Lyoya after a minor traffic violation – and we need all hands on deck!!!

It’s a disgrace. A tragedy. The video shows the cop shooting Patrick in the back of the head while Patrick was on his stomach and the cop was on his back.

In cases like this, there must be an independent prosecutor appointed. The Kent County DA interacts with the Grand Rapids Police Department every day. It is a HUGE conflict of interest for the DA to be involved in this case in which one of the cops committed a murder.

Please sign our super-petition NOW to demand an independent prosecutor be appointed for this case. A DA who works with the same police department that murdered Patrick Lyoya should not be in charge.

ADD YOUR NAME

Right now this cop is still walking around freely, out on PAID LEAVE.

THIS is why we fight to elect civil rights-minded prosecutors who will hold violent cops accountable.

THIS is why we fight against abuses of state power.

THIS is why we are changing the system from the inside out by replacing people like DA Chris Becker with good DAs who are committed to transformative justice.

District Attorneys are some of the ONLY positions who have the power to hold cops accountable – but they often work hand-in-hand with police departments to protect them and rig the system in their favor. It is designed that way.

Patrick Lyoya was a young father.

He was a sibling.

He was a son.

He was a 26-year-old Congolese immigrant living in America and was targeted by racist police.

The justice system is stacked against people who are fighting for accountability from law enforcement – like Patrick’s family.

We have to change this system, district by district, so that law enforcement do not live above the law, and so that families like Patrick’s can seek true accountability and dignity.

For now, please join us in calling for an independent prosecutor to be appointed. Your message will be sent DIRECTLY to local officials, and the more people who sign on, the more pressure we will build to make sure he does the right thing.

Once you’ve signed, please share this petition far and wide so we can keep building pressure to make sure this violent cop is held to full account with an independent prosecutor.

Thank you for taking action with us,

Real Justice

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RSN: FOCUS: Lonely Putin Is Losing Control of His Own Spiraling Minions

 


 

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14 April 22

When We Say Donations Are Down, You Can Believe They Are

Pulling in enough donations on a monthly basis to cover RSN’s basic operating costs is one difficult job … in normal times.

These times are anything but normal. We’re down a good 20% from last month at this time. While that may not seem like much, to a community based organization it’s the difference between keeping services turned off and keeping them on.

Slow down for a moment and do what you can to keep RSN doing this.

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A SERIOUS, BUT VERY SOLVABLE FUNDRAISING PROBLEM — To end this fundraiser, quickly we need about “300” donations. We have gotten that in “1” day many, many times. “300” of you will visit RSN in the next “15” minutes. With urgency.
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Russian president Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, on Wednesday. (photo: Mikhail Kimentyev/AP)
FOCUS: Lonely Putin Is Losing Control of His Own Spiraling Minions
Shannon Vavra, The Daily Beast
Vavra writes: "After a series of embarrassing setbacks in trying to capture Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, over the past 40-odd days, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ultimately decided to have his forces retreat, and regroup to go after eastern Ukraine. But his cronies can't seem to get the picture straight."

It’s one major blow after another for the Kremlin’s allies, who seem to be embarrassing an increasingly isolated Putin by failing to get their lies straight on the war in Ukraine.

After a series of embarrassing setbacks in trying to capture Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, over the past 40-odd days, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ultimately decided to have his forces retreat, and regroup to go after eastern Ukraine. But his cronies can’t seem to get the picture straight.

Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic—also known as Putin’s “foot soldier”—said on his Telegram account this week that Russia will still be working to take Kyiv.

We will “take Kyiv and all other cities,” Kadyrov said.

The picture on the ground is far different, though. With Russian forces failing to take Kyiv, they left and abandoned that goal, instead focusing on the east. As recently as Tuesday this week, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed in a briefing that Russia is still focusing on the eastern portions of Ukraine.

In all fairness, Russia is working to take eastern portions of Ukraine, which Kadyrov mentioned as well. But for the moment, his messaging seems way off from Putin’s current planning process.

But this isn’t a function of a war dragging on and messaging getting lost in the fog. The list of mishaps and communications not going according to plan goes back months. In mid-March, Kadyrov claimed he and Chechen forces were near Kyiv—a claim Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov flat-out denied. And during a now notorious meeting with Russia’s Presidential Security Council in February, Putin lashed out at the chief of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, when Naryshkin spoke about Russia’s policy towards eastern Ukraine in a way that apparently irked Putin. Naryshkin hesitated and stammered his way through his words, molding them to Putin’s will as they went—and as Putin continually interrupted him.

The trouble might be self-inflicted, at least in part. Putin has isolated himself from his advisers while waging a war that is, unlike any war in Europe before, being documented in real time on social media. All eyes are on Putin and his cronies’ every move. And for Putin’s Russia, which isn’t built for transparency or message coordination and rollout, the fumbles are glaringly obvious.

“The Russians don’t practice this. It’s not an open society, they don’t talk to the press—they don’t even attempt to be transparent. Undoubtedly because it’s such a stovepiped system and they don’t have much experience or use in talking to the press it’s inevitable they’d be working at cross-purposes,” Douglas London, a former CIA chief of station, told The Daily Beast. “Putin is very much a stovepiped decision-maker in terms of how he delegates power and authority.”

Examining what Putin wants to do next in the war is like a game of Russian roulette—and many, even in Putin’s inner circle, are just throwing out ideas they think might stick, or that might align with what Putin wants, even if they have no clue what he’s thinking, according to Anton Barbashin, a Russian political analyst.

“Among the many decision-makers or elites in Russia… only a few have a clear-cut understanding of what is actually happening [including] what’s the strategy and how it evolves. We never know who exactly knows the situation,” Barbashin told The Daily Beast. “There’s just a lot of people speculating on how they understand the situation.”

Some of the fudged messages coming from advisers are tied to their interest in vying for attention from Putin and trying to show him just how loyal and useful they can be in the war.

“It’s essentially a competition to prove to the Kremlin, ‘Look, this version is better for Russia and I'm ready to execute it. I'm ready to be that institution that you can rely on to solve your problems,’” Barbashin said. “They’re showing specifically their loyalty to the Kremlin, to Putin, to the cause. And they’re trying to compete.”

An increasingly isolated and rage-filled Putin has found himself surrounded by advisers too scared to tell him things were not going well on the battlefield, though, leading him to have an inaccurate picture of the war, which may also contribute to bad messaging, according to top Biden administration officials.

“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions, because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth,” White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told reporters in a briefing last month.

Putin has cordoned himself off so much in recent months that it’s not clear anyone knows what Moscow’s next move will be.

“Generally speaking it is very hard to understand even for them, what is the decision… because the Kremlin doesn't know yet,” Barbashin said. “That has been a Kremlin thing for decades now to work several options at the same time [and] depending on the circumstances choosing one.”

The messages from Kadyrov need to be taken with a sizable grain of salt because he is essentially operating as a kind of vassal ally to Russia—one with his own personal goals and interest in maintaining a foothold in Russian power circles.

“He’s a very special kind of duck in this mix,” Barbashin said. “The way he's been engaged in this war, the way he is participating, is kind of like he's acting on its own.”

Putin’s war has encountered a whole slew of other problems that have tripped Putin and his cronies up. Putin’s forces, for one, struggled to take Kyiv, a situation that “frustrated” Putin, according to a CIA analysis shared with U.S. lawmakers. A senior defense official said in briefings last month that a column of Russian forces was stalling outside of Kyiv due to failures of resourcing and a lack of fuel. Russian command and control has been a mess. And officials have been scratching their heads at why Russia launched a series of cyberattacks on Ukrainian banks and websites in advance of the invasion—but have largely failed to run a flurry of successful hacks while waging war in Ukraine, a move which some analysts say could have made their invasion more chaotic for Ukrainians, and lent an advantage to Russia.

U.S. intelligence officials eventually realized it wasn’t clear if Putin had a top military commander in charge of running the war in Ukraine, according to CNN. Units running different operations around Ukraine weren’t communicating with each other, making for a poor distribution of resources and lack of coordination, officials said.

Putin appears to know that he might need more coordination if he is going to walk away with any “positive” news to bring back to Russia. As Russia has retreated from Kyiv and works to regroup and refocus on the eastern portions of Ukraine, Russia is tapping Aleksandr Dvornikov, the chief of staff of Russia’s Central Military District, to be the top commander in Ukraine. And a military convoy north of Izyum might be poised to provide more logistics support to the offensive in eastern Ukraine, as a way to make up for lack of preparation earlier, a senior U.S. defense official said in a briefing Tuesday.

But this little bit of optics play—announcing a new leader—isn’t likely to overhaul the disorganized way the war is going for Russia, in particular because the military is just not equipped for an overarching command structure right now, London said.

“I don’t think it’s going to make for an immediate solution to a lot of the problems they’re having, particularly in terms of logistics, command control, and… morale,” London told The Daily Beast. “They may now have said they’ve got this overall battlefield commander… I don’t necessarily know it’s going to quite roll out that way because they’re not organized to work that way. They’re not organized to function in this overall very organized chain of command.”


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Special Coverage: Ukraine, A Historic Resistance
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[WATCH] I just challenged William Oberndorf to a debate

 


 

Yesterday, I shared with you that William Oberndorf just contributed an additional $49,000 to the recall effort. 

Then, last night, I went on KTVU FOX 2 to publicly challenge Oberndorf to a debate on the future of San Francisco. Take a look:

Recalls are very different from normal elections. Recalls aren't about debates between candidates sharing competing visions for the future. They're about who can spend enough money to qualify something for the ballot. 

In this case, William Oberndorf, a Republican and MAJOR Mitch McConnell contributor, has spent nearly $1 million to qualify this recall for the ballot.

San Franciscans deserve to know what his agenda is. That's why I challenged him to a debate.

ANTONIO, the people of San Francisco deserve to know William Oberndorf's vision for public safety. Does he support the death penalty? What about child incarceration? How about ending sanctuary cities for our immigrant communities? 

We deserve to know. 

With less than 8 weeks until Election Day, Oberndorf's cash could be enough win the race -- so we set a goal of raising $49,000 by our upcoming filing on April 23 to match his most recent contribution.

I have to ask: Will you donate now to help us reach that goal?

DONATE NOW »

Oberndorf thinks this city is for sale -- let's show him it's not. 

Thank you,

Chesa Boudin
District Attorney, San Francisco

Chesa Boudin was elected District Attorney of San Francisco in 2019 to reform our criminal justice system. Now, right-wingers  want to reverse our progress and return our city to a time when innocent people were locked away and police acted with impunity.

Please chip in today to keep up the fight to reform San Francisco's criminal justice system.

DONATE NOW »


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Richard Ojeda DESTROYS Republicans For Encouraging Violence

 


GOP Congressman Paul Gosar tweeted out to his followers a crudely made video of him killing AOC and attacking President Biden with swords. Richard Ojeda breaks it down. Follow Richard on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Ojeda4America Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/richardojed... #RichardOjeda #RebelHQ #Politics Delivered by @tyt/studio



🚨Susan Collins JUST GOT BURIED…

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