By LORI HINNANT, MSTYSLAV CHERNOV, AAMER MADHANI and CALVIN WOODWARD
49 mins ago
The week before Russia attacked, a Ukrainian soldier peered through a periscope from the bottom of his trench. Mud seeped into his boots, his clothes and every crack in his gear as he walked the narrow space where he had spent his days for the past 10 months.
“These wars for territory are madness,” he said, “but probably this is human nature.”
Within days, Ukraine was engulfed by what the soldier in the trench saw as humanity’s dark impulse. The largest invasion Europe has seen since World War II has imperiled a young democracy while risking geopolitical instability far beyond the flashpoints of the new war.
In the conflict’s earliest days, each side has managed to surprise the other. Russia unleashed a broader, larger invasion than almost anyone had predicted. And Ukraine, at least by U.S. and other Western accounts, has put up a more tenacious fight than many thought possible against the neighboring superpower. Fortunes can turn at any moment.
“It’s not apparent to us that the Russians over the last 24 hours have been able to execute their plans as they deemed that they would. But it’s a dynamic, fluid situation,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday.
And so it has been for much of the past year. Russia alternately added and subtracted troops along the border, diplomacy seemed to make progress until it didn’t, Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed restrained, then not, then maybe, then not.
The path to war was convoluted — but also inexorable.
But those orders also required Russian troops to leave their heavy weaponry in Crimea and the Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, where it would already be in place if the forces returned — which they did. The reprieve was brief for Leshchyshyn’s unit and for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had tweeted that the redeployment “proportionally reduces tension.”
Soon afterward, U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, a summit widely seen as a reward for suspending the drills. But by the end of summer, it was clear that Putin’s military plans were just getting started — even if they hadn’t quite taken shape yet.
Leshchyshyn’s life in the deserted front-line village of Zolote continued as before, circumscribed by the labyrinth of trenches he commanded. The monotony of four-hour shifts on guard was broken by periodic exchanges of fire with Russia-backed separatists, and by the news he caught on his mobile phone.
Roots poked out along the walls of the trench, but they were never enough to hold up the mud when a shell exploded nearby. Those not on guard duty shored up the sides with hand shovels.
When they returned to their basement barracks in a house with no roof, the same shovels scraped the congealed mud from their boots. When night fell, the village was dark and quiet enough that Leshchyshyn’s men and the separatists sometimes shouted curses at each other from their respective trenches.
By early November, the mud was back, thick enough to weigh down the soldiers’ boots. So were the Russian troops — 90,000 of them again near the border, with more on the way from all corners of the world’s largest country.
The warnings from the Biden administration grew more pointed, and for the first time, U.S. intelligence officials started sharing specifics with Zelenskyy, European officials and eventually the public.
The White House realized that it was looking at the beginnings of what would probably turn into an enormous crisis by October. Officials were seeing a cascade of worrying intelligence strains, including troop movements, that suggested that Putin was looking to move on Ukraine.
Biden wanted Putin to know what he knew. He sent CIA Director Bill Burns to Moscow to warn Kremlin officials that the U.S. was fully aware of their troop movements. The White House made the calculation that the CIA chief’s travels, normally closely held, needed to be advertised far and wide.
“We wanted it to be known that he was there and understood by the Russians that we were starting to put them on notice and that we were going to do so publicly as well as privately,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Soon after that trip, administration officials decided they needed to accelerate intelligence sharing. They also began discussions with allies about sanctions should Russia invade.
In early December, national security officials shared information from an intelligence document with the press showing at least 70,000 Russian troops had massed near the Ukraine border. Much of the information could be gleaned independently but White House officials thought it was crucial to get the information out in the open “with U.S. government branding.”
So began a name-and-shame campaign in which the White House national security officials widely distributed a series of plots they contend Putin was weighing to set a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine.
Critics of U.S. intelligence — Russian officials among them — recalled past failures like the infamously false identification of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq nearly 20 years ago and the unexpectedly swift fall of Kabul last year.
In mid-November, a senior European diplomat spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential briefings. The diplomat was unconvinced by U.S. intelligence findings.
“We see the military build-up, at the same time, we don’t have any intelligence that there’s something like military action, or that Russians would be trying to become militarily active, so we don’t share this opinion, even though the Americans have said so,” the diplomat said. “We don’t see that there is intention on Putin’s part so far.”
At NATO, Germany blocked efforts to help Ukraine acquire military equipment. France and Germany objected to launching NATO’s crisis management system, but eventually relented at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Latvia on Dec. 1. The move was essentially symbolic. The system is used to identify whether there is a crisis and launch preliminary planning to respond.
With some satisfaction, Putin said the military buildup has caused a “certain stress” in the West. “It’s necessary to keep them in that condition for as long as possible” to secure long-term security guarantees for Russia, he added.
He laid down his demands on Dec. 15: a ban on NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, a halt to the deployment of NATO weapons in those countries and a rollback of NATO forces from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile Russian troops kept arriving in Belarus to Ukraine’s north and on its eastern frontiers where heavy weaponry had been stockpiled since the spring.
Zelenskyy continued to play down the troop movements, noting that Ukraine had been facing threats from Russia and the separatists since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. On Jan. 10, Russia’s deputy foreign minister insisted there were “no plans, intentions or reasons to attack Ukraine.”
The U.S. did not believe it.
Two days later, the United States and NATO rejected Russia’s demands, and the movement of troops and weapons accelerated. Ukrainian government websites went down en masse, many displaying a warning from the suspected Russian-linked hackers: “Be afraid and expect worse.”
On Feb. 4, Putin flew to Beijing, ostensibly for the Olympic Games although Russian athletes were banned from competing under their nation’s flag because of years of doping scandals. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their support for each other’s foreign policy, including Russia’s backing of China’s claim to Taiwan.
The unspoken message: These two world powers were on the same page or a similar page, and China would not stand with most of the rest of the world against Putin’s designs on Ukraine.
By then, 150,000 Russian troops had all but surrounded Ukraine and the United States had all but abandoned hope for a diplomatic solution. French President Emmanuel Macron attempted a last-ditch intervention. Flying first to Moscow to meet Putin, where the men sat across an absurdly long marble table, then to Kyiv, Macron tried fruitlessly to stave off war.
Publicly Macron said Putin assured him that Russia would not escalate the crisis. But privately he described the Russian leader as “more rigid, more isolated and fundamentally lost in a sort of ideological and security drift,” according to a senior French official.
On Feb. 16, a Wednesday, Ukraine held a “day of national unity” after a date floated as the potential Russian attack failed to materialize. Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, accused Westerners of “slander” for alleging an invasion was afoot and joined other Russian officials in ridiculing Biden’s prediction that it could start as soon as that Wednesday. “Wars in Europe rarely start on a Wednesday,” Chizhov said sarcastically.
But Zelenskyy ordered Ukrainian soldiers to be restrained and give Russia no excuses to attack. Shelling and gunfire at the front lines with the separatists increased exponentially, according to international monitors, but Ukrainian troops were told not to return fire.
First, he said, there would be a staged provocation. Then would come a theatrical high-level meeting of the Russian government, followed by a proclamation that Russia must defend ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Then, he said, the attack would begin, with Kyiv a main target. Events would largely, perhaps fully, prove him right.
“We’ve been warning the Ukrainian government of all that is coming,” Blinken said, looking directly at the camera. “And here today, we are laying it out in great detail, with the hope that by sharing what we know with the world, we can influence Russia to abandon the path of war and choose a different path while there’s still time.”
On the night of Feb. 19, the separatist leaders released near-simultaneous videos announcing a general evacuation of women, children and the elderly. One of those pro-Russia separatists showed video of what he said was a car bomb exploding his personal vehicle — ostensibly, proof that Ukrainian troops were provoking a war.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
THREAD 1/7 Intel from a Ukrainian officer about a meeting in Putin’s lair in Urals. Oligarchs convened there so no one would flee. Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days. @EPPGroup@general_ben@edwardlucas@politicohttps://t.co/8AoelUDWM9
This is just an obersavation,but it seems Russia only steals back territory lost with the dissolution of the Soviet Union under a US Democratic administration. 2016-Obama and now 2022 under Biden. Wonder why this is?
No you're incorrect. Putin invaded Georgia in 2006, during the Bush administration.
I appreciate that insight,I was unaware. Looks like the dictator has been pushing the world's buttons for sometime now then.
Again...these people have no shame what so ever. Trump literally tried to extort Zelenskyy and held back military aid that they need to defend themselves against Russia just a few years ago. And now...this? Fuck the RNC
Excellent, thank you,GG! That sounds like a great way to give.
Another possibility if anyone wants to give to an individual organization is to choose from the list Charity Navigator has com[piled ans is keeping updated here:
So now when Putin couldn't just swoop in and get a pristine untouched Kyiv and his puppet government, I would imagine this will start to look really ugly.
Again...these people have no shame what so ever. Trump literally tried to extort Zelenskyy and held back military aid that they need to defend themselves against Russia just a few years ago. And now...this? Fuck the RNC
Again...these people have no shame what so ever. Trump literally tried to extort Zelenskyy and held back military aid that they need to defend themselves against Russia just a few years ago. And now...this? Fuck the RNC
just heard from a friend in Poland. former board member. he and his family have room for a family of 3. so far his little village has made room available for 90...
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,597
We decided to go with this Go Fund Me effort. I like what they have to say in there Fund description. Thanks again for the heads-up!
Awesome, Brian. I donated there as well. It looks like they are raising quite a bit of money. I hope it will help.
Well done, GG. Thanks again.
I think it does help. It's really hard to think about/imagine what it must be like to be under attack the way Ukrainians are right now. And though there is so little each of us as individuals can do, seeing how wide-spread the support for Ukraine is from around the world surely must mean a lot to those who are being directly affected.
Again...these people have no shame what so ever. Trump literally tried to extort Zelenskyy and held back military aid that they need to defend themselves against Russia just a few years ago. And now...this? Fuck the RNC
They have no shame. Pisses me off. We should all be standing in solidarity with the Ukraine right now instead of trying to score political points.
It didn't even make sense. Biden should be on the front lines in Kyiv rather than in Marine One?
I thought the same thing. What president wouldn’t be at the WH? Seemed like a dumb message. The comments had a picture of Ted Cruz leaving because it was cold. That made me laugh.
The comments on Facebook responding to this blaming the fucking band for this war because they supported Biden who is somehow responsible for this war. Unreal the (overused term alert!) mental gymnastics these people employ.
Hugh Freaking Dillon is currently out of the office, returning sometime in the fall
Comments
By LORI HINNANT, MSTYSLAV CHERNOV, AAMER MADHANI and CALVIN WOODWARD
The week before Russia attacked, a Ukrainian soldier peered through a periscope from the bottom of his trench. Mud seeped into his boots, his clothes and every crack in his gear as he walked the narrow space where he had spent his days for the past 10 months.
Zakhar Leshchyshyn was just 23. He had no memory of Ukraine as anything but a fully independent country. But now he was charged with helping to keep it that way, posted at Ukraine’s eastern front line since early last spring, when 100,000 Russian land and naval forces first encircled most of his country.
“These wars for territory are madness,” he said, “but probably this is human nature.”
Within days, Ukraine was engulfed by what the soldier in the trench saw as humanity’s dark impulse. The largest invasion Europe has seen since World War II has imperiled a young democracy while risking geopolitical instability far beyond the flashpoints of the new war.
In the conflict’s earliest days, each side has managed to surprise the other. Russia unleashed a broader, larger invasion than almost anyone had predicted. And Ukraine, at least by U.S. and other Western accounts, has put up a more tenacious fight than many thought possible against the neighboring superpower. Fortunes can turn at any moment.
“It’s not apparent to us that the Russians over the last 24 hours have been able to execute their plans as they deemed that they would. But it’s a dynamic, fluid situation,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday.
And so it has been for much of the past year. Russia alternately added and subtracted troops along the border, diplomacy seemed to make progress until it didn’t, Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed restrained, then not, then maybe, then not.
The path to war was convoluted — but also inexorable.
AN EARLY MARKER
It was back on March 31 of last year when the U.S. military raised an alert of a “potential imminent crisis” arising from Russian drills near the Ukrainian border. Not long after, Russian troops were ordered back to their permanent bases and the sense of alarm eased.
But those orders also required Russian troops to leave their heavy weaponry in Crimea and the Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, where it would already be in place if the forces returned — which they did. The reprieve was brief for Leshchyshyn’s unit and for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had tweeted that the redeployment “proportionally reduces tension.”
Soon afterward, U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, a summit widely seen as a reward for suspending the drills. But by the end of summer, it was clear that Putin’s military plans were just getting started — even if they hadn’t quite taken shape yet.
When Zelenskyy visited Washington on Sept. 1, he came away with a pledge of $60 million in military aid.
IN THE TRENCH
Leshchyshyn’s life in the deserted front-line village of Zolote continued as before, circumscribed by the labyrinth of trenches he commanded. The monotony of four-hour shifts on guard was broken by periodic exchanges of fire with Russia-backed separatists, and by the news he caught on his mobile phone.
Roots poked out along the walls of the trench, but they were never enough to hold up the mud when a shell exploded nearby. Those not on guard duty shored up the sides with hand shovels.
When they returned to their basement barracks in a house with no roof, the same shovels scraped the congealed mud from their boots. When night fell, the village was dark and quiet enough that Leshchyshyn’s men and the separatists sometimes shouted curses at each other from their respective trenches.
By early November, the mud was back, thick enough to weigh down the soldiers’ boots. So were the Russian troops — 90,000 of them again near the border, with more on the way from all corners of the world’s largest country.
ALARM IN WASHINGTON
The warnings from the Biden administration grew more pointed, and for the first time, U.S. intelligence officials started sharing specifics with Zelenskyy, European officials and eventually the public.
The White House realized that it was looking at the beginnings of what would probably turn into an enormous crisis by October. Officials were seeing a cascade of worrying intelligence strains, including troop movements, that suggested that Putin was looking to move on Ukraine.
Biden wanted Putin to know what he knew. He sent CIA Director Bill Burns to Moscow to warn Kremlin officials that the U.S. was fully aware of their troop movements. The White House made the calculation that the CIA chief’s travels, normally closely held, needed to be advertised far and wide.
“We wanted it to be known that he was there and understood by the Russians that we were starting to put them on notice and that we were going to do so publicly as well as privately,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Soon after that trip, administration officials decided they needed to accelerate intelligence sharing. They also began discussions with allies about sanctions should Russia invade.
In early December, national security officials shared information from an intelligence document with the press showing at least 70,000 Russian troops had massed near the Ukraine border. Much of the information could be gleaned independently but White House officials thought it was crucial to get the information out in the open “with U.S. government branding.”
So began a name-and-shame campaign in which the White House national security officials widely distributed a series of plots they contend Putin was weighing to set a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine.
Critics of U.S. intelligence — Russian officials among them — recalled past failures like the infamously false identification of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq nearly 20 years ago and the unexpectedly swift fall of Kabul last year.
In mid-November, a senior European diplomat spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential briefings. The diplomat was unconvinced by U.S. intelligence findings.
“We see the military build-up, at the same time, we don’t have any intelligence that there’s something like military action, or that Russians would be trying to become militarily active, so we don’t share this opinion, even though the Americans have said so,” the diplomat said. “We don’t see that there is intention on Putin’s part so far.”
At NATO, Germany blocked efforts to help Ukraine acquire military equipment. France and Germany objected to launching NATO’s crisis management system, but eventually relented at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Latvia on Dec. 1. The move was essentially symbolic. The system is used to identify whether there is a crisis and launch preliminary planning to respond.
PUTIN’S GUESSING GAME
With some satisfaction, Putin said the military buildup has caused a “certain stress” in the West. “It’s necessary to keep them in that condition for as long as possible” to secure long-term security guarantees for Russia, he added.
He laid down his demands on Dec. 15: a ban on NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, a halt to the deployment of NATO weapons in those countries and a rollback of NATO forces from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile Russian troops kept arriving in Belarus to Ukraine’s north and on its eastern frontiers where heavy weaponry had been stockpiled since the spring.
Zelenskyy continued to play down the troop movements, noting that Ukraine had been facing threats from Russia and the separatists since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. On Jan. 10, Russia’s deputy foreign minister insisted there were “no plans, intentions or reasons to attack Ukraine.”
The U.S. did not believe it.
Two days later, the United States and NATO rejected Russia’s demands, and the movement of troops and weapons accelerated. Ukrainian government websites went down en masse, many displaying a warning from the suspected Russian-linked hackers: “Be afraid and expect worse.”
On Jan. 20, Russia announced sweeping naval drills off the coast of Ukraine and Biden said publicly he believed Russia planned an invasion.
On Feb. 4, Putin flew to Beijing, ostensibly for the Olympic Games although Russian athletes were banned from competing under their nation’s flag because of years of doping scandals. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their support for each other’s foreign policy, including Russia’s backing of China’s claim to Taiwan.
The unspoken message: These two world powers were on the same page or a similar page, and China would not stand with most of the rest of the world against Putin’s designs on Ukraine.
MACRON TRIES
By then, 150,000 Russian troops had all but surrounded Ukraine and the United States had all but abandoned hope for a diplomatic solution. French President Emmanuel Macron attempted a last-ditch intervention. Flying first to Moscow to meet Putin, where the men sat across an absurdly long marble table, then to Kyiv, Macron tried fruitlessly to stave off war.
Publicly Macron said Putin assured him that Russia would not escalate the crisis. But privately he described the Russian leader as “more rigid, more isolated and fundamentally lost in a sort of ideological and security drift,” according to a senior French official.
The American warnings grew increasingly frantic, but life in Kyiv — Ukraine’s capital and its largest population center — continued as usual because, Zelenskyy insisted, Ukrainians would not yield to panic.
On Feb. 16, a Wednesday, Ukraine held a “day of national unity” after a date floated as the potential Russian attack failed to materialize. Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, accused Westerners of “slander” for alleging an invasion was afoot and joined other Russian officials in ridiculing Biden’s prediction that it could start as soon as that Wednesday. “Wars in Europe rarely start on a Wednesday,” Chizhov said sarcastically.
But Zelenskyy ordered Ukrainian soldiers to be restrained and give Russia no excuses to attack. Shelling and gunfire at the front lines with the separatists increased exponentially, according to international monitors, but Ukrainian troops were told not to return fire.
BLINKEN: ‘IT’S UNFOLDING’
On Feb. 17, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out “what the world can expect to see unfold. In fact, it’s unfolding right now.”
First, he said, there would be a staged provocation. Then would come a theatrical high-level meeting of the Russian government, followed by a proclamation that Russia must defend ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Then, he said, the attack would begin, with Kyiv a main target. Events would largely, perhaps fully, prove him right.
“We’ve been warning the Ukrainian government of all that is coming,” Blinken said, looking directly at the camera. “And here today, we are laying it out in great detail, with the hope that by sharing what we know with the world, we can influence Russia to abandon the path of war and choose a different path while there’s still time.”
On the night of Feb. 19, the separatist leaders released near-simultaneous videos announcing a general evacuation of women, children and the elderly. One of those pro-Russia separatists showed video of what he said was a car bomb exploding his personal vehicle — ostensibly, proof that Ukrainian troops were provoking a war.
The destroyed 4X4, however, was a suspiciously older model and metadata showed the videos were actually filmed three days earlier.
continues.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Prague Krakow Berlin 2018. Berlin 2022
EV, Taormina 1+2 2017.
I wish i was the souvenir you kept your house key on..
Prague Krakow Berlin 2018. Berlin 2022
EV, Taormina 1+2 2017.
I wish i was the souvenir you kept your house key on..
Riho Terras (@RihoTerras) Tweeted:
I posted that "I really want to punch him in the face" on this tweet and within 15 seconds I was suspended....crazy
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
Biden's Republican critics are wrong about U.S. gas production, experts say
https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-us-gas-production-wont-affect-russia-ukraine-or-europe-experts-say-200717731.htmlWe decided to go with this Go Fund Me effort. I like what they have to say in there Fund description. Thanks again for the heads-up!
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The comments had a picture of Ted Cruz leaving because it was cold. That made me laugh.