Notes

What do Russians see and hear about the war in Ukraine?
Monitoring groups say more than 13,000 people have been detained at anti-war protests in the country since the start of the invasion. That the Kremlin was right to block the majority of independent media sites they used to read. Was hatred a natural and ultimately inevitable response to the atrocities Ukrainians were being subjected to? Does it change anything to know that many Russians oppose Putin’s war but are powerless to stop him, or to understand that others have been duped into supporting it through his hyper-nationalistic discourse? A few weeks after my trip, I contacted Peter Pomerantsev, who had accompanied me from Lviv to Kyiv. He had been born in Kyiv in 1977, when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union, but was brought up and educated in the United Kingdom, after his parents went into exile there.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left Russia, including me and my BBC Russian colleagues. The ISW does note that Russia's advances might be the result of Ukrainian forces withdrawing to "more defensible positions" near Robotyne. Russia did not want to occupy Ukraine, he said, but would demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country. Phillips P OBrien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, wrote in an analysis piece that the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House could see the US "neuter" the Western military alliance.
He has worked in both London and Moscow, where he became an expert on Russian propaganda. Now a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Pomerantsev shuttles between Washington, D.C., and Ukraine. I asked him how he felt about the notion of justifiable hatred in the context of Ukraine.

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As a result, some of the few remaining independent media in Russia have started to censor themselves. Online, most independent news websites are blocked or restricted, and so are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The fact that the majority of Russians tune in to TV news means they are inclined to at least hear the Kremlin's message - and possibly believe it. Restrictions on reporting are increasingly severe, and access to almost all independent outlets is blocked or limited - or they censor themselves. "Much of this is required to fight the war in Ukraine, but the Russians, ever adaptive, are using the crucible of war to reform, restructure and re-arm their forces. "It is this disconnect of world view, combined with the willingness to use force, that makes the situation in eastern Europe so very dangerous.

To indicate which parts of Ukraine are under control by Russian troops we are using daily assessments published by the Institute for the Study of War with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project. It has cut diplomatic ties with Russia, offered weapons to anyone who wants them and declared an overnight curfew for Kyiv. These are people who made very small salaries when they could have made much more by going over to the Kremlin side. My daily walks were my way of saying goodbye to a world, and perhaps even a country, that could never be the same again. Today, all prominent Russian opposition figures are either in custody, dead or in exile.
The biggest prize for Russia is Kyiv, the capital city and seat of President Zelensky's government - a city where fighting has already been taking place. Before the war, Russia made demands including a promise that Ukraine would not join a group of countries called Nato. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian attacks are increasing again in some parts of the country but they have not yet had any significant impact. Despite towns and cities suffering heavy shelling, Ukraine has been successful in slowing Russia's troops down considerably and have even taken back control over the previously captured city of Kherson. But in the east of Ukraine where the country borders Russia, military troops are still fighting over territory and many places are still too dangerous for school of any kind. It follows a series of similar drone raids on Russian energy infrastructure in recent weeks, some of which have disrupted fuel production.

Europe
Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added. Hungary previously said it would block further financial aid to Ukraine, but this morning suggested it was ready to compromise after the EU reportedly drew up plans to hit Budapest's economy. They’re under attack by a Russian Army whose soldiers — young men who have spent their entire lives under Mr. Putin — look forlorn and confused. They were told by their commanders that they were going to the Ukrainian border to take part in logistical drills, only to find themselves at war. Mr. Putin seemingly dreamed of a quick victory with Russian-speaking Ukrainians welcoming their “liberators” with flowers, the Ukrainian Army surrendering en masse and the country’s leaders fleeing in fear. Whatever https://click4r.com/posts/g/16508691/ . Putin might find acceptable in his twisted mind, Russia has already suffered a crushing moral defeat.


And it’s not just the usual suspects, the malcontents already known to the Kremlin. Major public figures, prominent journalists and artists have spoken out against the war. In mid-March, Aleksei Miniailo, a former social entrepreneur and current opposition politician, oversaw another telephone survey with the aim of trying to capture the effects of fear and propaganda on survey data. And that figure came from among those who agreed to participate at all; Miniailo suspected that the polls were not capturing a majority of the real antiwar sentiment, whatever its size.

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The Ukraine government is working with other nations, including the UK, to try to help young people continue their education as much as possible. Ukrainian forces were also quick to deploy Western supplied arms such as the Nlaw anti-tank system, which proved highly effective against the Russian advance. Russian ground troops moved in quickly and within a few weeks were in control of large areas of Ukraine and had advanced to the suburbs of Kyiv. Recent assessments by the ISW show Russian forces have made advances north of Bakhmut.

Many who study and report on Russia, me included, believe a small percentage of people actively support the war, and a small percentage actively oppose it. The fact that the majority of Russians tune in to TV news means they are inclined to at least hear the Kremlin's message - and possibly believe it. "In the short term," says Brig Ben Barry from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, "a successful Russian seizure of Kyiv would be a military and political success with strategic impact. Resistance has already begun, with a nationwide call-up of men of fighting age and 18,000 automatic weapons being handed out to the citizens of Kyiv, in addition to the uniformed army and reserves who are already putting up stiff resistance.
"Law enforcement agencies and special services are working at the scene," he wrote. The Russian president has intensified a crackdown on opposition since the start of his invasion of Ukraine, and this has ramped up further as the elections have approached. Meanwhile, Indian thinktank Observer Research Foundation's Russia expert, Nandan Unnikrishnan, said India was unlikely to sign "any major military deal" with Russia because it would cross a red line with the US. Unnamed Indian government sources have suggested India wants to distance itself from Russia, according to Reuters news agency. "A frank and constructive dialogue is expected to improve relations between states," the Ukrainian president's office said on its official channel on the Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of Mr Szijjarto, Mr Kuleba and Mr Yermak.


As expected, Vladimir Putin has been officially registered as a candidate for the Russian presidential election this March. However, Mr Orban's political director said this morning that Hungary was open to using the EU budget to allow further aid for Ukraine. Hungary has now signalled its readiness for a compromise ahead of an emergency EU summit on Thursday.


He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources". If the US abandons the military alliance, it will fall to European countries to ensure a Ukrainian victory, Mr OBrien says. A prominent war expert has warned the US is on the verge of diminishing its support for or even withdrawing from NATO - and this could have catastrophic consequences for Europe. My uncle, for example, is Ukrainian and my wife’s grandmother, born in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, survived the Nazi occupation of Kyiv. It’s hard to find a Russian family without Ukrainian relatives and friends, husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, chess partners and colleagues.

People have young children to look after, cancer and other illnesses to manage, aging parents to care for. "I think the West should ramp-up military assistance to Ukraine, that's the only option," Mr Gudkov says. Hungary has signalled it is ready to compromise on EU funding for Ukraine - after Brussels reportedly prepared to sabotage its economy if it did not comply.
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