Ex-US ambassador to Ukraine, Taylor: Putin likely expected Trump to pressure Zelenskyy into accepting Moscow’s view. That has not happened.
Zelenskyy is more confident because he knows, war ends only when enough pressure is put on Putin, not when Ukraine is pushed to concede. 1/
Taylor: Territorial concessions are off the table. Russia illegally occupies about 19% of Ukraine, that is a fact, but Ukraine and its partners will not give that occupation legal standing.
They will never recognize Russia’s claim or turn aggression into lawful territory. 2/
Taylor: Everyone knows Russia wants total control of Ukraine, either to eliminate it or absorb it into Russia.
A ceasefire may stop Moscow temporarily, but it is not enough. Ukraine needs security guarantees that make another Russian invasion too costly to attempt. 3/
A Russian militant known as “Grom” raped filmmaker and journalist Alisa Kovalenko for four days.
Before that, militants beat and interrogated her. They threatened to cut off her fingers and teeth.
Alisa was 27. She came to Donbas to film the start of Russia’s war, UP.
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Ukrainska Pravda tells the stories of people from occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Makiivka, Yasynuvata and other cities who refused to live under the Russian tricolor.
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A taxi driver betrayed Alisa. Her boyfriend, French documentary producer Stéphane Siohan, raised the alarm in the media. The publicity saved her.
In 2022, Alisa evacuated the heroes of her films and then joined the army as a volunteer. She served as an infantry assault soldier.
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Guards beat Russian mathematician Azat Miftakhov on the soles of his feet, threatened him with rape and shocked him with electricity in Kharp, the Arctic prison where Navalny died.
His global fame both shields him and marks him as a target inside — The Moscow Times. 1/
Police raided a Moscow State University dormitory in February 2019 and detained Miftakhov, then 25 and a fourth-year graduate mathematics student, with 11 others.
At the police station he slit his wrists to avoid abuse. Officers tortured him with a screwdriver anyway. 2/
Prosecutors never found explosives. They convicted him over a smoke bomb at a United Russia office, then jailed him twice more on fabricated charges.
Three prosecutions in five years left him serving four years in a maximum-security colony, branded a terrorist and extremist. 3/
Kasparov: With Trump, it is hard to separate reality from fantasy because he constantly blurs that line.
If the Iran deal is signed in the form being discussed, it would not be a peace breakthrough, it would be a catastrophe for America and Israel. 1/
Kasparov: Such a deal may be a tactical gift to opposition forces in America and Israel, but strategically it is a defeat for both countries.
For America, it shows that all the talk about U.S. power has turned out to be empty noise. 2/
Kasparov: Trump is bankrupting America.
A man with six business bankruptcies behind him is now producing geopolitical bankruptcy, a collapse of credibility, deterrence and power that the United States will not easily recover from. 3/
Russia recruits teenage Ukrainian girls to kill Ukrainian servicemen. Police chief Vyhivskyi: six cases of contract killings via Telegram this year, one prevented.
A 17-year-old was arrested in Zhytomyr after poisoning a soldier. — Reuters.
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The scheme: recruiters find young women on messaging platforms, promise easy money, pay for apartment rentals to meet soldiers.
Then instruct them where to obtain methadone — a synthetic opioid lethal in high doses — for lacing drinks.
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The 17-year-old received a parcel containing a crystalline substance — presumed to be methadone.
She communicated via Telegram with a man investigators believe was a Russian intelligence agent.