The midterm elections in the United States have seen very thin races as control of the Senate and House are at stake. But that has not deterred President Biden from holding a press conference Wednesday to claim that the “giant red wave” did not happen.

Biden said, “Democrats had a great night. And we lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than in the first midterm election for a Democratic president in 40 years. And we’ve had the best midterms for governors since 1986.”

Biden, however, avoided triumphant rhetoric and pledged “to keep working across the aisle… (although) it’s not always easy.”

For world capitals, Biden’s remarks regarding Ukraine were the most anticipated segment. In short, Biden was far from adamant that the Republicans who now control the House would be cooperative.

He said, “I am ready to work with my fellow Republicans. The American people have made it clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be willing to work with me as well. In the area of ​​foreign policy, I hope we will continue this bipartisan approach to dealing with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

When asked if US military aid to Ukraine would continue uninterrupted, Biden simply replied, “That’s my expectation.” He claimed the United States did not give Ukraine “a black check” and only equipped kyiv to have “the rational ability to defend itself”.

Biden had an impressive record as a senator in building coalitions in Congress. But today, his candidacy for a second term as president stands in the way. If he chooses to run in 2024, that would leave Republicans no choice but to viscerally oppose him — personally and politically.

Biden made some interesting comments about the announcement in Moscow earlier Wednesday regarding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city of Kherson. Biden said Russia’s move was in line with expectations and the interesting part is that Moscow waited until the midterms were over.

Biden avoided giving a straight answer when asked if the Russian evacuation would give kyiv the clout to begin peace talks with Moscow. But neither did he refute such a line of thought. Instead, Biden added that “at a minimum, this (the evacuation) will allow everyone time to recalibrate their positions during the winter period. And it remains to be seen whether or not there will be a judgment on whether or not Ukraine is ready to compromise with Russia. (Emphasis added.)

Biden said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali (November 15-16) there could be consultations with world leaders, although Putin himself would not be there. Indeed, a kind of diplomatic message is underway. In fact, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov Tass said on Thursday that “it has been decided that Russia will be represented by (Foreign Minister) Sergei Lavrov at the G20 summit”.

Biden responded to a second question about the Kherson developments to further say that the Russian evacuation will not only help the parties ‘heal their wounds’, but ‘decide if – what they are going to do during the winter, and decide whether or not they’ concerning go to compromise.” (Emphasis added.)

Notably, Biden twice spoke of kyiv’s “compromise” (read territorial concessions), which is a major departure from the US position that Russian forces should exit Ukraine. Biden concluded, “That’s — that’s what’s going to happen, whether it is or not. I don’t know what they will do. And–but I know one thing: we’re not going to tell them what to do.

Taken together, Biden’s remarks are consistent with NBC News Wednesday’s “scoop,” citing knowledgeable sources, that during National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s unannounced visit to Kyiv last week, he investigated the preparing Ukraine for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

NBC reported that Sullivan was exploring options for ending the conflict and the possibility of entering into negotiations and raised the need for a diplomatic settlement in meetings with Ukrainian officials. He said some US and Western officials increasingly believe that neither Kyiv nor Moscow can achieve all of their goals, and that the winter slowdown in hostilities could provide a window of opportunity to begin negotiations.

Interesting way, Kremlin-funded RT quickly picked up NBC’s report and highlighted it. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also commented: “We are always open to negotiations, we have never refused them, we are ready to conduct them – taking into account, of course, the realities that are being established at this time”.

The Russian authorities continue to assert that the evacuation of their forces to Kherson is purely for security reasons. The responsibility was placed on the recommendation of Army General Sergey Surovikin, the commander of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. The general said in a televised speech that the evacuation of Kherson creates stronger defensive lines for the troops and will save the lives of soldiers and civilians.

Suffice to say, Lavrov’s presence in Bali will be of paramount importance. Presumably, he will have contacts with Western counterparts. Indeed, Biden’s remarks on the territorial compromise signal a sea change in the calculus.

In addition, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while opening a discussion with the Economic Club of New York on Wednesday about the possibility of peace between Ukraine and Russia, confirmed that there is indeed “a window of opportunity for trading”. ” to advance.

The general urged, “When there is an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment.” True, he spoke with an eye on the Russian military command.

The backdrop is that Democrats’ loss of control of the House of Representatives prevents them from freely advancing the Biden administration’s foreign policy line, including aid to Ukraine. Now, Biden will have to negotiate decisions on Ukraine with Republicans. It’s a thing.

Second, the cascading economic crisis in Europe harbors explosive potential for political unrest, especially if there is another flow of refugees from Ukraine in the harsh winter conditions, which is a real possibility.

The backlash from sanctions on Russia has mortally wounded Europe, and bluster aside, there really is no replacement for cheap, reliable, and plentiful Russian energy supplies via pipelines.

All this becomes extremely important for Western unity. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent visit to China shows that dissent is simmering.

Above all, the massive Russian mobilization threatens to give a knockout blow to the Ukrainian army, but the Europeans have no appetite for a confrontation with Russia.

The United Kingdom, Washington’s staunch ally in Ukraine, is also under immense pressure to disengage and focus on the domestic crisis as the new government tackles a £50bn funding hole in the budget.

Going forward, the notions of regime change in Moscow that Biden once publicly espoused and the neocon project to “cancel” Russia have hit the wall and crumbled. That said, the United States can take comfort in the fact that the Russian withdrawal from west of the Dnieper implies that Moscow has no intention of doing anything about Nikolaev, let alone Odessa, at least short term.

On the other hand, if Ukrainian forces surge and occupy Kherson and threaten Crimea, that will pose a big challenge to the Biden administration. From Biden’s remarks, Le is confident he has enough clout in Kyiv to ensure there is no escalation.

For the moment, it is premature to estimate that Moscow took the bitter decision to abandon the city of Kherson, founded by a decree of Catherine the Great and deeply engraved in the Russian collective consciousness, only with a reasonable certainty that Washington will hold kyiv back from the “hard pursuit” of the retreating Russian army to the eastern banks of the Dnieper.

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JAKARTA – Stung by the loss of the strategic city of Kherson, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concerted missile barrage on Ukraine the previous night appears to have been responsible for the surprisingly strong final declaration from the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Bali on Wednesday.

As the head of the Moscow delegation, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, abruptly flew off the island the night before, leaders condemned ‘in the strongest possible terms’ the Russian invasion and its impact on global food and energy supply lines.

President Joko Widodo said negotiating the declaration had been extremely difficult, with diplomats working until midnight on the wording. But he hailed the 52-paragraph agreement for condemning the war “because it violated the borders and the integrity of the region”.

In this 1929 article, British historian EH Carr is delighted to announce that Kyiv was to have a new railway station. The station was built between 1927 and 1932 to update the old station and today still stands as part of the Central Station Building of Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi Station. The play was written when Ukraine was under the control of the Soviet Union and Carr refers to the Ukrainian capital by its common English spelling at the time, kyiv, which in recent years, and especially since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War, fell out of favor as it derives from the Russian name of the city, rather than Ukrainian. Carr seems unenthusiastic about the Baroque style of the station, reporting reviews as “expensive, unsustainable, unhygienic and impractical”. Ukrainian Baroque, he thinks, may end as a historical footnote, but a different style could endure.

It is announced that the city of kyiv will have a new railway station. The announcement is authoritative, and only the most hardened skeptics would question its veracity. For it has behind it all the weight of antiquity; it was first done in 1899 and has been repeated at frequent intervals ever since. Since that date, all of the buildings through which travelers arriving in or leaving kyiv are forced to pass to go to or return from the train have deteriorated. It is no longer a station; it is a “temporary railway station”; and the passenger who might be willing to complain about crowding, drafts or dirt is both soothed and satisfied. His sufferings are not eternal; a generation or two may pass, but in the end all will be well. The city of kyiv will have a new railway station.

In 1918, an army of contractors and a few workers arrived on site. At the entrance to the “temporary station” excavations were made, foundations were laid, beams were put in place. But the workmen stopped to consider the glory of their work, and the stoppage was fatal; the following year scattered them on four different fronts, and the city of kyiv knew them no more. The frame they erected has not perished; it becomes immobilized, like the assurance of things one hopes for, the evidence of things one does not see.

The Soviet authorities, predictably, did not let the grass grow under their feet – nor on the unfinished foundations of the kyiv railway station. More than two years ago they announced a competition for the best design of the new station. But that was the beginning, rather than the end, of their difficulties. The Russian intellectual has always viewed a station with a kind of religious awe. It is reported of a famous Russian critic of the forties that, to revive his wavering faith in humanity, he used to go from time to time to witness the construction of the first railway station in Petersburg, and returned from his contemplation encouraged and spiritually refreshed. Now that the construction of churches is out of fashion, it can be assumed that the kyiv railway station will become the symbol of the greatness of the city, a centuries-old cathedral. Such work is not undertaken without much discussion by committees, the modern substitute for prayer and fasting.

Today, the city of kyiv, although it has long since lost its former status as a political capital, still considers itself the intellectual capital of Ukraine and the seat of small Russian culture. What could be more appropriate then than to make the new kyiv railway station a living monument of this culture? This is what the local committee thought and selected as the winner of the competition a station project “in the Ukrainian Baroque style”. We will have to wait for the next Russian textbook on architecture for a sympathetic definition of this form of art, not cataloged even by Mr. Sacheverell Sitwell. In the meantime, we only have the testimony of its opponents from the reinforced concrete school, who describe it as expensive, unsustainable, unhygienic and impractical. The winning “Ukrainian baroque” design will cost, we are assured, 180,000 rubles more than a classic design; it should be executed in brick and stucco instead of reinforced concrete; it involves so many architectural details that it can never be kept clean; and finally it fails to provide either a roof to cover the passengers waiting on the platform, or a bridge by which they can cross the tracks. In short, whatever its claim to be called baroque, everything sounds eminently Ukrainian.

But it should not be assumed that the reinforced concrete school has had the argument as it pleases. Followers of Ukrainian Baroque in turn struck a cunning blow. Aren’t the so-called classic designs in reinforced concrete typical creations of Western capitalism, symbols of its cold and greedy utilitarianism? Can they be admitted, not only to the intellectual capital of Ukraine, but to any self-respecting communist republic? It took a feminine spirit to counter such an overwhelming attack; but the quality of the defense, which appeared on the signature of a lady in Moscow Izvestiacan be judged from a single paragraph:

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“Style is a conception which embraces not only architecture but a whole series of objects of material culture, including, for example, modern clothing. If one analyzes the evolution of women’s dress over the last quarter century, one cannot help but think that, despite eccentricities here and there, dress as a whole has been inspired by the massive introduction of female labor, through the influence on fashion of the millions of female working masses. From this derive the simplicity, practicability, lightness of modern clothing and the absence of any artificial obstacle to work (for example the corset, etc.).

The lady develops her argument with a somewhat tedious length; but the application is clear. If the Parisian model is only the ultimate expression of the spirit of the “feminine working masses”, wouldn’t the Ukrainian worker and peasant be, after all, the real progenitor of the reinforced concrete skyscraper? And shouldn’t the kyiv station be built in a style that could, with a new meaning, be called “Ukrainian reinforced concrete”? The argument is, we feel, compelling; and by the time the next architectural textbook comes out, “Ukrainian Baroque” might, after all, be relegated to a historical footnote. For now, the verbal battle rages on. The fighters, men and women, reinforced concrete and baroque, contradict each other with a strident emphasis. But from time to time, amidst the clash of words, they stop to chant in unison the thirty-year-old slogan: “The city of Kyiv is going to have a new railway station.”

Learn more about the NS archives here. A selection of plays spanning the history of the New Statesman have recently been published under “Statesmanship” (Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

President Joe Biden on the eve of the US midterm elections called on Democrats to to go to the polls en masse to “protect democracy”, while former President Donald Trump has hinted that he will run for the White House again in 2024.

“We know in our bones that our democracy is in jeopardy and we know this is the time for you to stand up for it,” Biden told a crowd Monday night at Black University near Baltimore. “The power is in your hands…so vote, vote,” he told Democrats.

Biden’s speech presented what he called a “choice between two very different visions of America,” saying his administration has successfully blanketed the world’s largest economy from the COVID pandemic, with a rate of 3.75% unemployment and booming manufacturing industries.

He claimed Republicans would revert to a “trickle down economy” that favors the wealthy, if they win the midterm elections.

On the other side, Donald Trump has strongly hinted that he could run for president again and on Monday he said he would make a “big announcement” on November 15 at his resort town of Mar-a- Lago, where he is widely expected to announce the launch of his 2024 presidential campaign.

“If you support decline for all of America, then you absolutely must vote for the radical left Democrats. And if you want to stop the destruction of our country and save the American dream, then tomorrow you have to vote Republican in a giant red wave that we’ve all heard of,” Trump said.

The former president also revealed that he knows the difference between socialism and communism, saying that under President Biden, the United States skipped the former and went straight to the latter.

Republicans countered that a vote for Democrats meant rising inflation and an increase in violent crime, seeking to turn the midterm elections into a referendum on the president.

Midterm elections are crucial for maintaining control of the US House of Representatives and Senate when it comes to introducing and passing new laws. Seats in the House are divided among the states according to their population, and all members are elected for a two-year term.

As Americans head to the polls, their votes could affect the final two years of the Biden administration as Republicans and Democrats vie for control of both chambers.

Biden has enjoyed the comfort of having a Democratic-controlled Congress in his first two years in office, but that could change in the November 8 midterm elections.

On Monday, Biden told reporters he thinks the Democrats will win the Senate, while conceding “it’s going to be tough” to retain the House and that his life in Washington could get “tougher.”

If Republicans took control of one or both houses of Congress, it would open the door to Republican-led investigations that could challenge the White House. A Republican-led Senate could also block Biden’s judicial or administrative appointments.

Control of Capitol Hill would give Republicans the power to block aid to Ukraine as they are reluctant to maintain the current rate of US financial and military support. However, they are more likely to slow or reduce the flow of arms and economic aid to kyiv than to stop it.

More than 43 million Americans have already voted, either in person or by mail, according to the US Elections Project, which tracks early voting.

But the final results may not be known until days — or in some cases even weeks — after election day, setting the stage for what promises to be acrimonious challenges.

OPINION

Last week’s drone strikes on the Ukrainian capital of kyiv can be interpreted in two very different ways: the war is not over and the war is ending. If you combine this latest attack with the recent missile strikes, while they clearly caused damage, they also clearly indicated that Russia resorted to terrorism from afar because the battlefield is not working for them.

In August, I traveled to Kyiv and surrounding towns on a humanitarian mission to help feed struggling civilians and show my support for Ukrainian soldiers. I found what I describe as “two Ukraines”.

The first, I did not expect, and it was in western Ukraine in Lviv and other nearby cities. Frankly, you wouldn’t know there was a war going on. After all that has happened and the ongoing Russian aggression, I believe many in the United States and much of the West do not have a clear picture of what is really going on in Ukraine. And before my trip, I would count myself among those.

The idea that the whole of Ukraine is on fire is simply not the case. When I crossed the border, I expected to immediately see corpses, bombed buildings, devastation; But I did not do it. In many parts of the country, the economy is still booming, you see people going in and out of restaurants, it’s relatively normal. Most of these scenes of normality, however, are in the west, near the Polish border. Further east, signs of the invasion are widespread.

Our group traveled north from kyiv to Belarus, and what we saw there was the devastation of cities like Bucha, Irpin, Moshchun and Borodyanka. These areas had not undergone any reconstruction, and the stories I heard from people there were horrific, one in particular.

I met a woman named Irina. We were in Bucha handing out care packages and she was coordinating it all, helping get supplies to those in her neighborhood who needed them most. When we were done, she took us to her house, part of which had been destroyed and rebuilt. She told us that she fled when the Russians arrived, but her husband and brother stayed behind to protect their property and their home. Both were killed.

After telling us that, Irina then did something I could never have expected. She took out her cell phone and showed us a photo of her brother who was lying dead in their garden. And then she showed me a picture of her husband. His eyes had been gouged out and the back of his head blown off. When the Ukrainians finally took over the town – and she had pictures of that too – there were bodies literally everywhere. Many were burned beyond recognition, and in one case three bodies lay in a field, their arms had been severed. You cannot ignore this.

This is the second Ukraine.

I am happy that President Biden used the term genocide to describe what is happening in parts of Ukraine. This is a serious charge, not to be taken lightly, but I hope that ultimately there will be a war crimes trial in The Hague. The crimes we were told about and shown to us in photographs were not random propaganda. Our information does not come from a second or third hand report. It was told to us directly, by a woman who lost her husband and brother; his family. But this same woman, who had experienced this horrific truth, moved past it and returned to her hometown to help those remaining there get food parcels and the care they need.

And she is still there today.

I am Ukrainian. My mother and father were born there; both immigrated to the West during the war. I considered it my duty to family and heritage to be involved in relief efforts during

this crisis. But it was only after contacting friends in the Sikh community that I discovered the you denied

Sikhs participated in these missions. United Sikhs is an organization dedicated to humanitarian relief, education and advocacy, with a particular focus on empowering disadvantaged and minority communities around the world. I was then put in contact with Natalie Pawlenko, who is the president of the

Ukrainian Women’s National League of Americaand I was able to connect these two groups with the offices of Senator Robert Menendez and Senator Cory Booker, with whom I worked closely for many years.

These new relationships have resulted in fundraising in association with the World Central Cuisine which raised over $250,000 for Ukrainian war relief. The trip to Ukraine followed soon after, but despite the influx of aid, it is important to note that many parts of the country are still under threat and even more struggling with the aftermath of brutal attacks.

Kharkiv, for example, is the second largest city in the country, but it fell from a population of five million to just five hundred thousand after the February invasion. Many were killed, but most fled. The city of Zhytomyr was bombed the night I was there. I heard the explosions. And in many villages outside kyiv, during the brief time the Russians were there, they loaded the forests with mines. Thus, the ongoing demining process also adds to the explosions that can still be heard frequently in these towns.

But in the areas I have traveled to, it is the determination and resilience of the Ukrainian people that have stood out to me the most. In the town of Makariv, for example, I saw a grandmother and her two grandchildren filling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with bricks trying to clear debris from where their house stood. It was just one of the many examples of courage that I witnessed firsthand, and the experience led me to believe that there is no futility in the Ukrainian defense. Even in some of the most affected areas, I saw a vibrant Ukraine filled with people determined to rebuild their homes and their lives. And as we drove through much of the country, I saw huge fields of sunflowers and wheat ready to be harvested. So while some people may wonder why Ukrainians would bother to defend themselves, I would say they have many reasons beyond just a desire to live free from the will of a tyrannical government.

Last month, Ukrainian troops recaptured much of Kharkiv on the northeastern border with Russia. The counter-offensive forced the overpowered Russian troops to flee, leaving behind weapons and tanks, some of which they themselves destroyed, and others which were fully operational and are now in the possession of Ukrainian forces in booming. So, perhaps before long, there will be only one Ukraine.

To donate to any of the following organizations, please click on the links.

United Sikhs

Ukrainian Women’s National League of America

World Central Cuisine

Victor Herlinsky is a practicing New Jersey attorney and longtime political activist.

Vladimir Putin is using at least three body doubles that have undergone plastic surgery to look like him, claims the Ukrainian intelligence chief who speculates they are being used to conceal his loss of control in the Kremlin.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of military intelligence, says the Ukrainian government is so perplexed by Russia’s disastrous invasion strategy that it wonders if Putin is still making the key decisions.

He says ‘no matter how bad Putin was’ in the past, ‘he wasn’t an idiot’, but goes on to say that Russia’s war ‘does not follow any logic’.

Budanov adds: “The big question is, does the real Putin still exist?

A Vladimir Putin lookalike (left) compared to the Russian leader (right). Ukraine’s intelligence chief claims Putin is using at least three look-alikes who have undergone plastic surgery to look like him

The extraordinary suggestion, amid repeated rumors about Putin’s health, came in an exclusive interview with the man considered Moscow’s No. 1 public enemy after a series of devastating attacks on Russian interests.

Budanov says they had detected Putin duplicates in the past to replace him on “special occasions”, but it is now “usual practice”. “We specifically know of three people who continue to appear, but how many there are, we don’t know,” he says. “They all had plastic surgery to look the same.

“The only thing that gives them away is their size. It’s visible in videos and photos. Also gestures, body language and earlobes, because they are unique for each person. Budanov refuses to d to be fired over whether Putin is missing, due to illness or after a power struggle. He reveals that the Kremlin has run out of guided missiles and believes that if Ukraine retakes the southern city of Kherson , this could have dramatic consequences for the Russian regime.

He says “change is inevitable” in Moscow, arguing that the arrival of a new political order in Russia is in the interests of “the whole civilized world” and calling on Britain to do everything “to accelerate events that will happen anyway”. .

“We are very grateful for the help your government is providing,” Budanov says. “We hope the UK will not only continue its political, economic and military support, but increase it. We urgently need air defense systems.

He admits that Ukrainian leaders would have discussions about whether to continue pushing their forces beyond the Russian border. “This decision will be taken by the head of state when we have recovered all our land,” he said.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of military intelligence (pictured) wondered ‘if the real Putin still exists?’

Budanov is a former special forces member who was appointed head of military intelligence two years ago, aged just 34 – then promoted shortly before the war to oversee all intelligence. He was wounded several times in battle.

Russian media have linked him to undercover operations in Crimea, along with another officer who later died in a car bomb attack, while there were reports in Ukraine that he had been targeted in an attempted attack. assassination in 2019.

Last week, a prominent Russian analyst hailed Budanov’s effectiveness and called for his elimination. “Yeah, they officially call me Public Enemy No 1,” he laughs.

We met in a dark room after being led to the scene by a senior female officer. There was a German machine gun on the floor and two knives on his desk, next to a chessboard and a book about Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.

First, we discussed the future of the war, which he says will end next year. When I ask if the fighting could be over by the summer, he replies, “I really hope so.

His reputation grew before the war as the only Ukrainian figure to publicly back British and American intelligence warnings that Putin was planning a full-scale invasion as his troops massed on the border.

Now Budanov sees Ukraine’s recapture of Crimea as a “personal” mission, as as a child he spent summers in Sevastopol, the port Russia was allowed to retain after Ukraine’s independence as base of its Black Sea Fleet. He is adamant that the peninsula, illegally annexed by Putin in 2014, will be recaptured and is scathing about those who “foolishly” argue that Ukraine should not provoke Russia for fear of escalating the war.

What about the risk of nuclear weapons? “It’s alarmist,” he says.

“Nuclear weapons are not weapons – they are deterrents. And Russia knows perfectly well that it cannot use them.

“If you study when they started threatening them, you’ll see a clear correlation: when things are going badly for them, they start shouting, ‘We can use nukes.’

Budanov is the man accused by Russia of the explosion this month on the bridge to Crimea, a key supply route for Putin’s forces in southern Ukraine.

Budanov declines to comment on this attack or previous attacks on military targets in Crimea, but adds: “What happens, happens. We are at war with the Russian Federation. We use all means to bring about his defeat.

He says Putin’s recent annexation of Kherson, claiming it as part of Russia as Ukrainian forces advance on the city, underscores questions about his mental well-being. “That sounds ridiculous,” he said. “They are grandly annexing it to Moscow when they know they are going to lose it.” So my question is: Is Putin okay? And is it really Putin? It might even be someone else. There have been previous claims that Putin may have had cosmetic surgery as well as recent rumors that he was battling a serious illness and even cancer.

In July, a Ukrainian intelligence official claimed that Putin may have sent a look-alike in his place for a visit to Iran. It is suspected that former Kremlin leaders such as Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev also used body doubles as decoys.

Budanov believes that Ukraine’s early release of Kherson will raise major questions in Russia: “How come Ukraine – a place they have no respect for and never believed to be even a country to be taken seriously – takes territories from the Russian Federation? This situation, we believe, would have serious consequences for opinion within society.

He admits that Ukraine has undercover agents in Russia. “Yes, of course we did,” he said, adding that “the majority of our activity is aimed at the Chechen Republic.” savage wars, is led by a brutal ally of Putin. Last week, the Kyiv parliament recognized Chechnya as occupied territory.

Budanov is convinced that not only will Ukraine win this war, but Putin will be ousted from power and this conflict will change the future shape of Russia.

He says the sooner Ukraine restores its borders to what they were in 1991, “the sooner Russia will rebuild itself.” It will be a different country with different leadership with different borders.”

I asked one last question on behalf of a Ukrainian friend: who was his favorite 007? “Sean Connery,” he replies instantly. I suggest it could be the modern version of Ukraine. “Thank you,” he says, smiling – even though no future movie would be called From Russia With Love.

Additional reporting: Kate Baklitskaya

The potential for conflict remains very high both globally and regionally. We are witnessing the rise of new risks and challenges to our collective security.

This is caused above all by a dramatic worsening of the global geopolitical confrontation. The world is changing and becoming multipolar before our eyes. However, some members of the international community do everything in their power to preserve their failing hegemony and, to this end, they use various political, military, economic, informational and other methods and means, ranging from the destruction of the legal framework of strategic stability to the adoption of unilateral sanctions against those who reject their policy.

They don’t even stop at openly subversive actions. I am referring to the explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This amounts in effect to the destruction of the common European energy infrastructure. This is what is being done, even if, to put it mildly, these methods cause colossal damage to the European economy and seriously compromise the quality of life of millions of people. And besides, they keep silent about who did this and who has everything to gain.

Some countries have long used blackmail, pressure and intimidation tactics throughout the CIS space. In particular, attempts continue to be made to implement “color revolution” scenarios, methods involving nationalism and extremism are employed and armed conflicts, which directly threaten the security of all members of the CEI, are fanned.

We can see the goals of those doing this in Ukraine, which has become an instrument of US foreign policy. The country has actually lost its sovereignty and is directly ruled by the United States, which uses it as a battering ram against Russia, Belarus, which is a member of our Union State, and the CSTO and CIS in general.

At the same time, we see the true attitude of the United States towards its client states.

Ukraine was almost immediately turned into a testing site for military biological experiments and is awash with weapons, including heavy weapons, disregarding statements by the kyiv regime about its desire for nuclear weapons . The kyiv authorities have publicly declared this will, but everyone is silent. We also know of their plans to use a so-called “dirty bomb” as a provocation.

Regarding threats in the CIS space, I would like to say that the threat level from ISIL, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations has not diminished. They try to infiltrate the CIS countries and create secret cells, while the concentration of terrorist groups in Afghanistan, especially on the borders of Central Asian states, certainly carries a potential risk of invasion in the region.

It is evident that the CIS as a whole and its individual states have never faced such global threats before. It is therefore our common duty to protect our nations as much as possible from it, to strengthen stability and peace in the CIS area and to continue to promote mutually beneficial integration processes, which have provided an example of real partnership relations over the past decades.

We must use all the forces and all the means at our disposal to fulfill these tasks.

One of the priorities is to jointly counter any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the CIS countries. We know what it is. To resist it, we must more actively expose and curb the work of foreign secret services, aimed at destabilizing the situation in each CIS member state.

It is also important to continue our coordinated systemic fight against terrorism. Recently, there has been a positive dynamic in this regard.

The black arms market operating in Ukraine creates serious challenges. Cross-border criminal groups are actively involved in smuggling these weapons to other regions. These are not just small arms. There is a continuing risk of criminals seizing more powerful weapons, including man-portable air defense systems and precision weapons.

Furthermore, the act of terror on the Crimean bridge and the attempts to sabotage the Kursk nuclear power plant – after all, such attacks have already taken place around it – and many other incidents show the need for take enhanced security measures in the critical areas of transport and energy. facilities.

Some tasks remain as urgent as before. This applies to the fight against cybercrime and drug trafficking, the elimination of cross-border criminal groups and, of course, the development of cooperation in the protection of state borders. — The Kremlin, Moscow

Maybe Europeans aren’t from Venus after all. In a rare show of unity and determination, they are injecting advanced weapons into Ukraine, expanding NATO, abandoning their dependence on Russian gas and tightening economic pressure on Moscow.

With the reprehensible exception of Victor Orban’s Hungary, our European allies seem determined to thwart Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal attempt to dismember Ukraine, if not wipe it completely off the map. To the surprise of many Americans, the creaky old transatlantic alliance is once again becoming a strategic asset.

Sweden and Finland, strictly neutral during the Cold War, join NATO. This has confronted Putin at a new 800 mile northern frontier with the defensive alliance he hates and falsely claims to be an offensive threat to Russia.

But the most significant shift in Europe’s accommodating zeitgeist has occurred in Germany. Stung by Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine in February, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a “Zeitenwende” – a turning point – in the near-pacifist drift of post-Cold War German diplomacy. Instead of the usual humanitarian aid, he promised to send weapons to kyiv for self-defense and to increase Germany’s military spending by $100 billion a year.

This would bring Germany into compliance with the NATO directive that all members spend at least 2% of their GDP per year on defence. By persuading Berlin to uphold its collective security obligations, Putin’s serial assaults succeeded where four years of gross bullying by former President Trump failed.

It’s a very big deal – if Scholz follows through. This would signal the end of Germany’s post-World War II policy of strategic reluctance and reliance on American military might to keep the peace in Europe. This policy was understandable in light of German repentance for starting the most destructive war in history and organizing the Holocaust. But after 77 years of peace and good global citizenship, it no longer makes sense for the strongest economy and most populous nation in the European Union to play a small role in guaranteeing European security.

But is Germany ready to lead? That was the question everyone was asking at the recent Progressive Governance Summit in Berlin, which I attended.

Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Germany has presented itself as an economic and soft power colossus pursuing a diplomatic version of virtue. He championed human rights, multilateral consensus-building and international law, while more often than not shirking the morally heavy business of using military force to deter aggressors. , maintain order and prevent genocidal violence.

Since German reunification in 1990, it has also become axiomatic among the country’s ruling elites that cordial relations with Russia are an integral part of Europe’s peace and stability. Self-interest reinforced this view, as Germany became increasingly dependent on Russian oil and gas to fuel its powerful manufacturing base. This reliance only deepened after Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011, which led then-Chancellor Angela Merkel to recklessly issue a death sentence for nuclear power in Germany.

Today, many Germans are reluctantly reassessing their dovish stance toward Putin as well as official support for the Nord Stream gas pipeline network under the Baltic Sea that carries Russian gas to Germany and other EU countries. “The Russian regime around Putin had become increasingly repressive and aggressive, even revisionistsaid Lars Klingbeil, a senior leader of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), in a speech last week. “In our search for common ground, we overlooked what separated us,”

Scholz has drawn ire from Ukraine and his own ruling coalition for slow arms deliveries and withholding cutting-edge weapons such as the Leopard tanks that kyiv is advocating for. He said it risked escalating the Ukraine crisis into a direct military confrontation between Germany and Russia.

Nevertheless, the government has begun sending advanced air defense systems to help Ukraine counter Russian missile barrages targeting vital energy and transportation infrastructure as well as civilian targets. Nevertheless, the relatively modest scale of German military aid has not gone unnoticed in Europe or Washington.

Berlin sent about $1.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine. That puts it well behind contributions from Britain and Poland, and it’s barely a jolt compared to America’s $27 billion in arms shipments.

The SPD’s partners in Scholz’s coalition government, the Greens and the Free Democrats, are urging him to do more. Robin Wagener, a Green foreign policy leader, and 23 other parliamentarians called on the government last week to “provide Ukraine with better equipment and weapons to illegally liberate these areas from Russia.”

While defending Berlin’s decision not to send its main battle tanks to Ukraine, Wolfgang Schmidt, one of Scholz’s top advisers, compared Germany to a “teenager” and urged patience as she transitions into a leadership role.

“We are not yet adults when it comes to foreign security policy. As a teenager you have a lot of hormones, there’s a lot of overtaking and yelling, you’re not very sure of yourself and you don’t know where your place is,” he told the Progressive Summit .

The United States has a great interest in seeing Germany emerge quickly from adolescence. If Germany maintains its focus on Zeitenwende and assumes a security leadership commensurate with its size and wealth, it will decisively shift the balance of power in Europe towards NATO and the EU. It would finally be a real “burden sharing”, allowing Washington to focus on the rapid military balance of China and the need to maintain a favorable balance of power in the Pacific. And it would also protect against the risk that a Republican-controlled Congress could grant Putin’s dearest wish by reducing American aid to Ukraine.

For Americans and Europeans, it’s time to revise Lord Ismay’s old saw on NATO’s raison d’êtree. Its objective is still to keep the Russians out and the Americans out, but it is no longer to keep the Germans down.

Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

Russia says its troops repelled an attack by Ukraine in the southern Kherson region, where Ukrainian forces have advanced in recent weeks.

In a statement on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said “all attacks have been repelled and the enemy has been pushed back to their initial positions.”

The ministry went on to say that Ukrainian forces continued their offensive towards the regions of Piatykhatky, Suhanove, Sablukivka and Bezvodne on the west bank of the Dnieper. Russian forces have also repelled attacks in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine, he added.

On Thursday, Kherson-based Russian officials said Ukrainian military forces shelled the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper, which was used to evacuate people.

The city of Kherson was the first key urban center to be captured by Russian troops after Moscow launched the military operation in Ukraine on February 24.

On Friday, Ukraine’s presidential office said 88 districts in southern Kherson had been liberated. Last week kyiv announced that 75 towns and villages in the region had been liberated.

Russian officials previously said they would turn Kherson into a “fortress” by building city defenses.

Russia has asked civilians to evacuate the town in preparation for a wider Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Power cuts after shelling of Ukrainian infrastructure

Meanwhile, Ukraine says more than a dozen Russian missiles pounded critical infrastructure across the country, causing large-scale power outages.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that 33 missiles were fired at Ukraine on Saturday morning, adding that 18 of them were shot down.

Local officials in several regions of Ukraine also reported strikes against energy facilities and power outages, as engineers rushed to restore the crumbling network.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy to the presidential office, said as of Saturday afternoon more than a million people across Ukraine were without power, including 672,000 in the western Khmelnytskyi region alone.

Public transport network operator Ukrenergo wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the attacks targeted transmission infrastructure in western Ukraine, but power supply restrictions were put in place in ten regions. of the country, including in the capital kyiv.

Petro Panteleev, deputy head of Kyiv city administration, also warned that Russian strikes could leave the Ukrainian capital without electricity or heating for “several days or weeks”.

Russia launched 36 rockets in ‘massive attack’ on Ukraine

Separately on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia carried out a “massive attack” on Ukraine overnight.

The Ukrainian leader made the comments on social media, after several regions reported energy infrastructure strikes that led to power outages across the country.

“The aggressor continues to terrorize our country. At night, the enemy launched a massive attack: 36 rockets, most of which were shot down… These are despicable strikes on critical objects. Typical terrorist tactics,” Zelensky said.

On October 18, Zelensky said Russian airstrikes destroyed 30% of his country’s energy infrastructure last week, warning that the airstrikes had left no room for negotiations with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, with the stated aim of “denazifying” the country.

Since the start of the war, the United States and its European allies have imposed waves of economic sanctions against Moscow while providing large shipments of heavy weapons to kyiv despite Russian objections. Moscow has criticized arms deliveries to kyiv, warning that it will prolong the conflict.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News/Sputnik – October 20, 2022) The United States must continue to fully support Ukraine and provide all weapons and other resources kyiv needs to continue waging war against Russia, the former US Vice President Mike Pence, who served in the role for a full four-year term under President Donald Trump, told an audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“We must continue to provide Ukraine with the resources it needs to defend itself. We must continue to exert economic pressure from the most powerful economy in the world on Russia … until Russia gives in and until peace is restored,” Pence said. Wednesday.

“There can be no place in this movement for apologists for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”

Pence approvingly quoted 1820s US President John Quincy Adams that the United States should never go out and seek “monsters” to destroy around the world. However, Pence then went on to say that the United States could not afford to ignore the rising tide of enemies around the world, a resurgent Russia and an increasingly aggressive China, Iran and North Korea. .

“We need to have an army fit for the job,” Pence added.

Pence also said the main threat to the United States in the 21st century is not Russia, but China.