Russia poised to bar only antiwar candidate from presidential race
MOSCOW — The only remaining antiwar candidate seeking to run in Russia’s presidential election, Boris Nadezhdin, will probably be barred from the ballot, after Russian electoral authorities on Monday alleged irregularities in his attempt to register as a candidate.
A working group of Russia’s Central Election Commission rejected more than 15 percent of the first 60,000 signatures it reviewed among the more than 100,000 Nadezhdin has submitted as a requirement to register. The working group recommended he be barred, and the commission is expected to issue a final decision on Wednesday.
Russian authorities have long manipulated elections, banning any candidate who poses a threat to President Vladimir Putin — such as the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny — and admitting only a handpicked coterie of candidates who cooperate with the regim
Read the full story here.
MOSCOW — The only remaining antiwar candidate seeking to run in Russia’s presidential election, Boris Nadezhdin, will probably be barred from the ballot, after Russian electoral authorities on Monday alleged irregularities in his attempt to register as a candidate.
A working group of Russia’s Central Election Commission rejected more than 15 percent of the first 60,000 signatures it reviewed among the more than 100,000 Nadezhdin has submitted as a requirement to register. The working group recommended he be barred, and the commission is expected to issue a final decision on Wednesday.
Russian authorities have long manipulated elections, banning any candidate who poses a threat to President Vladimir Putin — such as the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny — and admitting only a handpicked coterie of candidates who cooperate with the regim
Read the full story here.
A year along the vital river that flows through Ukraine’s heart
Angular shards of ice clink off one another, turn and clink again as they cluster along the banks of the Dnieper River in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in the early months of 2023.
Just next to the water’s edge, Valerya Dobrovolska, 28, a website developer, trudges through the sand and ice, looking out toward the last slither of sun as it sets over the city’s domed skyline on the opposite bank.
“This is my safe place,” says Dobrovolska, who stayed in Kyiv when Russian troops attempted to invade the city in spring 2022, “My whole life is connected to this river.”
After nearly two years of war, Kyiv is in the flow of a new normal — calm on the surface, but pain and uncertainty running deep.
Read the full story here.
Angular shards of ice clink off one another, turn and clink again as they cluster along the banks of the Dnieper River in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in the early months of 2023.
Just next to the water’s edge, Valerya Dobrovolska, 28, a website developer, trudges through the sand and ice, looking out toward the last slither of sun as it sets over the city’s domed skyline on the opposite bank.
“This is my safe place,” says Dobrovolska, who stayed in Kyiv when Russian troops attempted to invade the city in spring 2022, “My whole life is connected to this river.”
After nearly two years of war, Kyiv is in the flow of a new normal — calm on the surface, but pain and uncertainty running deep.
Read the full story here.
Trapped between two wars, Ukrainians in Gaza plead for an exit
Two years ago, with Russia pummeling Ukraine and nowhere else to flee, 24-year-old Yulia saw her husband’s hometown, Gaza City, as a sanctuary.
The couple moved to the seaside strip with their young son and built a comfortable life despite the hardships of a long-running Israeli blockade. Yulia became a manicurist and bonded with other Ukrainian women married to Palestinians. Her husband found engineering work. In Gaza, they welcomed a second child, another blue-eyed boy. Photos show the brothers smiling together on a sunny patch of grass.
Today, those boys — ages 5 and 1 — are displaced, hungry and terrified, their insides churning from contaminated water and their faces pocked with shrapnel wounds. Again plunged into war, Yulia, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used because of security concerns, said the main difference in Gaza is that, unlike in Ukraine, “there is no way out.”
Read the full story here.
Two years ago, with Russia pummeling Ukraine and nowhere else to flee, 24-year-old Yulia saw her husband’s hometown, Gaza City, as a sanctuary.
The couple moved to the seaside strip with their young son and built a comfortable life despite the hardships of a long-running Israeli blockade. Yulia became a manicurist and bonded with other Ukrainian women married to Palestinians. Her husband found engineering work. In Gaza, they welcomed a second child, another blue-eyed boy. Photos show the brothers smiling together on a sunny patch of grass.
Today, those boys — ages 5 and 1 — are displaced, hungry and terrified, their insides churning from contaminated water and their faces pocked with shrapnel wounds. Again plunged into war, Yulia, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used because of security concerns, said the main difference in Gaza is that, unlike in Ukraine, “there is no way out.”
Read the full story here.
Russia bars antiwar candidate from challenging Putin in March election
MOSCOW — Russian electoral authorities on Thursday banned the only remaining antiwar candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, from running against President Vladimir Putin in the March election, suggesting a degree of nervousness about an antiwar protest vote amid national war fatigue.
Russian authorities have long manipulated elections in a process officials have euphemistically described as “managed democracy,” and next month’s election is widely seen as a formality designed to ensure Putin’s long-term grip on power.
But the banning of Nadezhdin signals the Kremlin’s further shift from democracy to a system that Russian analysts describe as authoritarian, bordering on totalitarianism, where manipulated elections are used to provide a thin veneer of legitimacy for the 71-year-old president, without threatening his power
Read the full story here.
MOSCOW — Russian electoral authorities on Thursday banned the only remaining antiwar candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, from running against President Vladimir Putin in the March election, suggesting a degree of nervousness about an antiwar protest vote amid national war fatigue.
Russian authorities have long manipulated elections in a process officials have euphemistically described as “managed democracy,” and next month’s election is widely seen as a formality designed to ensure Putin’s long-term grip on power.
But the banning of Nadezhdin signals the Kremlin’s further shift from democracy to a system that Russian analysts describe as authoritarian, bordering on totalitarianism, where manipulated elections are used to provide a thin veneer of legitimacy for the 71-year-old president, without threatening his power
Read the full story here.
Zelensky replaces military chief, naming Syrsky top commander
KYIV — Oleksandr Syrsky will be Ukraine’s next military chief after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Thursday night that he had replaced Gen. Valery Zaluzhny — the latest twist in a drawn-out saga between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, who told the military chief 10 days ago that he was being dismissed.
The decision to name Syrsky as Zaluzhny’s replacement is expected to be an unpopular one among Ukraine’s troops. The 58-year-old commander of Ukraine’s ground forces was credited with leading the defense of Kyiv in the first month of the war and then orchestrating a successful counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region in fall 2022.
But among rank-and-file soldiers, Syrsky is especially disliked, considered by many to be a Soviet-style commander who kept forces under fire too long in the eastern city of Bakhmut when Ukraine should have withdrawn.
Read the full story here.
KYIV — Oleksandr Syrsky will be Ukraine’s next military chief after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Thursday night that he had replaced Gen. Valery Zaluzhny — the latest twist in a drawn-out saga between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, who told the military chief 10 days ago that he was being dismissed.
The decision to name Syrsky as Zaluzhny’s replacement is expected to be an unpopular one among Ukraine’s troops. The 58-year-old commander of Ukraine’s ground forces was credited with leading the defense of Kyiv in the first month of the war and then orchestrating a successful counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region in fall 2022.
But among rank-and-file soldiers, Syrsky is especially disliked, considered by many to be a Soviet-style commander who kept forces under fire too long in the eastern city of Bakhmut when Ukraine should have withdrawn.
Read the full story here.
Front-line Ukrainian infantry units report acute shortage of soldiers
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.
In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.
The reports of acute troop shortages come as President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to replace his military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, with one chief disagreement being over how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize.
Read the full story here.
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line, military personnel in the field said this week — a perilous new dynamic for Kyiv nearly two years into the grinding, bloody war with Russia.
In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.
The reports of acute troop shortages come as President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to replace his military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, with one chief disagreement being over how many new soldiers Ukraine needs to mobilize.
Read the full story here.
Putin, in rambling interview, barely lets Tucker Carlson get a word in
Russian President Vladimir Putin spent the first 30 minutes of his two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson giving a revisionist historical tirade on the founding myths of Russia and Ukraine, the breakup of the Soviet Union and NATO expansionism.
From there, admonishing Carlson when he interrupted, Putin pontificated on matters ranging from the war in Ukraine and relations with the United States to the case of imprisoned American reporter Evan Gershkovich, and even to artificial intelligence.
By the end of the conversation, it was clear that Putin had no intention of ending his brutal war against Ukraine. But Carlson, who was sacked from Fox last year, seemed ready to surrender. Putin offered to keep talking. Carlson, evidently exhausted by the Russian leader’s long-winded conspiracy theories and grievances against the West, thanked him and called it quits.
Read the full story here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spent the first 30 minutes of his two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson giving a revisionist historical tirade on the founding myths of Russia and Ukraine, the breakup of the Soviet Union and NATO expansionism.
From there, admonishing Carlson when he interrupted, Putin pontificated on matters ranging from the war in Ukraine and relations with the United States to the case of imprisoned American reporter Evan Gershkovich, and even to artificial intelligence.
By the end of the conversation, it was clear that Putin had no intention of ending his brutal war against Ukraine. But Carlson, who was sacked from Fox last year, seemed ready to surrender. Putin offered to keep talking. Carlson, evidently exhausted by the Russian leader’s long-winded conspiracy theories and grievances against the West, thanked him and called it quits.
Read the full story here.
Tucker Carlson exposed Putin’s true war motive: For Russia to own Ukraine
KYIV — Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, thought Vladimir Putin went to war in Ukraine because he feared an imminent attack by the United States or NATO. Instead, after a two-hour interview of the Russian president in Moscow, Carlson said he was “shocked” to learn that Putin invaded for a different reason: “Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historic claim to parts of … Ukraine,” he said.
“What you are about to see seemed to us sincere,” Carlson told his internet viewers before the interview was broadcast on Thursday evening: “A sincere expression of what he thinks.”
For Carlson, and the American audience that the Kremlin was aiming to reach by agreeing to the interview, that may have been a surprise. But for Ukrainians, who have been living for more than two decades with Putin denying Ukraine’s right to exist as a country separate from Russia, the interview sparked only fury.
Read the full story here.
KYIV — Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, thought Vladimir Putin went to war in Ukraine because he feared an imminent attack by the United States or NATO. Instead, after a two-hour interview of the Russian president in Moscow, Carlson said he was “shocked” to learn that Putin invaded for a different reason: “Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historic claim to parts of … Ukraine,” he said.
“What you are about to see seemed to us sincere,” Carlson told his internet viewers before the interview was broadcast on Thursday evening: “A sincere expression of what he thinks.”
For Carlson, and the American audience that the Kremlin was aiming to reach by agreeing to the interview, that may have been a surprise. But for Ukrainians, who have been living for more than two decades with Putin denying Ukraine’s right to exist as a country separate from Russia, the interview sparked only fury.
Read the full story here.
Russian court sentences sociologist to five years for criticizing war
RIGA, Latvia — A Russian military court on Tuesday sentenced Boris Kagarlitsky, a prominent sociologist, to five years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine — a shocking turnabout after another court originally ordered Kagarlitsky to pay a $6,500 fine but no prison time.
The brutally toughened sentence was issued after an appeal from prosecutors, Russian state media reported, and it reflected a continuing harsh crackdown on the few dissident voices remaining in Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Kagarlitsky is the editor in chief of the Marxist online publication Rabkor and a university professor who has been designated as foreign agent, a label Russian authorities have attached to many of those who have criticized the war.
Read the full story here.
RIGA, Latvia — A Russian military court on Tuesday sentenced Boris Kagarlitsky, a prominent sociologist, to five years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine — a shocking turnabout after another court originally ordered Kagarlitsky to pay a $6,500 fine but no prison time.
The brutally toughened sentence was issued after an appeal from prosecutors, Russian state media reported, and it reflected a continuing harsh crackdown on the few dissident voices remaining in Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Kagarlitsky is the editor in chief of the Marxist online publication Rabkor and a university professor who has been designated as foreign agent, a label Russian authorities have attached to many of those who have criticized the war.
Read the full story here.
Ukraine on verge of losing Avdiivka, strategic city long targeted by Russia
AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As fighters from the Ukrainian Security Service’s “Alpha” special forces branch drove through the blackness with night-vision goggles last week, Post journalists riding along saw only an occasional flash of light on the horizon — from yet more explosions in the besieged city, which is now the focus of the most pitched fighting in the war. A Russian drone above could not be seen, but a handheld device confirmed its presence.
The ruined coke and chemical plant, once an economic pillar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, is likely to be the last Ukrainian stronghold in Avdiivka, which has been embattled since 2014. Ukrainian troops say it is just a matter of time before they will have to surrender the city, and on Thursday the military said forces had already pulled back from some positions as the Russians have begun advancing rapidly.
Read the full story here.
AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As fighters from the Ukrainian Security Service’s “Alpha” special forces branch drove through the blackness with night-vision goggles last week, Post journalists riding along saw only an occasional flash of light on the horizon — from yet more explosions in the besieged city, which is now the focus of the most pitched fighting in the war. A Russian drone above could not be seen, but a handheld device confirmed its presence.
The ruined coke and chemical plant, once an economic pillar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, is likely to be the last Ukrainian stronghold in Avdiivka, which has been embattled since 2014. Ukrainian troops say it is just a matter of time before they will have to surrender the city, and on Thursday the military said forces had already pulled back from some positions as the Russians have begun advancing rapidly.
Read the full story here.