“Macron says Russia can’t win in Ukraine after strike on mall.” Can’t win? The article begins,
France’s president denounced Russia’s fiery airstrike on a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine as a “new war crime” Tuesday and vowed the West’s support for Kyiv would not waver, saying Moscow “cannot and should not win” the war.
“Should not,” for sure.
Here is another paragraph from the article I have cited:
As condemnation came in from many quarters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov struck a defiant note, saying Russia would press its offensive until it fulfills its goals. He said the hostilities could stop “before the end of the day” if Ukraine were to surrender and meet Russia’s demands, including recognizing its control over territory it has taken by force.
Sure, sure.
In recent days, Garry Kasparov has circulated the words of Thomas Mann, spoken to his fellow Germans from exile in 1941:
The resistance of England, the help it receives from America, are denounced by your leaders as “prolongation of the war.” They demand “peace.” They who drip with the blood of their own people and that of other peoples dare to utter this word. Peace — by that they mean subjugation, the legalization of their crimes, the acceptance of the humanly unendurable. But that is not possible. With a Hitler there can be no peace, because he is thoroughly incapable of peace, and because this word in his mouth is nothing but a dirty, pathological lie — like every other word which he ever gave or spoke.
• Further news:
Russian missile attacks on residential areas killed at least 19 people in a Ukrainian town near Odesa early Friday, authorities reported. . . .
Video of the pre-dawn attack showed the charred remains of buildings in the small town of Serhiivka, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of Odesa. The Ukrainian president’s office said three X-22 missiles fired by Russian bombers struck an apartment building and two campsites. . . .
Ukraine’s Security Service said 19 people died, including two children. It said another 38, including six children and a pregnant woman, were hospitalized with injuries. Most of the victims were in the apartment building, Ukrainian emergency officials said.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to President Zelensky, said, “A terrorist country is killing our people. In response to defeats on the battlefield, they fight civilians.” Well, they murder them, actually, but yes.
• “Don’t become desensitized to Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.” That is the heading over a column by Dalibor Rohac, of the American Enterprise Institute. But desensitization has set in, for sure. In many people, I’m not sure there was ever sensitization in the first place.
• In mid-April, I published a post called “The Unspeakable.” It was about rape. A major part of the brutalization of Ukraine by Russian forces is rape. Two days ago, the New York Times published an article with the heading “After Rapes by Russian Soldiers, a Painful Quest for Justice.” Here it is, if you can bear it.
• Today, I have a column with an assortment of items, including this one:
Vladimir Kara-Murza has been imprisoned since April 11. He is a Russian journalist, politician, and democracy leader. He is also a friend of mine, and I wrote about him here. John McCain was a champion of Vladimir’s, and a friend. McCain asked Vladimir to serve as a pallbearer at his funeral, which he did. I wish Vladimir had a champion now. I mean, someone big, on an international stage. Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of the most admirable and bravest people I know. He ought to be a cause.
Maybe Mitt Romney could take it up? Maybe he could be Vladimir’s champion, in the absence of McCain?
• RFE/RL reports,
The Russian parliament’s lower chamber, the State Duma, has approved a bill that would allow it to define any person who receives financial assistance from abroad as a “foreign agent,” a change making it easier for the state to target its domestic critics.
(1) The Russian dictatorship certainly needs no excuse to target its critics — with arrest, murder, or whatever. (2) Isn’t it interesting that dictatorships, almost everywhere, feel the need to have pretend parliaments that pass pretend laws? It is a form of flattery, I suppose — a compliment that dictatorship pays to democracy, somehow.
• In my observation, our Putinists, here in America and in the Free World more broadly, say two things. They say that Ukraine is a limp-wristed little liberal state, where the people do nothing but read Heather Has Two Mommies. And they say that Ukraine is “Nazi.” Maybe they could, you know — pick a lane?
• Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) has called for a U.S. withdrawal from NATO. Trump will pass from the scene. But Trumpism? It is here to stay, for it represents a strain in American politics, which is sometimes down, sometimes up, but always present.
• Pope Francis said, “Every day, I carry in my heart the dear and tormented Ukraine, which continues to be scourged by barbaric attacks, such as the one that struck the Kremenchuk shopping center.”
• War makes things urgent. Imminent death, or the possibility of it, makes things urgent. Here is an article by Hanna Arhirova of the Associated Press with an apt title: “Carpe diem: In Ukraine, war turning love into marriages.” The article opens as follows:
When the couple awoke to the rumble of war on Feb. 24, they’d been dating for just over a year. Russia was invading and Ihor Zakvatskyi knew there was no more time to lose.
He fished out the engagement ring he’d bought but, until then, not yet been ready to give to Kateryna Lytvynenko and proposed. If death do us part, he figured, then let it be as husband and wife.
“I did not want to waste a single minute without Katya knowing that I wanted to spend my life with her,” Zakvatskyi, 24, said as he and his 25-year-old bride exchanged vows and wedding rings this month in the capital, Kyiv.
Long life to them, and to their country.