Notes and Essays -- John Brown

Overnight air strikes by Russia caused a near-total power outage in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. January 8, 2026 at 7:33 a.m. EST Today  A street in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, during a power blackout following a Russian drone strike on Wednesday. (Reuters) By David L. Stern, Francesca Ebel, Kostiantyn Khudov and Serhiy Morgunov, The Washington Post , [Jan 8]  KYIV -- After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed progress in developing a plan for postwar security guarantees, Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday again rejected a core pillar of the emerging peace initiative: the deployment of British and European soldiers as part of a peacekeeping force. Russia said it regarded the prospect of foreign troops in Ukraine as a “direct threat.” Russia’s refusal to accept a peacekeeping force poses a serious obstacle to the effort by President Donald Trump to halt the war but it is hardly the only provision in Trump’s plan that the Kremlin opposes .   Pr...

President Trump’s efforts to court President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are rife with contradictions about stability and displays of American power. President Trump meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin in Alaska last August. Mr. Trump’s focus on strength has magnified tensions with Russia in regions like Latin America, where Mr. Putin has sought to extend his influence   Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times By  Anton Troianovski Reporting from Washington The New York Times , Jan. 8, 2026,  12:00 a.m. ET The Trump administration  declared in December  that it sought “strategic stability with Russia.” That goal has run headlong into an even higher Trump priority: displaying American power. On Wednesday, the United States took one of its most provocative actions against Moscow since President Trump returned to the White House, seizing a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic in a military operation that involved a Navy P-8 submarine-hunting aircra...