Notes and Essays -- John Brown

Citation from a volume by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at N.Y.U. and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” a book which also covers Putin and Trump. From the volume:   Putin’s overreach in Ukraine. When Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he “already had it all, down to the gold toilet seats in his absurd palace in Crimea,” as Margaret MacMillan  put it . He had eliminated rivals, had jailed dissenters and was a main energy supplier to much of Europe. He paid no significant price for his imperialist aggressions in Georgia in 2008 or Crimea in 2014, with the Crimean annexation giving him a  nationalist high  and boosting his popularity. But Mr. Putin had become insecure. He was fearful of internal dissent, as evidenced by his escalating repression of Alexei Navalny, and fearful of Ukraine’s  democracy  over the border . While older Russians supported him, a  Levada  poll in February 2021 indicated that nearly hal...

Mike Chang  ·  Follow international conflict, military aviation, and politics 10h Why is Russia still fighting Ukraine in 2026? The short answer is that the Russians are literally incompetent. The longer answer is that years of corruption since at least 1990 have caused irreversible damage to the Russian military. They have been purchasing cheap knockoffs from the Chinese and pocketing the extra cash. Contracts have provided the military with lesser quality hardware, with profits being split. Oligarchs have paid for mega yachts by sharing the profits with the government. That's why the Russian hypersonic missiles are not truly hypersonic, they are intercepted by Patriot systems. Has anyone seen the Russian Air Force since the start of the 2022 invasion? They operate far behind the Russian lines using glide bombs. Why? They cannot survive anywhere near anti-air systems, including MANPADS. How is the T-90 tank defeated by old American Bradley armored vehicles? It goes back to co...

Read in Browser Reporters Tania Myronyshena, Kateryna Hodunova, Anastasiia Kasinchuk Monday, Feb. 2 4 minutes read As temperatures plunge, Kyiv braces for Russia's next mass attack on energy infrastructure A silhouetted lone pedestrian seen walking along a darkened sidewalk in Kyiv as the capital operates under strict electricity restrictions on Feb. 1, 2026. (Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) After a brief lull, Kyiv is bracing for fresh mass Russian aerial attacks as a bitter cold snap drives temperatures below -20°C (-4°F). Russian forces last launched a mass strike against Kyiv overnight on Jan. 24, damaging both civilian and critical infrastructure. For the past week, the capital has been relatively quiet, giving authorities a brief window to restore power and repair damage. The lull in strikes appears linked to an alleged truce on attacks targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Jan. 29 that he personally asked ...

It was unclear why the latest round of negotiations, which had been expected on Sunday, were postponed for several days. A Ukrainian artillery unit firing at Russian positions in the Donbas region of Ukraine in December. Credit... Tyler Hicks/The New York Times By  Kim Barker   The New York Times , Feb. 1, 2026  A second round of trilateral talks to end the war in Ukraine has been postponed for several days after a surprise meeting this weekend between Russian and U.S. negotiators in Florida. The talks — among representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the United States — had been expected on Sunday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. But early Sunday afternoon Ukraine time, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said  on social media  that the meetings had been moved to Wednesday and Thursday. It is not clear why they were delayed. But on Saturday, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, held a meeting in Florida with Kirill Dmitriev, ...