Notes and Essays -- John Brown

By  Ambassador Mark A. Green   on  June 25, 2024 From a blog at  The Wilson Center IMAGE CREDIT In the midst of Russian bombs and bullets, a recent survey finds Ukrainians looking toward a less corrupt, more economically vibrant future.   It’s hard to overstate the damage and suffering that Russian forces (bolstered by Iran, North Korea, and others) have inflicted upon the Ukrainian people over the last two plus years. The numbers say it all:  Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers killed.   More than  10,000 civilians  killed, and over 20,000 injured. Of these,  1,885 are children , and thousands more have been abducted or forcibly taken to Russia.   3.7 million  Ukrainians are internally displaced; 6.5 million have been forced from the country.   14.6 million people need humanitarian assistance.   More than 465 medical facilities and 1,072 educational facilities have been damaged or destroy...

Moscow’s Victories Have Dampened Opposition to the Kremlin By  Mikhail Zygar , Foreign Affairs ,  June 28, 2024   Russian soldiers marching in Moscow, May 2024 Evgenia Novozhenina / Reuters When the war in Ukraine began, the Russian elite entered a state of shock. As the West imposed sanctions and travel bans, Russia’s rich and politically connected citizens became convinced that their previous lives were over. Battlefield losses quickly piled up, and many deemed the invasion a catastrophic mistake. “The Russia we deeply love has fallen into the hands of idiots,” Roman Trotsenko, the former head of the country’s largest shipbuilding company, told another businessperson during a phone conversation that was leaked in April 2023. “They adhere to bizarre, outdated nineteenth-century ideologies. This cannot end well. It will end in disaster.” In another leaked conversation, the famous music producer Iosif Prigozhin (not related to Yevgeny Prigozhin) called Russian Presid...

NYT Commentator Frank Bruni via email  01 AM (16 minutes ago) Eater The New Cover of Frank Bruni's paperback Frank Bruni    I’m not sure I’d ever watched Donald Trump lie so incessantly, extravagantly and unabashedly, and that’s saying something. On Thursday night he lied about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He lied about the violence in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. He lied about his relationship with the military, about his concern for the environment — about pretty much any and every subject that came up. He lied with a smile. He lied with a shrug. He lied with a sneer. That should have been the main, maybe even the only, story of the debate, and it should have made him easy, pitiable prey for his opponent. But President Biden failed to take advantage of it. He seemed — there’s no getting around this — incapable of doing so. And that’s its own big story, one that will only grow over the hours and days ahead. Biden, 81, came into his face-off with Trump ...

June 28, 2024, 3:38 a.m. ET 5 hours ago 5 hours ago Motoko Rich  and  Steven Erlanger Motoko Rich reported from Tokyo, and Steven Erlanger from Berlin, with other Times reporters contributing from around the world. From: The New York Times , 6/28/24 The debate between Donald J. Trump and President Biden had analysts in Asia fretting. “That whole thing was an unmitigated disaster,” said an Australian communications manager. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times During Thursday night’s debate, President Biden told former President Donald J. Trump that the United States is the “envy of the world.” After watching their performance, many of America’s friends might beg to differ. In Europe and Asia, the back-and-forth between the  blustering Mr. Trump  and the  faltering Mr. Biden  set analysts fretting — and not just about who might win the election in November. “That whole thing was an unmitigated disaster,” Simon Canning, a communications manager in Austra...