Daily Archives: June 16, 2023

Sometimes the stories we tell to win the war help us lose the peace. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States decided the Taliban government in Afghanistan was as culpable as the Qaeda terrorists who struck America. It then spent 20 years trying to keep the Taliban entirely out of power, only to cede the whole country to them.

The story we are telling ourselves today about the war in Ukraine runs its own risk. Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the debate in Western capitals about the origins of the conflict settled on one leading cause: Russia took up arms exclusively out of aggressive and imperialistic drives, and Western policies, including the yearslong expansion of NATO, were beside the point.

When NATO weighs Ukraines prospects for membership at its summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next month, it must recognize that the war has more complex causes than this popular narrative suggests. Without question, Russia is committing horrific, inexcusable aggression against Ukraine, and imperialist attitudes in Moscow run deep. But partly because of those attitudes, Russias leaders are also reacting to NATOs expansion. Folding Ukraine into the alliance wont end that impulse, even with U.S. backing and the nuclear guarantee it brings. Ukraines best path to peace is to be well armed and supported outside NATO.

Since the invasion, a chorus of current and former U.S. officials has insisted that, as a former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, tweeted, This war has nothing to do with NATO expansion. In their account, the invasion emanated chiefly from motives internal to Russia. In one version, Putin the Autocrat seeks to destroy the democracy on his doorstep, lest ordinary Russians demand freedom themselves. In another, Putin the Imperialist wants to restore the Russian empire by annexing territory. Either way, the Wests actions played little part.

Its hard to imagine that future historians will be so simplistic. Even tyrants do not act in a vacuum. Invading Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe by land area, entailed enormous costs and risks for Mr. Putin. Before attacking Kyiv, he spent more than two decades as Russias leader, tacking toward the West and then against it. The dismissal of any Western role reeks of what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error: the tendency to ascribe the behavior of others to their essential nature and not the situations they face.

Ample evidence suggests that enlarging NATO over the years stoked Moscows grievances and heightened Ukraines vulnerability. After the Cold War ended, Moscow wanted NATO, previously an anti-Soviet military alliance, to freeze in place and diminish in significance. Instead, Western countries elevated NATO as the premier vehicle for European security and began an open-ended process of eastward expansion. Even though, as the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright noted, the Russians were strongly opposed to enlargement, the United States and its allies went ahead anyway, hoping differences would smooth out over time.

Time instead had the opposite effect. While NATO claimed to be directed at no state, it welcomed new entrants that clearly and understandably sought protection against Russia. Russia, for its part, never stopped claiming a zone of influence over the former Soviet space, as President Boris Yeltsin baldly stated in 1995. Though Ukraine did not initially seek NATO membership after gaining independence in 1991, that calculus pivoted in the early 2000s, especially after Russia meddled in Ukraines presidential elections in 2004. That year, NATO took in seven new members, including the three Baltic States, leaving Ukraine in a narrow band of nations caught between the Western alliance and a bitter ex-empire.

As Ukraines domestic struggles became entangled in a resurgent East-West rivalry, it sought to join NATO and found a powerful backer: President George W. Bush.

In the run-up to NATOs summit in 2008, Mr. Bush wanted to give Ukraine and Georgia a formal path to enter the alliance, called a Membership Action Plan. Before the meeting, William Burns, the current C.I.A. director who was then ambassador to Russia, cautioned that such a move would have deadly consequences.

Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin), Mr. Burns advised from Moscow. He specifically predicted that attempting to bring Ukraine into NATO would create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Senior intelligence officials like Fiona Hill delivered similar warnings.

Undeterred, Mr. Bush pressed his case, meeting widespread opposition from Americas European allies. In the end, they forged a compromise: NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of the alliance but offered no tangible path to join. It was a strange solution, provoking Russia without securing Ukraine. Yet NATO leaders have kept doggedly repeating it, including at the last summit held before Russias 2022 invasion.

Ukraine stopped seeking to join NATO in 2010 once the Russia-leaning Viktor Yanukovych became president. After a revolution caused Mr. Yanukovych to flee in 2014, Mr. Putin feared Ukraines new leaders would adopt a pro-Western stance, and he promptly annexed Crimea. He tried to use this meddling to gain leverage over Kyiv but obtained no concessions. In fact, Russias aggression only drove Ukrainians further West. Ukraine enshrined its quest for NATO membership in its Constitution in 2019. By 2022, having failed to prevent Ukraine from drifting out of Russias orbit, Mr. Putin ordered his men to march on Kyiv.

No matter how this war ends, the risk of recurrence may be high. Since 2014, NATO has demonstrated it does not wish to fight Russia over Ukraine. Should Ukraine join and Russia reinvade, the United States and the rest of NATO would have to decide whether to wage World War III, as President Biden has aptly called a direct conflict with Russia, or decline to defend Ukraine and thereby damage the security guarantee across the alliance.

Any formula for lasting peace must acknowledge this complexity. When negotiations take place, President Volodymyr Zelensky should return to a proposal Ukraine reportedly broached in March of last year to stop pursuing NATO membership. Instead, a postwar Ukraine, as Mr. Zelensky has suggested, should adopt an Israeli model, building a large, advanced army and a formidable defense industrial base with extensive external support.

The European Union, for its part, should establish a path for Ukraine to join the bloc quickly to attract investment for reconstruction. That would come with its own security guarantees, to which the United States and other non-E.U. partners could add a promise to provide material assistance in the event of further aggression.

There are no silver bullets. Russia will probably also object to Ukraine joining the E.U. or other Western institutions. But Moscow is more likely to put up with Ukrainian membership in the E.U. than in U.S.-led NATO. So much the better if European states take the lead in postconflict assistance, minimizing the scope for Mr. Putin to believe Americans are encircling his country and pulling every string.

Ukraine needs a vision of genuine victory of a prosperous, democratic and secure future not the Pyrrhic victory of NATO dreams and Russian invasions. Its international partners should start to provide that vision this summer. Its time to move to a less propagandistic phase of public debate, one that learns from the past to shape the future. However one judges the wisdom of NATO enlargement to date, it is a good thing that Ukraine, the United States and their allies can still take actions to affect Russias conduct and are not simply hostage to Moscows darkest drives. They should make the toughest choices with the clearest eyes.

Stephen Wertheim (@stephenwertheim) is a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School and Catholic University. He is the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.

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Opinion | Joining NATO Wont Keep the Peace in Ukraine - The New York Times

https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-economic-forum-st-petersburg-ukraine-60bdb0815be2c5f3e393cd6d9f347ab6

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In this handout photo provided by Photo host Agency RIA Novosti, Russian President Vladimir Putin leaves a podium after addressing a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, June 16, 2023. (Alexei Danichev/Photo host Agency RIA Novosti via AP)

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In this handout photo provided by Photo host Agency RIA Novosti, Russian President Vladimir Putin leaves a podium after addressing a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, June 16, 2023. (Alexei Danichev/Photo host Agency RIA Novosti via AP)

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) President Vladimir Putin on Friday touted Russias prospects at the countrys main international economic forum despite heavy international sanctions imposed because of the war in Ukraine.

Western officials and investors steered clear of the years St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which began Wednesday and continues through Saturday. For decades, the gathering has been Russias premier event for attracting foreign capital, sometimes likened to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.

The Kremlin banned journalists from unfriendly countries from covering the proceedings. Moscow gave that designation on scores of countries that sanctioned Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, including the United States, Canada, European Union members and Australia.

Officials did not provide a list of the foreign businesses attending, but the program for the more than 100 panel discussions showed a marked majority of the speakers hailing from Russia.

We havent turned onto the self-isolation path. Quite the opposite, Putin said at the forums plenary session. We have widened contacts with reliable and responsible partners in the countries and regions that serve as the engine, the drivers of the worlds economy today. Id like to reiterate: These are the markets of the future; everyone clearly understands it.

While one of the sessions listed in the program touted Russia as a global tech hub, descriptions of other panels tacitly acknowledged Moscows economic exclusion since its troops moved into Ukraine nearly 16 months ago.

Putin also vehemently defended Russias sending troops into Ukraine and repeated his unfounded claim that the Ukrainian government is a neo-Nazi regime, despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyys Jewish roots.

My Jewish friends say that Zelenskyy is not a Jew, but a shame to the Jewish people, Putin said, although some Jewish organizations have praised Zelenskyy.

Putin confirmed that Russia has deployed its first tranche of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a plan that was announced earlier, but he gave an ambiguous assessment of Russias willingness to use them.

Nuclear weapons are created to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state. But we, firstly, do not have such a need, Putin said.

But he added: Extreme means may be used if there is a threat to Russias statehood. In this case, we will certainly use all the forces and means that the Russian state has at its disposal.

Putin also rejected the possibility of reducing Russias nuclear arsenal, chuckling mildly as he used a vulgarity: We have more such weapons than the NATO countries. They know about it, and all the time we are being persuaded to start negotiations on reductions. The hell with them, you know, as our people say.

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Putin touts Russian economy as Western investors steer clear of St. Petersburg event - The Associated Press

Fish, asterisks, blank messages and the crossed out Z letter: All of these are symbols of opposition to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. In a country where public criticism of the war comes with the threat of incarceration, protesters have taken to social media to remain anonymous and adopted a secret language to convey dissent for the Kremlin.

Last year in St. Petersburg, an artist uploaded a few images of tiny clay figurines in a public space to Instagram under the account Malenkiy Piket, meaning Small Protest. In a separate post, he invited others to join him in his silent demonstration.

One of Malenkiy Pikets first posts.

Since that post, he has received almost 2,000 images containing homemade figurines, many holding posters of protest with curious symbology. Contributors are able to preserve their anonymity by sending private messages in the app to the artist, who then posts their images. At its peak, the account received around 60 images daily, the artist told The Times.

Sending such pictures, even privately, carries enormous risk: Sharing antiwar messages can be a cause for imprisonment. Hiding figurines in public spaces could be captured by surveillance cameras. Police used CCTV footage to track and arrest one contributor in 2022.

Using strategic ambiguity to protest authoritarian governments is not unique to Russia: pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong held up blank signs as a form of protest, and social media users in China used the candle emoji to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The artist told The Times that its important for people to see that Russians oppose the war, too. Not everyone is with Putin. We know how the media just skips this, cuts out everything that shows people against it.

In 2022, a woman was arrested for writing ***e in graffiti in a public square, putting asterisks instead of letters in some places. The police believed she had intended to write the word for war, but the woman said she had written , a fish native to the Caspian Sea that Russians traditionally eat with beer or vodka.

The story went viral, producing tons of memes and even a song. The woman was eventually fined, but by then, her story had already turned the vobla fish and asterisks into symbols of protest.

At the base of a sculpture.

Three asterisks, followed by five more. A code among protesters meaning (No to War).

Blank posters underscore how Russia has criminalized free speech. During the first months of 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, many Russians took to the streets with blank posters, and the police arrested them.

A mouthless monk sitting on a fence.

A sticker attached to a lamp post on Bolotnaya Naberezhnaya, Moscow.

Recognized as an antiwar symbol, the white flag with a blue stripe in the middle was created by Russians who opposed the invasion of Ukraine and disapproved of Putins government.

A Ukrainian flag is sometimes paired with an antiwar flag.

Paper figurines stuck to a graffitied wall.

Both flags are again represented in the embrace of these crying figurines, atop a memorial stone.

A fence outside of a Russian government building.

Members of the Russian army emblazon their tanks and trucks with the letter Z to differentiate themselves from Ukrainians in the field. Many of Malenkiy Pikets images show the letter Z crossed out.

This figurine wears Ukraines colors.

About a hundred images shared by Malenkiy Piket show the peace sign.

At the foot of a statue in a public square.

At the Moskva River, across from Moscows Red Square.

Most of the figurines hold messages written in Russian. Malenkiy Piket said that most of the images he received were from people living in Russia, but many were sent from Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

As long as Putin is here, there will be war, reads a poster held by a paper doll on a supermarket shelf.

PEACE TO THE WORLD! Down with the autocracy

Russia Putin Putin = War

Stop killing children

Peace to Ukraine, freedom for Russia, reads this poster just outside of the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.

Hundreds of images show the Ukrainian flag. Hundreds more have messages written in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and other languages.

A doll on a mailbox in the U.K. holding a Ukrainian flag.

The unprovoked invasion

A doll whose location is tagged as Argentina holds a poster with the inscription peace in Spanish.

At the Colosseum in Rome.

These little men did what it became impossible for us to do openly. And I saw that there are people who, like me, are against this war, said a contributor, an activist who lives in Russia.

She explained that she searches for a public place where there are no cameras and waits for the moment when no one is around. I take a photo and quickly leave. It's like a game sometimes, she said. And it would be fun if not for the context.

Another contributor said she was inspired to send images to Malenkiy Piket because she said her images can last longer than the street protests, which were broken up by the police long ago.

Its important also for people like myself to see that Im not alone, she said.

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Decoding the Antiwar Messages of Miniature Protesters in Russia - The New York Times

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Russia has sent the first nuclear weapons to Belarus as part of a plan to deploy tactical nuclear bombs in the country bordering Ukraine.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin said the rest of the nuclear weapons would be delivered by the end of the summer.

This is a deterrence measure [against] all those who think about Russia and its strategic defeat, he said in response to a question about the use of nuclear weapons in war.

The Russian leaders comments follow claims from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko this week that his nation received the first part of the bombs and missiles from Russia.

God forbid I have to make a decision to use those weapons today, but there would be no hesitation if we face an aggression, Lukashenko said in a statement.

The move was first announced by the two allied leaders back in March, part of a strategy from Putin to keep the threat of nuclear weapons in the minds of Western leaders who are heavily backing Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Belarus was one of four former Soviet Union members, including Ukraine, that transferred nuclear weapons over to Russia.

Moving the nuclear weapons back into Belarus marks the first nuclear weapon transfer for Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The weapons Moscow is transferring are short-range tactical nuclear weapons, which have a shorter range and lower yield than nuclear warheads fitted to ballistic missiles but are still capable of immense damage far exceeding the bombs dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.

The U.S. also deploys tactical nuclear weapons abroad, including about 100 nuclear gravity bombs stationed in Europe.

On Friday, Putin, who has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons during the Ukraine war, castigated the U.S. as the only country to drop nuclear weapons on another country and deflected questions about his own nuclear weapons strategy.

Story continues

When pressed about the transfer decision, Putin on Friday said he didnt want to frighten the whole world and maintained the nuclear weapons would only be used in self-defense.

These measures can be used only if theres a threat to Russian statehood, he said. All the means in our hands will be used against it.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

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Putin says Russia has sent first nuclear weapons to Belarus - Yahoo News

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Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during fighting sit inside a defendant's glass cage during a hearing at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during fighting in Ukraine are facing trial in southern Russia. The captured soldiers were members of the Azov battalion that fought Russian troops in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol last year. (AP Photo)

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Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during fighting sit inside a defendant's glass cage during a hearing at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during fighting in Ukraine are facing trial in southern Russia. The captured soldiers were members of the Azov battalion that fought Russian troops in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol last year. (AP Photo)

MOSCOW (AP) More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during fighting in Ukraine went on trial in southern Russia on Wednesday.

The captured soldiers were members of the Azov battalion, an elite Ukrainian armed forces unit that fought Russian troops in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol. Russia captured Mariupol last year after a three-month battle that reduced most of the city to smoldering ruins.

The last remaining Ukrainian defenders who holed up at a giant steel mill in Mariupol surrendered to Russian forces in May 2022.

Russian authorities have designated the Azov battalion as a terrorist group. The defendants are facing charges of involvement in a terrorist organization and taking part in action to overthrow the Russia-backed authorities in the Donetsk region.

They face sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison if convicted.

Of the 24 people who have faced the charges, two have been swapped for Russian prisoners of war as part of a prisoner exchange. Of the remaining 22 defendants facing the trial, eight are women, who reportedly worked as cooks for the Azov battalion.

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Captured Ukrainian soldiers face trial in Russia - The Associated Press

All the latest developments from the war in Ukraine.

Parts of Ukraine are witnessing "extremely fierce battles" on Thursday as Kyiv's troops push into Russian-occupied territory, according to the Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister.

Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had gained ground near Bakhmut in the east and Zaporizhzhia in the south.

Troops have advanced between 200 and 500 metres in unspecified sectors of the Bakhmut frontline and 300 to 350 meters towards Zapotizhzhia, she noted.

But the Minister conceded Russian forces were mounting a stiff resistance in some areas.

US Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Washington was committed to partially replacing Ukrainian losses of US-suppliedequipment used in counteroffensive operations.

However, she noted there may not be a one-for-one replacement ratio.

Russian cruise missiles hit two industrial complexes in the central city of Kryvyi Rih overnight, according to regional governor Serhiy Lysak.

He said strikes caused significant damage, including broken gas pipelines.

"Fires broke out at enterprises, which rescuers have already put out, he added.

A 38-year-old man was injured in the attack.

Military officials said four cruise missiles were launched by Russia overnight. One was destroyed by Ukrainian air defences, the rest hit industrial facilities in the Dnepropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located.

Oleksandr Vilkul, the mayor of Kryvyi Rih, noted the attacks caused significant damage, but the buildings hit had nothing to do with the military.

The southern port city of Odesa was reportedly targeted by 20 Russian drones, all of which were shot down, according to Ukraine's southern military command.

Toyoko is in talks to provide artillery shells to the US to help with the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The East Asian nation is considering supplying 155 mm artillery shells as a part of a 2016 ammunition pact, according to the US-based Wall Street Journal.

This could mark a breakaway sinceJapan resisted supplying ammunition to Ukraine "with the capacity to kill or wound" citing its internal principles.

The country, however, has been providingbulletproof vests, helmets, and mine detection equipment since the start of the war.

Tokyo's relief packages to Ukraine have come in the form of humanitarian aid with an additional 435 million euros pledged during Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to the war-torn nation.

More than 20 Ukrainian prisoners of war went on trial in southern Russia on Wednesday.

The captured soldiers were members of the Azov Battalion, an elite Ukrainian armed forces unit that fought Russian troops in Mariupol.

Moscow captured the Sea of Azov port last year after a three-month battle that reduced most of the city to smouldering ruins.

The last remaining Ukrainian defenders - who holed up at a giant Soviet-era steel mill - surrendered to Russian forces in May 2022.

Russian authorities have designated the Azov battalion as a terrorist group.

The defendants are facing charges of involvement in a terrorist organization and taking part in action to overthrow the Russia-backed authorities in the Donetsk region.

They face 15 years to life in prison if convicted.

Of the 24 people initially charged, two have been swapped for Russian POWs in a prisoner exchange. Of the remaining 22 defendants facing the trial, eight are women, who reportedly worked as cooks for the Azov battalion.

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Ukraine war: 'Extremely fierce battles', Azov fighters on trial, Russia strikes Kryvyi Rih - Euronews

Any hope that a Putin antidote might be found among Russias regional governing classes is falling away.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced hell run again in the fall. It looks like one of the top political actors in Russia is still around a sign that Russia is not only about one man. Can Moscow provide an alternative to Putin, as some secretly hoped?

Since 1991, Moscow has had a reputation as the most advanced, globalized, and the most liberal city in Russia. Dozens of high-class theaters, fancy restaurants, and large parks filled with good-looking hipsters and their kids made Moscow appear like a normal European capital. Gay people, artists, and everyone else who wanted to escape the burdens and restrictions of the Russian provinces poured into the capital.

And that atmosphere of modernism was reflected in the citys politics. Moscow also has been a leader of liberal thinking and political dissent. It was Muscovites who thwarted the KGB-led coup dtat in August 1991, and this tradition has never ceased. In the 2000s and early 2010s, the city did not vote for Putin, and indeed, the biggest anti-Putin rallies in the country took place in Moscow in 2011-12, and later in 2017-2018. (Of course, the size of the city, populated by at least 13 million people, contributed to that.)

Moscow is also the richest and biggest Russian region. In a country where traditional political groups like parties and trade unions were under the states absolute control, it was up to the regions and the Kremlin to play the real political game. Thus, the Moscow mayor was foreordained to play a political role in Russia.

Sergei Sobyanin has been Moscows mayor since 2010, and more to the point he is not from the siloviki crowd of security insiders: he never served in the KGB or the army. His ancestors suffered from Stalinist repression. He also has extensive experience working at the Kremlin before being made Moscow mayor he was the presidents head of administration.

Not surprisingly perhaps, when the full-scale invasion began some migr circles entertained the idea of secretly approaching Sobyanin as someone who might replace Putin, should political turmoil be triggered by the war. And it looked for a while that Sobyanin was indeed not very enthusiastic about the war.

A year and a half after, the political reality couldnt be more different. While thousands of Muscovites protested the war, the city authorities became one of the main driving forces helping the Kremlin to wage war.

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Since the start of the invasion, Moscow has contributed both to the occupation effort and the war itself. The Moscow construction complex is rebuilding Luhansk, erecting apartment buildings, and supplying buses for the citys transport system. Moscow also helpedbuildthe defense linein the occupied territories, the Russian Maginot Line.

And it is the essential Moscows telecoms and consumer conglomerateAFK Sistema, that has just developed a Russian version of the Reaper drone the Sirius unmanned aerial vehicle.

Sobyanins Moscow administration directly aids the war effort; the city government has already formed three volunteer battalions, fully funded and equipped at its own expense. Moscow also pays bonuses to Muscovites serving in other military units. In the winter, Sobyanin took the trouble to visit Russian army positions in person and was photographed in military fatigue, in the trenches.

Why has this supposedly liberal figure chosen to dress himself in the fatigues of Vladimir Putins conflict? The reason is the business model he has built. He arranged for a massive non-stop flow of Moscow government funding on city projects ranging from building up apartment blocks, to infamous never-ending roads and sidewalk repairs, to expanding Moscows metro network.

Sobyanins focus has been on digital technologies from cutting-edge video surveillance city systems to very advanced online services apparently believing, like Chinese officials, that digital technology can compensate for the inefficiency of traditional bureaucracy.

For businesses, it means that if you come up with an idea, you pitch it first to the Moscow government, so that it can be trailed and funded on a massive scale. It is as if Moscow has built its own version of a Silicon Valley, but where venture capital is provided by the city government, and there is almost no competition because the funding requirements are so huge. This strategy has helped cement a powerful alliance ofthe most capable bureaucracyin the country,andbusinesses that are now addicted to the almost unlimited government funding.

It resulted in all sorts of corruption (perfectly usable Moscow roads are repaired annually, to cite the most visible example), but also in the emergence of a technological hub on a national scale. Just before the war, during the Covid pandemic, Moscows surveillance technologies were exported to other regions to keep tabs on the population. When Putin started his mobilization campaign, it was Moscow-funded technology that was used to build a national facial recognition database to catch men hiding from the draft.

Nowadays, Moscows business and bureaucracy have no hesitation to work on war-connected projects, as long as plentiful funding is provided to help kill Ukrainians.

So be it. So much for Sobyanin. So little hope for Russian liberalism.

Irina BoroganandAndrei Soldatov are Nonresident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.) They are Russian investigative journalists, and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities.

Europes Edgeis CEPAs online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or viewsof the institutions they representor the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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Moscow: The Mausoleum of Russian Liberalism - Center for European Policy Analysis

WASHINGTON (AP) The House has rejected an effort to censure California Rep. Adam Schiff, turning aside a Republican attempt to fine the Democrat over his comments about former President Donald Trump and investigations into his ties to Russia.

Schiff, the former Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the lead prosecutor in Trumps first impeachment trial, has long been a top Republican political target. Soon after taking back the majority this year, Republicans blocked him from sitting on the intelligence panel.

But Schiff was helped Wednesday by more than 20 Republicans who voted with Democrats to stop the censure resolution or voted present, giving Democrats enough votes to block the measure.

The vote was a rare victory for Democrats in the Republican-led House, and they cheered and patted Schiff on the back after the vote was gaveled down.

Im flattered they think Im so effective they have to go after me in this way, Schiff, who is running for Senate in his liberal state, told reporters afterward. Its not going to deter me.

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a newly elected Republican who sponsored the measure, passed Schiff in the hallway after the vote and told him she would try again.

Luna later tweeted that she would remove a portion of the resolution that suggested a $16 million fine if the House Ethics Committee determined that Schiff lied, made misrepresentations and abused sensitive information. Some Republicans, including Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, had argued that the fine which Luna had said was half the cost of the Mueller probe was unconstitutional.

Next week, we will be filing a motion to censure and investigate Schiff, Luna tweeted. We are removing fine as that seems to be what made these Republicans uneasy.

She tweeted, See you next week, Adam.

The resolution says that Schiff held positions of power during Trumps presidency and abused this trust by saying there was evidence of collusion between Trumps campaign and Russia. Schiff was one of the most outspoken critics of the former president as both the Justice Department and the Republican-led House launched investigations into Trumps ties to Russia in 2017.

By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people, the resolution said.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the two-year Justice Department investigation, determined that Russia intervened on the campaigns behalf and that Trumps campaign welcomed the help. But Muellers team did not find that the campaign conspired to sway the election, and the Justice Department did not recommend any charges.

The congressional probe, launched by Republicans who were then in the majority, similarly found that Russia intervened in the election but that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. Schiff was the top Democrat on the panel at the time.

If the House had voted to censure him, Schiff would have stood in the front of the chamber while the text of the resolution was read.

On Tuesday, Schiff told reporters that the censure resolution was red meat that Speaker Kevin McCarthy is throwing to his conference amid squabbles over government spending. Republicans are trying to show their fealty to Trump, Schiff said.

He said he warned the country during impeachment proceedings three years ago that Trump would go on to do worse. And of course he did worse in the form of a violent attack on the Capitol.

After Democrats won the House majority in 2018, the House impeached Trump for abuse of power after he threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine and urged the countrys president to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden. Schiff was the lead House prosecutor making the case for conviction to the Senate right matters, he said repeatedly but the Republican-led chamber ultimately acquitted him.

Trump was impeached a second time a year later, after he had left office, for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol of his supporters. The Senate again acquitted Trump.

Luna in the censure resolution against Schiff also cited a report released in May from special counsel John Durham that found that the FBI rushed into its investigation of Trumps campaign and relied too much on raw and unconfirmed intelligence.

Durham said investigators repeatedly relied on confirmation bias, ignoring or rationalizing away evidence that undercut their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the probe forward. But he did not allege that political bias or partisanship were guiding factors for the FBIs actions.

Trump had claimed that Durhams report would reveal the crime of the century and expose a deep state conspiracy by high-ranking government officials to derail his candidacy and later his presidency. But the investigation yielded only one conviction a guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee and the only two other cases that were brought both ended in acquittals at trial.

The House censure resolution comes days after Trump was indicted on detailed federal charges of hoarding classified documents several of which dealt with sensitive national security matters and attempting to conceal them. House Republicans, most of whom are loyal to Trump, say the indictment is evidence that the government is conspiring against the former president.

McCarthy, R-Calif., called the indictment a grave injustice and said that House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who served as an impeachment manager with Schiff, says Republicans are trying to rewrite history.

This is clearly a handful of Republican members of the House that are trying to do Donald Trumps bidding and trying to distract from his very serious legal problems, Crow said.

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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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House rejects effort to censure and fine Democrat Adam Schiff over Trump-Russia investigations - The Associated Press