Category Archives: Putin

Russian and Belarusian tennis players will be banned from competing at this year's Wimbledon, in response to the country's invasion of Ukraine, according to a report.

If the ban, reported by sports website Sportico, is confirmed, stars including world number two Daniil Medvedev, number eight Andrey Rublev and Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka, would be prevented from playing in the third grand slam of 2022.

The All England Club, which holds the tournament in southwest London this summer, would become the first tennis organisation to refuse Russian players outright.

Russia captures first city in new offensive - live updates

The news comes as Russia faces continued pressure from the West to end its invasion of Ukraine - which has forced millions of people to flee their homes.

On the women's side, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (ranked world number 15), Daria Kasatkina (number 26) and Veronika Kudermetova (number 29) would be among those affected by the ruling.

Belarusian players, Sabalenka (number four) and Victoria Azarenka (number 18), would also be affected.

Belarus has been supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin has said that the reported ban is unacceptable and that the tournament itself will suffer.

The ATP and WTA Tours and the International Tennis Federation have allowed players from Russia and its ally Belarus to continue competing, but they are barred from displaying their national flags or playing their national anthems.

This year's Wimbledon will run from 27 June to 10 July.

Multiple outlets previously reported that British government officials were in talks with the Lawn Tennis Association and considering implementing a ban on Russian athletes at the grass court tournament.

Last month, sports minister, Nigel Huddleston, suggested that Medvedev and his fellow Russian players shouldn't be allowed to compete at Wimbledon unless they somehow assured the government that they were not a supporter of President Putin.

In February, Rublev made headlines after writing "no war, please" on a TV camera after defeating Poland's Hubert Hurkacz at the Dubai Tennis Championships.

Similarly, Medvedev echoed the message and said he was "all for peace" after his quarter-final victory over Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka in the Mexican Open.

What other sports events have Russia been banned from?

Russian athletes and teams have been subject to a variety of suspensions and sanctions from a number of sporting bodies, over the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian Paralympians were removed from the Winter Paralympics shortly after the invasion began, while Russian and Belarusian runners were not allowed to enter the Boston Marathon.

The country's football team was removed from qualifying for the men's World Cup later this year and in February the IOC recommended barring Russian athletes from international competition, which led to Russian teams and individuals being removed from competing in dozens of major sporting events.

Some Russian athletes have faced scrutiny for branding the 'Z' symbol associated with the country's invasion of Ukraine.

Last month, Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak, was criticised for wearing the symbol which means "for victory", on the podium next to a Ukrainian competitor.

He later told Russian state media he had no regrets.

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Ukraine war: Wimbledon 'will ban Russian and Belarusian tennis players' over Putin's invasion - Sky News

Curtin University political analyst Joe Siracusa says President Vladimir Putin is likely not in control as much as people think.

Professor Siracusa said the sinking of the Moskva the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet that went down last week would have triggered widespread pressure to get even given Russias pride took a hit.

Sinking the flagship was really significant because we can talk about genocide and we can talk about good and evil until the cows come home, but when the flagship of the Russian fleet Black Sea Fleet is at the bottom of the sea, theres no explaining that, he told Sky News Australia.

I mean where is this, how many people died?

This hardens attitudes on both sides, and Ive been arguing that Putin is probably not as much in control as people think he is.

Thered be enormous pressure on the part of the Russian people to get even, to fight back, because their pride has been hurt now.

Professor Siracusa referenced the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as an example of the reaction an attack on a ship could create.

As soon as President Johnson thought a couple of our ships were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, the next thing you know we had rolling thunder and we were at war with North Vietnam, he said.

I think theres no going back from this.

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Vladimir Putin is 'not as much in control as people think he is' - Sky News Australia

President Vladimir Putin appeared to be channeling the stereotype of Russias uneducated working classes this week when he mocked and patronized an experienced American business journalist. Unleashing his inner gopnik during an on-stage interview, he claimed she must be too beautiful to understand his complex argument.

The exchange took place Wednesday at a Russian Energy Week panel in Moscow moderated by CNBC journalist Hadley Gamble. The reporter had pressed Putin on reports of Russia withholding gas supplies to Europe to drive up prices, and after the Russian leader dismissed the claim, she asked how Moscow could convince its European partners that its a reliable gas supplier in light of such reports.

A beautiful woman, pretty. I tell her one thing, and she says something completely different. As if she didnt hear what I said, Putin said, turning to the male members of the audience.

His chauvinistic joke came as Kremlin-owned media outlets covering Undersecretary of State Victoria Nulands visit to Russia went into overdrive to mock her as just a token female in government, lamenting the advancement of femininity in the West.

Russia Throws Tantrum Over Crazy American Women in Government

Clearly those out-dated sentiments are not so alien to Putin himself.

I will repeat it for you once again, Putin said, before insisting that Moscow has actually increased its gas supplies to Europe and that there is nothing to support [the idea] that we use energy as a kind of weapon.

Did I really say something so hard to understand? he asked.

He went on to lash out at European leaders for suggesting Moscow could be using energy as a weapon, calling them out of their minds for voicing such complete nonsense.

And while he called it politically motivated blather to suggest the Kremlin might take advantage of soaring gas prices to get German regulators to approve the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, he said such an approval would significantly relieve tensions on the energy market.

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He later noted that it was entirely possible gas prices could soon reach $100 a barrel.

In a separate interview with Gamble on the sidelines of the event, Putin appeared to react defensively to a question about whether hes given any thought to potential successors.

I prefer not to answer such questions, this is my traditional response, said Putin, 69. He went on to note that the situation allows me to run for another 6 years but I havent taken a decision in this regard.

According to a Kremlin transcript, the interview concluded with him taking a jab at the citizen who many saw as his single biggest political rival until he was thrown behind bars in a politically motivated case.

What about Mr. [Alexei] Navalny? Gamble asked the Russian president. Are you interested in improving his quality of life?

The citizen that youve mentioned is now in prison, he said.

Acknowledging that conditions in Russian prisons are not the best, Putin said hes not alone.

There are other people who also violated Russian laws, and we dont intend to put them in any exclusive conditions, including those who use political activity as a cover.

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Putin Says American Reporter Is Too Beautiful to ...

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a new interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he is winning the war almost two months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Nehammer, who met with Putin last week in Moscow, said on NBCs Meet the Press that the Russian leader told him that the war is necessary, even though Western sanctions have had an impact

[Putin] thinks the war is necessary for security guarantees for the Russian Federation, Nehammer said. He doesnt trust the international community, he blames Ukrainians for genocides in the Donbas region.

So he is now in his world, but I think he knows what is going on now in Ukraine.

Nehammer added that Putin told him in German that it was better the war ends earlier than later, which led the Austrian leader to believe the Russian president knows exactly what is going on now.

The chancellor, who was the first Western leader to sit down with Putin since the start of the invasion, emphasized the need to confront Putin on alleged war crimes and the need for humanitarian corridors in Ukraine. Nehammer previously visited Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as Bucha, where Russian forces killed unarmed civilians and left their bodies on the streets.

Nehammer also said on Meet the Press that he does not believe Putin will use nuclear weapons, adding that the Russian leader knows the threat of this weapon.

While Austria is not a member of NATO, it has backed sanctions against Russia as a member of the European Union.

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

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Austrian chancellor: Putin believes he is winning

The Austrian leader recently visited the devastated Ukrainian city of Bucha to see for himself what Russian forces had done there. He said he discussed the carnage with Putin.

I did the trip to Moscow to confront President Putin with that which I saw, he told Todd. You know, it was not a friendly conversation. It was a frank and tough conversation. And I told him what I saw. I saw the war crimes. I saw the massive loss of the Russian army.

Austrias chancellor said it is imperative the world continues to confront Putin about what he and his forces are doing.

What is necessary is to confront him all the time with that which is going on in Ukraine, Nehammer said.

I think this is necessary. You know, at the end of our talks, he told me in German its better the war ends earlier than later. So I think he knows exactly whats going on now. And we have to confront him. In other words, we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine.

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Austrian chancellor: Putin 'in his own war logic' - POLITICO

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Russia observes May 9 as the anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the date appears to have been earmarked by Vladimir Putin to declare the end of the Ukraine invasion, an expert told the Mirror

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Nato forces 100% ready to defend Europe if Russia invades

Russian leader Vladimir Putin' s next move could see him re-focus his attention to the east of Ukraine to consolidate enough land to declare a victory by May 9, an expert has told the Mirror.

Andrew Wilson, Professor of Ukrainian Studies at University College London, said this means Putin may use any means necessary to dress up the invasion as a win in the next month.

By May 9, it is unlikely Putin will have made any headway in pushing his troops further West - especially after withdrawing his military from Kyiv and Chernobyl.

Speculating on what a 'victory' will look like for Putin, Prof Wilson told the Mirror: "He may have a bit more territory in the Donbas, Mariupol may have fallen by then but only because it has been destroyed and not as an asset."

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He adds Russia may keep control of enough territory north of Crimea to create a land bridge to the Donbas 'Republics'.

Prof Wilson added: "Ukraine would be cut off from the Sea of Azov and will lose many of its ports on the Black Sea.

"This could be dressed up as a victory. Russia would have consolidated more territory than it had in 2014, but it is clearly not what Putin wanted when he started the war. "

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Yesterday, Putin's flagship Moskva missile cruise ship sunk after suffering severe damage, which Ukraine claimed was from two missile strikes.

Conflicting reports claimed two Neptune missiles sunk the ship with hundreds on board while others said the ship had a fire on board. Hours later, Moscow said the ship had sunk while it was being towed back to port.

In what appears to be a retaliation for losing a key piece of military infrastructure, Russian forces hit Kyiv with an air assault and promised more missile attacks last night.

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This week, Putin said his country's military campaign in Ukraine will continue until its goals are fulfilled.

Putin said the "special military operation" in Ukraine is necessary because the US was using Ukraine to threaten Russia - including via the NATO military alliance - and that Moscow had to defend Russian-speaking people in Ukraine from persecution.

The President claims he had no doubts Russia would achieve all of its objectives in Ukraine - a conflict he cast as both inevitable and essential to defend Russia in the long term.

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The warmongering President's comments come as Prof Wilson said Putin is looking at May 9 - which is Russia's Victory Day - to declare the new 'victory' then.

May 9 is the day that Russia observes as the end of the Second World War - which the Kremlin calls the Great Patriotic War.

Prof Wilson said: "Normally there is a massive parade in Moscow, it is a huge prestigious day so he would like to declare victory by May 9.

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"Putin's propaganda machine will depict whatever territory Russia has as a 'victory'. The Ukrainians have proved to be exceptionally good in their defensive operations as in with their spoiler operations against Russian offensives.

"They are very good at defending urban areas."

Putin has withdrawn his military - who are suffering from heavy losses and plummeting morale - from key regions of Kyiv and Chernobyl and international agencies have warned his next move could be launching a serious offensive in the East.

Prof Wilson has speculated three ways that Putin could try and achieve his 'victory'.

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He says he thinks Putin will focus all his attention on eastern Ukraine and he will instruct his troops to encircle Ukrainian forces by shelling more open areas such as cities.

The third speculation is Putin will try to increase his manpower, but the prof believes that doesn't seem very likely.

He added: "Putin has lost lots of men, and their morale is poor, and there was the possibility he would keep contract troops in the field despite their contracts running out. It seems they are relying largely on the domestic draft.

"But that is a big if of how many extra troops can they put in the field? Not many. For a huge country like Russia, their army looks disappointing."

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If Russia cannot turn the tide of the unjust war in their favour, there is real fear Putin would resort to using chemical weapons on a large scale.

Prof Wilson said: "Maybe not starting with chemicals, but maybe with the urban tactics as they did against Aleppo.

"Bombing cities from outside the cities, destroying them from afar with artillery and missiles. Then continuing the brutal terrorising of civilians and populations that we've already seen.

"The conventional armed forces haven't given Russia the victory that they have hoped for and there is the fear that they will use chemical weapons because they can't win by other means."

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It comes as Britain is working urgently to verify reports that Russian forces may have launched a chemical attack in Ukraine, the UK Foreign Secretary has said.

Liz Truss became one of the first Western senior politicians to speak out this week as Britain warned all options are on the table if the use of chemical weapons is established.

It follows unconfirmed reports from the besieged port city of Mariupol, whose mayor said more than 10,000 civilians have died in weeks of fighting.

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Vladimir Putin's next move revealed as Russian President ...

President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the world should prepare for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons in his invasion of Ukraine and urged air-raid shelters and anti-radiation medicine to be readied for the potential calamity.

In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Zelensky was asked whether Putin would deploy chemical or nuclear tactical weapons to further his military goals in Ukraine.

Not only me all of the world, all of the countries have to be worried because it can be not real information, but it can be truth, Zelensky told host Jake Tapper in an interview from his presidential office in Kyiv.

Chemical weapons, they should do it, they could do it, for them the life of the people, nothing. Thats why, Zelensky said. We should think not be afraid, not be afraid but be ready. But that is not a question for Ukraine, not only for Ukraine but for all the world, I think.

In an interview with Ukrainian media Saturday night, Zelensky warned of the real possibility of a nuclear attack.

We shouldnt wait for the moment when Russia decides to use nuclear weapons. We must prepare for that, the Ukrainian leader said.

Anti-radiation medicine and air raid shelters would be needed, he said,noting that Russiacan use any weapon, Im convinced of it.

The Russian military has experienced a number of setbacks, including having to pull back from the area around Kyiv and its suburbs because of ferocious fighting by Ukrainian forces.

Following the retreat, Russia lost its most powerful naval ship, the guided missile cruiser Moskva, when it sank last week in the Black Sea after being hit by a Ukrainian missile attack.

CIA Director William Burns said last week that a desperate Putin, seeing his forces suffer heavy losses at the hands of the Ukrainians, may resort to using nuclear weapons.

Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that theyve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons, Burns said during a speech last Thursday at Georgia Tech University.

Russian forces that withdrew from Kyiv have since regrouped and are preparing for a full-scale attack in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Russian-backed militias have been backing separatist groups since the invasion of Crimea in 2014.

Zelensky said that combat, which could be reminiscent of the open field battles from World War II, could influence the entire fight for Ukraine and vowed that his forces will not yield.

This is why it is very important for us to not allow them, to stand our ground, because this battle it can influence the course of the whole war, Zelensky said on CNN.

Because I dont trust the Russian military and Russian leadership.That is why we understand that the fact that we fought them off and they left, and they were running away from Kyiv from the north, from Chernihiv and from that direction it doesnt mean if they are able to capture Donbas, they wont come further towards Kyiv, he said.

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Zelensky warns the world to 'prepare' for Putin to unleash a nuclear attack - New York Post

Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, warned Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin "will only stop when we stop him" as he was pressed about whether the United States should send troops to support Ukraine in the ongoing war.

Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Russia's Eastern European neighbor on February 24, drawing swift international condemnation. The U.S. and NATO allies quickly implemented severe sanctions targeting the Russian economy and Moscow elite, while also transferring billions of dollars in weapons and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

The Biden administration has been consistent, however, in repeatedly asserting that U.S. troops will not get involved directly in the conflict. Coons suggested in remarks during an address to the University of Michigan last week that there could be a point where U.S. troops are sent.

"We are in a very dangerous moment where it is important that on a bipartisan and measured way we in Congress and the administration come to a common position about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine," the senator, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said. "If the answer is never, then we are inviting another level of escalation in brutality by Putin."

During an interview with CBS News' Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan pressed him on the suggestion that U.S. boots on the ground should be an option under consideration.

"Are you arguing that President Biden was wrong when he said he would not send troops to Ukraine? Are you asking him to set a red line?" Brennan asked.

Coons didn't answer directly. Instead, he said that "those of us in Congress who have a critical role in setting foreign policy and in advising the president in terms of his decisions at commander in chief, need to look clearly at the level of brutality."

The senator said that if Putin "is allowed to just continue to massacre civilians, to commit war crimes throughout Ukraine without NATO, without the west coming more forcefully to his aid, I deeply worry that what's going to happen next is that we will see Ukraine turn into Syria."

"The American people cannot turn away from this tragedy in Ukraine. I think the history of the 21st century turns on how fiercely we defend freedom in Ukraine, and that Putin will only stop when we stop him," Coons asserted.

Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, shared a similar assessment in a Sunday tweet.

"It's time to understand that Ukraine must win... and negotiation is not in the cards at the moment," the GOP lawmaker, who has been a staunch supporter of providing Ukraine with further assistance since the outset of the Russian invasion, wrote in the Twitter post. "Our generations are getting a lesson that our grandparents understood: the only way to defeat evil is to destroy it."

Biden, as well as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, have accused Putin's forces of committing war crimes and carrying out a genocide in Ukraine. International journalists and Ukrainian officials have reported instances of civilians being shot in the back of the head with their hands tied behind their back, as well as mass graves containing hundreds of bodies in areas the Russians occupied for several weeks.

However, the U.S. and NATO remain deeply concerned about escalation and being drawn into the conflict. As Russia has the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, followed by the U.S., analysts fear a direct conflict between the West and Russia significantly increases the risk of nuclear conflict.

Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who on Monday became the first Western leader to sit down with Putin since he launched the war, told NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday that the Russian president "knows exactly what's going on." He contended that Western leaders need to continue to "confront" the Russian president directly.

"We need to look in his eyes and confront him with what we see in Ukraine," the Austrian leader said.

Zelensky, in an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, stressed that Ukraine is still hoping for further dialogue with Russia, but he lamented that talks appear to be growing less likely to resolve the war.

"We must find at least some dialogue with Russia if they are capable and if we are still ready. But the chances of this are growing less by the day," the Ukrainian president said.

Putin declared on Tuesday that peace talks with Ukraine had failed. "We have again returned to a dead-end situation for us," the Russian leader said at a news conference.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian embassy for comment.

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Coons Says 'Putin Will Only Stop When We Stop Him' When Pressed on US Troops - Newsweek

LONDON, April 12 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday peace talks with Ukraine had hit a dead end, using his first public comments on the conflict in more than a week to vow his troops would win and to goad the West for failing to bring Moscow to heel.

Addressing the war in public for the first time since Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine after they were halted at the gates of Kyiv, Putin promised that Russia would achieve all of its "noble" aims in Ukraine.

In the strongest signal to date that the war will grind on for longer, Putin said Kyiv had derailed peace talks by staging what he said were fake claims of Russian war crimes and by demanding security guarantees to cover the whole of Ukraine.

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"We have again returned to a dead-end situation for us," Putin, Russia's paramount leader since 1999, told a news briefing during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow.

Asked by Russian space agency workers if the operation in Ukraine would achieve its goals, Putin said: "Absolutely. I don't have any doubt at all."

Russia will "rhythmically and calmly" continue its operation but the most important strategic conclusion was that the unipolar international order which the United States had built after the Cold War was breaking up, Putin said.

Putin said Russia had no choice but to fight because it had to defend the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine and prevent its former Soviet neighbour from becoming an anti-Russian springboard for Moscow's enemies.

The West has condemned the war as a brutal imperial-style land grab targeting a sovereign country. Ukraine says it is fighting for its survival after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and on Feb. 21 recognised two of its rebel regions as sovereign.

Putin dismissed the West's sanctions, which have tipped Russia towards its worst recession since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, as a failure.

"That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting did not work," Putin said. "The United States is ready to fight with Russia until the last Ukrainian - that is the way it is."

Putin, who had been ubiquitous on Russian television in the early days of the war, had largely retreated from public view since Russia's withdrawal from northern Ukraine two weeks ago.

His only public appearance in the past week was at the funeral of a nationalist lawmaker, where he did not directly address the war. On Monday he met the visiting chancellor of Austria at a country residence outside Moscow but no images of that meeting were released.

'BUCHA IS FAKE'

Putin dismissed Ukrainian and Western claims that Russia had committed war crimes as fakes.

Since Russian troops withdrew from towns and villages around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Ukrainian troops have been showing journalists corpses of what they say are civilians killed by Russian forces, destroyed houses and burnt-out cars.

Reuters saw dead bodies in the town of Bucha but could not independently verify who was responsible for the killings. Ukraine says Russia is guilty of genocide and U.S. President Joe Biden has accused Putin of war crimes and called for a trial.

Putin said he had told Western leaders to think a little about destruction by the United States of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State caliphate, and in Afghanistan.

"Have you seen how this Syrian city was turned to rubble by American aircraft? Corpses lay in the ruins for months decomposing," Putin said. "Nobody cared. No one even noticed."

"There was no such silence when provocations were staged in Syria, when they portrayed the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Then it turned out that it was fake. It's the same kind of fake in Bucha." read more

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has found that poison gas was used repeatedly in Syria, including in Ghouta, an opposition-held suburb of Damascus. Russia has objected to those findings that implicated its ally Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Washington and its allies have denied targeting civilians in the 2017 air strikes on Raqqa, a Syrian city that had become the headquarters of the Islamic State militant movement the U.S.-led coalition was fighting.

Putin, who says Ukraine and Russia are essentially one people, casts the war as an inevitable confrontation with the United States, which he accuses of threatening Russia by meddling in its backyard.

Sixty one years to the day since the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin blasted off into the history books by becoming the first man in space, Putin drew an analogy between Soviet space successes and Russia's defiance today.

"The sanctions were total, the isolation was complete but the Soviet Union was still first in space," he said.

"We don't intend to be isolated," Putin added. "It is impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world - especially such a vast country as Russia."

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Writing by Guy FaulconbridgeEditing by Peter Graff, Tomasz Janowski and Gareth Jones

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Putin says peace talks with Ukraine are at dead end, goads the West - Reuters.com

Well, the Big Lie, Russian style, has begun. It's not exactly like losing an election that's never going to happen in Vladimir Putin's Russia but losing a guided missile cruiser, the Moskva, the most important warship in Russia's Black Sea fleet is, let us say, just a little hard for the big guy to stomach back at the Kremlin, or the dacha, or whatever bunker he's keeping himself in these days.

But not to worry! Russki spinners were on it before the big ship even hit the bottom! Uh hmm I've got it! A fire broke out on board! It spread to the ammunition stores! There was an explosion! That's the ticket!

Anything but the obvious: it was sunk by two Neptune anti-ship missiles fired from Ukrainian soil. So what does Putin do? Why, he has one of his factotums deliver a diplomatic protest known as a dmarche from the Russian embassy in Washington to the Department of State threatening "unpredictable consequences" unless the U.S. stops shipping advanced weapons to Ukraine.

RELATED:Putin's big fail: He's a spook, not a military commander and not even a good spook

The Russian threat came on the heels of a warning by CIA Director William J. Burns that Putin might resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons to counter his losses on the battlefield and now the high seas. "Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons," Burns said in answer to a question from former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, who was one of the architects of the agreement that removed nuclear weapons from Ukraine and other former Soviet client states 30 years ago. (You remember that jewel: Russia would take the nukes from Ukraine and the rest of the vassal states in return for providing their security.) Burns is a former ambassador to Russia who dealt directly with Putin while serving in Moscow and is the Biden administration official most familiar with his thinking.

Meanwhile, following Finland and Sweden's announcements that they will petition to join NATO "within weeks, not months," Moscow confirmed Burns' suspicions by once again rattling its nuclear saber. Dmitry Medvedev, former president and deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, posted this on his official Telegram channel on Thursday: "If Sweden and Finland join NATO, the length of the alliance's land borders with the Russian Federation will more than double. Naturally, these borders will have to be strengthened. Russia will seriously strengthen the grouping of land forces and air defense, deploy significant naval forces in the waters of the Gulf of Finland.In this case, it will no longer be possible to talk about any nuclear-free status of the Baltic."

Putin has taken one body blow after another since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine almost two months ago. First, it was the humiliation of the 40-mile military convoy from Belarus to Kyiv that was supposed to take the Ukrainian capital city and decapitate its leadership, sending Volodymyr Zelenskyy into panicked flight. Didn't happen. Instead, Putin's convoy was repeatedly attacked by Ukrainian ground forces, stalling its progress outside of Kyiv. Many tanks, mobile artillery pieces and armored personnel carriers simply ran out of gas and turned into easy targets for Ukrainian soldiers armed with shoulder-fired rockets such as the Javelin and RPG-7 rocket fired grenades.

Russian soldiers, apparently frustrated by their inability to penetrate Ukrainian defenses around Kyiv, and possibly under the orders of superiors they may have feared would shoot them in the back of their heads, struck out at civilians in the suburb of Bucha and other towns along the capital's western border, shooting at least 95 percent of them in, you guessed it, the back of the head. "People were simply executed in the streets," Andriy Nebytov, the head of Kyiv's regional police force, told reporters as he supervised the investigation of the murders committed by Russian soldiers in Bucha. More than 900 bodies of Ukrainian civilians had been recovered as of Friday, according to reports.

Attacks by the Ukrainian military, operating with small units in well-coordinated maneuvers, drove Russian forces into open retreat across the border in recent weeks, another humiliation for the Russian president, who by many accounts expected his war on Ukraine to be over within a week. The Times of London reported on Monday that Putin had fired as many as 150 officers in the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) Fifth Service, a department of the Russian intelligence service set up to operate within countries of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine. The purge included jailing Sergei Beseda, the former head of the Fifth Service,in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, a facility long used by the KGB to interrogate and punish political prisoners in Soviet times. Putin appears to be scapegoating the FSB for the intelligence failures that have led to the disaster in Ukraine as the war heads into its third month with no real military gains he can point to as victories.

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At a background briefing on Thursday, a senior Pentagon official told reporters that Russia is continuing its buildup of forces in eastern Ukraine. "We continue to see Russia posture for offensive operations in the Donbas, and continue to see additional equipment arrive in western Russia and in that area to the north of the Donbas that we talked about, Valuyki and Rovenki, including, in fact, we've seen some additional helicopters make their way to be staged in that area for insertion."

Translation: The Pentagon has eyes-in-the-sky watching every move the Russians make in and around Ukraine, including the areas of Russia and Belarus it has previously used as staging grounds for attack. When the Pentagon says stuff like, "additional helicopters," that means they're counting every one of them, which means they're counting artillery pieces, tanks, refueling trucks the whole lot and passing that information directly to Ukraine.

Has Putin learned any lessons over the last 50-plus days? His offensive in eastern Ukraine looks to be a carbon copy of the one that failed to take Kyiv and Kharkiv in March.

Which makes you wonder why Putin hasn't learned any lessons over the last 50-plus days. He appears to be readying a new offensive in eastern Ukraine that will be a carbon copy of the one he launched against Kyiv and Kharkiv in February and March. The Pentagon is being very open about what it is "seeing" on the ground in both Russian staging areas and in Ukraine itself, as it was before the invasion on Feb. 24. If the Pentagon was correct the last time about both Russian intentions and movements and it was the chances are very strong it's correct this time as well. It would be safe to assume that the Ukrainian response to the new Russian offensive in the east will be at least as effective as it was before, given the new weapons systems that even now are making their way to Ukraine's army. These include attack helicopters, long-range artillery and ground-to-ground rocket launchers, and the MIG-29s from Poland that are finally going to join Ukraine's air arsenal.

The last time the Pentagon shared its intelligence about Russia with the world, Putin wasn't listening. That means there is a strong chance his less-than-competent army will lose on the battlefield again. If that happens, who knows what the "unpredictable consequences" will be? Like another authoritarian leader I can think of, Vladimir Putin is going to learn that the Big Lie is a poor substitute for winning.

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Putin can't take much more of this: What lies ahead, defeat or apocalypse? - Salon