Category Archives: Russia

1. 3 Americans freed in major prisoner swap with Russia are welcomed home  The Washington Post
2. Gershkovich, other prisoners freed from Russia are on road to recovery: Just starting to taste freedom  Fox News
3. He Was Freed From a Brutal Russian Jail. Heres Why He Wanted to Stay.  The New York Times

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3 Americans freed in major prisoner swap with Russia are welcomed home - The Washington Post

1. Russia claims it intercepted US fighter jets over the Arctic  Al Jazeera English
2. Russia says it scrambled fighter jets to intercept 2 US B-52H bombers  Business Insider
3. NATO Ally Responds to US Air Force's Close Brush With Russian Jets  Newsweek

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Russia claims it intercepted US fighter jets over the Arctic - Al Jazeera English

Russian President Vladimir Putin was once a major player in the Olympic movement, spending tens of billions of dollars to host the Sochi Winter Games in 2014. Now his nation is barely participating in this year's Paris Summer Games. Pavel Golovkin/AP hide caption

PARIS Three years ago, more than 330 Russian athletes arrived in Tokyo for the last Summer Games. It was a powerhouse contingent that managed to score 71 Olympic medals in Tokyo.

This year in Paris, International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials say Russia will field scarcely more than a dozen athletes.

"We have 15 [athletes] with Russian passports," said Kit McConnell, the IOC's sport director, who added that the number who actually compete may change.

McConnell noted that Russian athletes will compete in only 10 sports disciplines, down from 30 just a few years ago.

The dramatic decline in Russia's involvement in the Olympic movement follows years of doping scandals that began in 2014, heightened by international condemnation that followed Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Ahead of the Paris Games, the IOC invited dozens of Russian athletes to compete but only as neutrals.

They would not be allowed to fly the Russian flag or play their country's national anthem.

IOC rules also banned any Russian athletes who are "actively supporting" the invasion of Ukraine, or who have served in Russia's military.

Russian officials balked at those limitations, describing them as "unacceptable."

In a statement issued last month, Russia's national judo federation said its athletes would decline to compete.

"Until the very end, we had hoped that common sense and a desire to hold full-fledged Olympic Games with athletes from Russia and Belarus would prevail over political intrigues," the statement said.

Russia's weightlifting federation also issued a statement saying its athletes would not compete, despite qualifying for the Paris Games.

This is the smallest Russian involvement in the Summer Olympics since 1984, when Moscow boycotted the Los Angeles Games entirely.

Belarus, one of Russia's closest allies, will also send far fewer athletes to Paris, down from 101 in 2021 to just 17 this summer.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, once used the Olympic movement to burnish his country's reputation, hosting the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Plagued by doping scandals and accusations of war crimes, Russia and its athletes play a dwindling role in world sport. Mikhail Klimentyev/AP hide caption

Russia's role in the Olympic movement peaked in 2014, when President Vladimir Putin proudly welcomed the world to Sochi for the Winter Games.

Putin's government spent tens of billions of dollars hosting the Games, which were designed to showcase Russia's progress after the fall of the Soviet Union.

At the time, Russia was also a major financial sponsor of the IOC.

But in the months following the Sochi Games, journalists uncovered a deeply entrenched Russian doping system.

Investigators described the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs as an "institutional conspiracy" involving more than 1,000 athletes.

In 2017, Russia was suspended from the Olympics by the IOC.

That means Russian athletes can only compete as "individual neutral athletes," without flying the Russian flag or playing the national anthem.

At the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, Russia suffered another black eye when it was revealed star figure skater Kamila Valieva had tested positive for a performance enhancing drug.

Last year, the IOC took a further step to punish Moscow, banning the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) from all international sports activities.

That move followed the ROC's decision to absorb sports clubs in regions of eastern Ukraine Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia occupied by Russia's invading army.

Last week, a human rights group called Global Rights Compliance issued a report suggesting that as many as two-thirds of Russian athletes who qualified for the Paris Games had violated the IOC's neutrality rules by supporting the Ukraine war.

The IOC is turning a blind eye to the involvement of Russian and Belarusian athletes who have demonstrated their support for Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine," said Wayne Jordash, the organization's president.

It's unclear, however, how many of the 57 Russian and Belarussian athletes named in the report will actually compete in Paris.

Read more here:

Facing scandal and condemnation, Russia fields tiny Olympic team in Paris - NPR

Russia has unveiled a comprehensive roadmap for building its newest space station and associated Earth-based infrastructure, with the first modules expected to launch within three years.

On July 2, the leadership of Russia's space agency Roscosmos described their upcoming to create the nation's newest space station, currently known as the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), according to Russian news agency TASS.

The first module of the X-shaped outpost, a research and power node, is expected to be launched into a near-polar orbit in 2027, TASS reported. By 2030, it plans to have docked its four major modules, with two "special-purpose" modules scheduled for attachment by 2033. Roscosmos plans to send the first cosmonauts to the station in 2028 and has suggested the station can be operated without crew.

The Russian Orbital Service Station would orbit at the same altitude as the International Space Station, around 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, in a polar, sun-synchronous orbit. The route is particularly useful for observing the entire surface of the planet, according to Roscosmos, and also provides a valuable view over "the strategically important Northern Sea Route". The estimated cost is about $7 billion USD.

The schedule for building ROSS also depends on the success of the next-generation heavy-lift Angara A5 rocket, which has had three successful orbital flight tests since 2014, and a partial failure in 2021.

Its construction is also likely to contain a first: Russia is riding the AI hype rocket, it seems.

"Artificial intelligence is quickly developing technology." said Vladimir Kozhevnikov, chief designer of ROS, on July 2, according to a report by TASS. "We will use its support but basically we will use our brains, of course," What form this AI takes is unknown will ChatGPT get a building credit on ROSS modules?

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Another chief designer, Vladimir Solovyov of space rocket company Energia, has suggested there will be "unusual" goals for ROSS, with the space station providing guidance for a fleet of satellites a first.

"This fleet will fly near the station [] this, too, will imply brand-new tasks for mission control as no one has ever endeavored to do so," Solovyov said.

Russia has been a principal member of the International Space Station since launch, alongside NASA, the European Space Agency, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency. For its new station, it's looking at partnerships with Brazil, India, China and South Africa, in addition to other African countries.

Back in 2021, Roscosmos signaled its intention to build its own space lab, a successor to its Mir space station. In mid-2022, after the invasion of Ukraine and heightened tensions between Russia and other Western countries, Roscosmos announced it would leave the ISS program 'after 2024.' It has since announced it will remain on the ISS until 2028.

Though the timeline for departing the ISS remains uncertain, the schedule signals the Russian space agency's intent to advance its own interests and focus on security and scientific development Roscosmos believes has been hindered due to international agreements on the ISS.

The ISS is expected to undergo a planned deorbit in 2030, but may remain in operation until commercial stations have been built.

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Russia unveils timeline for building its new space station, starting in 2027 - Space.com

Mortgages used to be a tough sell in Russia. Decades of Soviet propaganda, which denounced credit as an unbearable burden, had an effect. Even after the end of communism, Russians still referred to mortgages as debt slavery, preferring to save until they could buy their homes outright. Vladimir Putin, the countrys president, has spent two decades trying to convince his citizens to take a different view. In 2003, during his first term, he explained that mortgages might help solve the acute problem of housing facing Russians. His plea fell on deaf ears.

He is now having more successand all it took was a heavy dose of statism, as well as the invasion of a peaceful neighbour. Over the past few years, the number of Russians taking out mortgages has soared, owing to a generous programme of state subsidies for buyers of new-builds. Mr Putin may have got more than he bargained for, however. The states subsidy binge has stoked an ultra-hot property market, sending house prices soaring. As such, the Kremlin has found itself picking up a giant and fast-growing bill.

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How Vladimir Putin created a housing bubble - The Economist

The U.S., which has supported Kyiv with military, energy and humanitarian aid since Russia's February 2022 invasion, struggled late last year to pass aid packages in Congress because some Republican lawmakers refused to vote in favor. The impasse broke in April as lawmakers approved $61 billion in support.

If current Vice President Kamala Harris whom Biden endorsed for the Democratic nomination becomes president, she is broadly expected to continue many of Biden's foreign policy objectives, including aid to Ukraine.

Republican nominee Donald Trump, conversely, has pledged he would cut Ukraine aid if he is re-elected and would force Kyiv to agree a peace deal with Russia and cede land the Kremlin has claimed as its own. His pick for running mate, JD Vance, is also vehemently against continuing support for Ukraine and played a key role in trying to kill off a Ukraine aid bill earlier this year.

Responding to Biden's quitting the ticket, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is following developments in the U.S., and that its priority is to continue its war against Ukraine.

The [U.S.] election is still four months away. And thats a long time, during which a lot can change. We need to pay attention, follow what will happen next, Dmitry Peskovtoldthe Telegram news channel Shot.

The priority for us is the special military operation, not the election results in the United States.

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Breath bated, Russia and Ukraine monitor US as Biden withdraws from race - POLITICO Europe

Sergei Lebedev is a Russian poet, essayist and journalist. This piece is adapted from an essay, translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis, in the summer 2024 issue of Liberties, a journal of culture and politics.

Alexei Navalny was killed in the far north, above the Arctic Circle, in the Russian village of Kharp, where the Ural Mountains are intersected by a railroad leading to the town of Labytnangi on the Ob River. This place of death, this scene of the crime, is not random. It puts a period to the argument with fate that Navalny led as a man and a politician even, one could say, to his argument with Russia and its history. The man who came up with the beautiful Russia of the future as an image and a slogan died in the horrible Russia of the past.

Approximately 30 miles southeast of Kharp, across the Ob, is the city of Salekhard. The sadly famous Road 501, the Dead Road, leads east from there. It is one of the last projects born of Joseph Stalins megalomania, a railroad branch to the Yenisei River that would traverse uninhabited places unsuitable for construction across the permafrost and the swamps of central Siberia. All that remains of that Pharaonic project are a few hundred miles of embankments, dilapidated camp barracks and steam engines rusting in the tundra.

And corpses. Corpses in nameless ravines and pits, without a cross or a marker, unknown, buried without funerals, the dead whose killers and torturers remain unpunished.

This is the region of the Gulag, the wasteland of the murdered and the murderers. In these places, geography assists the work of the jailers, and the climate serves as a means of torture. Here, in this ideal geographic nothingness, a space beyond history, beyond evidence, the Soviet state cast out people doomed to annihilation. This is the place where Russias historical sin is preserved in material, sometimes even imperishable, form permafrost, after all. Here lie Russias guilt and responsibility.

Alexei Navalnys political credo, which changed over the years and is not easily summarized, did have one constant premise, one characteristic feature. He denied or rather refused to consider the power of the totalitarian past. He would not recognize the genealogy and continuity of state violence, and most important, its long-term social consequences.

His image of the real Russia was always that of a tabula rasa, an ideal community over which the past had no power the strange notion of a society that experiences the oppression of an authoritarian regime but somehow automatically aspires to democracy and is in a certain sense innocent, historically undetermined, without, so to speak, a medical record.

His beautiful Russia of the future was already here; it already existed in the present, in his own generation. It needed only to be unblocked, unveiled, unpacked, affirmed in reality.

Yet it is unlikely that he could explain how it came to be, how it was born. He wished to believe that you can turn over a new leaf without acknowledging historical guilt or admitting historical responsibility, without recognizing the stubborn presence of the past, without punishing the criminals and thereby severing the umbilical cord of violence.

This may seem cold and too critical. After all, the earth is still fresh on the grave, and the period of mourning is not yet over. But already I see the stirrings of an uncritical heroization and canonization that will confer upon Navalnys views and temperament, a sacred status, and this, I believe, will inevitably lead to a repetition of his mistakes. His mistakes were fatal not only to his person but also to the trajectory of Russias opposition movement. He personified some of the most profound errors that a dissident leader can make: He was a moral leader whose moral authority was in fact based on a kind of amorality, a catastrophic substitution of hierarchies of values and an extremely optimistic populism.

Amorality? Isnt that too harsh? For many people in Russia and abroad, after all, Alexei Navalny was the very symbol of moral behavior. He did not betray himself; he did not break in prison or under torture; he died for what he believed to be a just cause. An extraordinary man.

No one can deny Navalnys personal bravery. His courage and his refusal to abandon the habits of a free man.

But there were things that even he did not dare do. He did not dare do them, I believe, for a simple reason: He was a born politician. He had a better feel than most for the mood of the liberal youth. He loudly and cleverly criticized the Putin regime and fought against it but where was his criticism directed? For a very long time, Navalnys target was corruption. He addressed himself to the material concerns of citizens whose money and votes had been stolen. He played on legal outrage and common sense.

The problem is that, from the very beginning, corruption was not the most terrifying aspect of the Putin regime. Vladimir Putin came to power as a war president. The second Chechen war raised and solidified his ratings, turning him into a national leader. Before 2014, before the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine, Chechnya was Putins greatest crime. Without acknowledging the guilt and punishing the perpetrators in the two wars against Chechnya, which set Russia back on its old imperial and colonial path, unleashed the spiral of state violence and turned Chechnya into a zone of lawlessness from which lawless practices spread throughout Russia without confronting all this, no bright and real Russia of the future would be possible. Without an answer to the cardinal question of the right to secede, without a recognition of the centuries of repressive policies toward ethnic minorities, the Russia of the future will always be the Russia of the past.

Alexei Navalny was silent about the main crimes of the Putin regime and of Putin personally. If you think about it, it seems inexplicable. Or, perhaps, explicable but not justifiable but the explanation destroys the very concept of the Russia of the future that needs only to be released from Putins regime to emerge. Navalny was silent either because he did not consider the Chechen war significant or because he understood all too well that even the liberal part of Russian society did not care about dead Chechens, about crimes far away in the Caucasus committed in the name of Russia. The discouraging truth is that Russian society had grown accustomed to war. It no longer reacted to pricks of conscience, and it became alert only in reaction to matters of personal interest for example, the reform of social benefits, or the crushing of hopes connected to the allegedly more liberal rule of Dmitry Medvedev (during whose administration Russia attacked Georgia in 2008), or the news that Putin would run for a third term.

Then came 2014 and the initial invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. The number of military and civilian dead climbed into the thousands, but Russias main opposition figure stubbornly continued to focus on exposing the economic crimes of Putin and his henchmen. As if no blood had been shed and international law were not being cynically and odiously violated. Whereas it could be said, in explanation of Navalnys earlier behavior, that Russias war against Chechnya took place before he became a famous opposition politician, no such extenuation can be made of his diffidence toward the war against Ukraine, which occurred when he was already the informal leader of the opposition and a brand name.

That extraordinary status, one would have thought, demanded only one strategy: to speak out against the war clearly and consistently, and to create a broad antiwar coalition. As we know, Navalny cannot be accused of cowardice. It was not fear of repression by the government that kept him from taking this path. It was a fear of losing support. Again, this is just my supposition, but I think Navalny sensed that a radical antiwar position would not increase the number of his supporters but would in fact decrease it.

From 2014 to 2022, almost all of Russia accepted Putins formula of pretend war, a limited conflict in which Russia was not even involved. Of course, everyone understood that Russia was deeply involved. The pro-war radicals demanded that the cards be shown without shame and organized in support of war. What did the antiwar people do? They responded with a mix of semi-apathy and semi-activity, intentions without intentions and protest without protest, refusing to confront the issue for an either-or answer, continuing to cooperate with state institutions, seeking positive aspects in the capitals urbanistic changes by living an ordinary life.

And Navalny, wittingly or not, played into the hands of that mass pretending to be a mobilized protest by lowering the drama and the ethical intensity of the situation, with his dominating anti-corruption agenda. The proof of the regimes culpability for its crimes (also for attempting to assassinate him) was always there, but Navalny preferred bravado, laughter, the merry mocking of the stupidity of the agents. This, instead of a serious conversation about the system, about the institution of political murder that had reappeared under Boris Yeltsin, about the dozens of prominent people who were poisoned, shot, beaten to death: Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Sergei Yushenkov, Galina Starovoitova, Dmitry Kholodov, Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Boris Nemtsov, Natalia Estemirova and many, many others. (Vladimir Kara-Murza, for example, survived two poisonings and is now in a Russian prison.)

Navalny certainly had courage, and nerve. But sometimes it is more useful to be scared, to comprehend and proclaim the historical continuity of murders and murderers, to speak in the name of all who had been killed secretly, who were led in the 1930s to execution pits by the same Cheka agents with the same headquarters on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. But that was not for him too old-fashioned, perhaps. I cant find a better word. He did not want to be a harsh and bitter prophet. He wanted to be the less distressing harbinger of hope.

Russias open war against Ukraine revealed yet another fatal flaw in the Russian opposition: a systemic incapacity for decolonializing thinking, an unwillingness to admit that Russia itself consists of subjugated and partially digested nations that have undergone, in the words of the Ukrainian dissident Ivan Dziuba, a process of forced denationalization. Without the voices of these nations, without their equal representation in the opposition, no serious conversation about the future of Russia can take place or lead to a just result.

Navalnyism always bypassed or ignored the issue of national rights. When Navalny, who began his political career among Russian nationalists and made chauvinistic comments in the early period of his activism, emerged as a recognized leader, he turned out to be a kind of supranational democrat. He did not divide his supporters by nationality or recognize their specific national demands; instead, he addressed them as conventional people of goodwill who are conscious (or modern) enough to rise above national feelings and unite for the sake of the beautiful Russia of the future. It is sad to admit that Putins most talented and most relentless opponent turned out to be a hostage, like him, of the imperial paradigm. Navalny had a chance to change history but for this he had to first accept it himself, to hear voices in other languages presenting a historical account. And he was too Russian for that.

His surname came from the verb navalivatsya, to pile on, and it was the surname of a fighter. Basically, this is his lifes main legacy: You can live and act freely in Russia, and you can live without feeling doomed, without acknowledging the right of the regime to punish or pardon, without a bent spine. That is how we will remember Navalny, as the harbinger of an unfulfilled hope. In a bitter irony, flowers were left for him in the days after his death at monuments to the victims of Soviet repression, an unwitting recognition of the continuity of Russian violence, which he tried to deny with his life.

Continued here:

Opinion | How Alexei Navalny got trapped by Russian history - The Washington Post

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As U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris moved closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov made clear that Russia was paying attention.

"So far, her contribution to our bilateral relations has not been noticed," said Peskov, only to later notice the vice president's "unfriendly" remarks.

"There were statements that were replete with rhetoric quite unfriendly towards our country," he said.

While Peskov didn't specify exactly which comments from Harris he was referring to, she has been outspoken over Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on several occasions.

In February 2023, Harris described Russia as "horrendous," "gruesome," and "cruel," while announcing that the U.S. had determined that the Kremlin had committed war crimes in Ukraine.

"In the case of Russia's actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity," she said.

"First, from the starting days of this unprovoked war, we have witnessed Russian forces engage in horrendous atrocities and war crimes."

Harris then went on to list the acts committed by Russia, all of which are backed up by extensive evidence.

"Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation. Execution-style killings, beating and electrocution," she said.

"Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children. They have cruelly separated children from their families."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for several Russians, most notably President Vladimir Putin himself last year, for the forced deportations of more than 19,000 Ukrainian children to Russia.

More recently, the (ICC) announced on June 25 that it had issued arrest warrants for Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia's Security Council, and General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff, for war crimes against Ukraine.

A day after the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Harris, in a post on social media, described it as "unprovoked" and "unjustified."

While Russia initially claimed the invasion was launched to "demilitarize" and "denazify" Ukraine, and was provoked by "NATO expansion" as the war dragged on, even Putin has admitted otherwise.

In a speech in June 2022, he said it was an imperial war to "return" Ukraine, which he described as Russian land.

In February of this year, Harris described the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an "utter failure."

By the Kremlin's own standards this is an accurate assessment. Just days after the invasion began, Russian state media accidentally revealed Putin's goals and expected timeframe of victory.

In an article that was quickly deleted, several news agencies lauded Putin for Russia's swift victory, solving "the Ukraine problem," and declaring that "Ukraine has returned to Russia."

Just last month, Harris described Russian aggression against Ukraine as "brutal."

In the 17 months since she described it as "gruesome" and "cruel," Russia's actions in Ukraine have only continued, and more and more cases of brutal behavior have occurred.

A non-exhaustive list of alleged war crimes include the beheading of Ukrainian POWs, using civilians as human shields, multiple incidences of targeting rescue workers with double-tap strikes, murdering teenagers, continued and escalating aerial attacks on civilian infrastructure, and the bombing of children's hospitals.

With Biden out, what could a Kamala Harris presidency mean for Ukraine?

All eyes turned toward Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely person to lead the Democratic ticket this fall following U.S. President Joe Bidens announcement that he would be leaving the 2024 presidential race. If Harris is officially confirmed as the candidate to take on Republican Donald Tru

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Chris York is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.Read more

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Russia accuses Kamala Harris of 'unfriendly rhetoric' here's what she actually said - Kyiv Independent

KIROV, Russia In Kirov, a small city in the heart of western Russia, about 1,000 miles from the front lines in Ukraine, the war that initially few people wanted continues to fill graves in local cemeteries. But most residents now seem to agree with President Vladimir Putin that the bloodshed is necessary.

The U.S. and NATO gave us no choice, said Vlad, the commander of a Russian storm unit who has been wounded three times since signing a contract to join the military a year ago. He spoke on the condition he be identified only by first name because he is still an active-duty soldier.

After fighting in Ukraine this spring left him with 40 pieces of shrapnel in his body, Vlad was sent home to recover. Once healed, he plans to return to battle. Im going back because I want my kids to be proud of me, he said. You have to raise patriotism. Otherwise, Russia will be eaten up.

Elena Smirnova, whose brothers have been fighting in Ukraine since they were conscripted in September 2022, said she is proud they serve the motherland rather than sit on the couch at home.

Nina Korotaeva, who works every day at a volunteer center sewing nets and anti-drone camouflage blankets, said that she feels such pity for the young men dying but that their sacrifice is unavoidable. We dont have a choice, Korotaeva said. We have to defend our state. We cant just agree to being broken up.

The Posts Francesca Ebel reported in June from Kirov, Russia, where even far from the front lines the war has visibly changed the fabric of life. (Video: Francesca Ebel, Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

A visit to Kirov last month revealed that many Russians firmly believe that their country is fighting an existential war with the West, which has sent Ukraine more than $100 billion in military aid, including sophisticated weapons, to defend against Russias invasion assistance that has sharply increased Russias casualties.

Interviews showed that the Kremlin has mobilized public support for the war while also masking the full, horrific consequences of it. Some residents of Kirov said they still find the war incomprehensible, while others who have lost relatives insist that the fighting must be serving a higher purpose.

Olga Akishina, whose boyfriend, Nikita Rusakov, 22, was killed with at least 20 other soldiers when a U.S.-provided HIMARS missile slammed into their base this spring, said she found it too difficult to speak about him. Instead, she spoke for nearly an hour in an unbroken torrent about NATO bases in Ukraine and the extermination of Russian-speakers there echoing the Kremlins unfounded justifications for the war, which are repeated frequently on state television.

Of course, if he hadnt died, it would certainly be much more pleasant for me and his family, Akishina said. But I am aware that this was a necessary measure to protect those people.

Washington Post journalists traveled to Kirov at the invitation of Maria Butina, a Russian citizen who served 15 months in a U.S. federal prison after being convicted of operating as an unregistered foreign agent. Butina had been an advocate for gun rights and other conservative causes during her years in the United States. Deported after her release, she was embraced as a hero in Russia and now represents Kirov in the State Duma, Russias lower house of parliament.

Butinas office organized interviews with soldiers on leave from active duty, wounded servicemen, soldiers families, volunteers, local medical staff and young police cadets. Butina insisted that one of her assistants, Konstantyn Sitchikhin, sit in on most of the conversations, which meant some people may have felt unable to speak freely. At times, Sitchikhin interrupted, telling young cadets, for example, to speak carefully and patriotically.

The Post also interviewed several people independently, in person or by phone.

Butina said she extended the invitation because she still believes in dialogue with the West and wanted The Post to report the truth. But she insisted that Sitchikhins presence in interviews was necessary. We need to feel that we can trust you, Butina said. I advise you to build bridges, not walls.

The Post accepted Butinas invitation because it allowed access to a city outside Moscow where reporting might otherwise have proved risky. Since the invasion, Russian authorities have outlawed criticism of the war or the military and have arrested and charged journalists with serious offenses including espionage. Journalists also are routinely put under surveillance.

Sitchikhin, Butinas aide, cited a climate of fear. You need to understand that we are at war and people here see you as the enemy, he said. I am just trying to protect the people I care about.

A day after speaking to The Post, Akishina, whose boyfriend was killed in the missile strike, sent a text message saying that she regretted talking to an American newspaper.

You will most likely be asked to present the material in the article in a way that will be beneficial to the newspapers editors, she wrote.

I would not want there to be a headline under my story and our photographs that would blame our country and our President for the death of our military, she wrote, adding that the 78 percent of Russians who voted to reelect Putin in March were proof of widespread public support for the war. (Independent observers said the Russian election failed to meet democratic standards, with genuine challengers blocked from running and Putin controlling all media.)

The truth is that the United States and the European Union countries that supply weapons to Ukraine are to blame for the death of our guys, as well as civilians in Donbas and Belgorod, Akishina wrote.

On Wednesday, June 12, thousands of people crammed onto Kirovs main square to celebrate Russia Day, swaying to patriotic rock songs in the warm sunshine. Among them was Lyubov, tears streaming down her face as she cradled a portrait of her son, Anton, in uniform.

I cry every single day, Lyubov said of Anton, 39, who was confirmed dead this spring.

Lyubov said she had joined the festivities hoping to take her mind off her grief. But the dancing, happy families, and rousing music that at times drowned out her words proved too much. I dont want everyone to join us in our sadness, she said, but I cant take this.

Anton was killed by machine-gun fire near Avdiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine that Russia captured in February after months of fierce fighting. Anton called her the night before the assault and told her that he was on a one-way ticket a suicide mission. When she finally got her sons body back, she was warned not to open the coffin.

Lyubov said she did not understand the reasons for the war, who Russia is fighting or why her son volunteered to join the army. But she insisted that his death was not in vain. He did it for us, she said, smiling a bit, and for Russia.

The Post arranged the interview with Lyubov independently by contacting her through a social media page for soldiers families. The Post is identifying her and her son by first name only because of the risk of backlash from the authorities.

The interviews with Lyubov, and more than a dozen others in Kirov highlighted a striking duality: Many Russians are struggling with the deaths of loved ones or their return with grievous injuries, and some are deeply engaged in volunteer efforts, but many others are largely untouched by the war, which has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians and destroyed entire cities.

At the entrance to the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a pamphlet written by Kirovs chief bishop, Mark Slobodsky, tells worshipers that this is not a fight over territory but a war to defend Orthodox Christian values. It is a sacred and civilizational conflict, Slobodsky wrote. No one can stand to the side of these events.

Inside, priests blessed an icon that Butinas office had commissioned by an artist from Donetsk, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, to honor Kirovs soldiers. The icon bore an odd combination of images: Czar Nicholas II, Russian Prince Alexander Nevsky and the former head of the Russian-backed Donetsk Peoples Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, standing in various positions of piety before the slag heaps of Ukraines coal-mining Donbas region.

At a small concert organized by a local volunteer group, people sang patriotic songs about victory and love for the motherland. Three men, the fathers of soldiers either killed or still fighting in Ukraine, were awarded medals for raising heroes of Russia.

Each fighter is a hero for us, and today we wish them the fastest victory, the concerts host proclaimed. Its thanks to them that we are able to hold such events like this today.

Public unity behind the war was fully on display in Kirov, including a little girl, whose father is fighting in Ukraine, in a T-shirt that said: I am the daughter of a hero.

Several elderly residents said they donate their pensions to the war effort. Many are children of soldiers who fought in World War II and now view Russia as fighting a new war against fascism.

Young cadets in their teens and early 20s, who are training to be police officers and emergency workers, spoke eagerly of volunteer stints they had just completed in occupied Ukraine. One cadet said: Young people shouldnt stay on the sidelines. Asked how they would explain the war in Ukraine, they requested to skip the question.

Some young people who joined the fight, however, are disillusioned by it. Denis, 29, a former Wagner mercenary whose left foot was amputated because of a war injury and who participated in a short-lived mutiny last year when Wagner fighters marched toward Moscow, said he was still enraged at the corrupt and decaying Defense Ministry.

Post journalists encountered Denis by chance, independently of Butinas office, and he agreed to meet to talk about his experiences in the war on the condition that he be identified only by first name because criticizing the military is now a crime in Russia.

Speaking as fireworks marked the end of Russia Day, Denis complained that there was not enough truth about the war and not enough real, organic involvement.

Why are people still partying? Why are they spending money on fireworks and this concert? he said. Its as if nothing is going on. Everyone should be helping, but most people do not feel the war concerns them, and politicians are using it to cleanse themselves and increase their ratings.

Denis said he planned to return to Ukraine once he is fitted with a prosthesis.

We have to end this, otherwise the West will see us as weak, he said. I thought this war would be short, that it would last six months maximum. We have really been screwed. And Im disappointed that everyone who tells the truth about the war, about the Russian Defense Ministry, is immediately jailed.

Meanwhile, Kirovs social media pages are flooded daily with funeral notices and pleas to help find missing fathers, sons or husbands.

At the cemetery outside Kirov where Lyubovs son is buried, there are about 40 graves of soldiers killed since 2022, adorned with wreaths and flags. Thirty freshly dug graves await bodies.

Next to one grave, a family gathered to say a few words and raise a glass. Thank you, Seryoga, for defending us, said a man, who gave his name only as Mikhail. You were only there for three days, but at least you tried your best.

Anastasia Trofimova contributed to this report.

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In this city, people say Russia must defeat Ukraine and the West at any cost - The Washington Post

A war of words over Ukraine took centre-stage in the past week, as the European Union sought to bolster its defence readiness, NATO celebrated its 75th birthday and Russia issued threats and promises.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament she would pursue a defence union if re-elected for another five years, which she ultimately was.

We will propose a number of Defence Projects of Common European Interest starting with a European Air Shield and cyber-defence, she said on Thursday, triggering warning shots from Russia a day later.

Von der Leyens single market commissioner, Thierry Breton, earlier this year promised a 100-billion-euro ($109bn) investment fund for European defence industries. It has yet to materialise, but von der Leyen promised to create a dedicated defence portfolio and to pursue innovation and investment.

It is astonishing. The European Union, which was created to ensure the wellbeing and stability of all its members, has now evolved into a NATO appendage, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN a day earlier. And [now the EU] is no less aggressively and, perhaps, sometimes even more aggressively demanding to inflict a defeat on Russia. What kind of strategic or any other dialogue could there be? he asked.

Lavrov was explaining to reporters why Russia refused to attend a Ukrainian-organised peace summit in Switzerland last month, and so far refuses to attend three more mini-summits Ukraine plans one on energy in Qatar by early August, one on freedom of navigation in Turkey next month, and one on prisoner of war exchanges in Canada in September. All three are to contribute to a second peace summit in November.

Ukraine has been stealthily building an international consensus on piecemeal aspects of a final peace deal with Russia.

On July 11, the General Assembly voted 99-to-9 in favour of a motion calling on Russia to unilaterally end its war of aggression and withdraw its soldiers from Ukrainian territory releasing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station from its grasp.

A year into the war, 141 nations backed a similar call. In September 2022, 143 nations condemned Russias formal annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

Russia blames NATO for its aggression. Deputy head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview on Wednesday that Ukraines admission [to NATO] in essence is a declaration of war, albeit a deferred one.

Moscow has demanded onerous conditions for talks recognition by Ukraine of Russias annexation of the four regions it partly occupies, curtailment of its defence forces and refusal to join NATO.

Medvedev said a week earlier that even this will not be the end of Russias military operation, because even after signing the papers and accepting the defeat, the rest of the radicals will sooner or later return to power, inspired by Russias Western enemies. And then it will be time to finally crush the viper.

In fact, he seemed to prepare Russians for perennial war, saying there would be future battles to defend the Fatherland.

In Wednesdays interview, he responded to NATO chief Jens Stoltenbergs hope that Ukraine may join the alliance in a decade saying that by then, its quite possible that [Ukraine] will no longer exist.

NATO reflected on none of this during celebrations of its 75th anniversary in Washington last week.

Italy, Germany and Romania pledged five additional Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, and the US, Netherlands and Denmark promised that Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer.

Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands have promised to deliver 60 decommissioned aircraft to Ukraine this year. Greece is conditionally offering another 32.

This war of words took place against a backdrop of incremental Russian advances in the Donetsk region.

Between July 9 and July 12, Russian troops completed the conquest of Kanal Microraion, the eastern extremity of Chasiv Yar, which has been particularly fiercely fought over. The reason is that Chasiv Yar is key to advancing against the last remaining bastions of Ukrainian defence in western Donetsk the cities of Konstiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

To capture Kanal Microraion, an area three blocks wide and three blocks deep, Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Ivan Havrylyuk said Russian forces suffered 5,000 casualties.

Their task now becomes harder, because the rest of Chasiv Yar lies on elevated ground and across a canal.

Russian forces have proven in the past that they are capable of capturing even strongly defended positions, notably at Bakhmut and Severdonetsk, but only after suffering very high loss of life and equipment.

In June, the Russian army lost more than 1,400 artillery systems, more than 600 armoured fighting vehicles, almost 360 tanks. These are unprecedented losses. And what are the achievements on the battlefield? wrote Deputy Defence Minister Ivan Havrylyuk in a July 9 article.

These figures are evidence of the fact that we are winning the counter-battery struggle Russians shoot more often, but the results are better with us.

Russian forces also advanced northwest of Avdiivka, a city they captured in February, and in the direction of Toretsk. Along with Chasiv Yar, these three fronts lie within 40km (25 miles) of each other, and form the main thrust of Russian advance in Ukraine.

Elsewhere on the thousand-kilometre front, the Russians were stalemated, but that does not mean they didnt suffer heavy losses.

Kharkiv, a front they opened in May likely to drain Ukrainian forces away from Chasiv Yar, has ended up draining Russian reserves.

Viktor Solimchuk, commander of the tactical group Kharkiv defending the area, told reporters that Russian casualties since May amounted to 2,939 killed and 6,509 wounded.

That is, the estimated losses of the enemy in our direction are about 91 percent, Solimchuk said.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the toll.

The Kharkiv tactical group reported that Russia had transferred assault groups from its Pacific Fleet and the newly formed Leningrad Military District to sustain forces there.

Ukrainian military observer Colonel Konstantyn Mashovets said Russias units in central Donetsk needed similar reinforcement. A regiment from the 27th Motorised Rifle Division, which had been intended as a reserve division, had been deployed to Avdiivka before being staffed to full strength. Two other undermanned regiments were rushed to Toretsk.

Yet none of this meant that Ukraine was on the cusp of a breakthrough, either.

It plans to raise a quarter of a million new troops this year, but training and equipping them will take time. A senior NATO official told The New York Times that Ukraine would not be able to mount a large-scale counteroffensive until next year.

And Ukraine awaits a key decision on the part of Western governments supplying many of its weapons: to allow it to use them to attack inside Russia.

It is more difficult and costly to shoot down enemy missiles in the air than to destroy [the aircraft that carry them] at airfields, missiles at arsenals, or target factories that produce deadly weapons, wrote Havrylyuk.

Germany and the US have accompanied their weapons with restrictions on use inside Russia.

The United Kingdom, which had been thought to have imposed no such restrictions, may have done so as well, it was revealed in the past week, when incoming Foreign Secretary David Lammy told European Pravda he was reflecting on Ukrainian requests to hit airfields with British Storm Shadow missiles and had undertaken to go away and look at some other things.

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Russia inches ahead in Ukraine but suffers high losses, rows with West - Al Jazeera English