“Russian forces have not achieved anything resembling a strategic military victory since the first days of the war more than two weeks ago, and have turned to attempts to flatten whole sections of cities,” writes Marc Santora for the New York Times.
BBC’s summary this morning:
- A military airfield south of Kyiv is hit by missiles as reports suggest the bulk of Russian forces are just 25km from the city
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the Russian army is sending in new troops after suffering its largest losses in decades
- French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hold a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin
- A mosque in the southern port of Mariupol, where 80 civilians were sheltering, was shelled by Russian forces, Ukrainian officials say
- People in the city are said to be enduring freezing temperatures with no power, and little food and water
- Russia has accused Ukraine of rejecting nearly all its offers to provide humanitarian corridors from flash-point towns
“Many report having no food for children.”
An International Committee of the Red Cross worker in Mariupol describes conditions there:
Alexey Kovalyov fled Moscow last week for Latvia. A former editor for the Moscow Times, he now works for Lativa-based, independent news site, Meduza. Sean Illing of Vox spoke with him to get his impression of what is happening in Russia as Vladmir Putin attempts to flatten Ukraine. Even more stringent press restrictions drove Kovalov and western journalists out of the country.
Amid bank runs and shortages, what explanations are everyday Russians hearing for them? Government polling is completely unreliable. Government media does not even use the word “war” in reference to Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The alarmists were right all along
Putiin is enforcing a full-Orwellian control of perceived reality, as Illing sees it:
Alexey Kovalyov
Yeah, absolutely. There has definitely been a shift. And I have to be honest, there were a handful of people here who have been warning about this for a long time, who were telling people like me that this was going to be a fascist dictatorship one day, and we’ve been dismissing these people. We were like, “Come on, Putin is a cynic, he’s evil in so many ways, but at least he’s a rational guy. All he wants to do is get himself insanely rich. He’s not going to do anything really drastic.”
But we were all fucking wrong. The alarmists were right all along, and almost every one of them is either dead or in jail or exiled.
Thers is no one to push back, and the few protests too small and too isolated to loosen Putin’s grasp.
Sean Illing
People outside Russia are seeing the videos of people protesting on the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and I think a lot of us want to believe that Putin can’t contain this, that there will be a revolt. But I worry that that’s mostly wishful thinking. Are you convinced that this will put a real dent in Putin’s regime?
Alexey Kovalyov
No, not really. What you’re seeing from these protesters on the streets is possibly the bravest thing I’ve seen, and it’s mostly women who are facing real violence and serious prison time. These people are getting the shit beat out of them by the police. They’re the bravest people in Russia right now because they know what they’re facing.
But we’re talking about a few thousand people in a country of over 140 million people. It’s not nearly enough to even put a dent in Putin’s regime. What it’s really going to take is the silent majority, or Putin’s passive electorate, who for all these years have just been doing what they’re told, they’re going to have to make a stand. But I have no idea what it would take for these people to wake up. I really have no idea.
All I know is that we’re in uncharted waters. All these major foreign media outlets, like the New York Times and the BBC, are fleeing Moscow. That’s never happened. The New York Times has had a bureau in Moscow throughout the entire 20th century, including three revolutions and two world wars and the entire Cold War. But now Moscow isn’t safe for the New York Times. I really don’t have the words to describe how unpredictable this situation is.
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