Zelensky and American Exceptionalism

 Volodymyr Zelensky at WSJ:

A decade ago the current boss of Russia wrote that “America is not exceptional.” What he did later shows what he really meant. Many tyrants in human history have claimed global influence, but none of them could inspire the rest of the world to strive for the best in human nature. That’s why today’s Russian tyrants, like all tyrants, are fundamentally weak and their regime will crumble over time. When any tyrant hates America and denies its exceptional role in the struggle for freedom, he recognizes his own inevitable defeat. To Russian tyranny I say the world needs more, not less, American exceptionalism.

In 2013, Trump sided with Putin:

And it really makes him look like a great leader, frankly. And when he criticizes the president [Obama]  for using the term "American exceptionalism," if you're in Russia, you don't want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you're in many other countries, whether it's Germany or other places, you don't want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you're exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that's basically what Putin was saying is that, you know, you use a term like "American exceptionalism," and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it's sort of a hard term to use.

 But other nations and other countries don't want hear about American exceptionalism. They're insulted by it. And that's what Putin was saying.

Coup Misinformation

Matt Binder at Mashable:

The potential coup attempt in Russia by a paramilitary organization may already be over(opens in a new tab), but the misinformation sure did flow during the breaking global event.

... 

Since Elon Musk acquired the platform, Twitter has gone through changes that don't exactly bode well for it as an invaluable breaking news resource like it once was.

For example, prior to Musk, the blue checkmark meant that a user was verified by Twitter as the journalist or expert that the individual claimed they were. Remember, the purpose of the checkmark was to make sure these users couldn't be impersonated. Now, however, anyone who pays $8 per month for Twitter's premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, gets a blue checkmark.

Furthermore, those paid blue checkmark users now get priority placement in Twitter's For You feed algorithm, and in the replies to other users' tweets. And, echoing the issue on Telegram, many Twitter Blue subscribers are not far, ideologically speaking, from the Putin regime.

 

From WNYC "On the Media":

US Opinion on NATO and International Relations

Jacob Poushter and colleagues at Pew:

In the midst of a major international conflict in Ukraine and an expansion of NATO in Europe, Americans have distinct opinions on the key players in the war. Majorities of U.S. adults have favorable views of Ukraine itself, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and have confidence in Ukraine’s leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the same time, few have positive opinions of Russia or confidence in its ruler, President Vladimir Putin. And a 64% majority view Russia as an enemy to the United States, rather than as a competitor or partner.

...

 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are consistently more likely than Republicans and GOP leaners to hold a positive opinion of NATO. About three-quarters of Democrats (76%) have a favorable view of NATO, in contrast to 49% of Republicans. Among Republicans, moderates and liberals are more likely to have a favorable opinion of the alliance than conservatives. And liberal Democrats are more positive toward NATO than conservative and moderate supporters of the party.

The partisan divide on the issue of NATO is well established in past research. In 2022, Republicans grew more favorable toward NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion. However, since then, Republicans have become less positive, with favorable ratings of the alliance declining 6 points. Democratic views of NATO have remained relatively steady since 2021.

Russian Active Measures in the United States

Asha Rangappa at Just Security:

Last month, a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida returned a superseding indictment charging three Russian nationals and four U.S. citizens with a conspiracy to conduct a malign influence campaign in the United States. The activities described in the indictment are significant in a number of respects. In particular, they represent a blending of old and new tactics in Russia’s active measures campaign in the United States. On the one hand, Russia’s targets here harken back to the tried-and-true active measures playbook of the KGB; at the same time, the focus on local election interference as a means to lay the groundwork for interference on a larger scale demonstrates that Russia is learning how to exploit new American political vulnerabilities.

The indictment alleges that the U.S. citizens, who were affiliated with three U.S. political groups – the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (the APSP) located in Florida, the Black Hammer Organization in Georgia, and an unnamed political organization in California – engaged in a conspiracy to act as unregistered foreign agents of a Kremlin-funded group called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR). The goals of the conspiracy, which spanned from 2014 to 2022, were to sow discord in the United States and further Russia’s narratives concerning the war in Ukraine. AGMR was run by a Moscow resident charged in the indictment, who was directed and supervised by two Moscow-based intelligence officers also named in the indictment. The indictment alleges that these three Russian nationals also funded and directed the political campaign of an unnamed candidate in a local election in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2019, as a precursor to broader election interference in 2020.

...

There is more in the indictment which I have not covered here, including Russian defendants funding a demonstration in support of the secession of California from the United States, organizing a protest against a(n unnamed) media company which had restricted posts supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and directing Black Hammer to hold a rally in front of an Atlanta-based media company in honor of Russian Victory Day in 2022. The Russian defendants also enlisted APSP’s assistance and cover in protesting Russia’s partial ban from the 2016 Olympic games in Rio. In fact, the sheer breadth of activities undertaken by the relatively few defendants in this one complaint and in this one setting suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Russia’s ongoing operations in the United States.

Pro-Russian Twitter Accounts

Many posts have discussed how Russia has interfered in American politics.

David Klepper at AP:

Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk’s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

...

Another pro-Russian account recently tried to pick an online argument with Ukraine’s defense department, posting photos of documents that it claimed came from the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by a Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Putin ally. Prigozhin operates troll farms that have targeted U.S. social media users in the past. Last fall he boasted of his efforts to meddle with American democracy.

A separate Twitter account claiming to represent Wagner actively uses the site to recruit fighters.

“ Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere,” Prigozhin said last fall on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. “Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” Prigozhin said at the time.

Russia and Secession

 Secession is unconstitutional. See Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868)

Rachel Kleinfeld at The Hill:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is far from the only politician interested in secession, which has been discussed by the Wyoming GOP chairman and is already part of the Texas GOP platform.

While the right is more vocal, a national breakup is not its dream alone. A June 2021 survey by Bright Line Watch found about a third of the country supported a split. Their ranks include more than half of Southern Republicans, but also 41 percent of Democrats in California and the Pacific Northwest, and 34 percent of heartland independents.

....

Whatever America was left would have a rump military. As the most populous state, California supplies the largest number of U.S. service members, but Texas and other Southern states provide the bulk of the military force. The South hosts a disproportionate number of bases. Who would get what? However things were split, the winners would be China and Russia, which would face a hobbled United States.

Perhaps that is why Russia has been the biggest supporter of secession talk in the United States. Californians who wanted out might be surprised that one of the Republican operatives leading the referendum had deep, longstanding ties to Russia and returned to live there before California’s referendum was even complete. The most popular Texas secession page on Facebook was created not by Lone Star defenders but Russian trolls.

The Kremlin has supported secessionist efforts worldwide to weaken democracies — from the Catalans in Spain to Scottish independence. In 2016, it sponsored a conference for global secessionist movements — including Texas, California and Puerto Rico.

Bush-Obama Transition

Peter Baker at NYT:

The world was a volatile place when President George W. Bush was leaving office. So on the way out the door, he and his national security team left a little advice for their successors:

India is a friend. Pakistan is not. Don’t trust North Korea or Iran, but talking is still better than not. Watch out for Russia; it covets the territory of its neighbor Ukraine. Beware becoming ensnared by intractable land wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. And oh yes, nation-building is definitely harder than it looks.

Fourteen years ago, Mr. Bush’s team recorded its counsel for the incoming administration of President Barack Obama in 40 classified memos by the National Security Council, part of what has widely been hailed by both sides as a model transition between presidents of different parties. For the first time, those memos have now been declassified, offering a window into how the world appeared to a departing administration after eight years marked by war, terrorism and upheaval.

Thirty of the memos are reproduced in “Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama,” a new book edited by Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s last national security adviser, along with three members of his staff, and set to be published by the Brookings Institution on Wednesday. The memos add up to a tour d’horizon of the international challenges that awaited Mr. Obama and his team in January 2009 with U.S. troops still in combat in two wars and various other threats to American security looming.

...

The memo on Russia concludes that Mr. Bush’s “strategy of personal diplomacy met with early success” but acknowledged that ties had soured, especially after Russia’s invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008. The memo presciently warned about Russia’s future ambitions.

“Russia attempts to challenge the territorial integrity of Ukraine, particularly in Crimea, which is 59 percent ethnically Russian and is home to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, must be prevented,” the memo warned five years before Russian forces would seize Crimea and 13 years before they would invade the rest of the country. The memo added that “Russia will exploit Europe’s dependence on Russian energy” and use political means “to drive wedges between the United States and Europe.”

Ukraine and Saratoga

 President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke to Congress last night:

We have artillery, yes. Thank you. We have it. Is it enough? Honestly, not really. To ensure Bakhmut is not just a stronghold that holds back the Russian Army, but for the Russian Army to completely pull out, more cannons and shells are needed. If so, just like the Battle of Saratoga, the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom

.Back in March, Harvard professor Paul Peterson wrote at Education Next:

The parallels between Saratoga and the Ukrainian war burst from every page. King George III readily accepts General John Burgoyne’s sweepingly confident war plan: Shoot down the St. Lawrence river, cross Lake Champlain, capture Fort Ticonderoga, and, with Loyalist help, drive to Albany, sail down the Hudson River and meet Sir William Howe’s army coming up from New York City. Nothing could be easier—other than, perhaps, watching Ukrainian morale implode once Russian tanks pour down highways into Kyiv.

...

Yet the surrender of a British army at Saratoga provokes rising opposition in Parliament, triggers French entry into the war, and entrenches patriotism across the colonies. And, today, heroic Ukrainian defense efforts have stirred self-indulgent Europeans and Americans to reassess their true obligations to the defense of democracy.

Although Saratoga is the beginning of the end, a signed peace agreement recognizing the United States of America does not come for another six years. Time moves faster in the 21st than in the 18th Century, but one should rather pray for than expect a quick solution to the current war.

In the meantime, democratic patriotism is deepening. The Ukrainians are teaching us. Our civic lessons are being learned on the ground, in real life. Our schools and our students can profit by attending to the moment. One does not need to manufacture history to teach patriotism; one only needs to explain that history has not come to an end.

Pulitzer Statement on Russian Interference Coverage

A Statement from the Pulitzer Prize Board

The Pulitzer Prize Board has an established, formal process by which complaints against winning entries are carefully reviewed. In the last three years, the Pulitzer Board has received inquiries, including from former President Donald Trump, about submissions from The New York Times and The Washington Post on Russian interference in the U.S. election and its connections to the Trump campaign--submissions that jointly won the 2018 National Reporting prize.

These inquiries prompted the Pulitzer Board to commission two independent reviews of the work submitted by those organizations to our National Reporting competition. Both reviews were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other. The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.

The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand.

Secession

The Texas GOP has adopted a platform calling for a public vote on secession.

Moscow must be happy.

Upon request by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), NewKnowledge reviewed an expansive data set of social media posts and metadata provided toSSCI by Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet, plus a set of related data from additional platforms.The data sets were provided by the three primary platforms to serve as evidence for aninvestigation into the Internet Research Agency (IRA) influence operations. 

 The Internet Research Agency has been implicated in the promotion of secessionist and insurrectionist movements in several countries; there is no sowing of division quite so pronounced as attempting to create a literal territorial split. In Europe, this took the form of involvement in Brexit and Catalonian independence efforts. In the United States, it was #Texit and #Calexit, as well as active support for the Bundy ranch and Malheur Reserve standoffs.

The vote in favor of Brexit, which happened on June 23, 2016, was subsequently used by the IRA to promote its Texas Secession initiatives. Brexit narratives were shared on the Instagram account @rebeltexas as a justification for #Texit, as well as on @_americafirst_and @mericanfury to encourage American isolationism and a retreat from involvement in global affairs. The Facebook Page Heart of Texas posted about secession with some regularity, and coordinated real-world pro-secession demonstrations across the state using Facebook Events. 

Reagan at Westminster

 Forty years ago today, President Reagan spoke to the British Parliament:

No, democracy is not a fragile flower. Still it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy.

...

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?

...

During the dark days of the Second World War, when this island was incandescent with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about Britain's adversaries, ``What kind of a people do they think we are?'' Well, Britain's adversaries found out what extraordinary people the British are. But all the democracies paid a terrible price for allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare not make that mistake again. So, let us ask ourselves, ``What kind of people do we think we are?'' And let us answer, ``Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.''

Sir Winston led his people to great victory in war and then lost an election just as the fruits of victory were about to be enjoyed. But he left office honorably, and, as it turned out, temporarily, knowing that the liberty of his people was more important than the fate of any single leader. History recalls his greatness in ways no dictator will ever know. And he left us a message of hope for the future, as timely now as when he first uttered it, as opposition leader in the Commons nearly 27 years ago, when he said, ``When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have,'' he said, ``come safely through the worst.''

Well, the task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

Trevor Noah on Press Freedom

 

“Because this is America…and here, RIGHT MATTERS.” https://t.co/zm7p7hAVrP

— Rachel Vindman 🌻 (@natsechobbyist) May 1, 2022

Heavy Weapons for Ukraine

 Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch, and Amy Mackinnon at Foreign Policy:

The United States and its NATO allies have ramped up the delivery of tanks, helicopters, and heavy weapons to Ukraine as the country’s forces prepare for large-scale battles against Russian troops in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

The new arms deliveries represent a stark shift from Western support for Ukraine in the earliest days of the war, when U.S. and European officials, unsure of how long Ukraine could hold out against a massive Russian invasion, were wary of delivering heavy weapons that could in turn fall into Russian hands. The deliveries also reflect a shift away from defensive systems like anti-tank rockets to more offensive weapons that Ukraine needs at a critical stage of the war.

 

Generations, Cold War Memories, and Russia

Philip Bump at WP:

I guess we're far enough along with this newsletter that I can make a confession: I am a member of Generation X.... We were the youngest Americans to experience the Cold War firsthand. Again, not really; I at no time flew a U-2 plane over Kamchatka or anything. But when we played good guy/bad guy games, the bad guys were Russians and not terrorists.

And now we come to a chart. This is via the Economist, which conducts regular, detailed polling with YouGov. (An aside: It's really great polling with lots of questions and trends over time. Go look.)

How to read this chart? Fairly simple. I wanted to balance sympathy for Ukraine on one side with sympathy for Russia on the other, but the “neither”s made that slightly more complicated. So I made “neither” the middle point, preserving (I hope!) the sense of balance.

You should perceive, then, that sympathy for Ukraine is far higher with older Americans than younger ones. Younger Americans still sympathize with Ukraine on net, but it's far more lopsided as you get older.

Bringing me to my thesis. Part of reading a chart, of course, is understanding the implications of the chart. So: This is a graph of familiarity with the Cold War.

I can't prove that empirically here, but the dates line up. If you are 29 or younger, you were born in 1993 or later, meaning after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. If you are aged 30 to 44, you were probably born sometime between 1978 and 1992, meaning that you probably no more than a preteen when that collapse occurred. Perhaps you similarly grew up with Russians as America's default enemy, but not in the same way.

Elon Musk and the War Effort in Ukraine

 Elon Musk has many critics, but he is helping Ukraine's fight for freedom.

Rachel Lerman and Cat Zakrzewski at WP:

Elon Musk recently challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to a one-handed fistfight for the future of Ukraine. But the entrepreneur’s real defense of the besieged country is his effort to keep Ukrainians online with shipments of Starlink satellite Internet service.

Starlink is a unit of Musk’s space company, SpaceX. The service uses terminals that resemble TV dishes equipped with antennas and are usually mounted on roofs to access the Internet via satellite in rural or disconnected areas.

When war broke out in Ukraine, the country faced threats of Russian cyberattacks and shelling that had the potential to take down the Internet, making it necessary to develop a backup plan. So the country’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted a direct plea to Musk urging him to send help. Musk replied just hours later: “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route.”

BUT NOTE AN IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Cristiano Lima at WP:

After Russia launched its invasion, Ukrainian officials pleaded for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to dispatch their Starlink terminals to the region to boost Internet access. “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route,” Musk replied to broad online fanfare.


Since then, the company has cast the actions in part as a charitable gesture. “I’m proud that we were able to provide the terminals to folks in Ukraine,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said at a public event last month, later telling CNBC, “I don’t think the U.S. has given us any money to give terminals

But according to documents obtained by The Technology 202, the U.S. federal government is in fact paying millions of dollars for a significant portion of the equipment and for the transportation costs to get it to Ukraine. to the Ukraine.”

Tanks for the Memories

 Christopher McFadden at Interesting Engineering:

According to Oryx, at the time of writing, Russia has lost somewhere in the region of 279 tanks, of which 116 have been destroyed, 4 damaged, 41 abandoned. Some 118 have been captured. That might sound like a large amount, but the Russian Federation has access to 12,240 battle tanks.

However, most of those 12,240 are old Soviet-era designs, like the T-72, which is more than 50 years old. If this figure is accurate, then losses to date of actual tanks are closer to a couple of percents, not 10.

One also must be careful about numbers, as both Russian and Ukrainian sources will either under-report or over-report losses for propaganda purposes. Ukrainian military forces will also be using very similar. Often identical, military hardware was leftover from their time as part of the Soviet Union. After all, it wouldn't take much to plant some Russian flags uniforms or paint the now-famous "V" or "Z" icons on wrecked vehicles.

Why is Russia losing so many tanks in Ukraine?

As pointed out by many military experts, the main problem appears to be Russia's inability to supply and maintain its stockpile of hardware suitably. So far, most fighting vehicles we've seen in action are poorly maintained, and supply lines appear to be stretched to breaking point.

Not only that, but large units like tanks appear to be left exposed without infantry support or air support—a critical weakness for these powerful weapons of war.

Tanks, even older ones like the T-72, are technically obsolete when compared to modern tanks, like the U.S. M1A2, but that doesn't mean they are not deadly when kept in peek performance and used effectively.

The United States, for example, lost some of its most advanced tanks to obsolete T-72s during the Battle of Medina Ridge in 1991.

Modern anti-tank missiles and, most interestingly, drones are making a significant impact. And it is the use of drones that has drawn the interest of military analysts through the Ukraine conflict.

Turkish drones, like the TB2, have been to excellent use by Ukrainian forces. These can either directly attack tanks or be used as spotters for artillery.

"We're actually seeing the Ukrainian military employ drones, the Bayraktar TB2, and smaller drones, to significant effect against Russian armored vehicles," said former U.S. Army Ranger Paul Scharre, to Insider. "Drones can be very effective in contested airspaces, in part because they can fly lower and in part because you're not risking a pilot."

In their aspect of warfare, the role of tanks will likely need to adapt - like every other weapon of war, or face extinction on the battlefield.

Russia, America, and Decadence

James Pethokoukis:

Russians framing the West as decadent precedes Putin, of course, with the claim being a staple of Soviet propaganda — though the focus then was more about materialism rather than morals. But after the Cold War, however, the charge seems anachronistic and ham-handed as propaganda. Even on its own terms, the charge doesn’t work — unless all that Putin quote means is that the Russian government will persecute LGBT Russians.

For example: Compared to America, Russia has a lower birth rate, higher abortion rate, and lower church attendance — presumably key decadence metrics to conservative Christians in the US who might be sympathetic to the decadence claim. And as I note in the piece of Russian pessimism, a 2019 poll of young Muscovites finds that they imagine their lives on only a roughly two-year time horizon and have little hope for the economy and a well-governed nation.

In many ways, Russia just can’t seem to put it all together: Despite vast natural resources, a well-educated population, a deep scientific base, and an economy long freed from the heavy shackles of communist central planning, Russian income has fallen further behind the West. It possesses a political economy where “corruption and impunity are pervasive.”

Defense of Ukraine

 

russia bombs radioactive storage site#SaveUkraine #SaveTheWorld #stoprussia pic.twitter.com/GGTE4dpRD3

— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 20, 2022

🔊President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

We will win.
There will be new cities.
There will be new dreams.
There will be a new story.
There will be, there’s no doubt.
And those we've lost will be remembered.
And we will sing again, and we will celebrate anew. 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Oll5ZCfuxd

— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 20, 2022

🔊Commander-in-Chief of the AFU general Zaluzhnyi:

War never changes.
In 1941 Ukraine was attacked by the Nazis…
In 2014 Ukraine was attacked by Russians…
We are fighting for our Homeland
And we will win. #UAdefendsEU pic.twitter.com/O84EWc70ju

— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 20, 2022

Schwarzenegger's Message to Russia

 

Governor Schwarzenegger's message to Russia:

Hello everybody, and thank you for sharing your time with me. I’m sending this message through various different channels to reach my dear Russian friends, and the Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine.

I’m speaking to you today because there are things that are going on in the world that are being kept from you—terrible things that you should know about. But before I talk about the harsh realities, let me just talk about the Russian who became my hero.

In 1961 when I was 14 years-old, a very good friend of mine invited me to come to Vienna to watch the World Weightlifting Championship. I was in the audience when Yuri Petrovich Vlasov won the World Championship title, becoming the first human being to lift 200 kilograms over his head. And somehow a friend of mine got me backstage.

All of a sudden, there I was, a 14-year-old boy standing in front of the strongest man in the world. I couldn’t believe it. He reached out to shake my hand—I mean, I still had a boy’s hand. He had this powerful man’s hand that swallowed mine, but he was kind, and he smiled at me. I will never forget that day. Never.

I went home and I put his photo above my bed to inspire me when I started lifting weights. My father told me to take down that picture and to find a German or an Austrian hero. He got really angry, and we argued back and forth.

He didn’t like Russians, because of his experience in the second World War. You see, he was injured at Leningrad, where the Nazi army that he was part of did vicious harm to the great city and to its brave people. But I did not take the photograph down, no. Because it didn’t matter to me what flag Yuri Vlasov carried.

My connections to Russia didn’t stop there, by the way. Oh, it actually deepened when I traveled there, with bodybuilding and for my movies and met all my Russian fans.

And then one of those trips I remember I met Yuri Vlasov once again. It was in Moscow during the filming of Red Heat, which was the first American movie allowed to film in Red Square. Now, he and I spent the day together. He was so thoughtful, so kind, and so smart. And, of course, very giving. He gave me this beautiful, blue coffee cup. And ever since then I’ve been drinking my coffee out of it every morning.

Now, the reason why I’m telling you all of those things is that ever since I was 14 years old, I’ve had nothing but affections and respect for the people of Russia. The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me.

And that is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in the Ukraine and what is happening there.

No one likes to hear something critical of their government. I understand that. But, as a longtime friend of the Russian people, I hope that you will hear what I have to say. And may I remind you that I speak with the same heartfelt concern as I spoke to the American people when there was an attempted insurrection on January sixth last year, when a wild crowd was storming the U.S. Capitol, trying to overthrow our government.

You see, there are moments like this that are so wrong, and then we have to speak up. This is exactly the same with your government. I know that your government has told you that this is a war to denazify Ukraine. Denazify Ukraine? This is not true! Ukraine is a country with a Jewish president. A Jewish president, I might add, whose father’s three brothers were all murdered by the Nazis.

You see, Ukraine did not start this war. Neither did nationalists or Nazis. Those in power in the Kremlin started this war. This is not the Russian people’s war. No. As a matter of fact, let me tell you, what you should know is that 141 nations at the U.N. voted that Russia was the aggressor. They called for it to remove its troops immediately.

Only four countries in the entire world voted with Russia. That is a fact. See, the world has turned against Russia because of its actions in the Ukraine. Whole city blocks have been flattened by Russian artillery and bombs, including a children’s hospital and a maternity ward. Three million Ukrainian refugees—mainly women, children, and the elderly—fled their country, and many more are trying to seek to get out.

It is a humanitarian crisis. Because of its brutality, Russia is now isolated from the society of nations.

You’re also not being told the truth about the consequences of this war on Russia itself. I regret to tell you that thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed. They have been caught between the Ukrainians fighting for their homeland and the Russian leadership fighting for conquest.

Massive amounts of Russian equipment have been destroyed or abandoned. The destruction that Russian bombs are raining down upon innocent civilians has so outraged the world that the strongest global economic sanctions ever taken have been imposed on your country. Those who don’t deserve it on both sides of the war will suffer.

The Russian government has lied, not only to the citizens, but to its soldiers. Some of the soldiers were told they were going to fight Nazis. Some were told that the Ukrainian people would greet them like heroes. And some were told that they were simply going on exercises—they didn’t even know that they were going into war. And some were told that they were there to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine. None of this is true.

The fact is that Russian soldiers have faced fierce resistance from the Ukrainians who want to protect their families and their country. When I see babies being pulled out of ruins, I think that I am watching a documentary about the horrors of the Second World War, not the the news of today.

Now let me tell you, when my father arrived in Leningrad, he was all pumped up on the lies of his government. And when he left Leningrad, he was broken, physically and mentally. He lived the rest of his life in pain. Pain from a broken back, pain from the shrapnel that always reminded him of those terrible years. And pain from the guilt that he felt.

To the Russian soldiers listening to this broadcast, you already know much of the truth that I’ve been speaking. You have seen it with your own eyes. I don’t want you to be broken like my father. This is not the war to defend Russia that your grandfathers or your great-grandfathers fought. This is an illegal war.

Your lives, your limbs, your futures, are being sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the entire world.

Now, to those in power in the Kremlin, let me just ask you: Why would you sacrifice those young men for your own ambitions?

To the soldiers who are listening to this, remember that 11 million Russians have family connections to Ukraine. So every bullet you shoot, you shoot a brother or a sister. Every bomb or every shell that falls, is falling not on an enemy but on a school, or a hospital, or a home. I know that the Russian people are not aware that such things are happening.

So I urge the Russian people and the Russian soldiers in Ukraine to understand the propaganda and the disinformation that you are being told. I ask you to help me spread the truth. Let your fellow Russians know the human catastrophe that is happening in Ukraine.

And to President Putin, I say: You started this war. You are leading this war. You can stop this war.

Now let me close with a message to all of the Russians who have been protesting in the streets against the invasion of Ukraine: The world has seen your bravery. We know that you have suffered the consequences of your courage. You have been arrested. You have been jailed. And you have been beaten. You are my new heroes.

You have the strength of Yuri Petrovich Vlasov. You have the true heart of Russia. My dear Russian friends, may God bless you all.

Assassination

Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?

The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.

You would be doing your country - and the world - a great service.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022

 Many Americans want to assassinate Putin.  At Politico, Steven Kinzer writes:

We’ve tried it repeatedly. Often we have failed, but even when we seem to have succeeded, the long-term consequences have been terrible. An order from the Oval Office to assassinate a foreign leader would not break a taboo. It would only be the latest in a series of self-defeating blunders.

So far as is known, Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to order such assassinations. He began by targeting Premier Zhou Enlai of China. During the 1950s, Eisenhower and nearly every other policymaker in Washington considered the “Red Chinese” to be maniacal fanatics bent on world conquest. When Zhou announced in 1955 that he would travel to Bandung, Indonesia, for a momentous conference of Asian and African leaders, the CIA saw a chance to kill him. Zhou chartered an Air India jet for his flight to Bandung. It exploded in midair, killing 16 passengers. But Zhou had not boarded. China called it “murder by the special service organizations of the United States.”

... 

Americans are impatient by nature. We want quick solutions, even to complex problems. That makes killing a foreign leader seem like a good way to end a war. Every time we have tried it, though, we’ve failed — whether or not the target falls. Morality and legality aside, it doesn’t work. Castro thrived on his ability to survive American plots. In the Congo, almost everything that has happened since Lumumba’s murder has been awful.