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“Yes, he would.”
— Former national security council official Fiona Hill, quoted by Politico, on whether Vladimir Putin would use nuclear weapons.
“Every square today, no matter what it’s called, is going to be called Freedom Square, in every city of our country. No one is going to break us.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, quoted by Axios, speaking to the European Parliament as his translator began to choke up.
52%
A new Gallup poll finds 52% of Americans see the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests.
“This morning, we are defending our country alone. Just like yesterday, the most powerful country in the world looked on from a distance.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a new video message.
“Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences. Today, I’m authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be imported to Russia.”
— President Biden, in a statement from the White House.
“The war with Ukraine has been unleashed to cover up the robbery of Russian citizens and divert their attention away from the country’s internal problems, from the degradation of its economy.”
— “Aleksei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition politician, used a court hearing on Thursday to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” the New York Times reports.
“The biggest problem for Ukraine and its allies is that Russia knows this battlespace well — and undoubtedly has been recruiting a network of Ukrainian double agents. These agents can sow havoc for a resistance movement by revealing its leaders, safe houses, communications and plans of attack…. And it gets worse: A trademark of Russian intelligence, for a century, has been its ability to manipulate resistance groups in Ukraine and elsewhere so that they were actually controlled by the Kremlin.”
“Beware of the armchair generals… it is easier to opine when you are not on the battlefield and the acuity of your predictions will not be measured in lives lost. But there is something else this time around, something new that I have never seen before on the scale we are witnessing. There are many in this nation, cheered on by powerful media voices, who seem more aligned with a dangerous foe to America and a peaceful world order than they are with our own leadership. Our divisions are a weakness that our enemies eagerly exploit. Whether willingly or not, we do their bidding with our bickering. To reduce the world order to shortsighted political calculations is to undermine our own national security.”
“Putin has now affirmed that he refuses to accept the outcome of the Cold War and that he will fight to dismantle the European system of peace and security constructed by the international community after its end. This is Vladimir Putin’s forever war, and Russia, cursed as it has been so many times in its history with a terrible leader, will be fighting it for as long as Putin remains the master of the Kremlin.”
