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Recent comments by Ukraines commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, claiming that the war with Russia has reached a stalemate, have sparked fresh calls for a negotiated settlement. While this desire to end the bloodshed in Ukraine is perfectly understandable, anyone advocating a peace deal with Vladimir Putin must first reckon with the genocidal reality of Russias invasion. Putin himself has repeatedly made clear that he denies Ukraines right to exist and is determined to extinguish Ukrainian statehood. Unless he is defeated, any compromise agreement would merely set the stage for the next phase in Russias campaign to wipe Ukraine off the map.

Putins obsession with Ukraine and his rejection of the countrys historical legitimacy were on full display recently during a November 3 address to Russias Public Chamber. There was no Ukraine in the Russian Empire, he declared. The Russian dictator went on to repeat many of his most notorious historical distortions, including the claim that Ukraine had been artificially created by Vladimir Lenin and the early Soviet authorities at the expense of southern Russian lands.

Such arguments are not new. Indeed, Putin has been weaponizing history to delegitimize independent Ukraine for nearly two decades, with this trend escalating dramatically during the build-up to the current full-scale invasion. In July 2021, Putin published a 6,000-word essay attacking Ukraine as an artificial state and arguing that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (one people). This chilling treatise was widely circulated throughout the Russian military and has since come to be viewed as the ideological basis for the invasion of Ukraine.

Months after the outbreak of hostilities, Putin compared his invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great while claiming that he was returning Russian lands. During subsequent ceremonials marking the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, he declared these regions would be part of Russia forever. On the first anniversary of the invasion, Putin told crowds in Moscow that Russia was fighting for its historical lands in Ukraine.

Putins historical illiteracy and duplicity were once again on display in spring 2023 when he publicly inspected a seventeenth century French map depicting the lands of Eastern Europe including todays Ukraine. The Russian dictator pointed to the map as supposed proof that no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind, despite the fact that Ukraine was clearly indicated by name on the map.

If he had been paying more attention, Putin would have noticed that the map did not contain any references to the Russian Empire, which was at the time known as Muscovy. Nor did it feature his own hometown, Saint Petersburg, which was not founded until the beginning of the eighteenth century. In contrast, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is thought to date back over 1500 years, making it far older than Russias leading cities.

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Putin is not the first Russian ruler to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation. On the contrary, Ukraine denial has been a central pillar of Russian imperial policy for centuries. The Russian Empire consistently refused to acknowledge Ukraine precisely because the repression of Ukrainian national identity was regarded as essential for the survival of the Czarist regime. Instead, Ukrainians were labelled as Little Russians by the Czarist authorities, who banned the Ukrainian language while declaring, a separate Little Russian language never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.

Putins insistence on Ukraines alleged lack of legitimacy reflects Russias deep insecurity about its own past. Generations of Russians have traced their national story back to Ukraine and the Kyivan Rus state of medieval Europe. However, many historians regard todays Russia as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which first rose to regional prominence as a vassal state of the Mongol Empire long after the decline and fall of the Kyivan Rus.

Despite these tenuous ties to the Kyivan Rus era, Russian rulers since the seventeenth century have laid claim to Kyivs historical legacy in order to justify the colonization of Ukraine and strengthen their European credentials. Putin has continued this tradition, unveiling a huge monument to tenth century Kyivan Rus ruler Prince Volodymyr the Great in central Moscow in 2016, despite the fact that the Russian capital city was not founded until more than a century after Volodymyrs death.

Following the 1991 collapse of the USSR, growing international awareness of Ukrainian history has raised awkward questions about many deeply engrained aspects of Russias national narrative dating back to the Czarist and Soviet eras. This helps to explain why Putin and other members of the Russian establishment regard the consolidation of Ukrainian statehood as an existential threat to their own authoritarian empire. Independent Ukraines embrace of European democratic values has only served to heighten this sense of danger within the Russian elite.

Putin has sought to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a crusade for historical justice and the return of ancestral Russian lands. In reality, it is an old-fashioned colonial war that echoes the worst excesses of European imperialism. His mythologized version of Russian history is utterly incompatible with the notion of a separate Ukrainian nation; he is therefore obliged to deny its existence entirely.

This denial is now fueling a genocide in the heart of Europe. Russian troops have already killed thousands of Ukrainians and have deported millions more. Throughout the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, the Russian occupation authorities are openly engaged in the methodical eradication of Ukrainian identity and the forced russification of the remaining population.

In such circumstances, international calls for a compromise peace are deeply disingenuous. It should be crystal clear to all objective observers that unless Ukraine can achieve a decisive victory, any pause in hostilities would merely provide the Kremlin with breathing space to rearm and regroup before renewing hostilities. Putin has weaponized history to justify the destruction of a neighboring state that threatens his dreams of a new Russian Empire. Until this imperial ideology is decisively defeated, the war will continue.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He is the winner of the 2022 Peterson Literary Prize for the book Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War: Autocracy-Orthodoxy-Nationality.

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. October 24, 2023. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS)

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Peace is impossible while Vladimir Putin denies Ukraine's right to exist - Atlantic Council

Of the approximately one zillion lies that have come out of Representative George Santoss mouth, one of the biggest and most offensive is the lie about his maternal grandparents being Ukrainian Jews who were forced to flee Europe during the Holocaust. In 2021, the then congressional candidate claimed in acampaign videothat his grandparents survived the Holocaust. Several months later, he told the Jewish News Syndicate: Im very proud of my grandparents story, whichhe claimedinvolved fleeing Hitler. In seeming anticipation of getting called out for this specific lie, hetoldFox News Digital last February: For a lot of people who are descendants of World War II refugees or survivors of the Holocaust, a lot of names and paperwork were changed in name of survival.

But, of course, like so many lies he was later caught tellingfrom being a star volleyball player, to having employees who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting, to his mother being in the South Tower on 9/11these claims about his grandparents and the Holocaust do not actually appear to be true. Multiple genealogy recordsindicatehis grandparents were born in Brazil and, according to one genealogist who spoke to CNN, Theres no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way.

Asked about what many would consider an appalling lie during an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday, the congressman from New York not only doubled down on it, but insisted that he is close to obtaining proofwhich hed have already if not for that pesky war in Ukraine. Thats what I spent the last 10 months doing, putting together, Santos told reporter Manu Raju of the alleged evidence showing his grandparents really did flee the Holocaust. But unfortunately, Ukraine is in the middle of a freaking war, and my grandfather comes from Ukraine. So this is the biggest lift that I have to do my entire life. But thats something Im going to prove before I die.

Elsewhere in the interview, Santos claimed that he has always made very clear that he comes from a Jewish family but is personally Catholic, whichit may or may not surprise you to hearis also not true. On the campaign trail he described himself as a proud American Jew. (And then later told the New York Post he only said he was Jew-ish.)

Last month, Santos pleadednot guiltyto 23 criminal counts, including conspiracy, identity theft, and credit card fraud. Several weeks before that, he claimed to New York Times reporter Grace Ashford that his niece had been kidnapped, likely in retaliation for his public comments about the Chinese Communist Party. A high-ranking member of law enforcement subsequently told Ashford that the matter had been looked intoand that there was no evidence of any kidnapping, period, or, really, any connection to the Chinese Communist Party. We found nothing at all to suggest its true, the official said. Id lean into, he made it up.

Johnson says theres nothing strange about not disclosing a bank account on any of his financial disclosures going back to 2016

Link:
George Santos Says Freaking War in Ukraine Is Preventing Him From Obtaining Proof His Grandparents Fled the ... - Vanity Fair

The latest developments from the Ukraine war.

Now is not the time for elections, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, trying to put to rest a growing debate amid Russia's grinding invasion.

"Now is the time for defence, for battle, on which the fate of the state and people depends, and not for farce, which only Russia expects from Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in a speech. "I think this is not the time for elections.

We must come together, not divide ourselves, not disperse ourselves in quarrels or other priorities, he added.

On Friday, Ukrainian foreign ministerDmytro Kuleba said the Ukrainian president was "weighing the pros and cons" of holding elections.

If Russia had not invaded in February 2022, legislative elections would have taken place this October, and presidential elections in March 2024.The introduction of martial law has suspended these votes.

However, Kyiv now finds itself in a dilemma.Western allies, notably the US, are pressing Ukraine to hold elections, with some commentators arguing they could burnish Ukraine's democratic credentials in contrast with an increasingly authoritarian Russian state.

Yet, there are many obstacles. Nearly 20% of Ukraine is occupied by Russia, millions of Ukrainians have fled the country, soldiers on the frontline would struggle to vote, and any election would face critical security risks.

We all understand that today, in times of war, when the challenges are numerous, it is absolutely irresponsible to introduce the subject of elections in society, Zelenskyy insisted.

The notorious leader of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov has said a "large group" of former Wagner mercenaries are training his AKHMAT special forces.

AKHMAT, widely considered Kadyrov's private army, would "be joined by fighters who have excellent combat experience and have proven themselves as brave and efficient warriors," claimedthe Putin-backed warlord.

"I am confident that in the upcoming battles they will fully live up to their reputation."

Wagner mercenaries have played a key role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, especially the months-long bloody battle for Bakhmut.

However, since the group's leaderYevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash after leading a brief mutiny against Moscow in June, the future of the mercenary group has been unclear.

Writing on Telegram,Kadyrov said that before hisAKHMAT force carried out missions, they needed to "undergo coordination" to "significantly increase their effectiveness" on the frontline.

He said "tactical shooting courses, field medicine, training for snipers, machine gunners, sappers, and artillerymen" were part of an "extensive training programme".

Chechens are fighting on both sides in Ukraine. Those under Kadyrov have reportedly been used to discipline and reportedly even execute dissenting Russian soldiers, as well as intimidate civilians in Ukraine.

However, analyst Harold Chambers previously told Euronews they were "better at social media than fighting", questioning their real combat effectiveness beyond TikTok and Instagram footage.

Read more on this story here.

NATO member states on Tuesday condemned Russia's decision to formally withdraw from the landmark treaty limiting conventional military forces in Europe.

Russia first decided to suspend its participation in the 1992 treaty on conventional weapons in Europe in 2007,but Moscow only announced its formal withdrawal from the treaty this Monday.

Moscow's war against Ukraine has dealt a fatal blow to the multi-treaty arms control regime that has helped maintain the balance of power in Europe for decades.

The NATO allies announced in a communiqu that they "condemn Russia's decision to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and its war of aggression against Ukraine, which is contrary to the objectives of the Treaty".

The membership also announced their intention to "suspend [Russia's] participation in the CFE Treaty for as long as necessary", the statement added.

For its part, the US said that it would be "unacceptable" for it and the NATO allies to remain committed to a treaty abandoned by Russia.

"The suspension of CFE obligations will strengthen the Alliance's defence and deterrence capability by removing restrictions that impact our plans, deployments and exercises", said US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

The CFE treaty imposed for the first time legal and verifiable limits on the forces of the 30 countries that signed the agreement. It was seen as the cornerstone of the security arrangements agreed at the end of the Cold War.

According to NATO, it led to the destruction of some 100,000 items of military equipment, including tanks, artillery and attack helicopters.

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Zelenskyy rules out elections, Wagner training Chechen special forces - Euronews

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he does not believe it is the right time for elections, amid a debate among the countrys leaders on the possibility of a presidential vote in 2024.

All elections including the presidential vote set to take place next spring are technically cancelled under martial law that has been in effect since the war began last year.

We must decide that now is the time of defence, the time of battle, on which the fate of the state and people depends, Zelensky said in his daily address.

He said it was a time for the country to be united, not divided, and added: I believe that now is not the (right) time for elections.

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Ukraine says Russian strike killed over 50 in one of the deadliest attacks of the war

Ukraine says Russian strike killed over 50 in one of the deadliest attacks of the war

He cautioned that polling would be difficult to hold due to the large number of Ukrainians abroad and soldiers fighting on the front.

Parliamentary elections that would have taken place last month were also cancelled due to the war.

Zelensky, who was elected in 2019, said in September he was ready to hold elections if it was necessary and was in favour of allowing international observers to monitor the vote.

The Ukrainian leaders approval rating skyrocketed after the war began, but the countrys political landscape has remained fractious despite the unifying force of the war.

Former presidential aide Oleksiy Arestovych announced this week that he would run against his former boss, after criticising Zelensky over the slow pace of the countrys counteroffensive.

Zelensky not ready for Russia talks; Ukraine investigates deadly strike

On Monday, Ukraines commander-in-chief said his assistant, a major in rank, was killed when a booby-trapped birthday present he had been given exploded.

My assistant and close friend, Major Hennady Chastyakov, was killed in tragic circumstances on his birthday in a family setting, General Valery Zaluzhny wrote on the Telegram messaging app. An unknown explosive device went off in one of his presents.

The Ukrainska Pravda online news outlet said a security source was told by Chastyakovs wife that the gift was a bottle of liquor in the form of a grenade that he had brought home. It exploded when he opened it.

Chastyakovs 13-year-old son suffered serious injuries.

The source told Ukrainska Pravda that Chastyakov, 39, was a graduate of a military academy and fully trained in handling grenades.

Zaluzhny has had a high profile in the more than 20-month-old Russian invasion. Last week, he wrote an essay in the Economist magazine saying the war had entered a new phase of attrition that was to Russias advantage and calling for more sophisticated technology for Ukraines military.

EU weighs advancing Ukraines membership bid as Russia war drags on

The sprawling front line between the two warring sides has barely moved in almost a year, despite Ukraine launching a counteroffensive back in June to claw back Russian-occupied territory.

On Monday Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had successfully destroyed a major Russian ship in the Kerch shipyard in annexed Crimea.

The Ukrainian president has regularly met Western leaders to try to secure more air defences and stave off international fatigue with the conflict, which has now lasted for more that 600 days.

Zelensky has also been forced to deny that the conflict has reached a deadlock, but admitted on Sunday that it had reached a difficult situation.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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Ukraines Zelensky says it is not the time for elections - South China Morning Post

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FIVE MONTHS into its counter-offensive, Ukraine has managed to advance by just 17 kilometres. Russia fought for ten months around Bakhmut in the east to take a town six by six kilometres. Sharing his first comprehensive assessment of the campaign with The Economist in an interview this week, Ukraines commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, says the battlefield reminds him of the great conflict of a century ago. Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate, he says. The general concludes that it would take a massive technological leap to break the deadlock. There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.

Read more of our recent coverage of theUkraine war

The course of the counter-offensive has undermined Western hopes that Ukraine could use it to demonstrate that the war is unwinnable, forcing Russias president, Vladimir Putin, to negotiate. It has also undercut General Zaluzhnys assumption that he could stop Russia by bleeding its troops.That was my mistake. Russia has lost at least 150,000 dead. In any other country such casualties would have stopped the war. But not in Russia, where life is cheap and where Mr Putins reference points are the first and second world wars, in which Russia lost tens of millions.

An army of Ukraines standard ought to have been able to move at a speed of 30km a day as it breached Russian lines.If you look at NATOs text books and at the maths which we did, four months should have been enough time for us to have reached Crimea, to have fought in Crimea, to return from Crimea and to have gone back in and out again, General Zaluzhny says sardonically.Instead he watched his troops get stuck in minefields on the approaches to Bakhmut in the east, his Western-supplied equipment getting pummelled by Russian artillery and drones. The same story unfolded on the offensives main thrust in the south, where inexperienced brigades immediately ran into trouble.

First I thought there was something wrong with our commanders, so I changed some of them. Then I thought maybe our soldiers are not fit for purpose, so I moved soldiers in some brigades, says General Zaluzhny. When those changes failed to make a difference, the general told his staff to dig out a book he once saw as a student. Its title was Breaching Fortified Defence Lines. It was published in 1941 by a Soviet major-general, P.S. Smirnov, who analysed the battles of the first world war. And before I got even halfway through it, I realised that is exactly where we are because just like then, the level of our technological development today has put both us and our enemies in a stupor.

That thesis, he says, was borne out as he went to the front line in Avdiivka, also in the east, where Russia has recently advanced by a few hundred metres over several weeks by throwing in two of its armies. On our monitor screens the day I was there we saw 140 Russian machines ablazedestroyed within four hours of coming within firing range of our artillery. Those fleeing were chased by first-person-view drones, remote-controlled and carrying explosive charges that their operators simply crash into the enemy. The same picture unfolds when Ukrainian troops try to advance. General Zaluzhny describes a battlefield in which modern sensors can identify any concentration of forces, and modern precision weapons can destroy it. The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing. In order for us to break this deadlock we need something new, like the gunpowder which the Chinese invented and which we are still using to kill each other, he says.

This time, however, the decisive factor will be not a single new invention, but will come from combining all the technical solutions that already exist, he says. In a By Invitation article written for The Economist by General Zaluzhny, as well as in an essay shared with the newspaper, he urges innovation in drones, electronic warfare, anti-artillery capabilities and demining equipment, as well as in the use of robotics.

Western allies have been overly cautious in supplying Ukraine with their latest technology and more powerful weapons. Joe Biden, Americas president, set objectives at the start of Russias invasion: to ensure that Ukraine was not defeated and that America was not dragged into confrontation with Russia. This means that arms supplied by the West have been sufficient in sustaining Ukraine in the war, but not enough to allow it to win. General Zaluzhny is not complaining: They are not obliged to give us anything, and we are grateful for what we have got, but I am simply stating the facts.

Yet by holding back the supply of long-range missile systems and tanks, the West allowed Russia to regroup and build up its defences in the aftermath of a sudden breakthrough in Kharkiv region in the north and in Kherson in the south late in 2022. These systems were most relevant to us last year, but they only arrived this year, he says. Similarly, F-16 jets, due next year, are now less helpful, suggests the general, in part because Russia has improved its air defences: an experimental version of the S-400 missile system can reach beyond the city of Dnipro, he warns.

The delay in arms deliveries, though frustrating, is not the main cause of Ukraines predicament, according to General Zaluzhny. It is important to understand that this war cannot be won with the weapons of the past generation and outdated methods, he insists. They will inevitably lead to delay and, as a consequence, defeat. It is, instead, technology that will be decisive, he argues. The general is enthused by recent conversations with Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, and stresses the decisive role of drones, and of electronic warfare which can prevent them from flying.

General Zaluzhnys assessment is sobering: there is no sign that a technological breakthrough, whether in drones or in electronic warfare, is around the corner. And technology has its limits. Even in the first world war, the arrival of tanks in 1917 was not sufficient to break the deadlock on the battlefield. It took a suite of technologies, and more than a decade of tactical innovation, to produce the German blitzkrieg in May 1940. The implication is that Ukraine is stuck in a long warone in which he acknowledges Russia has the advantage. Nevertheless, he insists that Ukraine has no choice but to keep the initiative by remaining on the offensive, even if it only moves by a few metres a day.

Crimea, the general believes, remains Mr Putins greatest vulnerability. His legitimacy rests on having brought it back to Russia in 2014. Over the past few months, Ukraine has taken the war into the peninsula, which remains critical to the logistics of the conflict. It must know that it is part of Ukraine and that this war is happening there. On October 30th Ukraine struck Crimea with American-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time.

General Zaluzhny is desperately trying to prevent the war from settling into the trenches. The biggest risk of an attritional trench war is that it can drag on for years and wear down the Ukrainian state, he says. In the first world war, politics interfered before technology could make a difference.Four empires collapsed and a revolution broke out in Russia.

Mr Putin is counting on a collapse in Ukrainian morale and Western support. There is no question in General Zaluzhnys mind that a long war favours Russia, which has a population three times and an economy ten times the size of Ukraine. Lets be honest, its a feudal state where the cheapest resource is human life. And for usthe most expensive thing we have is our people, he says. For now he has enough soldiers. But the longer the war goes on, the harder it will be to sustain. We need to look for this solution, we need to find this gunpowder, quickly master it and use it for a speedy victory. Because sooner or later we are going to find that we simply dont have enough people to fight.

Read a more detailednew essayby General Zaluzhny on this topic.

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Ukraine's commander-in-chief on the breakthrough he needs to beat Russia - The Economist