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Seven months after the Russia-Ukraine war forced nearly 20,000 Indian students, most of them studying medicine in Ukraine, to return home to India, many are now making the journey back to their colleges in the war-torn European country, even as the war continues. More Indian students are expected to head back to Ukraine in coming weeks after the government of India told the Supreme Court that they cannot be accommodated in Indian colleges and universities. A look at how and why Indian students are choosing to head back to the war-ravaged country.

At the height of the war, the students had mostly left Ukraine after crossing the borders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia or Romania, but now, as they return, they have been doing so via Moldova, a small country to the southwest of Ukraine. With the airspace over Ukraine still closed, the students have been taking a connecting flight from Delhi, with an eight-hour layover at Istanbul (Turkey), which takes them to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. From there, they further take a bus to get across the border, and thereafter another bus to the city where they study. Most of the students have been returning to western Ukraine cities such as Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia which, they say, are comparatively safer and away from war zones. However, some students have also started returning to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Why the Moldova route?

Students say that returning to Ukraine via Moldova is the easiest and most hassle-free option available currently because the country has been issuing e-visas. One just has to apply online and we get the visa within 3-7 days. Other neighbouring countries such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania have cumbersome visa processes. Visa applications of many students have been rejected by these countries. These countries offer Schengen visa which takes too much time and is mostly rejected. Moldova, on the other hand, is offering e-visa, both in transit and tourist categories, which is approved within days and is also cheaper, said a student who has returned via Moldova.

Students are now spending close to Rs 1 lakh for returning to Ukraine and this includes air ticket cost, visa and other miscellaneous expenses. However, some agents are charging students as much as Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 for arranging visas for Moldova. Kritee Suman, a student who returned via Moldova, says, The air ticket can cost at least 60k and the visa fee for Moldova is 60 Euros (Rs 4,700 approximately). Even if we add other expenses, a visa cannot cost more than Rs 10k so students should apply on their own instead of paying agents who are fleecing students. I spent around Rs 1 lakh on my return trip to Ukraine.

Are students facing inconveniences on their return trips?

Unlike the times when they had to reach borders on foot, braving extreme weather and other difficulties while leaving Ukraine when the war had started, students say returning to Ukraine is hassle-free so far. After my 16-hour flight to Chisinau, including an eight-hour layover at Istanbul, I got a direct bus to cross the border and reach Ukraine. A 10-hour bus ride then took me to Ivano where I study. There was no hassle, said Suman. My visa for Moldova came just in 3 days.

In March, after the war broke out, students who were in panic, had reached the borders of Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia on foot after walking for 1-2 days, and were evacuated through special flights operated by the Government of India under Operation Ganga. Some were also evacuated via Moldova.

Since they returned to India in March, the fate of these students had been uncertain with India maintaining that there is no provision to accommodate them in medical colleges and universities in the country. With the Union Ministry of Health submitting in the Supreme Court on September 15 that these students cannot be accommodated in Indian medical colleges and universities, adding that any such transfers would seriously hamper standards of medical education in India, students say theres hardly any option left but to return to Ukraine and complete their studies.

The students who are returning are mostly in the third to sixth year of their courses in Ukrainian medical universities. They say they were left with little choice but to head back given practical difficulties involved in taking a transfer to universities in other countries, and the need for hands-on training for final-year medical students.

In a notice issued last week, the National Medical Commission (NMC) allowed Indian students to opt for the academic mobility programme offered by Ukraine that allows them to relocate to universities in other countries and complete their studies. Students, however, say that such a transfer involved practical hurdles.

The course fee in other European countries is way higher than in Ukraine. Not everyone can afford it. The mobility programme was not really practical because universities in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, where the fee is relatively affordable, are not as good as those in Ukraine. Elsewhere in Europe, it is just too costly to start from scratch. Some Russian universities are now offering discounts for Indian students, said a returnee.

Students say that even the course duration, subjects and evaluation system in Ukraine was different from other countries so theres many a slip between cup and lip when it comes to the mobility programme. For instance, in Ukraine, the MBBS is called MD and it is a six-year course, unlike in India, where it is for five years. NMC has already clarified that our degrees wont be valid if we study via online classes. So theres no point wasting more time, said another student.

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Why and how Indian students are returning to Ukraine despite ongoing war - The Indian Express

Last week, The New York Times released the results of its latest poll of American attitudes toward COVID, which contained a fascinating partisan fact: More Americans approved of the Democratic response to the pandemic than the Republican response, and its not close. Only 32 percent of Americans say they supported the Republican response more than the Democratic response, while Democrats enjoyed the support of 45 percent.

In a closely divided country, thats a large gap, and when you dive into the numbers, you see that the gap is substantially driven by older voters. Americans 65 and over believe the Democrats handled the pandemic better than Republicans by a 53 to 33 margin. This margin is particularly notable because you cant ascribe it to background partisan bias.

Young voters, for instance, overwhelmingly supported the Democratic response to COVID (by the same 20-point margin as older voters), but they tend to be Democrats. Biden won that age cohort in 2020 by a similar margin. Older voters, however, lean Republican. Donald Trump won their votes 5247.

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Why a Majority Rejected the Republican Approach to COVID - The Atlantic

Tim Miller was a top aide to Jeb Bush during the former Florida governors 2016 presidential campaign. A Republican insider in the heart of the D.C. political sphere, Miller spent countless hours doing opposition research to smear Democrats.

Miller also worked for Sen. John McCain and was a spokesperson for the National Republican Party. After working for numerous Republican campaigns, Miller separated himself from other conservatives after the rise of Donald Trump. He was also a senior advisor for the anti-Trump group Our Principles PAC.

Nowadays, Miller spends his time as a writer for The Bulwark, a center-right leaning publication, and as a contributor to MSNBC. Miller has burned many of the bridges he once had with other Republican operatives, but he was able to get enough out of his former friends and colleagues to write his new book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell.

Miller, who recently visited St. Paul as part of a national book tour, wrote Why We Did It as a form of self-described atonement for his complicity in allowing Republican extremism particularly support for Trump to grow. The subjects of his book are mostly Republican political staffers, candidates and conservative members of the media what Miller describes as the political class.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What I wanted to do was to get at why people who knew better collaborated even when they knew Trump was dangerous. Why did they continue to enable him? We all kind of think we know, with certain things like power and money, but just understanding the psyche of the Republican political class in Washington.

I thought it was important as we move forward, unfortunately, because he might run again. Since I was one of them and knew all these people personally and was at some level also complicit in the things that led to Trump, I thought I could maybe have a unique ability to analyze that so folks could better understand the motivations how people went along with this crazy nonsense.

Well the saddest conclusion, actually, is that a lot of people went along with Trump for reasons that are much more banal than your worst expectations. In some ways thats nice. To think that not everybody is a sociopath and a bigot, but it just makes you feel like, Man, we could have prevented this. We could have stopped this if people just had a little bit of courage in their convictions and more gumption.

A lot of these people went along with Trump for very basic reasons. Inertia. They compartmentalize the bad things and ignore them so they dont have to deal with it. The fact that people go along with someone like Trump is just because they didnt want to take a career risk. Or they were annoyed that the media was nicer to the Democrats. I mean, thats pretty pathetic, and I think that was kind of a revelation for a lot of my interviews with my former colleagues.

I was always a moderate Republican, but this is why I feel like Im partially complicit. A lot of those of us who would want to encourage Republicans to channel their better angels just went right along with it when we were channeling the darker angels as well. I was a communications person and a lot of times my job was to stir up animus against the left. Some of the times it was legitimate. Other times it was hyperbole.

That kind of hypocrisy, that kind of behavior in service to wanting to win and serve only to advance my career I look back on that with a lot of regret and I think thats part of the culture in Washington. This is politics. Everybody has to do what they gotta do, and that was wrong. Sometimes you need to be more of a turd in the punchbowl when people or an organization are doing the wrong thing. In Republican politics in particular, theres just nobody who does that. When you understand that culture, you kind of understand why they went along with Donald Trump. People have gotten very used to making arguments and advancing arguments that they didnt really believe but that they knew would stir up the base vote.

I saw it all. I saw that the party was appealing to these really dark elements. But its like the old (Godfather) line: Every time you think youre out, they just pull you back in. I kept getting sucked back in. Sometimes for earnest reasons, sometimes for bad reasons, like career ambition. I dont know that there was one moment, but obviously Trump getting in kind of shook me. I was opposed to Trump. Probably by the end of Trumps first year I was like, This is it for me. I cant be a part of this at all. Then I felt like I have a responsibility to try to have a little bit of atonement here and do some advocacy and journalism about the state of affairs.

Ive been wrong about a lot, but I was right about one thing. Very disturbingly right, which was that almost everybody who had gone along with Trump up to Jan. 6 would get back on board with him. I know a lot of people thought that was going to be a big breaking point, but most of them went and got back on board. The reason why I felt I knew that was gonna happen was because I understood their motivations for why they were there in the first place. They had gotten on board with Trump, not because they liked Trump or believed that he was ethical or even good, but because they wanted to keep moving up the career ladder. They wanted access to power.

My goal is just for people to understand all these people as humans. That isnt my way of trying to make people empathize with them, because I really think theyre the villains of the book, honestly. But if were ever going to stop this continuing complicity with evil things, we need to figure out how to get people to walk away from the darkness. You cant get people to walk away until you figure out why theyre there in the first place.

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Q&A with Republican operative turned never-Trumper Tim Miller - Minnesota Reformer

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) -- Republican midterm candidates around the country are running attack ads criticizing their Democratic opponents over crime and policing. But some of their September ads have been deceptive.

An ad from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deceptively sliced and diced a quote on police funding from Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.

An ad from Ohio Republican J.D. Vance baselessly insinuated that his Democratic opponent for the US Senate, Rep. Tim Ryan, supports defunding the police.

And an ad from Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico, discussed a frightening break-in at his home before attacking his Democratic opponent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over crime -- without mentioning that the incident occurred 10 years ago under a Republican governor.

Here is a breakdown of the three ads.

Last November, CNN fact-checked an attack ad from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that misleadingly rearranged quotes from his Democratic opponent, former congressman Beto O'Rourke.

This week, Abbott released another ad that uses some of the same sneaky editing.

The new ad shows O'Rourke appearing to say this: "I really love that Black Lives Matters and other protesters have put this front and center, to defund police forces."

But O'Rourke never uttered that sentence.

Facts First: The Abbott ad stitches together parts of two different sentences to make O'Rourke's comment about defunding the police seem more categorical than it was.

Here's what O'Rourke actually said in a June 2020 podcast interview. The Abbott ad excluded the words in bold -- attaching the words "police forces" to the word "defund" even though they were, in reality, separated by 55 other words.

"I really love that Black Lives Matters and other protesters have put this front and center, to defund, you know, these line items that have overmilitarized our police, and instead invest that money in the human capital of your community, make sure that you have the services, the help, the support, the health care necessary to be well and not require police intervention. And then also in some necessary cases, completely dismantling those police forces and rebuilding them."

Abbott is entitled to criticize O'Rourke for what he actually said in 2020 about defunding particular police spending. But it's dishonest to turn a sentence about defunding "line items that have overmilitarized the police" into a broad, unconditional sentence about defunding the police, period.

Abbott's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. During the gubernatorial campaign in 2021 and 2022, O'Rourke has consistently expressed opposition to defunding the police.

O'Rourke campaign spokesman Chris Evans said in an email this week: "As both a Congressman and an El Paso City Councilmember, Beto repeatedly voted to increase funding and resources for law enforcement. As governor, Beto will ensure that law enforcement agencies have the resources they need to address violent crime, bring justice to victims, and keep our communities safe. Beto will also invest more resources in mental health services, social workers, and addiction treatment."

An ad released last week by Ohio Republican J.D. Vance, who is running for the US Senate, features Vance making this claim about his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan: "Streets are exploding with drugs and violence while liberals like Tim Ryan attack and defund our police."

Facts First: Vance's claim about Ryan is misleading at best: Ryan opposes defunding the police and has not voted to defund the police.

The ad's use of the phrase "liberals like Tim Ryan" allowed Vance to avoid directly saying that Ryan himself has defunded the police or wants to defund the police. Still, Vance's remark certainly creates the impression that Ryan is a supporter of defunding the police. That's just not true.

Ryan's campaign said in an email that Ryan has never voted to defund the police, has never endorsed efforts to defund the police, has run ads in May, June and September expressing his opposition to defunding the police, and has helped secure extensive federal funding to support Ohio law enforcement and first responders. The Ryan campaign also noted that it is Vance, not Ryan, who has called to abolish a law enforcement agency, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (known as the ATF).

Vance campaign spokesperson Luke Schroeder said in an email that "when Tim Ryan had the chance to condemn the defund the police movement in Congress, he refused." That moment in Congress, though, does not corroborate the ad's insinuation that Ryan supports defunding the police.

Here's what happened. Ryan and other Democrats voted unanimously in March 2021 against a Republican motion known as a Motion to Recommit. The motion proposed to send a major policing reform bill back to the Judiciary Committee -- rather than passing it immediately as Democrats planned -- to express the "sense" of the House that calls to defund, disband, dismantle or abolish the police "should be condemned."

So: Ryan rejected a motion that sought to derail the passage of policing reform legislation by getting the House to condemn calls to defund the police. That's clearly not the same as defunding the police or even expressing support for defunding the police.

Vance spokesperson Schroeder also pointed to a Ryan quote from a 2019 town hall, which was played in the Vance ad itself, in which Ryan said that "the current criminal justice system is racist" and "the new Jim Crow." As PolitiFact noted last week, Ryan never explicitly mentioned the police in these comments, and he wasn't discussing police funding levels; he went on to talk about how a person of color is more likely to go to prison for marijuana crimes than a White person.

Last week, Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico, released a dramatic ad attacking incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over criminal justice.

The ad featured Ronchetti and his wife, Krysty, telling a frightening story about Krysty and their daughters hiding in a closet, Krysty with a gun, because someone had broken into their home in what the ad calls a home invasion. Krysty said she was relieved to see the police arrive.

Ronchetti said: "Not every situation ends this way. Everybody seems to have a crime story. This is one of the biggest reasons I got into politics. Because we can't keep doing this. Governor Lujan Grisham has made it easier to be a criminal than a cop." He continued by criticizing Lujan Grisham over specific criminal justice policies.

Facts First: The Ronchetti ad left out critical context. The incident discussed by Ronchetti and his wife occurred in 2012 -- during the tenure of Republican governor Susana Martinez, not the Lujan Grisham administration.

Local news outlets including KOAT Action 7 News, KRQE News 13 and the Santa Fe New Mexican reported last week that the incident happened a decade ago. Delaney Corcoran, spokesperson for the Lujan Grisham campaign, said in an email to CNN that the ad "completely distorts the truth," both in its use of the 2012 incident and in its accusations about Lujan Grisham's record on crime.

Ronchetti campaign spokesperson Ryan Sabel argued in an email that "there is nothing to fact-check here," saying that Ronchetti was simply "sharing his family's personal story with crime, which is a reality that most New Mexicans can unfortunately relate to," and that Lujan Grisham "has been part of the problem for a long time." Sabel claimed that the same month as the incident, when Lujan Grisham was serving on the county commission for the Albuquerque area, she voted against a request from the county sheriff to hire more deputies.

But as Sabel then acknowledged after CNN pointed it out, the article he provided about the commission vote actually showed that Lujan Grisham voted to hire five additional deputies that month, just not the 20 the sheriff had asked for. Corcoran of Lujan Grisham's campaign also noted that she voted to defer, not reject, the request for the other 15 deputies, and that these other 15 ended up being approved later the same year (after Lujan Grisham had left the county commission to run for Congress). Also, the incident at the Ronchetti home happened in the jurisdiction of Albuquerque's city police department, not the county sheriff's department.

Regardless, what happened on the county commission is a sideshow here. The ad could have easily specified that the incident at the Ronchetti home occurred 10 years ago. At very least, the omission of the date, in an ad attacking Lujan Grisham's policies as governor, invited viewers to come to the inaccurate conclusion that it was an incident that occurred during the Lujan Grisham governorship.

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Fact check: How three new Republican attack ads deceive on policing and crime - WDJT

Six top Republican elected officials in Chesapeake announced theyre withdrawing their support for City Council candidate Amanda Newins after learning shes being sued and investigated for claims of elder abuse.

In a statement, the officials said they encourage others who are likeminded and equally disappointed by these revelations to do the same.

Listed as endorsing it were Sheriff Jim OSullivan, Commonwealths Attorney Matthew Hamel, Clerk of the Circuit Court Alan Krasnoff and City Council members Stephen Best, Don Carey, and Robert Ike.

The letter went on to say the group was hoping for a meaningful response from Ms. Newins and our local party chairman, Nicholas Proffitt, but their silence has been deafening. As elected officials who have spent years working to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Chesapeakes senior citizens, we cannot remain silent in the face of these allegations of persistent elder abuse.

Chesapeake City Council candidate Amanda Newins. (Courtesy of Amanda Newins)

Newins emailed a response Friday, saying the news was not unexpected.

It doesnt surprise me that a group of individuals who have worked tirelessly against me for the past seven months and have instead supported a non-Republican candidate, now say they continue to not support me, she wrote. What does surprise me, is that they would suggest it is due to a complaint filed 59 days before the election, where the lead attorney has known political ties to that same non-Republican candidate they support.

I am confident that the people of Chesapeake see this for what it is. It is heartwarming that among others, the following individuals have supported me from the beginning and continue to support me as they believe that I will help lead Chesapeake in the right direction.

Among the people Newins listed as supporters were former U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, state senators John Cosgrove and Jen Kiggans, delegates Jay Leftwich and Barry Knight, Mayor Rick West, Vice Mayor John de Triquet, Councilmember Debbie Ritter, school board member Christie New Craig, former Commonwealths Attorney Nancy Parr, former Commissioner of the Revenue Ray Conner, Chesapeake Treasurer Barbara Carraway, and Proffitt, chair of the Chesapeake Republican Party.

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Newins, 30, a lawyer and vice president of the Chesapeake Bar Association, was sued this week by a great aunt who claims Newins mistreated her and her late husband, and stole hundreds of thousands in property and cash from them. The claim seeks $540,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

A Chesapeake police spokesman confirmed on Wednesday the department received a complaint about the allegations and was investigating them.

Newins is among 13 candidates running for one of five open seats on the City Council.

Alison Zizzo, an attorney who represents Newins, issued a statement earlier this week in which she called the lawsuit baseless and questioned the timing of it being filed so close to the election.

Proffitt also said the statement was not a surprise to him in an email sent Friday to The Pilot.

Steve Best, Don Carey, Matt Hamel, Robert Ike, and Alan Krasnoff have never endorsed either Amanda Newins or the Endorsed Republican Ticket, Proffitt wrote. Furthermore, they have been actively supporting one of Ms. Newins and our endorsed tickets non-Republican opponents, whose campaign representative is the lead attorney in this lawsuit against Ms. Newins.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com

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Chesapeake Republican officials withdraw support for City Council candidate amid accusations of elder abuse - The Virginian-Pilot