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Anwesh Upadhyaya, the Indian chess IM who is stranded in war-torn Kyiv, has to decide whether to risk traveling to the Polish border through the siege or stay home and await the consequences. His coach, Grandmaster Georgy Timoschenko, has joined the swelling number of Ukraine civilian fighters who've volunteered to take up arms against the invading Russians. For now, he says he is on his own.

The situation on-ground is complicated. There have been several reports of Indians facing a torrid time at the hands of Ukrainian border guards while trying to cross over to neighbouring European Union countries. "It's a bit tricky and emotional for them I believe," Anwesh told ESPN. "When their brothers and sisters are dying, here we are asking them to help us leave. A few people I know have left for smaller cities nearby and some others who were trying to make it to Poland are stranded midway."

The 30-year-old is a resident doctor at city hospital No 8, apprenticing in gastroenterology and has been living in the Ukrainian capital city. He had moving to have better tournament opportunities. Now, he is unsure of his next step.

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In an advisory on Sunday, the Indian Embassy informed its citizens that they would be arranging 10 buses on the Ukraine side of the Polish border from Monday. For Anwesh, the dilemma of how he'd make it to the pick-up points, several blocks away by road through a city that's under siege, remains. "The Indian embassy has asked us to manage our own transportation to the nearest EU borders or to stay home, if we feel unsafe. I have to decide whether to risk it outside trying to cross the border or stay home risk being collateral damage. Right now, it appears that we are on our own."

In an interview to the Associated Press, when asked if there are plans to evacuate citizens if Russian troops manage to take Kyiv, the once heavyweight boxing world champion and current Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko replied - "We can't do that because all ways are blocked. Right now we are encircled."

Back in Bhubaneshwar, Anwesh's father Netaji is an understandably anxious man. A retired Zoology professor, he speaks haltingly, worried when he will be able see his only child. "I'm in constant touch with Anwesh. The Indian embassy's directions haven't been clear, I think," he said.

Before leaving for the battlefront, his coach Timoschenko had a request for his Indian student. "He asked me to take care of myself and check on his wife and kid in the bomb shelter and his daughter who lives in a flat." Not just Anwesh's trainer, national team coach GM Oleksandr Sulypa too has taken up arms and shared a picture of himself from the west Ukrainian city of Lviv, about 70 kms from Polish border, on social media.

For now, part of staying alive involves staying alert. Anwesh sleeps light and keeps his ears pricked to sounds of alarm as Russian air raids pummel Kyiv. He can't get himself to play any chess and re-watching Netflix shows serves as an occasional distraction. He is grateful that the power and heating systems at home are still functional and he spends a large part of his day refreshing news feeds on social media, searching for a sliver of hope. Some of it is pinned on the peace talks that are scheduled to take place on Monday between both sides on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.

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Indian chess IM in Ukraine is safe in Kyiv but faces tough call on trek to border - ESPN

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is a Conservative peer, writer and columnist. He was a Conservative MEP from 1999 to 2020, and is now President of the Initiative for Free Trade.

So much for the idea of Vladimir Putin is some sort of chess grandmaster. Two weeks ago, he had it all. Western leaders were dancing attendance on him in Moscow. China was a staunch ally. The West was divided. There were even hints that, though no one would quite say so in terms, Ukraine might shelve its Nato ambitions.

And now? Now his troops are taking higher casualties than anyone expected. There are anti-war demonstrations across Russias cities. Nato has been jolted into a degree of unity not seen since the end of the Cold War, with Germany sending military aid to Ukraine and Turkey, as I write, preparing to close the Bosphorus to Russian ships.

Putin knows that the only way dictators leave office is through palace coups more often than not riddled with bullets. Sola mors tyrannicida est, as Thomas More put it death is the only way to get rid of tyrants. There must be a corner of his mind now which is starting to fret about a Stauffenberg-style coup attempt; that is, an attempt by Russias military chiefs to replace him before things get worse.

I confess I did not see any of this coming. Two weeks ago, on this website, I predicted that Putin would draw back, content with a limited tactical victory. It is possible that, if I were seeing the intelligence that Joe Biden and Boris Johnson are seeing, I would have a different view, I wrote.

But it seemed to me that Putin had pushed things as far as he realistically could. He doesnt want a win in Ukraine. He could have had that years ago, pulling out of Donbas in exchange for recognition in Crimea. He wants a continuing crisis.

Well, I was wrong. The boys from Langley and from Vauxhall Cross were right. However illogically, however self-woundingly, Putin has decided to stake his leadership on an attempt to hold down a population that has no intention of suffering Kremlin rule again.

Even if he succeeds in toppling Zelensky and imposing a puppet regime, the conflict will go on, with Ukrainian militiamen operating from bases in Poland and Romania; directed, perhaps, by a recognised government-in-exile in London. The flies, to quote John Steinbeck, will have conquered the flypaper.

What should the West do now? The focus has been on economic sanctions, some of which are extremely severe. But, while these may serve to impoverish Russia, they are unlikely to deter Putin.

Yes, sanctions hurt. The freezing of Russias central bank reserves, in particular, will render the rouble, as it was in Soviet times, an unconvertible currency, useful only for domestic account-keeping. Closing European airspace and cutting off trade will, without question, make Russia poorer.

(As an aside, I cant help noticing that some of the politicians demanding economic embargoes against Russia also argue, in a domestic context, for tariffs, quotas and other trade restrictions. In other words, they favour a self-embargo. Whatever the impact of sanctions against Moscow, can we all at least agree that they are not designed to boost its agricultural or steel sectors, or to nurture its infant industries? As the nineteenth-century American economist Henry George put it, What protection teaches us is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.)

But I digress. The point about sanctions is that, however much they hurt Russia, they wont hurt Putin. Blockading Cuba did not bring down Castro, blockading Iraq did not bring down Saddam, and blockading Iran has not brought down the ayatollahs. Indeed, Putin uses sanctions to build a sense of siege mentality and thereby drive up support for his rotten regime. You havent been sanctioned? one Duma member asked another on air some months ago. What kind of a patriot are you?

Russia, like the USSR before it, puts guns before butter. The joke when the Sputnik satellite was launched was: Now that were in space, maybe well get shoes. Russians know that their economy is small. But, like other peoples, they have their amour-propre. Maybe more than other peoples. Even Westernised Russians often, in my experience, feel the phantom pains of their amputated republics.

But what if they end up with poverty and ignominy? What if Putin delivers both isolation and defeat? Or, if not exactly defeat, at least something that falls well short of the victories that Russia could claim in Georgia and in Crimea? Even dictators depend on a measure of genuine popular support. A strongman needs to stand as the defender of his people against all foes. If he cant win wars then, like Galtieri, he is purposeless.

What has driven Putin to this error? Perhaps he was never as clever as people thought. Perhaps, behind those motionless cheekbones, there is an apparatchik who happened to get lucky by being in position when Boris Yelstin unexpectedly resigned, and whose tactical gains have been those of the bully whom others put up with until he became a real nuisance.

Or perhaps power has turned his mind, as it tends to do to autocrats. We laugh at the satraps of the neighbouring Stans, with their golden statues and eponymous cities. But Putin has been building just as much of a personality cult.

Is it not possible that, after more than two decades of never being gainsaid, he has come to see himself as a Davidic figure, raised to redeem his nation? Is it not likely that his underlings are reluctant to bring him bad news? Is it not conceivable that, having led him into error in Ukraine in the first place, this tendency is still prejudicing his decisions?

It is not sanctions that will stop Putin. It is other Russians who can see that he is losing his grasp, and who fret that he has his finger on the nuclear button. Regime change, almost unthinkable two weeks ago, is now a prospect.

Perhaps Britain should offer Putin asylum, rather as Bonaparte sought it after his defeat. After all, Russia wouldnt assassinate a defector living under the Queens peace with polonium or novichok. Would it?

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Daniel Hannan: So much for Putin the chess master. Perhaps its time to offer the tyrant asylum? - ConservativeHome

The impact of Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has been devastating. And while the situation continues to escalate, so does the need for helpfrom emergency relief on the ground, to support for those fleeing to neighboring countries.

Many of our Obama leaders in Europe are on the front lines of this war. Devoted to creating lasting change in their communities, and advancing the principles of democracy, equality, and human dignity, they are assisting along the border and adapting their work to bravely support those in Ukraine during this time of crisis.

We reached out to our leaders network to identify the organizations listed below that are doing critical humanitarian work right now. We hope youll consider making a donation to amplify these efforts.

As President Obama stated, People of conscience around the world need to loudly and clearly condemn Russias actions and offer support for the Ukrainian people.

Ukrainian Obama Leader Yuliia Sachuks organization, Fight for Right, promotes and protects the human rights of people living with disabilities in her community. In response to the crisis, Fight for Right is coordinating accessible shelter, evacuations, and emergency servicesensuring those living with disabilities arent left out of the humanitarian efforts.

Obama Leader Andrs Lderer and his team at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee have been helping provide free-of-charge legal assistance and representation to refugees in Hungary for decades. Right now, they are focused on helping asylum seekers from Ukraine find professional and free legal assistance.

Following reports that a number of African and Indian students have faced discrimination and racism at the border of Poland while trying to escape to safety, Fundacja Ocalenie has stepped in to provide support.

The Kyiv Independent, an English-language media outlet, was launched three months ago and was created on the principles of independent journalism and free-press. The goal of their Go Fund Me campaign is to keep the accurate news coming.

This Polish organization is offering a free crisis hotline to assist people who are being affected by the Ukrainian crisis, including individuals who have fled the country, families worried about the well-being of their children, and those who have relatives in Ukraine and are feeling a sense of hopelessness.

A Hungarian nonprofit that has experience helping severely traumatized asylum seekers, refugees, and their family members. They provide counseling and advanced psychiatric support.

The Urgent Action Fund is helping support women, transgender, and nonbinary activists on the ground in and around Ukraine, by providing flexible funding, access to communication channels, and medical support.

IOM is scaling up its humanitarian operations in Ukraine and neighboring countries, providing emergency services in health, shelter, winter supplies, and protection.

This Polish NGO has been providing pro bono legal work for migrants and refugees since 2005. Due to the rapidly changing rules and individual cases of those fleeing Ukraine, the Association for Legal Intervention just launched a dedicated legal portal to provide prompt legal advice.

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How You Can Help the People of Ukraine - the Obama Foundation

In 2020 and early 2021 alone, more than 30 states passed at least 140 new police oversight and reform laws. In total, seven states have mandated the use of body cameras, five states have limited qualified immunity for officers (Colorado and New Mexico eliminated it), and at least 24 states have passed legislation restricting neck restraints.

Even before 2020, there were nationwide pushes for the use of body cameras by officers and to have cameras installed and operational on their vehicles.

Black Lives Matter has also experienced a backlash. Resentments always bubble to the surface when a movement experiences some success, and racists rise up to repel its advances. But thats not what Im talking about. The backlash that always feels like betrayal is the shifting of allegiances among supposed allies, the people who are with you only up to a point, the point at which your liberation threatens their privilege.

The same dynamic played out during the civil rights movement. A New York Times survey, conducted in the months following the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, found that a majority of white New Yorkers, a supposedly liberal bastion, believed the Negro civil rights movement had gone too far. Some of the respondents spoke of Black people getting everything on a silver platter and of reverse discrimination against white people.

When the Kerner Commission released its 1968 report pointing out inequality, highlighting the pernicious nature of police brutality and pushing the Johnson administration to invest heavily in improving Black peoples living conditions, Congress refused to act on any of those recommendations. Nor did it advance police reform alongside socioeconomic improvement, as the Black community wanted. Instead, as the Marshall Projects Nicole Lewis has written, the federal government responded by equipping police with new tools to control violent expressions of civil unrest.

Today, Democrats are once again shrinking from or, in some cases, running from police reform in the face of rising violent crime data, worried about being labeled soft on crime, or worse, a defund-the-police pusher.

And thats only part of the backlash. Elsewhere, conservatives have made inroads in swing districts by stoking the Critical Race Theory panic, which is an attack on history and the teaching of it. Republican lawmakers have also sought to clamp down on peaceful protests. According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, since 2017, 45 states have considered 245 bills that would restrict the right to peaceful assembly. Thirty-six of those bills passed. Some of them would protect drivers who hit protesters with their cars on public streets.

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Opinion | Barack Obama: What Trayvon Martin Taught Us, 10 Years Later - The New York Times

Before I get to the heart of todays newsletter, I want to share three things Im watching in Russias war on Ukraine:

First, while most of the world has focused (understandably) on the fights for Kyiv and Kharkiv in northern Ukraine, Russia has been most successful in the south. It has reportedly captured the city of Kherson, and its continued success could mean that Russians might be able to attack Ukrainian forces holding the line in the Donbas region from the rear. Will Ukrainian forces retreat if faced with this crisis? Or will they stay and fight?

Second, in my Atlantic piece on Tuesday, I indicated that the Russian military was likely to turn increasingly to raw firepower and indiscriminate attacks to grind down Ukrainian opposition. Sadly, were seeing the signs of escalation, including reported attacks hitting hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure in the south and the east. If Russia achieves any tangible battlefield gains with these tactics, expect them to proliferate across the battlefield.

Third, Im frankly stunned at the sheer scale of the international economic sanctions against Russia. I did not expect the West to unite so swiftly and decisively. Now, heres my question: Do the sanctions rally the Russian people against Vladimir Putin, or is there a chance they rally the Russian people against the West? We hope that Russians turn against Putin, but we shouldnt assume they will, and if history teaches us anything, its that the Russian nation will endure and persevere through immense suffering when it is under attack.

Now on to the main subjectJoe Bidens potentially permanent political weakness.

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What Obama and Trump Had That Biden Doesn't - The Atlantic