“If (the Russians’) goal is to discourage people from doing this, if their goal is to punish people who do this, they are not looking to release these people anytime soon,” said William Pomeranz, acting director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, which focuses on Russian and Ukraine research. Read more here.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “already failed” in his attempt to overturn Ukraine. “His strategic objective was to end Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, to erase it from the map, to subsume it in Russia. That has failed,” he said, adding that a “sovereign independent Ukraine is going to be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.”
The Associated Press reported that Russia was advancing in eastern Ukraine and also launched attacks overnight that hit two residential buildings and a kindergarten in Kyiv. Russia’s invasion began in February with a mechanized march on Kyiv that failed, forcing Russia to turn its attention to the east. Blinken said the missile attacks on Kyiv were designed to “terrorize” Ukrainians.
“Ever since Putin lost the battle for Kyiv, he had to shift his focus,” Blinken said, adding that Russian forces have “launched missiles at a distance to terrorize people.”
– Merdie Nzanga
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