Ukrainian officials continue to talk up a much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia, with the commander in chief of Ukraine’s army, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, on Saturday releasing an “informational support campaign” video venerating his military forces and promising that “the time has come to take back what’s ours.”
The recent warm, dry weather in southern Ukraine has raised expectations that the spring counterattack could begin soon — or may already be underway. President Volodymyr Zelensky and others have described the looming campaign as a make-or-break chance to show Western backers, who have provided military aid and training, that Ukraine is capable of taking back its land from Russia.
Here’s the latest on the war and its effects around the globe.
Russians use Soviet-style denunciations to snitch on Russians who oppose war: Parishioners have denounced fellow Russian priests who advocated peace instead of victory in the war on Ukraine. Teachers have lost their jobs after children tattled that they opposed the war. This is the hostile, paranoid atmosphere of Russians at war with Ukraine and with one another, Robyn Dixon reports.
As Putin’s regime cracks down on critics of the war and other political dissenters, citizens are policing one another in an echo of the darkest years of Joseph Stalin’s repression, triggering investigations, criminal charges, prosecutions and dismissals from work. The effect is chilling.
Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.