In Moscow, the carnage Russia inflicts on Ukraine feels far away. But in a village in the Samara region, all I talked to knew someone who had been mobilized or volunteered to fight, and died. Here, the family of one soldier grapples with what he died for.
I still marvel at how fast things change. A friend in Kyiv just wrote: "Hey remember like 5 days ago when we went out for sushi and {unnamed friend} got annoyed that we dipped sashimi in soy sauce?" That was on Tuesday night. Today we were thrilled with cold sandwiches for dinner
The happy couple gracing the Hungarian government’s campaign advertising its new family policy is already famous on the internet...and not for being madly in love.
Across Ukraine, I have been meeting people w close relatives in Russia who refuse to believe the extent of the violence their state is perpetrating.
Cities suffer missile attacks, mothers fear for sons, but fathers, sisters, brothers respond w denial. 🧵
Mariupol's city council says that Russian mobile crematoria started operating in the city.
According to administration's telegram channel, eyewitnesses report that separatists are collecting and burning bodies in the crematoria.
"Right now there are changes, the likes of which we haven't seen for 100 years," Mr. Xi told Mr. Putin through an interpreter after the state dinner as the leaders bid farewell. "And we are the ones driving these changes together.”
I’m in Kremenchuk at the site of the place that was once an Amstar shopping center. 13 people are dead, 25 in the hospital. “People just burned alive,” the interior minister said. I saw a photo of a burned corpse which looked to me that the woman was writhing in agony.
I can't overstate how common this experience seems to be. I was delayed moving hotel rooms by writing this piece. I mentioned it to the young woman who had come to politely ask me to leave.
"Oh," she said, "I have the same problem w my father in Russia."
Very very excited to announce my new job in Moscow with the
@nytimes
. It is truly a dream come true. I can’t wait to work with
@antontroian
,
@AndrewKramerNYT
and all of my new colleagues!
"Mr. Scholz, German officials say, believes that Mr. Putin lied to him personally in their direct talks in Moscow about the Ukraine crisis and that the Russian invasion created serious new threats to German and European security that cannot be ignored."
President Zelensky agreed to talks with Russia but said he was skeptical. “I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting,” he said, but he wanted to make sure Ukrainian citizens had no doubt of his efforts to stop the war.
Can’t stop thinking of this photo by
@lynseyaddario
, who captured the emotion of these four women as they received weapons from the Ukrainian government and signed up to defend their city, Kyiv.
Hello from Moscow, which has changed since Sep. 21, when a mobilization campaign sent men fleeing across borders or to the army. Barbershop chairs are empty, pool halls full of women, the women left behind try to keep things going—until they can leave too.
Katsiurin published phone calls w his father, along with an FAQ for how to talk to relatives in Russia w/o getting angry to convince them of the truth. There are 11m Russians with Ukrainian relatives, according to his analysis, enough for real resistance.
Parts of Kharkiv, where Anastasia Belomytseva is from, have been reduced to rubble. She sent videos of the bombings to her relatives on Instagram, but in vain.
“They totally don’t understand what is happening here, they don’t understand that they just attacked us for no reason."
Remember Maria Butin? Imprisoned as a foreign agent, she now sits in Russia’s lower house of Parliament. She made Z shirts that appear to be modeled on the Z painted on many Russian military vehicles attacking Ukraine. “Team in support of our army and president. Work, brothers!”
Relatives parrot the official Kremlin position: that Putin’s army is conducting a limited “special military operation” to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Putin has called Pres Zelensky, a native Russian speaker w Jewish background, a “drug-addled Nazi” in an attempt to justify the invasion.
Mariupol is under a relentless Russian barrage. There is no heat or electricity, and people are boiling snow for water and chopping trees to make fires so they can cook. A 6-year-old died of dehydration yesterday. And today a maternity hospital was bombed.
It was 4 days into the war before Misha Katsiurin called his dad in Nizhny Novgorod.
“I’m trying to evacuate my children and my wife, everything is extremely scary,” Katsiurin told him.
“He started to yell at me and told me, ‘Look, everything is going like this. They are Nazis."
“I’m sick of all this stuff. I’m 19, Putin has been in power my entire life, and I don’t see any hope for the country,” said Anastasia, a student at a Moscow uni. “There’s poverty & state terrorism. And what they did to Navalny is outrageous and illegal.”
Svetlana from Cherkasy sends her relatives in Belarus and Tomsk "necessary information" every day. “The response is that ‘This is some kind of fake information that this cannot be the case at all, that no one can or will shoot at civilians,’” she said.
“No one is bombing Kyiv, and you should actually be afraid of the Nazis, whom your father fought against," Valentyna Kremyr's sister wrote her. "Your children will be alive and healthy. We love the Ukrainian people, but you need to think hard about who you elected as president.”
Things can change so fast. 2 nights ago I was out in a swishy bar. Now the city is deserted, all shops are shut, and I've heard intermittent shelling all night.
The president just said "Tonight they will storm. We must all understand what awaits us. You cannot lose the capital."
Only 72 hours ago, Kyiv was a modern European metropolis. Now, civilians are being told to collect weapons and the radio is airing instructions about making Molotov cocktails,
@VALERIEinNYT
reports.
Photo by
@lynseyaddario
of The New York Times
Incredible scenes from Serbia yesterday. Protesters stopped traffic to oppose to 2 new laws accommodating investments by China's Zijin + Rio Tinto. Activists say the projects would pollute land and water. Laws allow expropriation w/in 8 days, block civic action against polluters.
Palicama na demonstrante u Šapcu, zaustavljanje saobraćaja na auto-putu u Beogradu, mostu u Novom Sadu i saobraćajnicama širom zemlje - ovako je danas izgledala eko-blokada Srbije
Opširnije 👉
“We decided that we don’t want to live in this country anymore,” he said of Russia. “If you live in this country, every five to eight years, everything you know goes upside down.”
@NYTBen
spoke to Russians fleeing via Istanbul
Kommersant sent a photographer to Mariupol. Eerie photos show people getting off buses at a stop that is destroyed, fishing on a destroyed bridge near Azovstal, patching up bullet and Schrapnell holes, destroyed cars.
"Russian soldiers have been plagued by poor morale as well as fuel + food shortages. Some troops have crossed the border with MREs (meals ready to eat) that expired in 2002" 🤢🤢🤢
Others have surrendered and sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting.
I was driving away from Kyiv’s train station earlier today. I didn’t capture the crowd close by but for more than a kilometer I could just see people dragging their belongings, and heading there.
My last story for the
@FT
went up today. I’m feeling nostalgic, and incredibly privileged to have worked for such a serious newspaper with an exceptionally talented — and, even rarer, exceptionally kind — group of colleagues. I will miss you all, and I will continue to read you!
“They tried to squeeze evidence out of me,” she said, convinced she had secret information about an attack on Russia. “They wanted me to admit that I was a Nazi, that I did some nasty things, killed someone. I didn’t incriminate myself. It cost me dearly.”
Rossiya 24 has started a countdown for Putin’s address tomorrow. Some analysts are saying Biden’s trip to Kyiv has raised the stakes, and Putin may make additional edits to his speech to “make it even tougher.” (
@Stanovaya
)
"I agree," Mr. Putin said, as he returned the handshake. "Please take care of yourself, my dear friend," Mr. Xi said before walking to his car. "Have a good trip," Mr. Putin responded.
“We can definitively say that nothing is going to plan,” said Pavel Luzin, a Russian mil analyst. “It's been decades since the Soviet & Russian armies have seen such great losses in such a short time.”
“It looks like everybody's on edge,” Mr Soldatov said.
Days after Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv area, the director of Ukraine’s WWII museum joined those investigating the barbarity perpetrated by enemy soldiers. What his team collected are an exhibit telling the history of the occupation in real-time
A brave woman, an employee of Channel 1 -- Russia's state broadcaster -- walks on stage with a poster: "No War... Stop the War. Do not believe the propaganda. Here they are lying to you."
“If the war ends and we win, and get rid of them, then I think that there will be excursions in Mariupol, just like there are to Chernobyl. So that people understand what kind of apocalyptic things can occur.”
Some stories from strong people of Mariupol.
Hours after Putin called Prigozhin a traitor and Prigozhin announced he was turning his “March for justice” around — people in Rostov cheered Wagner and called Russian police “traitors.”
This weekend I met Yuliya Beley, who spent her last week in Mariupol without eating so her 3 daughters could eat the only food they had: one bowl of porridge.
@NYTBen
,
@ginakolata
and I on siege tactics and how they break affect the civilians stuck inside.
Every day, Viktoriya has to walk past the house where she was raped by a Russian soldier the same age as her teenage son.
“If you don't think about it all, you can live,” she told me. “But it is certainly not forgotten.”
I just spoke to a woman who got out of Mariupol. She left a city where no residential building has windows, where there’s no heat, no electricity, no water, little food. Craters left from missiles are up to 20 meters deep. Corpses are lying in the streets.
“You’re throwing a billion-ruble party,” a pro-Russian blogger wrote on Sat, referring to celebrations in Moscow commemorating the 875th anniversary of the city’s founding. “What’s wrong w you? Not at the time of such a horrible failure.”
@antontroian
The front row of today’s third annual Budapest Demographic Summit launch. The conference is focused on raising the fertility rates in central and eastern Europe.
Everything is still smoking and the air is full of toxic chemicals. An adviser to the interior minister said it is believed to have been a 900kg X-22 missile sent from Kurskaya Oblast. 3 rockets fell, one on the mall, one nearby, and the third somewhere else in Poltava Oblast.
At the funeral of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, the size of the crowds signaled the depth of the regret about the undoing of the freedoms that his tenure initiated.
My story from Moscow, with
@INechepurenko
News🚨
Since I was ⬇️ age, all I've ever wanted to do was work as a foreign correspondent. I'm happy will be covering Hungary, Romania and the former Yugoslavia for the
@FT
. I am grateful in advance for story ideas, tips, and suggestions for hard to pronounce vocab. Köszönöm!
As Ukraine came under massive assault from Russia people fight or flee, the Ukrainian public have rallied around the cause of their country and their president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who has pled passionately for Russians to "listen to the voice of reason."
Today in a pine forest near Bucha, authorities exhumed a mass grave site w the bodies of 7 civilians they believed had been tortured and killed by Russian forces. The corpses were unearthed next to a warren of trenches + foxholes used by Russian soldiers.
Thousands gathering in Belgrade for a protest against what activists say is a looming “ecocalypse” if the Serbian government continues to grant permission to large foreign companies for environmentally damaging projects, incl a new LingLong tyre factory & a planned RioTinto mine.
Wow -- amid all the drama in Russia, this is worth paying attention to. The EU has just punished Kosovo over the instability in N Kosovo -- even though the NATO troops injured during rioting in May were injured by weapons produced in Serbia that no NATO country produces.
The 🇪🇺 commission expands its measures against Kosovo.
- putting on hold of the work of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement bodies
- suspending of funds
- suspending of high level events and bilateral visits
At long last! My first day in the NYT’s Moscow bureau, surrounded by so much history. Thrilled to walk in the footsteps of so many great correspondents and to work with the fantastic team here. Grateful for tips on what to cover, whom to meet, where to eat, culture to enjoy, etc.
Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina was intent to go on tour to raise money for Ukraine, despite a 21 day sentence in a penal colony. Here’s how she managed to leave Russia, despite restrictions on her movement, police tailing her, and an arrest warrant.
Kremlin Spokesman Peskov announced that the criminal case against Prigozhin is dropped. Prigozhin will go to Belarus, while soldiers who didn't participate in the mutiny can sign contracts with the MOD. The rest of the fighters won't be prosecuted given "service at the front."
Today
@nytimes
is looking at how the lives of children have been upended by this war. Almost two-thirds of Ukraine’s children have been displaced by fighting. How are they playing and learning? How will we make up for their stolen childhoods?
There were too many people around for me to post this video of the start of Budapest Pride, which organizers say is the biggest in its 26-year history.
I visited Novoluhanske, on the front line of Ukraine’s war against Russia-backed separatists. It came under mortar fire today while I was there. Shelling across the line of contact has been more coordinated than in the past 5-6 yrs, commanders told me.
My first story for the
@nytimes
makes for a smooth transition from my former patch to my current one. The
@WCMsarajevo
has opened its first exhibition outside of BiH, in Kyiv. Have a read 👇
.
@albinkurti
on the Serb minority: I want to defend all the Serbs, I am their PM as well. I want to engage with them for their rights - but I cannot compensate Pres Vucic for the loss that Serbia as a state had due to the crimes of the Milosevic regime.
Reports that Russians are building fortifications in case of a Ukrainian attack on Belgorod. I was there earlier this week and the fear now that Ukrainian forces are at the border is palpable.
"The Belgians have shielded trade in Russian diamonds. The Greeks ship Russian oil unimpeded. France and several other nations still import Russian uranium for nuclear power generation."
@MatinaStevis
reports on continued EU-Russia trade
My story about how Hungary has changed in the decade since Orban returned to power is in this weekend's
@FTMag
. I spoke to Hungarians who've been shaped & affected by the past 10 years about Orban's strategy to reshape society and how they feel about it. 1/
Surreal to see Evan on the cover of
@time
. I know he would rather have written the cover story than be the cover story. But as we approach one year of Evan’s wrongful detention, it’s good to see so many articles about him. Journalism is not a crime.
#FreeEvan
Montenegro has asked the EU help to pay off aChinese loan that has sent the country's debt soaring above 80 per cent of GDP. Will Brussels bail out Podgorica for its poor decision making for a road project that was never going to pay for itself?
“After us, comes Europe,” said Volodymyr Matseliukh, the mayor of the nearby town of Novoyavorivsk. “For as long as Russia is not punished, no one in Ukraine or in Europe is safe.”
Me for
@NYTimes
A Bosnian man caught by the cops drunk and asleep at the wheel was hauled into the police station and given the right to make one free phone call. He called a ćevapi delivery service — and ordered everyone a portion! This is the kind of Bosnian hospitality I know and love!
6 months since Russian missiles fell on Kyiv, I returned to Moscow to see what changed. I found that while some are deeply depressed that innocent people are being killed in their name, most say very little has changed, besides higher prices. Some cheer.
I saw a residential complex that officials said was taken out by a Russian missile. Radio is broadcasting recipes for Molotov cocktails. Sustained shelling. The president braced Kyiv: “Tonight the enemy will storm. We must all understand what awaits us.”
“The Ukrainian people want peace,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said after midnight on Thursday morning in Kyiv. “The government in Ukraine wants peace and is doing everything it can to build it.”
@nytimes
Hard to watch this from inside Putin's press conference. Evan should be in the hall with us. not in this cage. I asked what it would take to bring Evan & Paul Whelan home.
He said: Russia is “in contact w the American side” but any agreement must be “mutually acceptable.”
A Moscow court on Thursday upheld a ruling to hold in detention until Jan. 30 U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich, arrested in Russia earlier this year on espionage charges.
I’m at Luzhniki stadium I. Moscow for a patriotic concert and celebration of Russia’s Defenders of the Fatherland day. Organizers say 200K here. Putin to speak later.
Luxembourg FM Asselborn calls for removing Orban's EU voting rights, saying a gov that isn't permanently controlled by a parliament shouldn't have a say in Council decisions that affect all in EU. “Hu should be in strict political quarantine.”
The orgy organizer speaks again.
"Politicians from Ukraine, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland & Spain come for orgies." However, the most frequent guests are Poles and Hungarians
My piece for
@FTMag
, on the growing climate of genocide denial in Srebrenica, the site of the worst single atrocity on European soil since WWII, and the multi-ethnic community that persists, in an uneasy coexistence.
As Russian forces announced they had cut the city off from the western part of the country and captured strategic locations to Kyiv’s north, Zelensky emerged with one message:
“We are here. We are in Kyiv. We are protecting Ukraine.”
I went to Belgrade to find out more about 5 consecutive weeks of protests against the government. I spoke to President
@avucic
as well as
@DraganDjilas
and
@jeremic_vuk
, among others— Serbia president Vucic shrugs off protests, via
@FT
Brittney Griner “is not yet absolutely convinced that America will be able to take her home," her lawyer told me. "She is very worried about what the price of that will be, and she is afraid that she will have to serve the whole sentence here in Russia.”
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has announced that Russia is suspending its mission to NATO, effective Nov 1, according to RIA Novosti. He also said the NATO info office and mission in Moscow will be shut down.
A year after full-scale invasion, many Russians are buying the persistent propaganda, and public spaces are being re-made. Moscow's Sakharov Center is being forced to close, while new exhibits about "NATOzism" & "Ordinary Nazism" open. Story w
@antontroian
During an interview with
@AgronBajrami
on KTV viewers responded to a poll: 94% of respondents said they believe
@albinkurti
should continue serving as Kosovo’s PM.