Media coverage today is almost exclusively on President Vladimir V. Putin welcoming Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, to Russia….Something Putin needs…
Standing side by side in a show of partnership unshaken by Russia’s yearlong war in Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, began talks in Moscow on Monday with boasts of their close ties and only understated mention of the conflict itself.
Though the war and the schisms it has exposed hung over the meeting, the public comments about it from Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin were muted, notwithstanding the cascading consequences of the past year, including Western sanctions on Russia, energy crises in Europe and devastation in Ukraine.
Instead, the leaders went to great lengths to flatter each other and project unity in a series of meticulously choreographed events. Mr. Xi is the highest-profile world leader to visit Russia since the invasion, and he arrived for the three-day visit as bloody battles continued in eastern Ukraine and only three days after the Russian leader was cited for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
The imagery of alliance, in gestures if not a formal treaty, has stoked anxiety in the West that China might go farther than diplomacy or economics in its support for Russia — possibly with weapons for use in Mr. Putin’s war — and entrench a powerful bloc opposed to NATO and the United States…
The Washington Post reports on something few media outlets have talked about….
Ukraine stikes into Russia....
More than a year after President Vladimir Putin unleashed his invasion, Russia’s war in Ukraine is also being fought on Russian soil, and Moscow is scrambling to protect its borders. The war Putin expected to win quickly now encroaches daily on the lives of Russian citizens, with frequent reports of fires, drone attacks and shelling.
Ukraine and its citizens, of course, are bearing the overwhelming brunt of suffering in the war. More than 8,000 civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Millions are displaced; whole cities have been reduced to rubble.
But the longer the onslaught drags on, the more real it becomes for Russians, especially those living in border regions. Putin had hoped to shield his citizens — even from the word “war,” by calling it a “special military operation.” Now, he has ordered a tightening of border security — not in the four Ukrainian regions he claims, illegally, to have annexed — but along the internationally recognized border with Russia itself. Air defense systems are being deployed in Moscow and other locations….
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There have been at least 27 publicly reported drone attacks on high-value targets in Russia, primarily military bases, airfields and energy facilities. In some cases, drones crashed or were shot down before reaching their targets. At least three drones crashed near Astrakhan, a city close to the Caspian Sea near where Russia fires missiles into Ukraine….
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In recent weeks, Russia has also been actively placing similar fortifications in occupied Crimea and other territories it holds in southern Ukraine, which may suggest Moscow is afraid of losing them.
“I tend to view these things as like kind of a road map of their anxiety and what they’re worried about,” said Massicot, the Rand analyst….