My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. However, I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on this site in the coming months. Thanks for reading!
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Saturday, 1 July 2023:
Russian Invasion of Ukraine: C.I.A. Director William Burns says Wagner’s mutiny is a sign of the war’s ‘corrosive’ effect on Russia, The Washington Post, Kelsey Ables, Adela Suliman, Nick Parker, and Karen DeYoung, Saturday, 1 July 2023: “Russia’s ‘mistakes’ in Ukraine have laid bare its military weaknesses and damaged its economy for years to come, CIA Director William J. Burns said Saturday. Speaking in a lecture at Britain’s Ditchley Foundation, Burns reiterated the Biden administration’s insistence that the United States ‘had and will have no part’ in last week’s rebellion by Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his Wagner Group. The impact of Prigozhin’s ‘scathing indictment of the Kremlin’s mendacious rationale’ for the Ukraine invasion and the conduct of Russia’s military leadership in the war ‘will play out for some time, a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of [President Vladimir] Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime.’
- ‘Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership’ and create a ‘once in a generation opportunity’ for U.S. intelligence, said Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia. ‘We’re not letting it go to waste,’ Burns said Saturday. Intelligence initiatives have included the unprecedented release of classified information on Putin’s war plans before the invasion and subsequent intelligence sharing with allies and Ukraine, and the use of social media through the Telegram channel ‘to let Russians know how to contact us safely on the dark web,’ he said. ‘We had 2.5 million views in the first week, and we’re very much open for business.’
- Burns made a secret visit to Ukraine last month, when officials revealed an ambitious endgame for the war, The Post has reported. The strategy aims to retake Russian-occupied territory and open cease-fire negotiations with Moscow by the end of the year, officials familiar with the visit said.
- The Biden administration is weighing whether to supply Kyiv with cluster bombs. Senior U.S. administration and defense officials have contacted lawmakers to assess their comfort with sending the munitions, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post. The Biden administration has concerns about the optics of the move and the potential for long-term harm to civilians because the munitions can leave behind unexploded bomblets that remain deadly for decades.
- A U.S. official told The Post that the United States has seen an ‘increasing need’ for cluster munitions, which could help address ammunition shortages in Ukraine. ‘We’ve always said our security assistance would evolve as battlefield conditions have evolved, and that continues to be the case,’ the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive issue. The United States is not among the more than 120 nations that have signed an international convention banning the use, transfer or production of cluster munitions, which international rights groups and other governments have long condemned as inhumane.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he offered Wagner troops an abandoned military base in Belarus, the country where Prigozhin, the mercenary group’s leader, relocated this week, although he has not made a public appearance there yet. Satellite imagery captured Friday showed what could be the rapid construction of a new camp in Belarus to house Wagner forces, according to local media and experts. The Post could not independently verify the reports.
- Lukashenko signed a law allowing the ban of media outlets based in countries that he deems unfriendly to Belarus. The longtime authoritarian leader has a history of fomenting media criticism and protests.
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez arrived in Ukraine on Saturday to meet with Zelensky, as his country takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union council. Sánchez tweeted: ‘I wanted the first act of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the E.U. to be in Ukraine,’ as he expressed European solidarity. Zelensky tweeted his appreciation after a joint news conference, thanking Spain ‘for supporting Ukraine on the way to joining the European Union.’
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘expressed understanding and support’ for Putin’s efforts to solidify power after the failed Wagner revolt, according to the Kremlin’s readout of their phone conversation Friday. The United States, Ukraine’s largest backer, has close ties with India, hosting a recent state visit for Modi, who has not condemned Russia’s invasion.
- Japan said it spotted two Russian Navy ships in the waters near Taiwan and Japan’s Okinawa islands over the last four days, according to its Defense Ministry. Tokyo said last month that repeated Russian military activity near Japanese territory posed a ‘serious concern’ for the country’s national security, Reuters reported.
Trump pressured Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to overturn 2020 election, The Washington Post, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Josh Dawsey, and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Saturday, 1 July 20223: “In a phone call in late 2020, President Donald Trump tried to pressure Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to overturn the state’s presidential election results, saying that if enough fraudulent votes could be found it would overcome Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona, according to three people familiar with the call. Trump also repeatedly asked Vice President Mike Pence to call Ducey and prod him to find the evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of fraud, according to two of these people. Pence called Ducey several times to discuss the election, they said, though he did not follow Trump’s directions to pressure the governor. The extent of Trump’s efforts to cajole Ducey into helping him stay in power has not before been reported, even as other efforts by Trump’s lawyer and allies to pressure Arizona officials have been made public. Ducey told reporters in December 2020 that he and Trump had spoken, but he declined to disclose the contents of the call then or in the more than two years since. Although he disagreed with Trump about the outcome of the election, Ducey has sought to avoid a public battle with Trump.”
Sunday, 2 July 2023:
Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Wagner Group pauses hiring during move to Belarus, The Washington Post, Bryan Pietsch, Leo Sands, Shera Avi-Yonah, Ben Brasch, and Kyle Rempfer, Sunday, 2 July 2023: “Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s Wagner Group will pause hiring mercenaries for a month as its forces move to Belarus, scaling down the group’s activities after it aborted a mutiny attempt outside Moscow last month. A Telegram channel the company uses for hiring said Wagner’s forces won’t fight in Ukraine as they shift operations from Russia. Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Kyiv this weekend as his country took the helm of the rotating European Council presidency. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the visit as symbolic, saying it showcased a ‘new reality’ amid the Russian invasion.
- The Wagner Group will stop recruiting new mercenaries for a month while its forces move to Belarus, and it has paused activities in Ukraine, according to a post on a Telegram channel the company uses for hiring. Prigozhin agreed to move his forces to Belarus last month as part of a deal brokered to stop his mutiny attempt. Wagner has used social media to mount a global hiring campaign in more than a dozen languages, the disinformation research group Logically told Politico Europe. Russia has also shut down several media outlets connected to Prigozhin, Reuters reported.
- Sánchez’s visit to the Ukrainian capital underscores ‘the priorities of the Spanish presidency and our cooperation,’ Zelensky said in his nightly address after the Saturday visit. ‘It was always impossible to imagine our common European home as complete without Ukraine. And now we have achieved at the political level that European affairs are no longer considered without Ukraine.’
- CIA Director William J. Burns said Russia’s ‘mistakes’ in Ukraine have revealed its military weaknesses and damaged its economy. He also reiterated that the United States had no part in the armed rebellion in Russia by Wagner Group founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin. Discontent in Russia during the war has created a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ for U.S. intelligence, said Burns, who is also a former U.S. ambassador to Russia. Last month, he made a secret visit to Ukraine, where Ukrainian officials conveyed their goals for the war’s endgame.
- President Biden will travel to Lithuania and Finland for diplomatic conferences this month, the White House announced in a news release Sunday. He will attend an annual NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11 and 12, and a U.S.-Nordic summit in Helsinki on July 13. Ukraine continues to seek fast-tracked NATO accession, a step British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said this week the alliance should consider. Some NATO members have been cool to that idea. The European Union is also considering Ukraine’s membership bid and may formally discuss it in December, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said Thursday.
- Russia’s Maks air show has been postponed until 2024, organizers confirmed. The biennial show, which was last held in 2021 and was scheduled to take place this month, bills itself as the hallmark of Russia’s aerospace industry. According to Britain’s Defense Ministry, ‘the show has probably been canceled largely due to genuine security concerns, following recent uncrewed aerial vehicle attacks inside Russia.’
- The first direct flight from Russia to Cuba in over a year took place this weekend, Russia’s state-run Tass news reported Sunday. Publicly available flight data showed the 13-hour flight, operated by Aeroflot’s Rossiya Airlines, bypassed European airspace with a route over the Arctic and south over the Atlantic. According to Reuters, flights from Russia to Cuba, Mexico and the Dominican Republic were suspended in February 2022 after Western countries blocked Russian flights from using their airspace.
- Satellite imagery captured Friday showed what could be the rapid construction of a new camp in Belarus to house Wagner forces, according to experts and local media. The Post could not independently verify the reports. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he offered Wagner troops an abandoned military base in the country. Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary organization, also relocated to Belarus this week but has not yet made a public appearance there.
- Poland will bolster security along its border with Russian ally Belarus by deploying an additional 500 police officers, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said Sunday on Twitter. Kaminski described the situation on the border as ‘tense.’ Since Prigozhin’s relocation to Belarus last week, the Russian ally’s E.U. neighbors have grown increasingly wary of instability in the country spilling beyond its borders.
- Viktor Bout — the Russian infamous arms dealer traded for WNBA megastar Brittney Griner in a prisoner swap — is running for a seat in a Russian regional legislature as an ultranationalist candidate, state news agency RIA reported Sunday. Bout was serving a 25-year prison sentence after being arrested in a U.S. sting operation in Thailand. Griner, the two-time Olympic gold medalist, was serving nine years in a Russian prison for carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil.
Continue reading Aftermath of the Trump Administration, July 2023: