How the Kremlin weaponized Russian history — and has used it to justify the war in Ukraine
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Earlier this month, when Tucker Carlson asked Vladimir Putin about his reasons for invading Ukraine two years ago, Putin gave him a lecture on Russian history. The 71-year-old Russian leader spent more than 20 minutes showering a baffled Carlson with dates and names going back to the ninth century.
Putin even gave him a folder containing what he said were copies of historical documents proving his points: that Ukrainians and Russians historically have always been one people, and that Ukraine’s sovereignty is merely an illegitimate holdover from the Soviet era.
Carlson said he was “shocked” at being on the receiving end of the history lesson. But for those familiar with Putin’s government, it was not surprising in the least: In Russia, history has long been a propaganda tool used to advance the Kremlin’s political goals. And the last two years have been entirely in keeping with that ethos.
In an effort to rally people around their world view, Russian authorities have tried to magnify the country’s past victories while glossing over the more sordid chapters of its history. They have rewritten textbooks, funded sprawling historical exhibitions and suppressed — sometimes harshly — voices that contradict their narrative.
Russian officials have also regularly bristled at Ukraine and other European countries for pulling down Soviet monuments, widely seen there as an unwanted legacy of past oppression, and even put scores of European officials on a wanted list over that in a move that made headlines this month.
For many Ukrainians, life is split in two: Before and after the war. This is one family’s story
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Kateryna Dmytryk had been waiting for this moment for almost two years — nearly all of her young son’s life.
Side by side, they ran, 2-year-old Timur leading the way as snow crunched beneath their feet. A slender, pale man made his way to the pair from the military hospital. Artem Dmytryk hadn’t seen his family for about 24 months, almost all of which he spent in Russian captivity.
He picked up his son. Kateryna pinched her husband and clasped his hand, anything to reassure herself this wasn’t a dream. All three embraced, kissed, laughed.
Kateryna had buried her mother, fled her hometown and passed through countless Russian checkpoints with her son, all while imagining the worst about her husband’s captivity. She knew the wounds would take years to heal, but in that moment, she let herself break into a smile.
As Russia launched its war in Ukraine, the lives of millions of Ukrainians were irreversibly changed. Like the Dmytryks, they mark their lives in two periods: before and after Feb. 24, 2022. Tens of thousands have laid their loved ones to rest, millions have been forced to flee their homes, and the entire country has been thrust into a long and exhausting war, with 26% of the territory under Russian occupation.
Live updates | Israeli strikes across Gaza kill 67 Palestinians overnight
Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 67 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, including in areas where civilians have been told to seek refuge.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah says it received 44 bodies after multiple strikes in central Gaza. Associated Press reporters saw the bodies arriving in ambulances and private vehicles.
Also Wednesday, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said that two people were killed when a shelter housing staff in the Gaza Strip was struck during an Israeli operation in an area where Palestinians have been told to seek shelter.
“While details are still emerging, ambulance crews have now reached the site, where at least two family members of our colleagues have been killed and six people wounded. We are horrified by what has taken place,” the group said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The attack took place in Muwasi, a sandy, mostly undeveloped strip of land along the coast that has been transformed into a sprawling tent camp with little in the way of basic services.
Iran accuses Israel of sabotage attack that saw explosions strike natural gas pipeline
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Israeli sabotage attack on an Iranian natural gas pipeline caused the multiple explosions that struck it a week ago, Iran’s oil minister alleged Wednesday, further raising tensions between the regional archenemies amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The comments by Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji come as Israel has been blamed for a series of attacks targeting Tehran’s nuclear program.
The “explosion of the gas pipeline was an Israeli plot,” Owji said, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. “The enemy intended to disturb gas service in the provinces and put people’s gas distribution at risk.”
He added: “The evil action and plot by the enemy was properly managed.” Owji provided no evidence to support his claims.
Israel has not acknowledged carrying out the attack, though it rarely claims its espionage missions abroad. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime foe of Iran, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
2 men are charged with murder in the deadly shooting at Kansas City’s Super Bowl celebration
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Two men charged with murder in last week’s shooting after the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade were strangers who pulled out guns and began firing within seconds of starting an argument, according to court documents released Tuesday.
Missouri prosecutors said at a news conference that Lyndell Mays, of Raytown, Missouri, and Dominic Miller, of Kansas City, Missouri, have been charged with second-degree murder and several weapons counts in the shooting that left one person dead and roughly two dozen others injured.
Both men were shot during the melee, according to probable cause affidavits. Both have been hospitalized since, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said during a news conference.
The argument began when two groups of people grew agitated over the belief that people in the other group were staring at them, according to affidavits from police. Surveillance video shows Mays and someone with him aggressively approached the other group, police say.
The video showed Mays was the first to begin shooting despite being surrounded by crowds of people, including children, according to one of the affidavits.
Ex-FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens had Russian intelligence contacts, prosecutors say
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former FBI informant charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company had contacts with Russian intelligence-affiliated officials, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Prosecutors revealed the alleged contact as they urged a judge in Las Vegas to keep Alexander Smirnov behind bars while he awaits trial. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts allowed Smirnov to be released from custody on electronic GPS monitoring.
He is accused of falsely telling his FBI handler that executives with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each around 2015 — a claim that became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.
Smirnov, 43, hid his face and did not speak to reporters Tuesday night when he walked out of the courthouse with his lawyers and girlfriend at his side. He wore a GPS monitor on his left ankle and had changed into street clothes and out of the yellow jail garb he had worn in court.
Defense attorney David Chesnoff said he looks forward to defending Smirnov at trial.
Donald Trump again compares his criminal indictments to imprisonment and death of Putin’s top rival
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Donald Trump doubled down Tuesday on comparing his criminal indictments to the circumstances of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the top political opponent of Russia’s autocratic leader Vladimir Putin who died in a remote arctic prison after being jailed by the Kremlin leader.
Appearing on a Fox News Channel town hall pre-taped before a live audience in Greenville, South Carolina, Trump bemoaned Navalny’s death, which President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have blamed on Putin. Trump then pivoted to himself, repeating his assertions that the prosecutions against him are driven by politics despite no evidence that Biden or the White House ordered them.
“Navalny is a very sad situation and he’s very brave, he was a very brave guy,” Trump said in response to a question from Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham. “He went back, he could have stayed away, and frankly probably would have been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country as opposed to having to go back in, because people thought that could happen, and it did happen.
“And it’s a horrible thing, but it’s happening in our country, too,” Trump continued, suggesting his criminal indictments — which include two cases stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat — are proof that the U.S. is “turning into a communist country in many ways.”
“I got indicted four times … all because of the fact that I’m in politics,” Trump said. “They indicted me on things that are so ridiculous.”
YouTube mom Ruby Franke apologizes at sentencing in child abuse case
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Ruby Franke, a Utah mother of six who gave parenting advice to millions via a once-popular a YouTube channel, shared a tearful apology to her children for physically and emotionally abusing them before a judge delivered a sentence that could put her in prison for years, if not decades.
Franke also claimed that she had been “manipulated” by her fellow YouTuber and business partner.
Franke told the judge that she would not argue for a shorter sentence before she stood to thank local police officers, doctors and social workers for being the “angels” who saved her children from her at a time when she says she was under the influence of her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt. The Utah mental health counselor, who had been hired to work with Franke’s youngest son before going into business with her, also received four consecutive prison sentences of one to 15 years.
However, the women will only serve up to 30 years in prison due to a Utah state law that caps the sentence duration for consecutive penalties. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will consider their behavior while incarcerated and determine how much of that time each will spend behind bars.
“I’ll never stop crying for hurting your tender souls,” Franke said to her children, who were not present at the sentencing hearing in St. George. “My willingness to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.”
Lawyers for the US to tell a British court why WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange should face spying charges
LONDON (AP) — Lawyers for the American government are to tell a London court on Wednesday why they think Julian Assange should face espionage charges in the United States, in response to a last-ditch bid by his defense to stop the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder.
Assange’s lawyers are asking the High Court to grant him a new appeal — his last legal roll of the dice in the long-running legal saga that has kept him in a British high-security prison for the past five years.
The 52-year-old Australian has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago. American prosecutors say Assange helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.
Lawyers for the U.S. have argued in written submissions that said Assange was being prosecuted “because he is alleged to have committed serious criminal offences.”
Attorney James Lewis said Assange’s actions “threatened damage to the strategic and national security interests of the United States” and put individuals named in the documents — including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces — at risk of “serious physical harm.”
A pacemaker for the brain helped a woman with crippling depression. It may soon be available widely
NEW YORK (AP) — Emily Hollenbeck lived with a deep, recurring depression she likened to a black hole, where gravity felt so strong and her limbs so heavy she could barely move. She knew the illness could kill her. Both of her parents had taken their lives.
She was willing to try something extreme: Having electrodes implanted in her brain as part of an experimental therapy.
Researchers say the treatment —- called deep brain stimulation, or DBS — could eventually help many of the nearly 3 million Americans like her with depression that resists other treatments. It’s approved for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, and many doctors and patients hope it will become more widely available for depression soon.
The treatment gives patients targeted electrical impulses, much like a pacemaker for the brain. A growing body of recent research is promising, with more underway — although two large studies that showed no advantage to using DBS for depression temporarily halted progress, and some scientists continue to raise concerns.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to speed up its review of Abbott Laboratories’ request to use its DBS devices for treatment-resistant depression.