. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against the Russian president for alleged war crimes.The European assessment underlines how high the stakes are for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as he prepares for a counteroffensive that could be his last chance to break the Kremlin’s grip on large tracts of his country.
The effort to manufacture a culturally Russian population loyal to the Kremlin borrows tactics that were previously deployed in the eastern Donbas region and the Crimean peninsula after they were captured in 2014. Lyudmyla Huseynova was jailed by Russian forces in 2019 after bringing Ukrainian books to a school for orphans in her home town of Novoazovsk on Ukraine’s southern coast near the pre-2014 border with Russia. She says she was accused of espionage because of pro-Ukrainian posts on social media.
Macron isn’t alone in thinking talks should at least be considered. Asked about his efforts, Italy’s chief of defense Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone said at an Atlantic Council event in April that “anything which is changing this bad equilibrium we have over there is welcome and needs to be considered, no matter who is proposing it — anything is welcome.”