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The west cannot turn its back on ordinary Russians
The author is chair of the Centre for Liberal Methods, Sofia, and everlasting fellow at IWM Vienna
It was solely a matter of hours after Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine that Marina Davidova, the esteemed Russian theatre critic, wrote an open letter in opposition to the warfare. The Russian Duma responded with alacrity, fast-tracking laws that included jail sentences of as much as 15 years for criticising the invasion.
Davidova quickly grew to become topic to vicious harassment, receiving hate mail and discovering the infamous white “Z” borne by Russian army automobiles in Ukraine painted on her door the following day. Fearful for her life, she fled Russia.
As soon as she received out, nonetheless, Davidova was shocked to find a twisted new actuality.
When in Moscow, she had been handled by the key service as a traitor. However in western Europe, she was now perceived as a Russian occupier, presumably an agent — an individual complicit with Putin. Her Russian financial institution playing cards not labored and her Austrian checking account was blocked. It was her passport, not her story, that mattered. Sotto voce, her mates instructed her that the thought of a “good Russian” was now a factor of the previous.
Europeans who criticise extraordinary Russians for not denouncing the warfare en masse have some extent, however they miss an vital nuance: Russia immediately is a brutal police state and in Putin’s worldview to be a traitor (and for the president any citizen who opposes the warfare is a traitor) is way worse than to be an enemy. Putin as soon as put it with terrifying readability: “Enemies are proper in entrance of you, you’re at warfare with them, you then make an armistice with them, and all is obvious. A traitor have to be destroyed, crushed.”
With their heroic resistance to the Russian warfare machine, the Ukrainian individuals have earned their standing as Putin’s enemies. However with regards to Russia’s inside opposition, the one possibility he’ll contemplate is to crush them.
In fact it isn’t laborious to know why individuals outdoors Russia have turned in opposition to the nation. Putin has not solely destroyed Ukraine’s army and vitality infrastructure, he additionally smashed the ethical and mental infrastructure of postwar Europe. By justifying his invasion in Ukraine as a “particular operation” aimed toward “denazifying” the nation, Putin took deliberate goal on the foundations on which the European order has been primarily based. And by placing Russian nuclear forces on “excessive alert”, he crossed a line not crossed for the reason that Cuban missile disaster 60 years in the past.
The west is at warfare with Putin’s regime, and this battle will final far longer than the preventing in Ukraine. It’s clear that western sanctions will not be designed to alter Putin’s thoughts however to destroy his capabilities. They can even harm extraordinary Russians. Since Russia is a big nuclear energy, the west has no different possibility.
Some outdoors Russia are seduced by the potential for a palace coup in Moscow, however the prospects for such an final result are slim. Historical past teaches us that in a disaster like this nearly all of the individuals, in addition to political elites, initially stand with their chief reasonably than flip in opposition to him. It’s only with the passing of time that they alter their thoughts.
Whereas within the brief time period the west’s precedence must be to offer assist to Ukraine, within the medium and long run it wants a technique on Russia that goes past army containment.
We’ve got shifted simply (and lazily) from complacency to ethical outrage. We’re shocked that Russians have allowed themselves to be taken in by Putin’s propaganda, forgetting that they aren’t the one ones able to dwelling a lie. A ballot carried out in 2015, greater than a decade after the American invasion of Iraq, discovered that 52 per cent of Fox Information viewers believed that weapons of mass destruction had been present in Iraq. Allow us to additionally recall that enthusiasm for Putin as a defender of “European values” was stronger in some western quarters than in Russia itself.
In his unsettlingly prophetic 2006 novel, Day of the Oprichnik, the Russian author Vladimir Sorokin imagines a future for his nation as a medieval-style theocracy the place the monarchy has been restored, flogging is again, and the official ideology is a type of corruption-friendly mysticism. A Nice Wall divides Russia from the west, all items come from China, and all concepts emerge from an imagined previous.
It’s straightforward to think about tomorrow’s Russia resembling Sorokin’s nightmares. Europe won’t ever really feel safe sharing a border with a Russia like this. Turning our backs on these Russians brave sufficient to oppose Putin’s warfare, even to those that don’t have the need to oppose it however a minimum of the decency to not assist it, can be a strategic mistake.
After the tip of the chilly warfare, the west assumed Russia would comply with the street taken by postwar Germany. However Russia’s behaviour over the previous decade resembles Germany in the course of the interval after the primary world warfare, not the second.
Three a long time in the past many within the west naively believed {that a} democratic future was the one potential path for post-Soviet Russia. Now we’re making a comparable mistake in assuming {that a} post-Putin Russia couldn’t be something however his Russia with one other strongman ruler.
Then-candidate Donald Trump is rushed offstage by U.S. Secret Service agents after being struck by a bullet during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
A Senate committee report released Sunday blames the U.S. Secret Service for a “cascade of preventable failures” that led up to the assassination attempt against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa., last summer.
Trump was injured in the shooting when a bullet whizzed past his head, grazing his ear. Two attendees were wounded, and rally-goer and former fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed.
A Secret Service sniper shot and killed the perpetrator, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa.
In its report, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the Secret Service’s “lack of structured communication was likely the greatest contributor to the failures” on the day of the rally. The report was released by the committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
For instance, the Secret Service security room agent, who is responsible for collecting and disseminating information, learned about a suspicious person with a rangefinder from a counterpart in the Pennsylvania State Police roughly 25 minutes before the shooting. That agent relayed the report to a fellow Secret Service agent in the room, but the information did not go out over the radio or make it to Trump’s security detail in time for them to prevent him from taking the stage.
There were communication gaps both within the Secret Service hierarchy, and also among the agency and the state and federal law enforcement agencies on scene, the committee said.
There were organizational mistakes, too. The committee noted that one of the Secret Service countersniper teams protecting Trump at the Butler rally had an obstructed view of the roof of the nearby American Glass Research building where Crooks was located.
The report, released one year to the day after the shooting, also found that the Secret Service had denied some resources to Trump’s detail during the 2024 presidential election and said former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle had falsely testified to Congress when she said no requests were denied for the Butler rally.
In a statement on Sunday, Secret Service Director Sean Curran said the agency “took a serious look at our operations” following last year’s shooting and “implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day.”
The agency announced last week that it had put in place 21 of 46 recommendations made by congressional oversight bodies, including streamlining communication procedures and clarifying the responsibilities of advance teams.
The Secret Service also said it had disciplined six employees in relation to the Butler shooting, with suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days without pay. Still, the committee said in its report that “not a single person has been fired.”
Curran, who was one of the agents who surrounded Trump as shots were fired in Butler, added in his statement that the Secret Service will “continue to work cooperatively with the committee as we move forward in our mission.”
A young girl carries a stuffed bear during a vigil for those lost in the Texas floods at the “Wall of Hope” fence memorial in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday. Photo by Dustin Safranek/EPA
July 12 (UPI) — More than 2,100 searchers from a dozen Texas Counties, other states and Mexico are continuing recovery efforts to find more victims of the deadly flash flooding in central Texas.
The confirmed-deaths toll rose to 129 with 170 still missing after officials in Travis and Kerr counties reported the recovery of more bodies, USA Today reported.
Most of the dead, 103, were found in Kerr County, including 36 children and 67 adults.
Among those missing is Volunteer Fire Chief Michael Phillips, whose rescue vehicle was swept away when flash flooding struck Burnet County.
Search crews later found the vehicle, but Phillips was not inside.
“Specialist teams and equipment continue to deploy into the search area and work themselves to exhaustion or until nightfall in the effort to find him,” the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office announced on Saturday, according to USA Today.
Many states and Mexico sent entire first responder teams, including Indiana, which deployed personnel from 15 fire and police departments to help the recovery effort, The New York Times reported.
Many volunteer groups also traveled to Kerr County, where most search efforts are focused.
“It’s overwhelming to see so many people come and help in the search,” Kerrville, Texas, resident Amy Vanlandingham told The New York Times.
“This is our town,” she said. “I do it so I can sleep.”
The Guadalupe River’s flash flooding during the early morning hours of July 4 decimated several local camps and other popular visitor destinations on one of their busiest days of the year.
The bodies of victims likely are situated in debris fields located along more than 100 miles of narrow and shallow valleys along the Guadalupe River in the mostly rural area of Texas Hill Country.
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and others visited Kerr County on Friday to assess the situation and better gauge the need for federal assistance.
Just after the summer session ended in late June, Heart O’ the Hills camper Sydney Sutton sent this photo to the camp’s director, Jane Ragsdale, who was killed in the July 4 flooding in Kerr County, Texas.
Erika Sutton
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Erika Sutton
Jane Ragsdale spent her summers by the Guadalupe, the very river that killed her a week ago today in the catastrophic July Fourth flood. Mention her name in Kerrville, Texas, this week, and folks tend to do two things: tear up and smile.
“I mean I can’t tell you how many people, acquaintances of mine say, ‘My dear, dear friend died.’ And then they said, ‘Did you know Jane Ragsdale?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, I did,’ ” said Karen Taylor, who lives in nearby Hunt, Texas. For her, Ragsdale was West Kerr County personified.
“Everybody’s friendly here, but she embodied that friendliness and generosity and love for others. I just can’t imagine life without her,” Taylor said.
Ragsdale, who was in her late 60s, did a lot of things, but she’s best known as the owner and director of Heart O’ the Hills camp for girls. She was born into the business.
Jane Ragsdale ran the Heart O’ the Hills camp for girls in Kerr County, Texas. The camp was between sessions when the deluge hit. The only person killed there was Ragsdale.
Kerrville Daily Times
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Kerrville Daily Times
Her family bought a boys’ camp, Camp Stewart in 1966, the year Ragsdale turned 9. They bought Heart O’ the Hills about a decade later. Ragsdale helped run it from the start. By 1988, she was in charge.
Unlike Camp Mystic, the girls camp where at least 27 perished when the deluge hit, Heart O’ the Hills was between sessions. The only person killed there was Ragsdale.
“I’ve never in my life met someone like Jane,” said Kathy Simmons, who was a good friend of Ragsdale’s.
Simmons was at Heart O’ the Hills picking up her granddaughter just the week before the flood, on the last night the camp was open.
“We had a candlelight service on the river at 9 p.m., and it was so beautiful. There were prayers and there were songs,” Simmons said. “Jane always led the children in songs. And every one of those girls and those counselors absolutely idolized her.”
After Heart O’ the Hills camper Sydney Sutton sent a photo of herself to Jane Ragsdale, the camp director wrote this letter back to Sydney.
Erika Sutton
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Erika Sutton
The summer camps on the Guadalupe River in Kerr County are institutions. Generations of girls and boys go through them, often forming life-long attachments. Simmons considered Ragsdale the heart and soul of her camp, both spiritual leader and educator.
“I mean, Jane taught these girls how to change a tire, how to ride a horse, how to swim, how to shoot a gun, archery, cooking. I mean, the necessities of life,” Simmons said.
In the off-season, when she wasn’t running the camp, Ragsdale often traveled to Guatemala, where she volunteered as an interpreter and a project organizer. It was mission work she started doing when she was 19 and studying journalism. She was a badass. But she was also about the sweetest person in town.
“Jane was one of the most genuine, kind, honest people and very intelligent, very warm,” recalls Mindy Wendele, president and CEO of the Kerrville Area Chamber of Commerce. “She had a smile that you knew Jane Ragsdale was smiling at you.”
Wendele grew up with Ragsdale, who she describes as a real go-getter: deeply involved in the Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the local liberal arts college, a class leader in high school.
“Anytime that we were out with Jane and her family at Heart O’ the Hills, we had just a fabulous time, just fabulous memories out there,” Wendele said.
Now, with some of the camps and almost all of the riverfront in ruins, Kerr County faces a monumental clean-up and rebuilding effort.
Another reason to miss Jane Ragsdale.
“Oh, she would be out there volunteering. She would be out there clearing property,” Simmons said. “She would have her boots on, her gloves on, she would be helping every dang soul that needed to be helped.”
So the flood took one of Kerr County’s most capable citizens, but Ragsdale’s influence on the community and the girls who came through Heart O’ the Hills camp is going to last a long time.
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