Our Best Stuff From Another Big Week for Ukraine

An explosion takes out a portion of the bridge connecting Russia to Crimea.

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Hello! It’s another Saturday with breaking news out of Ukraine. Well, I guess that depends on whether you think Crimea is part of Ukraine or part of Russia. Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014, and it’s been using Crimea to supply its forces in the south.

It had been doing so in part by transporting things over the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland. The 12-mile bridge, which Reuters describes it as a “prestige symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula.” is the longest in Europe and in 2018, Vladimir Putin was on hand to open it. But an explosion early Saturday morning took out a portion of the bridge, dealing Russia not only a logistical blow but a psychological one as well. 

The Washington Post is reporting, based on a quote from an unidentified official, that Ukrainian special services took out the bridge. The Ukrainian government has made no official statement, but official Ukrainian Twitter accounts are reveling in the moment.

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  1. Francis Allocca

    If Mr. French feels they are threatening, he has the option to ask for police involvement...

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  2. Gene Morphis

    I think I can believe that: 1) the U.S. State Department was waist deep in regime change in Ukraine which helped create this mess, 2) Ukraine is not particularly strategically important to the U.S., 3) that the billions of U.S. dollars being borrowed to spend there is largely wasted, and 4) I have no, zero, interest of the U.S. getting further involved, without being a "Russian apologist".

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    Derrick Bourgeois

    I'm looking for to further reading on these topics. In the mean time, my thoughts...

    “Nobody on the right seems able to stop and ask: ‘Why? Why do we want a party whose leading lights are such figures as Donald Trump and Herschel Walker to control the Senate? Why would we want such figures as Lindsey Graham or Josh Hawley to control anything?’” - Herschel Walker might have been a great football player but the man can't string together a coherent sentence. He is obviously unqualified for the position regardless of his views on abortion. It's clear that they Republicans chose him as their candidate based solely on his name recognition and popularity as a sports hero...and in a blatant attempt to increase their support in the African-American community. The only positive that I come up with for Walker is his opponent.

    "Do we think an invertebrate like Kevin McCarthy is prepared to stare down the Tucker Carlsons and cast that vote anyway?” - No. No I don't think that at all. I used to watch Tucker's show pre-2020 election. I didn't always agree with him but he addressed issues that were important to me but too often ignored by mainstream media. Now it seems like he's gone completely off the deep end. His entire show now seems to be composed of nonsense and absurdities and yet he's more popular than ever. SMH.

    "The left has often used climate change to advance an anti-capitalist agenda and argue that the modern way of life is destroying the planet. John Gustavsson says the conservative response should not be to deny climate change exists, but to embrace pragmatic solutions that don’t require going vegans, eating bugs, or giving up our cars." - Thank you. Exactly. I don't see this happening anytime soon however. Last night my wife, who has gone full on Ultra MAGA, read a headline from a Right Wing news aggregation site and began to opine as to the significance of it and how it showed the evil intentions of the Woke Left. Problem was, I was quite sure she had totally misinterpreted the headline...and had not actually read the article. So I pulled up the article on my phone. Since it was a news aggregation site, the link was to the actual website that was hosting the article and it was a perfectly reasonable site and the article had nothing what-so-ever to do with the Woke Left. I tried to explain this to my wife and begged her to just read the damned article that she was going on about but had clearly misunderstood but to no avail. She didn't need to read it. She already knew what her opinion was and it wasn't going to change. That plays out across so many different areas of importance to our country that it's frightening. We're going to hell in a handbasket no matter which side emerges victorious. I can only hope things remain deadlocked and Congress continues with their typical inaction. At least that way they'll do less harm.

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    Dennis

    I sympathize with your voting dilemma, Rachael. It’s been going on, as you say, since 2016. And here in Arizona voter suppression is in the form of a slate of GOP candidates impossible to vote for (B is also unacceptable). At least I can vote for State Mine Inspector.

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  5. sharon

    Sounds like you are describing an imperialist president from the USA. SO easy to see what Russia might be doing wrong but have many times have we made puppets.

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  6. Kim Shankman

    Rachel, will the Dispatch have an app when you migrate? I really have enjoyed the Substack experience much more since the app was released and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Dispatch will have one now that it’s venturing out on its own.

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    Alvin Mast

    The only way to avoid being a hypocrite is to have no morals at all.

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  8. Karin

    The evolving Herschel Walker story feels like the least surprising news ever. Am I wrong to think that his paying for an abortion is beside the point? The man is completely unqualified to hold a Senate seat.

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      Pat Riot

      It's besides the point to the Republicans, that's for sure.

      Today the entire party (and supposedly 'moderate' GOP rags like NR too) would back Roy Moore no questions asked. That's how far the party has come in just four short years.


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        JohnM.

        I can tell by what you said that you don't read NR. Otherwise you would know that they are principled conservatives, not 'moderate' conservatives.
        https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/12/roy-moore-election-conservative-case-against-him/

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          Pat Riot

          Um, that article was by David French, who was since *left* NR. Oops.

          Edit: and if you want to go back to the WFB days, Buckley would have said to vote for HRC and the Democrats in 2016, would have taken NR the same direction as Weekly Standard, and may well have been defunct by now because of it.

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      CynthiaW

      Yeah, but, if he's elected, I'm sure he won't be the first profoundly brain-damaged Senator in U.S. history.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Hi Rachael
    I’m no expert on Crimea, but I do like the song Crimea River. I also adopted a little girl from Sebastopol in Crimea.

    Crimeans will tell you they do not belong to Russia. They were conquered but feel they are not Russian. Russian immigrants tell you the Crimean is Russian, while Ukrainian immigrants tell you it belongs to Ukraine. Tatars also live there and just want to be left alone.

    None have a majority. When the USSR broke up a (literally) boatload of Soviet sailors got discharged into Sebastopol.

    It really depends on who you talk to.

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  10. sharon

    Anthony Blinken is praising an explosion of the Pipeline. Sounds like an Isis Terrorist, then a bridge is blown up, how can that be good. It takes time to fix the infrastructure and loss of human life. I thought the Dems were green. Hypocrites, wars are not green. Cannot have it both ways. I have called and written Blinken, he is a warmonger. Hope he is on the frontlines.

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      Jack

      How is Anthony Blinken a warmonger? The U.S. isn’t even in the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the side we are backing (the Ukrainians) are defending their country after it was attacked by Russia.

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      1. sharon

        Not in a wAr. Why are we sending weapons and $$$$? Why would he say blowing up a natural resource of a fellow Cointreau might be good? It is called pollution. Russia told the UN why he attacked. He was not listened too. Why is another not a peace broker? He would rather make $$$$. Then broker a deal.

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          Jack

          We're sending weapons and money because (I assume) the current administration views the existence of one more democracy in the world as preferable to a Russian puppet state.
          For the record, Putin's supposed justifications for invading Ukraine are lies. He invaded to satisfy his own imperial ambitions, not to free Ukraine from Nazis. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any Nazis in positions of political power in Ukraine, and certainly not in any major positions of power.

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About Rachael Larimore

Rachael Larimore is managing editor of The Dispatch.
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