Russia blows past another off ramp in the Ukraine crisis
CNN
For those watching the Ukraine crisis, February 20 was supposed to be a date to watch.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics ended on Sunday, and some observers worried the closing ceremony might be a convenient moment for Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch military action. After all, history does rhyme: Russia escalated a brief conflict with Georgia in 2008 during the Beijing Summer Olympics, and Russia began its slow-rolling annexation of Crimea at the tail end of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
But Sunday also offered Russia a potential opening for de-escalation. After all, massive joint Russian military exercises in Belarus were slated to end on February 20, and the Kremlin had suggested Russian troops would go home after they finished, without giving concrete dates. Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei even said "not a single" Russian solider or piece of Russian military equipment will remain in Belarus once the drills ended.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
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As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.
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The FBI arrested a person Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.