Russia and the United States have carried out an unexpected prisoner exchange in a time of high tensions, trading a Marine veteran jailed by Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving a long prison sentence in America.
Polish and Bulgarian leaders accused Moscow of using natural gas to blackmail their countries after Russia’s state-controlled energy company stopped supplying them with gas Wednesday. European Union leaders echoed those comments and were holding an emergency meeting on the Russian move.
The world seems to have suddenly awakened to the fact that we are in a proxy war with Russia. President Zelensky of Ukraine, in trying to save his own country, has been the front runner to alert us that we might be next.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Russia’s war in Ukraine amounted to “genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”
China has described reports and images of civilian killings in Ukraine as disturbing, and urged that they be further investigated, even while declining to blame Russia.