The Week Magazine March 18, 2022

Dictators promising national “greatness’’ inevitably inflict misery on their own people, and it will be no different with Vladimir Putin. As he escalates his barbaric bombardment of Ukrainian civilians, the West’s censure of Russia is blurring into the condemnation of Russians. Russian artists, performers, and athletes—whose family members are entirely at Putin’s mercy—are facing demands that they publicly condemn the regime. (See Best U.S. columns, p.12.) In New York City, Russian restaurant owners are being told that they are Nazis who should “go home.” The misunderstanding here is nothing less than profound. New York’s biggest “Russian” neighborhood is informally called “Little Odessa,” because so many of its inhabitants are immigrants from the southern city in Ukraine currently under assault. Kharkiv, where civilians are besieged in the north, is an almost…

What happened Ukrainian forces held control of all but one of the nation’s major cities this week amid fierce fighting, but Russia’s escalating bombardment of residential areas created a growing humanitarian crisis, killing hundreds of citizens and leaving tens of thousands without food, water, heat, or power. In the southern city of Mariupol, Russians shelled apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals, leaving corpses in the street and forcing hungry residents to scavenge for food and melt snow for water. A temporary cease-fire was called to allow citizens to evacuate, but Ukrainian officials said the Russians bombarded the corridor to safety. In the Kyiv suburb Irpin, Russians cut off electricity, water, and gas, residential areas were beset by shelling, and at least eight citizens trying to flee across a bridge were…

What happened Russia grew more isolated than ever this week as President Vladimir Putin cut off access to foreign news and Western companies pulled their businesses out. Anti-war protests rippled across Russian cities, but police put them down brutally, arresting nearly 5,000 demonstrators in one day. In Moscow, police smashed bottles over protesters’ heads, sprayed sanitizer in their eyes, and dragged them by the hair. McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola joined the exodus of multinational corporations, throwing thousands of Russians out of work. After the foreign leasing companies that own most of Russia’s commercial jet fleet said they would recall the planes to comply with sanctions, Moscow halted those flights, effectively appropriating billions of dollars’ worth of aircraft. Many Russians, particularly reporters and intellectuals, fled abroad, fearing borders would soon…

“World War III has never been closer,” said David M. Herszenhorn in Politico. Fearing a direct military confrontation with Russia that could escalate out of control, NATO and Western leaders have refused to send any troops to help the Ukrainians, ruled out a nofly zone, and declined to send fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine. But there is still a “grave danger” the U.S. and its NATO allies will be “drawn into the war.” It might happen because of a misunderstanding—a Russian missile coming down on NATO soil in neighboring Poland, for example. Or Russian dictator Vladimir Putin might choose to escalate the war beyond Ukraine’s borders if he faces defeat, believing he’s now in an existential struggle with the West. Many fear the Russian president will target Moldova…

Good week for: Irony, after The New Yorker reported that Mark Meadows, former President Trump’s chief of staff, listed a rented North Carolina mobile home as his residence when registering to vote in 2020—even though neighbors say he never even spent a night there. National pride, after Whitney Hay, 21, of Kansas won the annual Pancake Day Race against a British competitor. The competition, which dates to the 15th century in Britain, requires contestants to carry a pancake in a frying pan and flip it at the start and end of a 415-yard running race. Teetotalers, after a British study found that drinking two glasses of beer or wine a day for men, and one glass for women, is associated with brain shrinkage equivalent to two years of aging. Bad week…

A student theater club at Fordham University in New York has created a whites-only “safe space for white allies to educate themselves and actively fight against racism.” The White Anti-Racist Working Group says it excludes people of color to free them from “responsibility for white people’s education,” as white students “seek to uncover the depths of their internalized racist superiority.” In gambling, the house always wins—except in Washington, D.C., where a city-run sports-betting app somehow managed to lose more than $4 million last year. The local government projected annual tax revenues of $20 million from the app, but a $6 million advertising budget, a glitchy interface, and uncompetitive payouts left it in the red. The app even crashed during this year’s Super Bowl. In other news Senate OKs Postal Service…