I will note again that we should treat all these reports of troop movements and battles as tentative. Our ability to see what is happening is blurry at best. But I wanted to update you on my post below about Ukrainian counter offensives. At a Pentagon briefing today, reporters heard that Russian forces to the northwest of Kyiv have started building defensive positions. So they don’t seem to be going anywhere. However, to the east, where Russian forces were within 15 to 20 kilometers of the city center are now 55 kilometers away after a counter-offensive by Ukrainian Army forces.

For our annual membership drive, TPM Reader KS shares why TPM is a must read and must-subscribe for him. (Nota Bene: the reference to zero ads is Prime AF. A basic Prime membership has reduced ads but still some ads …)

What does TPM give me that I can’t get anywhere else? Number one, TPM makes good on the promise of no-commercials. Yes I’m paying for it, but that wouldn’t stop the ads on any other news source. This alone tells me something is different here. Reading TPM gives me the feeling that I can predict the weather and the future of the country at the same time. The writers are far above average in having both wit and keen observation. I seek out Nicole Lafond’s person-in-the street writing, and the Weekender and her perspective from ground zero during the pandemic. I crave Josh Kovensky’s insight to Russia and Ukraine. Articles by Kate Riga and others. A whole section on voting rights. The Editor’s Blog. And no, I’m not a podcast listener yet – but might have time after I retire. This is just scratching the surface, there’s so much here.

This is the core portion of a statement just released by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), one of ex-President Trump’s most ardent Big Lie supporters, after Trump pulled his endorsement. It’s an astonishing statement.

President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.

It’s definitional sedition.

Newly-minted TPM Member MT tells us why he joined. Some very kind words at the beginning. But the ones in the second half stood out to me about our team …

I joined because when I first started reading blogs, I thought you were the best out there. You had the best takes, the best insight, but more than anyone else–you found (and still find) the best questions to ask.  You very much know the limitations of your own knowledge, and that sets the stage for your readers to learn on their own.

I’ve taken issue with you over the years, for the most part unfairly (I believe I once criticized the number of Oberlin grads on your roster), usually during some broader national trauma (yes, that is indeed my excuse), but I’ve stuck around because y’all have kept proving me wrong.  I’m grateful to call myself a subscriber, and I’ll be “giving the gift of Prime” to my little brother on his 49th birthday in May, so watch for that.

I don’t want to get too deep into particular reports. But both Ukrainian government sources in Kyiv as well as reporters on the ground in contested areas are reporting that the Ukrainian Army is having some success reclaiming territory around Kyiv over the last 24 to 48 hours. (Peruse my Ukraine Crisis and Military Analysts lists to get more granular details.) I wouldn’t put too much into these reports as yet since both propaganda and the fog of war make our visibility blurry at best. (I find it impossible to know what to make of claims like this, for instance.) And even the reported gains are fairly small. But this does seem to be happening. And it matches reports of real though not game-changing counteroffensives and reclaiming of territory in other parts of the country. There’s been an assumption that these fronts are basically stalemated or that the Ukrainian Army’s size and armament is really suited only to defensive operations. But it’s not clear that is the case.

Eliot Cohen is a commentator on military affairs who’s been a fixture of Washington’s conversations for decades. He’s generally been in line with the policy hands identified as “neocons” but his writing has never been entirely in line with theirs. It’s at least a bit more independent, a bit less infected with their antic zeal. Earlier this month Cohen wrote a short article for The Atlantic titled “The Strategy That Can Defeat Putin.” It’s essentially a neo-Cold War manifesto which calls for a military crusade against the kind of revanchist authoritarianism which Vladimir Putin’s Russia both embodies and leads. Cohen writes that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “is a threat, too, to the integrity and self-confidence of the world’s liberal democracies, battered as they have been by internal disputes and backsliding abroad.” He argues that the goal of U.S./EU/NATO policy must be not only to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine but “to leave Russia profoundly weakened and militarily crippled, incapable of renewing such an onslaught, isolated and internally divided until the point that an aging autocrat falls from power. Targeting Putin alone is not enough.”

Quite frequently I’ll get an email from a TPM Reader who asks me whether they can cut and paste a whole paywalled article to share it with someone else or whether we can put it in front of the paywall so non-members can read it. As I tell people individually, there’s no need. We’ve done a poor job getting the word out about this so here goes. If you’re a member, you can take any Prime/paywalled article and create a link that is not behind the paywall, that anyone can read whether they’re a member or not. On every paywalled article there’s a “share” button. Click that and it allows you to copy a non-paywalled link. It’s not the same as if you just cut and paste from your browser. You have to do it with that button. So if you want to email it to your colleague or son or daughter or anyone else you’re welcome to. It also allows you to share a non-paywalled version on the big social media sites. We do this because we want you to be able to share with people you know who aren’t members. It’s also an indirect form of publicity to attract new readers and hopefully new members.

I want to say thank you to everyone who joined as members today and throughout this drive. During this drive we’re mainly trying to sign up TPM Readers who’ve been readers often for some time but for various reasons hadn’t become members. So for those who have just joined, I’m very interested to hear from you. What made you decide to join now?

We’re starting the second week of our drive. It’s really, really critical it be a good one. I’ve spoken to a number of TPM Readers over the last few days who have told me, “Well, I’d been thinking about it and that post pushed me over the edge.” I need to push more of you over the edge. If you’ve been meaning to join but haven’t gotten around to it, please make today the day. If you’ve been on the fence, please lean into it. Come off the fence and join us. You get a lot of great additional stuff we publish. And you support a truly independent operation bringing you the news in a genuinely unique way. Please join us. Just click right here.

Thank you in advance from all of us.

This is a quick follow-up on a COVID post I did last week, noting evidence of a new mini- or moderate- surge after the trough of the last month or two. I had said that my impression was that the driver was mainly the relaxation of mitigation measures — both as policy from governments and people individually changing their behavior. That seems less clear than I thought. There seems to be more evidence that the Omicron subvariant BA.2 is a key driver, perhaps the key driver. The evidence still seems muddy because BA.2 appears to have only a moderate advantage in infectiousness. And its share of cases has grown fairly slowly against the original Omicron strain. So there’s a lot about the dynamics of this latest trend that are not clear to me. But just let this stand as a partial correction or update on the earlier post which focused on declining mitigation. Be safe out there.