(CNN)Russian government officials requested that a former colonel from the country’s domestic spy agency who was convicted of murder in Germany last year be added to the US’ proposed swap of a notorious arms dealer for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, multiple sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
The Russians communicated the request to the US earlier this month through an informal backchannel used by the spy agency, known as the FSB, that they wanted Vadim Krasikov released in addition to Viktor Bout, the sources said. Krasikov was convicted in December of murdering a former Chechen fighter, Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
The request was seen as problematic for several reasons, the sources told CNN, among them that Krasikov remains in German custody. As such, and because the request was not communicated formally but rather through the FSB backchannel, the US government did not view it as a legitimate counter to the US’ offer which was first revealed by CNN on Wednesday.
But underscoring how determined the Biden administration has been to get Griner and Whelan back to the US, US officials did make quiet inquiries to the Germans about whether they might be willing to include Krasikov in the trade, a senior German government source told CNN. A US official characterized the outreach as a status check on Krasikov.
The conversations were never elevated to the top levels of the German government and including Krasikov in a potential trade has not been seriously considered, the German source said. But the previously unreported discussions reveal that Russian officials have at least somewhat engaged with the US’ proposal.
While the request was not made through formal channels, the FSB has an expansive remit and is a core part of the Russian security apparatus. Russian President Vladimir Putin famously worked for its powerful predecessor, the KGB.
Asked for comment, a State Department official told CNN that “In order to preserve the best opportunity for a successful outcome, we’re not going to comment publicly on any speculation.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the US had put “a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago” to facilitate Griner and Whelan’s release. He added that “our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal.”
Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday about the proposed swap. They had a “frank and direct conversation” Blinken said.
“I pressed the Kremlin to accept the substantial proposal that we put forth on the release of Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner,” Blinken added.
Multiple sources told CNN that even if it is not Krasikov, the Russians will likely demand two prisoners be released in exchange for Griner and Whelan. Russian government officials have indicated publicly in recent weeks that they want to see the release of Bout and Roman Seleznev, a convicted hacker currently serving a 27-year sentence in the US.
“I’m not sure that any additional activity, especially in the public sphere, will help a correct, balanced compromise and find a basis to alleviate the fate of a lot of our compatriots such as Viktor Bout, who has health problems, [or] such as Seleznev, and many others,” Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters earlier this month.
But US officials believe Russia is just trying to buy time by making unserious offers until Griner’s trial is over.
Griner is on trial for allegedly entering Russia in February with cannabis oil in her luggage, something she said she uses for pain relief and that she packed in her bags unintentionally. Whelan was convicted on espionage charges in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. The State Department has declared both of them wrongfully detained.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian operative under the supervision of one of the Kremlin’s main intelligence services has been charged with recruiting political groups in the United States to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including during the invasion of Ukraine, the Justice Department said Friday.
The indictment of Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov reflects what U.S. officials say are ongoing Russian government efforts to meddle in the American political process, to shape public opinion and to sow discord and dissent on hot-button social issues.
In this case, the authorities say, Ionov from 2014 through last March recruited political groups in Florida, Georgia and California and directed them to spread pro-Russia talking points. He also paid for group members to attend government-funded conferences in Russia, as well as a protest in the U.S. to counter efforts to silence online support for Moscow’s Ukraine invasion, the indictment says.
“As court documents show, Ionov allegedly orchestrated a brazen influence campaign, turning U.S. political groups and U.S. citizens into instruments of the Russian government,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement.
Ionov worked under the supervision of the Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB — which conducts domestic intelligence and counterintelligence activities — and reported his activities back to the agency, prosecutors say. He is the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, a Moscow-based group that prosecutors say advocates for a fully sovereign Russia.
The indictment, in federal court in Tampa, charges him with conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf, and he is not currently in custody.
The indictment does not identify by name any of the organizations Ionov sought to recruit, but it does describe one of them as a St. Petersburg, Florida group whose leaders knew that Ionov and his group were agents of a foreign government.
Prosecutors say Ionov in 2015 directed the group to post a petition titled “Petition on Crime of Genocide against African People in the United States.” The change.org petition notes America’s history of slavery and denial of civil rights for Black people. It argues the U.S. government still fails “to protect our health and well-being as expected under full citizenship” and inflicts “state or state-supported violence and terror on us.”
The petition is labeled as being from the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, a Black international socialist organization. Representatives from the group said the FBI raided their center in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Akile Anai, who describes herself as director of agitation and propaganda for the African People’s Socialist Party, said agents searched her car and took her cellphone and laptop computer on Friday in addition to raiding the Uhuru House.
Anai said her organization had never received money from Ionov or any other members of the Russian intelligence service.
Members of the Uhuru movement first met Ionov in Russia when they were invited to an anti-globalization conference, and Anai said she also had been in contact with Ionov via email and also a webinar after Russia invaded Ukraine since “we were getting one side of the story on Russian and Ukraine.”
Officials alleged Friday that Ionov sought to inject himself into local politics in 2017 by supporting one of the group’s members for office. Anai said any money the campaigns received outside the U.S. was returned.
“Their premise is these were Russian campaigns. It’s a really insulting statement,” Anai said. “It was the Black community that ran the campaigns in our own interests. It’s an insulting notion that Black people can’t do anything for ourselves.”
Prosecutors say Ionov also exercised control of a separate organization in California that promoted state secession from the U.S, and helped fund a 2018 demonstration at the state capitol building. According to the indictment, he sent news coverage of the event to one of his FSB contacts and said that the officer had asked for “turmoil” and “there you go.”
More recently, prosecutors say, Ionov paid for the travel of an unnamed Georgia group to join a protest outside a social media company in California that had placed restrictions on posts supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against Ionov Friday, accusing him of giving money to organizations that he and Russian intelligence services thought would create a social or political disturbance in the U.S.
The case is part of a much broader Justice Department crackdown on foreign influence operations aimed at shaping public opinion in the U.S. In 2018, for instance, the Justice Department charged 13 Russian nationals with participating in a huge but hidden social media campaign aimed at sowing discord during the 2016 presidential election won by Republican Donald Trump.
FBI Special Agent in Charge David Walker in Tampa called the latest Russian efforts “some of the most egregious and blatant violations we’ve seen.”
“The Russian intelligence threat is continuous and unrelenting,” Walker said at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. “Today’s actions should serve as a deterrent.”
____
Schneider reported from Orlando. Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Now that the trial of Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger is grinding to its conclusion, the morally bankrupt dealings of the Boston branch of the FBI and its favorite local informants are once again making front-page news. Bulger is facing federal racketeering charges based on his alleged loansharking, extortion, distribution of illegal drugs, shakedowns of local drug dealers and at least 19 murders.
Bulger’s alleged crimes violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act, passed by Congress in 1970 to aid the FBI in taking down criminal organizations such as the Mafia and corrupt labor unions. The law defines a RICO as any organization that participates in, among other things, “any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical.” The evidence produced so far at the Bulger trial clearly implicates Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang in racketeering acts. But that same evidence also shows that the FBI, built almost singlehandedly by the widely reviled J. Edgar Hoover (whose name still adorns the Bureau’s Washington, DC, headquarters – indicating that revilement of Hoover is far from universal), easily qualifies as a RICO.
The FBI’s culpability comes from its agreement to protect Bulger and his associates from local, state and other federal agencies’ investigations into their moneymaking schemes and murders. In exchange for this protection, Bulger passed along tips that helped the FBI take down the once-powerful Boston branch of the Patriarca New England Mafia crime family, led by the Angiulo family with headquarters in Boston’s North End. FBIhandlers also passed tips to Bulger about his rivals and enemies, many of whom ended up in shallow graves around the Boston area not long after. As a result of this corrupt partnership – one might even call it a conspiracy – the FBI received widespread adulation for eliminating the Boston Mafia, while Bulger and his Winter Hill gang eliminated the competition for their lucrative rackets. (One could argue, we suppose, that the FBI and its partner Bulger conspired to violate anti-trust laws, but for current purposes we’ll stick to the anti-racketeering statute.)
When the game was up and Massachusetts prosecutors were about to issue an indictment against Bulger, Bulger’s FBI handler John Connolly, currently serving a 40-year state-imposed sentence in Florida for murder, tipped him off(for which Connolly served an earlier federal sentence). Bulger escaped and spent the next sixteen years on the lam. You read that correctly: in exchange for his help in taking down the Italian mob, the FBI helped Bulger avoid answering for the savage crimes that made him king of the Boston underworld. It was a match made in Heaven (or Hell, if one prefers).And, in fact, the match may well involve not just the Boston FBI, but the Massachusetts United States Attorney’s office as well. Bulger claims that a high official in the New England Organized Crime Strike Force (a collaborative effort spearheaded by the FBI and Boston US Attorney’s office) promised Bulger immunity for any crime, including murders committed in the future, that he might perpetrate during his cooperation with the feds in bringing down the Mafia. But we’ll likely never learn the whole truth about this, since federal District Judge Denise Casper, herself a former prosecutor, denied Bulger’s motion to present the jury with evidence to support his immunity claim. Even so, the evidence thus far adduced in the Bulger trial gives ample indication of the close relationship between the Winter Hill mob and the Boston FBI office.
If the Bulger saga were the only example of such unsavory conduct by the FBI, one could argue that this level of corruption was not sufficiently embedded and widespread to constitute the kind of racketeering enterprisethat the RICO statute targets. But the FBI’s lawless, or at least highlydubious, activity goes well beyond this.
There are the historical outrages, like the FBI’s spying on homosexuals to create rap sheets that J. Edgar Hoover could use against his political enemies, or the FBI’s round-the-clock surveillance of the highest levels of the civil rights movement (a Memphis undercover cop who was a regular FBI informant was present during the assassination of the ReverendMartin Luther King, Jr.). Even earlier in the organization’s history, when it was still known as the Bureau of Investigations, an ascendant Hoover earned his chops overseeing the trumped up prosecutions of leftists, foreigners and other such “undesirables” in cases so egregious that they led concerned citizens to form the ACLU. During the McCarthy era, Hoover and his agents passed information to McCarthy’s staff, helping McCarthy destroy the lives of those who came in his sights.
More recently, the FBI has come under deserved scrutiny for the fatal shooting of Ibragim Todashev by an FBI agent. Todashev was under investigation as an alleged accomplice to Boston Marathon Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple homicide and had undergone several earlier FBI interrogations apparently without incident.The official FBIstory so far is that Todashev, on the verge of signing a confession, suddenly went crazy and lunged at the FBI agent, who then shot him. In early accounts, Todashev was armed with a knife, in later accounts he was unarmed. Official accountsalso claim that two Massachusetts state troopers who had accompanied the FBI agent to Todashev’s apartment were convenientlyout of the room when the shooting occurred, leaving no living witnesses except the FBI agent who pulled the trigger.
The Todashev shooting is not a fluke. According to the New York Times, FBI agents fatally shot 70 people and wounded another 80 between 1993 and 2011. While some may be shocked to discover that internal FBI investigators have deemed every single one of those shootings appropriate, those of us who see the FBI as a racketeering organization know that such self-justification is par for the course among such groups. Just ask John Martorano, the unrepentant Winter Hill Gang enforcer who confessed to twenty murders, all perpetrated while Bulger was under FBI protection, and servedonly twelve yearsafter cuttinga rather favorable deal with the feds.
The FBI can get away with this slew of supposedly justified killings because, like any good racketeering organization, the FBI hates conducting its business on the record. Its official rules ban the recording of interrogations and witness interviews, which are instead typically conducted by two agents, one of whom asks questions and the other of whom takes the notes that will eventually become the official report of the interview. Any witness or defendant who dares contradict this official report is subject to prosecution under a statute that provides for a five-year sentence for lying to a federal agent. This scheme of extorting (or, more politely, creating)testimony that aligns with what the FBI wants to hear largely explains the fact that a staggering 97% of federal cases end in guilty pleas.
Examples like these could fill this space a dozen times over, leading us to suspect that racketeering activity is so deeply ingrained in the agency’s culture that the FBI qualifies as a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization under any reasonable reading of the RICO Act. Perhaps it’s time to shut down the organization, take Hoover’s name off the building, and start over. And when the job of either reforming or dismantling the FBI is done, perhaps we might focus our efforts on any of the other federal law enforcement agencies that have run off the rails, such as those that enforce the drug laws. Now there’s a fertile field just waiting to be plowed.
Silverglate’s research assistant, Zachary Bloom, who resides in Somerville, MA, co-authored this piece.
12 unanswered questions about the Larry Nassar sex-abuse scandal
In a controversy with parallels to the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal involving Penn State, Dr. Larry Nassar is a former Michigan State University faculty member accused of abusing young women for most of his career. In addition to working at MSU, Nassar was a high-profile sports-medicine doctor who went to four Olympic games as team physician for U.S. gymnasts. Click here for an in-depth look at the controversy.
Most of Nassar’s accusers are former patients who tell a similar story: As women in their teens and early 20s, they went to Nassar with a sports injury involving the hip or lower back, and his treatment involved vaginal or anal penetration for 20 to 40 minutes at a time. The women claim Nassar performed the procedure without explanation, without consent and without using gloves or lubricant. The video here features Rachael Denhollander, one of Nassar’s accusers, talking about her experience.
Nassar is currently in federal custody on three charges related to child pornography. He also faces three counts of criminal sexual conduct involving a family friend who alleges she was sexually assaulted between 1998 and 2004 when she was under 13 years old. On Feb. 27 that case was bound over to Ingham County Circuit Court for trial. More than 50 women, most of them patients, have filed criminal complaints against Nassar, and more than 30 have filed civil lawsuits. The above graphic shows the first 26 lawsuits filed against Nassar; click on a bubble for more details of each case.
Larry Nassar in a 2008 file photo.
Becky Shink/Lansing State Journal via AP File
Question 1: What is Nassar’s side of the story?
Nassar has pleaded not guilty in either of the criminal cases and has not been convicted of a crime. Neither he nor his attorney have responded to the lawsuits. His attorney declined to comment on recent news reports.
Scott Levin / MLive
Question 2: Why did it take 20 years for Nassar to face charges?
According to the lawsuits, complaints about Nassar date back to the late 1990s when at least four patients questioned if his intravaginal procedures were medically appropriate, and there have been additional complaints since. Each time, the women said in lawsuits, they were told they were getting medically recognized treatments. It wasn’t until two former patients went public in a Sept. 12 Indianapolis Star story that Nassar was fired from MSU and faced criminal charges.
Lauren Gibbons | MLive
Question 3: What did MSU officials know and when did they know it?
In the late 1990s, a teenage gymnast, a MSU softball player and a MSU long-distance runner claim they complained to MSU coaches and/or athletic trainers about Nassar’s intravaginal treatments, according to lawsuits. In each case, the women claim they were told that Nassar was a renowned doctor and knew what he was doing, the lawsuits say. Three alleged victims say they brought concerns to MSU gymnastics coach Kathie Klages as early as 1997. Klages retired Feb. 14 after being suspended by the university.However, MSU spokesman Jason Cody has said there is no record of MSU receiving any complaint involving Nassar before 2014.
The Dimondale location for Twistars Gymnastics Club. Dr. Larry Nassar volunteered with the organization and was also recommended to gymnasts by Twistars officials for treatments.
Lauren Gibbons | MLive
Question 4: What did USA Gymnastics officials know and when did they know it?
Working as an athletic trainer, Nassar began volunteering in 1986 with USA Gymnastics, the national parent organization for the sport. In 1996, three years after getting his medical degree, he was named team doctor for the U.S. national team, accompanying gymnasts on numerous road trips. The earliest complaint involving Nassar is from a 2000 Olympic medalist who says she was abused by Nassar between 1994 and 2000. USA Gymnastics cut ties with Nassar in 2015 after hearing of “athletes concerns.” However, at least two people allege they told USA Gymnastics coaches about concerns prior to that — one in 1997 and the other in 2004.
The Michigan State University Sports Medicine building in East Lansing, where Dr. Larry Nassar was employed and practiced medicine until September 2016.
Lauren Gibbons | MLive
Question 5: Why did Meridian Township police dismiss a 2004 complaint against Nassar?
In 2004, a teenage athlete treated by Nassar at MSU’s sport-medicine clinic filed a complaint with Meridian Township police alleging she was abused during an appointment. The department did not seek charges in the case. Meridian Township police haven’t released details of their investigation, and it’s unclear why they dropped the case and why they apparently did not contact MSU about the allegations.
The Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, which is the police agency for Holt, where Nassar lives, says it has never received a criminal complaint involving the former MSU doctor.
Julie Mack | jmack1@mlive.com
Question 6: Why weren’t authorities called in 2004 when a 12-year-old said she was abused?
According to an Ingham County court document, the family friend allegedly assaulted by Nassar told her parents and a counselor in 2004 about the abuse. The court document says the counselor called a meeting between Nassar and the girls’ parents in which Nassar denied the abuse and the girl’s parents forced her to recant. During Nassar’s preliminary examination Feb. 17, that counselor was called to testify, but he claimed he had no knowledge of treating the girl. The court document also says the young women has since told other therapists about the alleged abuse. There is no record of anyone reporting Nassar to the authorities related to this incident.
The Michigan State University Sports Medicine building in East Lansing, where Dr. Larry Nassar was employed and practiced medicine until September 2016.
Lauren Gibbons | MLive
Question 7: What are the details of a 2014 investigation into Nassar?
In 2014, a Nassar patient filed a report with MSU police alleging she was abused during an appointment. Police forwarded the complaint to the Ingham County proesecutor’s office, which declined to prosecute after they recognized the treatment as medically legitimate. Among questions about that case: The young woman has said MSU’s investigative report omitted her observation that Nassar seemed sexually aroused during the treatment and that she had to physically remove his hands from her body. MSU declined to comment on those allegations.
Facebook message posted by Larry Nassar on Aug. 14, 2016, explaining why he was not at the 2016 Olympic games.
Becky Shink / Lansing State Journal
Question 8: Why didn’t USA Gymnastics tell MSU in 2015 about suspicions involving Nassar?
Nassar posted on Facebook that he stopped working with USA Gymnastics in 2015 so he could concentrate on his run for Holt school board. However, USA Gymnastics now says they cut ties with Nassar in the summer of 2015 amid “athletes concerns.” Those “concerns” have never been detailed in public, nor is it clear why USA Gymnastics did not notify MSU about those allegations. Nassar continued to treat patients for another year.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles announces federal charges for possession of child pornography against former Michigan State University gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar on Monday, Dec. 19, 2016 in Grand Rapids.
Neil Blake | MLive.com
Question 9: When was the FBI told of allegations involving Nassar?
USA Gymnastics says it notified the FBI “immediately” after hearing of athletes concerns in 2015. Nassar’s first attorney, Matthew Borgula, has said Nassar wasn’t questioned by the FBI before September 2016, when the FBI executed a search warrant. USA Gymnastics has declined comment on exactly when the FBI was told, and the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice also declined comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
Dr. Larry Nassar works with a patient in this 2008 file photo.
Becky Shink/Lansing State Journal via AP File
Question 10: Why did Nassar’s first attorney deny the doctor used treatments that involved penetration?
When the Indianapolis Star first contacted Nassar about allegations of abuse, his attorney at the time denied Nassar ever used procedures that involved penetration. The Star says that interview was taped and Nassar was present when Borgula made the statement. After the Star’s story came out, there was a flurry of criminal complaints from former patients. Nassar’s current attorney said Nassar used treatments that were medically appropriate.
MLive File Photo
Question 11: What’s the status of the MSU investigation?
MSU police say they have received more than 50 criminal complaints since August about Nassar, but only one has resulted in criminal charges: The case involving a family friend who was allegedly assaulted in Nassar’s home in Holt. There have been no criminal charges involving Nassar’s patients or his work as an MSU sports-medicine doctor, which form the bulk of the allegations against Nassar.
Attorney Stephen R. Drew, right, and plaintiff Rachael Denhollander, left, announce the filing of a lawsuit by 18 athletes against Dr. Larry Nassar. The lawsuit also named Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics as co-defendants.
Emily Rose Bennett
Question 12: Does MSU face a conflict of interest as lead investigator and co-defendant in the Nassar case?
Attorneys filing lawsuits in the Nassar case say MSU faces an inherent conflict of interest: Attorney General Bill Schuette has designated MSU police as the lead investigative agency in the Nassar case, but the university also has been named as a co-defendant in lawsuits alleging MSU ignored numerous red flags. Asked whether MSU has a conflict of interest, Schuette’s office provided this statement: “This case is very serious and we are working toward providing long overdue justice for this victim and will help take someone who appears to be a predator off the streets permanently.”
After months of deflecting questions about its response to the Larry Nassar controversy, attorneys for Michigan State University provided detailed responses to 30 questions posed by state lawmakers as part of an inquiry by the state House.
Those questions and answers were released Thursday as part of the House’s report of its findings, which criticized MSU for enabling Nassar, a former MSU sports-medicine doctor who molested patients for years.
Below are the most-pressing questions still out there.
The Michigan State University Sports Medicine building in East Lansing, where Dr. Larry Nassar was employed and practiced medicine until September 2016
1. Why did Nassar’s colleagues vouch for him?
At the heart of the scandal are Nassar’s intravaginal treatments, which he performed on girls and young women throughout his two-decade medical career.
In MSU Police interviews, Nassar’s colleagues said they didn’t know if he was doing intravaginal treatments, even as they offered assurances that Nassar was known for his cutting-edge methods in the pelvic area and his treatments were within the realm of osteopathic manipulation therapy.
A big reason Nassar continued for as long as he did: Colleagues trumpeted his reputation, even though they did not appear to know his exact treatments. And many patients didn’t questioning the legitimacy of Nassar’s treatments because of that reputation.
It was a disastrous disconnect, and enabled Nassar to go undetected for years.
When colleagues did hear descriptions of Nassar’s treatments at Nassar’s sentencing hearing, they were horrified.
“If he had told me that he was doing intravaginal procedures on 14-year-olds, no way I could I justify that,” said Dr. Steve Karageanes, a one-time Nassar friend and former president of the American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine.
While osteopathic manipulation can involve the genital region, it’s often done over clothing, Karageanes said, and penetration of the vagina is a “very last resort,” particularly for women who are not sexually active or haven’t had children.
What he heard from victims at Nassar’s sentencing hearing “is not like any OMT (osteopathic manipulative treatment) that I’ve ever heard about,” Karageanes said. “My mind was spinning.”
Amanda Thomashow, the one who filed the MSU Title IX report in 2014 speaks about her voice not being heard during the second day of Nassar’s sentencing in Lansing, Mich. on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com)
2. Why did MSU Police and the MSU Title IX office reach different conclusions on a 2014 complaint?
In 2014, Amanda Thomashow filed a Title IX and a police report with MSU alleging she was molested by Nassar during an appointment at MSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic.
The Title IX investigator exonerated Nassar, saying Thomashow failed to understand the “nuanced difference” between medical treatment and sexual assault.
In the House inquiry, state lawmakers questioned why Nassar was exonerated in the 2014 Title IX investigation, but found guilty of sexual misconduct in a 2016 Title IX complaint filed by Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to go public with allegations against Nassar.
An even better question: Why did Kristine Moore, the 2014 Title IX investigator, reach a different conclusion than MSU Police in the same case?
While Moore cleared Nassar, MSU Police forwarded the case to the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office with a recommendation for a charge of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, which includes misconduct by a medical professional and is a misdemeanor that carries up to a two-year prison sentence.
The prosecutor’s office dismissed the case, saying in a memo it appeared Nassar was “actually” doing a “very innovative and helpful manipulation of a ligament located in the butt cheek and lateral to the vaginal opening.”
3. Why didn’t MSU tell USA Gymnastics, Twistars and Holt High School about the 2014 complaint?
After Thomashow filed her complaint, Nassar was put on leave at the MSU Sports Medicine Clinic.
But while MSU took that precautionary approach, Nassar continued to serve as team doctor at Holt High School, the Twisters gymnastics center in Dimondale and the monthly training camp in Texas operated by USA Gymnastics for elite gymnasts.
Had those organizations been given a heads-up in spring 2014, they may have discovered then that athletes in each of those organizations were being molested by Nassar.
And it’s not like others at MSU were unaware of Nassar’s activities outside of the Sports Medicine Clinic: Nassar himself mentioned it during his May 2014 interview with MSU police and the Title IX investigator.
Excerpt from MSU police report on Thomashow’s 2014 complaint.
4. Why wasn’t an outside doctor consulted in the 2014 investigation?
One criticism of the 2014 investigation is that the medical experts consulted about Nassar’s treatment of Thomashow were his friends and colleagues at MSU.
It remains unclear why an outside opinion wasn’t sought, even though an Ingham County assistant prosecutor made that recommendation, according to MSU Police documents.
The House inquiry noted the bias of the three doctors who vouched for Nassar. One was a doctor mentored by Nassar and hand-picked by him to offer support. The House inquiry report noted that another doctor said “she ‘would never say that (Nassar) would have any intent in an exam other than purely professional.’ “
From the House inquiry report: “If she was not willing to ever say that, no matter what the evidence against Nassar was, then why would MSU rely on, or even ask for, her opinion?”
Former MSU volleyball player Jennifer Rood Bedfoord talks about self-blame during Nassar sentencing hearing in Ingham County.
5. Why were several red flags ignored or minimized in the 2014 investigation?
Thomashow told investigators in 2014 that Nassar massaged her breasts and her vaginal region during her office visit — treatments that the Title IX investigator and the prosecutor’s office deemed legitimate, even “innovative and very helpful.”
But it wasn’t just what Nassar did, but how he did that made Thomashow view it as abuse: He didn’t offer an explanation or get consent for those treatments; he didn’t use gloves, even though he was massaging her vaginal area, and he did it without another medical professional in the room to chaperone.
Both the Title IX and prosecutor’s office flagged those actions, but only to the extent that Nassar needed to change those things going forward to head off future complaints.
Notably, his actions were not seen as indications of sexual misconduct — even though Nassar’s colleagues told MSU Police that they themselves would never perform skin-to-skin treatments in the vaginal region without gloves, informed consent and a chaperone in the case of a male doctor.
6. Who signed off on Nassar returning to work in 2014?
The state House inquiry revealed the 2014 Title IX report was sent to William Strampel, then dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine; Terry Curry, associate provost and associate vice president for academic human resources,, and Theresa Kelly, Office of General Counsel, “and possibly to Paulette Granberry-Russell,” who headed MSU’s Title IX office.
Still unknown: Whether Strampel made a unilateral decision in allowing Nassar to return to work in 2014 while still under police investigation, or whether others at MSU weighed in.
That question is even more intriguing since Strampel is now facing criminal charges of “willful neglect of duty” for his supervision of Nassar, and one of those charges involves allowing Nassar to return to work prematurely.
Olympian Aly Raisman was among the athletes molested by Nassar while he was under investigation. This video shows Raisman speaking at Nassar’s sentencing hearing in Ingham County. (Joel Bissell / MLive)
7. Who knew Nassar was seeing patients after MSU Police recommended criminal charges?
In July 2015, Michigan State University Police forwarded the Nassar case to the prosecutor’s office and recommended that he be charged with fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. Five months later, in December, the prosecutor’s office dismissed the case.
Question: Considering MSU’s own police department was recommending criminal charges against an MSU doctor, why was Nassar allowed to see patients during that time? What was the change of command that would allow that to happen? Could a similar situation still happen at MSU today?
8. Why did it take until 2017 for MSU to implement new health-care protocols?
In her final Title IX report on Thomashow complaints, Moore recommended that MSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic address its lack of policies on informed consent, having a chaperone in the room and using gloves during a “sensitive procedure.”
When Nassar returned to work in the summer of 2015, he agreed in writing to follow those standards. But Strampel, his boss, did not implement any system to enforce the protocols. Even more significantly, Strampel did not establish new policies for the clinic as a whole.
That didn’t happen until spring 2017, three years after the issues were first raised by Thomashow’s complaint and more than six months after Nassar was fired for failing to failing to follow those directives.
Why did it take so long when Strampel himself said such protocols were “common sense medical guidelines”?
9. Why wasn’t more attention paid earlier to Nassar’s issues on Facebook?
Multiple colleagues of Nassar — Dr. Douglas Dietzel, director of the Sports Medicine Clinic; Dr, Michael Shingles, the clinic’s financial manager; Dr. Jeffrey Kovan, a physician at the clinic; Michael Straus, a physician’s assistant at the clinic, and athletic trainer Destiny Teachnor-Houk — told MSU police they were aware that Nassar had been “kicked off” Facebook at some point for his interactions with teenage girls.
Yet none of them saw that as a red flag, even after Thomashow filed her complaint in 2014.
After the allegations against Nassar became public in fall 2016, a woman called MSU Police to say that she deliberately did not send her gymnast daughter to Nassar because she was disturbed by Nassar’s Instragram account, which mainly involved interactions with his teenage patients,
The woman took her daughter to Kovan instead, and mentioned her concerns about Nassar’s behavior on social media, according to the woman’s interview with police.
Kovan told her that Nassar’s Facebook page was shut down because it was deemed “potentially problematic” and Nassar had to provide multiple letters of recommendations to get his page reopened, the woman told police.
Yet “the conversations with Dr. Kovan concluded with Dr. Kovan reiterating that he didn’t think there was anything to worry about with Nassar,” said a report of the interview.
What the woman didn’t know and Kovan did at that point: The year before, Kovan was the first MSU staffer contacted by Thomashow to report her complaint.
Larissa Boyce talks about being sexually assaulted in 1997 by Larry Nassar and Michigan State University doing nothing during the fourth day of Nassar’s sentencing in Lansing Mich., on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. (Joel Bissell | MLive.com)
10. Has MSU investigated to determine who knew about Nassar’s treatments?
In its response to questions from the state House inquiry panel, MSU insisted that it had never received a formal complaint about Nassar before the 2014 complaint by Thomashow.
However, numerous Nassar victims have said they raised concerns about Nassar’s behavior to MSU staff members, most notably members of the MSU Athletic Department, where Nassar served as team doctor to the gymnastics and rowing teams, and also saw other athletes sent to the Sports Medicine Clinic.
According to Nassar victims who filed lawsuits:
Two gymnasts told MSU gymnastics Coach Kathie Klages in 1997 about Nassar’s intravaginal treatments.
An MSU cross country runner told a coach and trainers in 1999.
Softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez says she told trainers, including Teachnor-Houk, in 1999 and 2000.
In 2003, volleyball player Jennifer Rood Bedford said Nassar was known as the “crotch doc” among her teammates and she told a trainer that Nassar’s treatments made her uncomfortable.
In 2004, a 12-year-old Nassar family friend told Dr. William Stollak, a MSU clinical psychologist, that she was molested by Nassar.
MSU Police documents indicate they have received additional reports in recent weeks that MSU staff were allegedly alerted to concerns about Nassar. Those reports came in after Nassar was already sentenced. Among the examples in the police documents, which were heavily redacted:
An MSU athlete said an MSU intern trainer was present when she was given an intravaginal treatment by Nassar.
Another MSU athlete said she had an intravaginal treatment from Nassar in 2000 with a trainer in the room, and said Nassar was known among her teammates as “Dr. Nasty.”
An MSU athlete said several of her teammates told two MSU clinical psychiatrists that they felt sexually abused by Nassar.
An MSU employee said she took her stepdaughter to Nassar in 2015, and when he put his bare hand on her genitals, she jumped up and asked what he was doing. The woman told police that there was a female medical professional in the room who gave the mother “a blank stare.” The woman said she also didn’t get a response when she reported the incident to three women at the Sports Medicine Clinic reception desk.
A victim statement from Olympian McKayla Maroney is read at Nassar’s sentencing hearing. Maroney is one of the athletes whose concerns about Nassar led to an FBI investigation in 2015. (Joel Bissell / MLive)
11. Why didn’t USA Gymnastics contact MSU about its concerns about Nassar?
This question isn’t for MSU, but rather USA Gymnastics, where Nassar volunteered as doctor for the U.S. national team.
In June 2015, Maggie Nichols — a member of the U.S national gymnastics team — was overheard by a coach talking to teammate Aly Raisman about Nassar’s intravaginal treatments.
USAG conducted an in-house investigation, and Olympian McKayla Maroney told them that Nassar had sexually assaulted her during the 2011 world championships in addition to the suspicious treatments.
The USAG quietly cut ties with Nassar and notified the FBI in July 2015. However, the USAG did not notify MSU — which was still investigating Nassar for the Thomashow’s 2014 complaint. Had MSU known of the USAG complaints, it’s likely Nassar’s career — and abuse of patients — would have been stopped sooner.
Speaking at Nassar’s sentencing hearing, Gina Nichols — mother of elite gymnast Maggie Nichols — questioned why the investigation of Nassar took so long. Maggie Nichols is one of the athletes whose complaints about Nassar led to the end of his relationship with USA Gymnastics. (Joel Bissell / MLive)
12. Why didn’t the FBI alert Michigan State of its investigation?
One of the most perplexing questions of the controversy: Why didn’t the FBI tell Michigan State in 2015 that Nassar was under investigation for sexual misconduct?
USAG filed a report with the FBI in July 2015, and the case ended up in the FBI’s Detroit office.
But the FBI did not contact MSU, and Michigan State officials have said they were not aware of the FBI investigation until September 2016, the month Nassar was fired.
James White, an Okemos attorney representing some the Nassar victims, has said that many people are perplexed by the FBI’s seeming inaction for months.
“Without knowing exactly what USAG reported, I want to be fair,” White said. “Did USAG share enough information about Dr. Nassar? Did the FBI make the leap that he was still working at Michigan State? I don’t know that.”
The FBI has not responded to MLive requests for comment.
Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon talks to Danial Munford of MSU Police Department on the second day of Larry Nassar’s sentencing at the Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. (Neil Blake | MLive.com)
13. What did the MSU president and provost know and when did they know it?
Another perplexing question: What did Lou Anna K. Simon, who resigned as MSU president Jan. 24, and Provost June Pierce Youatt know about the 2014 Nassar investigation?
An MSU spokesman said in January that Simon “was made aware that a complaint involving an unnamed physician has been filed with our Title IX office at the time and the MSUPD. As there was no policy violation found, I do not believe there was any further briefing.”
That doesn’t exactly answer the question, since the MSU Police Department did recommend criminal charges.
In short: Were Simon and Youatt involved in the decision to allow Nassar to see patients before the police investigation was completed? Did they know that Nassar continued to see patients even after its police department recommended criminal charges?
In a letter to the lawyers of the women who have sued the F.B.I., the bureau said it was “interested in considering all options to reach a resolution, including settlement discussions.”
There are potentially hundreds of (class action and mass action) lawsuits against the FBI in the cases of:
The Olympic gymnasts scandal looks more and more as the deliberate distraction, cooked up for political purposes via the whipped up, ridiculous mass hysteria designed to deflect attention from other issues.
Reinvestigate Larry Nassar case, there are a lot of open questions about it.
Investigate the Counterintelligence aspects of the Olympic gymnasts scandal, including the roles played in it by:
Kamala Harris, Doug Emhoff, and Douglas Leff of the FBI.
Address the real issues and bring up the well founded accusations against the FBI from the groups listed above.
The Senate and the House:
INVESTIGATE THE FBI IN DEPTH!
Investigate the FBI lies and crimes!
There cannot be any doubt that the FBI is deeply criminal and corrupt organization, in addition to being incompetent, inept, and treacherous.
Monkeypox has sparked frustration and anxiety among gay and bisexual men in New York, who remember mistakes and discrimination during the early years of the AIDS crisis.
Kelvin Ehigie, right, a bartender at 4West in Harlem, worries about the monkeypox outbreak and the confusion it’s creating in the gay community.Credit…Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times
It was happy hour at a gay bar in Harlem, 4West Lounge, and the after-work crowd had come to drink rum punch and watch “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
But instead, perched on stools, the men talked about the rapidly spreading monkeypox virus: their efforts to snag a coveted vaccine appointment, in a city where demand for the shots far outstrips supply; the slow government rollout of vaccines and treatment; and their confusion about how the disease spreads and how to stay safe.
“It feels like survival of the fittest, with all the pandemic waves and now monkeypox and all these vaccine problems,” said James Ogden, 31, who secured a vaccine appointment after weeks spent navigating the city’s glitchy online sign-up process.
Kelvin Ehigie, 32, the bartender, agreed. When asked about the future, he said: “I do not feel confident.”
For gay and bisexual men in New York, the summer has been consumed with similar conversations as monkeypox cases spike among men who have sex with men.
There is widespread fear of the virus, which primarily spreads through close physical contact and causes excruciating lesions and other symptoms that can lead to hospitalization. There is fear of the isolation and potential stigma of an infection, since those who contract monkeypox must stay home for weeks. And some fear the vaccine itself, in an echo of the hesitancy and mistrust that hindered the coronavirus response.
Many are also furious at the lags and fumbles in the government’s effort to contain the disease, including delayed vaccines and mixed messaging about how the virus spreads and how people should protect themselves.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency, after it spread from parts of Africa where it is endemic to dozens of countries and infected tens of thousands of people around the world over the course of three months. As of Thursday, there were more than 3,000 confirmed cases in the United States, and 1,148 in New York, but experts suggest cases are being undercounted.
Mr. Ehigie received the first shot of the two-dose vaccine regimen after a referral from his therapist, but worried the city might never give him a second.
And, while he said everyone understands how H.I.V. spreads, monkeypox still felt like a mystery to him and many others. “Especially being in New York,” he said, “where everyone is in close contact with everyone else all the time, it’s scary.”
Many gay and bisexual men signed up for monkeypox vaccinations offered by the city through a glitchy online process.Credit…Mary Altaffer/Associated Press
Nearly all of the cases outside of Africa have been in men who have sex with men. In New York, only 1.4 percent of monkeypox patients self-identified as straight, with the rest describing themselves as gay, bisexual or declining to say, according to city data.
The disease is rarely fatal, and no deaths have been reported outside of Africa.
But the combination of government failure and a virus that has so far primarily affected gay and bisexual men has drawn frequent comparisons to the early years of the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic.
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What is monkeypox? Monkeypox is a virus similar to smallpox, but symptoms are less severe. It was discovered in 1958, after outbreaks occurred in monkeys kept for research. The virus was primarily found in parts of Central and West Africa, but in recent weeks it has spread to dozens of countries and infected tens of thousands of people, overwhelmingly men who have sex with men. On July 23, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency.
I fear I might have monkeypox. What should I do? There is no way to test for monkeypox if you have only flulike symptoms. But if you start to notice red lesions, you should contact an urgent care center or your primary care physician, who can order a monkeypox test. Isolate at home as soon as you develop symptoms, and wear high-quality masks if you must come in contact with others for medical care.
What is the treatment for monkeypox? If you get sick, the treatment for monkeypox generally involves symptom management. Tecovirimat, an antiviral drug also known as TPOXX, occasionally can be used for severe cases. The Jynneos vaccine, which protects against smallpox and monkeypox, can also help reduce symptoms, even if taken after exposure.
I live in New York. Can I get the vaccine? Adult men who have sex with men and who have had multiple sexual partners in the past 14 days are eligible for a vaccine in New York City, as well as close contacts of infected people. Eligible people who have conditions that weaken the immune system or who have a history of dermatitis or eczema are also strongly encouraged to get vaccinated. People can book an appointment through this website.
Those years were marked by acts of homophobia that remain seared in the minds of many gay Americans. The White House press secretary made jokes about AIDS at a 1982 press briefing. Churches refused to provide funerals for the dead. And President Ronald Reagan did not deliver a public speech on the epidemic until 1987, by which point roughly 23,000 Americans had died of the disease.
Disagreements within the New York City Department of Health about how to communicate the risks of the disease spilled into public view last week. Some epidemiologists have argued that officials should more explicitly advise men who have sex with men to reduce their number of partners, or even consider short-term abstinence. (The director general of the W.H.O. made a similar recommendation this week, including that men should reconsider having “sex with new partners,” according to STAT News.)
A department spokeswoman has said messages advising men to abstain from sex in particular could stigmatize gay and bisexual men and repeat the mistakes of the past.
That history was on many people’s minds (and many people’s banners) at a protest last week in Manhattan that was organized by activist groups including ACT UP, which formed in 1987 in response to government inaction on H.I.V./AIDS.
“I am sad that we have to be here,” said Erik Bottcher, a city councilman whose district includes Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, neighborhoods that have been hit hard by the outbreak.
“We have been forced to do this for so long, we have been forced to fight for our own health care when we got let down by the government,” he said. “Shame on the government for letting us down again.”
Nearby, protesters carried signs comparing President Biden to Mr. Reagan.
Jon Catlin, 29, a graduate student, said he knew several people with monkeypox in New York and many more in Berlin, where he lives part time to do research. He said he studies the evolution of the idea of catastrophe in German thought, and “whose suffering counts as a crisis.”
“Because it is happening to queer people,” Mr. Catlin said, the government has been slow to treat monkeypox as a true crisis, waiting to deploy vaccine doses until cases had grown exponentially.
“AIDS wasn’t treated as a crisis at first either,” he added, before citing a homophobic saying from that time. “The quip about the ’80s is ‘the right people were dying.’”
But as much as the protesters wanted to combat what they described as indifference, many were also concerned that increased attention could bring with it hostility from heterosexual people.
Speaking at the rally in Manhattan, Mordechai Levovitz, the clinical director at Jewish Queer Youth, warned the crowd of about 100 people that the L.G.B.T.Q. community could become a scapegoat in the event of a larger and more widespread monkeypox outbreak.
“You know what will happen,” he shouted into a microphone. “A few months from now, on the cover of every magazine, there will be children with monkeypox on their face, and they will come after us.”
That was a concern shared by some of the men at 4West Lounge.
Chavis Aaron, 33, the bar manager, said the public focus on gay and bisexual men made him uneasy. He knew two gay people with the disease, and understood the statistics on who the outbreak was impacting most, but still thought “this is really everybody’s problem,” he said.
“The situation is still all foggy and crazy,” he added. “We are getting information from Instagram and the news and each one is saying something different.”
Gay and bisexual men and activist groups have protested the government’s slow response to monkeypox.Credit…Andrew Seng for The New York Times
Some people are improvising different ways to protect themselves against an illness that can last for a month, but their methods can be dangerous and deeply unscientific.
“Most of my friends are not having sex or they are just being really selective,” said Mr. Ehigie, the bartender. He also knows men who are opposed to vaccines in general “because they think the vaccines have a political agenda or will cause bad side effects.”
Others, he said, had embraced a potentially dangerous approach — in which they waited a few days after having sex to see if a rash broke out before resuming sexual activity — that he thought they may have adopted after reading the wrong things online.
Two years of pandemic isolation have made people eager for human connection. There has so far been little appetite in the L.G.B.T.Q. community to cancel events.
Some events have made minor concessions to monkeypox, including Pines Party, a large annual gathering on Fire Island in July, which asked partygoers to get vaccinated and not attend if they feel unwell.
But the outbreak has caused the cancellation of other events in the city, including several regular sex parties that are less high profile but more high risk than dance parties.
At smaller bars like 4West Lounge, things have been quieter lately. Some of that probably had to do with the hot weather, or with a clientele that partied too hard during Pride Month in June, its staff said.
But some of it was also the result of the outbreak, they said. Mr. Aaron said he could think of a few regular customers who stopped coming in as much after the monkeypox case numbers began to climb in July.
“After Covid, a lot of people have PTSD,” he said. “They’d rather not go out than take the risk.”
Russia is moving “maximum” forces to the south, which presents a role reversal from the eastern Donbas region: Ukraine is on the offensive and Russians holding a key city risk being cut off.
Workers cleaning up in front of a building hit by rockets on Thursday in Kharkiv, Ukraine.Credit…Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Ukraine has warned that Russia is racing to bolster its troops and defenses in the south, and that Kyiv still needed more weapons from the West, creating a heightened sense of urgency ahead of a looming counteroffensive to reclaim territory seized by Moscow.
The Ukrainians have been setting the stage for a broad counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region for weeks, and recent long-range rocket strikes have left thousands of Russian soldiers stationed west of the Dnipro River, in and around the port city of Kherson, in a precarious position, largely cut off from Russian strongholds to the east.
But Russia is now moving “the maximum number” of forces to the southern front in the Kherson region, the head of Ukraine’s National Security Council told Ukrainian television late Wednesday. The official, Oleksiy Danilov, described “a very powerful movement of their troops” to the front in Kherson.
A Russian military truck passing an unexploded munition this week outside Kherson, Ukraine.Credit…Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
While Western weapons have poured into the country, Ukraine said more arms were still needed and ammunition remained limited. Some Ukrainian officials have grown increasingly frustrated with what they believe is the slow pace of weapons deliveries from Western allies. Donor nations are training Ukrainian soldiers to use the new equipment, but that, too, remains a work in progress.
“Just give them weapons and let them work,” said Natalya Gumenyuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, which is responsible for the Kherson offensive.
“They pat us on the shoulder and say, ‘Just hang on,’” she said. “We need more than just moral support, though we are grateful for it. We need real support, real weapons, real ammunition for those weapons.”
Marking a national holiday Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine forcefully defended his country’s sovereignty and independence, rejecting the notion advanced by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that Ukraine is a recent fiction that rightfully belongs to Russia.
“Every day we fight so that everyone on the planet finally understands: We are not a colony, not an enclave, not a protectorate,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Not a gubernia, an eyalet or a crown land, not a part of foreign empires, not a ‘part of the land,’ not a union republic. Not an autonomy, not a province, but a free, independent, sovereign, indivisible and independent state.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine speaking on Thursday in Kyiv.Credit…Ukrainian Presidential Press Service, via Reuters
In Kherson, which the Russians captured quickly after invading in February, they have had months to fortify their defensive lines, and the Ukrainians have yet to launch any major land-based counteroffensive.
“Of course, we are waiting for the command to attack, but it’s not really that simple,” said Senior Sgt. Oleksandr Babynets, 28, a member of the Ukrainian 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which is dug in along the Kherson region’s western border.
“The Russians have organized defensive lines, dug in and deployed a lot of weaponry,” he said. “We don’t just want to go ahead and die just like that. We need to work intelligently.”
Grain Blockade: A breakthrough deal aims to lift a Russian blockade on Ukrainian grain shipments, easing a global food crisis. But in the fields of Ukraine, farmers are skeptical.
An Ambitious Counterattack: Ukraine has been laying the groundwork to retake Kherson from Russia. But the endeavor would require huge resources, and could come at a heavy toll.
Economic Havoc: As food, energy and commodity prices continue to climb around the world, few countries are feeling the bite as much as Ukraine.
In the last month, with most Russian forces tied down in the battles far to the east, in the Donbas region, Ukrainian forces in the south have managed to force Moscow’s troops back a few miles in the direction of Kherson. At their closest, along the Kherson region’s western border, they are about 30 miles from the city. There, the lines have largely frozen as each army jockeys for advantage.
As the counteroffensive brews, Russia has renewed attacks on the north, launching strikes from the Black Sea, Belarus and Russia that injured at least 15 people in the region of the capital, Kyiv, the Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday. The attacks were the first in weeks to hit the capital region, which the initial Russian offensive failed to capture early in the war.
“Not a calm morning,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video address. “Missile terror again. We will not give up.”
There were at least 20 Russian strikes, with Kalibr cruise missiles launched from warships on the Black Sea, Iskander ballistic missiles from southern Belarus and rockets fired by fighter jets from Russian territory, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, Yuriy Ihnat, said.
Five strikes hit the Kyiv region, disturbing a tenuous sense of normalcy that had taken hold after Russian forces withdrew from the region starting in late March, repulsed by Ukraine’s tenacious defense that caused heavy Russian losses.
Fishing as smoke rises after Russian forces launched a missile attack on the outskirts of Kyiv on Thursday.Credit…David Goldman/Associated Press
Halyna Serhienko, who lives in Vyshhorod, a Kyiv suburb, said that her 5-year-old daughter was particularly frightened.
“All our house was shaking,” Ms. Serhienko said.
Ukrainians believe the most promising front for a major advance lies in the western part of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces have launched recent strikes to cut off Russians troops from their supply lines across the Dnipro River, which bisects Ukraine and the Kherson region itself.
Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts said several strikes this week on a key bridge across the Dnipro and other critical roads and bridges in recent days had left Russian forces around Kherson city particularly exposed.
A British intelligence report said on Thursday that Russia’s main fighting force on the western side of the river “now looks highly vulnerable” because of the strikes on the bridge.
“Kherson city, the most politically significant population center occupied by Russia, is now virtually cut off from the other occupied territories,” the report said. “Its loss would severely undermine Russia’s attempts to paint the occupation as a success.”
A Russian flag flying above a Ukrainian coat of arms that had been removed this month from an administration building in Kherson.Credit…Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
The Russians, however, appear to be trying to build another crossing over the river. Yuri Sobolevsky, a regional official in Kherson, wrote on Facebook on Thursday that four tugboats were pulling pontoons across the Dnipro, although he asserted that a floating bridge would not help the Russians resupply their troops.
Serhii Khlan, the head of the Ukrainian military administration in Kherson, predicted that the Russians would fail because of “the raging flow of the river, which makes it impossible to build the crossings.”
The Russians may also try to ferry equipment across the river, he said, but an announcement by local officials in Kherson loyal to Moscow that there would be no humanitarian shipments for at least three days underscored the depth of their dilemma.
The military maneuvers came as Ukrainians paused on Thursday to celebrate a new national holiday, Day of Statehood, which was created last summer as the threat of a Russian invasion menaced the country.
Ukraine chose the date to mark what is known as “the baptism of Rus,” when Great Prince Volodymyr of Kyivan Rus, the first Slavic state, converted to Christianity in the 10th century and began converting his people. That event, and Volodymyr himself, are claimed by both Russia and Ukraine as central to their national identities.
