Russia said on Thursday it saw the promised delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine as evidence of direct and growing U.S. and European involvement in the conflict.

The Kremlin was reacting for the first time to announcements by the United States and Germany on Wednesday that they would arm Ukraine with dozens of battle tanks in its fight against Russia.

“There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, in no way signifies the involvement of these countries or the alliance in hostilities in Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We categorically disagree with this, and in Moscow, everything that the alliance and the capitals I mentioned are doing is seen as direct involvement in the conflict. We see that this is growing.”

U.S. President Joe Biden said the tanks pose “no offensive threat” to Russia and that they were needed to help the Ukrainians “improve their ability to manoeuvre in open terrain”.

Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks to form what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called a “fist of freedom” that could give its troops the firepower to break Russian defensive lines and reclaim occupied territory in the south and east. Until now, both Ukraine and Russia have been relying primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.

Russia, which launched the war by invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, has increasingly portrayed it as a confrontation with NATO.

“The course of the special military operation in Ukraine shows that the U.S. and NATO intend to continue making efforts to drag out this military conflict and have become its participants,” Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and secretary of his Security Council, was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Interfax news agency quoted him as saying that “even with the end of the ‘hot phase’ of the conflict in Ukraine, the Anglo-Saxon world will not stop the proxy war against Russia and its allies.”

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There’s a kind of background noise.

A nasty little music orchestrated by Putinist propaganda and its band of useful idiots.

It’s the idea, broadly, that Ukraine at war and martyred is also one of Europe’s most incorrigibly antisemitic countries.

So, once and for all: What’s the story with Ukraine and anti-Semitism?

The truth is, of course, that Ukraine in the ’30s and ’40s of the 20^th century was a bloodland for Jews.

Soviet Ukraine, or Ukraine Sovietized, or, more precisely, Ukraine buffeted between Sovietism and Hitlerism, was one of the theaters of the Shoah by bullets, with, counting just the ravines of Babi Yar, 33,771 Jewish men, women, and children forced to dig the pits where their warm corpses would be piled, still shivering, not quite dead.

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And when I say “Soviet” or “Sovietized” it’s not to minimize the part played in the massacre by compatriots, in the countryside or the cities—but it is to recall that there have been, and there are, two Ukraines.

One that was yet to exist as a free and sovereign nation; which the Ukrainian-born Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko depicted, in his requiem to the dead of Babi Yar, as that of the “barroom regulars” thirsting for the “blood of pogroms,” stinking “of vodka and onion,” and, when the victims, “kicked to the floor,” begged for mercy, encouraging the assassins to “Beat the Yids, Save Russia!”—yes, Russia…

And then another Ukraine; the one that liberated herself from that Russia; the one that, since the onset of the U.S.S.R., then the Maidan Revolution, and then the invasion of Putin’s army, refuses the status of vassal, of the humble twinned servant, of the Cinderella of the tundra, that the invaders, drunk on their Lebensraum, wished to relegate her to; and the one that, having become this young free country, having irrevocably fallen in line with the democracies of Europe, is now turning the page on its past.

This Ukraine knows that she is one of the four countries to have counted, along with Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky and many others, the greatest number of Righteous Among the Nations.

This is the Ukraine of Uman, the city of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, where I filmed, for my upcoming film, Slava Ukraini, a rav, in a kind of echo of the Righteous, recounting how it was in his synagogue that the peasants of Cherkasy Oblast came to find refuge on the first days of the Russian attack.

Pete Kiehart—ReduxHasidic pilgrims sing and dance during the annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine, on Sept. 27, 2022.

It’s the only country in the world where, on December 17, first day of Hanukkah, on the Maidan, that historic revolutionary square representing dignity and resistance, one could see the following: Hasidim raising a giant menorah; a whole people, starting with the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, joining in on the lighting of this flame; and the flame shining brightly atop a city bombarded and deprived of electricity—“the Russians send us ballistic missiles,” joked a rabbi. “We’ll send back Kabbalistic missiles!”

It’s the country of the Azov regiment, one of whose commanders, Ilya Samoilenko, survivor of the hell of Azovstal and soldier of limitless audacity, is just back from Israel. He went to Masada to replenish his well of strength to return to combat; and the image of this brave soul treading the hot stones of that shrine to Jewish resistance while in cold Ukraine it snows, the idea of a Ukrainian zealot clambering over herbs and the rubble of the Judean fortress millenary twice over, carrying, in his head, the destruction of Mariupol, the bombs and the ruin that defiled the basements of the steel plant where he held out, he too, 40 days, are extraordinary. Is this visit not the most scathing retort against the idiots who promise, contra the winds of History, to return Ukraine to its demons?

And this Ukraine is also—we can never repeat it enough—the homeland of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Churchillian president elected in a landslide, who is, also, a Jewish hero: the story of this descendant of survivors of the Shoah who had, at the outset, neither tanks, nor apparatus, nor apparatchiks to take on the Giant, but just his country’s hard-won liberty. Doesn’t it seem straight out of a Biblical tale?

In the face of the return of Goliath the Philistine, isn’t this the rebirth of little David, master of truth and war chief, an artist who knows how to sing, and is also an incomparable strategist, who finds ways to use only the intelligence of his muscles and his guile to oppose the invasion?

Isn’t this the story of Abraham rising up alone, according to the Midrash, to battle the armies of the five kings who hold Lot hostage?

And isn’t this Judah Maccabee sealing the resounding victory of the weak over the strong, the humble over the proud, the few over the many, and, in the end, over the false brilliance of the desecrated temple, the victory of the tiny oil lamp whose light is not that of power, but of exception?

Anastasia Vlasova—The Washington Post/Getty ImagesRabbi David Goldich blesses the wine during sabbath prayer at the Great Choral Synagogue in Kyiv on Dec. 10, 2022.

A cunning trick of reason.

An adventure of memory.

But the fact, whether we like or not, remains.

History is not always a curse.

It is not the eternal return of resentments and crimes.

If there was ever a place, in this crazy war in front of Russian neo-fascism, barbarism, and terrorism, where one can hear the echo of the Jewish soul, it’s in Ukraine?

CANBERRA, Australia — A senior Australian government minister said Wednesday that rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, could be refused a visa due to antisemitic comments if he attempts to visit Australia.

Education Minister Jason Clare was responding to media reports that the U.S. celebrity intends to visit the family of new Australian partner Bianca Censori in Melbourne next week.

Clare said he did not know if Ye had applied for a visa but that Australia has previously refused them to people with antisemitic views.

“I expect that if he does apply, he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions” as others who’ve aired such views, Clare told Nine Network television.

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Last month, Ye praised Hitler in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Twitter later suspended Ye after he tweeted a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David.

Australia’s Migration Act sets security and character requirements for non-citizens to enter the country. Any decision on whether Ye gets an Australian visa would be made by Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, whose office said he could not comment on individual cases due to privacy reasons.

Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, met government officials on Tuesday to argue for an entry ban.

“We had a sympathetic hearing,” Wertheim said on Sky News. “We’ve made the case that this particular individual does not meet the character test and that it would be in the national interest not to grant him a visa and we set out our reasons in some detail.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said if he were in government, he would be inclined to bar Ye on character grounds.

“My inclination would be not to allow him in,” Dutton told Melbourne’s Radio 3AW on Tuesday.

“His antisemitic comments are disgraceful, his conduct and his behavior is appalling, and he’s not a person of good character,” Dutton added.

Ye and Censori intend to visit her family who live in the northeast Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe next week, Seven Network News reported.

Ye and Censori recently married less than two months after he finalized his divorce from Kim Kardashian, entertainment news website TMZ reported two weeks ago.

The AP asked Ye’s representative whether he had married Censori and planned to visit Melbourne, but did not get an immediate response.

Before Italian nationalist leader Giorgia Meloni won power in September, German news magazine Stern put her on its front cover with the headline: “The most dangerous woman in Europe”.

Such was the worry that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a barely veiled threat that she had “the tools” to deal with Italy should it veer from a democratic path.

But almost 100 days since Meloni took office at the head of the most right-wing government Italy has seen since World War Two, these concerns have largely melted away.

Despite her neo-fascist political roots and often fiery rhetoric, Meloni has chosen caution over confrontation at home and abroad, promoting the status quo rather than risk stoking tensions or financial crises, with radical reform.

“We have seen something of a metamorphosis,” said Sofia Ventura, a political science professor at Bologna University.

“She has been more moderate with her comments than when she was in opposition and has clearly understood that she needed to change her profile to be a credible international leader.”

Friend and foe alike say a significant reason for the softly-softly approach is money — or rather a lack of it.

At nearly 150% of GDP, Italy has the third largest public debt pile in the industrialised world after Japan and Greece, and the dramatic fall of Liz Truss, who quit as British prime minister just two days before Meloni took office, revealed the dangers of crossing financial markets.

“What happened in the UK shows … how cautious we have to be with our fiscal and monetary policy mix,” EU Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, a former Italian prime minister, said at the time.

Adding to the pressure on Meloni is Italy’s dependence on the European Union’s recovery and resilience fund. Under the plan, Rome should receive some 190 billion euros ($206 billion)in grants and loans so long as it fulfils a series of reforms agreed with the previous administration led by Mario Draghi.

Eager to avoid any misunderstandings, Meloni’s first trip abroad after becoming prime minister was to see von der Leyen in Brussels, to reassure her that Italy would meet its obligations, despite the reservations she had raised ahead of her election.

“It would have been unthinkable for Meloni to risk missing out on this money. Failure would have been a tragedy,” said Daniele Albertazzi, professor of politics at the University of Surrey. “She behaved in the only way she could,” he said.

Her only run in with a European leader came three weeks into the job, when French President Emmanuel Macron denounced Italy for refusing to let a rescue ship carrying over 200 migrants dock in its ports. The boat headed instead to France.

A government source in Rome said the row was caused by a misunderstanding. Meloni’s PR team thought Macron had agreed to take in the ship and Tweeted to thank him. In fact, he hadn’t and felt Rome was trying to manipulate him, the source said.

The pair have since made amends, officials said.

An EU diplomat, who declined to be named, said Meloni, who previously spouted fierce euroscepticism, was sill looking to find her feet in Europe and was clearly being prudent.

That same caution has been evident at home too.

Her coalition has yet to present any major reform and its skimpy first budget ignored many costly campaign pledges. The government also scrapped an excise duty relief measure that had been in place on fuel since March 2022, despite once promising to eliminate the tax altogether.

So far the Italian public has applauded Meloni’s prudence, with support for her Brothers of Italy party rising above 30% in the polls against 26% in the September election — more than three times the backing that her coalition partners the League and Forza Italia are drawing.

In a country plagued by political turbulence, the three ruling parties have avoided any major infighting and are predicting they will govern together for a full five-year term — something that has only happened once since World War Two.

Supporters say this means they can take their time on reforms, such as introducing presidential-style government.

“We are working on a programme spread out over five years without the anxiety of having to bring home instantaneous results,” Giovanni Donzelli, head of organisation within Brothers of Italy, told Reuters.

Behind the scenes some changes are emerging, with the right-wing bloc starting to place its own appointees in key positions, while a planned overhaul of the Treasury could give Meloni and her allies more power to shape state-controlled entities.

But Meloni’s poll domination over her partners, who at various times had previously led the conservative bloc, could create friction, with the League and Forza Italia unlikely to accept playing the role of junior partner for long.

A likely trigger for dissent is the League’s push to give its northern bastions greater autonomy, including more say over how their taxes are spent. Such a reform is not appreciated by the Brothers of Italy, which fears it could hurt its voter heartlands in central and southern regions.

“Regional autonomy is going to cause Meloni a lot of trouble. It is a very hard circle to square,” Albertazzi said.

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They are expensive and hard to maintain. They run on jet fuel. And they are difficult to operate.

The U.S. Pentagon presented its best arguments, publicly and privately, against sending Abrams – its most advanced battle tanks – to Ukraine.

But President Joe Biden ultimately decided to approve the delivery of 31 tanks on Wednesday, which senior U.S. officials said came from the need to maintain unity among allies backing Ukraine.

Biden’s decision capped a week of failed diplomatic efforts to get Germany to send its main Leopard battle tank to Ukraine without a comparable move from Washington.

The reversal ended a rare public division in the alliance that Washington officials feared Moscow could exploit.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden and European allies have sought to present an image of harmonious support for Ukraine despite occasional disagreements.

The billions of dollars worth of Western weaponry funneled into the country, Western allies said, were tangible signs that Russian President Vladimir Putin had failed to divide the West as he pressed his nearly year-old invasion.

But the split over German tanks undermined those efforts, raising questions about whether the West would fall short in providing the heavy armor that Kyiv says it needs to mount a spring counteroffensive.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Berlin last Wednesday to convince Germany’s new defense minister Boris Pistorius that Germany should at the very least allow countries like Poland to re-export their Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

“The secretary will be pressing the Germans on this,” one senior U.S. defense official said at the time.

The trip, which included a day-long meeting at Ramstein air base in Germany, failed to achieve a breakthrough and left U.S. officials frustrated.

In Washington, senior U.S. officials had privately expressed consternation at Germany’s attempts to tie the Abrams tanks to delivery of the Leopards.

One senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that U.S. officials did not think the Abrams tanks were a net positive for Ukraine because they are difficult to operate and maintain.

But Germany did not want to go it alone, the official said, prompting the Americans to wonder whether there was deeper reason in Berlin having to do with the symbolism of German tanks rolling in eastern Europe for a country still scarred from starting World War Two.

At the same time, U.S. officials were trying to answer the clamor from Ukraine for tanks while impressing on the Ukrainians that there are limits to assistance in the long haul.

The Germans refused to budge. As Austin landed in Berlin, German officials told reporters that Berlin would allow German-made tanks to be sent to Ukraine if the United States agreed to send its own tanks.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had stressed that stipulation several times behind closed doors. He also discussed the issue in multiple phone conversations with Biden this month, senior Biden administration officials said.

That led to media coverage of divisions between the United States and Germany that raised eyebrows back in Washington, where officials thought they had been clear against sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

U.S. officials argued that American contributions to the Ukraine war effort had been substantial with Bradley Fighting Vehicles, air defense systems, millions of artillery rounds and other potent weaponry. Each Abrams tank costs more than $10 million, including training and sustainment.

“The headline is not about whether we’ve come to agreement or not with Germany on tanks. The headline is the United States has provided $5 billion of security assistance to Ukraine in the last month,” one senior official said on Friday.

In public, the United States took the high road, insisting it was Berlin’s sovereign decision to make.

But at one point during Austin’s trip, Washington asked Berlin to stop publicly tying Germany’s approval of the Leopard tanks to the Biden administration sending Abrams tanks.

The American pressure appeared to have worked, at least for a while. Pistorius, the German defense minister, told a TV interview on Thursday that he did not know of any requirement that Ukraine receive U.S. and German tanks simultaneously.

On Friday, a German government spokesperson even said the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine was never tied to the United States making a similar move.

But back in Washington, officials were looking for “creative solutions.” However, the issue came to a surprise close on Wednesday when Biden announced his approval alongside a similar German announcement.

The compromise appears to have been a decision to send Abrams not now, but sometime down the road – months from now.

Despite the uncertain timeline, Ukraine has welcomed the decisions. “It’s an important step on the path to victory,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted on Wednesday.