“Arrest Warrant From Criminal Court Pierces Putin’s Aura of Impunity“
“The International Criminal Court accused the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest on Friday, a highly symbolic step that deepened his isolation and punctured the aura of impunity that has surrounded him since he ordered troops into Ukraine a year ago.
The court cited Mr. Putin’s responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children, thousands of whom have been sent to Russia since the invasion. It also issued a warrant for Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, the public face of the Kremlin-sponsored program that transfers the children out of Ukraine.
There is little prospect of Mr. Putin standing trial in a courtroom anytime soon. The International Criminal Court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia, which is not a party to the court, dismissed the warrants as “meaningless.”
Yet the court’s move carried indisputable moral weight, putting Mr. Putin in the same ranks as Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the deposed president of Sudan, accused of atrocities in Darfur; Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader imprisoned for abuses during the Balkans war; and the Nazis tried at Nuremberg after World War II.
“
“At a Steam-Age Arsenal, U.S. Army Forges Cannons for a Digital Era, War in Ukraine”
“On a military base more than two centuries old, the Army is hammering out its cannon of the future.
The Watervliet Arsenal opened during the War of 1812 and one building dates to 1828. Yet inside an aging production hall, new digital machine tools that resemble science-fiction space pods are churning out components for Abrams tanks, a weapon pledged for fighting in Ukraine. In another hall, an automated forge pounds red-hot metal cylinders into 20-foot gun barrels for America’s next howitzers, which will lob shells more than 40 miles.
Fighting in Ukraine has renewed attention to land systems that Watervliet helps produce and repair, which until recently were dismissed by some military strategists as relics because they are used by traditional infantry.”