Free Republic

For a month the two men could not tell their psychologist what had happened to them, only that it was horrible beyond words. “If there’s hell somewhere, it’s worse than that,” said one. The Ukrainian soldiers, aged 25 and 28, had been in Russian captivity — one for one month, the other for three. After their return in a prisoner swap they had been referred to Anzhelika Yatsenko, 41, a psychologist in Poltava who deals with troubled young men. They were suicidal. The younger one had tried to kill himself. “I knew from previous cases they had probably been tortured,”...

Some 10,000 to 20,000 troops comprising the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut are now trapped. Reports say that the city is operationally encircled with diminishing chance of a breakout. To the west of Bakhmut is a lot of open country and not much to prevent a Russian advance all the way to the Dnieper River. There is no hard evidence yet that the Ukrainian army has prepared a second line of defense. This means the way may be open for a possible major offensive by Russian forces. Whether that will happen and what Russia’s goals are remain to be seen. Most...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Russia was committing “genocide” in Ukraine.