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World

Stories of Ukrainian resistance revealed after Kherson pullout

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Kherson, Ukraine
CNN
 — 

Two Russian soldiers walked down a street in Kherson on a spring evening in early March, just days after Moscow captured the city. The temperature that night was still below freezing and the power was out, leaving the city in complete darkness as the soldiers made their way back to camp after a few drinks.

As one stumbled on, the other stopped to relieve himself on the side of the pavement. Suddenly, a knife was thrust deep into the right side of his neck.

He fell to the grass. Moments later, the second Russian soldier, inebriated and unaware, met the same fate.

“I finished the first one immediately and then I caught up with the other and killed him on the spot,” says Archie, a Ukrainian resistance fighter who described the scene above to CNN.

He says he moved on pure instinct.

“I saw the orcs in uniform and I thought, why not?,” Archie adds, using a derogative term for Russians, as he walks through that same street. “There were no people or light and I seized the moment.”

The 20-year-old is a trained mixed martial arts fighter, with nimble feet and sharp reflexes, who had previously always carried a knife for self-defense, but never killed anyone. CNN is referring to him by his call sign to protect his identity.

“Adrenaline played its role. I didn’t have any fear or time to think,” he says. “For the first few days I felt very bad, but then I realized that they were my enemies. They came to my home to take it from me.”

Archie’s account was backed up by Ukrainian military and intelligence sources who handled communications with him and other partisans. He was one of many resistance fighters in Kherson, a city of 290,000 people before the invasion, which Russia tried to bend but could not break.

People in Kherson made their views clear soon after Russia took over the city on March 2 coming out onto the main square for daily protests, donning the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag.

But Kherson, the first large city and only regional capital Russian troops were able to occupy since the start of the invasion, was an important symbol for Moscow. Dissent could not be tolerated.

Protesters were met with tear gas and gunshots, organisers and the more outspoken residents were arrested and tortured. When peaceful demonstrations didn’t work, the people of Kherson turned to resistance and ordinary citizens like Archie started to take action on their own.

“I wasn’t the only one in Kherson,” Archie says. “There were a lot of clever partisans. At least 10 Russians were killed every night.”

Initially solo operations, like-minded residents began organising themselves in groups, coordinating their actions with the Ukrainian military and intelligence outside the city.

“I have a friend with whom we would drive around the city, looking for gatherings of Russian soldiers,” he says. “We checked their patrol routes and then gave all the information to guys on the frontline and they knew who to pass onto next.”

Russian soldiers weren’t the only ones targeted for assassination. Several Moscow-installed government officials were targeted during the eight months of the Russian occupation. Their faces were printed in posters placed all over the city, promising retribution for their collaboration with the Kremlin, in a psychological war that lasted throughout the occupation.

Many of those promises were kept, with some of those officials gunned down and others blown up in their cars in incidents that pro-Russian local authorities described as “terrorist attacks.”

Archie was arrested by the occupying authorities on May 9, after attending a victory day parade, celebrating the Soviet Union’s win in World War II, wearing a yellow and blue stripe on his t-shirt.

He was taken to a local pre-trial detention facility which had been taken over by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and used to torture Ukrainian soldiers, intelligence officers and partisans, according to Archie.

“They beat me, electrocuted me, kicked me and beat me with batons,” Archie recalls. “I can’t say they starved me, but they didn’t give much to eat.”

“Nothing good happened there,” he said.

Archie was lucky enough to be let go after nine days and after being forced to record a video saying he’d agreed to work with the Russian occupiers. His account of what transpired in the facility has been confirmed by Ukrainian military sources and other detainees.

But many others never left, according to Archie and other resistance fighters, as well as Ukrainian military and intelligence sources.

Ihor, who asked CNN not to reveal his last name for his protection, was also held at the facility.

“I was kept here for 11 days and throughout that time I heard screaming from the basement,” the 29-year-old says. “People were tortured, they were beaten with sticks in the arms and legs, cattle prods, even hooked up to batteries and electrocuted or waterboarded with water.”

Ihor was caught transporting weapons and says “luckily” he was only beaten.

“I arrived after the time when people were beaten up to death here,” he recalls. “I was stabbed in the legs with a taser, they use it as a welcome. One of them asked what I’d been brought in for and another two of them started hitting me in the ribs.”

Through his detention, Ihor was able to hide that he was a member of the Kherson resistance and that transporting weapons was not the only thing he did. Ihor says he also supplied intelligence to the Ukrainian military – an activity that would have incurred far more brutal punishment.

“If we found something, saw it, (we) took a picture or a video (and) sent it to Ukrainian forces and then they would decide whether to hit it or not,” he explains.

Among the coordinates he communicated to the Ukrainian military is a warehouse within Kherson city. “The Russian military kept between 20 to 30 vehicles here, there were armored trucks, armored personnel carriers and some Russians lived here,” Ihor says.

Departing Russian forces were quick to hollow out what was left of the prized interior, but the wrecked building bears the marks of the violent strike. Most of the roof has collapsed, its walls lay shattered and broken glass still covers most of the floor. The structure remains in place but in parts its metal has been mangled by the blast.

Ihor used the Telegram messaging app to communicate the building’s coordinates to his military handler, who he referred to as “the smoke.” Along with the information, he sent a video he secretly recorded.

“I turned on the camera, pointed it at the building and then I just walked and talked on the phone while the camera was filming,” he explains. “Afterward I deleted video, of course, because if they were to stop me somewhere and check my videos and pictures there would be questions…”

He sent the information in mid-September and, just a day later, the facility was targeted by Ukrainian artillery.

The United States and NATO have assessed that when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin expected its forces to be greeted as saviors, welcomed with open arms. Reality failed to live up to expectation, not just in the territories where Moscow’s armies were pushed back, but also in the areas it was able to seize.

The strike on the warehouse which Ihor helped with, is one of many facilitated by Ukrainian partisans inside Kherson working tirelessly and under threat to disrupt Russian activities within the city.

Eight months after it was occupied by Russia, the city of Kherson is now back in Ukrainian hands and Moscow’s armies are on the back foot, forced to withdraw from the western bank of the Dnipro river.

But despite achieving victory here, Ukraine continues to faces almost daily crippling missile strikes almost everywhere else, all while Russian forces continue to press on in the East.

Looking back, Ihor, father to a three-month-old daughter, says he was lucky he wasn’t caught.

“It wasn’t hard, but it was dangerous,” he explains. “If they were to catch me filming such a thing, they would take me in and probably wouldn’t let me come out alive.”

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World

Russia tells NASA space station pullout less imminent than indicated earlier

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The International Space Station (ISS) photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking, October 4, 2018. NASA/Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

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WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) – Russian space officials have informed their U.S. counterparts that Moscow would like to keep flying its cosmonauts on the International Space Station at least until their own orbital outpost is built, a senior NASA official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Yuri Borisov, the newly appointed director-general of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, surprised NASA on Tuesday by announcing that Moscow intended to end the longstanding space station partnership “after 2024.” read more

Kathy Lueders, NASA’s space operations chief, said in an interview that Russian officials later on Tuesday told the U.S. space agency that Roscosmos would like to remain in the partnership as Russia works to get its planned orbital outpost, named ROSS, up and running.

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“We’re not getting any indication at any working level that anything’s changed,” Lueders told Reuters, adding that NASA’s relations with Roscosmos remain “business as usual.”

The space station, a science laboratory spanning the size of a football field and orbiting some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, has been continuously occupied for more than two decades under a U.S.-Russian-led partnership that also includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.

It offers one of the last holdouts of cooperation between the United States and Russia, though its fate has been called into question since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

A formal agreement to extend Russia’s participation beyond 2024 has not yet been made. NASA, Russia and the station’s other partners plan to discuss the prospect of extending each other’s presence on the laboratory to 2030 during a periodic meeting on Friday of the board that oversees the station’s management, Lueders said.

Roscosmos published on its website on Wednesday an interview with Vladimir Solovyov, the flight director for the space station’s Russian segment, who was quoted as saying Russia must remain on the station until ROSS is operating.

“We, of course, need to continue operating the ISS until we create a more or less tangible backlog for ROSS,” Solovyov said. “We must take into account that if we stop manned flights for several years, then it will be very difficult to restore what has been achieved.”

The American and Russian segments of the space station were deliberately built to be intertwined and technically interdependent.

(This story corrects headline to say “pullout less imminent than indicated earlier,” not “stick with space station until at least 2028; corrects first sentence to say “at least until own outpost in orbit is built,” not “at least until own outpost in orbit is built in 2028”)

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Reporting by Joey Roulette; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Elon Musk Texted Twitter CEO About Lawyers Before Deal Pull-Out: Report

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Twitter sued Musk after he decided to back out of the $44 billion takeover deal. (File)

Washington:

The dispute between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter is taking many twists and turns.

As per new reports, Elon Musk recently, but before pulling out of the deal, sent a text to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on June 28, informing him that the company’s lawyers were trying to “cause trouble” after they sought information on the financial details that Musk was planning to complete the acquisition of Twitter.

“Your lawyers are using these conversations to cause trouble. That needs to stop,” Musk’s text reportedly read. Musk sent the particular message after Twitter asked Musk how he would finance the Twitter deal.

A few days ago, Twitter sued Musk after he decided to back out of the $44 billion takeover deal.

As per The Verge, the lawsuit was filed in Delaware’s Court of Chancery on Tuesday, accusing Musk of hypocrisy.”Twitter brings this action to enjoin Musk from further breaches to compel Musk to fulfil his legal obligations and to compel consummation of the merger upon satisfaction of the few outstanding conditions,” Twitter wrote in the lawsuit. The lawsuit marks the beginning of what could be a protracted legal battle as Twitter seeks to hold Musk to his deal to pay USD 54.20 per share for the company. Twitter, which is being repped by M&A powerhouse law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, alleged that Musk looked for an escape from the deal, which required a “material adverse effect” or breach of contract.”

Musk had to try to conjure one of those,” the lawsuit stated. Musk announced the termination of the Twitter purchase deal in a letter sent by Musk’s team to Twitter earlier this month.

Musk decided to suspend the deal due to multiple breaches of the purchase agreement. In April, Musk reached an acquisition agreement with Twitter at USD 54.20 per share in a transaction valued at approximately USD 44 billion. However, Musk put the deal on hold in May to allow his team to review the veracity of Twitter’s claim that less than 5 per cent of accounts on the platform are bots or spam.

Back in June, Musk had openly accused the microblogging website of breaching the merger agreement and threatened to walk away and call off the acquisition of the social media company for not providing the data he has requested on spam and fake accounts. Musk alleged that Twitter is “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights” as outlined by the deal, CNN reported, citing the letter he sent to Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde.

Musk demanded that Twitter turn over information about its testing methodologies to support its claims that bots and fake accounts constitute less than 5 per cent of the platform’s active user base, a figure the company has consistently stated for years in boilerplate public disclosures.

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World

Ukrainians shocked by ‘crazy’ scene at Chernobyl after Russian pullout reveals radioactive contamination

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There’s no visible presence of the source of the radioactive material in the room, but Ukrainian officials say it’s coming from small particles and dust that the soldiers brought into the building.

“They went to the Red Forest and brought radioactive material back with them on their shoes,” soldier Ihor Ugolkov explains. “Other places are fine, but radiation increased here, because they were living here.”

CNN was given exclusive access to the power plant for the first time since it came back into Ukrainian control.

Officials at the plant explain the levels inside the room used by Russian soldiers are only slightly above what the World Nuclear Association describes as naturally occurring radiation. One-time contact would not be dangerous but continuous exposure would pose a health hazard.

“They went everywhere, and they also took some radioactive dust on them [when they left],” Ugolkov adds.

It’s an example of what Ukrainian officials say was the lax and careless behavior of Russian soldiers while they were in control of the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. The area around Chernobyl, namely the Red Forest, is still the most nuclear contaminated area on the planet, with most of the radioactive particles present on the soil.

Ukrainian officials have released drone footage of what they say were trenches dug by Russian soldiers in that area, which is particularly radioactive. At a safe location, on the edges of that area, CNN saw a Russian military ration box that exhibited radiation levels 50 times above naturally occurring values.

Russian soldiers held Chernobyl for a month and are thought to have been operating in contaminated areas most of the time.

“It’s crazy, really,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko tells CNN at the plant. “I really have no idea why they did it (go into the Red Forest).

“But we can see they went in there, the soldiers who went there, came back here and the level of radiation increased.”

Although Chernobyl is not an active power plant, the sarcophagus above the reactor that exploded nearly 36 years ago needs to be maintained to avoid further radiation leaks. There is also a considerable amount of spent nuclear fuel that needs to be looked after.

“That confinement is supposed to have electricity, it’s supposed to have the ventilation system and so on,” Galushchenko explains. “When the country cannot control this, and we are responsible, Ukraine is responsible for the security, of course, that is a threat.”

Part of that threat also came from how Russian soldiers managed those responsible for maintaining the nuclear facilities.

[Our staff] were here from the first day of occupation, and they only had the possibility of being replaced a month later,” he says. “When people are physically and morally exhausted, when you are under threat of guns, and you have this everyday pressure from the soldiers, it’s really a very difficult job.”

Volodymyr Falshovnyk, 64, is a shift manager at Chernobyl. He returned to the power plant on March 20 when the Russian military allowed the fatigued personnel to rotate with their colleagues from the nearby city of Slavutych, where many of the plant’s workers live.

He says the staff were working under tremendous pressure, not just because of what was happening at Chernobyl, but also because of the news they were receiving from the outside world.

“Our relatives began to call and say that the city was being stormed, that there were wounded and dead,” he says. “We asked the Russians what was going on and they said there were no regular Russian troops there but we continued to hear that there was shelling.”

Falshovnyk also accused the Russian soldiers of looting the power plant.

“They gave us personnel from Rosatom (Russian Nuclear Agency) to escort us, and in their escort we toured the uncovered warehouses. They robbed these warehouses all the time,” he adds.

Operating under those conditions was intense, but nothing compared to what the security staff endured.

The 169 Ukraine National Guard soldiers, who guarded the facility, were locked in the plant’s Cold War era underground nuclear bunker, crammed up in tight quarters without access to natural light, fresh air or communication with the outside world, according to the Ukrainian Interior Minister.

“They were kept here for 30 days without sufficient lighting and food. They were not allowed outside. On the last day they were taken away from here to an unknown direction,” Denys Monastyrskyy says while standing inside the bunker.

The minister says he believes the men have been taken to Russia, via Belarus, as prisoners of war, but doesn’t know for certain.

“Today we know nothing about their fate unfortunately,” he says.

CNN was shown inside the bunker and other places usually occupied by the plant’s staff by Ukrainian officials who claimed Russian soldiers had ransacked the place. Clothes, hygiene supplies and other personal belongings were scattered all over the floor.

“The Russian military went through all Ukrainian clothes, personal belongings, like dogs, in search of, probably, money, valuables, laptops,” Monastyrskyy continues. “There was looting here. The Russian military stole computers and equipment.”

Moscow has said very little about what its soldiers did at Chernobyl. The last time the Russian Ministry of Defense mentioned the nuclear site was on February 26, confirming its capture and claiming it had made arrangements to ensure the safety of power units, the sarcophagus and a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.

Chernobyl is not an isolated case

Ukrainian officials say the behavior of the Russian military and the treatment of Ukrainian staff at the Chernobyl power plant highlights the danger posed by Moscow’s invasion as it gains control of plants in other areas.

In addition to the decommissioned reactors at Chernobyl, Ukraine has four active nuclear power plants, including the largest in Europe in Zaporizhzhia. The Russian military occupied that facility in early March, when it took control of the area, shelling some of site’s buildings in the process.

“The situation there is also horrible, especially taking into account how they capture Zaporizhzhia because they fired at the station, with heavy weapons,” Energy Minister Galushchenko says.

“It is really an act of nuclear terrorism,” he adds. “I’m not even talking that they are shelling the stations well as a situation in Zaporizhzhia NPP, but when we do not have the possibility of being responsible for nuclear security, there’s a threat.”

And despite Ukraine having regained control of Chernobyl, Ukrainian officials fear that Russian soldiers could try to come back.

“We understand that today we must be ready for a new attack on a nuclear power plant at any moment. We will use the best world experience to ensure that the station is protected as the border is only a few dozen kilometers away,” Interior Minister Monastyrskyy says.

“What we see [in Chernobyl] is a vivid example of outrage at a nuclear facility. It is the responsibility not only of Ukraine, but of the whole world, to keep the stations safe,” he says. “The whole world watched live as tanks fired at nuclear power units [in Zaporizhzhia]. This history must never repeat itself.”

Monastyrskyy says in order to do that his country needs continued international support.

“We are ready to invest in the future of Ukraine and in the future security of the world,” he continues, repeating his government’s call for additional weapons to be sent to Ukraine.

“Today the border between totalitarianism and democracy passes behind our backs, the border between freedom and oppression,” he says. “We are ready to fight for it.”

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US

U.S. begins OSCE staff pullout from eastern Ukraine

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DONETSK, Ukraine, Feb 13 (Reuters) – U.S. staff at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) started to leave the rebel-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, a Reuters journalist said, amid fears of a possible Russian invasion.

Several armoured cars with the OSCE’s logo were loaded with suitcases and seen leaving the mission’s headquarters early on Sunday. The OSCE did not respond to a request for comment.

The OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has been deployed in eastern Ukraine since the outbreak of a war between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces that Kyiv says has killed more than 14,000 people.

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The United States and its allies have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine right away to avoid the threat of a Russian invasion, saying an attack could occur at any time. read more

Russia, which has built up military forces to the north, east and south of Ukraine, has rubbished the idea it plans to attack and has accused Western nations of spreading lies and hysteria.

Two sources told Reuters that the United States decided to withdraw its staff from Ukraine, while Britain moved its monitors from rebel-held areas to ones under government control.

One diplomatic source said 160 OSCE staff were being taken out of Ukraine, including Dutch, Canadian, Slovakian and Albanian citizens. That number could not be immediately confirmed by another source.

Members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) load luggage before leaving the Park Inn hotel housing the monitoring mission in the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine February 13, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

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Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, told Reuters that Kyiv had an interest in the Special Monitoring Mission working at full strength, but declined to comment further on what he said was an OSCE matter.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson criticised the U.S. move and said the mission was succumbing to what she described as a “military psychosis” stirred up by Washington.

In a statement, the official, Maria Zakharova, urged the OSCE’s leadership to prevent attempts to “manipulate the mission” and said its monitoring was needed now more than ever.

Russia and OSCE have had disagreements in the past over eastern Ukraine.

Moscow refused to allow another OSCE mission to keep monitoring the border between the rebel-controlled area in east Ukraine and Russia in September. Pro-Russian separatists blocked its monitors in their hotel in Donetsk for a week in October. read more

Denmark’s OSCE monitors also left Donetsk, one diplomatic source said. Reuters could not immediately establish whether they were leaving the country or only rebel-held territory.

Overall, 21 OSCE monitors left the rebel-held city and more than 30 others also planned to withdraw from nearby government-controlled areas, a diplomatic source said.

Out of 680 OSCE monitors in Ukraine, 515 are based in the eastern part of the country, according to the mission’s official website.

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Reporting by Anton Zverev, additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Tom Balmforth, Kirsten Donovan and Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Russia-led bloc starts Kazakhstan pullout after possible coup bid crushed

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  • Russia says withdrawal to be completed on Jan.19
  • Deployment added to strains in Russian-U.S. ties
  • Ex-security chief investigated for possible coup

ALMATY, Jan 13 (Reuters) – A Russia-led military bloc began pulling out from Kazakhstan on Thursday after a week-long deployment amid an explosion of unrest during which authorities in the Central Asian nation said the former security chief was suspected of attempting a coup.

Russia said the withdrawal of the troops would be completed by Jan. 19, earlier than previously announced. Their deployment had been criticised by Western leaders alarmed by a buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine. Moscow has denied allegations it plans to invade but said security talks this week had hit a dead end and threatened unspecified consequences. read more

President Vladimir Putin said the mission in Kazakhstan had been a success and was a practice that warranted further study.

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Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked for assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) last week after initially peaceful protests, triggered by a sharp increase in car fuel prices, turned violent in many big cities.

“Thanks to your arrival, Kazakh military and security forces were able to carry out their immediate task of locating and detaining bandits,” Kazakh Deputy Defence Minister Mukhamedzhan Talasov told CSTO troops at a departure ceremony in Almaty on Thursday, where they stood with their respective flags. The Russian group was the most numerous.

The Kazakh authorities announced the completion of what they called an “anti-terrorist operation” in most of the country on Wednesday, although they have yet to declare its biggest city Almaty fully secure.

It was unclear how many troops out of about 2,500 sent in by the CSTO were leaving immediately.

CSTO troops were first deployed to government buildings in the capital city of Nur-Sultan, away from the centres of unrest, and later guarded some key infrastructure objects in Almaty, such as large power plants. read more

The authorities have detained almost 10,000 people over the unrest in which some protesters attacked security forces, captured and torched government buildings and looted shops.

They have said some of the attackers were foreigners trained by Islamist militants. Tokayev has said this justified CSTO involvement although he has not specified who the foreigners were. He has dismissed some of his senior security officials who were later charged with treason.

Authorities in Kazakhstan said on Thursday they were also investigating the former head of state security, Karim Masimov, on suspicion of an attempted coup.

At the height of the unrest, Tokayev said he was taking over former president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s position as chairman of the security council – through which the longtime former leader was still wielding sweeping powers. Nazarbayev has not been seen in public since the protests broke out.

Some Kazakhs have echoed a comment by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Kazakhstan might have a hard time getting rid of Russian troops after letting them in. Tokayev has said no foreign troops would remain in the country after Jan.23.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday the pullout would be completed on Jan. 19, the Interfax news agency reported.

Putin praised the CSTO peacekeepers’ work.

“Everything worked like clockwork: fast, coherent and effective,” Putin told Shoigu on state television. “I want to thank you, the general staff and everyone who led this operation, for this work and to express my hope that this practice of using our armed forces will be studied further.”

“All in all, we should return home. We have accomplished our task,” he added.

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Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Mariya Gordeyeva; Additional reporting by Alex Marrow in Moscow; editing by Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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US

Milley advised Biden against Afghan pullout, denies usurping Trump’s authority

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There was Mark Milley on the hot seat yesterday, getting grilled on the Hill over his military’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At a time when the media have largely moved on from the war–while the Taliban just barred female students from Kabul University–the Senate hearing cast a much-needed spotlight on the calamitous end to our 20-year war. And unlike the usual partisan slugfests–Democrats also asked probing questions–it made plenty of news.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs and another top general, Kenneth McKenzie, acknowledged they had recommended that President Biden keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. McKenzie, the Centcom commander, said he predicted that the U.S. withdrawal would cause the collapse of the Afghan army and a Taliban takeover. The “input was received by the president,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified. (Milley wouldn’t discuss the advice he gave the president but made the situation clear.)

That seems to flatly contradict what Biden told ABC last month: “No one said that to me that I can recall.” That creates a serious credibility problem. If the military’s recommendation had been followed, the Taliban would not be in charge today.

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Now Biden had every right to overrule his generals, who usually want more troops and more time to win wars that in the modern era have proved to be unwinnable. He campaigned on an Afghanistan pullout. He inherited a withdrawal deal from Donald Trump–and while he could have tossed that, Biden argues it would have required a troop increase since the Taliban were refraining from attacking Americans under the agreement.

But if Biden defied his military advisers in making the ill-fated move, he has to own that. And perhaps now he does.

Some Republicans pressed the witnesses on whether Biden had made a false statement, but they deflected the questions. These were “dramatic, obviously falsehoods,” said Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan.

Milley also said he’d recommended that Bagram airbase remain open before the evacuation, a blunder that seems obvious in retrospect.

There was another key subtext to the hearing, drawn right from “Peril,” the Bob Woodward-Robert Costa book: whether Milley had gone rogue and undermined Trump. (The general admitted he spoke with several authors.)

Milley was quickly asked about his back-channel calls to China’s top military man, assuring him there were no U.S. plans to attack–this at a time when the book says he was worried about Trump’s mental decline.  

Milley said the calls were “coordinated…before and after” with then-Pentagon chief Mark Esper, his acting successor Chris Miller and their staffs. He said that based on intel reports it was his responsibility to “de-escalate” and say “we are not going to attack you.” He says he briefed both men and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about the calls–a very different picture than presented in “Peril.”

“At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself in the chain of command,” he told the panel.

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The book has Milley telling Nancy Pelosi, based on a call transcript, that he agrees with her assessment of Trump as crazy. He testified that he told the House speaker “I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the United States.”

The aforementioned former president has been hammering Biden over Afghanistan, but is also being pummeled by such books as “Peril.” The latest, which leaked yesterday, is by former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who writes about Trump’s “terrifying” temper. She says in “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” which includes many unflattering anecdotes about Donald and Melania, that “casual dishonesty filtered through the White House as if it were in the air conditioning system.”

Grisham did not resign until after Jan. 6, and a Trump spokeswoman called the book “another pitiful attempt to cash in on the president’s strength and sell lies about the Trump family.”

There has been a series of blistering books about Trump from former aides he had previously praised, such as John Bolton, whose book his former boss tried to legally block. Another was by former “Apprentice” guest Omarosa Manigault Newman, who just won an arbitrator’s ruling that her book did not violate a confidentiality agreement.

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What these and other authors are doing is trying to rehabilitate their images in a profitable enterprise by turning on the man who appointed them–even if they’re telling important truths. It’s a similar situation for officials and ex-officials, such as Milley and Bill Barr, who obviously cooperated extensively with the Woodward book.

For Milley, that meant defending himself at a Hill hearing carried live on the three cable news networks–and the first crack at accountability.

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US

Rockets fired at Kabul airport in waning hours of US pullout

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Islamic State militants fired a volley of rockets at Kabul’s rapidly emptying international airport on Monday, with just hours left before a deadline for U.S. forces to withdraw at the end of America’s longest war.

The Pentagon is tight-lipped about final operations and has not specified when the withdrawal will be completed ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. But spokesman John Kirby told reporters “there is still time” for Americans to join a massive airlift that has allowed more than 116,000 people to leave since the Taliban swept back into power two weeks ago.

All day Monday, U.S. military cargo jets came and went despite the rocket attack, which did not hurt anyone. The Taliban released a video shot from the airport’s grounds, saying the Americans had removed or destroyed most of their equipment and that troop numbers were far lower. “It looks like today will be the last day,” one of the unidentified fighters said.

With the departure of the last of its troops, the U.S. is ending its 20-year war with the Taliban back in power. Many Afghans remain fearful of them or further instability, and there have been sporadic reports of killings and other abuses in areas under Taliban control despite pledges to restore peace and security.

In the last 24 hours, the American military evacuated about 1,200 people on 26 C-17 flights, while two coalition flights flew out 50 others, the White House said.

The two-week airlift has brought scenes of desperation and horror. In the early days, people desperate to flee Taliban rule flooded onto the tarmac and some fell to their deaths after clinging to a departing aircraft. On Thursday, an Islamic State suicide attack at an airport gate killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.

The extremist group is far more radical than the Taliban, who captured most of Afghanistan in a matter of days. The two groups have fought each other before, and the Taliban have pledged to not harbor terrorist groups.

The Taliban tightened their security cordon around the airport after the attack, clearing away massive crowds of Afghans who were desperate to flee the country in the waning days of the U.S.-led airlift. Taliban fighters are now stationed along a fence near the main runway.

A crowd quickly gathered Monday around the remains of a four-door sedan used in the rocket attack. The car had what appeared to be six homemade rocket tubes mounted in place of its back seats.

“I was inside the house with my children and other family members. Suddenly there were some blasts,” said Jaiuddin Khan, who lives nearby. “We jumped into the house compound and lay on the ground.”

Some of the rockets landed across town, striking residential apartment blocks, witnesses said. That neighborhood is about 3 kilometers (under 2 miles) from the airport. No injuries were reported.

Five rockets targeted the airport, said Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a U.S. military spokesman. A defensive weapon known as a C-RAM — a Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System — targeted the rockets in a whirling hail of ammunition, he said. The system has a distinct, drill-like sound that echoed through the city at the time of the attack.

An IS statement, carried by the group’s Amaq media outlet, claimed the militants fired six rockets.

The White House said President Joe Biden was briefed on the rocket attack.

“The president was informed that operations continue uninterrupted at HKIA, and has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground,” the statement said, using an acronym for Kabul’s airport.

Planes took off about every 20 minutes at one point Monday morning. One C-17 landing in the afternoon shot off flares as it approached — a maneuver to protect against heat-seeking missiles and a sign the U.S. military remains concerned about surface-to-air missiles loose in the country.

Smoke from several fires along the airport’s perimeter could be seen. It wasn’t clear what was ablaze, although U.S. forces typically destroy material and equipment they don’t take with them.

The airport had been one of the few ways out for foreigners and Afghans fleeing the Taliban. However, coalition nations have halted their evacuations in recent days, leaving the U.S. military largely alone there with some remaining allied Afghan forces.

The U.S. State Department released a statement Sunday signed by about 100 countries, as well as NATO and the European Union, saying they had received “assurances” from the Taliban that people with travel documents would still be able to leave.

The Taliban have said they will allow normal travel after the U.S. withdrawal is completed on Tuesday and they take control of the airport. However, it is unclear how the militants will run the airport and which commercial carriers will begin flying in, given the ongoing security concerns.

Qatar confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that the Gulf country has been taking part in negotiations about operations at the airport with Afghan and international parties, mainly the U.S. and Turkey. Qatar’s Assistant Foreign Minister Lolwa al-Khater said its main priority is restoring regular operations while maintaining security at the airport. Qatar is a U.S. ally that has long hosted a Taliban political office.

The Taliban have honored a pledge not to attack Western forces so long as they evacuate by Tuesday, but IS remains a threat.

The U.S. carried out a drone strike Saturday that it said killed two IS members. On Sunday, a U.S. drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying IS suicide bombers before they could attack the airport, American officials said.

However, the Taliban said the latest strike killed at least 10 people — including civilians and three children, sparking anger.

Urban, the military spokesman, acknowledged the reports of civilian casualties.

“We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,” he said in a statement.

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Akhgar reported from Istanbul and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Rahim Faiez in Istanbul, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem and Robert Burns and Lou Kesten in Washington contributed.

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Biden decides to stick with Aug. 31 final pullout from Kabul

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has decided not to extend his Aug. 31 deadline for completing the U.S.-led evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies from Afghanistan, an administration official said Tuesday.

Biden made the decision after consultation with his national security team. Weighing the risks of keeping forces on the ground beyond the deadline, he opted to complete the mission by next Tuesday, which was the deadline he set well before the Taliban completed its takeover of Afghanistan on Aug. 15.

Biden asked his national security team to create contingency plans in case a situation arose for which the deadline needed to be extended slightly, the official said.

The U.S. ramped up its round-the-clock airlift of evacuees from Afghanistan to its highest level yet on Tuesday. Biden had considered whether to extend his self-imposed deadline, taking into account the continued security threats by extremist groups in the Afghan capital, the Taliban’s resistance to an extension and the prospect that not all Americans and at-risk Afghan allies can be evacuated by next Tuesday.

America’s European allies as well as U.S. lawmakers, veterans groups and refugee organizations are urging Biden to continue the evacuations as long as needed to get out all foreigners, Afghan allies and others most at risk from the Taliban.

At a news conference in Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday his group will accept “no extensions” of the deadline.

Later Tuesday, the chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the military will need “at least several days” to fully withdraw its several thousand troops and their equipment from Kabul. He said commanders are still aiming to leave by Aug. 31. He said there is enough time to get all Americans out but was less specific about completing the evacuation of all at-risk Afghans.

“We believe we have the ability to get that done by the end of the month,” he said, referring to the unspecified number of American citizens who are seeking to leave. He said several hundred were evacuated on Monday and that “several thousand” have gotten out since the airlift began. He would not be more specific.

U.S. allies and other countries also are conducting evacuations, and would have to shut down their operations and leave before U.S. troops do.

About 21,600 people were flown safely out of Taliban-held Afghanistan in the 24-hour period that ended early Tuesday, the White House said. That compares with about 16,000 the previous day.

Thirty-seven U.S. military flights — 32 C-17s and 5 C-130s — carried about 12,700 evacuees. An additional 8,900 people flew out aboard 57 flights by U.S. allies.

Amid the tense operation to get people out of the country, CIA Director William Burns secretly swooped into Kabul on Monday to meet with the Taliban’s top political leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

.The Washington Post first reported Burns’ meeting. The U.S. official later confirmed the meeting for the AP.

A 2020 deal struck by President Donald Trump and the Taliban initially set a May deadline for U.S. troops to fully withdraw from Afghanistan, after nearly 20 years of war there. Biden extended the deadline to Aug. 31, but is adamant he, too, wants to end the U.S. military role in Afghanistan, and is rejecting criticism over the Taliban’s sudden conquest of the country this month and the collapse of the U.S.-backed government and military.

The U.S. risks renewed attacks by the Taliban if its forces stay past the Aug. 31 deadline.

The senior U.S. military commander at the Kabul airport, Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, has been communicating daily with Taliban commanders in an effort to facilitate the evacuation, but the last known contact between the military and Baradar was when Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Doha, Qatar, to meet with him and other Taliban officials last December.

With access to the airport still dangerous, U.S. helicopter crews have been carrying out sorties beyond the airport walls to retrieve evacuees, including 16 Americans on Monday.

President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said at the White House on Monday that talks with the Taliban were continuing as the administration looks for additional ways to safely move more Americans and others into the Kabul airport by the end-of-August deadline.

He said ultimately it will be Biden’s decision alone whether to continue military-led evacuation operations beyond Aug. 31.

California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, told reporters after a committee briefing Monday on the Afghanistan withdrawal that “it was hard for me to imagine” wrapping up the airlifts by the end of the month. He also said it was clear there had been “any number of warnings” to the administration “of a very rapid takeover” by the Taliban.

After more than a week of evacuations plagued by major obstacles, including Taliban forces and crushing crowds that are making approaching the airport difficult and dangerous, the number of people flown out met — and exceeded — U.S. projections for the first time.

The Pentagon said it has added a fourth U.S. military base, in New Jersey, to three others — in Virginia, Texas and Wisconsin — that are prepared to temporarily house arriving Afghans. Maj. Gen. Hank Williams, the Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, told reporters there are now about 1,200 Afghans at those military bases. The four bases combined are capable of housing up to 25,000 evacuees, Kirby said.

Afghan evacuees continued to arrive at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington. Exhaustion clouded the faces of many of the adults. A journalist asked one man how it felt to be in the U.S. “We are safe,” the man answered.

An older woman sank with relief into an offered wheelchair, and a little girl carried by an older boy shaded her eyes to look curiously around. The scramble to evacuate left many arrivals carrying only a bookbag or purse, or a plastic shopping bag of belongings.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who will meet with Biden virtually on Tuesday in a G-7 leaders’ summit on the chaotic withdrawal, had been expected to press Biden for an extension to get out the maximum number of foreigners and Afghan allies possible.

Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of more than 58,000 people.

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Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Darlene Superville, Aamer Madhani, Lolita C. Baldor, Hope Yen, Alexandra Jaffe, James LaPorta, Jonathan Lemire, Matthew Lee and Dan Huff contributed to this report.

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