Something to look at, or to be aware of: “Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction.” Rubble. A wasteland. You know the propaganda line: “Mother Russia has a tenderhearted concern for eastern Ukraine. The people in that region long to return to Mother’s arms. They need protection from Nazis in Kyiv.” Anyone who still believes this line — always will.

• A gripping report from the Wall Street Journal: “36 Hours in Bakhmut: One Unit’s Desperate Battle to Hold Back the Russians.” The Ukrainians are setting an example for all: of courage, of patriotism, of determination. They are trying to save their country from destruction and subjugation.

• A report from Hanna Arhirova of the Associated Press: “Scarred by war, Ukrainian children carry on after losing parents, homes and innocence.” The concluding paragraphs:

When Andrii Hinkin remembers his hometown, he doesn’t recall the bombs, the smoke or the thunderous explosions. He remembers it as a beautiful village.

Asked what are his biggest dreams, he responds timidly. “I want to grow up.”

• The Kremlin has an American hostage, of course. He ought to be a top priority of the U.S. government. His name is Evan Gershkovich, and he is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Here is a headline: “Russia extends arrest of US journalist Evan Gershkovich by 3 months.” (Article here.) Here is another headline: “Russia Tries to Blackmail WSJ With Veiled Threat About Evan Gershkovich.” (Article here.)

This is a nasty, murderous regime, Putin’s. Russians have been trying to tell us this for years. Maybe more people in the West are now willing to listen.

• Steve Rosenberg of the BBC writes,

Imagine being in court and seeing your son — a government critic — sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Elena Gordon knows exactly how that feels.

Last month Elena stood beside the dock — a glass cage — in a Moscow courtroom. Locked inside it was her son Vladimir Kara-Murza.

One of President Putin’s most vocal critics, he was convicted of treason and other alleged crimes and jailed for a quarter of a century.

To read the rest of the article, go here. Kara-Murza is unfathomably brave. Putin has a great many admirers here in the West: the “manly” “nationalist” who “defends” “Christian civilization.” Vladimir Kara-Murza deserves at least as many.

• Writes Bill Browder,

Hungary has blocked the imposition of EU Magnitsky sanctions on Vladimir Kara-Murza’s persecutors. In response 41 Members of the European Parliament have written to the Foreign Ministers of all EU member states (minus Hungary) to pass their own national Magnitsky laws.

Yes, this is an imperative. Presumably, Orbán’s government will continue to block the EU from imposing sanctions on Russian human-rights violators, including those who have persecuted Kara-Murza. Governments need to get around Orbán, and his veto. And the only way to do this is — to adopt their own Magnitsky acts.

• In 2015, Senator John McCain answered questions about Ukraine, Russia, and Putin. He knew what he was talking about. It’s hard to tell who has greater contempt for him these days: the D’s or the R’s. But that says more about us than about him.

• A report begins,

A Russian official who reportedly complained about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has died after falling ill on board a flight from Cuba to Russia.

You’re kidding?

• For the past months and years, many of us have been chronicling the re-Sovietization of Russia. (For a recent piece of mine on this subject, go here.) Here is something instructive: “Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations.” Oh, yes. Over and over.

• Another report: “The cyber gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens.” Chilling — but no more so than all the rest.

• Mikhail Baryshnikov, the great dancer, is of Russian ethnicity. He was born in Riga when Latvia was in the Soviet Union, part of the “prison house of nations.” He has been a citizen of the United States since 1986 — and a citizen of Latvia, not Russia, since 2017. There is another Baryshnikov, less famous: Igor Baryshnikov, about whose fate we have a report from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty:

A prosecutor in Russia’s far western exclave of Kaliningrad has asked a court to sentence a 64-year-old anti-war activist to eight years in prison on a charge of spreading “fake” information about Russia’s armed forces involved in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Igor Baryshnikov’s lawyer, Maria Bontsler, told RFE/RL on May 24 that her client was in no state to be incarcerated, as he has been diagnosed with cancer and urgently needs surgery. The case against Baryshnikov was launched on May 5 over his numerous online posts condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Reagan used the word “evil,” to describe the Soviet empire, and that applies to Putin’s Kremlin and its doings today. Back then, there were Americans who wet their pants over that word, and there still are.

• Here is a dancer. Was a dancer. “‘A very noble man’: Ballet dancer turned soldier killed on front line near Bakhmut.” The article begins,

Over 500 spectators of the Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater stood in a deep silence before the start of a performance of the “La Bayadere” ballet in late April.

Some of them had tears in their eyes.

The audience was commemorating the opera’s late ballet dancer, Rostyslav Yanchyshen, who stepped in to defend Ukraine during the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion and was killed in combat on April 19.

“Rostyslav was a very noble man,” Harry Sevoyan, the head of Rostyslav’s ballet troupe, told the Kyiv Independent. “He was a professional dancer who loved his country. An example of a true patriot.”

I admire these people no end. I hope they win. I hope they repel the invader and remain free.

• In addition to “prison house of nations,” there was another phrase: “captive nations.” Americans, some of us, observed “Captive Nations Week.” (Technically, the week exists today.) Ukraine was one of those captive nations; and Putin is trying to make it one again, as he reconstitutes as much of the empire as he can.

If you think he would stop with Ukraine — he would laugh in your face.

• Last Sunday, Carnegie Hall hosted a concert in honor of Andrei Sakharov. I wrote about it here, and would like to paste the concluding paragraphs:

About Andrei Sakharov and his greatness, much has been written. I have done some writing myself, particularly in a history of the Nobel Peace Prize. (Sakharov received this award, in absentia, in 1975.) I would like to make a single point here and now.

Sakharov was at the top of the Soviet heap. He was a star in the nomenklatura. He was one of the most honored scientists — one of the most honored men — in the whole USSR. Three-time Hero of Socialist Labor. The Lenin Prize. The Stalin Prize. And he threw it all away, to stand up for the truth and for human rights. He had it made — and he gave up every privilege, every comfort, to take his stand. He suffered terribly, as a consequence of his truth-telling.

Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and other political prisoners are going through their own torments right now. Perhaps in honoring Sakharov, this concert honored them too.

• Ever hear of Jeff Monson? I have now. RFE/RL reports,

Russian-based mixed-martial-arts (MMA) fighter Jeff Monson says he has renounced his U.S. citizenship. Monson told Russia’s state TASS news agency on May 24 that he had handed his passport to the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Monson, 52, also known as the Snowman, has a record of 89 fights — 61 wins, 26 losses, 1 draw — in MMA competitions. Monson supported Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east in 2014. In 2018, he obtained Russian citizenship and became a lawmaker in the city of Krasnogorsk near Moscow, representing the ruling United Russia party.

Steven Seagal, Jeff Monson — I don’t think we are sending Putin our best, really.

• Many, many of Russia’s best have streamed out of the country. Earlier today, a young man named Sergei introduced himself to me. We had been sitting next to each other on a plane. I was typing these notes — this blogpost. He said, “Excuse me, but are you a journalist? I could not help seeing that you were typing the name ‘Kara-Murza.’” Sergei is a great admirer of Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny, and other prisoners of Putin. Not wanting to live in a police state, he came to America, and is working in the medical field.

I’m glad to have him. And maybe some of our tankies can go and join Seagal and Monson.