NOTE: ONLY TWO SHORT ENTRIES TODAY.

Links to reports from the Associated Press and Reuters, and to commentary from ScheerPost; other articles are accessible by clicking on their names or initials below. (LEBANON entry for this date is HERE.) — MCM   

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Russian missile attack forces Ukraine to shut down power grid, by Hanna Arhirova and Yehor Konovalov | AP  KYIV — Russia today launched a major ballistic and cruise missile attack on regions across Ukraine, targeting energy production and compelling authorities to shut down the power grid in some areas despite freezing winter weather, officials said. READ MORE . . .

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Trump advisors concede Ukraine peace deal is months away, by Gram Slattery | Reuters  WASHINGTON — Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise — to strike a peace deal on his first day in the White House. READ MORE . . .

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FROM JAN. 13  The nihilism of Antony Blinken, by Patrick Lawrence | Original to ScheerPost Blinken and his colleagues anticipated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before it started in February 2022 because the Biden regime provoked it to the point Moscow had no other choice. Washington spent the autumn of 2021 arming Kiev, but . . . READ MORE . . .