In an essay on Defense One, Dan Ward, a retired US Air Force colonel, writes about the lessons that the military acquisition community can learn from the Russian-Ukrainian war. The first lesson is that the speed of acquisition is critically important. Military events unfold quickly, so the response to them must also be quick and effective. Second, when the US military is not on the battlefield, the forces most directly involved in the conflict are US intelligence and acquisition professionals. According to Ward, if to achieve an acquisition success in 2022, the US needs to provide operational systems to Ukraine quickly, then the Ministry of Defense should recast its view of the acquisition in international security and reconsider the balance between long-term technology development and support of operational units. The third observation shared by the author is that American equipment does not always best meet the needs of the troops because it is often too hard to use. Therefore, acquisition specialists should pay attention to making the equipment easier to use and reducing the need for initial training of new systems. Program interfaces must be intuitive and understandable to users. Ward writes that one of the reasons why HIMARS are so effective in Ukraine is theyʼre simple and have an interface that is easy to understand. According to the colonel, improving cooperation in the military acquisition between NATO members is also necessary. Finally, Ward writes, itʼs essential to stay focused on real-world conflicts, even though the Defense Department may be tempted to focus on predicting an uncertain future -- such as a conflict with China.
The Times of Israel spoke with Oleksandr Feldman, one of the wealthiest people in Ukraine. Feldman is Jewish and believes that Israel is not doing enough to help Ukraine. The most painful thing for Feldman is the loss of Feldman Ecopark, a free zoo with a particular orientation toward children. The shelling of the zoo began on February 24, the first day of the full-scale war. Evacuating predators that could threaten humans if their enclosures were damaged by shelling was a major challenge. The publication describes Feldmanʼs biography and draws attention to the fact that there are Jewish symbols in his Kyiv office, where the interview took place. Feldman came to the community quite late, but he has headed the Ukrainian Jewish Committee since 2008. In the conversation, he notes the determination of Kharkivʼs Jewish community, which rallied to help the locals with food and shelter. Feldman says that the problem of anti-Semitism in Ukraine is not serious and that he is outraged by the position taken by Israel in relation to Ukraine. Feldman notes that as a Jew, he is firmly convinced that Israel has done catastrophically little for Ukraine. Until March, Feldman was a member of the pro-Russian party Opposition Platform — For Life, but now he is convinced that there can be no peace with Russia.
Political science professor Mark Lawrence Schrad wrote a long read for Politico about Karen Shakhnazarov ʼs surreal film Zero City, which describes the realities of todayʼs Russia. The plot of the 1989 film revolves around the main character, who finds himself in the city of Zero and plunges into an increasingly strange illusory world. The author considers this satirical picture "a hidden gem of late Soviet cinema," which sheds light on modern Russian political realities. The film "Zero City" was created at the height of the "era of glasnost ."He exposes the crumbling Soviet socio-political system, based on fantasy, which is trying to retain power, resorting to crude propaganda and distortion of reality. Schrad describes a scene from the film where the main character enters a local history museum, where the history of the city of Zero is entirely distorted. Among the exhibits, you can see the tomb of Trojan kings, the remains of Roman legions, and the head of the Second False Dmitry (a pretender to the Russian throne in the 17th century). The author notes that Putin also justified his invasion of Ukraine with an hour-long lecture on alternative history. The museum exhibition in the film was created based on the results of the research of fictional historians Rotenberg and Gerasimov. In real life, the Rotenberg brothers are oligarchs and friends of Putin, and Valery Gerasimov leads the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The author draws many parallels between various scenes in the film and the present. The most shocking revelation is how Zero City shows the futility of any attempt to fight the official narrative. Like the filmʼs main character, the Russians are forced to either submit to the surreal Russkii mir ("Russian world") or try to escape, which becomes increasingly difficult. At the end of the publication, Shrad also mentions the fate of the filmʼs director. Ironically, Karen Shakhnazarov became an ardent supporter of Putin and his war against Ukraine over time.