• Putin May Soon Be Declared War Criminal By Ukrainian Government Resolution Newsweek

Finally, now we can send him to jail.

• 'The Russians are running': Meet Ukraine's soldiers near Kherson on the southern frontline EuroNews

Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine have been trying to retake Kherson, the only large city in the country to be occupied by Russia.

Really? The only large city in the country? Are you sure about that?

• Italy proposes four-stage plan to end war in Ukraine Yahoo

a ceasefire in Ukraine and the demilitarization of the front line under UN supervision;

Sounds reasonable.

negotiations on the status of Ukraine, which provide for the country's accession to the EU, and non-accession to NATO;

...okay.

bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Russia on Crimea and Donbas: at the suggestion of the Italian authorities, the "disputed territories" will have full autonomy with the right to ensure their own security, but sovereignty over the regions will belong to Kyiv;

Anybody else have circus music playing in their head right now?

concluding a multilateral agreement on peace and security in Europe, covering disarmament and arms control, conflict prevention, and confidence-building measures.

Those are just words, but whatever.

The plan stipulates that Russian troops are then withdrawn from Ukraine.

This plan is completely unworkable (though you might kill Putin by making him laugh too hard at it), but it's still an order of magnitude more sensible than anything coming out of Zelensky's mouth, which is astounding.

• The world must not forget Mariupol’s defenders WaPo

This is singlehandedly the worst article I've ever put in this section. I literally cannot express my burning fucking hatred for the Washington Post, and every other MSM journalist, without blatant fedposting. The fact that these people have jobs is, by itself, a stunning takedown of the idea that meritocracy does and could ever exist in this godforsaken country. In an entirely unrelated point, the weakening of abortion protections will be a tragic loss for America.

“Another such victory and we shall be utterly ruined,” the Greek King Pyrrhus of Epirus supposedly muttered after his army lost thousands of soldiers while defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279 B.C.

Similar words might well apply to Russia’s conquest of Mariupol, Ukraine, which the forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin completed Monday. The city’s last few hundred Ukrainian defenders, holed up inside the vast Azovstal steel plant on the outskirts of town, have surrendered and been taken to Russian-held areas of Ukraine. Russia thus achieved a strategic objective: to control an uninterrupted swath of territory along Ukraine’s southeastern edge, including Crimea and most of its Black Sea coast.

Yet Moscow paid an extraordinary price during the nearly three months it had to fight — contrary to all prewar expectations — for Mariupol. The civilians of what is now a ruined city, tens of thousands of whom died during a ferocious and indiscriminate Russian bombardment, endured the worst of it, of course. Russian casualties in what was often house-to-house combat, though undetermined, were presumably high as well, however. So was the cost, to Russia’s overall war effort, of having to divert many military resources to a single battle. There was an undeniable contradiction between upbeat Russian war propaganda and the reality that, in the end, Moscow had to negotiate a surrender for defenders that it had vowed to annihilate.

The fighters who held out at Mariupol not only survived but also helped Ukraine prevent Russia from seizing other territory, including cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv. They deserve the accolades they are receiving from their government. Mr. Putin and his propaganda machine, of course, have branded them as Nazis and terrorists, based on the fact that some came from the Azov Regiment, which began as a far-right paramilitary organization in 2014 in the war against Russia but has since been reformed and absorbed into the regular Ukrainian army. The relevance of this history is that Russia might invoke it as an excuse to violate the promise Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Mr. Putin had made during surrender talks: that those who laid down their arms would be treated “consistent with the respective international laws.” Many in Russia are already clamoring for their punishment instead of sending them back to Ukraine in exchange for Russian POWs as President Volodymyr Zelensky has proposed. There are reports that some might be subjected to interrogations and accused of war crimes.

The United States and its partner democracies must remain vigilant regarding the fate of these fighters now that they are essentially at Mr. Putin’s mercy. He must be held accountable for his promise of decent, lawful treatment. One lesson of Mariupol is that the Russian president did, in the end, agree to evacuate both civilians and military personnel from the Azovstal plant, as he should have. He did so, however, only because armed Ukrainian resistance gave him no other choice.

Climate

• Global Climate Movement Warns Nations Have Just 6 Months to End Fossil Fuel Finance CommonDreams

• Spain braces for heatwave of ‘extraordinary intensity’ Guardian

• Microplastics Widespread in Nigerian Drinking Water, Research Shows Newsweek

I Thought I'd Mention

• War, Disasters Drive 'All-Time High' of Nearly 60 Million Displaced in Home Nations CommonDreams

• Iraqi man seeks Guinness World Record for longest mustache IraqiNews

It is an impressive mustache.