On the morning of May 18, hours after the Cannes Film Festival kicked off, Polina Schlicht huddled with fellow international film buyers on the lawn of Le Grand Hôtel. As the managing director of Berlin-based Monumental Pictures, a company that licenses films for Ukraine via UFD, its distribution arm in …
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Belle and Sebastian have released “If They’re Shooting At You,” a new song that pledges support for individuals affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The track’s companion video is comprised of images from the frontlines and features work by a variety of Ukraine-based photographers covering the invasion, including Vadim …
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How does a 61-year-old former pot dealer named “Texas” end up filming videos in front of Z-marked tanks on the Russian side of the frontline in Donbas? Russell “Texas” Bentley has gone viral this week with a YouTube video in which he wears a black leather jacket and a revolutionary’s …
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For most of February, a Twitter user named @SpicyPandaAcc churned out one uplifting tweet after another about the 2022 Winter Olympics and their host city Beijing. The Spicy Panda account celebrated Chinese aerial skier Xu Mengtao, a gold medalist and a “role model” who “tells us love and persistence will …
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In the early morning hours of Thursday, Feb. 24, Russia began a coordinated invasion into Ukraine. First, it was airstrikes — rockets raining down on all the country’s major cities — later, the ground troops began to move in. Many Ukrainians hadn’t believed Russian President Vladimir Putin would actually start …
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AVDIIVKA – On Saturday afternoon, as Irina Holobatenko ushered me into her spare flat on the ground floor of an apartment complex on the edge of Avdiivka, an industrial suburb in far Eastern Ukraine, two dull booms from artillery sounded in the distance. “Privyet!!” Irinia’s husband, Vitaliy, chuckled. Avdiivka was …
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WASHINGTON —Gordon Sondland is a wealthy hotelier and lifelong Republican who, despite having no diplomatic experience, scored a plum gig as President Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the European Union. (Sondland’s $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration surely didn’t hurt.) As ambassador, Sondland’s portfolio included Ukraine. From the spring to the …
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If you’re under federal indictment for money laundering charges, it might be better not to have “Fraud Guarantee” and “Loan Crime Investigation” on your resume. Lev Parnas — one of the Rudy Giuliani associates indicted on conspiracy charges relating to fraudulent campaign donations, including allegedly steering Russian money into the …
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House of Representatives is opening an impeachment inquiry against President Trump amid new revelations about Trump’s attempt to leverage foreign aid to push Ukraine to investigate a potential presidential rival. “The president must be held accountable, and no one is above the law,” Pelosi said …
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President Trump has all but admitted he asked the Ukrainian government to investigate a political opponent, and there’s plenty of reason to believe he threatened to withhold Congress-approved aid if the country were to refuse to comply. For Trump and his allies, however, the real scandal is not Trump’s actions …
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