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Small change, big impact: Creating a separate budget category for VA health care

President Biden recently recalled a pearl of wisdom from his father, who used to say, “show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.” Well, this year’s budget request shows once again how deeply this president — and our country — values veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.

The president submits a budget proposal every year, but President Biden’s budget for FY 23 is special for two reasons. First, it seeks to invest the highest amount ever in our nation’s veterans — $301.4 billion for the world-class care and benefits vets so rightly deserve. Second, it asks that Congress separate out Department of Veterans Affairs health care as its own category of discretionary funding. That second piece may seem relatively inconsequential compared to the first, but it’s not. It’s a fantastic idea that — if adopted by Congress — will help ensure veterans get the health care they need when they need it.

Historically, the VA health care budget for veterans has been grouped together in one budget category with the budgets for other governmental agencies — meaning VA has had to compete with other non-defense departments and agencies for financial resources in the budgetary process. Under President Biden’s proposal, however, VA health care would be its own separate budget category. This change would send a clear message that VA health care should not be subject to competition with other funding needs — it is a sacred obligation we owe to those who serve, and we must fulfill that obligation each and every year.  

This budgetary change is particularly important now because the health care needs of veterans are becoming more complex, which means the cost of VA health care is rising. Since President Biden took office, VA has delivered more care to more veterans than ever before. Moreover, VA funding has more than doubled since 2013, and it will likely increase further in the coming years as President Biden delivers long-overdue presumptive benefits and care to vets who suffer from conditions related to military environmental exposures.

If we maintain the budgetary status quo amidst this continued growth, we will risk underfunding VA at a time when veterans need us most. Additionally, if we maintain the status quo, we will risk underinvesting in other non-defense agencies due to the growth of VA health care. This would be a bad outcome for all Americans — including veterans who often benefit directly from the federal programs that are currently competing against the VA for resources.

Just look at the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, which has saved countless veterans’ lives during the pandemic by leading the development of the COVID-19 vaccine; look at the Indian Health Service which helps care for tribal veterans every day; and look at the Department of Housing and Urban Development which is one of VA’s steadfast partners in our efforts to end veteran homelessness. These departments do fantastic work that benefits all Americans, and they need and deserve budgetary investments. But under the current budgetary structure investments in veterans’ health care accounts come at the expense of this important funding for other agencies which also provide opportunities for veterans and their families.

So, it’s time for a change.

Creating a separate budget category for VA health care would cement our country’s commitment to caring for veterans without cutting other non-defense discretionary investments. It would also mean greater scrutiny for VA, which we welcome.

At the end of the day, most veterans don’t know or care how many budget categories there are — they simply want to know they will get the world-class health care and benefits they’ve earned through their service. That’s what we as a nation owe them, and by adopting President Biden’s proposal for a new budgetary structure, we will be better positioned to fulfill that sacred obligation to Veterans for generations to come.

Denis McDonough is the 11th Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

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Michigan governor candidates face elimination after alleged signature fraud

Five candidates vying for the right to challenge Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) are facing the possibility of being eliminated even before the primary election after a state board found their campaigns filed thousands of fraudulent signatures.

Michigan’s Bureau of Elections issued a formal recommendation late Monday that the five candidates — including two leading contenders — be removed from the August primary ballot. The recommendation will go before the four-member Board of State Canvassers, a bipartisan panel made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, who meet on Thursday.

The bureau said former Detroit Police Chief James Craig (R), who has led some early polling in the race, submitted only 10,192 valid signatures, along with nearly 10,000 signatures that were allegedly fraudulent. Another prime contender, businessman Perry Johnson (R), turned in 13,800 valid signatures and another 9,393 that were invalid, including 6,983 that were allegedly fraudulent.

Three other lesser-known candidates also failed to file enough valid signatures.

Candidates must submit 15,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The Bureau said that the five candidates had filed forms that showed telltale signs of fraud, including forms that featured the same handwriting across multiple signatures and some that did not show signs of wear and tear typical of a used petition.

Both the Michigan Democratic Party and Tudor Dixon (R), a conservative activist also running for governor, had filed complaints challenging the signatures. But the Bureau said they had identified the alleged fraud on their own, without considering the outside challenges.

In their own review, “staff noticed a large number of petition sheets, submitted by certain circulators, appeared fraudulent and consisted entirely of invalid signatures,” the Bureau said in its report. They said some petitions showed signs of “round-tabling,” a practice in which petition gatherers sign each other’s forms in succession to vary handwriting and make signatures appear authentic.

The Bureau said they did not have reason to believe the campaigns were aware of the fraudulent signatures turned in by paid signature gatherers.

Johnson, who has self-funded much of his own campaign, released a plan to reform the petition process just hours before the announcement over his own petitions. In a statement, Johnson’s consultant blamed the signature gatherers and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D).

“The staff of the Democrat secretary of state does not have the right to unilaterally void every signature obtained by the alleged forgers who victimized five campaigns,” Johnson strategist John Yob said. “We strongly believe they are refusing to count thousands of signatures from legitimate voters who signed the petitions and look forward to winning this fight before the board, and if necessary, in the courts.”

If Craig and Johnson are excluded from the ballot, Dixon stands poised to become the Republican front-runner. On Monday, the powerful DeVos family — major donors in Michigan Republican circles — said they would back Dixon for governor.

The winner of the August 2 primary will be immediately thrust into one of the most high-profile contests in the nation, facing off against Whitmer in the battle to control a key swing state. The most recent survey of the race, conducted in January by the Michigan-based pollster EPIC-MRA, found Whitmer’s job approval rating underwater, though Whitmer led Craig in a hypothetical matchup. The poll did not test Johnson or Dixon against the incumbent.

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Clearer than ever that America must invest in truth

Russia’s unprovoked attack on the innocent people of Ukraine has finally focused international attention on the dangers of Vladimir Putin’s ambitions. Now, as it becomes clear that the fastest way to end this disastrous loss of life is to put pressure on Putin from within, piercing the Kremlin’s information blackout is more important than ever.  

For much of the last several decades, the United States and its European partners failed to take the threat of Putin’s domestic propaganda seriously. Cold War institutions like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which I lead, were seen as — at best — anachronistic and — at worst — no longer necessary. Successive U.S. administrations focused on trying to sell American policy to audiences abroad rather than helping to counter authoritarians as they blocked their populations from accessing the truth. 

Instead of bolstering support for independent media outlets in closed or closing societies, many leaders in democratic societies began to focus their attacks on the media in their own countries.

“Journalists can’t really be objective” is a statement I have heard far too often during my time at RFE/RL — from authoritarian strongmen and politicians in the United States and Europe alike.  

In the meantime, Putin was systematically numbing the Russian public. He methodically dismantled the independent Russian media and invested billions of dollars in disinformation campaigns designed to exert complete information control at home and undermine democracy abroad.  

Until recently, this strategy was incremental: deny radio and television licenses to foreign-linked media, threaten independent outlets with onerous regulations, and kill a pesky journalist here and there. It was death by a thousand cuts. But once the war began, it wasn’t a significant leap to what we have witnessed since the war began: outright blocking of websites, shutdowns of social media platforms, and even making it a crime to report facts about the war. 

The options for those Russians who want to find out the truth are now much more limited. It is very difficult at this point to do overt reporting from inside Russia. The audience must use a virtual private network or other circumvention tools to reach websites outside the country.

In neighboring Belarus, a woman was sentenced to 15 days in jail for “possessing” RFE/RL Belarus Service YouTube videos on her phone. It is no longer unimaginable that Russians may face similar threats in the months to come. Some have already had their phones checked by police at protests or as they try to leave the country.

The result is apparent in the interviews Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is still able to do inside Russia. Those Russians who are brave enough to make their concerns about the war known on camera are few and far between. If they don’t toe the Kremlin lie, the risk is severe — a treason charge and the possibility of up to 15 years in prison. 

Yet, despite these risks, millions of Russians are still not satisfied with the narratives they are being fed by Russian state television every evening. They are seeking out alternative views, visiting our websites as well as those of other now banned outlets, even if they are not yet willing to vocally voice their own opinions in public. 

In this environment, this is not a war that will be won by lecturing Russians about the righteousness of American policy or superiority of our way of life. What is needed is a willingness to redouble our commitment to invest in the truth in the form of supporting independent journalism for Russian audiences.  

That means supporting brave Russian journalists wherever they can work safely, inside or out of the country. It means investing in new technologies and delivery methods to stay one step ahead of the Kremlin’s online and television censors. It also means not allowing Putin’s lies to go unanswered — as many did for far too long when the West was distracted with other challenges. 

Throughout our 70-year history, from Poland to Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union, we’ve found that the truth always has a way of breaking through — even in the bleakest of times. Just as our radio broadcasts could not be completely jammed in the past and we were eventually invited into Russia by Boris Yeltsin, Putin’s 21st Century information power grab will ultimately fail. 

Putin realizes the stakes. The Moscow Times recently reported that in the first months of this year the Kremlin tripled its spending on its state media. A clear vulnerability to the truth is perhaps the greatest sign of authoritarian weakness. Some facts are so revealing that they cannot be washed away by lies and propaganda, even if they do buy him more time. 

The question now is whether the United States and our partners are similarly willing to expand resources and support for the brave Russian journalists who are countering Putin’s propaganda with the truth. 

Jamie Fly is president and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). He is based in Prague, Czech Republic.

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WHO says monkeypox 'containable'

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said the monkeypox outbreak is still “containable” in non-endemic countries, or those without significant spread of the zoonotic virus.

The organization’s director for global infectious hazard preparedness, Sylvie Briand, said at a WHO assembly the monkeypox virus could be controlled by pragmatic measures like raising awareness, detecting cases early and isolating contacts to halt the chain of transmission.

“It’s also very important for this, again, limited outbreak to have excellent global coordination and collaboration,” Briand said. “We need to share information, share diagnostic resources [and] share data.”

Briand said she has been monitoring the monkeypox virus for the past few years without a viral spread, so the recent spike in reported cases is alarming. The WHO does not yet know if the monkeypox virus is spreading more rapidly now because of a change in the virus or in human behavior.

David Heymann, a longtime WHO infectious disease expert, said on Monday the monkeypox outbreak is tied to sexual transmission of the virus at two raves in Spain and Belgium.

Monkeypox is from the same family as the now-eradicated smallpox virus and is endemic to nine African countries. The zoonotic virus primarily spreads through close contact with bodily fluids and usually requires prolonged contact to spread.

The infected usually develop symptoms within three days, which begin with a fever and body aches and can end with a body rash.

As of Tuesday, the WHO has identified 131 confirmed cases across the globe and 106 suspected cases. The bulk of the cases were reported in Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

The WHO has confirmed two cases in the U.S., including a man in Massachusetts, as well as seven possible cases.

Nations already have tools to fight monkeypox with existing vaccines for smallpox. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Monday the release of more than a thousand doses of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine available in the U.S.

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Three Texas runoff battles in the ongoing Democratic Party civil war

On May 24 the establishment and progressive wings of the Democratic Party will face off in a trio of Texas Democratic congressional primary runoffs, providing a gauge of the support enjoyed by each faction among Democratic primary voters as we approach the midpoint of President Biden’s first term in office. And, in two of the three runoffs, the outcome will either enhance or undermine Democratic efforts to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms.

The marquee primary runoff takes place in the 28th Congressional District, which stretches from Starr County and Laredo on the U.S.-Mexico border up to San Antonio. Nine-term incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar is being challenged for the second election cycle in a row by Jessica Cisneros, who, combined with a third candidate, kept Cuellar below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff on March 1.

Cuellar enjoys the backing of the U.S. House Democratic Leadership, while

Cisneros is supported by a who’s who of national progressive Democrats. On March 1, in a three-candidate race, Cuellar and Cisneros won 49 percent and 47 percent of the vote respectively.

The second congressional primary runoff takes place in the 15th Congressional District, TX-28’s neighbor to the east, which runs from the border town of McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) up to the San Antonio exurbs. U.S. Army veteran and Bronze Star recipient Ruben Ramirez is a moderate backed by a variety of local business interests and trade unions along with national groups such as VoteVets and The Blue Dog Coalition. Michelle Vallejo (an RGV native) is a progressive supported by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the United Farm Workers of America and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, among others.

In a six-candidate race on March 1, Ramirez and Vallejo won 28 percent and 20 percent of the vote respectively, with Vallejo narrowly edging out John Villareal Rigney (19 percent).

The third congressional primary runoff takes place in the Dallas-based 30th Congressional District. This runoff is distinct from the other two in that the context in which the establishment and progressive groups backing each candidate are located is more local than national. Jane Hope Hamilton is a long-time Democratic political operative and is supported by a broad cross-section of the Dallas Democratic establishment. Jasmine Crockett is a first-term Texas House member who during the 2021 legislative sessions had the most liberal voting record of any of the 150 Texas House members. Crockett is endorsed by the retiring TX-30 incumbent, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, 19 of her fellow Texas House Democrats and by two cryptocurrency trader Super PACS (Protect Our Future PAC, Web3 Forward) that have to date spent a combined $2.4 million in support of Crockett’s candidacy. In a crowded nine-candidate field on March 1, Crockett (49 percent) came very close to crossing the 50 percent barrier needed to avoid a runoff, with almost three times the support received by Hamilton (17 percent)

Similar to 35 of the Lone Star State’s 38 U.S. House districts after the 2021 redistricting process, TX-30 is not in play this fall, and whoever wins the Democratic primary runoff is a lock to triumph in November and head to Congress in January 2023. In contrast, the 28th and 15th Congressional Districts are the only two Texas districts considered to be in play in November, with the races destined to become more or less competitive depending on the outcome of the May 24 runoffs.

A Cuellar victory in the May 24 runoff would boost Democratic prospects of retaining control of TX-28, while a Cisneros victory would diminish them. As a centrist Democrat, Cuellar’s policy positions, including his tepid pro-life position, while causing him headaches in the primary, are closer to those of the average TX-28 November voter than are the policy positions of the unabashed progressive Cisneros or those of either of the Republican candidates competing in their own May 24 runoff (Cassy Garcia on the center-right and, especially, the ultraconservative Sandra Whitten).

On March 1, Monica De La Cruz captured the TX-15 GOP nomination in the first round, winning 57 percent of the vote against eight other competitors. De La Cruz will be favored to win in TX-15 in November, regardless of who the victor of the Democratic primary is. But De La Cruz’s likelihood of victory will be higher if she draws the more progressive Vallejo as her general election opponent rather than the more moderate Ramirez.

The Republican Party has been working on the construction of a 2023 U.S. House majority via redistricting, candidate recruitment and campaigning. Victories by the progressive Cisneros and Vallejo on May 24 would help GOP efforts to flip the U.S. House in November 2022, while victories by the moderate Cuellar and Ramirez would hinder the Republican goal of taking control of the U.S. House later this year.

Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science and the Joseph D. Jamail chair in Latin American Studies at Rice University as well as a co-author of “Texas Politics Today.” Follow him on Twitter @MarkPJonesTX.

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Press: Is Merrick Garland working for Donald Trump?

There’s no lack of big stories demanding the attention of Washington reporters these days including: President Biden’s trip to Asia; the Republican Party’s embrace of the great replacement theory; the likely Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade. 

But reporters are missing one of the biggest stories, right under their nose: Today, in a Washington courtroom, the Biden Justice Department is prosecuting a veteran D.C. lawyer for telling the truth about Donald Trump. Or, to put it another way, Attorney General Merrick Garland is allowing a Trump appointee to go into federal court and defend one of Trump’s biggest lies.  

I’m talking about the trial of attorney Michael Sussman, accused of lying to the FBI by Trump ally John Durham.  

Let me explain. While polluting the Oval Office for four years, Donald Trump told so many lies it’s hard to keep count of them. The Washington Post gave up at 30,573. The worst, of course, is his claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him: which is so far from the truth it’s known as “The Big Lie.” 

But Trump told a lot of other big lies, like his double whopper that Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion with Russia by Trump’s 2016 campaign, and that the FBI, by investigating possible collusion, was taking sides with Hillary Clinton. Both of which are patently untrue. In his final report, Mueller, in fact, outlined multiple contacts between Trump operatives and Russian officials.  

The idea that the hapless FBI was in cahoots with the Clinton campaign is especially absurd – and should have, and would have, been dropped long ago except for two things. One, former AG Bill Barr actually named a special counsel, John Durham, to investigate the FBI’s investigation of Trump. And two, instead of immediately firing him, new AG Merrick Garland left Durham on the payroll in his mission to prove Trump was right in calling the FBI investigation of Russian intervention a “witch hunt.” 

Today we see the mind-blowing result. The Biden administration is actually in federal court, accusing attorney Michael Sussman of lying when he met with a senior FBI official to suggest they look into Donald Trump’s possible collusion with Russia’s ALFA Bank. Sussman insists he was acting on his own, as a concerned citizen. Durham says he’s lying. 

But here’s the point. The whole thing is irrelevant. Surely, FBI officials knew, before meeting with Sussman, that his law firm, and sometimes Sussman himself, represented the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Clinton campaign officials have testified under oath that they did not direct Sussman to go to the FBI. Furthermore, the FBI did, in fact, look into the ALFA Bank issue, but didn’t pursue it. So where’s Durham’s evidence that Sussman was lying? He has none. And where’s the crime? There is none. 

The real question reporters should be asking is not whether Sussman was lying, but: Why is this trial even happening? Or why is John Durham still on the job? His was a political appointment by Trump crony Bill Barr as part of his attempts to humor his boss and politicize the Justice Department. So why didn’t Merrick Garland, reportedly so anxious to cleanse the DOJ of accusations of politics, fire Durham on Day One, instead of letting him use the criminal justice system to advance Donald Trump’s personal vendetta? 

This Sussman trial is an outrageous abuse of justice, and there’s nobody to blame but Merrick Garland. Donald Trump can rest easy in Mar-A-Lago. Merrick Garland’s doing his dirty work for him in Washington. 

Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”  

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Kellyanne Conway in new book acknowledges Trump 2020 loss

Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway reportedly acknowledges in her new book that former President Trump lost the 2020 election, saying that his team “simply failed to get the job done.”

In “Here’s the Deal,” Conway writes that Trump lost the election, adding that his team encouraged his false claims about election fraud, according to Politico, which obtained an early copy.

“Rather than accepting responsibility for the loss, they played along and lent full-throated encouragement (privately, not on TV) when Trump kept insisting he won,” she wrote, the news outlet reported.

“The team had failed on November 3, and they failed again afterward,” she continued. “By not confronting the candidate with the grim reality of his situation, that the proof had not surfaced to support the claims, they denied him the evidence he sought and the respect he was due. Instead supplicant after sycophant after showman genuflected in front of the Resolute Desk and promised the president goods they could not deliver.”

Conway, who previously served as Trump’s campaign manager, alluded to his loss in Dec. 2020 in an interview with The 19th.

“If you look at the vote totals in the Electoral College tally, it looks like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail,” she said.

In her new book, the former campaign manager reportedly said Trump’s supporters “deluded themselves” into thinking that he would stay in office or be reinstated once he was gone. She also said she may have been the first person in Trump’s inner circle who told him “that he had come up short this time.”

“Trump was more shocked to lose in 2020, I think, than he was to win in 2016,” she wrote, according to Politico.

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Solving the housing crisis requires long-term federal investment

The symptoms of America’s housing crisis are staggering. The average price of housing is surging across the country. Not a single state has an adequate supply of affordable housing for extremely low-income households. And at last count, more than 580,000 people were unhoused, with marginalized groups suffering homelessness at disproportionate rates. In the Bay Area, where we live, the situation is so bad that the UN has called it “cruel and inhuman.” 

While our housing and homelessness crises have been exacerbated by the pandemic, the root causes go much deeper. One of the primary factors has been decades of underinvestment by the federal government in addressing the housing needs of the lowest-income Americans. And while the Biden administration recently announced executive actions to help close the housing supply gap, reforms to existing programs at current investment levels will only take us so far. Congress must also approve a budget that will counteract historic underspending.

Starting in the 1980s, federal policymakers instituted several waves of cuts to critical safety net programs, including ones that low-income residents use to maintain stable housing. From 1996 to 2016 alone, overall federal spending on housing relative to GDP dropped 30%. The few programs that have expanded haven’t come close to meeting the immense need. For example, our local Housing Authority recently reported that its allocation of housing vouchers had grown by only 8 percent over the past 20 years—even as we’ve seen growing income inequality, stagnating wages, and rising cost-of-living turn the Bay Area into one of the most unaffordable regions in the country.

This lack of investment in families facing the most vulnerable circumstances is even more shameful given that federal housing funding has disproportionately benefited higher-income households. In fact, the money spent on the mortgage tax deduction and capital gains exemption for homeowners has consistently exceeded the funding allocated to federal housing subsidies for low-income renters.

We need substantial, long-term federal investment in order to counteract decades of limited action. This would include investing in proven solutions, such as:

Ongoing emergency rental assistance to help low-income residents avoid eviction. The ripple effects of COVID-19 continue for low-income households. In California, 76% of extremely low-income households (of which there are almost 1.3 million in the state) are spending more than half of their income on rent. Nationally, the cost of rent rose 14% last year and is expected to rise another 10% this year. The federal government must increase spending on rental assistance accordingly, as well as make it more accessible to those most in need.

Ensuring that everyone who qualifies for housing vouchers has access to them. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, only one in four families eligible for a federal housing voucher received one. Research shows that housing vouchers sharply reduce homelessness. Among families with children, vouchers can lead to a host of positive outcomes, including fewer behavioral problems, less frequent switching of schools, and decreased likelihood of being placed in foster care. This wide-ranging impact is well worth a larger investment.

Increasing funding for the preservation and construction of permanent affordable housing. Our country is suffering from a severe lack of affordable housing, particularly at the deepest affordability levels. In fact, there are only 36 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 extremely low-income (ELI) renter households. Addressing this severe shortfall requires significant long-term investment from our federal government, with a priority on developing more housing that’s affordable to ELI households. This could be done by expanding the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which is currently the primary source of financing for affordable housing in the U.S., or increasing funding for the national Housing Trust Fund, which deploys money to states to help build, preserve, and rehabilitate affordable housing. Investing in more deeply affordable housing brings a multitude of other community benefits as well. For example, a recent report commissioned by Silicon Valley Community Foundation found that building more housing could help reverse long-term declines in student enrollment across Santa Clara County. 

President Biden’s original Build Back Better (BBB) legislation allocated $150 billion to address these critical housing needs—a historic level of investment in housing that advocates have long recommended. If enacted, either through a revised BBB or piecemeal legislation, robust federal housing investment would not only put a roof over the heads of thousands of families, it would help counteract persistent wealth inequality and racial disparities that hold our country back. 

Good housing is good infrastructure; it’s foundational to the health of families, communities, and our economy. But, for far too long, the federal government has disinvested in this critical pillar of our society, causing unnecessary and enormous suffering. It’s time for Congress to finally make the long-term investments we need to support our communities.

Nicole Taylor is CEO of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the largest community foundation in the nation.Jennifer Loving is the CEO of Destination: Home, a public/private partnership implementing collective impact strategies to end homelessness in Santa Clara County. 

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Russia trying to encircle cities in Donbas region, UK intelligence says

Russian forces in a new offensive are pushing to encircle key cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region but are meeting fierce resistance, according to British military intelligence.

The United Kingdom’s defense ministry tweeted on Tuesday that Russia is seeking to encircle the cities of Lysychansk, Rubizhne and Sievierodonetsk, but troops are being met by “strong Ukrainian resistance” from dug-in defenders.

All three cities are located in and around the Luhansk region, which, along with the Donetsk region, has seen fighting since 2014 by Russian-backed separatist forces.

UK intelligence said if Russian troops seize the city of Sievierodonetsk, Russia would effectively bring the Luhansk under Moscow’s control.

After failing to capture key cities and territory in the western part of Ukraine, including the capitol region of Kyiv, Russia regrouped for a more limited offensive to capture the eastern Donbas, the industrial heartland of the country.

Over the weekend, Russia declared victory over the eastern port city of Mariupol, which had been bombarded by artillery shells for months. Russia had earlier drove Ukrainian civilians and fighters into a steel plant near the city, holding them there until civilians evacuated and the fighters surrendered.

In an interview with NBC on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the fighting in the Donbas was “extremely difficult” but expressed hope they could beat back the invaders.

“The armed forces of Ukraine are restraining this offensive every day and our defenders are repelling these offensive plans of Russia,” Zelensky said. “This is a concrete contribution to the approach of the main day, the coveted day we all look forward to and fight for — Victory Day.”

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