March 11th, 2022: The War in Ukraine Week 3, Soaring Gas Prices, and A Supreme Court Ruling

Chilling stories as innocent civilians are targeted in Ukraine.

President Biden tightens the screws on Moscow further.

But the war — sparking a surge in gasoline prices — how high can they go?

I’m Paul Brandus — you’re listening to West Wing Reports from Washington — it’s Friday, March 11th.

It has been said that war is God’s way — of teaching Americans about geography. Surely most know now where Ukraine is — and what the stakes are as as a Russian invasion enters its third week.

The war got more brutal, more indiscriminate, more terrifying this week — as Russian invaders widened the scope of their bombing — we’ve all seen images on TV now of schools, hospitals, apartment buildings — reduced to rubble.

What is it like? What is it like to have death rain down upon you? One Ukrainian woman — her name is Yulia Za-donna-va — a mother — told Fox News this story about the Russian bombing of an apartment building in Cherna-hiv — in northern Ukrainian that Ukrainian authorities — and the international group Amnesty International - say killed 47 people.

Again — that’s a Ukrainian woman, a mother — Yulia Za-donna-va.

Here in Washington a senior Pentagon official told he New York Times that some five-to- six thousand Russian troops have been killed.

As for Ukrainian casualties — well, in one city alone, the southeastern port city of Mara-paul — the mayor claims 13-hundred civilians are dead, another three-thousand injured.

Such numbers cannot be independently verified — but images of the port city show widespread damage of civilian areas.

When will the fighting end? Well, Russia — which continues to downplay, deny and distort what’s going on — sent its foreign minister to Turkey for talks with Ukrainian officials Thursday. Those talks went nowhere.

The fighting has caused upwards of two million — Ukrainians to flee — the refugee crisis is called Europe’s worst since World War II.

The Russian invasion — which Russia still denies, by the way — was the focus of a hearing on Capitol Hill this week with the nation’s top intelligence officials.

Here’s CIA Director William Burns:

The intelligence community, by the way — which correctly forecast the scale and timing of the Russian invasion — now warns that Putin could order the use of chemical and biological weapons.

Meanwhile, the shockwaves from the Russian invasion continue to spread far and wide - here in Washington, President Biden — whose management of the crisis has been praised even by some Republicans - turned the screws on Moscow even tighter:

This is somewhat symbolic — we only get about seven percent of our oil imports from Russia anyway — and it can be easily replaced. Canada and Mexico supply America with about two-thirds of its imports.

Even before the war, energy prices were rising — but now they’re really taking off — triple-A says gas is up sixty cents in just the past week. That prompted this exchange between Peter Doocy of Fox and White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

That’s a good point — nine-thousand oil drilling permits that are NOT being used in this country right now. Nine-thousand.

But people don’t know this — they just know that gas is through the roof.

Of course gasoline’s not the only thing that;’s up. Consumer prices are up nearly eight percent overall in the year ended in February — the highest in four decades.

And 11-point-three U.S. job openings in January the Labor Dept. says — close to an all-time high — the data shows some four-point-three million Americans voluntarily quit — quitting your job is seen as a sign of economic confidence.

Something you might have missed — the Supreme Court has allowed congressional maps drawn up in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to stand — that’s a win for Democrats in those two key states — it’s also a surprise given that the Supreme Court now leans decisively to the right.

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On the history front — America moved closer to war with Nazi Germany and Japan this week in 1941 - when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill. It allowed us to send military aid to countries fighting those Axis powers. During the war, the U.S. sent today’s equivalent of about one-trillion in supplies to Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations. Kind of interesting today — given how we’re stepping up aid to Ukraine and NATO allies in Eastern Europe.

I like to end each week with a quote — something you might find thoughtful: This week: is’t from Dwight Eisenhower - the five-star general turned president:

“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.”

Think about it.

That’s all for this week. Got a question or comment? Here’s my email — [email protected].

West Wing Reports is a production of Evergreen Podcasts.

Special thanks to CSPAN, Fox, ABC and CBS for the audio clips.

Our producer and sound designer and engineer: Noah Foutz

Executive producers: Michael D’Aleoia and Gerardo Orlando.