“These are not separate crises. They are chapters of the same story. The story of power.”
António Guterres said that yesterday as he opened the United Nations General Assembly. He was talking about war. Inequality. Climate change. Artificial intelligence. The weakening of international law and the institutions created to uphold it.
But look at what was happening around him.
Russia had just finished a parliamentary election that included voting in Ukrainian territory it occupies.
Ukraine’s president was in New York trying to find a diplomatic path toward ending the war Russia started.
Countries along NATO’s eastern flank were strengthening air defenses, preparing for sabotage and redesigning critical infrastructure around threats that would have sounded extraordinary not very long ago.
And back in the United States, three major news organizations remained banned from the White House while the White House launched something it is literally calling “Trump TV.”
These are not the same things.
But Guterres was right about the question connecting them.
Power.
Who has it. What they can do with it. Who can challenge it. And what happens when the institutions designed to restrain it begin to fail.
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Yesterday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Donald Trump for about 40 minutes at the UN. Zelenskyy said afterward that they discussed ways to end the war and the possibility of an energy ceasefire with Russia. Ukraine says it is prepared for a reciprocal halt to attacks on energy infrastructure. But there was no agreement for Ukraine to unilaterally stop attacking Russian refineries, and there was no ceasefire announced. Zelenskyy again said he was willing to meet Vladimir Putin with Trump in a trilateral meeting and hoped the United States could bring Russia into negotiations.
So the diplomatic door is open.
What remains unclear is whether anyone is going to walk through it.
Russia continued attacking Ukraine as world leaders gathered in New York. Ukraine continued striking Russian targets. Ukrainians are heading toward another winter worried about attacks on their power and heating infrastructure, while Zelenskyy is asking allies for more air defense.
And then there’s the election Russia just held.
This deserves much more attention than it’s received.
Russia held its first parliamentary election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. United Russia, Vladimir Putin’s ruling party, emerged with 355 of the State Duma’s 450 seats.
But look at what was left of the opposition by the time Russians voted.
Yabloko, the only registered political party openly opposing the war, had been removed from the national party ballot. Anti-war politicians had been imprisoned or driven into exile. Russia didn’t invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The ballots were still there. Much of the meaningful political choice was not.
Then Russia held part of the election somewhere else entirely.
Ukraine.
Voting was conducted in Russian-occupied portions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as Crimea, even though Russia doesn’t fully control all four of the regions it claims to have annexed. Those annexations aren’t internationally recognized.
At one polling place in occupied Donetsk, an armed Russian soldier stood nearby as people cast their ballots. Human-rights activists reported election workers going door to door accompanied by armed personnel.
Then there are the numbers.
Russian authorities reported turnout of 81 percent in occupied Donetsk, 79 percent in Luhansk, 79 percent in Zaporizhzhia and 75 percent in Kherson.
Dmytro Durnev, an independent journalist from Donetsk now living in exile, estimates that the more than 1.5 million people Russia counted as “voters” in occupied Donetsk was roughly twice the number of people actually living there.
Of approximately 4.7 million early votes Russia reported nationwide, more than 4.4 million came from front-line and occupied regions under martial law.
Four years ago, about 225,000 Russians voted early.
This time: 4.7 million.
In occupied territory, voting began weeks before the official election. Mobile election teams went door to door. The voter lists could not be independently verified. Russian military personnel were among those voting, and independent observers had almost no meaningful access to the process.
You can call something an election. You can print ballots. Put out ballot boxes. Announce turnout. Count votes. Declare winners.
But those mechanics are not what make an election democratic.
The ability to oppose the government matters. Independent information matters. Secret ballots, accurate voter rolls, independent observers and the ability to vote without an armed soldier standing nearby all matter.
Institutions are more than their names. They have to actually perform the function they were created to perform.
And while Russia was conducting that election, countries immediately beyond Ukraine were preparing for what may come next.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said intelligence available to Poland and its allies indicates Russia may attempt attacks involving drones or missiles against NATO territory and present them as accidents, potentially testing how the alliance responds.
The concern is that Russia may test NATO without doing anything that looks immediately like a traditional invasion.
A drone. Sabotage. A cyberattack. An airspace violation. An attack whose authorship can be denied. Something small enough to create an argument over whether it counts.
NATO says Russian airspace violations, cyberattacks, sabotage and other hostile actions have increased, and the alliance has expanded defenses along its eastern flank through initiatives including Eastern Sentry.
Yesterday brought an extraordinary example of what preparing for that new reality actually looks like.
Lithuania is designing a critical electrical substation near the Suwałki Gap — the narrow corridor between Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave — to withstand sabotage and military drones.
The plans include reinforced concrete structures around transformers, barriers designed to resist a truck carrying explosives and sensors intended to detect tunnels being dug beneath the facility.
This is an electrical substation. Its designers are now thinking about Shahed drones.
That tells us something about where Europe believes it is.
And then, thousands of miles away, there’s another institution whose function is worth thinking about.
The press.
Last Friday, Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would no longer be permitted inside the White House. Their credentials were subsequently disabled or confiscated. The three organizations sued, arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment. A federal judge is scheduled to hear their request for a temporary restraining order today.
On Monday, the White House launched a government-produced video stream with an extraordinary name:
Trump TV.
That isn’t a nickname invented by a critic.
The White House calls it that.
Its own website announced “Trump TV is Here” and “TRUMP TV: The Essentials Station.”
Welcome to State TV.
Then yesterday, Trump arrived at the United Nations.
The White House ban on CNN doesn’t apply there. The United Nations issues its own press credentials, which meant CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was waiting with the other journalists covering the president.
Trump saw her.
“I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me,” he said. “You should not be here.”
Think about the sequence. Independent news organizations publish coverage the president dislikes. The president bans them from the White House. The organizations sue. The White House launches its own president-branded video operation.
And when one of the banned organizations appears somewhere the White House can’t control access, the president tells its reporter she shouldn’t be there.
The United States is not Russia. No matter how fond of Putin Trump may be.
That distinction matters enormously.
An official White House video stream is not Russia’s state-controlled media system. An American dispute over White House press access is not an election conducted under armed occupation. American journalists can still publish criticism of the government, challenge it in court and cover the president from places where the White House doesn’t control their credentials.
In fact, the lawsuit being heard today is evidence that American institutions still provide mechanisms for challenging government power.
But the fact that those mechanisms still exist isn’t a reason to ignore attempts to weaken them. We don’t have to wait until another country’s worst examples become our own before paying attention. We need to understand what these institutions are for — and recognize when their purpose is being undermined.
A press corps isn’t there to repeat what a government wants people to hear. Its purpose is to independently scrutinize the government. Courts only work as a check on power when they remain independent and their judgments are respected. An election isn’t democratic simply because ballots were counted. A border isn’t protected simply because international law says where it is. An alliance only matters if its members are willing to uphold it.
And the United Nations Charter cannot stop a war merely by existing.
Institutions only work when the principles behind them are actually upheld.
That may be the thread running through more of this moment than I realized when I started following these stories separately.
Russia’s election.
Ukraine at the United Nations.
NATO preparing for the possibility that Russia will test how much an alliance really means.
Independent journalists fighting in court for access to the American government.
A White House building its own channel while excluding news organizations whose coverage the president dislikes.
Different stories. Different circumstances. Different degrees. But underneath them is the question Guterres put before the world yesterday.
What governs power?
Law or force?
Independent institutions or the people powerful enough to control them?
Rules that apply even when they become inconvenient, or rules that change depending on who has the ability to change them?
That may be one of the most important things to watch right now.
Because democracies, alliances, courts, elections, treaties and a free press are not self-executing.
They are systems humans created to place boundaries around power.
And the real test of any institution comes when someone with power decides they would rather not be constrained by it.
That’s when we find out whether the institution can actually restrain power — or if it only works when power agrees to be restrained.
Sources: United Nations, Reuters, OSCE, Russian Election Monitor, The Kyiv Independent, NATO, Reuters, Reuters, White House.
"Democracies, alliances, courts, elections, treaties and a free press are not self-executing. They are systems humans created to place boundaries around power."
One more for the record, Kelli.
What we are painfully aware of now is that what can be created can also be un-created. That process is underway as we speak.
Your endeavor is aimed at informing and motivating your readers to impede and reverse that process. We will succeed if enough of us take action and engage others in that endeavor. And persist long after the current king of chaos is gone. Nothing about operating a democratic republic is easy, nor will it ever be.
Eternal vigilance lasts a long time.
It’s through the process of making connections that the result of widespread corruption starts to make sense. Understanding is the foundation for maintaining real change over time. We need more of this. It makes our purpose stronger if we see how far the cancer of play for pay politics has infiltrated our systems, both national and global. Thanks for staying up nights to spread the word.