Your Friday Briefing: Russia’s large-scale military drills

February 11, 2022

By Melina Delkic

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering Russia's large-scale military exercises near Ukraine and trucker protests at the U.S.-Canada border that are forcing a slowdown at car plants.

Joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus in Brest, Belarus.Russian Defense Ministry, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Russia begins large military drills near Ukraine

Thousands of Russian troops began 10 days of military exercises in Belarus on Thursday while the diplomatic efforts to avoid a war in Ukraine showed few signs of progress.

In Moscow, Russia's top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, held talks with his British counterpart that he described as resembling "the conversation of a mute person with a deaf person." President Vladimir Putin of Russia was slightly more conciliatory, telling reporters that negotiations with the West were continuing and that Russia was preparing written responses to U.S. proposals.

A display of firepower: In Belarus, Russian fighter jets launched air patrols, and Russia's potent S-400 air defense systems were deployed near the Ukrainian border. Off Ukraine's southeastern coast, in the Black Sea and the Azov Sea, Russia was preparing to hold large-scale naval exercises — which Ukrainians said would block vital trade routes.

Russia's response: Russia described all the drills as legal, and promised that its troops would leave Belarus after the exercises there conclude on Feb. 20.

A demonstrator screams and bangs gas canisters together at protests against vaccine mandates in Ottawa on Thursday.Blair Gable/Reuters

Canada-U.S. blockades disrupt the auto industry

Several blockades at the Canada-U.S. border by truckers protesting Canadian vaccine mandates are forcing car companies to close production lines. There is growing alarm that the protests in Canada are threatening the country's economy and trade with the U.S., its biggest trading partner.

The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge, which links Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, is especially disruptive. Toyota, Ford and G.M. all said they had been affected and had scaled back work.

The Biden administration said that the blockades posed a risk to auto industry supply chains, and that it was tracking potential disruptions to agricultural exports from Michigan into Canada. Here are the latest updates.

Context: The protests, which began in Ottawa two weeks ago, have expanded into a battle cry against pandemic restrictions. The demonstrations have also tapped into the country's broad lockdown blues.

On the ground: Our correspondent describes the scene in Ottawa, a quiet capital city that has been transformed into a nonstop tailgate party. It's clear the truckers plan to stay put, she writes.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other pandemic developments:

The Philippines reopened to international tourists for the first time in almost two years.
Prince Charles tested positive for the coronavirus for a second time.
New York City is expected to fire up to 3,000 municipal workers for refusing to get vaccinated.

Protesters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Who did Trump call on Jan. 6?

The House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol is working to recreate what President Donald Trump was doing behind closed doors during crucial moments of the assault. But investigators have hit an obstacle: sparse White House phone logs.

Investigators, who are aware that Trump was making calls throughout the day, have discovered gaps in the official phone logs and few records of his calls. They have not uncovered evidence that any records were tampered with or deleted, and it is well-known that Trump routinely used his personal cellphone and those of his aides.

Many questions: Few details of what Trump did inside the White House as rioters stormed the Capitol are known. He was watching television, and several aides, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, implored him to say something to try to stop the rioters. The panel is awaiting additional material.

Related: Trump is also under scrutiny for apparently violating the Presidential Records Act by ripping up some White House documents and taking others with him when he left office. The House Oversight committee has announced an investigation.

THE LATEST NEWS

Asia Pacific

Voting began on Thursday in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India.Manish Swarup/Associated Press

An election in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, is being closely watched as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's eight years in office.
Covid restrictions in Tonga have accelerated a shift away from an expatriate-led, "fly-in fly-out" model of disaster relief, but the transition has been rocky.
Bad news is piling up at SoftBank after a crucial deal fell through. The company's profits have plunged, and investors are growing increasingly wary that its big bets haven't paid off.

Around the World

A pro-British mural in Belfast.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York Times

A groundbreaking political shift is underway in Northern Ireland that could make the pro-reunification Sinn Fein the largest party in the assembly in May.
Prices in the U.S. are climbing at the fastest pace in 40 years and more quickly than economists had expected, new consumer data shows.
Latvia gave final approval to pay out 40 million euros, about $46 million, to the country's Jewish community "to eliminate the historical unjust consequences" resulting from the Holocaust.
A geomagnetic incident fueled by a solar storm knocked out dozens of SpaceX satellites.
A court ordered Uganda to pay $325 million in reparations to the Democratic Republic of Congo for its role in conflicts in the resource-rich Ituri province.

Olympics

Four years after finishing fifth overall, Nathan Chen won gold.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Nathan Chen of the U.S. won figure skating gold, claiming the prize that eluded him in 2018.
Chloe Kim of the U.S. soared to another Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe.
Olympics officials are still holding off on handing out medals in the team figure skating event that Russia won while they investigate an unspecified "legal issue."
Here's the latest medal count.

A Morning Read

The truck driver Stephen Graves at a rest stop in Oklahoma.George Etheredge for The New York Times

America is facing a truck driver shortage. A 1,000-mile journey by our reporter reveals the fundamental reason: It is a job full of stress, physical deprivation and loneliness.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

Is streetwear dead?

In late 2019, Virgil Abloh, the boundary-smashing designer who died last year, gave an interview to Dazed magazine in which he declared the end of the fashion.

"I would definitely say it's gonna die, you know? Like, its time will be up," he said, immediately engendering a mass freakout.

Abloh ended up walking his statement back a bit, but two years after he made his prediction there's little question he was right, writes our fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman. The hoodies, sneakers and T-shirts of the style have become so absorbed by high fashion that the line between the two has effectively disappeared.

Balenciaga's "Red Carpet" show, spring 2022. Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times

"I can't even define it anymore," said Arby Li, vice president for content strategy at Hypebeast, a streetwear fan blog that became a lifestyle brand and went public in 2016.

Streetwear-the-fashion-sector was born in the 1980s and '90s from the intersection of skate and surf kid culture, hip-hop and underground art: a reaction against an industry in which the creators could not see themselves or their value system.

But now the old guard, desperate to stay relevant, has gone from flirting with the outsiders — Louis Vuitton collaborating with Supreme in 2017; Ralph Lauren collaborating with Palace in 2018 — to giving them the keys to the castle.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Rosemary-paprika chicken with fries is a delightful sheet-pan dinner.

Travel

Even the less frequented parts of the Caribbean are becoming tourism hot spots in 2022.

What to Read

"Anonymous Sex," a new anthology of erotic fiction, includes stories from well-known writers. But none of the stories are attributed — so the contributors could "let their freak flags fly," our reviewer wrote.

Now Time to Play

Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: What flat sodas lack (four letters).

And here is today's Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That's it for today's briefing. See you next time. — Melina

P.S. The Times won a duPont award for "Day of Rage," a documentary on the Capitol riot.

The latest episode of "The Daily" is about why U.S. governors are changing their minds on mask mandates.

You can reach Melina and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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