Vox Sentences: The big problem with Syria’s new ceasefire

A new potential ceasefire in Syria; Donald Trump, a man of his word, keeps winning; Ukraine is sliding back into violence.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Peace in Syria: in reach

Huseyin Nasir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

• The US and Russia announced today that they've negotiated a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war.

  [BBC]

• It's supposed to go into effect Saturday. Then again, on February 11 the US and Russia announced that a ceasefire would be implemented within the next week, and that didn't happen.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• Here's the thing: The ceasefire only applies to the parties that agree to it.

  [The Guardian / Patrick Wintour]

• So it doesn't include two big rebel groups: ISIS, and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra.

  [AP]

• And officers from other rebel groups (the ones that would be observing the ceasefire) say that gives Syria and Russia leeway to keep bombing anywhere al-Nusra is — which is where other rebels are too. Because they coordinate with al-Nusra.

  [Reuters / Arshad Mohammed and Tom Perry]

• That includes the rebel-held city of Aleppo, where Russia and Syria have escalated attacks.

  [Foreign Policy / Colum Lynch]

Donald Trump's political revolution

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

• Hillary Clinton secured her frontrunner status Saturday with a close — but not too close — win in the Nevada caucuses.

  [NBC News / Carrie Dann]

• The closer-than-initially-expected finish is being taken as good news by Bernie Sanders supporters. But the delegate math is about to become very difficult for Sanders, very fast.

  [NYT / Patrick Healy]

• And the relatively low voter turnout in Nevada was a bad sign for Sanders's claims that his platform will generate a "political revolution" to sweep in other elected officials who agree with him.

  [Vox / Jeff Stein]

• The only presidential candidate capable of sweeping anything right now is Donald Trump, who took all 50 delegates available in the South Carolina primary.

  [AP]

• South Carolina was supposed to be strong for Ted Cruz. It wasn't. So the race is increasingly looking like it's down to Trump and Rubio.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• The best thing that could have happened to Rubio: His fellow Floridian moderate, Jeb Bush, dropped out Saturday, ending a months-long rivalry between the two more reminiscent of a Christopher Guest or Jim Jarmusch movie than a political campaign.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Bush's withdrawal means the end of my (Dara's) favorite literary invention of the 2016 cycle: Real Talk Jeb Bush, as written by Alexandra Petri.

  [Washington Post / Alexandra Petri]

• It also means the end of the gravy train for strategist Mike Murphy, head of Bush's Super PAC (which blew through more than $100 million to not get Bush elected). According to one report (denied by Murphy), Murphy made $14 million on his ally's embarrassing defeat.

  [CNN / Maeve Reston]

Peace in Ukraine: slipping away

Ilia Pitalev Kommersant Photo/Getty Images

• Violence has escalated in Ukraine over the past week, with Russian-backed rebel forces killing several Ukranian soldiers in small attacks.

  [NYT / Andrew E. Kramer]

• This represents the unraveling of a truce signed in February 2015. Russia claims Ukraine is violating the deal by not giving eastern Ukraine more autonomy; Ukraine argues that Russia is violating the deal by backing rebels who, um, kill people.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• France and Germany (which brokered the 2015 truce) are trying to pressure Ukraine to devolve power in the east in hopes that it would quell the current wave of violence.

  [AP]

• But Russia is probably trying to strengthen its hand for a new round of peace talks — the same strategy it's just helped Bashar al-Assad use in Syria.

  [Brookings / Steven Pfier]

• Ukrainian soldiers are being ordered not to engage. But they're eager to fight.

  [Wall Street Journal / Julian E. Barnes]

• Ukraine has also moved this dispute onto a different battlefield — by nominating an anti-Russian song as its entry in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.

  [BBC ]

MISCELLANEOUS

Why do we teach boys it's important to be fearless — but girls that it's cute to be scared? [NYT / Caroline Paul]

• A history of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, the queerest mainstream horror film ever made.

  [BuzzFeed / Louis Peitzman]

• Investing in lawsuits may sound like financialization run amok. But people as far back as Jeremy Bentham were defending it.

  [NYT Mag / Mattathias Schwartz]

• This article on normal people trying to figure out how to use Twitter is weirdly heartbreaking at points.

  [The Guardian / Danny Yadron]

• Donald Trump, copy edited.

  [New Yorker / Andrew Boynton]

VERBATIM

"'Poverty is not just a sad accident,' he said. Yes, it’s partly about lack of jobs, 'but it’s also a result of the fact that some people make a lot of money off low-income families and directly contribute to their poverty.'" [Matthew Desmond to NYT / Jennifer Schuessler]

• "If you told someone that a man had learned jiu jitsu after being attacked, I think the vibe would be 'well, that’s pretty reasonable.' If a bisexual woman decided to date only women after being raped, the vibe would be 'oh, she’s broken.'"

  [Medium / Emma Lindsay]

• "[Bernie Sanders] presents himself as not only free of responsibility for anything that happened during his tenure, but vigorous in his insistence that nothing that was done while he was there had any value in addressing the problems that he discusses … Many congressional Democrats, myself included, feel deep resentment at this wholly negative portrayal of our efforts."

  [Politico Magazine / Barney Frank]

• "Our courts and culture have a hard enough time believing women’s accusations of sexual assault in the most clear-cut of circumstances, so what chance do we have at legal, emotional, and physical protection when details are contested and a corporation stands to lose millions?"

  [Jezebel / Madeleine Davies]

• "Blond pitched Zenefits to a cocktail waitress during a wild night at his apartment. 'I dunno u kept tellin me bout this Zenefit thing and made me sign up for it that night…,' she texted him later, saying she had received a welcome email from the company. "

  [BuzzFeed / William Alden]

WATCH THIS

Donald Trump's rise is a scary moment in America [YouTube / Ezra Klein, Joe Posner, Joss Fong, and Sarah Turbin]

David Becker/Getty Images

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