It’s perhaps the best of times and the worst of times for former President Donald Trump and his legal strategies.

Recent weeks have been good for Mr. Trump, in that attempts to delay his criminal trials have had some success. His federal election interference case is on hold while the Supreme Court weighs his claim that presidents are immune from such prosecution. His Florida classified documents case has unfolded slowly since charges were filed last June. His Georgia state election trial hasn’t been scheduled, as prosecutor Fani Willis faced questions over her relationship with a subordinate.

On Friday, the last criminal case that was proceeding on schedule derailed, as Mr. Trump’s New York hush money trial was delayed at least a month. The culprit was a last-minute evidence dump from federal prosecutors who had previously looked at charging the former president.

But in civil cases, Mr. Trump has lately faced legal setbacks and embarrassment involving a core aspect of his identity: his wealth.

That became clear on Monday when Mr. Trump’s lawyers said he was unable to secure a multimillion-dollar bond to cover the judgment against him in his New York state civil fraud case. 

In a court filing, Trump attorneys said they had been turned down by 30 companies in their efforts to secure a bond they estimated would have to be at least $454 million. Obtaining financial backing of that magnitude “is not possible under the circumstances presented,” the filing said.

“Trump has been incredibly lucky with regard to his criminal trials, but his civil trials in New York could get him in a lot of trouble, with him needing to liquidate many of his assets,” says Daniel Urman, a professor of law and public policy at Northeastern University, in an email response to questions.

Tactics of delay

Delay has been a central pillar of Mr. Trump’s defense against his criminal prosecutions. The closer trials are to November, the greater the chance judges might postpone them to avoid the appearance of influencing the 2024 presidential vote. If Mr. Trump again wins the presidency, he might order that the federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith be dropped by the Justice Department, or even pardon himself to avoid trial.

Jeff Dean/AP

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally Saturday, March 16, 2024, in Vandalia, Ohio.

As matters stand, the only criminal case that seemed sure to wrap up prior to the election was the New York hush money case, which involves the money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her allegations of an affair with Mr. Trump. Now even that is up in the air following last week’s postponement.

But his civil trials – which typically result only in monetary judgments, not jail time – currently threaten to cost Mr. Trump unexpectedly large amounts of cash. 

Writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault and defamation suits against Mr. Trump have so far resulted in a stinging $88.3 million judgment. This figure could be reduced on appeal. It might also go up. Mr. Trump has continued to publicly deny the charges and insult Ms. Carroll, which he had been warned by the judge not to do, leaving him open to further legal proceedings.

The New York state civil fraud case, in which Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Mr. Trump, his sons, and business associates illegally inflated the value of properties to obtain better terms on loans, added hundreds of millions of dollars more in penalties. 

If the former president wants to stay the judgment while he appeals, he has to post with the court either the cash owed, or a bond to cover the amount plus interest, estimated at $454 million. If he does not, New York Attorney General Letitia James may begin seizing Trump assets to make sure the penalty gets paid.

Will $100 million bond be enough?

The deadline is March 25. Mr. Trump has offered a bond of $100 million. The court may accept that, or delay proceedings.

“There’s some reasons for the court to give him a stay pending appeal without posting a full bond. We’ll see whether they do that or not,” says Gregory Germain, director of the bankruptcy clinic at Syracuse University College of Law.

But the former president’s difficulties in obtaining a bond suggest that he is less wealthy than he has publicly proclaimed, or that large financial institutions are wary of lending him money.

“He’s not a good credit risk, I think, in a lot of ways,” says Professor Germain.

Like many real estate investors, Mr. Trump has much of his money tied up in buildings or land. But financial institutions won’t accept such Trump assets as collateral for a bond, his lawyers wrote on Monday. They want either cash or other assets more readily converted to cash, such as securities.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers also argued that he should not be forced to divest himself of buildings in order to raise money for the bond.

Obtaining cash “through a ‘fire sale’ of real estate holdings would inevitably result in massive, irrecoverable losses – textbook irreparable injury,” they wrote.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer departs the Capitol after saying he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "lost his way" and is an obstacle to peace in the region amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, in Washington, March 14, 2024.

Already agitated United States-Israel relations have taken a further dive – to what some say is their lowest point ever – as the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip has worsened.

First, President Joe Biden put Israel on notice that it’s on the brink of crossing a “red line” if it proceeds with plans for an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah – thus using with a close ally a blunt warning that recent presidents reserved for adversaries like Syria and North Korea.

Then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S. – cautioned Israel that it risks becoming a “pariah” state as a result of the war-caused devastation and growing risk of famine in Gaza. And that, before in so many words admonishing Israelis to dump the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by demanding early elections.

The question now is whether the increasingly harsh rhetoric out of Washington translates into action in Israel.

The coming days will present Mr. Biden with the opportunity to make good on his words, some officials and Middle East policy analysts say. Such action could include a reduction or slow-walking of offensive military assistance.

But some experts still don’t see President Biden acting on his rhetoric, “red lines” or no.

“Three levers”

“The White House has three levers it could pull,” says Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert who has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations. They are reducing or slowing military assistance, dropping use of the United Nations Security Council veto on resolutions condemning Israel over the war, and supporting an unlimited cease-fire.

“But you have to ask yourself, how does doing any of this, resorting to that kind of pressure, advance Biden’s two main goals,” he adds, “which are ... deescalating the situation in Gaza, and changing the pictures coming out of there?”

If anything, Mr. Miller says he’s seeing the same pattern – of ratcheting up criticism but stopping short of acting on it – that has played out since shortly after the war was launched with Hamas’ attack Oct. 7.

Mary Altaffer/AP

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York, Feb. 23, 2024. Dropping use of its Security Council veto on resolutions condemning Israel is one lever with which the United States can apply pressure to Israel.

“Most recently we had the ‘red line’, but you saw what’s happened to it, it’s disappeared,” says Mr. Miller, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. The evidence? Last week, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, followed up on the president’s use of the term by saying there is no red line.

Others point out that even when Mr. Biden presented Israel with his red line, he immediately countered it with something more typical of the president, who calls himself a Zionist. In a March 9 interview with MSNBC, he said any assault on Rafah before evacuating more than 1 million war refugees “is a red line, but I’m never going to leave Israel.”

For some, the comment was more “president thinks out loud” than “president foretells policy.”

“I suspect a lot of the ‘red line’ language is the migration of internal discussions to public utterances,” says Jon Alterman, who served on the State Department policy planning staff under President George W. Bush and is now director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Middle East program. “It’s important to have red lines in mind,” he adds, “but when you state them publicly, you need to enforce them publicly.”

Netanyahu reacts

White House officials say the broad issue of what Mr. Miller calls “levers” for pressuring Israel has been discussed – in particular what it would mean to reduce or slow the delivery of offensive weaponry. But they say no decisions have been taken.

A recent focus of White House discussions has been what to do if Mr. Netanyahu flouts U.S. warnings and launches a Rafah offensive with inadequate humanitarian preparation.

For his part, Mr. Netanyahu responded to mounting U.S. opposition to the war at a Cabinet meeting Sunday, saying “we will withstand any pressure” to allow “fighting to the end – to total victory.”

That will include an imminent operation against Hamas in Rafah, he said, but only after “the essential stage” of civilian evacuation from “combat zones.”

He also took an indirect swipe at Senator Schumer’s comments, saying growing calls from the “international community” for early elections are coming from those “who are trying to stop the war now, before all of its goals have been achieved.”

Leo Correa/AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Jerusalem, March 17, 2024.

Over recent weeks, as relations between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Biden have soured, the president has labored to draw a distinction between Israel and its current political leader. As part of that, he has repeatedly underscored that his support for Israel is unwavering.

For example, he has made a point of ruling out any limits on defensive armaments deliveries. “The defense of Israel is still critical,” he said in the MSNBC interview, “so there’s no red line [with which] I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome [missile defense system] to protect them.”

Some experts say Mr. Biden could make a show of slowing the delivery of offensive arms – particularly for the vocal slice of the U.S. public opposed to the war – without it actually having much of an impact on Israel’s ability to fight.

“The United States is transferring weapons to Israel at a remarkably fast pace,” says Mr. Alterman, citing “innovations in supply” developed as a result of the war in Ukraine. “I could certainly imagine things slowing down amidst growing Israel-U.S. tensions.”

A deadline for Israel

Some point out that even if there is no credible “red line,” there is an approaching deadline that could result in a conditioning of military aid.

According to a requirement stipulated in the national security memorandum Mr. Biden signed last month, Israel has until March 25 to provide written assurances that it abides by international law while using U.S.-provided weapons. Moreover, Israel must affirm that it will facilitate and not obstruct the delivery of aid into Gaza.

In a similar vein, over recent weeks, a group of Democratic senators led by Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen has been pressing President Biden to invoke the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, a 1961 law that bars providing assistance to any country that prohibits or restricts the delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.

The law was only used once, when President Bill Clinton in 1996 restricted aid to Turkey over its economic sanctions on Armenia. But even in that case, Mr. Clinton used the law’s presidential waiver to keep aid to Turkey flowing, citing U.S. national security interests.

Ariel Schalit/AP

An Israeli soldier atop a tank on the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, March 17, 2024.

There are some signs that despite the tough talk, Israel is taking note of U.S. and international demands for more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Last week a spokesperson for the Israeli military told foreign journalists that Israel’s aim going forward would be “to flood [Gaza] with humanitarian aid” at various entry points.

Mr. Netanyahu said after speaking with the president Monday that they discussed Israel’s war aims in Gaza and the provision to Palestinians in Gaza “the necessary humanitarian aid that helps achieve these goals.”

There are few signs however that Mr. Schumer’s comments are being similarly taken to heart. Opinion polls consistently show a strong majority of Israelis oppose Mr. Netanyahu and would vote for a new leader, but the senator’s call for early elections appeared to strike many Israelis, including some political leaders, as unwanted meddling.

Benny Gantz, a center-right member of Israel’s emergency war Cabinet and a critic of Mr. Netanyahu who recently visited Washington, was quick to admonish Mr. Schumer on social media Thursday, saying he had “erred in his remark” and that any “external intervention is not correct and not welcome.”

But with U.S.-Israel relations so historically tight and emotional, politics are never fully out of the picture.

Indeed, while much ado has been made of how Mr. Biden in an election year is feeling pressure from the Democratic Party’s progressive wing over Israel’s war in Gaza, some experts say it might actually be pressures from the right that discourage Mr. Biden from taking concrete steps.

“The growing disaffection among progressives is not the only problem Biden faces in this,” says Mr. Miller. “Rest assured that as soon as he does anything to actually restrain Israel, the ‘Israel-can-do-no-wrong’ Republicans will be ready to pounce.”

A national conversation about the full spectrum of issues around defining when “life” begins is underway at kitchen tables and workplaces alike, forged by weeks of legislative and judicial upheaval in Alabama and beyond.

It began last month when Alabama’s state Supreme Court declared human embryos located outside a woman’s body to be children – a reference to those created through in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Some clinics halted IVF treatments completely, fearing prosecution. Health care providers and fertility patients voiced frustration and panic. 

State legislators responded three weeks later with a quickly passed law to safeguard IVF providers. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed it right away, “so that couples in Alabama hoping and praying to be parents can grow their families through IVF.” 

The national attention hasn’t faded: Kamala Harris visited an abortion clinic last week – the first vice president to do so; religious conservatives are asking House Republicans to clarify their views on when life begins; and Democrats in Alabama are pushing state legislation to protect contraception. 

Despite efforts to calm heightened, and often partisan, rhetoric, confusion over the future of IVF lingers. The new Alabama law gives legal immunity to IVF providers for the destruction of embryos without addressing the core issue of what is referred to as “fetal personhood.” Experts question whether the new law will hold up under the court ruling. They also point to broader social and ethical implications. 

“There are as many understandings of the status of when life begins, or what is a human life, as there are people,” says Joanne Rosen, an expert on law and reproductive policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The Alabama case decides as if this were definitive and as if there were only a singular view.”

Michael Wyke/AP

Lab staff prepares small petri dishes, each holding several 1-to-7-day-old embryos, for cells to be extracted from each embryo to test for viability, at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute’s in vitro fertilization lab, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston.

What was important about the state Supreme Court ruling?

The Alabama Supreme Court ruling took the personhood concept to a new level. For the first time, a state court assigned rights to an embryo outside the womb. Other states recognize unborn children as people, but those have been limited to fetuses in utero, or inside a woman’s body. 

“We are in uncharted territory here, in Alabama and nationwide as we look at the implications of this ruling,” says Naomi Cahn, co-director of the Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law. 

Anti-abortion activists have long sought fetal personhood laws, and have succeeded in a number of states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Alabama court case shows the practical effects of extending “personhood” beyond in utero embryos. At the same time, the new law has not resolved uncertainty in the fertility industry – and it has ratcheted up debate. 

Anti-abortion groups are split on IVF. Some believe embryos – even if frozen, in a test tube, and nonviable unless implanted – should be protected as human. Others see IVF as aiding the creation of life, and accept the loss of embryos as part of the process.  

A coalition of anti-abortion groups, including CatholicVote and the Southern Baptist Convention, responded to the Alabama immunity bill with a letter of protest. Laws should consider the millions of embryos that could be “discarded or frozen indefinitely, violating the inherent dignity they possess by virtue of being human,” writes the coalition. 

Medical science sees it differently: Pregnancy is defined as taking place when an embryo, or fertilized egg, implants in the uterus. Protecting nonviable in vitro embryos raises questions about contraception that prevents implantation – like some IUDs, the devices placed inside a uterus to prevent pregnancy. Personhood arises in tax law, too: Georgia, for instance, allows tax breaks for an “unborn child with a detectable heartbeat.”

A February poll shows 66% of Americans oppose “considering frozen embryos as people and holding those who destroy them legally responsible.”

What does – and doesn’t – the new law do?

On March 6, Alabama lawmakers enacted a narrowly focused bill that shields IVF service providers from prosecution related to the damage or destruction of an embryo at any point in the IVF process. It also offers limited protection to IVF-related manufacturers. 

The Alabama court case came about because frozen embryos belonging to couples undergoing IVF treatment at an Alabama clinic were destroyed. Those couples sued the clinic for negligence and damages under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. 

The state Supreme Court, in its February decision, considered whether the frozen embryos qualified as minor children. The court said they do. Referencing the state constitution, which affirms the rights of unborn children, the court wrote that unborn children are children “without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.” 

Immediately following that ruling, at least three of Alabama’s eight IVF clinics and a local company that ships embryos shut down, leaving clients in limbo.

Butch Dill/AP

Doctors from the Alabama Fertility Clinic watch legislators debate over the SB159 bill (the IVF fertility bill) in the state's House chambers in Montgomery, Alabama, March 6, 2024.

The new state law offered enough assurance to IVF providers that two of the Alabama clinics that had halted treatments resumed business within a day of the law’s enactment. But the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Mobile remains closed, stating that the law “falls short” and “leaves challenges for physicians and fertility clinics trying to help deserving families have children of their own.” 

IVF is physically painful, emotionally draining, and expensive. Common practice is to create multiple embryos at a time, to keep procedures to a minimum. The extras are frozen, for future siblings or to use if an implantation fails. About 2% of babies born in the United States are a result of IVF. 

How is this impacting the rest of the country?

Other states are watching. A day after Governor Ivey signed the Alabama law, Iowa’s House passed a fetal homicide bill that defines an unborn person as existing “from fertilization to live birth.” Florida has now postponed a fetal personhood bill amid concerns about impacting IVF treatments. 

State laws surrounding reproductive rights reflect the complexity and diversity of anti-abortion views on when life begins. Not all states with personhood laws have complete bans on abortion; states that qualify life as being viable, implanted, or “in the womb” may grant rights to unborn children or their parents. But they also allow for some early-term abortions. Frozen embryos fall outside that definition of life.

Some states also have specific IVF provisions in their personhood laws. Arizona, for one, acknowledges life “at every stage of development” but also states its law is not to be used against IVF providers.

The ruling has fueled momentum for anti-abortion groups; the Alliance Defending Freedom called it a “tremendous victory for life.” Reproductive rights advocates are raising alarms; the Guttmacher Institute wrote that Alabama’s ruling “could have devastating repercussions for families seeking IVF treatment & far beyond.” 

The case has made it into the presidential race, with President Joe Biden linking the Alabama decision to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling two summers ago giving states jurisdiction over abortion access. And former President Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that he supports IVF, while his broader record reflects the goals of anti-abortion conservatives. 

The extremity of the court’s decision is an inflection point, says Professor Rosen. “And regardless of the direction,” she adds, “it has truly introduced a tremendous amount of uncertainty and anxiety and chaos.” 

That uncertainty means anything is possible, especially in an election year when reproductive rights are front and center. “While I can’t predict the next step,” says Susan Pace Hamill, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, “this is not over.”

Anjum Naveed/AP/File

Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor (center), who had recently been assaulted by a group of unidentified men, speaks during a demonstration to condemn the attack on journalists in Islamabad, May 28, 2021.

The legal troubles of a prominent Pakistani journalist have raised concern about the state of press freedom in the country.

Asad Ali Toor, host of the popular YouTube series “Uncensored,” was granted bail on Saturday after spending three weeks in jail on charges of launching an “explicit and malicious” campaign against the superior judiciary. 

Mr. Toor had been fiercely critical of the judiciary in the run up to this year’s general election, accusing the country’s top judge, Qazi Faez Isa, of derailing democracy by stripping the major political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf of its electoral symbol before the Feb. 8 vote. “The historian will write about [Chief Justice Isa] ... as the man who helped the military block the path of a political party,” he said in one of his vlogs.

Mr. Toor’s lawyers say he was kept in crowded, inhumane conditions and pressured to reveal his sources. He is now expected to lie low as lawyers petition for the charges to be dismissed. Regardless of the outcome, analysts say Mr. Toor’s ordeal is reflective of mounting pressures faced by independent media in Pakistan. 

The country’s media landscape is among the most vibrant in Asia, with more than 40 TV news channels and as many as 700 newspapers in print. Yet press freedom activists warn that the famously boisterous media has become a target of Pakistan’s military establishment, which holds enormous sway over law and politics. Some hoped recent elections would herald in change, but ongoing cases suggest that anti-journalist hostility is now the norm. 

“The newly formed government has done nothing to ameliorate the situation, but rather added to it by continuing this clampdown,” says journalist Taha Siddiqui, who has been living in exile since 2018. 

Pakistani journalists adapt

Pakistani media blossomed under the military dictatorship of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who took control in a bloodless coup in October 1999. At the time, Pakistan Television, the state broadcaster, held a monopoly over broadcasting, but had so little credibility among the general public that viewers would turn to Indian television to get their news. Under General Musharraf’s rule, legislation was introduced to liberalize the media landscape and create space for private news channels to enter the market. In the two decades since, Pakistan has seen a proliferation of news outlets that have created a culture of muckraking and critical inquiry. Today, that culture is under threat.

K.M. Chaudary/AP/File

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, shown during a press conference in Lahore, Pakistan, last month, visited journalist Asad Ali Toor after he was attacked in 2021.

Media-watchers trace the current crackdown to the time of the “hybrid regime” – a power-sharing alliance between the government of Imran Khan and the top brass of the Pakistan army, which ended with Mr. Khan’s ouster in a 2022 vote of no-confidence. During the early days of the regime, journalists critical of the military and of Mr. Khan’s government were taken off air and blacklisted. 

“The mainstream media was brought to heel a while ago,” says veteran journalist Cyril Almeida. “It now essentially reports what the military allows it to.”

Many unemployed journalists migrated to YouTube, where Mr. Almeida says reporters have “yet to be tamed.” On social media, they were free to produce vlogs on sensitive issues and, depending on the platform’s monetization policy, made decent money doing it. 

One of the first to make the switch was Mr. Toor, a TV news producer who used his twice daily vlogs to report on areas that were considered no-go zones for the mainstream media. 

Mr. Toor built his audience of 160,000 by opposing military intervention in the political sphere, a position that he believes made him a target for the powers that be.

In May 2021, Mr. Toor was hospitalized after being attacked in his apartment by a group of men who allegedly identified themselves as belonging to Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. At the time, many of the political parties opposed to Mr. Khan’s government condemned the attack as an example of state tyranny. Notably, he was visited by then-leader of the opposition, Shehbaz Sharif, and senior Pakistan Muslim League-N politician Maryam Nawaz. Today, Mr. Sharif is serving as prime minister and Ms. Nawaz as chief minister of Punjab, but the persecution of journalists has not abated.

Weak press protections

Pakistan ranks 150 out of 180 on the 2023 Global Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, a modest uptick from 2022 but still lower than when Mr. Khan took office. The report states that “political parties in opposition support press freedom, but are first to restrict it when in power.”

At least 64 Pakistani journalists have been killed since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and many more have faced physical or legal harassment. Indeed, legal protections are often vague and filled with caveats.

Pakistan’s Constitution, while promising freedom of the press, subjects this freedom to “any reasonable restrictions imposed in the interest of … the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan.” Critics say this provision allows the state to prosecute journalists who speak up against the excesses of state institutions, including the judiciary and military establishment.

Mr. Toor has been charged under three sections of the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, a piece of legislation that free speech campaigners say is designed to stifle criticism of the country’s powerful army. His release comes just a couple weeks after a different journalist, Imran Riaz Khan, was freed on bail and then immediately rearrested on seperate terrorism charges. CPJ has condemned the treatment of both men.

“Authorities must cease using the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and other draconian laws to persecute journalists and silence critical reporting and commentary,” said Beh Lih Yi, Asia program coordinator at CPJ, in a statement.

Analysts say that the victimization of journalists like Mr. Toor shows the press the consequences of stepping out of line.

Mr. Toor “did what we call speaking truth to power,” says digital rights campaigner Usama Khilji. “All institutions including the military, judiciary, and our political and civilian institutions, he would hold them accountable without discrimination. I think that seems to have gotten him on the wrong side of the powers that be.”

I am the father of two adopted sons, from Russia and Ukraine. They’re grown now, but I still find myself looking at these young men with the same wonder I harbored when they were little boys, about to accompany me to a new country, a place brimming with promise for their futures.

Alyosha is the older of the two. He was 7, living in an orphanage south of Moscow. I recall my Russian escort walking him over to me as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He had no idea I was coming for him. Still, when I crouched before him and asked, “Do you know who I am?” he threw me a curious look and inquired, “Papa?” 

As for Anton, he was a tender 5-year-old, living in a Ukrainian orphanage near the Black Sea. Tiny and knock-kneed, he registered doubt in his eyes when he spotted the 6-foot-3-inch frame of the stranger who had come for him. I managed to disarm his anxiety with the gift of a toy car, which elicited a look of wonder and a willingness to take my hand. 

The readiness with which both boys came along with me still astounds. I remember those departure days. When I returned to the orphanage for Alyosha, I found myself wondering what I would do if he was hesitant to leave. I admit that I was pleasantly surprised – no, overjoyed – when he leaped into my arms and said one word: “domoi” (home). I carried him away in my arms, and he never looked back.

Similarly, Anton was raring to go. The orphanage staff had decorated the room with placards bearing messages of encouragement in fractured English: “Anton, we very like you,” “You must be friend with brother Alyosha,” and my favorite, “The boy! Many happy you!” Then, gathering up his teddy, he took my hand and we walked out together.

Courtesy of Robert Klose

Alyosha stands outside his orphanage in Tula, Russia, south of Moscow, in 1993, on the first day the writer met him. He was 7 years old at the time. Russia no longer permits the adoption of Russian children by Americans.

Lifting a child from the only culture he has ever known is a serious affair. Beyond their not knowing what “America” meant, my new sons were being brought to a place where nothing would be familiar: the sights, the sounds, the people, the smells, and above all else, the alien language. Alyosha, for example, often despaired of being able to understand and communicate with his American classmates in English, crying into his hands in frustration. I of course knew that, as English gradually supplanted his Russian, comprehension would come, and contentment would follow. But the interim was certainly fraught. 

While the adoptions were still in progress, I had been told that the early days, weeks, and perhaps months would constitute a “honeymoon period” in which my sons would be angelic in their desires to please, for fear of being “sent back” to their home countries. I never enjoyed such an introductory grace period. Alyosha was willful, and Anton cried – howling at the top of his lungs – until he passed out from exhaustion. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, their difficult behaviors were expressions of the profound trust they had placed in me. In other words, they felt secure enough to let their emotions run free precisely because they had no fear of my rejecting them or sending them back. The tears and tantrums were signs of temporary distress, but these behaviors also represented, again, an abiding belief that I was someone who would be there for the long haul, come what may.

This last realization came home in spades to me on a winter day when Anton was 6. I was performing draft-horse duty, pulling him on a sled over a snowy Maine field. The day was flinty cold, the wind biting, and Anton was bundled in his snowsuit. After a particularly energetic romp, he called out to me to stop the sled. And then, “Papa?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for bringing me to your home.”

I was momentarily overcome by such a sentiment from a 6-year-old. I regarded his rosy-cheeked face smiling out at me from the frame of his hood, and, gathering myself, I gave him the only answer I could. “It’s your home, too. Never forget this.” 

If trust means anything, it’s that it flows both ways.

REUTERS

People attend a protest to mark the two-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the Old Town Square in Prague, Czech Republic, Feb. 24, 2024.

If there is such a thing as the heart of Europe, it would be the Czech Republic. The nation of only 10.5 million people in central Europe has shown once again why it is the most generous and unfailing supporter of Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Czech diplomats have scoured the globe to discreetly procure 800,000 artillery rounds from 18 countries for a Ukrainian military currently in a serious ammo deficit against Russian forces.

“We are like hobbits – small and peaceful, but in a moment of crisis we jump to forge alliances with much more powerful countries and deliver results,” Tomas Kopecny, the Czech special envoy for Ukraine, told The Wall Street Journal, referring to the heroes in the “Lord of the Rings” saga.

On Monday, the successful Czech initiative helped push the European Union to announce that it will provide more than $5.5 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine. And the moral leadership of the Czechs could help unlock a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine now stalled in the U.S. Congress.

The Czech Republic, states the news site Aktuálně.cz, “has been experiencing the most stellar diplomatic moment since joining Nato and the EU.”

Once a former satellite state of the Soviet Union, the Czech Republic is clear about its motives. Even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO or the EU, it is sacrificing more than any other country to safeguard Western values such as freedom, democracy, and respect for the individual, states Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.

“It is holding back a much better armed opponent with tremendous resolve and has in the past managed to liberate almost half of the territory Russia occupied after the start of its aggression in 2022,” Mr. Lipavsky said. “It managed to change the balance of power in the Black Sea [with its attacks on the Russian Navy].” Duty calls, he says, for the Czechs to support Ukraine.

In addition to providing early and strong military support to Ukraine, the Czechs have been the most generous European country in welcoming Ukrainian refugees. In December, the Czech Parliament approved an extension of protection for Ukrainian refugees, providing them access to jobs, education, and health insurance.

Ukrainians are “not running out of courage, they are running out of ammunition,” says NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Yet in addition to stiffening Ukraine’s military, the Czechs may also be stiffening the resolve of the Ukrainians. And showing the world that the front lines of freedom are everywhere.