SUNDAY 6 MARCH 2022

MSNBC

• Commentator talking about Putin: “He’s made a mistake.”  (Note: This is part of the “Putin will defeat himself” narrative.  Ergo, we don’t have to do anything.)  Velshi says: “This is going to be like Afghanistan.”  What Velshi means is that the Russians have involved themselves in a quagmire and this will be a disaster for them.  (Note: Meanwhile, while the U.S. elite is waiting for the Russians to get bogged down, a lot of people die.)
• Commentator adds to the “Putin will defeat himself narrative, promising that the occupation will be “damaging, costly and bloody.”  (Note: Again, while we wait, people are dying and losing everything.)
• Mariupol green corridor has collapsed due to shelling by the Russian side.
• (Note: U.S. taking credit for the heroic behavior of the Ukrainian people.)
• Republican political analyst is saying that there is “bipartisan” support for not taking action to create a no-fly zone.  She reminds us that implementing a no-fly zone requires taking action against Russians on Russian soil. (Note: This is because they have made up a rule that if they try to implement a no-fly zone, they first have to take out military capabilities of Russia.  THEY MADE UP THIS RULE.  There is nobody enforcing it.  This is supposedly so that none of our pilots will be shot down.  IT IS A WAR.  This is very like one military expert warning us that whenever we established a no-fly zone before it was against militaries that couldn’t even begin to compete.  So, what this says is that we cannot try to establish a no-fly zone if we are not massively more powerful than our enemy.  This is shameful.  This is a political calculation.  I don’t want to be lectured by the likes of Susan DelPercio

CNN

• Biden’s approval rating is up on his handling of Ukraine.  (Note: Why?)
• (Note: I find it obnoxious that the panel is talking about Biden’s approval ratings and how he considers Ukraine as his destiny, or the thing that will define his predency.  He needs to be implementing a no-fly zone, cutting off purchase of Russian oil, opening immigration to Ukrainians not worrying about his f…ing political legacy.)

UKRAINE WORLD @ukraine_world

• The Ministry of Defense of Moldova says that the eight shells that hit the civilian airport in Vinnytsia were not launched from Transnistria, but from the Black Sea.
• Zelensky video Statement:  They are destroying our life, “our life built by us…Close the sky over Ukraine….Make a humanitarian zone….it is your humanitarian duty….”  If you don’t give us a closed airspace…”You also want us to be slowly killed…it is the responsibilities of world politicians, Western leaders….”
• An evacuation of people from Mariupol was prevented from happening today.
• Russian occupants damaged the Donetsk-Mariupol gas pipeline, and settlements from Vugledar to Berdyansk will soon be without gas. 

KYIV INDEPENDENT

• Putin says that Russia will stop the war only if Ukraine surrenders.  Russia is ready to negotiate after “all known Russian demands are met.”
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister says that foreigners from 52 countries have applied to join Ukraine’s military.
• Moody’s downgrades Russia’s credit rating to close to default.
• Zelensky: “The world has the power to close our skies for Russian rockets and aircraft.”

MERCENARIES: AZOV BATTALION

• The Azov Battlion is a neo-nazi group in Ukraine, fighting for Ukrainian independence.  Its existence is widely used to support the Russian false narrative of trying to save Russian speaking Ukrainians from the Ukrainian government.  But there are Nazi and neo-Nazi groups in the United States, they don’t control the government.
• As some have noted, it is important to keep Azov Battalion marginalized.
• Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) notes that a mainstream Canadian newspaper has published a “fawning portrait of a member of the Azov Battalion” describing him as a “movie star.”  Heer wars against attempts to normalize the Battlion.  (Note: This is the danger of a disastrously ignorant and shallow press).

TWITTER:

• Reuters is reporting that Russia is maintaining that its sovereign bond payments will depend on sanctions.  This raises the specter of the first major default on foreign bonds since the 1917 Revolution.
• Pay Pal has shut down services in Russia.
• Video of workers in a Russian plant staging a spontaneous strike due to the fact that they were not paid all of their salary because of the decline in the ruble.