www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/us/politics/us-raid-syria.html
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America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan added moral injury to military failure. But a group of soldiers, veterans, and ordinary citizens came together to try to save Afghan lives and salvage some American honor.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/03/biden-afghanistan-exit-american-allies-abandoned/621307/ -
House Democrats’ New Anti-Progressive PAC is Funded by Corporate Lobbyists and PACs – Sludge
— Read on readsludge.com/2022/02/01/house-democrats-new-anti-progressive-pac-is-funded-by-corporate-lobbyists-and-pacs/ -
The United States convened a meeting on Monday of the UN Security Council to discuss the potential invasion of Ukraine. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Vasily Nebenzya, Representative to the UN from the Russian Federation exchanged views. The Chinese and the Russians tried to make the discussion private, but this move was opposed by the rest of the members.
With the support of only China, the Russians forced a vote at the beginning of the U.S.-called meeting on whether to hold the session behind closed doors. “What we urgently need now is quiet diplomacy, but not microphone diplomacy,” Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said.
But, microphone diplomacy was what we got.
The exchange between Thomas-Greenfield and Nebenzya was described by the New York Times as a “bitter diplomatic brawl.” Nebenzia portrayed the Americans as the provocateurs. “You are almost pulling for this,” he said, looking at Mrs. Thomas-Greenfield. “You want it to happen. You’re waiting for it to happen, as if you want to make your words become a reality.”
“Changing the situation, improving it can only be done through Kyiv implementing the already mentioned Minsk agreement that stipulates primarily direct dialogue with Donetsk and Luhansk. There is no other option. If our Western partners push Kyiv to sabotage the Minsk agreement, something that Ukrainian authorities are willing to use, then that might end in the absolute worst way for Ukraine,” he said.
As far as I can tell, only the Washington Post is reporting what I consider to be the most important of the statements Nebenzya made.
Nebenzya accused the West of bringing “pure Nazis” to power on Russia’s borders, and “making heroes out of those peoples who fought on the side of Hitler.” The U.S. aim, he said, is “to weaken Russia and create an arc of instability around it.”
The Nazi references were not just hyperbole. They are part of a line of argument the Russian government has been pursuing since Ukrainian independence. According to Russia, every person who supports Ukrainian independence is a Nazi. This is the line they have been using to try to mobilize their population behind an invasion of Ukraine.
According to a book by Ukrainian specialist Taras Kuzio, for decades, Russia has been pushing a sentimental and warped narrative about the “Great Patriotic War” (WWII) and trying to convince the population that any moves toward independence from the Russian sphere of influence, or toward the West, is a betrayal and a sign of fascism.
Putin is trying to convince the Russian people that what they will be fighting in Ukraine is Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, and fascists. Ukraine is part of Russia and the people in the current Ukrainian government are traitors that must be defeated just as they were defeated in WWII.
Now, this is patent nonsense, crazy talk, but the important thing is that today, the crazy talk went from being something pumped out for internal consumption to declarations in front of the United Nations. It’s saying the crazy part out loud.
I can’t help but think this is important.
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The Court’s new death penalty order is almost too cruel to be believed.
— Read on www.vox.com/22906309/supreme-court-death-penalty-alabama-intellectually-disabled-hamm-reeves -
As the Kremlin attempts to reassert control over its neighbours, Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy uncovers the deep roots of the crisis
— Read on www.ft.com/content/0cbbd590-8e48-4687-a302-e74b6f0c905d -
Sunday 30 January 2022
MSNBC reported this morning that part of the Russian build-up on the Ukrainian border is transporting blood to the front lines. Yesterday’s reports were a more general “medical supplies.” This cannot be a good sign.
Aljazeera is reporting that the UK is considering a “major NATO deployment.” Boris Johnson was quoted as saying “we will not tolerate their (Russian) destabilizing activity, and we will always stand with our NATO allies…” The important promise, however, is to NATO allies, not to Ukraine.
The Ukrainians are increasingly fearful that the West is planning to fortify NATO allies in order to fulfill their commitments, but leave Ukraine as a “buffer state” or a “no-man’s land.”
The UK is said to be considering doubling the number of UK troops in eastern Europe and sending defensive weapons to Estonia (a member of NATO since 2004).
CNN is reporting on the use of Tucker Carlson as a propaganda tool by Russian TV. Carlson has been quoted as saying: “NATO exists primarily to torment Vladamir Putin.” Julie Davis, commenting on CNN noted that Russian TV has described Carlson as one of their “co-hosts.” She also pointed out that Carlson is inviting on his show as guests people affiliated with the Russian government without revealing their affiliations.
In another of the growing list of stupid comments by corporate news anchors on the Ukrainian crisis, Brian Slater asserted that Tucker Carlson was only representing millions of Americans who are horrified of the notion that the U.S. could get involved in another conflict. Why, he asked, is this considered “pro-Putin?” Well, there are two sides to this conflict, one side is threatening invasion and the other is facing invasion.
There are a number of lines of argument being advanced by surprising people against any military involvement of the U.S. or NATO in the potential take-over of Ukraine. The one that Slater made is one of them. The argument is that because the U.S. doesn’t want to get involved in another conflict, we can sit on our hands while Vladimir Putin uses force to take over an independent country.
A second line of argument is that Russia has a nuclear capability. This argument is essentially that because there is a threat of a nuclear war, or the use of a nuclear weapon, the west should just allow Putin to take over Europe by force.
A third line of argument I have heard recently from left-of-center people is that military contractors will make billions, trillions off any conflict. That has been the case for at least half a century, so now, when Russia is threatening to take action against an independent state, we should refuse to become involved because military contractors will make money off it. I don’t get it.
As a number of people point out repeatedly, this is not just about Ukraine.
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An apparent hack of the railway network in Russia’s ally Belarus hints at the prospect of a massive new wave of cyber warfare over Ukraine, security officials told VICE World News.
— Read on www.vice.com/en/article/n7nd9x/ukraine-russia-invasion-belarus-railway-hack-cyber-warVice News is reporting that hackers disrupted a railway system in Belarus trying to interfere with a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. The hackers claimed to have hacked and encrypted key databases in the state railway computer system.
- The group (of hackers called Cyer Partisans) said it was part of an effort to disrupt the transport of Russian forces in the country under the guise of military exercises and force the release of detained opposition activists, according to Yuliana Shemetovets, a New York-based Belarusian activist who is not a member of the group but volunteered to act as a spokesperson for the group.
- Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Minsk – helped by support from Russian President Vladimir Putin – survived a peaceful uprising following a widely disputed 2020 re-election. After a brutal crackdown on political opposition, including mass arrests, deportations and international air piracy, the Belarusian opposition has been mostly forced into exile. As a result of Putin backing Lukashenko, the activists consider Russian troop movements inside Belarus an obvious target.
- One NATO official was quoted as saying: “…it’s an important moment and I think plenty of services in opposition to Russia are pleased to see it happen.”
- Russia has a long history of effective cyber-operations including major hacks across the US, Western Europe and Ukraine, and Russian hackers are considered extremely dangerous adversaries by NATO. On Friday the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre warned British businesses to strengthen their digital security due to a raised threat of Russian-based cyber-attacks.
- The hackers were careful to prevent accidents and delays in civilian travel.
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Friday 28 January 2022
Alexander Vindman risked his career to make public Donald Trump’s extortion of the Ukrainians. He is the former director of European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council.
He was interviewed on Chris Hayes, MSNBC. These are excerpts.
• “I think we saw this buildup (on the border of Ukraine) start to occur really at the beginning of 2021. And I think that it was on the expectation that Russia had to act. Ukraine was slipping through its fingers.”
• “Back in 2014 when this confrontation started, when Russia launched its military offensive against Ukraine, it did so because it saw a country choosing its own destiny, asserting its sovereignty, choosing a path towards European integration, towards democracy. And really, this is a continuing enterprise in a lot of ways.”
• “But the question is why now and it`s mainly because of a sense of opportunity, a sense of weakness within the United States. I have every reason to believe that if we had not had an insurrection on January 6….President Putin would not believe that there`s an opportunity, there`s a vulnerability within the United States.”
• “…it’s going to be a human catastrophe.”
• “It`s better to prevent and to do everything to avoid this catastrophic outcome rather than deal with the consequences of a reshaped geopolitical landscape.”
• Hayes asked: “What`s the diplomatic off ramp?”
• “It`s not that easy to take pieces off the off the table right now. I think frankly, it`s one of the places where this administration fell short. They thought maybe — they thought this was diplomatic coercion.”
• “…we shouldn`t be just considering a diplomatic track. There`s also a track — a pressure track that makes a lot of sense right now. We have very anxious allies along Ukraine`s western border. Those allies are going to want some assurances that Article Five actually still means something.”
• “I think we should be positioning — we talked about reactionary measures, positioning troops in Europe after an escalation. That is the wrong — a wrong way to look at it. We should be doing things now.”
• “Right now, we don`t have a war yet. If we position troops in Europe and say this NATO Article Five is ironclad, will protect NATO interests. How much more benign does that seem that positioning many troops in in Eastern Europe when shots are fired when there`s — you know, when there`s Russian blood being spilled?
MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart interviewed Rep. Jayapal 1/28/22
Jayapal is on television arguing that the U.S., by responding to the threat of the Russians is playing into escalating tensions. Troop deployments and arms sales, risk “escalating the process” and putting negotiations in a worse place. “Let the diplomacy do it’s work,” Jayapal stated. “Focus on a diplomatic strategic.” Don’t “rush to another war.” Sanctions have a way of “hurting the people of the country not the autocrats.”
We can’t go in “without knowing what the situation is.”
CNN Anchor 1/28/22
The CNN anchor asked a guest if there would be a full Russian invasion or an incursion, not the “main cities, but just rural areas where there are native Russian speakers?” This has been a theme lately, the assumption that a “minor incursion” into those regions where the people are primarily “Russian speaking” would not be considered so serious. There is a distinction made between the “populated urban areas” and the rural areas where there are primarily Russian speakers. This line of argument is taken directly from Russian propaganda which argues that Russia has a right to those areas where they have consciously populated the region with separatists and conducted a campaign to convince the population that the area “belongs” to Russia.
Article from Foreign Affairs. 1/27/22
• The current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is a reckoning that has been 30 years in the making. It is about much more than Ukraine and its possible NATO membership. It is about the future of the European order crafted after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
• The core element of this doctrine is getting the West to treat Russia as if it were the Soviet Union, a power to be respected and feared, with special rights in its neighborhood and a voice in every serious international matter.
• The doctrine holds that only a few states should have this kind of authority, along with complete sovereignty, and that others must bow to their wishes. It entails defending incumbent authoritarian regimes and undermining democracies. And the doctrine is tied together by Putin’s overarching aim: reversing the consequences of the Soviet collapse, splitting the transatlantic alliance, and renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.
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Garry Kasparov on MSNBC
Former chess champion and human rights activist Garry Kasparov burned up MSNBC yesterday saying what the Biden administration can’t or won’t. He appeared on Stephanie Ruhl’s show and that of Jose Diaz-Balart. Both hosts showed their lack of ability to conduct an intelligent interview without embarrassed themselves.
Stephanie Ruhl started off her interview with Kasparov by positing that Putin knew where the hide his money and that attempts to sanction him personally would be futile.
Kasparov quickly corrected her by pointing out that since Putin assumed office twenty years ago, the amount of money that is estimated to have been taken out of Russia is $2 trillion. Putin, he maintained, controls most of this money even if indirectly.
“You don’t have to sanction him personally.” Kasparov noted and added that American intelligence knew full well where Putin stashed his money. At this point, Kasparov continued, Putin regards the proposed sanctions as “nothing more than lip service.”
The governments of our European allies (especially Germany), maintained Kasparov, are filled with “corrupt politicians doing Putin’s bidding.” They are standing in the way of effective sanctions.
Since the invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea eight years ago, Germany has doubled the amount of gas it is buying from Russia.
Later, on Jose Diaz-Balart, Kasparov vehemently disagreed with a previous guest. “Putin will do whatever he can get away with,” he stated.
Kasparov continued that Europe had spent twenty years building dependence on Russia. “So much time has been wasted.” Kasparov reminded the audience that people like him had been warning for two decades. “Putin is our problem, but he will become your problem.”
He warned that the United States should not listen to “corrupt politicians” in Germany who are putting their own financial interests over that of European security. “Where is the leverage here?” He asked. The Biden administration “made a terrible mistake by entering these negotiations that convinced Putin that they could get away with this…” “Putin senses American weakness.”
Diaz-Balart displayed his own weakness with an incredible statement: “The United States is over here seeing what’s happening over there.” What else, he asked, can we do for you not to say we are weak? I can think of about a hundred things.
This situation is “more about corruption and lack of political will” than serious economic concerns. Kasparov continued.
“If Ukraine is invaded it will be the end of the global order that was built after WWII.”
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Kremlin claims long-awaited US and NATO responses to security demands fail to address Russia’s most pressing concerns.
— Read on www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/27/russia-weighs-us-nato-responses-to-security-demands-liveblog -
Observations after Reading Around about Ukraine:
“There can be a catastrophe, even when Russia is not fully invading Ukraine.” Ukraine World Podcast
William Cohen, CNN, 1/21/22
- Diplomacy is unlikely to succeed.
- Putin knows exactly what he wants to do. He wouldn’t put troops on the border and then withdraw because of threats.
- Putin is going to get something out of this.
- You don’t put 100,000 troops on the border for a training act.
- Cohen thinks that Putin is thinking: “Now would be the time to take action.”
- The West is not in a good position to respond.
- Putin is also counting on Donald Trump to come back into power. Whatever sanctions the U.S. imposes will be undone then.
- Putin wants to have a “boot on the neck of the Europeans” when it comes to energy.
- The Russians “export trouble.”
“Expert” on corporate news:
- Russia might “take a little bit more territory” but not go as far as Kiev.
- The attack might be “just cyber…not an actual military incursion.”
- NYT Pentagon Reporter Helene Cooper: Defending Ukraine is not in the “strategic interests of the United States.”
Sanctions: Excluding Russia from the SWIFT system.
- Last week there were reports from Handelsblatt (quoted by Bloomberg) that Biden and the EU were no longer considering using as a sanction for a Russian invasion the removal of the Russians from the SWIFT international payments system. This was, for some reason, not picked up by the corporate press in this country.
- The U.S. and the EU were said to be considering “targeted penalties” against major Russian banks instead.
- Germany was reported to be seeking exceptions from even those penalties to ensure oil and gas payments remained possible.
- Note: Garry Kasperov blasted Germany today on MSNBC, claiming that corruption in the Germany government was rife and that they had put economic gain above democracy.
- Shortly after these reports from Handelsblatt, the U.S. press started publishing articles quoting “experts” who said that the exclusion of Russia from SWIFT would not be that effective or damaging.
- Ukraine has called for Russia to be removed from SWIFT. Evidently, the Ukrainians think that removal would help.
- Those now supporting a backdown on the SWIFT exclusion maintain that the move could destabilize financial markets and encourage a move to the Russian version of SWIFT.
- Other sources point out that the Russian version of SWIFT only includes one Chinese bank. The rest of the users are in Russia. Using this alternative system would require convincing others to sign up to the Russian system and face the severely limited communications possibilities and the fact that the Russian version is only open during business hours (unlike the SWIFT system which is open 24/7).
- Most sources, however, agree that the chance of excluding Russia is slim.
- The probabilities of excluding Russia may be low, but the severity of this as a sanction is a different question entirely. I have no way of evaluating the severity of the sanction.
- Before the reports in Handelsblatt, this exclusion was quoted as one of the powerful sanctions being considered. Since then, the tide of evaluation in the U.S. has been that the sanction would not have as much an effect as previously thought. This makes me suspicious of the later evaluations.
- Garry Kasperov, on MSNBC today, noted the SWIFT exclusion as one of the most powerful sanctions.
- The director General of the Kremlin-aligned Russian International Affairs Council compared the potential move to detonating a financial “nuclear bomb.”
Ukrainians
- The Ukrainians have been noticeably absent from the high level negotiations between the U.S. and the Russians. There have been calls for nothing to be decided about Ukraine without Ukrainians.
- While the Ukrainians are happy to see the reinforcement of NATO countries in the region, they also do not want to become a “no man’s land” or a buffer state.
- Rep. Michael McCaul has also noted the frustration in Ukraine about sanctions being threatened after an invasion, not before. It was noted that sanctions could be implemented and then the Russians told that sanctions would be lifted if the troops on the Ukraine border were withdrawn.
Weapons
- The Washington Post (1/24/22) is reporting that the Defense Ministry of Belarus said that Russian troops continued to arrive in that country.
- Video has surfaced on social media of Russian military convoys and trains loaded with military equipment moving across southern Russia and Belarus.
- Germany has ruled out supplying Ukraine with defense weapons.
Ian Bremmer (Gzeromedia, 1/18/22)
- There have been cyber attacks against a number of websites in Ukraine within the past week. These direct malware attacks against a number of government agencies is almost certainly done by Russia.
- The Russians are sending troops to Belarus for sudden and unannounced military exercises right on the Ukrainian border.
- They are also moving Russian personnel from Russia’s embassy in Kiev.
- If Putin is not given something significant, he will escalate.
- Cyber attacks could be devastating to Ukraine. Previous attacks took 1% of the GDP off of Ukraine and people died in hospitals when they suddenly lost their ability to have data and connectivity.
- The president of Belarus is planning to change the constitution in February. Belarus would no longer be formally neutral and no longer a non-nuclear state.
Quotes:
Zelensky
“There are no minor incursions…”
Ian Bremmer
“Don’t expect full-on invasion, but Putin isn’t bluffing.”
The U.S. pulling out of Afghanistan was “a debacle.”
Wilfred Jilge, historian Center for International Peace Operations, Berlin
“It’s a challenge for all Europeans.”
“There can be a catastrophe, even when Russia is not fully invading Ukraine.”
Sources:
Financial Times (1/17/22)
Moscow Times (4/20/21)
CNN
MSNBC
Ukraine World Podcast (#64)
Washinton Post (1/24/22)
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Michael Flynn likened the White House’s messaging about the Russia-Ukraine standoff to the “hoax” of Russian interference in 2016 elections that landed Flynn an indictment.
— Read on www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/01/24/michael-flynn-once-indicted-over-russia-communication—voices-support-for-russia-ahead-of-potential-ukraine-invasion/ -
Ukraine gained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Ever since, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has wanted Ukraine to join with Russia in forming a Eurasian Union. But many…
— Read on jennycohn1.medium.com/whats-all-the-fuss-about-ukraine-1ba8e53d99ee -
Opinion | Fiona Hill: For Russia’s President Putin, It’s Not Just About Ukraine – The New York Times
Vladimir Putin’s aim is bigger than closing NATO’s “open door” to Ukraine and taking more territory.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin-biden.html
