Russian-Ukrainian talks started in Istanbul and other stories - Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks℠
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Another round of Russian-Ukrainian talks has begun in Istanbul at the residence of the Turkish President Dolmabahce, Anadolu reports . They will last two days.
The talks began with an opening speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This is the first face-to-face meeting between representatives of the two countries since March 7. In recent weeks, negotiations have been held via video link. Before that, face-to-face negotiations were held in Belarus on February 28, March 3 and March 7.
According to the Financial Times, citing four sources familiar with the negotiations, Russia has abandoned some of its original demands on Ukraine - namely, "denafification", demilitarization and legal guarantees for the protection of the Russian language. Moscow and Kyiv are said to be discussing a suspension of hostilities as part of an agreement that would see Ukraine withdraw from NATO in exchange for security guarantees and the prospect of joining the European Union. Ukraine must also refrain from developing nuclear weapons and hosting foreign military bases on its territory.
In return, Ukraine will receive security guarantees "close to Article 5 of NATO" from 11 countries, said David Arakhamia, head of the faction of the ruling Servant of the People party in the Verkhovna Rada. Russia, the USA, Canada, France, Germany, China, Italy, Poland, Israel and Turkey will become security guarantors. According to Article 5 of the NATO Charter, an attack on one of the members of the alliance is considered an attack on the entire alliance.
According to the FT, Ukraine and its Western allies continue to suspect that Putin is using the talks as a "smoke screen" to regroup forces and send in reinforcements.
Arakhamia confirmed that the parties are close to an agreement on security guarantees and the possibility of Ukraine's accession to the EU. At the same time, according to him, it is hardly worth waiting for a breakthrough in the negotiations.
According to Arakhamia, Moscow is demanding that Ukraine recognize its ownership of Crimea and the independence of the two "republics" in the Donbass. "We will never recognize any borders other than those specified in our Declaration of Independence," the negotiator stressed. Now, according to the FT, Ukraine is ready to discuss humanitarian issues, including the supply of water to the Crimea, as well as providing guarantees that it will not try to return the peninsula by force.
On March 21, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that any agreements with Russia would be put to a referendum. “I explained to all the negotiating groups: when you talk about all these changes, and they can be historical, we will not go anywhere, we will come to a referendum. The people will have to say and respond to certain formats of compromise,” he said. this is what they will be - this is already a matter of our conversation and understanding between Ukraine and Russia. Therefore, in any case, I am ready to do anything if this march of mine is with our people." In an interview with Russian journalists, Zelensky clarified that it would be impossible to hold a referendum without the withdrawal of foreign troops from Ukraine.According to him, the organization and conduct of the referendum will take several months, and amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution will take at least a year.
On Monday, it became known that Russian oligarch Viktor Abramovich, who was involved as an intermediary, and two members of a Russian negotiating team were poisoned in Kiev on March 3 . Abramovich then lost his sight for several hours. The poisoned had already recovered, Abramovich decided to continue mediation.
Chair Raskin, Ranking Member Mace Request GAO Review of FBI Surveillance of Americans to Protect First Amendment Rights
Washington, D.C. (March 7, 2022)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Nancy Mace, Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting that it conduct a comprehensive review of Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) practice of surveilling individuals and groups through activities it classifies as “assessments.”
“We are concerned that FBI assessments operate as de facto investigations that can be launched without a factual predicate of criminal wrongdoing,” the Members wrote. “We ask that GAO examine whether assessments result in the improper monitoring of protected First Amendment activity—including by political, racial, or religious organizations—and whether the FBI has sufficient controls in place to ensure that they do not run afoul of constitutional protections.”
In 2008, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revised its guidelines for FBI domestic operations to include a separate category of “assessments,” which require an authorized purpose but do not require a factual basis for the investigation.
The updated guidelines allow the FBI to use “intrusive investigative techniques,” including the use of informants and unlimited physical surveillance, on individuals and groups that are not linked to criminal wrongdoing or considered national security threats. The guidelines also eliminated several procedural checks and have allowed the FBI to use race, religion, or protected speech as factors in choosing targets for assessments.
Between 2008 and 2011, the FBI reportedly opened more than 80,000 assessments of individuals and groups but fewer than 3,400 produced information that led to a more intensive investigation. For example, the Bureau used the 2008 guidelines to carry out a two-year assessment into a group opposed to the Keystone XL Pipeline, and field offices in cities like Ferguson, Missouri repeatedly opened assessments on “black identity extremists” between 2015 and 2018 despite the lack of any known connection between these individuals and violent activity.
In today’s letter, the Members requested that GAO conduct a review of the FBI’s use of assessments from December 1, 2008, to the present, including an examination of the individuals and groups targeted by these investigations, and issue a report on its findings.
Click here to read the letter to GAO.
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U.S. President Joe Biden cast doubt on Russia's signal that it may scale down its war aims to concentrate on eastern Ukraine, as two Russian missile strikes slammed into the west of the country on Saturday, wounding five.
After failing to break Kyiv's ferocious resistance in a month of fighting and deadly attacks on civilians, the Russian army in a surprise announcement said it would focus on "the main goal — the liberation of Donbas."
But Biden said he was "not sure" that Moscow has indeed changed strategy, as he branded Russian President Vladimir Putin a "butcher" while meeting Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
The U.S. leader's assessment came as two missiles struck a fuel depot in western Ukraine's Lviv, a rare attack on a city just 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the Polish border that has escaped serious fighting since Russian troops invaded last month.
At least five people were wounded, regional governor Maksym Kozytsky said, as AFP journalists in the city center saw plumes of thick black smoke.
Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, vowing to destroy the country's military and topple pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But his army has made little progress on capturing key cities, and its attacks that have hit hospitals, residential buildings and schools have become more deadly.
Biden, who has been leading efforts among Western allies to press Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine, has blasted Putin as a "war criminal" over the assaults on civilians.
The Kremlin hit back at Biden's description of Putin as a "butcher", saying "a state leader must remain sober-minded."
"Such personal insults are narrowing down the window of opportunity for our bilateral relations under the current (U.S.) administration. One should be aware of this," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in remarks carried by state news agency TASS.
Unwavering
Biden, who is on a two-day visit to Poland after holding a series of summits in Brussels with Western allies, earlier met Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in Warsaw in an emphatic show of support for Kyiv.
Both ministers had made a rare trip out of Ukraine for the face-to-face talks, in a possible sign of growing confidence in their fightback against Russian forces.
The talks discussed Washington's "unwavering commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
Biden, who later met Polish President Andrzej Duda, also stressed the "sacred commitment" to NATO's collective defense, in a clear reassurance to Ukraine's neighbors rattled by the conflict.
"You can count on that... for your freedom and ours," he told Duda.
Speaking after visiting Ukrainian refugees later Saturday, Biden said he had been asked by children to pray for their male relatives fighting in Ukraine.
"I remember what it's like when you have someone in a war zone and every morning you get up and you wonder... you are praying you don't get that phone call," said Biden, whose son Beau served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumor.
'Everybody's shooting'
On the frontlines, Russia's far-bigger military continued to combat determined Ukrainian defenders who are using Western-supplied weapons — from near the capital Kyiv to Kharkiv, the Donbas region and the devastated southern port city of Mariupol.
A humanitarian convoy leaving Mariupol, including ambulances carrying wounded children, was being held up at Russian checkpoints, a Ukrainian official said.
A buildup of several kilometers had formed close to Vassylivka, in the region of Zaporizhzhia where the convoy was headed, said Lyudmyla Denisova, in charge of human rights in Ukraine.
"The ambulances carrying wounded children are also queueing. The people have been deprived of water and food for two days," she wrote on Telegram, blasting Russian troops for "creating obstacles".
Authorities have said they fear some 300 civilians in Mariupol may have died in a Russian air strike on a theatre being used as a bomb shelter last week.
Russian forces hammering Mariupol's out-gunned resistance consider the city a lynchpin in their attempt to create a land corridor between the Crimea region, which Moscow seized in 2014, and the Donbas.
One Mariupol resident who managed to escape the city, Oksana Vynokurova, described leaving behind complete devastation.
"I have lost all my family. I have lost my house. I am desperate," the 33-year-old told AFP after reaching Lviv by train.
"My mum is dead. I left my mother in the yard like a dog, because everybody's shooting."
In Kharkiv, where local authorities reported 44 artillery strikes and 140 rocket assaults in a single day, residents were resigned to the incessant bombardments.
Anna Kolinichenko, who lives in a three-room flat with her sister and brother-in-law, said they don't even bother to head down to the cellar when the sirens go off.
"If a bomb drops, we're going to die anyway," she said. "We are getting a little used to explosions".
Russian forces have taken control of Slavutych, the town where workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant live, briefly detaining the mayor, regional Ukrainian authorities said.
Residents of the town protested, prompting the invading forces to fire shots in the air and lob stun grenades into the crowd.
Kyiv said it was shortening a planned 35-hour curfew to just Saturday 8:00 pm to Sunday 7:00 am, as Britain's defense ministry said Ukrainian counter-attacks were underway near the capital.
Ukrainian forces were also attempting to recapture Kherson, the only major city held by Russian invasion troops, a Pentagon official said.
'Bragging'
Russia's army had been predicted by some to roll across Ukraine with little resistance, but it had greatly underestimated Ukrainian determination.
Putin's military has also exhibited poor discipline and morale, faulty equipment and tactics, as well as brutality toward civilians, Western analysts say.
Amid heavy censorship, Russian authorities Friday gave only their second official military death toll since the start of the invasion, at 1,351.
This is far below Western estimates, with one senior NATO official saying between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers have died.
Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian general, suggested the time had come for a considerably reduced "main goal" of controlling Donbas, an eastern region already partly held by Russian proxies.
Rudskoi said Ukraine's military has been severely degraded and that Russia hadn't seized cities to "prevent destruction and minimize losses among personnel and civilians."
While diplomatic efforts have so far done little to stop Russia, Zelensky pressed on with his relentless bid to rally world leaders to his side.
This time taking his message to the Doha Forum meeting in Qatar's capital, he accused Russia of fuelling a dangerous arms race by "bragging" about its nuclear stocks.
He also urged Qatar to help stop Moscow from deploying energy as a weapon.
"I ask you to increase the output of energy to ensure that everyone in Russia understands that no one can use energy as a weapon to blackmail the world," Zelensky said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from <a href="http://TomDispatch.com" rel="nofollow">TomDispatch.com</a>.
A growing chorus of pundits and policy-makers has suggested that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the beginning of a new Cold War. If so, that means trillions of additional dollars for the Pentagon in the years to come coupled with a more aggressive military posture in every corner of the world.
Before this country succumbs to calls for a return to Cold War–style Pentagon spending, it’s important to note that the United States is already spending substantially more than it did at the height of the Korean and Vietnam Wars or, in fact, any other moment in that first Cold War. Even before the invasion of Ukraine began, the Biden administration’s proposed Pentagon budget (as well as related work like nuclear-warhead development at the Department of Energy) was already guaranteed to soar even higher than that, perhaps to $800 billion or more for 2023.
Here’s the irony: Going back to Cold War levels of Pentagon funding would mean reducing, not increasing spending. Of course, that’s anything but what the advocates of such military outlays had in mind, even before the present crisis.
Some supporters of higher Pentagon spending have, in fact, been promoting figures as awe inspiring as they are absurd. Rich Lowry, the editor of the conservative National Review, is advocating a trillion-dollar military budget, while Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council called for the United States to prepare to win simultaneous wars against Russia and China. He even suggested that Congress “could go so far as to double its defense spending” without straining our resources. That would translate into a proposed annual defense budget of perhaps $1.6 trillion. Neither of those astronomical figures is likely to be implemented soon, but that they’re being talked about at all is indicative of where the Washington debate on Pentagon spending is heading in the wake of the Ukraine disaster.
Former government officials are pressing for similarly staggering military budgets. As Reagan-era State Department official and Iran/Contra operative Elliott Abrams argued in a recent Foreign Affairs piece titled “The New Cold War”: “It should be crystal clear now that a larger percentage of GDP [gross domestic product] will need to be spent on defense.” Similarly, in a Washington Post op-ed, former defense secretary Robert Gates insisted that “we need a larger, more advanced military in every branch, taking full advantage of new technologies to fight in new ways.” No matter that the United States already outspends China by a three-to-one margin and Russia by 10-to-one.
Truth be told, current levels of Pentagon spending could easily accommodate even a robust program of arming Ukraine as well as a shift of yet more US troops to Eastern Europe. However, as hawkish voices exploit the Russian invasion to justify higher military budgets, don’t expect that sort of information to get much traction. At least for now, cries for more are going to drown out realistic views on the subject.
Beyond the danger of breaking the budget and siphoning off resources urgently needed to address pressing challenges like pandemics, climate change, and racial and economic injustice, a new Cold War could have devastating consequences. Under such a rubric, the United States would undoubtedly launch yet more military initiatives, while embracing unsavory allies in the name of fending off Russian and Chinese influence.
The first Cold War, of course, reached far beyond Europe, as Washington promoted right-wing authoritarian regimes and insurgencies globally at the cost of millions of lives. Such brutal military misadventures included Washington’s role in coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile; the war in Vietnam; and support for repressive governments and proxy forces in Afghanistan, Angola, Central America, and Indonesia. All of those were justified by exaggerated —even at times fabricated—charges of Soviet involvement in such countries and the supposed need to defend “the free world,” a Cold War term President Biden all-too-ominously revived in his recent State of the Union address (assumedly, yet another sign of things to come).
Indeed, his framing of the current global struggle as one between “democracies and autocracies” has a distinctly Cold War ring to it and, like the term “free world,” it’s riddled with contradictions. After all, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates to the Philippines, all too many autocracies and repressive regimes already receive ample amounts of US weaponry and military training—no matter that they continue to pursue reckless wars or systematically violate the human rights of their own people. Washington’s support is always premised on the role such regimes supposedly play in fighting against or containing the threats of the moment, whether Iran, China, Russia, or some other country.
Count on one thing: The heightened rhetoric about Russia and China seeking to undermine American influence will only reinforce Washington’s support for repressive regimes. The consequences of that could, in turn, prove to be potentially disastrous.
Before Washington embarks on a new Cold War, it’s time to remind ourselves of the global consequences of the last one.
Cold War I: The Coups
Dwight D. Eisenhower is often praised as the president who ended the Korean War and spoke out against the military-industrial complex. However, he also sowed the seeds of instability and repression globally by overseeing the launching of coups against nations allegedly moving towards communism or even simply building closer relations with the Soviet Union.
In 1953, with Eisenhower’s approval, the CIA instigated a coup that led to the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeqh. In a now-declassified document, the CIA cited the Cold War and the risks of leaving Iran “open to Soviet aggression” as rationales for their actions. The coup installed Reza Pahlavi as the shah of Iran, initiating 26 years of repressive rule that set the stage for the 1979 Iranian revolution that would bring Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.
In 1954, the Eisenhower administration launched a coup that overthrew the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Arbenz. His “crime”: attempting to redistribute to poor peasants some of the lands owned by major landlords, including the US-based United Fruit Company. Arbenz’s internal reforms were falsely labeled communism-in-the-making and a case of Soviet influence creeping into the Western Hemisphere. Of course, no one in the Eisenhower administration made mention of the close ties between the United Fruit Company and both CIA Director Allen Dulles and his brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Such US intervention in Guatemala would prove devastating with the four decades that followed consumed by a brutal civil war in which up to 200,000 people died.
In 1973, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger followed Eisenhower’s playbook by fomenting a coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, installing the vicious dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. That coup was accomplished in part through economic warfare —“making the economy scream,” as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put it—and partly thanks to CIA-backed bribes and assassinations meant to bolster right-wing factions there. Kissinger would justify the coup, which led to the torture, imprisonment, and death of tens of thousands of Chileans, this way: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”
Vietnam and Its Legacy
The most devastating Cold War example of a war justified on anti-communist grounds was certainly the disastrous US intervention in Vietnam. It would lead to the deployment there of more than half a million American troops, the dropping of a greater tonnage of bombs than the United States used in World War II, the defoliation of large parts of the Vietnamese countryside, the massacre of villagers in My Lai and numerous other villages, the deaths of 58,000 US troops and up to 2 million Vietnamese civilians—all while Washington systematically lied to the American public about the war’s “progress.”
US involvement in Vietnam began in earnest during the administrations of Presidents Harry Truman and Eisenhower, when Washington bankrolled the French colonial effort there to subdue an independence movement. After a catastrophic French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the United States took over the fight, first with covert operations and then counterinsurgency efforts championed by the administration of John F. Kennedy. Finally, under President Lyndon Johnson Washington launched an all-out invasion and bombing campaign.
In addition to being an international crime writ large, in what became a Cold War tradition for Washington, the conflict in Vietnam would prove to be profoundly anti-democratic. There’s no question that independence leader Ho Chi Minh would have won the nationwide election called for by the 1954 Geneva Accords that followed the French defeat. Instead, the Eisenhower administration, gripped by what was then called the “domino theory”—the idea that the victory of communism anywhere would lead other countries to fall like so many dominos to the influence of the Soviet Union—sustained an undemocratic right-wing regime in South Vietnam.
That distant war would, in fact, spark a growing antiwar movement in this country and lead to what became known as the “Vietnam Syndrome,” a public resistance to military intervention globally. While that meant an ever greater reliance on the CIA, it also helped keep the United States out of full-scale boots-on-the-ground conflicts until the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Instead, the post-Vietnam “way of war” would be marked by a series of US-backed proxy conflicts abroad and the widespread arming of repressive regimes.
The defeat in Vietnam helped spawn what was called the Nixon Doctrine, which eschewed large-scale intervention in favor of the arming of American surrogates like the Shah of Iran and the Suharto regime in Indonesia. Those two autocrats typically repressed their own citizens, while trying to extinguish people’s movements in their regions. In the case of Indonesia, Suharto oversaw a brutal war in East Timor, given the green light and supported financially and with weaponry by the Nixon administration.
“Freedom Fighters”
Once Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1981, his administration began to push support for groups he infamously called “freedom fighters.” Those ranged from extremist mujahideen fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan to Jonas Savimbi’s forces in Angola to the Nicaraguan Contras. The US funding and arming of such groups would have devastating consequences in those countries, setting the stage for the rise of a new generation of corrupt regimes, while arming and training individuals who would become members of Al Qaeda.
The Contras were an armed right-wing rebel movement cobbled together, funded, and supplied by the CIA. Americas Watch accused them of rape, torture, and the execution of civilians. In 1984, Congress prohibited the Reagan administration from funding them, thanks to the Boland amendment (named for Massachusetts Democratic Representative Edward Boland). In response, administration officials sought a work-around. In the end, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a Marine and member of the National Security Council, would devise a scheme to supply arms to Iran, while funneling excess profits from the sales of that weaponry to the Contras. The episode became known as the Iran/Contra scandal and demonstrated the lengths to which zealous Cold Warriors would go to support even the worst actors as long as they were on the “right side” (in every sense) of the Cold War struggle.
Chief among this country’s blunders of that previous Cold War era was its response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a policy that still haunts America today. Concerns about that invasion led the administration of President Jimmy Carter to step up weapons transfers through a covert arms pipeline to a loose network of oppositional fighters known as the mujahideen. President Reagan doubled down on such support, even meeting with the leaders of mujahideen groups in the Oval Office in 1983. That relationship would, of course, backfire disastrously as Afghanistan descended into a civil war after the Soviet Union withdrew. Some of those Reagan had praised as “freedom fighters” helped form Al Qaeda and later the Taliban. The United States by no means created the mujahideen in Afghanistan, but it does bear genuine responsibility for everything that followed in that country.
As the Biden administration moves to operationalize its policy of democracy versus autocracy, it should take a close look at the Cold War policy of attempting to expand the boundaries of the “free world.” A study by political scientists Alexander Downes and Jonathon Monten found that, of 28 cases of American regime change, only three would prove successful in building a lasting democracy. Instead, most of the Cold War policies outlined above, even though carried out under the rubric of promoting “freedom” in “the free world,” would undermine democracy in a disastrous fashion.
A New Cold War?
Cold War II, if it comes to pass, is unlikely to simply follow the pattern of Cold War I either in Europe or other parts of the world. Still, the damage done by the “good versus evil” worldview that animated Washington’s policies during the Cold War years should be a cautionary tale. The risk is high that the emerging era could be marked by persistent US intervention or interference in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the name of staving off Russian and Chinese influence in a world where Washington’s disastrous war on terrorism has never quite ended.
The United States already has more than 200,000 troops stationed abroad, 750 military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, and continuing counterterrorism operations in 85 countries. The end of US military involvement in Afghanistan and the dramatic scaling back of American operations in Iraq and Syria should have marked the beginning of a sharp reduction in the US military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere. Washington’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine may now stand in the way of just such a much-needed military retrenchment.
The “us versus them” rhetoric and global military maneuvering likely to play out in the years to come threaten to divert attention and resources from the biggest risks to humanity, including the existential threat posed by climate change. It also may divert attention from a country—ours—that is threatening to come apart at the seams. To choose this moment to launch a new Cold War should be considered folly of the first order, not to speak of an inability to learn from history.
Wikimedia CommonsAdviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko claims that the Russian Minister of Defense of Russia Sergei Shoigu has suffered a heart attack.
Sergei Shoigu was not seen publicly from March 11 to 24 when he briefly appeared in a video released by Putin. “Shoigu's heart attack came after Putin's harsh accusation of the complete failure of the invasion of Ukraine,” Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook. According to him, Shoigu is currently recovering in hospital.
So far, Russian authorities have not reported Shoigu's health problems, according to the BBC
In an interview more than two decades ago, Vladimir V. Putin described his younger self, with a hint of self-congratulation, as “a hooligan.” When the interviewer asked if he was exaggerating about his tendency to get into brawls as a schoolboy, Putin took offense.
“You are trying to insult me,” he said. “I was a real thug.”
Masha Gessen, a Russian American journalist and Moscow native, recounts this exchange in a 2012 biography, “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” which was praised as “part psychological profile, part conspiracy study” in The New York Times Book Review. To Gessen, Putin’s unabashed description of himself as “a thug” was key to his self-image: someone who could not be bullied, who would lash out unpredictably if he felt slighted, and who relished violence.
Understanding Putin and the forces that shaped him has become an urgent global concern, as leaders around the world try to determine his motivations in launching an unprovoked and disastrous invasion of Ukraine, how to best engage with him and how the conflict might evolve.
So far, the military assault appears to be a catastrophic misstep, one that has resulted in crippling economic sanctions and heavy military losses for Russia, as well as mass civilian casualties and destruction in the very Ukrainian cities Putin claims he wants to “liberate.”
To all this, Putin has said, repeatedly, in public comments that the war is going “according to plan.”
As the conflict escalates, the question of what is driving Putin has become an increasingly perplexing one, with no obvious answers, but with enormous consequences: The war will end, some experts say, when the Russian president allows it to end.
Gessen set out to understand the Russian leader’s mind-set more than a decade ago, first in an article for Vanity Fair, then in “The Man Without a Face.” Tracing Putin’s rise from a petulant and unruly schoolboy to a KGB operative who ascended to the Russian presidency, Gessen examined the post-Soviet political, cultural and economic forces that enabled Putin’s rise, and the way he vilified the West to solidify his grip on power.
After Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Gessen wrote a postscript summarizing Putin’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Western democracies, and his evolution from “a bureaucrat who had accidentally been entrusted with a huge country into a megalomaniacal dictator who believed he was on a civilizational mission.”
In a recent phone interview, Gessen discussed several books that offer insights into Putin’s psychology, as well as titles that illuminate the cultural and geopolitical context that helped shape Putin’s Russia.
Below are Gessen’s recommendations, which have been lightly edited for clarity.
‘Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.’ By Garry Kasparov. PublicAffairs, 2015.
Kasparov, the Russian chess grandmaster, is a longtime critic of Putin.
“Kasparov thinks about life as chess. And he looks at this as a series of plays. He doesn’t look at Putin’s psychology so much as he looks at the logic of his actions and says, ‘OK, well, this is how we game it out.’ And it is not uplifting. I mean, the book is not recent, and he was quite sure then that Putin was at war with the west at that point.
It’s funny, because one didn’t really have to press in to see that, one just had to pay attention and not be beholden to the conventional wisdom that says, “but that’s not possible, that’s crazy, he doesn’t really mean it.” We’re going to look at this period between 2012 and 2022 as a period when there’s a lot of that happening, when the war was slowly ramping up in plain view and most of the world was in denial about it.”
‘First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President.’ By Vladimir Putin. PublicAffairs, 2000.
A compilation of interviews with Putin published in the United States in 2000.
“I found it incredibly illuminating because, if you read it as a document of what this man wants to tell the world about himself, you learn a lot. It’s not a very long book and it doesn’t have a lot of variety, but he recounts three different fights that he had. One was when he was a kid and he felt mistreated by a teacher, if I remember correctly. One was when he was a student and one was when he was a young officer. And in all three cases, he lashes out. He basically loses his temper and then he goes quiet for a bit, and then he strikes again.
This is what it communicates: that this is somebody who has no desire to control his temper. He thinks of himself as somebody who will lash out, somebody who’s vengeful. Somebody who likes to strike out of the blue, but also — and this is the thing that I’m most worried about now — he will go quiet for a bit and then he will strike again. That’s actually an M.O. that is important to his self-conception.”
‘Nature’s Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources.’ By Alexander Etkind. Polity, 2021.
This book examines how civilization and politics have been shaped by resources like coal, oil and grain.
“I recommend anything by Alexander Etkind, who is a cultural historian of Russia. His latest book is called “Nature’s Evil” and it’s a cultural history of natural resources. It’s not entirely limited to Russia, but I think it actually goes a very long way to explaining how Russia works.”
‘The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes.’ By Balint Magyar and Balint Madlovics. CEU Press, 2020.
Magyar, a social scientist and former politician, looks at the ways in which post-communist regimes have given rise to autocrats who have cracked down on media and political dissent.
“Anything by Balint Magyar. He is a Hungarian social scientist and he has this tome, it’s this huge book called ‘The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes.’ It’s a little on the technical side, but it’s so incredibly illuminating. I think my favorite book of his is called “The Post-Communist Mafia State,” which pretends to be about Hungary, but is the best book for understanding post-Communist Russia and how the regime works.”
Paris (AFP) – Some call them war heroes, others neo-Nazis: Ukraine's Azov Regiment is at the heart of the propaganda war between Kyiv and Moscow, as Russia claims to seek the "denazification" of Ukraine.
The Azov Special Operations Detachment, previously known as the "Azov Battalion" but now called the "Azov Regiment", is often targeted in pro-Russian social media posts, including by Russian embassies in Paris, London and elsewhere.
The regiment is currently entrenched in the southern port city of Mariupol that has been the scene of some of the war's heaviest fighting.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used their presence to justify the bombing of a maternity ward there, saying the Azov regiment "and other radicals" were hiding in the building.
The regiment, created in 2014 by far-right activists, was first deployed against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
It has since been integrated into the National Guard, under interior ministry command.
Its founders included Andriy Biletsky, a former member of the Patriot of Ukraine paramilitary organisation.
As first mostly volunteers, the battalion's members wore insignia, such as the so-called "Wolfsangel" (wolf's hook), that were reminiscent of symbols used by SS units in Nazi Germany.
'De-ideologised'
"In 2014 this battalion had indeed a far-right background, these were far-right racists that founded the battalion," said Andreas Umland at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.
But it had since become "de-ideologised" and a regular fighting unit, he told AFP.
Its recruits now join not because of ideology but because "it has the reputation of being a particularly tough fighting unit," Umland said.
The Azov battalion, named after the Sea of Azov to Ukraine's south, became famous for winning back Mariupol from Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
Eight years later, it is again fighting for the city that Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes will give him his first major victory in the Ukraine campaign.
Beating the Azov Regiment could also help him justify the "denazification" claims prominent in Russian propaganda, which also labels Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, as leading a "gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis".
Such attacks try to build on Russia's collective World War II memory of what it calls the Great Patriotic War, and thus whip up nationalist support for the invasion, experts say.
'Absolute evil'
"The terms 'nazism' and 'fascism' evoke, in the Russian context, absolute evil that you cannot bargain with," said Sergei Fediunin, a political scientist at France's National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations.
"The only option is to fight and destroy it."
Russian propaganda also targets the Ukrainian nationalists who fought Soviet Russia after 1945 and their leader, Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with Nazi Germany.
The Azov Regiment, meanwhile, has joined the propaganda war, publishing victory statements on the Telegram messaging service that are often accompanied by videos of burning Russian tanks, and calling the Russians "the real fascists".
The Azov now function like other regiments "but with better PR," said Vyacheslav Likhachev, a research analyst at the ZMINA Centre for Human Rights in Kyiv.
Their stellar reputation attracts plenty of potential recruits, "so they can choose the better ones", he told AFP.
The unit, numbering 2,000 to 3,000 troops, has kept the same wolf-hook insignia, but Umland said in Ukraine there was little confusion about its links to the past.
"It doesn't have the connotation of being a sort of fascist symbol anymore," he said.
Overall, ultra-nationalist political forces have been on the decline in Ukraine since 2014, said Anna Colin Lebedev at France's Paris Nanterre University.
"One of the reasons is that soft nationalism has now become mainstream since the Russian attack," she said on Twitter.
Azov's former commanders, including Biletsky, entered politics after 2014 but their far-right platform never attracted more than two percent of voters.
But since Russia's invasion some of them have taken up arms again, with the Azov Regiment or other units.
Biletsky, meanwhile, has returned to Mariupol from where he runs an active Telegram account.
© 2022 AFP
- 13:40 ET, Mar 25 2022
VLADIMIR Putin's botched but vicious invasion of Ukraine is being run by a brutal cabal of bloodthirsty generals.
Russia's top commanders have a savage charge sheet against them, including deliberately running down and killing protesters with tanks, and indiscriminately shelling civilians.
As Putin's planned quick invasion of Ukraine appears to turn against him, the Russian army has resorted to more and more vicious measures.
Almost 90% of the southern city of Mariupol has been damaged or destroyed, while numerous atrocities have been reported, including the shelling of a theatre killing 300, or the bombing of a maternity hospital.
But these atrocities should sadly come as little surprise to those who have been following the actions of Putin's thugs in recent years.
From the bloody civil war in Syria to the brutal annexation of Crimea, and even killing their own people, Putin's top generals have been accused of waging savagery across the world for decades.
It comes as the so-called "Butcher of Mariupol" Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev was caught appearing to call for his own soldier to be mutilated after he wore his uniform wrong.
Mizintsev appeared to call for the soldier to have his "face messed up" in a chilling intercepted phone call - and urged others to beat him with a bottle for the mistake.
Ukraine has alleged that Putin's general was behind both the bombing of a maternity hospital in the city as well as the shelling of a theatre being used as a bomb shelter by up to 1,000 people.
But he is just one of many Russian generals accused of brutal crimes in recent years.
What makes history so hard to predict — the reason there is no neat “cycle” of history enabling us to prophesy the future — is that most disasters come out of left field. Unlike hurricanes and auto accidents, to which we can at least attach probabilities, the biggest disasters (pandemics and wars) follow power-law or random distributions. They belong in the realm of uncertainty, or what Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book “The Black Swan,” calls “Extremistan.” They are like tsunamis, not tides.
What’s more, as I argued in my book “Doom,” disasters don’t come in any predictable sequence. The most I can say is that we tend not to get the same disaster twice in succession. This time we’ve gone from plague to war. In 1918, it was from war to plague. The Hundred Years’ War began eight years before the Black Death struck England.
Not everything in history is random, of course. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was not difficult to foresee at the beginning of this year. You just had to take Russian President Vladimir Putin both literally and seriously when he asserted that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples were one and that the possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or the European Union was a red line; and to realize that Western threats of economic sanctions would not deter him.
Now that the war is well into its second week, however, there are much more difficult predictions to make. It seems there are seven distinct historical processes at work and it’s not clear which is going fastest. All I can do is to apply history, as there is no model from political science or economics that can really help us here.
1. Do the Russians manage to take Kyiv in a matter of two, three, four weeks or never?
I heard it argued the other day that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could become a “frozen conflict.” I think it looks a lot more like the opening hot conflict of Cold War II, and one that will be decided quite swiftly. There’s reason to think this is turning into Putin’s version of Stalin’s Winter War against Finland in November 1939, when the Red Army ran into much stiffer resistance than it had expected from the Finns. (It was the Finns who invented the Molotov Cocktail, named after Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.)
The difference is that Stalin was able to order in a second, larger wave of Soviet troops in February 1940, forcing the Finns to accept his punitive terms, including the cession of 9% of Finland’s prewar territory. Putin does not have as much manpower and hardware at his disposal.
At least one military analyst I respect said late last week that the Russian invasion force has around two weeks left before serious logistical and supply problems force Putin seriously to the negotiating table. I hope that is true. The now famous 40-mile-long stalled convoy between Prybisk and Kyiv is Exhibit A that the war has not proved to be the Blitzkrieg that Putin apparently expected.
On the other hand, Western media seem over-eager to cover news of Russian reverses, and insufficiently attentive to the harsh fact that the invaders continue to advance on more than one front. Nor is there sufficient recognition that the Russian generals quickly realized their Plan A had failed, switching to a Plan B of massive bombardment of key cities, a playbook familiar from earlier Russian wars in Chechnya and Syria. A week may be a long time in politics, as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said. It is a short time in war.
A better analogy than the Winter War with Finland may be the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that began in December 1979. The reason that developed into such a protracted disaster for the Red Army was that the Afghan mujahideen were so well supplied with American arms. Today, too, the Ukrainians are receiving significant amounts of hardware (Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin antitank weapons, Turkish TB2 drones), much of it now coming across the border from Poland.
Ukraine is also receiving vital private-sector assistance, notably the delivery of Starlink internet terminals, which are helping maintain communications despite Russian attacks on television towers (not to mention morale-boosting support from Starlink Inc. founder Elon Musk himself).
What I cannot tell is whether or not these weapons and other equipment will suffice to sustain Ukrainian resistance over the coming weeks. Clearly, the Ukrainians are doing real damage to Russian infantry and armor and shooting down an impressive number of low-flying helicopters and planes. They will certainly be able to make any Russian advance into central Kyiv very costly to the invaders.
But the Ukrainians have no real answers to higher-altitude bombardment and missile attacks. The fate of an independent Ukraine will be decided in the coming weeks or days. If cities continue to fall to the Russians, as Kherson has and Mariupol may, we may look back and say that Western arms shipments to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government were too little, too late.
2. Do the sanctions precipitate such a severe economic contraction in Russia that Putin cannot achieve victory?
I have heard it said that the breadth and depth of the sanctions imposed on Russia make them unprecedented. I disagree. The way in which the U.S. and the European Union have severed financial ties with Russia, even seizing those parts of the reserves of the Russian central bank that are held abroad, recalls but does not quite match the sanctions that Britain and its allies imposed on Germany at the outbreak of World War I.
We should remember that those measures did not defeat Germany, however, because — like Russia today — it had the resources to be self-sufficient, though the sanctions may have made a German victory less likely by increasing the hardships of the war at home.
Then, as now, it was possible for an increasingly authoritarian government to impose economic controls and divert resources away from civilian consumption to the war effort, while blaming the resulting deprivation on the enemy. The Allied “hunger blockade” was a potent theme for German wartime propaganda. Economic warfare between 1914 and 1918 was not a substitute for sending British armies to fight on the European continent, just as it had not been in the Napoleonic Wars against France.
It is especially hard to wage purely economic warfare on a vast and resource-rich country such as Russia. After 1928, Stalin imposed autarky on the Soviet Union. Putin has had it imposed on him by the West. But no one should forget that self-sufficiency is possible for Russia, albeit at the price of severe austerity, whether it is a choice or a consequence of war.
It seems clear that Western sanctions will get tougher with every passing week of destruction of Ukrainian cities and killing of Ukrainian civilians. We are already heading for sanctions on Russian energy exports, beginning with a ban on importing Russian oil by the U.S. and U.K. (the Europeans are hesitating). On the other hand, China is able to help Russia in ways that could mitigate the economic shock, just as for years it has helped Iran to circumvent U.S. sanctions by buying its oil.
To my eyes, the most striking feature of the sanctions against Russia is the way that Western corporations have gone well beyond the letter of government requirements. No one ordered the big U.S. technology companies to turn off or restrict most of their services in Russia, but they did so. Unlike Soviet citizens, who were accustomed to a state monopoly on communications, today’s Russians have come to rely as much as we do on Big Tech. Being cut off from the metaverse may prove a more psychologically painful deprivation than shortages of imported foods.
Russia’s economy now faces as severe a blow as it suffered in the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell apart and the planned economy collapsed. It is teetering on the brink of a financial crisis that will see bank runs, soaring inflation and default on at least some sovereign debt. But even a 35% quarterly decline in gross domestic product does not condemn a country to military defeat if its planes can still fly and its tanks still fire rounds.
3. Does the combination of military and economic crisis precipitate a palace coup against Putin?
Modern Russia has seen three popular revolutions (1905, 1917 and 1991). There have been assassinations — for example, Tsar Alexander II in 1881 and Lenin, whose life was shortened by an attempt in 1918 — and palace coups, such as the ones that put Nikita Khrushchev in power in 1953 and removed him in 1964. But most Russian rulers die of natural causes — even Stalin, though there was no great rush to get him medical assistance when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. President Boris Yeltsin surprised everyone by resigning on New Year’s Eve, 1999, without duress.
Could Putin fall from power, a victim of his own hubris in underestimating Ukrainian courage and Western economic might? It is possible. But I would not bet the fate of Ukraine on Russian internal politics.
For one thing, the repressive apparatus of Russian state security seems to be in full working order. Those in Russia who courageously protest the war are being arrested and harassed in the usual fashion. For another, I can imagine few riskier actions for a member of the Russian economic elite than to intimate to one of his peers even the faintest interest in overthrowing Putin.
On the other hand, it was obvious even during the somewhat farcical broadcast of the Russian Security Council meeting two weeks ago that not everyone inside the Kremlin was wholly comfortable with Putin’s invasion plan. More plausible than a popular revolt or an oligarchs’ mutiny is a palace coup led by one or more of Russia’s security service chiefs. The people with the power to arrest Putin are the people he counts on to execute his arrest orders: Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Security Council and, like Putin, a long-serving KGB officer; Sergei Naryshkin, the head of foreign intelligence; and Alexander Bortnikov, who heads the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB.
4. Does the risk of downfall lead Putin to desperate measures (carrying out his nuclear threat)?
The most dangerous aspect of the war in Ukraine is obvious: Russia, though in many ways diminished, is still the heir of the Soviet Union as a nuclear-armed power — unlike Ukraine, which gave up its Soviet nukes in return for a security guarantee (the Budapest Memorandum of 1994) that proved worthless.
Putin has understood from the outset that his ace is to threaten to use nuclear weapons. Even before launching his invasion, he warned that “anyone who tries to interfere with us … must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history.”
Russia, he added, remains “one of the most powerful nuclear powers” with “certain advantages in a number of the latest types of weapons” and that “no one should have any doubt that a direct attack on Russia will lead to defeat and dire consequences for a potential aggressor.” After the war was underway, he put Russian nuclear forces on a “special regime of combat duty” — in other words, high alert.
If Putin’s goal was to deter members of NATO from offering direct military assistance to Ukraine, it seemed to have some effect. An idea for Poland and others to lend fighter jets to Kyiv was briefly floated by the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, and then melted away, although U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is trying to revive it, and the Poles appear to think they are swapping their Soviet-era MiG-29 jets for U.S. planes, presumably so the MiGs can go to Ukraine.
There has also been media discussion of a NATO “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, which the Ukrainian government keeps asking for, but which would surely be seized on by Putin as an act of war. Fortunately, no one in a position of responsibility has endorsed the idea.
Yet it cannot be right that a threat to use nuclear weapons goes unanswered. In the Cold War, both sides used nuclear alerts to intimidate one another. The reason no nuclear war occurred — though it came close on more than one occasion, notably in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the Able Archer false alarm of 1983 — was that each side believed the other capable of going nuclear and no one could be sure that a limited nuclear war, of the sort envisaged by Henry Kissinger in 1957, would not escalate into Armageddon.
At 11:41 p.m. on October 24, 1973, at the height of the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger and the other key members of President Richard Nixon’s national security team agreed to raise the U.S. alert level to Defcon 3 — the highest level of peacetime readiness for war — to ensure that the Soviet Union did not send troops to support the Arab states that had attacked Israel but were now losing badly. At the same time, they ordered major movements of U.S. military assets, to ensure the Soviets got the message.
The Soviet documents reveal a Politburo wrong-footed, just as Kissinger had intended. None of the Soviet leaders, not even the drug-addled Leonid Brezhnev — who, like Nixon, was asleep during the hours of maximum danger — was ready to blow up the world to save Egypt and Syria from defeat. As the future Soviet leader (then KGB chief) Yuri Andropov put it: “We shall not unleash the Third World War.”
Today, however, the boot is on the other foot. Not only is Putin intimidating NATO; he may have achieved something more, namely a tacit admission by the Biden administration that it would not necessarily retaliate with nuclear weapons if Russia used them. The failure of the administration to signal that it would retaliate is of a piece with last year’s reports that Biden’s national security team was considering ruling out first use of nuclear weapons in its new national military strategy. Nuclear missiles cease to be a deterrent if one side is unwilling to use them.
Putin is probably bluffing. What would he strike with a tactical nuclear weapon? If it’s a Ukrainian city, particularly Kyiv, he surely destroys his own spurious claim that he is fighting to preserve the historic unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples.
Russian casualties are being caused by Ukrainians using arms supplied by multiple NATO countries, including the U.S. and Turkey, but they are mostly crossing into Ukraine from Poland. Might Putin therefore strike a target in eastern Poland — Lublin, say, or Przemysl?
It cannot be completely ruled out. And he is surely more likely to do so if believes the U.S. would not immediately retaliate in kind against a Russian target. A key lesson of this entire crisis has been that indications of weakness on the U.S. side, which I discussed here last week, have emboldened Putin.
5. Do the Chinese keep Putin afloat but on the condition that he agrees to a compromise peace that they offer to broker?
Let no one have any illusions. Putin’s war would not have gone ahead without a green light from the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who was able to specify that the Russians wait until the Beijing Winter Olympics were over. The Chinese now have the option to assist Russia economically. The question is whether this leverage would give Xi the role of intermediary played by Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, when it was Japan that Russia was fighting.
We know from a number of reports that Chinese peace-making is a possibility. On Tuesday it was reported that China, France and Germany were “coordinating to end the conflict.” We can assume that the messiness of the war is not pleasing the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, who have their hands full with Covid (remember that?), a slowing economy and their upcoming Party Congress, and wanted a quiet world in 2022.
On the other hand, we should not underestimate the closeness of the Xi-Putin relationship and the extent to which Xi’s preference must be for a Russian victory, given his own ambitions to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. My guess is that the Chinese make no serious diplomatic move until they are convinced Putin’s invasion is thoroughly bogged down in Ukraine’s spring mud.
6. Does the West’s attention deficit disorder kick in before any of this?
All over the democratic world, people are learning the words “Slava Ukraini!” — Glory to Ukraine! — donning blue-and-yellow garments, participating in pro-Ukrainian demonstrations.
True, the U.S. public generally has about three weeks of attention for any overseas calamity (see the temporary wave of outrage that followed the abandonment of Afghanistan last year). Yet the response to the invasion of Ukraine seems bigger and more likely to endure. Remarkably, one U.S. legislator told me last week that he “couldn’t recall an issue more obsessively followed and more unifying among” his constituents.
We may speculate as to why this is, but a significant part of the explanation is surely the skillful way in which Zelenskiy has used television and social media to win the world’s sympathies. Most Americans also recognize a war of independence when they see one.
I am reminded of the way the British public in the 19th century would periodically embrace an ethnic group fighting for its freedom. The Greeks in the 1820s, the Poles in the 1830s, the Germans and Italians in the 1840s, the Bulgarians in the 1870s — all these causes aroused passionate support in Britain, and equally passionate condemnation of the despotic empires of the Ottomans, Romanovs and Habsburgs.
However, spasms of moral outrage tend to contribute very little of practical use to those intent on building nation-states. That was Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck’s point in 1862, when he declared: “Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided … but by iron and blood.”
The only real significance of Western public outrage at Putin’s actions is the political pressure it exerts on Biden and other leaders to take a tougher line with Russia.
7. What is the collateral damage?
The problem for Biden — and it will soon be a problem for his European counterparts, too — is the economic damage this war will cause. Inflation expectations had already shifted upward sharply as a result of the excessive fiscal and monetary stimulus administered early last year in the form of the American Rescue Plan and the Federal Reserve’s continued asset purchases. History shows that wars (much more than pandemics) are the most common cause of jumps in inflation.
The best-known recent illustration is the way wars in 1973 (Yom Kippur) and 1979 (Iran-Iraq) contributed to the great inflation of the Seventies, but there are many other examples. True, the price of oil is a much smaller component of economic activity and consumer inflation indices today than 50 years ago. But it would be naive to imagine that, with inflation already at its highest level since 1982, the additional shock of war and rapidly escalating sanctions won’t pour kerosene on the barbecue.
Even if the Russians fail to scupper the scramble to resuscitate the Iran nuclear agreement, the return of Iranian oil to the world market is unlikely to offset the shock of Western sanctions on Russia. What’s more, these price spikes are not confined to oil and gas but involve a host of other commodities. The prospect of this year’s Ukrainian grain harvest being disrupted means a significant surge in food prices, with all kinds of consequences, especially in developing countries.
Nor can we ignore the risks that may be lurking within the international financial system. A great many institutions blithely ignored the approach of war and have been left holding large quantities of Russian assets that have plunged in value. Losses on this scale — and with more to come if the Russian state defaults on some of its debt — almost always have repercussions. The Russian default on local-currency bonds in 1998 was an important element in the Long-Term Capital Management blowup that year.
Add these seven imponderables together and you see how profoundly important the next few weeks will be. This is the first big crisis of Cold War II, which is in many ways like a mirror image of Cold War I, with China the senior partner, Russia the junior, and a hot war in Eastern Europe rather than East Asia (it was Korea’s turn in 1950). I do not know how the crisis will turn out, but I do know it will have profound consequences for the course of the superpower contest.
If the invasion of Ukraine ends in disaster for the heroic defenders of Kyiv and their comrades, another disaster may well follow — and it could occur as far away as Taiwan. Conversely, if there is justice in the world and the disaster befalls the architect of this war, that too will give birth to some fresh and unforeseeable event. For any victory for democracy in Ukraine is likely to prove ephemeral if its consequence is a new Time of Troubles in Russia, echoing the 17th-century fight over the tsar’s crown.
A tsunami of war has struck Ukraine. Whether the Russian tide flows or ebbs in the coming weeks will do much to determine the course of world history for the rest of our lives.
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US President Joe Biden and Western allies opened Thursday the first of three summits focused on increasing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine while tending to the economic and security fallout spreading across Europe and the world.
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Biden and the leaders of other NATO countries met at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels where they posed for a group photo memorializing the urgent gathering before retreating behind closed doors for their summit, which was expected to last several hours.
Over the course of Thursday, the European diplomatic capital is hosting an emergency NATO summit as well as a gathering of the G7 industrialized nations and a summit of the 27 members of the European Union. Biden will attend all three meetings and plans to hold a news conference at the end of the day.
The US president arrived in Brussels late Wednesday with the hopes of nudging allies to enact new sanctions on Russia, which has already seen its economy crippled by a steady stream of bans, boycotts and penalties over the past four weeks.
While the West has been largely unified in confronting Russia after it invaded Ukraine, there's wide acknowledgement that unity will be tested as the costs of war chip at the global economy.
The bolstering of forces along NATO's eastern flank, almost certainly for at least the next 5-10 years if Russia is to be effectively dissuaded, will also put pressure on national budgets.
"We need to do more, and therefore we need to invest more. There is a new sense of urgency and I expect that the leaders will agree to accelerate the investments in defense," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said before chairing the security alliance's summit.
En route to Brussels aboard Air Force One, Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters that "what we would like to hear is that the resolve and unity that we've seen for the past month will endure for as long as it takes." He also said the US will soon announce new sanctions against Russian "political figures" and oligarchs close to Putin.
The energy crisis exacerbated by the war will be a particularly hot topic at the European Council summit, where leaders from Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece are hoping for an urgent, coordinated bloc-wide response. EU officials have said they will seek US help on a plan to top up natural gas storage facilities for next winter, and they also want the bloc to jointly purchase gas.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed calls to boycott Russian energy supplies, saying it would cause significant damage to his country's economy. Scholz is facing pressure from environmental activists to quickly wean Germany off Russian energy, but he said the process will have to be gradual.
"To do so from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into recession," Scholz said on Wednesday.
Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries will also be looking for clarity on how the US and allied European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as a spiraling refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland.
Biden is scheduled to travel to Poland on Friday, where both issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. Another significant moment could come shortly before Biden returns to Washington on Saturday. The White House said he plans to "deliver remarks on the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for its brutal war, and defend a future that is rooted in democratic principles."
Sullivan said that Biden and fellow leaders would aim to "set out a longer-term game plan" for what forces and capabilities are going to be required for the alliance's eastern flank countries.
Four new NATO battlegroups, which usually number between 1,000-1,500 troops, are being set up in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is expected to address the NATO summit by video, said late Wednesday that he wants the alliance to "declare that it will fully assist Ukraine to win this war" by supplying any weapons necessary.
All the while, national security officials from Washington to Warsaw are increasingly worried that Putin might deploy chemical, biological or even nuclear weaponry. Sullivan said the allies would consult on how to respond to "potential contingencies" of that sort, including "this whole question of the potential use of nuclear weapons."
Biden, before departing for Brussels on Wednesday, told reporters that he believed the possibility of Russia deploying chemical weapons was a "real threat."
Stoltenberg would not be drawn Thursday on whether such a strike is a red line that would draw the alliance into war with Russia. "I will not speculate beyond the fact that NATO is always ready to defend, to protect and to react to any type of attack on a NATO allied country," he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a CNN interview this week that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there was "an existential threat for our country."
The head of the European Union's executive arm Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to discuss with Biden the possibility of securing extra deliveries of liquefied natural gas from the US for the 27-nation bloc.
Speaking at the European Parliament ahead of Biden's visit, Leyen said the EU was seeking a commitment for additional LNG supplies from the US "for the next two winters."
The EU imports 90% of the natural gas used to generate electricity, heat homes and supply industry, with Russia supplying almost 40% of EU gas and a quarter of its oil. The bloc is looking at ways to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by diversifying suppliers.
Sullivan said the US was looking for ways to "surge" LNG supplies to Europe to help make up for supply disruptions.
Biden, for his part, was expected to detail plans for new sanctions against Russia and humanitarian assistance for the region.
One new sanctions option that Biden is weighing is to target members of the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, according to a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The official added that a final decision hadn't been made and that the new sanctions would be rolled out in coordination with Western allies.
Biden arrived in Brussels with Americans increasingly accepting of the need for the US to play a role in stopping in Putin, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
But even as concern among Americans has swelled and support for a major US role in the conflict strengthened in the last month, Biden's negative approval rating has not budged, the AP-NORC poll found. Few are very confident that he can handle a crisis, and a majority thinks he lacks toughness in dealing with Russia.
Biden promised voters that he had the experience to navigate a complicated international emergency like the one unfolding in Europe now, and his trip will be the latest test of that proposition as he tries to maintain unity among Western allies and brace for potentially even bigger challenges.
At a time when it is essential to avoid fissures in what's been a largely unified Western response to Russia, the US president will look to press important allies like Poland to dial back the idea of deploying a Western peacekeeping mission to Ukraine. It's an idea that the US and some other NATO members see as too risky as they seek to deny Russia any pretext to broaden the war beyond Ukraine's borders.
For his domestic audience, Biden is expected to once again underscore the heroics of the Ukrainian military and volunteers who have managed to hold off an imposing Russian military. He will highlight those remarkable efforts – as well as the generosity of the Poles and other allies at the front lines of the humanitarian crisis – as he redoubles his calls for Americans to stand firm against a Russian war that is spurring gas price hikes and adding to inflationary pressures in the US.
Also on Thursday, Ukraine's navy reported destroying Russia's large landing ship – Orsk – near the port city of Berdyansk. A short Facebook statement about the ship was accompanied with photos and videos of fire and thick plumes of smoke in the port. The Russian military has not commented on what happened to the ship. Berdyansk has been under Russian control since Feb. 27.
Meanwhile, with Putin planning to attend the next G20 summit in Indonesia later this year, the Russian president received valuable backing from Beijing in a pushback to suggestions by some members that Moscow could be barred from the group. The US and Western allies are assessing whether Russia should remain within the Group of Twenty following its invasion of Ukraine, sources involved in the discussions told Reuters.
But any move to exclude Russia would probably be vetoed by others in the group, raising the prospect of some countries instead skipping G20 meetings, the sources said.
Lyudmila Vorobyova, Russia's ambassador to Indonesia, which currently holds the rotating G20 chair, said Putin intended to travel to the Indonesian resort island of Bali for the summit in November. "It will depend on many, many things, including the COVID situation, which is getting better. So far, his intention is... he wants to," she told a news conference.
Asked about suggestions Russia could be kicked out of the G20, she said it was a forum to discuss economic issues and not a crisis like Ukraine. "Of course expulsion of Russia from this kind of forum will not help these economic problems to be resolved. On the contrary, without Russia it would be difficult to do so."
China, which has not condemned Russia's invasion and criticized Western sanctions, defended Moscow on Wednesday, calling it an "important member" of the G20. The group needs to find answers to critical issues, such as economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
"No member has the right to remove another country as a member. The G20 should implement real multilateralism, strengthen unity and cooperation," he told a news briefing.
Indonesia's foreign ministry declined to comment on calls for Russia to be excluded from the G20.
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In related news, a Russian journalist for the investigative news outlet The Insider, Oksana Baulina, was killed when Russian troops shelled a residential neighborhood in the Ukrainian capital, the site said on Wednesday.
Baulina "died under fire in Kyiv" while "filming the destruction" caused by Russian shelling, The Insider said on its website. An additional civilian was killed during the incident, and two others accompanying Baulina were wounded.
The journalist had previously also worked for Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption group.
When the Navalny organization she worked for was classified as an "extremist" organization by Moscow, Baulina left Russia so she could continue covering corruption in the government with The Insider.
She later traveled to Ukraine to report on the conflict there for the Latvia-based news site, and The Insider said it will continue its coverage of the war.
"We will continue to cover the war in Ukraine, including such Russian war crimes as indiscriminate shelling of residential areas which result in the deaths of civilians and journalists," the site announced.
Baulina is one of several journalists and media workers killed while covering the war in Ukraine. Documentary filmmaker and US national Brent Renaud was also shot and killed earlier in March while working on a project about the region's refugees.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
Russia’s highest officials are often described as Vladimir Putin’s court. Based on Monday’s Security Council meeting, it is rather the president’s echo chamber.
Sometimes it is hard to get away from cinematic and theatrical references, but it seemed to be King Lear meets James Bond’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The topic was the Donbas and Luhansk pseudo-states, but although Putin said he would reach a decision later, it is clear that he had already chosen to recognize them.
The true drama was in how the most powerful men — and one woman — in Russia danced and squirmed around the president.
In contrast to most meetings of the Security Council, this was broadcast notionally across national television. Instead of online, this was held in person, the assembled grandees sitting distanced in rows far from Putin, ensconced behind a desk as in turn he demanded they express their opinion on recognition — with the clear understanding that there was only one right answer.
The militants
Some were clearly genuine enthusiasts. While FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov contributed a surreal report of alleged Ukrainian provocations and violations, his predecessor, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev framed the whole issue in positively eschatological terms, facing down those whose “goal is the destruction of Russia.”
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu is always hard to read. He followed the same line as Bortnikov to a degree, but focused also on the dubious argument that Ukraine was planning nuclear rearmament. It was difficult to tell how committed he was to his line, though.
But they are all secure in Putin’s circle. Bortnikov and Patrushev share a common KGB background, a Leningrad/St. Petersburg background and a conspiratorial worldview with the president. Shoigu seems to have managed to build his own personal connection.
The real drama lay with those who could not count on that favour. In some ways this was a grey-suited re-run of King Lear, when the self-indulgent monarch demands his daughters compete in the over-the-top avowals of their love and obedience. This time, though, the contest is not for new lands but to retain old jobs.
The chorus
Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko harped on the supposed “genocide” being visited on ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine. Dmitri Medvedev, whose new position as Deputy Chair of the Security Council has given him a chance to try and reinvent himself as a hawk, all but implored everyone to think of the children. He affirmed that the people of Russia — singularly unenthused by the prospect of war in Ukraine so far — would expect and understand action with all the conviction of a man who lives in the gilded isolation of a modern boyar, only encountering ordinary Russians when they clean his limo or feed his ducks.
Likewise, Interior Minister Kolokoltsev may have gone improv, adopting the more maximalist position that Russia should not simply recognise the current borders of the pseudo-states but their claim to the whole of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including Mariupol.
Is he more hawkish than Patrushev and Bortnikov? Hardly, but he's also politically weak. This would not be the first time he has had to make a ritual display of passionate loyalty to protect his flank from the predators circling his ministry, from the FSB to the National Guard.
The skeptics
There was, after all, no scope for dissent. When not channelling King Lear, Putin was instead a virtual Blofeld without the white pussycat, coldly assessing his underlings and imposing his will on them all.
When Putin specifically asked whether anyone disagreed with his understanding of the situation, the silence was deafening. Nonetheless, it was clear that there were grandees there who were less enthused by the opportunity of openly violating international law and inviting more sanctions.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to avoid giving a straight answer on recognition of the pseudo-states until pressed, as did Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. He seemed distinctly uncomfortable and disgruntled, but then again when he wanted to talk economics, Putin — who in turn looked even more bored than usual — pushed him into a ritual endorsement of the new party line.
But Mishustin has every reason to be unhappy. He — along with the Presidential Administration’s Anton Vaino and Sergei Kirienko — has been charged with the national political and economic revival project. Any escalation, which at best will mean sanctions and at worst war, will make that vastly harder.
Likewise Dmitry Kozak, a pragmatic troubleshooter who had been the political point man for the Minsk talks — and who grew up in Ukraine — hid in wordage, giving a lengthy speech before, on being pressed, admitting that Kyiv was not going to accept the Russian formulation of the agreements, and that “they do not want to return Donbas to Ukraine.”
The straggler
When Kozak wanted to weigh in on the wider question of the future of the Donbas, though, Putin cut him off quickly and curtly, not once, but twice. Overall, one got the sense that Putin is really not passionate about human relations best practice. If he never faces a war crimes tribunal, he at least ought to face an industrial one, as he definitely seems to cultivate a toxic and unsafe work environment.
Just ask Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, who seems to have been the designated scapegoat of the gathering. He can probably feel relieved that, unlike Blofeld, Putin has not yet installed a piranha tank for his meeting.
He has been a good soldier throughout the crisis, pushing the official line publicly much more actively than Patrushev or Bortnikov. Yet unlike them, Naryshkin was never in Putin’s inner circle, and he was treated to a demeaning and needless demonstration of the boss’s power. He was, to be sure, much less suave than his usual public persona, standing at the podium when called on like a schoolboy singled out by the principal.
When he said he “will support” recognition of the pseudo-states, Putin tetchily pressed him: “will support, or do support? Tell me straight, Sergei Evgenievich.” When a clearly flustered Naryshkin, then said he supported “bringing them into Russia,” the president at once put him in his place again: “that’s not what we are discussing! Do you support recognising their independence?”
When the personal is political
The difference between cronies and staff could not have been made plainer by the way Putin bullied him on national television. In the past, we have seen oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska and governors publicly dressed down, but this is one of the most senior figures within the government, the head of one of the intelligence services, and one of the fabled siloviki who are meant to represent Putin’s trusted henchmen.
All this actually has political relevance. One of the key reasons to believe that Putin would hold back from dramatic and potentially self-destructive escalation in Ukraine was precisely that he must appreciate the costs and the risks. If this meeting is anything to go by — and we have no reason to believe it is not representative — then this is not a man who is interested in alternative perspectives and open discussion.
Once, I was told by a Russian ex-intelligence officer that the services had learned that “you do not bring bad news to the tsar’s table.” We were all able to witness the degree to which that is true even of the most powerful figures in the land.
If Lavrov cannot tell him plainly what he must know about Western intentions. If Bortnikov and Shoigu confine themselves to relaying Russia’s own propaganda lines. If Mishustin cannot talk about the costs and Kozak about the real nature of the situation on the ground, then what can one expect?
The honest answer is that we don’t know, but it is worth noting that Lear ended up a madman in the wilderness before dying, and Blofeld seemingly written out of the Bond franchise.
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