OT subject but worth a main-stream read- OT News Feeds...

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/kyleparkernet/status/1626688031825743872?s=20

lousubcap

Tom Nichols and The Atlantic-More about Fox News and their objectives derived from the Dominion lawsuit-

"Tom Nichols

STAFF WRITER

Right-wing political and media figures regularly level the accusation of “elitism” at other Americans. But new revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News and the Fox Corporation over claims of election fraud are reminders that the most cynical elites in America are the Republicans and their media valets.

The Fox News logo at Fox Studios on August 16, 2011, in New York City (Andy Kropa / Getty) Elected Republicans and their courtiers in the right-wing-media ecosystem deploy the word elite as an accusation, a calumny, almost a crime. To be one of the elite is to be a snooty, educated city dweller, a highbrow pretend-patriot who looks down upon the Real Americans who hunt and fish and drive pickup trucks to church. (It does not mean “rich people”; Donald Trump has gleefully referred to himself and his supporters as the “super-elite.”) The elites also support the production of “fake news” by liars who intend to hoodwink ordinary people into doing the bidding of wealthy globalists. They buy books and listen to National Public Radio and they probably read things like The Atlantic. This shtick has been a remarkable success. Republicans have used it to convince millions of working people that super-educated gasbags such as Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Ron DeSantis are just ordinary folks who care deeply about kitchen-table issues that matter to their family and a secure future for their children, such as Hunter Biden’s sex life and whether public schools are letting kids pee in litter boxes. In the entertainment hothouse, Fox News is the most prominent offender. The Fox all-star lineup, especially in prime time with Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, is a parade of millionaires who work for Rupert Murdoch, one of the richest and most powerful men in this corner of the Milky Way galaxy. Every day they warn their viewers that democracy is in peril because of people who majored in gender studies. All of this nuttery is delivered with a straight face—or in Carlson’s case, the weird mien of a dog watching a magic trick. It’s one thing, however, to suspect that Fox personalities see their viewers as mere rubes who must be riled up in the name of corporate profit. It’s another entirely to have it all documented in black and white. Dominion might not win its lawsuit against Fox, but for the rest of America, the process has produced something more important than money: an admission, by Fox’s on-air personalities, of how much they disrespect and disdain their own viewers. According to documents from Dominion’s legal filing, Fox News hosts repeatedly exchanged private doubts about Republicans’ 2020 election-fraud claims. Hannity, in the weeks after the 2020 election, said that the regular Fox guest and top conspiracy-pusher, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was “acting like an insane person.” Ingraham had a similar evaluation: “Such an idiot.” And it’s not like Murdoch didn’t share that sentiment: In one message, he said Giuliani and the Trump lawyer Sidney Powell were pushing “really crazy stuff” and he told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott that their behavior was “damaging everybody.” (Fox reportedly banned Giuliani in 2021, putting up with him for weeks after January 6 and then shutting him down as the Dominion lawsuit gained momentum.) There are few hours on Fox that manage to pack in more gibberish and nonsense than Carlson’s show, and yet—to give him one zeptosecond of credit—he took Powell apart in a segment on his show. In later months, of course, Carlson would continue to inject the information stream with various strains of conspiratorial pathogens, but when even Tucker Carlson is worried, perhaps it’s a sign that things are out of hand. Of course, Carlson wasn’t worried about the truth; he was worried about the profitability of the Fox brand. When the Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich did a real-time fact-check on Twitter of a Trump tweet about voter fraud, Carlson tried to ruin her career. “Please get her fired,” he wrote in a text chain that included Hannity and Ingraham. He continued: Seriously…What the ****? I’m actually shocked…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke. After the election, Carlson warned that angering Trump could have catastrophic consequences: “He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.” Murdoch, too, said that he did not want to “antagonize Trump further.” Meanwhile, the Fox producer Abby Grossberg was more worried about the torch-and-pitchfork Fox demographic. After the election, she remindedFox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo that Fox’s faithful should be served the toxic gunk they craved: “To be honest, our audience doesn’t want to hear about a peaceful transition,” Grossberg texted. “Yes, agree,” Bartiromo answered in a heroic display of high-minded journalistic principle. In other words: Our audience of American citizens wants to be encouraged in its desire to thwart the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our history as a nation. And Bartiromo answered: Yes, let’s keep doing that. As Vox’s Sean Illing tweeted today, Bartiromo’s thirsty pursuit of ratings is a reminder that “no one has a lower opinion of conservative voters than conservative media.” More important, Fox’s cynical fleecing of its viewers is an expression of titanic elitism, the sort that destroys reality in the minds of ordinary people for the sake of fame and money. Not only does such behavior reveal contempt for Fox’s viewers; it encourages the destruction of our system of government purely for ratings and a limo to and from the Fox mothership in Times Square. (New York City might be full of coastal “elitists,” but that’s where the Fox crew lives and works; we’ll know the real populist millennium has arrived when Fox packs off Hannity and Greg Gutfeld and Jeanine Pirro to its new offices in Kansas or Oklahoma.) Although it’s amusing to bash the Fox celebrities who have been caught in this kind of grubby hypocrisy, the elitism of the American right is a much bigger problem because it drives so much of the unhinged populism that threatens our democracy. Fox News and the highly educated Republican officeholders who use its support to stay in office know exactly what they’re doing. But they are all now riding a tiger of their own creation: As the conservative writer George Will has noted, for the first time in American history, a major political party is terrified by its own voters. Fox, of course, has said that the Dominion filing “mischaracterized the record,” and “cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context,” and the network insisted in a legal brief it was merely observing its “commitment to inform fully and comment fairly.” Sadly, Fox will likely survive this disaster whether it wins or loses in court. Like the GOP base it serves, the network and its viewers have immense reserves of denial and rationalization they can bring to bear against the incursions of reality. “We can fix this,” Scott, the Fox CEO, wrote in the midst of this mess, “but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer.” But why not? It’s been working like a charm so far."

JohnInCarolina

@lousubcap - the thing is, most of their viewers will never hear this story.  Or if they do, they won’t believe it.

HeavyG

Russian window scores again...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-russian-military-official-marina-yankina-dead-after-fall-from-16th-floor

dmchicago

I think it’s time for a Russian Window thread. 

JohnInCarolina

dmchicago said:

I think it’s time for a Russian Window thread. 

You and your fascination with orifices.

dmchicago

I do enjoy a good rabbit hole.

dbCooper

Seymour Hersh, for better or worse, has a history of not naming his sources.  That is the case in this long article, so skepticism is not unwarranted.  But still...

"How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline"

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/politico/status/1627636998419673088?s=20

lousubcap

Some details on Biden's trip to Ukraine:

“JOSEPH BIDEN, welcome to Kyiv!” With those words in a Telegram post, Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY announced Biden’s surprise arrival in the war zone following a 10-hour train ride from Poland. It was a trip months in the works, but President JOE BIDEN and a small cadre of administration officials made the decision final in a meeting on Friday — setting into motion a complex plan with substantial risks for Biden’s safety, political standing and international relations. While many presidents have gone to active war zones — GEORGE W. BUSH and BARACK OBAMA went to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and DONALD TRUMP made a Thanksgiving-timed trekto the latter country in 2019 — those visits have typically happened within secure military installations or in territories under U.S. control. Kyiv, by contrast, is the ongoing target of a missile offensive by Russia — one expected to increase in ferocity as the two nations mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion later this week. “The message of the visit was unambiguous: Ukraine is safe enough for an American president to visit despite the missile strikes, drone attacks and trench warfare initiated by VLADIMIR PUTIN,” write Alex Ward and Jonathan Lemire. “It was risky, and it should leave no doubt in anyone's mind that Joe Biden is a leader who takes commitment seriously,” White House comms director KATE BEDINGFIELD told reporters this morning. “But this was a risk that [he] wanted to take.” Early yesterday morning, Biden secretly departed Washington on a flight with a much smaller footprint than the typical presidential pomp. Publicly, the White House maintained as recently as last night that Biden would leave D.C. on Monday and fly to Poland for a speech marking the anniversary of the invasion. The trip was executed under a cloak of secrecy for obvious security reasons. White House aides say the planning process was kept with a very small array of aides in the White House, Pentagon, the Secret Service and the intel community who made threat assessments.

Biden greets Zelenskyy and Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska. | Evan Vucci/Pool via AP Photo

Still, on the ground in Ukraine, “[r]eports started to circulate ahead of the visit that Biden was on his way as security preparations became obvious in and around the Ukrainian capital. U.S. military jets were seen circling near the Polish border and Kyiv residents posted videos on social media of lockdowns in the city center and near the U.S. Embassy,” Alex and Jonathan report. This morning, national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN said that Russia was given a heads up “some hours before” Biden’s visit “for deconfliction purposes.” But the trip is almost certain to elicit a response from Moscow. WSJ notes that “Biden's visit … comes as China’s top diplomat, WANG YI, is scheduled to visit Moscow for talks that are also likely to cover the war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin will counter Mr. Biden’s messages in Poland on Tuesday by delivering a major national address on the same day.”

Biden walks with Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo, Pool

NYT: “[Biden and Zelenskyy] stepped out into the streets of Kyiv even as an air-raid siren sounded, a dramatic moment captured on video that underscored the investment the United States has made in Ukraine’s independence. ‘One year later, Kyiv stands,’ Mr. Biden declared at Mr. Zelensky’s side in Mariinsky Palace, the gilded ceremonial home of the Ukrainian president. ‘And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands.’

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"In a national address earlier today Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his claim that Ukraine and its allies “started the war,” insisting that he would not pull back from his invasion. His address comes before President Biden is scheduled to deliver an address in Warsaw later today. The speeches — three days before the anniversary of the Russian invasion — offer a rare moment of almost direct confrontation between the two leaders. Anton Troianovski, Valerie Hopkins and Shashank Bengali report for the New York Times. 

China has warned the West against “adding fuel to the fire” in Ukraine and reiterated calls for peace talks. “We will continue to push for talks and provide China’s wisdom for [finding] a political solution to the Ukraine crisis,” foreign minister Qin Gang said during a seminar in Beijing. He also warned “relevant countries” against shifting the blame onto China for the war and suggesting “today Ukraine, tomorrow Taiwan.” Gang's comments come ahead of an expected visit to Moscow by Beijing's most senior diplomat Wang Yi. Joe Leahy and Kathrin Hille report for the Financial Times. 

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin generated revenues of more than $250 million from his global natural resources empire in the four years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite being under Western sanctions. An investigation by the Financial Times has found that years of sanctions have been insufficient to stop hundreds of millions flowing to Prigozhin from oil, gas, diamond, and gold extraction. The revenues made from Prigozhin’s mercenary-backed businesses in countries such as Sudan and Syria since 2018 have helped him emerge as a powerful force in President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Miles Johnson reports for the Financial Times. 

Belarus said earlier today that there was a significant grouping of Ukrainian troops massed near its border and warned that this posed a threat to its security. The Belarusian defense ministry said that it would take “measures to adequately respond” but would act in a restrained way. Kyiv has long voiced concerns that Belarus could join the war on Russia’s side. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said last week that Belarus would only enter the war if attacked by Ukraine. Reuters reports. 

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday ordered the formation of a new volunteer territorial defense force. The new force will ensure the country is ready to respond to an act of aggression, Lukashenko said. The force will have 100,000-150,000 volunteers or more if needed. Lidia Kelly reports for Reuters.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, against supplying Russia with lethal support. Following a meeting with Wang on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Blinken said that he had expressed U.S. concerns that China was “considering providing lethal support to Russia." “I was able to share with him, as President Biden had shared with President Xi, the serious consequences that would have for our relationship,” Blinken added. Cassandra Vinograd reports for the New York Times. "

lousubcap

Good 'ol Vlad the Impaler is digging the hole even deeper:

"One day after America's president visited Ukraine, Russia says it's suspending its last nuclear arms control agreement with the United States. Moscow's embattled autocratic leader Vladimir Putin confirmed the suspension in a nearly two-hour annual address that's often delivered each December, but was delayed in late 2022 for unspecified reasons—and following months of battlefield setbacks for its invasion and occupying forces inside democratic Ukraine. 

The nuclear arms agreement is known as the New START Treaty, which was signed in 2010 and limits each nations' long-range nuclear warheads and nuclear-capable missiles. According to Putin, "Russia is suspending its participation in New START—I repeat, not withdrawing from the treaty, no; but merely suspending its participation," he said, according to state-run TASS. "There is no connection between the New START issue and, let's say, the Ukrainian conflict and other hostile actions of the West against our country," Putin told Russian lawmakers in his address Tuesday. 

He also said he put the country's ground-based strategic (or nuclear) missiles "on combat duty" just last week. According to Putin, nations in the West "want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and want to get into our nuclear facilities…Do they really think we're easily going to let them in there just like that?" he said in some fairly typical tough-guy talk. "

Gulfcoastguy

Russia will soon find out that it has become Chinas client state. The Pooh does nothing for free and is probably eyeing Siberian mineral wealth.

JohnInCarolina

This piece likely explains at least some of the uptick in focus on this story nationally:

http://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1628009193327284225?s=20

lousubcap

Here is another worthy of your time read by Tom Nichols of The Atlantic on Putin's recent speech:

Tom Nichols STAFF WRITER

Vladimir Putin gave his annual address to the Russian Federal Assembly today, and it was a farrago of paranoia and lies; meanwhile President Joe Biden humiliated the Kremlin by walking the streets of Kyiv in broad daylight. The Russian president knows he is losing.

Out of Options Vladimir Putin during his briefing after the State Council meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace on December 22, 2022 (Getty) Every December, Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an address to the Russian Federal Assembly—a Russian version of the State of the Union. Today, after a delay likely related to Russia’s serial battlefield losses in Ukraine, Putin spent some two hours unloading a barrage of lies, grievances, and bizarre historical revisions in his attempt to justify the bloodletting he began a year ago. He also said Russia would suspend participation in a crucial nuclear-arms-control treaty with the United States. What does this all mean? It means, more than anything, that Putin is desperate. He’s losing in Ukraine, where, according to a British estimate last week, roughly 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded. Even Russia’s tough-guy Wagner mercenaries are getting cut to pieces: The National Security Council official John Kirby said in a briefing Friday that the Wagner Group—many of them convicted criminals—has taken 30,000 casualties, which is about half the entire group’s strength and a huge number even for a contractor force. (Note to Russian jailbirds: Your odds of staying alive are better in prison.) Putin may be a dictator, but even dictators have to justify losses. The Russian president started his speech by going full Orwell, claiming that the West started the war and that Russia was obliged to take up arms to put a stop to it all. (He might as well have said, “Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania,” and he came close.) He also repeated his accusation that the U.S. and NATO “rapidly deployed their army bases and secret biological laboratories near the borders of our country,” but this section was omitted from the English text published on the official Kremlin website, perhaps because it’s a bonkers charge that has long been debunked. The line, however, doesn’t seem to have been ad-libbed; it’s in the Russian textposted on the Russian president’s official website. Putin went on to claim that the plot to turn Ukraine into “anti-Russia” goes all the way back to the dark plans hatched by … the Austro-Hungarian empire. Apparently, the conspiracy theorists are right: If you look deeply enough into any international problem, there’s a Habsburg lurking around somewhere. The Russian president then assured his audience that his war was against the regime in Kyiv, not the people of Ukraine, even as his forces continue to butcher Ukrainian civilians and commit crimes against humanity. Putin included his usual tirade against sexual perversion in the West, a standard bit of boilerplate aimed not only at his own citizens but also at the European (and American) right-wingers who adore his supposed stance against Western moral decadence. Much of the rest of Putin’s speech was a similar rehearsal of Moscow’s classic, old-school Cold War charges against “the West” in general and the United States in particular. It was, as I wroteabout a similar speech Putin gave a year ago when he began the war, shot after shot straight from a bottle of Soviet-era moonshine—the 180-proof good stuff about global confrontations, Nazis, and Washington’s many aggressions. He went on; as they would say in Russian, i tak dalee, “and so on and so forth,” but as we might say more colloquially in English, yadda yadda yadda. On a more substantive note, Putin announced Russia would suspend further cooperation under the New START Treaty, the nuclear-arms-control agreement signed by the U.S. and Russia in 2011 and extended in 2021, which is in effect until 2026. Under New START, the United States and Russia agreed to a limit of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads, along with on-site verification—the right of each side to visit the other’s military bases—and other means of exchanging information. The Russians have already suspended on-site verification, and the U.S. State Department nearly a month ago said that Russia was failing to comply with the treaty. This is unfortunate, as on-site inspections help build trust and transparency, but it’s not a crisis. I worked on these issues for years, but I also asked Amy Woolf—a specialist in U.S. and Russian arms control, a former adviser to Congress, and one of the most judicious experts on nuclear affairs in the country—for her take on Putin’s speech. She told me that Putin’s recalcitrance could continue to erode U.S. confidence in Russian compliance with START, but “it does not mean that Putin plans, at this time or in the near future, to increase its forces beyond the bounds of the treaty limits.” I agree. Likewise, Putin said that Russia would resume nuclear testing—but only if the United States conducted new tests. Again I agree with Woolf: This was likely a “throwaway line,” she told me. I would even say it came across as meaningless; the United States has no immediate plans to resume nuclear testing, and so Putin was answering a question no one was asking. Putin has put himself and his country in a desperate situation, and he has run out of options, including nuclear threats. This is not to say that the risk of nuclear conflict has evaporated; as I noted on the most recent episode of the Radio Atlantic podcast, there is still plenty of room for Putin to do something foolish and set a terrible chain of events in motion. But after a year, it seems that the Russian president’s plan—if it can even be called that—is to consign more of his young men to the Ukrainian abattoir while hoping that the West somehow tires of the whole business. As the Atlantic contributing writer Eliot Cohen pointed out yesterday, however, Biden’s visit to Kyiv and his pledge of “unwavering and unflagging commitment” had to be a “gut punch” to Putin, dashing any hopes that the Free World will give up on Ukraine. The Russian president is still counting on Kyiv and its armies to collapse, or perhaps on an election to remove Biden, or for Europe to lose its nerve, or for China, perhaps, to come to Moscow’s rescue (which would be both a balm and a deep humiliation). But he also knows that time may be running out at home: After a year of war, there are only so many young men left to kill and only so many generals left to blame."

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1628161510928154624?s=20

Sounds familiar.

Botch

There is an incident from the last few days that, well, concerned me.  
President Biden did a brave thing, flying to Poland early and then taking a long (was it six-hour?) train ride from Warsaw to Kyiv.  That is an extremely dangerous mode of travel, and so easy for an "errant" missile or bridge detonation to occur, with easy Denial from the russians if anything happened.
 
Now, I understand that "trusted" members of the DoD, CIA, Secret Service and others have been planning this trip for months; normally, I'd be okay with that.  
 
But,  there were too many anomalies within our own  government branches (DoD, FBI, Secret Service and even the Capitol Hill Police Department, on January 6th: poor communications, erased cellphones, comm system changeovers, Hill cops unlocking doors, chain-of-command confusion, etc) to give me comfort that a 6-hour train ride, from Poland to Ukraine, would not be compromised at all.  I have too many military friends who still only watch Faux/newsmax and still believe in that propaganda; it has to be affecting our own current active-duty forces, too.  
 
Our President got to Kyiv safely, made a good speech, got back to Warsaw, made another good speech, and hopefully is safely on his way home now.  But, just today Spineless mccarthy handed over ALL videotape of the Jan 6th insurrection to, to, the public?  No, only to faux.  Footage that includes all the "police" that helped the insurrection, how to unlock Capitol doors, escape routes the Congress used, etc.  He needs to be hanged for High Treason just like the other dozen or so.  Damn.    

fishlessman

the best part....... he handed it over to tucker

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

(Thursday update may be later in the day due to personal commitments).

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday announced that he would suspend Russia’s participation in the New START treaty. The decision to step back from the last remaining major nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia was announced during a wide-ranging state of the nation address in Moscow. While Russia’s Foreign Minister later said that Moscow would continue to observe the core provisions of the treaty, the stance will likely make it much more difficult to negotiate a follow-on accord after New START expires in February 2026. Ann M. Simmons, Sabrina Siddiqui, and Austin Ramzy report for the Wall Street Journal. 

A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile test carried out around the time of President Biden’s visit to Ukraine on Monday appears to have failed. The testing of a heavy SARMAT missile – nicknamed the Satan II – capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads was conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. and did not pose any threats. Oren Liebermann and Natasha Bertrand report for CNN.

Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow earlier today. During the meeting, Wang affirmed the “Sino-Russian friendship” “no matter how the international situation changes”. Wang’s high-profile visit to Russia is broadly viewed to be a precursor to a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Nectar Gan and Simone McCarthy report for CNN.

Jinping is preparing to visit Moscow for a summit with Putin in the coming months, according to people familiar with the plan. While the arrangements are in their early stages, the visit could take place in April or early May. According to those familiar with the matter the meeting with Putin would form part of a push by China for multiparty peace talks with Ukraine and would allow China to reiterate its calls that nuclear weapons not be used in the conflict. Austin Ramzy, Keither Zhai, and Laurence Norman report for the Wall Street Journal. "

Gulfcoastguy

Botch said:

There is an incident from the last few days that, well, concerned me.  
President Biden did a brave thing, flying to Poland early and then taking a long (was it six-hour?) train ride from Warsaw to Kyiv.  That is an extremely dangerous mode of travel, and so easy for an "errant" missile or bridge detonation to occur, with easy Denial from the russians if anything happened.
 
Now, I understand that "trusted" members of the DoD, CIA, Secret Service and others have been planning this trip for months; normally, I'd be okay with that.  
 
But,  there were too many anomalies within our own  government branches (DoD, FBI, Secret Service and even the Capitol Hill Police Department, on January 6th: poor communications, erased cellphones, comm system changeovers, Hill cops unlocking doors, chain-of-command confusion, etc) to give me comfort that a 6-hour train ride, from Poland to Ukraine, would not be compromised at all.  I have too many military friends who still only watch Faux/newsmax and still believe in that propaganda; it has to be affecting our own current active-duty forces, too.  
 
Our President got to Kyiv safely, made a good speech, got back to Warsaw, made another good speech, and hopefully is safely on his way home now.  But, just today Spineless mccarthy handed over ALL videotape of the Jan 6th insurrection to, to, the public?  No, only to faux.  Footage that includes all the "police" that helped the insurrection, how to unlock Capitol doors, escape routes the Congress used, etc.  He needs to be hanged for High Treason just like the other dozen or so.  Damn.    

It should be noted that the president of France and prime minister of the UK have made similar trips. The US also notified Putin of this trip several hours in advance. 

HeavyG

lousubcap

Thursday Russia -Ukraine update on the eve of the one year anniversary of Putin's invasion:

"The Biden administration is weighing up whether to release intelligence that it believes shows China is considering supplying weapons to Russia. The discussions on public disclosure come ahead of Friday’s U.N. Security Council meeting marking one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. It follows a number of closed-door appeals to China, coordinated among NATO allies, which culminated in a formal warning delivered over the weekend to Wang Yi, China’s senior foreign-policy officer, by western officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Vivian Salama, William Mauldin and Nancy A. Youssef report for the Wall Street Journal. 

The U.S. plans to redouble its efforts to garner global support to help Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said. Speaking ahead of a meeting of Group of 20 (G20) finance ministers in India, Yellen also offered a grim assessment of Russia’s economy and warned China of the consequences of helping Moscow circumvent U.S. sanctions. Alan Rappeport reports for the New York Times. 

The U.S.’s Middle Eastern allies continue to adopt a “strategic ambiguity” position on the Russian war in Ukraine. The Gulf states have benefited from the rise of energy costs since the invasion began one year ago. Indeed the ​​Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members include Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain, enjoyed budget surpluses in 2022, a first in eight years. The U.S. has been increasing the pressure on its Middle Eastern allies to choose sides. Last month the U.S. Treasury Department sent a delegation to the U.A.E. and Turkey to warn them against facilitating Russian sanctions evasion. Nadeen Ebrahim reports for CNN. 

The U.N. is set to vote on a resolution today that calls on Russia to immediately and unconditionally leave Ukrainian territory. While this nonbinding resolution is expected to pass by a large majority, key states like China and India are expected to abstain. The Russian Ambassador has said the resolution will not enable peace but will “encourage the West, which will continue its militaristic line, using the U.N. as a cover.” Tensions are heightened as President Biden completed his Europe tour yesterday by affirming the U.S. commitment to defending “every inch of NATO.” Erin Cunningham, Niha Masih, and  Jennifer Hassan report for the Washington Post. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he plans to strengthen Russia’s nuclear forces. In an address earlier today, Putin said that he would focus on “strengthening the nuclear triad,” meaning nuclear weapons that can be fired from land, air, and sea. Putin’s comments come after he said on Tuesday that he would suspend Russia’s involvement in the New START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the U.S.. Patrick Smith reports for NBC News."

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1628927330830675969?s=20

lousubcap

The ratings game has never been more obvious especially in light of the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit. 

HeavyG

Nice paint job in front of the Russian Embassy in London yesterday...

lousubcap

Russia-Ukraine update on the one year anniversary:

The U.S. has today announced new sanctions against Russia and its allies, as well as new export controls and tariffs aimed at undermining Moscow’s ability to wage war. Washington also said it would provide $2 billion in weaponry for Kyiv, which does not include F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine has requested. The announcement comes on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Steve Holland, Phil Stewart and Idress Ali report for Reuters.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a position paper calling for an end to fighting in Ukraine while avoiding demands or words like “invasion” that could damage its relationship with Russia. The position statement, released earlier today, states that the “sovereignty, independent and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld.” It does not explain how Beijing believes that principle should apply to Russia’s claims to Ukrainian territory, or to Ukraine’s demand that Russian forces leave. Chris Buckley reports for the New York Times.  

The U.N. General Assembly yesterday adopted a resolution calling for lasting peace in Ukraine and reiterating its demand for Russia to withdraw its troops from the country. The nonbinding resolution passed 141 to 7 with 32 abstentions. Among the countries that abstained were Russia’s allies China, Iran, and India. Belarus, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea, Mali and Syria sided with Russia in voting no to the resolution. Two amendments offered by Belarus to alter the resolution in favor of Russia were rejected. Farnaz Fassihi reports for the New York Times. 

Russian allegations that Ukrainian saboteurs would invade the breakaway region of Transnistria dressed as Russian soldiers are false and a "psychological operation," Moldovan secretary of state Valeriu Mija said. Moldova, which is heavily reliant on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure, has warned of Russia seizing power. Moldovan President Maia Sandu expressed mounting fears that saboteurs in the "service of Russia" will target the Moldovan leadership. Paul Kirby reports for BBC. 

The Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group has taken complete control of the Ukrainian village of Berkhivka, on the outskirts of Bakhmut, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said earlier today. This claimed Wagner victory comes amid growing tensions between the group and the Russian military command. Prigozhin, who has become increasingly present in the Russian media, has previously accused members of the Russian command of “treason.” Reutersreports."

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap

In view of the alternative, glad I am still posting Russia-Ukraine updates throughout the week, one year on as to me Vlad the Impaler is  entrenched in a quagmire of his making with no face saving exit strategy.

But the Ides of March are just around the corner...

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1629451419223748608?s=20

lousubcap

A good read from a former ambassador to Russia (Michael McFaul) about the reasons to stay the course in Ukraine:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/russia-invade-ukraine-2022-america-biden-must-not-forget-rcna72103