Daily Archives: July 21, 2024

President Vladimir V. Putins strategy for defeating Ukraine can be summed up in one revealing moment in his February interview with the former television host Tucker Carlson. Addressing the possibility of heightened U.S. involvement in Ukraine, the Russian leader asked Americans: Dont you have anything better to do?

After several tumultuous weeks in American politics, Mr. Putin appears closer than ever to getting the answer he seeks.

President Biden, Ukraines most important ally, is engulfed in the biggest political crisis of his tenure, with calls from fellow Democrats to withdraw from the presidential race. Former President Donald J. Trump, favored in the polls, has picked as his running mate one of the loudest critics of American aid to Kyiv.

And at the Republican National Convention Thursday night, Mr. Trump renewed his pledge to end the fighting and channeled Mr. Putin in warning of World War III.

All told, the arc of American foreign policy could be moving closer to Mr. Putins expectations of it: an inward-looking worldview that cares far less about Ukraine than Russians do, making it only a matter of time until Washington abandons Kyiv like its critics say Afghanistan was abandoned in 2021.

In Moscow, analysts are poring over American polls and news reports, while state television and pro-Kremlin blogs have featured extensive coverage of Mr. Trumps pick of Senator J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential candidate. Dmitri Trenin, the former head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said his conclusion from the polling is that all foreign problems are low on the priority list for American voters.

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Putin Counted on Waning U.S. Interest in Ukraine. It Might Be a Winning Bet. - The New York Times

With Donald Trump riding high, President Joe Biden can no longer afford to dither over the future of Ukraine.

The GOP candidate, backed by his vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, has made clear he wants to cut off U.S. aid to Kyiv and effectively hand Ukraine over to Moscow. Indeed, should he win, Trump says he would start this process right after the November election before he even enters the White House.

Trump insists he can sit with Vladimir Putin and resolve the war in 24 hours. He wants to force Kyiv into peace talks that would only benefit the Kremlin. Down this road lies the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state.

Yet, a weakened Biden is still sticking to his policy of giving Kyiv just enough aid to hold Putin back from major advances but not enough to convince the Russian dictator he cannot win.

Even if Biden pulls out a victory, his Ukraine policy is self-defeating.

As Bidens prospects dim and Trumps rise, the president needs to change gears now and give Kyiv what it needs to push Putin back this year.

What makes Bidens policy so frustrating is that he recognizes Ukraine is a test case for the new axis of dictators led by Beijing and Moscow.

If Russia can get away with invading a peaceful neighbor in Europe, seizing one-fifth of its territory and destroying its cities and civilian infrastructure, then all the post-World War II rules that kept the peace in Europe are trashed. The use of force will be back in fashion, globally, with China taking note when it comes to Taiwan.

Yet, Biden showed no signs he was rethinking his Ukraine policy at NATOs 75th-anniversary summit, held the week before the GOP convention.

The administration appears to have been counting on Ukraine making enough military progress to force Putin into serious negotiations.

But Congress six-month delay in approving new weapons supplies for Kyiv, along with the strong prospect of a Trump victory, have clearly convinced Putin he is winning. Any peace talks, including Trumps fantasy version, would merely give the Russians time to regroup for further attacks.

On the eve of NATOs 75th-anniversary summit earlier this month in Washington, Russian missiles deliberately targeted the most advanced childrens medical facility in Ukraine. Its hard to forget the scene of a pediatric surgeon his white apron covered with blood desperately trying to rescue any tiny bald patients trapped in the rubble after a Russian Kh-101 missile collapsed the chemotherapy ward at Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital in Kyiv.

By deliberately targeting children as well as a nearby maternity hospital that specializes in problem pregnancies Putin sent a chilling message to NATO: I can do anything I want to Ukraine, and you wont stop me.

Still, the White House blocked NATO from setting out any clear path to Kyivs future membership, even though this is the only way to ensure Ukraines future security.

More immediately, Biden nixed any effective Kyiv response to the attack on children and babies by failing to lift the U.S. ban on letting Ukraine use U.S.-made long-range missiles to strike the aerodromes from which the attack was launched, deep inside Russian territories.

The Russians are showing they arent worried about consequences, I was told by Ukrainian parliamentarian Yehor Cherniev. The absence of a strong reaction [to the bombing of the hospital] convinces them they are right.

On Tuesday, in an interview with Voice of America, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed U.S. policy on deep strikes hasnt changed. He said the administration wanted to avoid unintended consequences and escalation.

However, time after time Putin has failed to react when his blustery red lines have been breached, such as when Ukraine fired British long-range missiles at Russian air bases in occupied Crimea from which Moscow directed strikes at Ukrainian cities.

Given that Russia has opened a new front by sending thousands of glide bombs into Ukraine, striking heating and electrical systems, hospitals, schools, and markets, there is only one way to stop this aggression: by hitting its source.

During a news conference at the summits end, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg could barely contain his upset with the U.S. limitations. There is no question that Ukraine has the right to hit legitimate targets on the territory of the aggressor, he stressed.

Rejecting such criticism, the Biden administration touted NATOs new package of air defenses for Ukraine: U.S.-made Patriot systems and F-16 warplanes.

But here again, U.S. and NATO policy is too little and far too late.

Kyiv, which lacks any viable air force, has been begging the West for Patriots to protect its cities since the war began more than two years ago. While Western allies have a reported 100 systems, the response had been painfully limited; Germany had delivered two, while the U.S. donated one.

This summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Washington that seven new Patriot systems are the minimum he desperately needed to protect major cities. But at the summit, only five new air defense systems were offered, one each from Germany, Romania, Washington, and Italy, and a fifth that will be cobbled together from parts drawn from several countries.

Heres the kicker: Israel has eight Patriot systems, on loan from the U.S., which it has put into mothballs because it considers them old technology, long replaced by Israeli defenses. Despite months of talks, the White House has failed to press Jerusalem to return some or all to Washington to be forwarded to Ukraine.

As for the F-16s, they are coming from the Netherlands and Denmark, and have been repeatedly delayed for months, in part because the necessary U.S. green light was slow to arrive.

Furthermore, the Pentagon continues to slow-walk training for competent, English-speaking Ukrainian pilots, with only about a dozen being prepared this year to fly a far larger number of aircraft. Yet, the White House has failed to prioritize training for Ukrainians or give permission for retired U.S. pilots to do the training abroad.

If NATO is not ready to protect us, and to take us into the alliance, then we ask NATO to give us everything so we can protect ourselves, Zelensky told me in a recent interview in Kyiv.

Hampered by White House timidity, that has not happened until now.

Trump and Vance have argued that Ukraine is Europes problem. The former president constantly claims the Europeans are freeloading off the United States.

But contrary to Trumps claims, the European Union plus individual member nations are already giving Ukraine far more military and economic aid than Washington. More than $40 billion in annual military aid will now be funneled proportionately by member states through NATO to try to Trump-proof any U.S. military aid cutoff.

Indeed, Putins violent effort to destroy a peaceful neighbor has revived and unified the alliance two-thirds of NATO countries now meet the 2% floor on defense spending, and, for the first time, there are some serious efforts to unify allies defense production and innovation.

As the Europeans now grasp (especially those on Russias border), Ukraine is the locale where Putin is testing how far he can go to undermine Western allies, including the United States. The Kremlin has been upping cyberwarfare, sabotage, and assassination attempts within many of their countries and inside their territorial waters.

In another nasty message from Putin, CNN reported recently that the U.S. and Germany broke up a Russian assassination plot to murder Armin Papperger, the head of Europes largest arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, which sells critical 155 mm artillery shells to Kyiv, and will soon start producing them in Ukraine.

But the Europeans do not have the military heft or heavy defense production to help Ukraine defeat Putin without U.S. assistance if the White House refuses to face the urgency of the moment, or if Trump wins and cuts off aid.

Whatever happens to his candidacy, Biden can still rectify the NATO summits missed opportunity, and hedge against a Trump victory. But that will require the White House to recognize that its current policy plays into Putins hands.

As Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in Washington: The blindness is to think that Putin will stop and there will be negotiations. He will continue. He did not stop in 2014 [after Putin invaded Crimea]. We are in this for the long run. We have to create a clear deterrent lets allow Ukraine to attack them.

To ignore Putins sadistic attacks at the childrens hospital, and across Ukraine, is to encourage Russian escalation. To let Kyiv respond with long-range strikes on Russian bases is to deter escalation by making clear Moscow will pay a strong penalty for its aggression.

If Biden acknowledges that truth and lifts restrictions on long-range ATACMS missiles, while retrieving those Patriot missiles from Israel and prioritizing training for Ukraines pilots the Democrats could display their foreign policy smarts in November, compared with Trumps Putin-blindness.

By so doing, Biden can also help Ukraine make sizable advances before the November election, as a hedge against a GOP win.

But absent a White House sense of urgency, most of the many Ukrainian think tank and parliament members with whom I spoke at the summit left Washington deeply worried about the presidents limits and the possibility of a Putin triumph, aided by Trump.

They were determined to fight on, despite U.S. weakness, but extremely worried, and more than a little scared.

Editors Note: A version of this column was originally published July 14, 2024.

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As surging Trump plans to hand Ukraine to Putin, Biden must speed up aid in 2024 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Almost two and half years into Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscows war machine still runs on energy revenuesdespite unprecedented Western sanctions that took a bite out of, but hardly battered, the Kremlins cash cow.

Russian exports of oil, natural gas, and coal continue apace with their biggest markets in Asia, especially China and India. Even Europe, which has largely sworn off Russian gas since the invasion, is stealthily buying a lot more of the stuff off tankers to meet its own energy needs, indirectly helping finance the invader that it spends so much time, energy, and money trying to combat.

Russian energy export revenues before the war were about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) a day, and the whole gamut of sanctions had brought that down to about 660 million euros ($720 million) by this Junebut those levels have stayed remarkably steady for the past 18 months. Russia recorded a rare current accounts surplus just last month, a sign of that export health. The sanctions battle, like the war itself, seems to have stalemated.

The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. The sanctions are working, but not as well as we expected, said Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

Some aspects of Russias energy exports have fallen off a cliff, such as its exports of natural gas via pipelines, which have all but disappeared from the lucrative European market. But the countrys exports of oil and refined oil products, which make up the biggest chunk of its sales, have stayed essentially the same after an initial hit in the first months after the introduction of Western sanctions, and state earnings even crept a little higher thanks to a rise in global oil prices.

The main Western effort to curb Russian energy earnings was a balancing act meant to keep the global market supplied while limiting the Kremlins take by capping Russian oil sales at $60 a barrel. Some countries wanted an even lower price cap of about $30 a barrel to really cut Moscows earnings, but that ideaas demonstrated when Ukraine floated it again this springwas politically and diplomatically a lot tougher.

Still, the original price cap worked great at first, until Russiawith a little help from its friends in OPECgoosed the global price of oil higher, which dragged the price of discounted Russian oil above the cap as well. Thats pretty much where it has been for the past year.

More importantly, Russia has found a reliable way to sidestep that formal limit on its crude oil exports by using a fleet of so-called shadow tankers that dont have to follow Western restrictions on insurance, safety, and the like. About 4 out of every 5 barrels of seaborne crude that Russia sells are now carried on shadow tankers, Katinas said, meaning that they are entirely outside the reach of Western measures. (Those shadow tankers arent beyond the reach of the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents in Yemen, though: One got blown up trying to take Russian oil to China this week.)

The strategy was good, but the tactics were poorthere was little enforcement, Katinas said.

The United States cracked down on part of that trade a couple of timeslate last year on shadow tankers and earlier this year on Russian state-owned vesselsby sanctioning individual tankers; CREA estimates that tougher enforcement probably cost Russia about 5 percentof its oil export revenues since October 2023. But there is still a long way to go to ensure thorough enforcement of the existing limits on Russian oil trade: Full enforcement would have kept almost 20 billion euros ($21.8 billion) out of Russian President Vladimir Putins coffers, CREA estimates.

The Biden administration has toyed with additional efforts to tighten the screws on the shadow fleet, but it worries that stricter measures might send oil (and gasoline) prices higher just in time for a pivotal U.S. presidential election in November.

But there is a way to get there without causing much pain, if any, for global energy consumers, argue global economy experts Robin Brooks and Ben Harris of the Brookings Institution. There remain some 100-odd unsanctioned ships in the Sovcomflot state-owned fleet that are doing heavy lifting for Russian oil exports. Targeted sanctions on just 15 of the busiest of those tankers would cut into a good-sized chunk of Russias oil export earnings with little market impact. With such a process in place, we anticipate little to no impact on global oil prices but suspect the action will meaningfully lower Russias revenue from the oil trade, they wrote.

But its not just oil. Russian natural gas exports are not dead yet, either, despite lots of pain for state-owned energy company Gazprom and plenty of crowing in Europe about largely weaning itself off of what used to be its biggest energy supplier. Some European countries, including Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia, are still heavily reliant on the remnants of Russian gas that arrive via Ukraine or Turkey, for reasons that range from the geographic to the political.

Whats amazing about the sharp decline in exports of Russian natural gas to what was formerly the nations biggest market is that Russian natural gas is not sanctioned in Europe at all, yet it has suffered the most of all of Moscows energy streams.

Gas is not sanctioned; it was the stupidity of Putin that drove the Europeans off of it, Katinas said.

But this year, Russian gas is sneaking back into Europe in liquefied form, supercooled and shipped on tankers rather than compressed and routed through pipelines. European Union imports of Russian liquefied natural gas, or LNG, are up 24 percent over past year, especially to big Western European countries such as France, Spain, and Belgium; the bloc buys half of all Russian LNG exports.

There are plenty of reasons whySpains main suppliers in North Africa have their own geopolitical squabbles that have disrupted exports, long-term contracts with Russia essentially lock in some European buyers for years, and Russian gas is nearby and fairly cheap compared to alternativesbut the biggest reason is simply concern over the security of supplies.

There was lots of talk even last year about banning LNG imports, but then what prevailed were the fears about the implications for the security of supply, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a gas expert at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. The trickle of Russian gas that still comes in through Ukraine will end later this year; Turkey, despite offers to do more, can hardly export significantly more gas to southern Europe since it isnt a gas producer itself. And Europeans remember the shock and pain of the wars first winter, when energy prices skyrocketed due to the upheavals in the gas market.

Last month, the European Union finally took its first step to deal with Russian LNGnot by banning the import of the fuel, but by making sure that European ports would not be waystations for Russian exports to Asia. That measure wont even start until early next year. And there certainly wont be any further EU efforts to target Russian gas this year, with Hungary at the helm of the rotating presidency of the EU council.

We are not actually banning imports, but preventing other countries from getting Russian LNG, Corbeau said. It makes life more difficult for Russias Asia exports, but does nothing to keep LNG out of Europe.

The good news, such as it is, is that LNG isnt quite the cash cow for the Russian government that other energy sources are. Oil is sold in huge volumes and is taxed; pipeline gas, too, helps prop up the federal budget. But LNG has all sorts of tax breaks that mean much less of that Western money goes straight to the Ukrainian battlefront. In terms of how to target Russian energy earnings, Corbeau said, first oil, then piped gas, then finally LNG.

The bad news is that despite years of unprecedented sanctions on one of the worlds biggest energy providers, Russias cash machine is still working enough to continue underwriting the war. The relatively limited success in the battle against the countrys energy sector is mirrored by similar failings in cracking down on Russian trade in all sorts of other things, from Western machinery routed through Central Asia to the high-tech Chinese-made components needed for the war.

We are not doing enough. We need to strengthen sanctionswe need to start enforcing sanctions, and start punishing companies that are violating them, said Katinas. There are just too many loopholes.

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Despite Western Sanctions, Russian Oil Is Still Paying for Putins War - Foreign Policy

The visit shook up Brussels and European Union capitals, as it took place a few days after Hungary took the helm of the presidency of the Council of the EU and Orbn suggested he was representing the bloc as a whole.

The EU rotating presidency has no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU. The European Council is clear: Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim. No discussions about Ukraine can take place without Ukraine, European Council chief Charles Michel wrote on X in early July.

The declaration approved by the European Parliament considers the visit to be a blatant violation of the EUs Treaties and common foreign policy, including the principle of sincere cooperation, while arguing that Orbn did not have the right to represent the EU while at the same time violating common EU positions.

In the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian Prime Ministers so-called peace mission, Russia attacked the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv, showing the irrelevance of his alleged efforts, which have been met with skepticism from the Ukrainian leadership, the resolution continues, referring to a violent attack on July 8 that killed at least 20 people.

In reaction to the visit, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy argued thatOrbncannot mediate because Hungary is not strong enough. You need to have an economy that influences Russia, and Putin depends on it. Or you have a very powerful army that Putin fears, which is stronger than the Russian one, he argued.

Orbns main opponent in Hungary, Pter Magyar, along with fellow EU lawmakers from his Respect and Freedom Party, voted against the resolution. Magyar called the decision a punishment against Hungaryin a Facebook post: We condemn Russias aggression against Ukraine, but we cant support punishing Hungary because of Viktor Orbns wrong policies.

Magyar, who sits as an MEP in the European Peoples Party, added that his party also opposes the cordon sanitaire against Orbns newly formed far-right Patriots for Europe group. According to his post, Magyar informed the head of the EPP Manfred Weber of his positions, which Weber apparently took note of.

EU countries have already retaliated by boycotting informal ministerial meetings organized by Hungary as part of the EU Council presidency, while the European Commission has instructed its top officials to skip similar meetings.

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European Parliament condemns Orbns meeting with Putin - POLITICO Europe

The June European Parliament elections delivered a historic success for far-right, euroskeptic parties. Now making up nearly a quarter of the chamber, these parties are poised to exert a powerful influence on the future political trajectory of the European Union, including by aiming to roll back various aspects of integration and opposing the blocs further enlargement.

The June European Parliament elections delivered a historic success for far-right, euroskeptic parties. Now making up nearly a quarter of the chamber, these parties are poised to exert a powerful influence on the future political trajectory of the European Union, including by aiming to roll back various aspects of integration and opposing the blocs further enlargement.

Seen from Moscow, this result is sure to be cause for celebration. Various prominent Russian politicians hailed the rise of right-wing parties in the EU following the elections, with former President Dmitry Medvedev calling for pro-EU leaders to be relegated to the ash heap of history. Russia also went to great lengths to support euroskeptic parties in the run-up to the vote, including by paying far-right EU politicians to parrot Kremlin talking points as well as by launching massive online disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks on key websites. Furthermore, with Hungary now holding the rotating EU presidency, Moscow is doing all it can to help Russia-friendly Hungarian President Viktor Orban subvert a unified EU stance on Russias war in Ukraine.

Russias latest efforts mark a notable uptick in its attempts to undermine the EU. The Kremlin has long harbored animosity toward the blocbut as Russias confrontation with the West has intensified, this hostility has only grown. For Moscow, the new momentum toward widening and deepening the EU represents a unique and increasingly urgent threat to its attempts to assert its illiberal governance model, both at home and abroad.

It is the EU, not NATO, that presents the real existential threat to the Kremlin. Thats because Ukraines membership in and integration into the EU could deliver a fatal blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime by turning Ukraine into what Russia most fears: a political, economic, and sociocultural alternative to Russia itself. Although Putins popularity among Russians remains high, the Kremlin could very well worry that Russian citizens may begin to see the benefits of EU membership across the border and desire an alternative future for their country.

That would explain why Putin began his long war against Ukraine in 2014. At that time, Ukraine was militarily neutral and was not actively seeking to join NATO. (It had previously expressed interest in membership in 2008.) But Kyiv was about to sign an association agreement with the EU that the Kremlins interference in Ukrainian politics could not prevent.

Western commentators have largely ignored the EU-Russia relationship, instead often blaming possible NATO enlargement for catalyzing the Kremlins aggression. Proponents of the NATO theory include academics (such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt), media figures (such as Tucker Carlson), and populist politicians (such as Britains Nigel Farage and former U.S. President Donald Trump). Both of the latter have repeated claims along these lines in recent weeks.

Underpinning these justifications for Russias war is the assumption that the Kremlin seriously considersand is justified in consideringNATOs eastward expansion as a threat to Russias physical security. Putin would certainly like to break NATO and Western unity, but its not because he thinks Russia is militarily threatened. If he did, the Russian military would not be leaving the countrys roughly 1,600-mile border with NATO members virtually undefended as it redeploys troops and weapons to Ukraine.

Even short of directly undermining regime stability within Russia, EU enlargement poses a threat to a key ideological pillar of Putins foreign policy: his antiquated obsession with maintaining a so-called sphere of influence along Russias periphery. Russias perceived need to control the political orientation of its neighbors could not differ any more sharply from the outlook of EU member states, which aim to amplify their own power and influence by sharing their sovereignty in a bloc. To this end, the EU has developed a complex institutional architecture to ensure an equilibrium where every state feels it has a fair say in decision-making.

Russia, by contrast, seeks to impose its will upon bordering countries and prevent them from shaping their own futureseither directly through conquest, as Russia is attempting in Ukraine, or indirectly through various coercive tactics, including weaponized corruption. Russian-led regional organizations, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union, serve largely as forums for the Kremlin to pressure neighboring countries to follow its priorities rather than pursue genuine collaboration.

Russia is right to be concerned about the EUs ability to spur deep political change. Since the end of the Cold War, EU membership has been crucial in shaping former autocratic regimes in Central and Eastern Europe into thriving liberal democracies. This is no accident: The EUs accession criteria require new members to have institutions that guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the protection of minoritiesvalues that are antithetical to those promoted by the Russian regime.

Russia has hardened its opposition to EU enlargement over the years as it has observed the transformational effect of membership. When the three Baltic states plus othersincluding the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakiajoined in 2004, Moscow took little notice, regarding the bloc primarily through an economic lens rather than a geopolitical one.

Yet in the years since 2004, Russia has woken up to the reality of the EUs power to drive profound domestic political change. No country illustrates this better than Ukraine. After Ukrainians protested in late 2013 against then-President Viktor Yanukovychs decision to back away from an EU association agreementultimately leading to his ouster in February 2014Putin attempted to reassert control over the countrys political direction by annexing Crimea.

Then in February 2022, Russia took its effort to keep Ukraine from joining the Western community one step further by launching a full-scale invasionwhich, ironically, increased the prospects of EU integration not only for Ukraine, but also for neighboring Moldova and Georgia. Since then, Russia has used various tactics to hinder Moldovas and Georgias paths to accession as well, including by subverting the formers pro-EU government and supporting the latters recent passage of a Russian-style foreign agents law to stifle democratic dissent.

Nonetheless, the EU should not shy away from enlargement. The blocs expansion has been a uniquely effective force for fostering prosperity, stability, and democracy on the European continent over the decades, bringing the region ever closer to the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

Furthermore, the success or failure of the next round of EU enlargement will have striking consequences for the future of international order. Russia, by aiming to prevent the EUs enlargement and impose its own control over Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, is on a campaign to reassert its imperial idea in Europe. This poses an immense challenge to the credibility of the EUs post-imperial vision to achieve collaborative regional governance through integrationultimately the raison dtre of the bloc. Russian success would also risk legitimizing expansionism elsewhere by emboldening other countries to follow similar imperial strategies against their neighbors.

To ensure the failure of Russias imperialist vision, the EU must follow through on its promises to integrate new memberswhile becoming more resilient in the process. It would be both a strategic and an ethical failure not to support other European countries wishing to develop resilient democratic political institutions, robust civil societies, and flourishing economies. Russia should not be given a veto.

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For Putin, the EU Is a Bigger Threat Than NATO - Foreign Policy

President Vladimir Putin warnedon Wednesday that unregulated cryptocurrency mining risks overloading Russias electrical grid and causing widespread power outages.

An uncontrolled increase in electricity consumption for mining cryptocurrencies can lead to power shortages in certain regions, Putin told senior government officials at a meeting focusedon the economy.

Russias Energy Ministry estimates that crypto mining consumes on average 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year or almost 1.5% of Russias total electricity consumption.

The figure continues to go up, Putin said, listing the relatively cheap cost of electricity in Russia and access to equipment as some of the factors leading to an increase in crypto mining.

Despite its restrictive laws on cryptocurrencies, Russia was the worlds second-largest crypto mining country after the United States in 2023. The previous leaders, China and Kazakhstan, have restricted crypto mining activities in recent years.

Investigative journalists recently named the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan which has been gripped by lengthy blackouts largely due to aging infrastructure as the capital of crypto mining in Russia.

Putin on Wednesday shared the concerns of regional authorities that mining farms could leave new businesses, residential areas and social facilities with supply disruptions, and put on hold promising investment and infrastructure projects.

The Kremlin leader said he had ordered tax and tariff regulations for miners and called for a federal law to address the issue, which appears to have taken on renewed importance amid sweeping power outages in southern Russia on Tuesday.

In 2020, Putin signed a law that legalized cryptocurrencies as digital financial assets but banned their use from paying for goods and services. Russia established the blockchain-based Digital Ruble as a new form of legal tender in 2023.

Last week, Russian lawmakers moved to legalize crypto mining while banning the circulation of cryptocurrencies in Russia.

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Putin Warns of Blackouts From Uncontrolled Crypto Mining - The Moscow Times

Last week at the Buxton International Festival I joined a big audience for an onstage interview with Anna Reid. Shes a writer who specialises in Eastern European history, was once the Economist magazines correspondent in Ukraine, and made her name with a brilliant book, Borderland, which was both a portrait, a history and an appreciation of that country long before it entered the western public consciousness. Its still worth reading today.

But at Buxton she was introducing her latest book, A Nasty Little War: the Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War, which opened the eyes of many in the audience (including me) to an almost forgotten but serious and grisly conflict straddling the end of the first world war. The Allies, led by Britain and France and including the United States, tried to snuff out Lenins Marxist ascendency. The adventure was a military disaster (the White Russian forces, which we supported, being incapable of seizing control) and a political embarrassment.

The hatred, rage and distrust Ukrainians feel towards Putins Russia is impossible to overstate

This is perhaps why I (and perhaps you?) had never heard of this war. Won or lost, we British are inclined to forget conflicts (the Boer War? The whole of Irish history) that were not our finest hours. But Reid had wider and deeper thoughts to convey, too, about Russian history and Russias world view today. She was asked, of course, about the present Ukraine war, and over a drink with her afterwards I pursued this. What kind of a peace was achievable?

Annas is not a crudely death-or-glory view but her love for Ukraine is strong and her sympathy with the Ukrainian cause is total; its fair to say she doubts an enduring peace is achievable while Vladimir Putin is in charge. Whatever the terms of a deal (she thinks), Putin could not be trusted to honour them. Thats a view Ive encountered very widely in Britain, and I encountered it too when I was in Ukraine for the Times earlier this year. The hatred, rage and distrust Ukrainians feel towards Putins Russia is impossible to overstate. Many find it impossible to contemplate any settlement with him and believe, as I think Reid does, that whatever its terms, he would sooner or later break them and come back for more.

With the greatest of respect for Reids superior knowledge and her deep understanding of the mentalities on both sides of this conflict, I disagree. Probably the time has not yet arrived for western leaders to be talking openly about a settlement and were a settlement finally to be agreed, its entirely possible that Putin might later try to wriggle out of it. But I think talk of absolute victory and the crushing and presumably removal of Putin may be unrealistic and worse dangerous. Animals are at their most dangerous when cornered.

As Ive argued on these pages before, there will in the end have to be an armistice, and there will have to be terms. If not, what from the comfort and security of our own armchairs are we saying? That this war must continue until Putin is run into the ground and destined for conviction at a war-crimes tribunal, and Russia produces a government more to our taste? Is this realistic? Is the humiliation of the Russian people who have been persuaded (by lies, but lies they believe) of the justice of their cause really in the interests of international stability? Will Ukraine thereafter be the more secure, with its great neighbour still bruised and angry?

Its true that we pursued Hitler to his death, but he did not possess nuclear weapons, and the Allies were content and ready to administer Germany after removing him; but we left the Emperor Hirohito in post after the Japanese surrender, judging (correctly) that he could prove a stabilising force: we did not prosecute him for war crimes. To leave Putin no exit save by overthrow, humiliation and dishonour risks prolonging a war in which hundreds of thousands have died on both sides and destabilising Volodymyr Zelenskys position when he begins to run out of men willing to die in the trenches; while Ukraines post-victory future would be burdened by administering territory in the east, and also Crimea, millions among whose Russian-speaking populations remain sympathetic to Moscow.

I just dont see it. So I have a confession to make. I dont think Donald Trumps boast that he could make a deal with Putin is implausible. This gives rise to two questions. First, what kind of a deal? And secondly, can we be confident Putin would honour it?

The deal would be land-for-peace. How much of the east this would include would be up for negotiation, but it would probably have to include Crimea, strategically vital to Russias Black Sea fleet, and not historically part of Ukraine anyway. I do believe many Ukrainians are reconciled to letting Crimea go, if this brought lasting peace and security. Which bring us to the more difficult question. Could Ukraine thereafter trust Putin?

Of course not. Hes a fantasist and a liar, with a passionate belief (however crazy) in the nobility of his cause. So any deal would have to be accompanied by western military guarantees to uphold the borders of the new, somewhat shrunken, Ukraine. Such guarantees would have to be the bedrock of the deal, and framed in terms so clear and strong as to make them believable both to Ukrainians and to the Kremlin. Washington and the other members of Nato would have to be profoundly and publicly committed to the upholding of the deal, if necessary by force.

I believe the reason any land-for-peace deal has not yet commended itself to most Ukrainians is that they dont believe it would stick. If they did, if they could foresee their country permanently entering the western sphere of influence, close to (or even in) the EU, their security underwritten by (if not as members of) the Nato Alliance, I think they would take an offer like this. And, though it sticks in my throat to say this, Trump might be the president to make it.

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Could Ukrainians ever trust a Putin peace deal? - The Spectator