Category Archives: Putin

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President Biden is standing by comments that Russian President Vladimir Putin can't remain in power, saying he had been expressing his 'moral outrage,' not signaling a policy change. Joe Scarborough explains why it's time for Putin to worry what the U.S. thinks about his actions in Ukraine.March 29, 2022

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Joe: It's time for Putin to start worrying what the U.S. thinks04:59

UP NEXT

George Conway: I don't know if Trump will get away with it, but judge's finding does matter11:01

Zelenskyy chief of staff: We are in need of more support to win this war16:32

Pentagon: Support is flowing into Mariupol11:12

WSJ: Why Biden needs new advisers, Congress on Russia08:10

Joe: Biden letting Putin know U.S. not playing in between the lines08:40

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Joe Scarborough: It's time for Putin to start worrying what the United States thinks - MSNBC

Joe Biden condemned Vladimir Putin as a butcher who could no longer stay in power in a historic speech in Poland as Russian missiles rained down on Ukraines most pro-western city, just 40 miles from the Polish border, and Ukraines president called for more military aid.

With explosions erupting across neighbouring Lviv, in a clear act of defiance from the Kremlin, Biden told an audience in Warsaw that the west must steel itself for a long fight ahead.

In what seemed to be a dramatic shift in US policy to back regime change in Moscow, Biden also appeared to urge those around the Russian president to oust him from the Kremlin. For Gods sake, this man cannot remain in power, Biden said in his most belligerent speech since the war began a month ago.

US officials later said that Biden had been talking about the need for Putin to lose power over Ukrainian territory and in the wider region.

Later, in his nightly address, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called on the US and Europe to deliver planes and tanks to his country, arguing that Europes own security was at risk and asking: Who runs the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it still Moscow because of intimidation?

Referring to the bravery of the defenders of the besieged city of Mariupol, Zelenskiy went on to say: I wish at least a percentage of their courage to those who have been thinking for 31 days how to transfer a dozen or two of planes or tanks.

It is impossible to unblock Mariupol without a sufficient number of tanks, other armoured vehicles and, of course, aircraft. All defenders of Ukraine know that the United States knows that. All European politicians know.

In his speech, Biden said Putin was bent on violence. Addressing the Russian president directly, he said: Dont even think about moving on to one single inch of Nato territory.

There is simply no justification or provocation for Russias choice of war, Biden told the audience in the Polish presidential palace.

Its an example of one of the oldest human impulses, using brute force and disinformation to satisfy a craving for absolute power and control. Its nothing less than a direct challenge to the rule-based international order established since the end of world war two.

The attacks on Lviv, the home of Ukrainian nationalism and a key player in the countrys break from the Soviet Union, bring the war to the European Unions doorstep.

At least five people were injured from six missile strikes in two waves and black smoke billowed over the historic citys horizon of steeples and cathedral domes as a fuel storage facility was hit, a mile from the Unesco-protected world heritage site. A second target was a defence facility; both were close to residential areas.

The timing of the attacks, only the third on west Ukrainian targets since the war began, and the closest to Lvivs city centre and its residential areas, was clearly designed to send a message to the White House.

Hours before his speech, Biden had met Ukraines defence and foreign ministers for the first time since Putin announced his special military operation on 24 February, and offered extra military support.

We emerged anew in the great battle for freedom, Biden said in his speech. The battle between democracy and autocracy. Between liberty and repression. Between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force.

This battle will not be won in days or months, he added. We need to steel ourselves for a long fight ahead.

Referencing Pope John Paul IIs be not afraid speech of 1979 at the beginning and end, Bidens speech linked the war in Ukraine with historic moments of eastern European defiance against Soviet aggression.

The battle for democracy did not conclude with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Biden said. Today Russia has strangled democracy and sought to do so elsewhere, not just in its homeland.

Asked by reporters what seeing Ukrainian refugees at Stadion Narodowy earlier in the day had made him think of as he deals with Putin, Biden replied: Hes a butcher.

The Kremlin hinted on Friday that it may be scaling back its war ambitions, saying it was close to completing the first phase of its military campaign and would now focus on the complete liberation of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. But the attacks on Lviv, 250 miles from where Biden was speaking, offered little evidence of any such plan.

Speaking to the Observer, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the lead negotiator in talks with Russia, said he did not believe the Kremlin was downgrading its war aims.

They had poor operational planning, and they realised it was advantageous for them to surround cities, cut off the main supply routes, and force people there to have a deficit of food, water and medicines, he said, describing the siege of Mariupol as a tactic to sow psychological terror and exhaustion.

Podolyak expressed scepticism over the Russian defence ministrys claims that Moscows forces would now focus mainly on the Donbas area in east Ukraine.

Of course I dont believe that. They dont have interests in Donbas. Their main interests are Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and the south to take Mariupol, and to close the Azov Sea we see them regrouping and preparing more troops to send in, he said.

Podolyak later tweeted: Lviv. Massive missile strikes. Another big Ukrainian city with great historical value. Near the border. Embassies of many countries inside the city. But the barbarians of the Russian Federation are not interested in anything no history, no heritage, no foreign diplomas / missions. Will Europe continue to pacify?

Earlier in the day, the Kremlin had raised the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine as Russian forces struggled to hold a key city in the south of the country.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is deputy chairman of the countrys security council, said Moscow could strike against an enemy that only used conventional weapons while Vladimir Putins defence minster, Sergei Shoigu, claimed nuclear readiness was a priority.

The comments prompted Zelenskiy, appearing by video link at Qatars Doha Forum, to warn that Moscow was a direct threat to the world. Russia is deliberating bragging they can destroy with nuclear weapons, not only a certain country but the entire planet, he said.

Russia has about 6,000 nuclear warheads the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. Medvedev said Russias nuclear doctrine did not require an enemy state to use such weapons first. Russia could use a nuclear deterrent in response to an act of aggression committed against Russia and its allies, which jeopardised the existence of the country itself, even without the use of nuclear weapons, that is, with the use of conventional weapons.

Shoigu, who had not been seen for 12 days before a brief appearance on Friday and an address to his generals on Saturday, also spoke about the nuclear threat contained within Russias arsenal. In a video, uploaded on social media by the Russian defence ministry, Shoigu said the maintenance of engagement readiness of strategic nuclear forces was a priority.

The Ukrainian parliament confirmed Russia had launched a fresh attack on a nuclear research reactor in Kharkiv, while Russian forces had seized Slavutych, a northern town close to the Chernobyl nuclear site, on Saturday.

Russian troops took prisoner Slavutychs mayor, Yuri Fomichev, but after failing to disperse a large protest in the main square, despite deploying stun grenades and firing overhead, released the mayor and agreed to leave.

Meanwhile, Ukraines defence ministry said Russia was increasingly using undercover sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the Kyiv region after the failure to take the capital by conventional means. The saboteurs change into civilian clothes and use cars stolen from the civilian population, a spokesperson said.

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Biden: butcher Putin cannot be allowed to stay in power - The Guardian

Seven years ago, an anonymous source who went by the name John Doe provided us with the data that became the Panama Papers 2.6 terabytes of leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The leak turned out to have quite an impressive Russian component. We found shell companies connected to Vladimir Putins judo friends, Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, to the oligarch Alisher Usmanov and the wife of the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. But, most significantly, we stumbled across Sergej Roldugin, a professional cellist and godfather of Putins eldest daughter, who had a central role in a network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn, described at the time as the key to tracing Putins hidden fortune.

All this hidden wealth mattered when we published the Panama Papers in 2016, two years after Russia had annexed the Crimean peninsula. Now, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it matters more than ever. Lawmakers in the UK, the EU, the US and Canada have sanctioned Russian banks, Russian companies and individuals close to Putin. This includes Russian oligarchs, as well as Putins friends, supporters and admirers who have helped facilitate his kleptocracy by hiding his wealth in accounts under their own names or just championing his kleptocracy for their own illicit enrichment. Individuals like the cellist Sergej Roldugin, the Rotenberg brothers and Usmanov.

Now, the western world has decided that they want Putins friends to be sanctioned for the kleptocracy and harm they have facilitated and from which they have benefited. Prosecutors and investigators as well as special police units are now hunting for the riches of Putins friends. They are seizing yachts, grounding planes and confiscating lavish villas. Yet what they will find is probably only the tip of the iceberg. To really hit Putin and his friends where it hurts, one must go to Switzerland, to Panama, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands. Unfortunately, investigators will probably not get much help there as secrecy is what those countries sell.

Economists like to call them tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions. But black holes would be more appropriate for these places where greedy lawyers, tax advisers, consultants and other crooks help the rich and powerful to hide or, as they put it, fence their assets. These willing helpers assist the oligarchs to make their fortunes vanish from the view of law enforcement.

When we received the leak that became the Panama Papers, we found apart from Roldugin dozens of filthy rich Russians. When we received the Paradise Papers, another offshore data leak, the names of oligarchs Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov and Oleg Deripaska appeared in the data, as did Olga Shuvalova, the wife of Russias first deputy prime minister. More than a year ago we got hold of the Suisse Secrets, yet another leak, and there was the sister of Alisher Usmanov and a fortune of aboutr 2bn Swiss francs.

Sanctions are a powerful tool in foreign policy. Some even call it a tool of modern war. We understand the idea to put pressure on Putins inner circle and Russias economy. But why stop there? Lets address the problem and not only its symptoms. Lets change the system so governments do not have to rely on sanctions to prevent Putin and other kleptocracies from gaining more power.

First and foremost, secrecy jurisdictions themselves need to be targeted. It is not enough to go after the profiteers of these countries, but the jurisdictions themselves. If necessary, the black holes themselves need to be sanctioned to bring change not only to the war in Ukraine, but worldwide.

Russias oligarchs are not the only ones who enjoy a luxury lifestyle financed with stolen money. Kleptocracy and corruption are far from a uniquely Russian phenomenon.

Think Venezuela. Think China. Think Angola.

Addressing the systemic causes of kleptocracy and corruption will inevitably mean targeting both the legal structures and professionals in the west that facilitate kleptocracy: law firms, consultants and asset managers in Zurich, London and New York who regularly lend a helping hand to kleptocrats. They profit from jurisdictions like the Cayman islands and Switzerland and yes, the US which still offer secrecy on a grand scale. They profit from jurisdictions without public registries of who owns real estate and companies.

Defenders of secrecy claim their rights to privacy matter most. But let us face the facts: financial secrecy is the engine of global corruption and kleptocracy. It makes it too easy for corrupt elites to plunder whole continents, for traffickers of drugs and people to launder their money, and it helps to finance brutal wars. It helps Putin and his friends.

Fortunately, in late 2020, the United States government finally passed legislation that requires a beneficial ownership registry for US companies. Similar registries exist in dozens of countries, because forcing companies to reveal who ultimately benefits from them makes it far more difficult for kleptocrats and their cronies to hide their illicit money. But the US legislation, the Corporate Transparency Act, does not go far enough. It forces the ultimate beneficial owners to be revealed only to the authorities and only under certain circumstances.

But not to the public. And this is a huge mistake.

As long as we rely on authorities and law enforcement alone, kleptocrats, autocrats and Putins friends will have an easier time evading sanctions and continuing to hide their ill-gotten gains. Mutual legal assistance between national law enforcement agencies takes years, and does not penetrate the numerous layers of secrecy used by evildoers around the globe. Journalists and civil society groups have proven to be far more effective. They can collaborate quickly and effectively across borders, they can work with leaked data (something law enforcement still has to learn) and connect it with publicly available data. New government task forces set up late in the day to chase Putins cronies cash will be insufficient. Governments should open up the registries: company registries, ship registries, plane registries, real estate registries. Give the investigative power to the people and we bet: you will not be disappointed.

Above all, lets finally get rid of those black holes.

Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer are investigative journalists with the German paper Sddeutsche Zeitung. They initiated the 2016 Panama Papers as well as 2017 Paradise Papers revelations and the 2022 Suisse Secrets. Obermaier is co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (https://acdatacollective.org), Obermayer on the board of Forbidden Stories (https://forbiddenstories.org).

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We were leaked the Panama Papers. Heres how to bring down Putins cronies - The Guardian

In a speech delivered last Friday from his office in the Kremlin, Putin criticized the wests cancel culture, which, he charged, is canceling Russia an entire thousand-year-old country, our people. It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called cancel culture.

Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the Republican party have blasted for several years.

The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it, Trump said as he accepted his partys nomination at the Republican National Convention in 2020.

Tucker Carlson, one of Fox Newss most prominent personalities, has charged that liberals have been trying to cancel everything from Space Jam to the Fourth of July.

Putins fixation on transgender and gay people has also been echoed on the American right. Republican state bills aimed at limiting LGBTQ rights or discussion in schools are soaring. Last fall months before Texass Republican governor Greg Abbott threatened to criminalize parents who give their transgender children gender-affirming care Putin argued that teaching children about different gender identities was on the verge of a crime against humanity.

Then theres admiration for Putin himself. Just before Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Trump deemed him savvy, genius, and smart for taking over a country, literally, a vast, vast, location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in.

On his Fox News program, Carlson asked, rhetorically: Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? But Carlson called Ukraine an obedient puppet of the Biden state department and suggests Putins invasion was nothing more than a border dispute.

Putins lies and the lies coming from Americas extreme right are mutually reenforcing. Carlsons Fox News segments show up in Russian propaganda. And when the American site Infowars resurrected an unfounded Russian claim that the United States funded biological weapons labs in Ukraine, Putin repeated the Infowars story.

To conclude from all of this that authoritarians think alike is to miss a deeper truth. Putin, Trump, Carlson, and a growing number of rightwing commentators and activists, have been promoting much the same narrative for much the same reason.

Remember, Putin was put into power by a Russian oligarchy made fabulously rich by siphoning off the wealth of the former Soviet Union. Likewise, Trump and the radical right in America have been bankrolled by an American oligarchy Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, Rebekah Mercer (daughter of hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer), Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, and other billionaires.

What do these two sets of oligarchs get in return? Strongmen who divert the publics attention away from the oligarchs hijacking of their economies toward cultural fears of being overwhelmed by the other. Putins MO has been to fuel Russian ethnic pride and nationalism. The Trump-Carlson-radical rights MO has been to fuel white American nationalism.

In both cases, strongmen and their allies have mythologized a superior culture (replete with creation stories of blood ties, motherlands, and religion) supposedly endangered by decadent forces intent on attacking and overwhelming it.

To Putin, the decadent force is the west. As he put it Friday, domestic culture at all times protected the identity of Russia, which accepted all the best and creative, but rejected the deceitful and fleeting, that which destroyed continuity of our spiritual values, moral principles and historical memory. Hence, a mythic justification for taking Ukraine back from a seductive but inferior western culture that threatens to overwhelm it and Russia.

The Trump-Carlson-white nationalist narrative is similar: Americas dominant white Christian culture is endangered by Black people, immigrants and coastal elites who threaten to overwhelm it.

The culture wars now being orchestrated by the Republican party against transgender people, gay people, poor women seeking abortions, and schools that teach about sex and Americas history of racism, emerge from the same narrative as Putins culture war against a decadent West filled with sociocultural disturbances. As does the rights claim that secularists have, in the words of former Trump attorney general William Barr, mounted an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.

These tropes have served to distract attention from the systemic economic looting that oligarchs have been undertaking, leaving most people poor and anxious. Which is why the grievances that Putin, Trump, Carlson, and the Republican party use are unremittingly cultural; they are never economic, never about class, and most assuredly not about the predations of the super-rich.

Reduced to basics, todays oligarchs and strongmen (along with their mouthpieces and lackeys) are trying to justify their wealth and power by attacking liberal values that have shaped the west, beginning with the enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries the values of tolerance, openness, democracy, self-government, equal rights, and the rule of law. These values are incompatible with a society of oligarchs and strongmen.

Ultimately, the oligarchs and strongmen will lose. Putin wont succeed in subduing Ukraine, Trump wont be re-elected president, and Carlson and his ilk wont persuade Americans to give up on American ideals. But the culture wars wont end any time soon, because so much wealth and power have consolidated at the top of America, Russia, and elsewhere around the world that anti-liberal forces have risen to justify it.

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Why do Putin, Trump, Tucker Carlson and the Republican party sound so alike? - The Guardian

War watch: Putins Armys Top-Down Woes

Russias lost at least five generals fighting in Ukraine in less than a month thanks to communications failures and a lack of discipline among ... conscripted troops thatve made it more difficult to communicate orders to the front lines, Jack Detsch reports at Foreign Policy. Whats likely the highest death rate of Russian general officers since World War II makes the military less able to operate and more bogged down. The invasion marks the largest deployment of Russian forces since the USSRs fall, larger even than the Soviet war in Afghanistan. And Russia relies more on stringent top-down command ... than Western militaries, involving high-ranking officers in the nitty-gritty of tactical decisions. Says US Adm. (ret.) James Foggo, Theyre kind of winging it. This is breaking down into an undisciplined rabble.

President Biden was never circumspect about wanting to destroy Americas energy sector, recalls Spectator Worlds Matt Purple, and when he was elected, he nominated people like John Kerry who sought to do just that. But after canceling the Keystone pipeline and freezing fracking on federal lands, Biden whirls around and says: Change of plan! The man who once harangued the oil companies for peddling fossil fuels is now haranguing them for charging too much for fossil fuels. Its like Carrie Nation sauntering into a saloon and wondering why there arent more Kentucky single-malts. Why the panic over prices? America is and always will be a car culture, and filling up the tank is a regular and visceral punch. With midterms months away, even Team Biden understands this.

Far beyond its losses in Vladimir Putins Ukraine invasion, Russia in the long term say, a generation from now is really, really screwed, notes National Reviews Jim Geraghty. Its population dropped by 1 million in 2021, a stunning figure that reflects a team-up of an aging population, a low birth rate and the pandemic. Add the ongoing exodus of Russians who can emigrate, including more than 200,000 since the invasion started, and estimated war losses already of 7,000 to 15,000 ... young men who will not be returning home and starting families. And climate change threatens the regions where a lot of Russias oil and natural-gas exports originate. In all, on a variety of fronts, the Russia of 2030 is likely to be weaker than the Russia of today, and the Russia of 2040 weaker still.

I have no prejudice against men who wish to identify as women, writes Ayaan Hirsi Ali at UnHerd, but that doesnt mean biological women should be forced to accept the participation of trans women in their sports competitions. There are more than 3,000 genes that contribute to muscle differences between human males and females, and many developments from puberty are permanent. No wonder University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who transitioned to female mid-career, finished 65th when competing in the mens 500-yard freestyle but leapt to finishing first when competing against women. We need a Trans Olympics to allow such individuals to compete with appropriate peers. Otherwise, biological women may find themselves squeezed out of sport altogether.

COVID itself is fading but the idiocy is not, laments Bill Maher on The Adam Carolla Show. I still see people with masks, young people, outside, the people [who say,] The Science. Well, theres no science for that, you moron. Youre not going to get [COVID] outside. And youre young. And the thing is mild now, and its f--king over, almost. Yes, therell be another variant; its how viruses work. And yes, we should have compassion for the people whove suffered from it. But the insanity of it when people are scared, when you induce this mass hysteria, which is what we did. ... Boy!

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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Putin's army is dwindling and other commentary - New York Post

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on March 18, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev | Afp | Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than two decades and during that time has carefully cultivated an image of himself as a tough, strongman leader, fighting for Russia's interests and reinstating the country as a geopolitical and economic superpower.

With his decision to invade neighboring Ukraine, however, analysts say Putin has made the biggest mistake of his political career and has weakened Russia for years to come.

"Everything he has done up to this point [conferred] reputational damage to Russia, but it also enhanced power. And he just kept going and kept going and kept going," Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told CNBC.

"But now he has actually dramatically weakened Russia, in every respect," he said, adding that he could not think of anything that Putin has done in his political career that's comparable.

Global leaders are gathering in Europe on Thursday to discuss the war in Ukraine and how to help the country survive Russia's onslaught: An extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels, as well as meetings of EU leaders and the G-7.

NATO is expected to commit to "major increases" in troop numbers along its eastern flank as well as more arms and humanitarian assistancefor Ukraine, although the military alliance has been reluctant to go further, fearing a direct confrontation with nuclear power Russia.

Speaking to CNBC on Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, "President Putin has made a big mistake and that is to launch a war, to wage a war, against an independent sovereign nation."

"He has underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian people, the bravery of the Ukrainian people and armed forces," Stoltenberg told CNBC's Hadley Gamble.

NATO's plans to step up support for Ukraine, and deployments in Eastern Europe would allow it to respond to "any threat, any challenge, to our security."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has, in one month, prompted more than 3.5 million civilians to flee the country, with hundreds of thousands losing their homes in a relentless bombardment by Russian forces.

The southern city of Mariupol has been the worst hit so far, with the port a key export hub for Ukraine still under siege and heavily destroyed.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said there are around 100,000 civilians still trapped in the city, where water, food, electricity and medical supplies are scarce.

This image made available by Azov Battalion, shows the drama theater, damaged after shelling, in Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday March 17, 2022.

Azov Battalion | AP

Despite deploying near-constant shelling attacks and siege tactics in some areas, Russian forces have only captured one city Kherson and a much-feared assault on the capital Kyiv has yet to begin. In addition, the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv, continues to resist Russian attacks and the western city of Lviv is currently relatively unscathed.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said Wednesday that little had been gained by Russian forces, despite attempts to envelop Ukrainian troops in the east of the country.

In a statement, Blinken compared the destruction in Mariupol to similar Russian campaigns against Grozny in the Second Chechen War and Aleppo during the Syrian civil war.

"Russia's forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded," he said.

Russia has repeatedly said it does not target civilian infrastructure, despite much evidence to the contrary. CNBC has contacted the Kremlin for a response to the U.S. accusation that Russia has committed war crimes and is awaiting a reply.

Under Putin's leadership and until now Russia's economy has prospered.

Putin attracted much foreign direct investment to the country and exploited its natural resources, particularly its abundance of oil and gas, as well as trying to diversify the economy.

During his tenure, however, Russia has also been hit by economic misfortunes both of its own making such as international sanctions after its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, a nerve agent attack in the U.K. and its meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and some it had no control over, such as the 2008 financial crisis, 2014 oil price crash and most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, Russia's economic misfortunes are once again ones that Putin has brought upon the country himself with the invasion of Ukraine.

The economy is already creaking under the weight of international sanctions and on Thursday, when U.S. President Joe Biden meets with European and NATO leaders in Brussels, even more sanctions could be imposed squeezing energy exporter Russia hard.

A column of army trucks moves across the town of Armyansk, northern Crimea. Early on February 24, President Putin announced a special military operation to be conducted by the Russian Armed Forces in response to appeals for help from the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

Sergei Malgavko | TASS | Getty Images

The Institute of International Finance has said it expects Russia's economy to contract by 15% in 2022, driven by both official sanctions and the "self-sanctioning" of foreign companies that have pulled out of Russia.

Predicting a further economic decline of 3% in 2023, the IIF said Wednesday that the war "will wipe out fifteen years of economic growth." Moreover, it said the impact on medium- and long-term prospects is likely to be even more severe, with a "brain drain" and low investment likely to weigh heavily.

Despite making limited progress in his invasion so far, Putinappears undeterred.

Russian forces are now believed to be conducting a period of reorganization before resuming large-scale offensive operations on and around Kyiv.

Taras Kuzio, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society,wrote in an article for the Atlantic Council on Tuesday that it is "increasingly obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin has badly miscalculated."

'He appears to have sincerely believed Kremlin propaganda fairytales about the weakness of the Ukrainian military and the readiness of ordinary Ukrainians to welcome his invading troops with cakes and flowers," Kuzio said, stating that Putin had drunk the Kremlin "kool-aid."

In addition, Putin seems to have been unprepared for the ferocity of the international response or for the scale of domestic opposition to his invasion, Kuzio noted. "Thanks to these catastrophic miscalculations, Putin now finds himself with no good options to end a war that is threatening to accelerate Russia's geopolitical decline as a great power."

Russia has few friends left on the global stage, with the invasion almost universally condemned. Even Russia's ally China appears uneasy about the potentially prolonged conflict in Ukraine and its impact on the global economy.

When the U.N. General Assembly met in early March, 141 countries adopted a resolution demanding that Russia immediately end its military operations in Ukraine. Only a handful of countries a rogue's gallery of Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria, all of which are run by dictators supported Russia's invasion. Russia's allies Cuba, Nicaragua and China abstained in the vote.

Close watchers of Putin say there are increasing signs of desperation in Russia's military campaign and have questioned how far Putin will go to achieve his objectives.

"There are deep mysteries about Russian intentions," Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., told CNBC earlier this month. "How far will they go? What would they consider a victory?"

"There are all sorts of possibilities, from a complete occupation of Ukraine, which I think most observers would say is not possible, to control over a couple of critical political centres in Ukraine, including Kyiv and possibly including Odesa, or perhaps they take have a larger territorial gambit in mind."

In such a scenario, he said Russia would be "very exposed" to an ongoing insurgency which also implies ongoing humanitarian costs. "So there are large dilemmas here," Lesser added.

Michal Baranowski, senior fellow and director of the German Marshall Fund's Warsaw office, told CNBC on Tuesday,that Putin has "really overextended himself."

"We might be looking at the end of Russia as we have known it," he said. "But if he survives this, I think what we might be looking at is the foothills of a new Cold War."

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Putin's invasion of Ukraine is seen as his biggest ever mistake and it will harm Russia for years to come - CNBC

Twelve hours after its forces attacked Ukraine last month, Russian government officials and senior soldiers in South Africa gathered at a comfortable residence in the city of Pretoria for a cocktail reception to celebrate Russian Motherland Defenders Day.

The host was the Russian ambassador, Ilya Rogachev, and his guests included the South African minister of defence as well as the head of the countrys armed forces. Neither saw any reason to shun the gathering as many other nations officials did, nor to apologise afterwards.

Attendance was integral to the fulfilment of defence international affairs, a government spokesperson said.

Support from many African leaders and governments for Moscows invasion of Ukraine or at least reluctance to condemn it has dismayed western officials.

At the UN general assembly resolution 17 African nations abstained almost half all abstentions and one voted against condemning Russia for its aggression and demanding a withdrawal from Ukraine, though a majority of African countries gave it their backing. The resolution passed by 141 to 5.

Some observers have raised the possibility of a new strategic split across Africa, similar to that during the cold war.

It harks back to cold war days and the divisions we saw then. But the objective reality of the international system is so different now this raises a lot of questions about some African countries commitment to the post-cold war order and its values, said Priyal Singh, researcher at Institute for Strategic Studies in Pretoria.

Since the ambassadors party, the ruling African National Congress party in South Africa has doubled down on its refusal to criticise Russia, saying it hopes to remain neutral and encourage dialogue.

Others on the continent have followed a similar line, calling for peace but blaming Natos eastward expansion for the war, complaining of western double standards and resisting all calls to criticise Russia.

That the new divide looks like the one which split Africa decades ago is no coincidence. Many countries across the continent are still ruled by parties that were supported by Moscow during their struggles for liberation from colonial or white supremacist rule, analysts say. Though few among their youthful populations experienced the bitter battles of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, leaders of ruling parties in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique remember how Soviet weapons, cash and advisers helped win freedom.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, the president of Zimbabwe, has described both Russia and China as dependable pillars for many years which assisted us in our fight for independence, but equally to defend our sovereignty against the sustained onslaught by our detractors, a reference to western sanctions on Zimbabwe, imposed after human rights abuses under the regime of Robert Mugabe.

Mozambique also abstained at the UN, arguing like others that it hoped to encourage dialogue to resolve the violence. So too did Algeria, once seen as a revolutionary state close to Moscow.

In recent years Russia has moved to exploit such historic links, underlining ties in public statements, at big conferences and on repeated trips across Africa by foreign minster Sergei Lavrov. Moscow has also pushed its agenda through covert social media networks which portray Moscow as on the side of Africans against western imperialists.

Such efforts have focused on unstable parts of Africa, which Moscow sees as a fertile ground for intervention, and have reaped significant rewards in places like Central African Republic and Mali, where resentment of former colonial power France already ran deep.

In the Sahel there is a strong anti-western feeling, an anti-imperialist tendency in public opinion and anti-imperialist means anti-US and the west, said Pauline Bax, deputy director of the Africa Programme at the International Crisis Group.

Mali has recently renewed ties with Moscow after a military takeover there, and the countrys new rulers have called in paramilitary mercenaries linked to the Kremlin to fight Islamic insurgents as French and other western troops withdraw. The Wagner group is run by a businessman who is a close associate of President Putin and is now thought to be present in at least six African countries, including the CAR and Sudan which both abstained at the UN. Boris Johnson announced sanctions against Wagner on Thursday.

Sudan has also tilted closer to Moscow in recent months. The country, where a military coup last year derailed a fragile transition to democratic rule, has concluded a big deal offering Russia a port on Africas eastern coast for 25 years. Eritrea the only nation on the continent to vote against the UN motion is a brutally repressive authoritarian state which Moscow has also wooed.

Other Russian ties across the continent are strengthened through investment in mining, financial loans and the sale of agricultural equipment or nuclear technology. Rosatom, the Russian state corporation involved with military and civil use of nuclear energy, has sought to expand in Africa in recent years. Russia was the largest arms exporter to sub-Saharan Africa in 201620, supplying almost a third of total sub-Saharan arms imports, up from a quarter in 201115, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Western officials have been particularly disappointed by Uganda, which has received huge sums of western aid. A once close relationship with the US and the UK has soured over the crushing of political dissent and western pressure to recognise LGBT rights. Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, has accused the west of interfering in domestic affairs.

Musevenis influential son and aspirant successor, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, said on Twitter that the majority of mankind (that are non-white) support Russias stand in Ukraine.

Ugandas UN representative said Uganda abstained from the vote on the UN resolution to protect its neutrality as the next chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, a cold war-era group of 120 member states that includes almost every African nation. However Museveni has made little effort to hide his sympathies, criticising the wests aggression against Africa and describing Russia as the centre of gravity for the Balkans, like China in south-east Asia.

Nicholas Sengoba, a columnist with Ugandas Daily Monitor newspaper, said that many authoritarian African leaders like Museveni were pleased to see Putin stand up to the big boys in the west.

Analysts say that more recent examples of what is seen as western neo-imperialism also influences the reaction of many in Africa to the conflict.

The 2011 Libyan crisis and the Nato intervention there, instability in the Sahel and other experiences mean that many countries buy into the wariness of western dominance and believe that we need a global counterpoint Russia is seen as representative of the former Soviet Union in this regard, said Singh.

Reports that some African students have faced discrimination from security officials and others in Ukraine as they attempt to flee the conflict, magnified by social media, have also prompted anger in Nigeria and elsewhere.

But it is unclear how far the positions taken by often elderly leaders reflects broader sentiments, especially among younger populations. The war in Ukraine has laid bare political, social and other divides within countries, as well as among them.

In South Africa, the populist leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters praised Moscows action to avert a patent and clear security threat to Russian territory and people by Nato forces, and particularly the US, while the centre right Democratic Alliance projected the colours of the Ukrainian flag on to the provincial parliament in Cape Town, a city it runs, and said it joined the global condemnation of Russias attack on Ukrainian civilians, mostly women and children.

The anti-western and anti-Nato stance of some on the continent risks overshadowing the early stance against the invasion of Ukraine taken by the African Union, and the speech made by Kenyas ambassador to the UN, Martin Kimani, who argued that as Africans had suffered imperialist violence themselves for centuries they should not condone efforts to alter or impose frontiers by force.

Its important to note that a majority of African nations voted in favour [of the UN resolution] and that regional and continental bodies such as the African Union or the ECOWAS [a West Africa grouping] were quite quick to condemn Moscow, said Bax.

One recent study found that the 27 African countries that voted for the UN resolution were mostly democracies and all western allies, often actively involved in joint military operations. Most of those that abstained or, like Eritrea, voted against the resolution, were authoritarian or hybrid regimes.

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Cold war echoes as African leaders resist criticising Putins war - The Guardian

Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely be forced to bring his failing monthlong war against Ukraine to a halt, a retired US general and Russia specialist told Insider a scenario that may happen within weeks after Russian forces have sustained heavy losses and subjected Ukraine's cities to indiscriminate attacks.

Retired US Army Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan said he believed this to be the "most likely scenario" to play out, as Putin has already "failed to accomplish" his "main military goals" in Ukraine a lightning strike to seize Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, and other big cities and remove their elected leaders and Russia's economy continues to be decimated by sweeping Western sanctions over its war with the Eastern European country.

"Putin will have to halt his war in Ukraine sooner or later and probably in a matter of weeks," Ryan, who served as the defense attach to Russia for the US, among numerous other roles, told Insider on Thursday.

"The reason is not because he wants to halt his military operation but because he has no choice," Ryan, 67, said. "He has basically reached the capacity of what his military can do for him in Ukraine."

Ukraine's armed forces, aided by civilians, have been greatly outnumbered and outgunned by Russian troops since Russia launched its attack in late February, but Ukrainians have managed to put up a fierce resistance, which has resulted in a mounting Russian death toll and an essentially stalled invasion.

An assessment from the Institute for the Study of War found that Ukrainian forces had forced Russian troops into defensive positions, while Putin's forces had "continued to settle in for a protracted and stalemated conflict."

Ryan said the Russian army "has a huge personnel problem."

"There is no significant military unit left in Russia outside of Ukraine. They are all in the fight," he said.

"There is almost no part of the Russian military that's not dedicated, committed to Ukraine, so if he has to escalate, how does he escalate?" he added, referring to Putin.

At this point, Ryan said it would be "impossible" for Russia to take control of all Ukraine like Putin hoped to.

"He does not have the military forces to take all of Ukraine and occupy it," Ryan said, adding: "Russian leadership overestimated what their military was capable of."

Ryan called this "a great achievement by Ukrainian people to have prevented an overthrow of their government and a total seizure of all their land."

Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, and in the weeks since, they have surrounded and shelled several towns across the Eastern European country, hitting multiple civilian targets, including residential buildings, hospitals, and a theater.

But British intelligence said on Friday that thanks to Ukrainian counterattacks, Ukraine had retaken some areas around Kyiv it lost earlier in the war.

Ryan, a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said he believed Ukraine would see "an increase in violence" by Russian forces "in the near future" until Putin was forced to halt his military operation.

Putin "can increase the violence and do more damage and destruction in Ukraine," Ryan said.

"He can try to find and encircle and destroy the Ukrainian military, which is smaller than his," he added. "But even if he does all of those things, he cannot strategically do much more with his military."

Ryan said: "They're out of troops, they're out of units, they are fully committed to doing just what they are now."

But he said an end to the war in Ukraine wouldn't "necessarily mean a halt in violence."

"Violence can continue even during the time of negotiations between the sides," Ryan said, adding that the halting of the invasion would likely be "indefinite" until Putin "gets enough concessions from Ukraine" and even from the West regarding the severe sanctions on Russia.

"So until he gets enough concessions," Ryan said of Putin, "I think he would want to stay in that kind of no man's land of a halted military operation one that could be restarted at any time.

"That would be the threat."

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Putin will have 'no choice' but to stop Ukraine invasion: former US general - Business Insider

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev attend a meeting with members of the government in Moscow, Russia January 15, 2020. Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

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LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - One of President Vladimir Putin's closest allies warned the United States on Wednesday that the world could spiral towards a nuclear dystopia if Washington pressed on with what the Kremlin casts as a long-term plot to destroy Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said the United States had conspired to destroy Russia as part of an "primitive game" since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

"It means Russia must be humiliated, limited, shattered, divided and destroyed," Medvedev, 56, said in a 550-word statement.

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The views of Medvedev, once considered to be one of the least hawkish members of Putin's circle, gives an insight into the thinking within the Kremlin as Moscow faces in the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The United States has repeatedly said that it does not want the collapse of Russia and that its own interests are best served by a prosperous, stable and open Russia.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside usual business hours.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, displaced nearly 10 million and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States - the world's two biggest nuclear powers.

Putin says the operation was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow had to defend against the "genocide" of Russian speakers by Ukraine. Ukraine says Putin's claims of genocide are nonsense.

Medvedev said the Kremlin would never allow the destruction of Russia, but warned Washington that if it did achieve what he characterised as its destructive aims then the world could face a dystopian crisis that would end in a "big nuclear explosion".

He also painted a picture of a post-Putin world that would follow the collapse of Russia, which has more nuclear warheads than any other country.

The destruction of the world's biggest country by area, Medvedev said, could lead to an unstable leadership in Moscow "with a maximum number of nuclear weapons aimed at targets in the United States and Europe."

Russia's collapse, he said, would lead to five or six nuclear armed states across the Eurasian landmass run by "freaks, fanatics and radicals".

"Is this a dystopia or some mad futuristic forecast? Is it Pulp fiction? No," Medvedev said.

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Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Jon Boyle and Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Putin ally warns of nuclear dystopia due to United States - Reuters

British Prime Minister Boris JohnsonBoris JohnsonPhotos of the Week: Ketanji Brown Jackson, cherry blossoms and Oscar statues UK's Johnson: Putin has 'crossed the red line into barbarism' NATO summit to address Russia's invasion of Ukraine underway MORE on Thursday said Russian President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinHouse Oversight launches probe into Credit Suisse ties to Russian oligarchs Biden's 'careless remark' on Putin incenses GOP Leon Panetta: 'All of us share moral outrage about Putin' MORE has crossed the red line into barbarism, as he and other NATO allies entered a high-stakes meeting focused on Moscows invasion of Ukraine.

The British prime minister said Russia should be hit with additional sanctions as a consequence for the invasion, emphasizing that more penalties could help end the conflict at a quicker pace.

Vladimir Putin has already crossed the red line into barbarism, Johnson told reporters as he arrived in Brussels to participate in a meeting of NATO country leaders, according to Reuters.

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He said western allies have to tighten the vice in sanctions against Russia to end Moscows attack.

It is very important we work together to get this thing done. The harder our sanctions ... the more we can do to help Ukraine ... the faster this thing can be over, Johnson said.

Thursday marked one-month anniversary of Russia's invasion, which led to massive sanctions on Moscow from the west.

The European Union expanded sanctions against Moscow earlier this month, targeting Russian politicians and oligarchs. That round of penalties also took aim at the banking sector in Belarus, since Minsk has allowed Russia to utilize its territory as a point to attack Ukraine with missiles and hold Russian troops.

The E.U. also banned exports of maritime navigation technology to Russia.

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UK's Johnson: Putin has 'crossed the red line into barbarism' | TheHill - The Hill