Category Archives: Russia

Bloomberg quoted Marina Gretskaya, a 32-year-old Russian living in London who moved last year to work in communications. She kept a ruble savings account in an online Russian bank, Tinkoff. Two weeks ago, her assets there were worth $7,400. On Monday, the ruble plummeted more than 30 percent against the dollar. That evaporated more than $2,000 from her savings. Its a months salary, she said. The same is almost certainly true for tens of millions of Russians and its just starting.

Oh, and by the way, in this wired world, guess who owns a significant portion of Russias commercial airline fleet.

Not Russia.

Roughly two-thirds of Russias commercial airliners were made by Boeing (334 jets) or Airbus (304), Reuters reported. A significant portion of those are owned by Irish leasing companies. The Dublin-based AerCap, the worlds biggest airplane-leasing company, owns 152 aircraft across Russia and Ukraine valued at almost $2.4 billion, The Irish Times reported. In addition, the Dublin-based companies SMBC Aviation Capital and Avolon own 48 aircraft between them that are leased to Russian airlines.

E.U. sanctions require those companies to repossess all those planes on lease to Russian airlines by the end of March. And Boeing and Airbus announced that they will no longer service or provide spare parts for any of these planes. On Saturday, Russias state airline, Aeroflot, said that it would suspend all international flights because of additional circumstances that prevent the performance of flights. Domestic flights are sure to follow.

Russia spans 11 time zones. If this persists, the grip of the Russian central government over the Russian landmass could begin to loosen. In the Russian Far East there are a lot of cities closer to Beijing than Moscow. Just saying

Now add the sanctions, boycotts and pressure points coming from the superempowered nonstate actors. My favorite is Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old University of Central Florida student who created a Twitter account @RUOligarchJets, or Russian Oligarch Jets that tracks the private jets of Russian billionaires close to Putin. While the 19-year-old is hardly the only person to offer such services, noted Bloomberg, what makes his account different is its easy accessibility and the enticing window it offers on the lives of Putins cronies.

The account garnered 53,000 followers in just a few days, and it now has almost 400,000; a single individual, Sweeney is making it more difficult for Putins pals to hide their often ill-gotten wealth.

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Opinion | The Cancellation of Mother Russia Is Underway - The New York Times

Card payment giants join growing Western corporate boycott imposed on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.

Card payment companies Visa and Mastercard say they will suspend operations in Russia, joining a growing list of international companies refusing to do business with Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

The moves, following a request by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier on Saturday, deal another blow to Russias financial sector and are set to further isolate its sanctions-hit economy.

Mastercard announced that cards issued by Russian banks would no longer be supported by its network and any card issued outside the country would not work at Russian shops or ATMs.

We dont take this decision lightly, Mastercard said in a statement, adding that it made the move after discussions with customers, partners and governments.

Visa also said cards issued in Russia would no longer work outside the country, adding that it was working with clients and partners in Russia to cease all Visa transactions in the coming days.

We are compelled to act following Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed, Visa Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said in a statement.

US President Joe Biden, in a call with Zelenskyy, welcomed the companies decisions.

President Biden noted his administration is urging security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine and is working closely with Congress to secure additional funding, a White House readout of the call said.

The two credit card giants had already announced that they were complying with US and international sanctions imposed on Russia following the February 24 invasion.

Russias major banks, including its largest lender Sberbank and the Russia Central Bank, downplayed the effects the card suspensions would have on their clients.

All Visa and Mastercard bank cards issued by Russian banks will continue to operate normally on Russian territory until their expiration date, the Russia Central Bank said, warning Russians travelling abroad, however, that should carry alternate means of payment.

Economist Mohamed Haidar said the decision by Visa and Mastercard would have a real devastating effect and it may cripple a lot of businesses.

We are talking about the sum of 210 million cardholders in Russia, he told Al Jazeera, adding that there would be hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid bills.

Visas and Mastercards announcements came hours after PayPal halted its services in Russia.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted a letter early Saturday from PayPal CEO Dan Schulman officially announcing:Under the current circumstances, we are suspending PayPal services in Russia.

He added that PayPal would continue to support its staff in the region and would focus on enabling our customers and our global employee community to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

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Visa, Mastercard to suspend operations in Russia - Al Jazeera English

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a pledge on Sunday to increase pressure on Russia through sanctions and provide more aid to Ukraine, but warned that Russia held a military advantage that western allies are finding hard to counter and the war was set to last some time.

Vladimir Putin has, unfortunately, the capacity with the sheer manpower he has in Ukraine and overmatch he has, the ability to keep grinding things down against incredibly resilient and courageous Ukrainians. I think we have to be prepared for this to last for some time, Blinken told CNN.

Americas top diplomat was speaking from Chisinau in Moldova, which sits between Romania, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) military alliance, and the south-western border of Ukraine on the Black Sea, not far from the Ukrainian city of Odesa which is threatened by advancing Russian forces.

Blinken has spent the weekend visiting Nato member nations in eastern Europe that have taken in refugees from Ukraine. He said of the destruction being perpetrated under the direction of Russian president Vladimir Putin in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol that: Just winning a battle is not winning a war, and just taking a city does not mean taking the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people. On the contrary, he is destined to lose.

The Ukrainian people will not allow themselves to be subjugated to Vladimir Putin or to Russias rule but it could take some time, and meanwhile the suffering is real and its terrible, he told CNNs State of the Union Sunday morning TV show.

Blinken said hed met with refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, currently estimated at a stunning 1.5 million.

Were doing everything we can to bring this to an end as quickly as we can but this may still go on for a while, he added.

Pressed on US sanctions on Russia, Blinken defended Washingtons comparative lag in application compared to European Union allies and its failure to cut off Russian imports of oil by the US.

Were adding to sanctions virtually every day, Blinken said. He said he had spoken to US president Joe Biden on Saturday and members of the cabinet on the issue of oil.

We are now talking to our European partners and allies to look in a co-ordinated way at the prospect of banning Russian oil while making sure there is an appropriate supply of oil on world markets.

Blinken also reacted to the issue of providing increased military aid to Ukraine, including sending US fighter jets to Poland so that that country can send supplies of used Migs and Sukhoi military planes to Ukraine, where the military is familiar with those Russian-style jets rather than western-made fighters.

We are working with Poland to see if we can backfill anything they provide to Ukraine. We very much support them, providing planes that the Ukrainians can fly. But we also want to see if we can be helpful in making sure that whatever they provide to the Ukrainians, something goes to them to make up for any gap in security for Poland.

But Blinken, on NBC, insisted that while the US would continue to add to Ukraine with security assistance totaling more than $1bn over the past year the US would not enforce a Ukrainian no fly zone or put the US in direct conflict with Russia.

For everything were doing for Ukraine, the president also has a responsibility to not get us into a direct conflict, a direct war, with Russia, a nuclear power, and risk a war that expands beyond Ukraine to Europe. Were trying to end this war in Ukraine, not start a larger one, he said.

The White House issued a report of Joe Bidens call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday evening, saying his administration is surging security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine and is working closely with Congress to secure additional funding.

Lawmakers in a video call with Zelenskiy on Saturday morning said they were eager to approve an additional $10bn in spending to aid Ukraine.

Leaders are also accusing Vladimir Putin of suspected war crimes based on Russias blatant killing of Ukrainian civilians as part of its action, destroying residential areas far from likely military targets and also directly firing on civilians trying to evacuate.

We have some very credible reports of attacks on civilians, which is what is considered a war crime. Blinken said.

Republican senator Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said he thought the Russian people would ultimately remove Putin from power over his action in Ukraine.

Hopefully to stand trial for war crimes, for what he has done, Rubio said. He described Putin as a monster on ABC.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday morning on the same CNN show that an investigation is needed into whether Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.

I think there needs to be a strong and clear investigation on this question, she said.

US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield told ABCs This Week: Any attack on civilians is a war crime.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is not willing to compromise on its territorial integrity in talks with Russia but is open to discussing non- Nato models for its future security, in a wider forum, one of its negotiators told Fox News.

Ukraine has pursued membership of Nato, cited by Putin as evidence of what he portrays as Nato aggression toward Russia.

Nato members are not ready to even discuss having us in Nato, not for the next period of five or 10 years, negotiator David Arakhamia said in remarks published on the Fox News website late on Saturday.

We are ready to discuss some non-Nato models. For example, there could be direct guarantees by different countries like the US, China, UK, maybe Germany and France. We are open to discussing such things in a broader circle.

And on Sunday afternoon, retired army general David Petraeus, former head of US central command during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he did not accept military assumptions that Kyiv will inevitably fall to Russia.

Russian forces have a 40-mile-long convoy of military vehicles stalled on the approach to the Ukrainian capital and Petraeus said it appeared they cannot keep their columns fueled and praised Ukrainian resilience so far.

Theyve taken down road signs or pointed Welcome to Hell and stuff like that, Petraeus told CNN.

This is going to be a very long fight in Kyiv. The locals there have been stockpiling food, there is going to be an enormously fierce resistance. I dont accept assumptions that it will fall, he said.

Petraeus also noted Kyivs extensive surface area as a major obstacle for the Russian military, pointing out that the capital is spread across around 320 sq miles, larger than New York City and a little over half the size of Londons sprawl.

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Blinken vows to escalate sanctions on Russia but warns war could last some time - The Guardian

A driver sits in the cab of a combine harvester during the summer harvest in a field of wheat in Varva, Ukraine. Ukraine accounts for more than 10% of the global wheat market. Russia's war threatens to disrupt the spring planting season. Vincent Mundy/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

A driver sits in the cab of a combine harvester during the summer harvest in a field of wheat in Varva, Ukraine. Ukraine accounts for more than 10% of the global wheat market. Russia's war threatens to disrupt the spring planting season.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine isn't only jeopardizing the lives of Ukraine's citizens. The war is also on track to cause a surge in severe malnutrition and even starvation around the world.

That's the grim assessment of many experts on global food security, who point to how heavily the rest of the world relies on Ukraine and Russia for wheat and a slew of other essential commodities. As that supply is cut off, it will drive up food prices that are already at record levels and at a time when the economic fallout from the pandemic has already pinched household budgets, most devastatingly in low-income countries.

"Frankly I'm extremely worried," says Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Programme. "People in Ukraine are in a disastrous situation and they're fighting for their lives. But this disaster is beyond borders. It is also going to hurt people thousands of miles away."

To find out just how bad things could get, NPR spoke to Husain, as well as to another prominent analyst, Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow of the International Food Policy Research Institute, or IFPR. Both Glauber and Husain laid out some alarming scenarios. But they also pointed to concrete actions the world could take to ensure the worst does not come to pass. Here are six takeaways:

While a military conflict in Ukraine was always going to have some impact on the world's food supply, WFP's Husain says, "the timing of this unnecessary, unwanted, unjustified war couldn't have been worse."

Take the cost of food. Over the last year the prices of key commodities have jumped to their highest levels since the spikes of 2008 through 2012. Back then the strain prompted people around the world to erupt in civil unrest particularly in the hard-hit Middle East and Northern Africa, notes IFPRI's Glauber.

Food prices have risen dramatically since the start of the pandemic. Above: Edith Obatuga (right), who is bringing up her two children and four nieces and nephews, shops at a market in Lagos, Nigeria. Benson Ibeabuchi /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Food prices have risen dramatically since the start of the pandemic. Above: Edith Obatuga (right), who is bringing up her two children and four nieces and nephews, shops at a market in Lagos, Nigeria.

He says the causes of this current price crunch are manifold. But much of it has to do with reduced supply. Droughts have cut into recent harvests for wheat in North America and for soybean and corn in South America. Typhoons in Malaysia last year shrunk the crop of palm oil used for cooking, among other purposes. The upshot, says Glauber, is that, "it's not like [the war in Ukraine] is coming as we're flush with grain reserves and other things. Prices have been high. This is going to send them higher."

The human cost has also been mounting. "After decades of seeing the percent of the population that is malnourished in the world decline, over the last four or five years we've actually seen rising percentages," says Glauber. Husain notes that currently about 276 million people worldwide are in the midst of a hunger crisis with 44 million of them "one step away from famine. If we cannot assist them they will die. It's that simple."

Then there's the impact of the pandemic. "I think probably the worst thing is that this is coming during the time of COVID," says Husain. "A lot of people in many parts of the world have lost their jobs. They don't have the incomes. They don't have the purchasing power. Now on top of that, they've been dealing with inflation. So you're getting squeezed from both sides."

Many governments too, are less economically resilient now after two years of dipping into their coffers to soften COVID's economic blow on their citizens, adds Husain. "People are tapped out. And governments are tapped out."

In recent years Ukraine and Russia have both become "a major engine" for feeding the world, says Glauber. In an analysis, he and some colleagues found that the various agricultural products exported by the two countries account for about 12% of the calories the world trades.

Much of this is through wheat. Ukraine alone accounts for more than 10% of the global market, says Glauber. Add in Russia and the share jumps to more than 30%.

But it doesn't end there. The two countries are also a major source of grains such as corn and barley that are mainly fed to livestock. Ukraine provides about 15% of the global supply of corn, for instance. And taken together Ukraine and Russia account for just under 30% of the world's barley supply.

Another important product is sunflower oil, one of the main vegetable oils used for cooking. The two countries contribute about 80% of the world's supply.

Russia along with Belarus is also a huge source of fertilizer, providing about 15% of the world's needs.

People line up in front of a supermarket in the Ukrainian town of Vasylkiv, just outside Kyiv on Feb. 27. Overnight, Russian strikes hit a nearby oil depot. Dimitar Dilkoff /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

People line up in front of a supermarket in the Ukrainian town of Vasylkiv, just outside Kyiv on Feb. 27. Overnight, Russian strikes hit a nearby oil depot.

Then there's the crucial stream of oil and gas exported from Russia via Ukraine. While technically these fuels don't count as food, their impact on food prices is enormous, says Husain: "When the price of gas goes up, everything goes up."

There's a range of reasons why the supply of all these commodities could dry up.

The most obvious risk is to Ukraine's exports. "The good news," says Glauber, is that at present most of the wheat from Ukraine's last harvest has already been shipped out of the country. Still, he says, about 30% still awaits transport. That's also the case with about 45% of the corn crop. "Now the ports are shut," he says. So a key question is how long that will remain the case.

Another test will come in April, when planting for corn, barley and sunflower seed should begin much of it in areas where Russia's military is currently bearing down. This summer will be another crucial period. That's when the next major wheat harvest would need to take place.

Russia's planting and harvesting doesn't face the same disruptions as Ukraine's. And sanctions are not currently directly targeting Russia's food exports. Yet the war could still cause major disruption.

Husain notes that two major shipping lines have already refused to do business with Russia. "If you're tainted, nobody's going to do business with you, even if it is allowed," he says. And when even just one component in the export process gets affected the ramification can be enormous. "The supply chain network is so complicated that if somebody sneezes in one place, somebody else gets the cold in another place," says Husain.

Sudanese buy bread from a bakery in Khartoum on Oct. 11, 2021. The country has suffered from shortages of wheat and other essentials due to the closure of Port Sudan during protests. Mujahed Sharaf Al-Deen Sati /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

In the immediate term it would seem that the countries most likely to be affected by a cut-off in exports from Ukraine and Russia are those that currently get a large share of their imports from the two countries. For instance, in their analysis Glauber and his co-authors found that Egypt is one of several countries that get more than about half of their imported calories from Ukraine and Russia. Other heavily reliant countries of concern to food security experts include Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.

But Glauber and Husain both stress that because world commodity markets are so interconnected, it won't take long for prices to rise even in countries that don't currently source their wheat, corn or other commodities directly from Ukraine or Russia. "Any disruption that happens in one place has an effect in another place," says Husain.

A vendor at a market in the war-torn Yemeni capital Sanaa, on Feb. 28, 2022. Ukraine supplies grains to many Middle Eastern countries; Russia's invasion of Ukraine could mean less bread on the table in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world. Mohammed Huwais /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A vendor at a market in the war-torn Yemeni capital Sanaa, on Feb. 28, 2022. Ukraine supplies grains to many Middle Eastern countries; Russia's invasion of Ukraine could mean less bread on the table in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Another way to gauge where the fallout will be most severe is to look to countries that are heavily reliant on one of the products at risk regardless of where they're currently getting it from. Glauber says he worries about Bangladesh, for instance, because it is heavily reliant on fertilizers and because its government has already had to stretch itself to subsidize farmers hurt by the current rise in prices.

Husain, too, says that since every country is likely to feel the stress, he's most concerned about those that are "already in trouble" when it comes to food crises. Unfortunately, he adds, "that's a big list. I mean there are 38 countries where there are people facing emergency levels of hunger."

As depressing as all this may sound, Glauber and Husain both point to a bright spot: Even with the loss of the contributions to the food supply from Ukraine and Russia, there would still technically be enough quantity left to feed the world. In other words, the only problem will be the increased price of that food. This in turn, suggests that the immediate solution will be monetary. As Glauber puts it, "someone has to pay for those higher costs." So if governments and other donors can fill the gap between what people are able to pay and the new, higher price of food, people will not go hungry.

Yemenis receive humanitarian aid provided by the World Food Programme in the capital Sanaa. WFP hopes to raise about $18 billion to assist some 140 million people worldwide this year. To date member states have provided about half of that. Mohammed Huwais /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Unfortunately, says Husain, the world has not been particularly generous even in better times. Just before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the World Food Programme which is the main arm of the United Nations responsible for averting hunger crises was attempting to raise enough money to assist about 140 million people worldwide in 2022. That would require about $18 billion, says Husain. To date he says, member states have provided about 50% of that. And that's not even considering the $580 million that WFP will now be asking countries to contribute to help about 3.2 million Ukrainians inside the country and an additional 200,000 refugees who the United Nations estimates will now need food aid over the next six months.

"This is our world in the 21st century," he says.

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Russia's war on Ukraine is dire for world hunger. But there are solutions - NPR

March 6 (Reuters) - Two of the Big Four accounting firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on Sunday said they will no longer have a member firm in Russia due to the country's invasion of Ukraine.

The auditing and consultancy giant KPMG said its Russia and Belarus firm will leave the KPMG network, a move that will affect over 4,500 partners and staff in Russia and Belarus.

Separately, PwC agreed PwC Russia will leave its network. The firm has operated in Russia for more than 30 years, and has 3,700 partners and staff there, it said.

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"As a result of the Russian government's invasion of Ukraine we have decided that, under the circumstances, PwC should not have a member firm in Russia and consequently PwC Russia will leave the Network," PwC said.

Sanctions imposed by the U.K., EU and the U.S. on Russia are forcing firms globally to consider whether they should continue working with Russian clients who are state-owned.

Earlier Sunday, Britain said it will seek to speed up its sanctions process on Monday via new legislation designed to allow ministers to tighten restrictions on Russian businesses and wealthy individuals. read more

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Reporting by Akriti Sharma in BengaluruEditing by Chris Reese

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Accounting firms KPMG and PwC to exit Russia - Reuters

Hours after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the Chinese Communist Party tabloid, Global Times, posted a video saying that a large number of Ukrainian soldiers had laid down their arms. Its source: the Russian state-controlled television network, RT.

Two days later, Chinas state broadcaster Central Television Station (CCTV) flashed a breaking news alert, quoting Russias parliamentary speaker, that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had fled Kyiv. CCTV then created a related hashtag on the Twitter-like platform Weibo that was viewed 510 million times and used by 163 media outlets in the country.

On Feb. 28, as Russia became an international pariah, the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik shared a message of strength with its 11 million Weibo followers. The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Sputnik said, said Russia still had friends in the world, especially a real giant like China.

Add oil, Russia, Sputniks Weibo follower @fengyiqing cheered on, using a Chinese expression of support. All the people in the world who love justice are friends of Russia.

As European and American officials press Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and other online platforms to clamp down on Russian disinformation, China has embraced Russias propaganda and lies about the war. Chinas state-owned media outlets quoted their Russian counterparts coverage without verification, helping to magnify their disinformation on the Chinese internet. They put Russian officials on state television networks with little pushback on their claims.

When it comes to information, the Chinese government is a control freak, dictating and censoring what its 1.4 billion people consume. Beijing has silenced and jailed its critics and journalists. It has coerced and co-opted the biggest Chinese online platforms to enforce its censorship guidelines. It blocks nearly all major western news and information websites, including Google, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC.

Yet as the world faces one of its most serious geopolitical crises since the end of the Cold War, China let down its digital defenses and allowed Kremlins propaganda machine to help shape public perception of the war. No wonder the Chinese internet is overwhelmingly pro-Russia, pro-war and pro-Putin.

If China wants to remain officially ambiguous about whether it supports Vladimir V. Putins war refusing to call it an invasion and abstaining from a U.N. vote to condemn the invasion its state-controlled media nonetheless makes very clear where China stands.

The China-Russia information alliance is forged over a shared worldview of two leaders, Xi Jinping and Vladimir V. Putin, who, out of deep distrust of the United States, are determined to challenge the Wests dominance in the competition for public opinion.

In a 2013 speech, Mr. Xi urged the countrys propaganda workers to enhance the countrys international discourse power under the notion of telling Chinas story well. During a visit to RTs headquarters in the same year, Mr. Putin said the network was created to break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the global information streams.

In 2015, Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin decided the two countries should strengthen their cooperation in media. Since then, theyve held a Sino-Russian media forum each year, aiming to redefine the map of the international discourse.

Last November, a RT executive said at the forum that major Chinese media outlets quoted RT.com on average 2,500 times a week in 2021.

Many Chinese media organizations admire RT and Sputnik, which they believe have broken the Wests information monopoly, or at least muddied the water. Many media experts have analyzed what Chinas state-owned media could learn from their successes. One academic paper detailed RTs coverage of Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014 to illustrate how the Russian network carefully planned its reporting strategy to increase its seeming credibility and accessibility so it could set its own agenda.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Kremlins media machines worked well in China. Combined with Beijings censorship of pro-Ukraine content, they wove a web of disinformation that proved difficult for most Chinese online users to escape.

The message they are trying to drive home: Russias military actions are anti-West, anti-NATO expansion and anti-Nazi thus justified and popular.

In Chinas state media, theres very little about the international condemnation of Russia; Ukraines success in the battle for public opinion, led by President Zelensky; or antiwar protests in Russia.

The one-two punch is working, keeping the Chinese public from facts while sowing confusion.

On the Chinese social media platforms, many people adopted Mr. Putins and Russian medias language, calling the Ukrainian side extremists and neo-Nazis.

They kept bringing up the Azov Battalion as if it represented all of Ukraine. The battalion, a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, is known for having neo-Nazi sympathizers but remains a fringe presence in the country and its military.

President Zelensky himself is Jewish and won the presidential election in 2019 with 73 percent of the votes. His approval rate soared to over 90 percent recently for his wartime leadership.

Gas supplies. Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and it is likely to be walloped with higher heating bills. Natural gas reserves are running low, and European leaders have accused Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, of reducing supplies to gain a political edge.

Shortages of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, has been soaring amid fears that Russia, the worlds largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another key Russian export, has also been rising.

Financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctionsintended to restrict Russias access to foreign capital and limit its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies crucial for trade. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyberattacks by Russia.

The fog of disinformation thickens when Chinese state media portrays Russias war as an anti-fascism effort. After Russias defense minister announced this week that his country would host the first international anti-fascism conference in August, the CCTV posted a one-paragraph story, then created a Weibo hashtag. Within 24 hours, it had 650 million views and was used by 90 media outlets. Many commenters called Ukraine and the United States fascist countries.

Chinese media is also propagating Russian disinformation that Ukraine has been using civilians as human shields. In its prime-time news program on Feb. 26, CCTV quoted President Putin as making that allegation. A few days later the nationalistic news site, guancha.com, ran a banner headline that said the Russian military was going only after military targets, while the Ukrainian military was using civilians as human shields.

Taken collectively, Chinese online users are seeing a quite different war from much of the world.

While videos circulated outside China purportedly showing Ukrainians kind treatment of Russian prisoners of war, the trending social media topic in China was that captured Russians had endured Nazi-like torture. Both CCTV and the Peoples Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, created hashtags echoing the same, based on a briefing by the Russian defense ministry. They had combined views of more than 200 million.

Sputnik, with 11.6 million followers on Weibo, has been posting more than 100 items a day lately, populating its timeline with words like criminal Zelensky, empire of lies, fake news and Nazi.

We must stand with Russia! Weibo user @qingdaoxiaowangzi commented on one of Sputniks posts, using a popular line on the Chinese internet. If Russia falls, NATO and the neo-Nazi United States will bully China!

At the same time, Weibo and other platforms are censoring pro-Ukraine content. The Weibo account of the actor Ke Lan, which has 2.9 million followers, was suspended after she retweeted a video and a photo about an antiwar protest in Russia with the emoticon . So was the account of a transgender celebrity, Jin Xing, with 13.6 million followers. Respect all lives and resolutely oppose the war!!! her last post said.

But as the war continues and China recalibrates its position, some Chinese online users have begun to scrutinize the Russian news media reports. Under a Sputnik Weibo post contending that the Ukrainian military murdered civilians, a user with the handle @jialalabadededashen wrote, Is this another news item that was tailor made by the Russian news agency for China?

In a social media discussion, some people called out Russia for waging an information war in China. Russias external propaganda has infiltrated China out-and-out, wrote a Weibo user called @juediqiangshou. Thats why all the excuses to justify the invasion are popular here.

Some people are also raising questions about whether the flood of pro-Russia information would be detrimental to the interests of China and its people.

Even Wang Xiaodong, a famous nationalist writer, suggested on Weibo that the Russia-Ukraine war was more complicated than it seemed. The Chinese people should have access to comprehensive and diversified information, he wrote on Wednesday.

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How China Embraces Russian Propaganda and Its Version of the War - The New York Times

KYIV, Ukraine With hands still dirty from the battlefield, a dozen Russian prisoners of war sat, stony-faced, in a conference room of a Ukrainian news agency on Saturday and described being captured after their armored columns were ambushed.

Lt. Dmitry Kovalensky, who had fought in a Russian tank unit and spoke at the behest of his Ukrainian captors, said he recently came under fire from an armed drone and shoulder-launched anti-tank missiles on a road near Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine. The whole column burned, he said.

Around the same time and a few miles away, at a makeshift Ukrainian military base in an abandoned building on the western edge of Kyiv, Ukrainian soldiers prepared for the same sort of ambushes that took out Lieutenant Kovalenskys unit.

Lt. Yevgeny Yarantsev, a Ukrainian officer, said his countrys soldiers fight differently than the Russians. The troops under his command organize in small, nimble units that can sneak up on and ambush the lumbering columns of Russian tanks.

They have a lot of tanks, we have a lot of anti-tank weapons, said Lieutenant Yarantsev, who previously fought with a volunteer group against Russia in eastern Ukraine. In the open field, it will be even. Its easier to fight in the city.

The two young officers the same rank, but each representing a different country gave some of the few firsthand accounts of the fighting that have emerged in the 10-day war. The Russian was a prisoner of war speaking under the watchful eye of heavily armed Ukrainian security officials. The Ukrainian spoke as he displayed newly obtained, sophisticated weapons from the United States.

The accounts of soldiers from both sides give a small glimpse of how the war is being fought around Kyiv in the north. There, relying largely on ambush tactics, Ukrainian forces have slowed the Russian campaign to encircle and capture the capital, even as Russian troops barrel across the south.

Lieutenant Kovalensky and the other Russian prisoners were presented at a news conference intended to support Ukraines claim that it had captured a significant number of Russian soldiers. In their statements, the prisoners blended woodenly phrased condemnations of their own countrys leadership with genuine-sounding details of the conflicts early firefights.

According to the rules governing treatment of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, governments are supposed to protect a prisoner of war from being made into a public curiosity, a concept that is sometimes interpreted as not presenting them in any public setting. The Russian soldiers looked exhausted, but showed no outward signs of having been mistreated.

The prisoners comments and the fact of their capture supported descriptions by Western military analysts and governments of a Russian offensive that has suffered grave setbacks. The Russian armys superior numbers and equipment, however, could well reverse that trend.

Near the end of the days movement on Feb. 27, our column was attacked, Pvt. Dmitry Gagarin of the Russian army told the reporters. My commander burned and died. I ran into the forest and later surrendered to local people.

Lieutenant Kovalensky said he learned Russia would invade Ukraine only the evening before the tank columns began moving, and that soldiers at the rank of sergeant and lower were not told where they were driving until after crossing the border.

March 6, 2022, 9:33 p.m. ET

All the prisoners described being captured after their armored columns were ambushed on roads, accounts that supported Ukraines assertions that its military had made good use of Western-supplied anti-tank weaponry, such as the American-made Javelin missile. But independent analysts have also described more mundane problems for the Russian army, including logistical snarls and a lack of fuel.

Lieutenant Yarantsev, the Ukrainian officer, commands what he described as a mobile group of about 500 soldiers who are skirmishing with the Russians on the western approach to Kyiv. He said that their prospects were bolstered three days ago when they received Barrett 50-caliber sniper rifles in a shipment from the United States.

Sleek and black, with barrels so long they look almost like spears, the rifles were being unpacked and inspected. One sniper, who declined to offer his name, said he had fired one in combat on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Protests in Russia. Amid antiwar rallies across Russia, the police said more than 3,000 people were arrested Sunday, the highest nationwide total in any single day of protest in recent memory. An activist group that tracks arrests reported detentions in 49 different Russian cities.

Lieutenant Yarantsev said the troops were more comfortable being able to garrison in buildings than in fields or forests. Ive noticed something about war, he said. Soldiers want to be somewhere where cellphones work and where there is internet.

The building the soldiers have taken up in, in a leafy residential area of the city, was cluttered with ammunition boxes. Two hand grenades sat on the floor beside a sofa. The soldiers had an electric kettle and offered coffee. In a hallway, a soldier oiled his Kalashnikov.

The fighting has been inching closer to the capital. Ukraines defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said in a statement on Saturday that the Russian forces primary objective is to encircle Kyiv, following the tactic they have pursued with smaller cities such as Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, which is now surrounded, with its heat and electricity cut off.

The fighting around Kyiv is mostly in Irpin and Bucha, two outlying towns to the northwest, where conditions are grim. A central street in Bucha is now clogged with the burned husks of Russian armored personnel carriers, destroyed in an ambush.

Stanislav Bobrytsky, a computer programmer reached by phone in Irpin, said he had not left his apartment since Tuesday. All the windows are shaking from blasts, he said. Its very scary.

In the center of Kyiv, at the news conference with captured Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian security officials present refused to speak. A moderator passed around a microphone, offering reporters an opportunity to question the prisoners.

Lieutenant Kovalensky said he was appealing to the Russian people to rise up and overthrow President Vladimir V. Putin because the Russian leadership had deceived the armys officers about the aims of the war and had used the guise of a military exercise to prepare for an invasion.

The prisoners said they did not know what would happen to them after the news conference. While they said they were treated well, days after their capture it was unclear if they had showered or been offered clean clothes.

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Lviv, Ukraine.

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Russian Prisoners and Ukrainian Soldiers Describe Two Sides of the Conflict - The New York Times

WASHINGTON As they impose historic sanctions on Russia, the Biden administration and European governments have set new goals: devastate the Russian economy as punishment for the world to witness, and create domestic pressure on President Vladimir V. Putin to halt his war in Ukraine, current and former U.S. officials say.

The harsh penalties which have hammered the ruble, shut down Russias stock market and prompted bank runs contradict previous declarations by U.S. officials that they would refrain from inflicting pain on ordinary Russians. We target them carefully to avoid even the appearance of targeting the average Russian civilian, Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser for international economics, said at a White House briefing last month.

The escalation in sanctions this week has occurred much faster than many officials had anticipated, largely because European leaders have embraced the most aggressive measures proposed by Washington, U.S. officials said.

With Russias economy crumbling, major companies Apple, Boeing and Shell among them are suspending or exiting operations in the country. The Biden administration said on Thursday that it would not offer sanctions relief amid Mr. Putins increasingly brutal offensive.

The thinking among some U.S. and European officials is that Mr. Putin might stop the war if enough Russians protest in the streets and enough tycoons turn on him. Other U.S. officials emphasize the goals of punishment and future deterrence, saying that the carcass of the Russian economy will serve as a visible consequence of Mr. Putins actions and a warning for other aggressors.

But Russias $1.5 trillion economy is the worlds 11th largest. No countries have tried pushing an economy of that size to the brink of collapse, with unknown consequences for the world. And the actions of the United States and Europe could pave the way for a new type of great-power conflict in the future.

The moves have also ignited questions in Washington and in European capitals over whether cascading events in Russia could lead to regime change, or rulership collapse, which President Biden and European leaders are careful to avoid mentioning.

This isnt the Russian peoples war, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a news conference on Wednesday. But, he added, the Russian people will suffer the consequences of their leaders choices.

The economic costs that weve been forced to impose on Russia are not aimed at you, he said. They are aimed at compelling your government to stop its actions, to stop its aggression.

The harshest sanctions by far are ones that prevent the Central Bank of Russia from tapping into much of its $643 billion in foreign currency reserves, which has led to a steep drop in the value of the ruble. Panic has set in across Russia. Citizens are scrambling to withdraw money from banks, preferably in dollars, and some are fleeing the country.

The United States and Europe also announced new sanctions this week against oligarchs with close ties to Mr. Putin. Officials are moving to seize their houses, yachts and private jets around the world. French officials on Thursday snatched the superyacht of Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Rosneft, the Russian state oil giant.

The sanctions have turned out to be quite unprecedented, said Maria Snegovaya, a visiting scholar at George Washington University who has studied U.S. sanctions on Russia. Everybody in Russia is horrified. Theyre trying to think of the best way to preserve their money.

The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has used some of the harshest language yet to articulate the mission, telling a radio program on Tuesday that Western nations were waging an all-out economic and financial war on Russia to cause the collapse of the Russian economy. He later said he regretted his words.

Evidence of shock and anger among Russians mostly anecdotal in a country with restricted speech and little public opinion polling has raised the specter of mass political dissent, which, if strong enough, could threaten Mr. Putins grip on power.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Fox News, The best way for this to end is having Eliot Ness or Wyatt Earp in Russia, the Russian Spring, so to speak, where people rise up and take him down.

March 6, 2022, 9:33 p.m. ET

Mr. Graham added: So Im hoping somebody in Russia will understand that hes destroying Russia, and you need to take this guy out by any means possible, reiterating his Twitter post on Thursday calling for an assassination of Mr. Putin.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said on Monday that the sanctions were intended to bring down the Putin regime. Mr. Johnsons office quickly corrected the statement, saying that it did not reflect his governments view and that the goal of the measures was to stop Russias assault on Ukraine.

Michael A. McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, called the talk of Mr. Putins overthrow unhelpful, emphasizing that the sanctions should be tailored and described as a means of stopping the invasion. The objective should be to end the war, he said.

But while the Biden administration has said it is still open to diplomacy with Russia, it has not offered to reverse any of the sanctions in exchange for de-escalation.

Right in this moment, theyre marching toward Kyiv with a convoy and continuing to take reportedly barbaric steps against the people of Ukraine, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday. So, no, now is not the moment where we are offering options for reducing sanctions.

But in an interview on Friday with the Russian news agency TASS, Victoria J. Nuland, the U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, suggested terms for possible sanctions relief, albeit maximalist ones. She said that Mr. Putin had to end the war, help to rebuild Ukraine and recognize its sovereignty, borders and right to exist. Those are conditions that the Russian leader is highly unlikely to consider.

All the while, Biden officials have sought to assure the Russian people that they take no pleasure in their suffering. The United States and Europe have tried to spare Russians some of the effects, including allowing sales of consumer technology to Russia despite sweeping new limits on exports.

They have also refrained from imposing energy sanctions because of Europes dependence on Russian gas and the risk of higher oil prices.

Even so, Mr. Putin and his aides are doing their best to find some political advantage in the sanctions, arguing that the real goal for the West has always been to weaken Russia. As he launched his invasion last week, Mr. Putin said the United States would have sanctioned his country no matter what.

Protests in Russia. Amid antiwar rallies across Russia, the police said more than 3,000 people were arrested Sunday, the highest nationwide total in any single day of protest in recent memory. An activist group that tracks arrests reported detentions in 49 different Russian cities.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Russias foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said that the sanctions were meant to target regular people and that the West had cut off cultural exchange programs and even Russian sports teams.

Whatever their precise goal, sanctions have a poor record of persuading governments to change their behavior. The Trump administrations sanctions on Iran, perhaps the harshest imposed on any country, failed to compel Tehran to stop supporting militias across the Middle East or halt its efforts at uranium enrichment after President Donald J. Trump withdrew from a nuclear agreement. North Korea has pushed forward with a nuclear weapons program despite major sanctions by four American presidents.

The same has largely been true of U.S. sanctions on Syria, Cuba and Venezuela.

On occasion, the U.S. government has achieved modest goals with sanctions. Some analysts and U.S. officials argue that Iran began negotiations on a nuclear agreement after the Obama administration imposed sanctions. Trump administration officials said sanctions helped compel Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, to meet with Mr. Trump (along with Twitter messages and letters between the leaders).

And some former Obama officials, including ones who now serve in the Biden administration, have argued that sanctions on Russia in 2014 helped to dissuade Mr. Putin from pushing deeper into Ukraine after he annexed Crimea and started a separatist war in the countrys east.

This winter, the Biden administration used the threat of sanctions to try to deter Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine. It warned that the measures would be severe but did not go into details. U.S. officials did not publicly mention the possibility of penalizing Russias central bank the harshest sanction imposed so far because they were uncertain whether European nations would be on board, a former U.S. official said.

After the United States, Britain and the European Union announced sanctions on the central bank, the ruble plummeted in value on Monday. The bank no longer has access to foreign currency reserves held outside Russia, so it cannot use those assets to buy rubles and prop up its value. The Treasury Department has also imposed sanctions on some Russian state-owned companies that have foreign currency holdings that the central bank could tap.

As its economy trembled, Russia suspended trading on its stock market. On a Russian news program, Alexander Butmanov, an investment analyst, raised a toast and said, Dear stock market, you were close to us, you were interesting. Rest in peace, dear comrade.

Some Russians this week were driving to borders with bags of cash.

But if the goal of sanctions is to compel Mr. Putin to halt his war, then the end point seems far-off.

The Russian political system doesnt depend on the peoples approval. That matters, but its not the most important thing, Ms. Snegovaya said. It might depend on the scale of the crisis if we see lots of protests in the streets, it might make the Kremlin think twice.

More:

With Sanctions, U.S. and Europe Aim to Punish Putin and Fuel Russian Unrest - The New York Times

The first week of Vladimir Putins invasion into Ukraine has not gone to plan, with the Russian military admitting the deaths of 500 soldiers (Ukrainian estimates are higher) and western sanctions dealing a body blow to the Russian economy that will only grow worse in the coming weeks.

And yet the Russian leader seems even more invested in his campaign to conquer Ukraine, lured in by the growing stakes of the most ambitious and dangerous gamble of his 22 years in power.

Putins in the corner, said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Moscow Carnegie Centre. Its him against the whole world.

Despite some early defeats, Russia maintains military superiority in Ukraine, where its firepower is likely to give it the edge as the war continues. But the question remains how far Putin is willing to go in bombing Ukrainian cities, in resisting western sanctions, and in punishing those at home who dare to call for peace.

Much further, say Kremlin watchers.

I think its going to get worse, said Kadri Liik, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. For Putin, the incentive is to escalate. He has gone all in. I cannot see him modifying his war because that would be a loss in his eyes. Any chance to come to an agreement with western powers had probably passed, she said.

And I think itll be pretty full-blown dictatorship at home. You can see it coming.

Western officials believe the risks are high for the Russian leader. While the rule of thumb in diplomatic circles was that Putin would be in power for the next decade, his appetite for risk has raised questions about whether he could provoke a public backlash or an elite power struggle earlier, especially as Russias economy enters recession.

For now, all the public data suggests Putin enjoys popular support for the war in which the major cities of Kharkiv, Kyiv and Mariupol have been shelled.

Employees of several Russian pollsters have said that they are concerned that the robust numbers in support of the war could embolden the Kremlin and prolong the conflict.

Russian state television has largely stuck to its script that the special military operation is going according to plan. State TV hosts have decried fakes about the Russian army enduring heavy losses, or missile strikes against population centres, trying to get a step ahead of the disturbing images coming out of the war through social media.

And with an eye to a potential backlash over the war, Russian lawmakers have passed a tough new law that carries a punishment of up to 15 years for publishing fakes about the Russian military, meaning information not distributed by official sources.

It is clear that the Russian government has always been worried how this war would be perceived by the public, especially if it begins to go poorly.

Maybe some people can open their eyes and see that it is Putin who is responsible for the situation and his ambitions are not the ambitions of the whole nation and the war was in vain, the war was unjust, said Kolesnikov. But thats only a hypothesis because for now, most of the people support this operation.

Putin has put his top advisers on television to imitate a public discussion about a war that has been a surprise for many Russians. Beyond selling the war to the public, the televised show also tied many of those officials closer to Putin, making it harder for them to later denounce the war or act as if they had not lobbied for it.

You cant discuss the situation in rational terms, said Kolesnikov. All these people at the very top are in one boat, one submarine with Putin and they dont have an exit from it right now.

While some have whispered about dissent in the Kremlin ranks, a few western officials have openly called for it.

In an extraordinary statement, Lindsey Graham, a US senator from South Carolina, asked: Is there a Brutus in Russia?

The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out, he said in a tweet.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, called the remarks a massive hysterical Russophobic fit.

But they will fit neatly into the Russian propaganda about the recent sanctions, which Russia claims are aimed more at punishing Putin and seeking regime change than in trying to end the war in Ukraine.

The war will now enter its second week. Natos Jens Stoltenberg has warned that the coming days are likely to be worse as Russia begins to turn to its advantage in air power and artillery to break into resisting cities. And after Putin spoke with Emmanuel Macron, a French official said that Putin was prepared to go all the way.

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Russia appears to have no way out as Putin goes all in - The Guardian

The U.S. State Department denounced the Russian government on Wednesday evening for cracking down on independent media coverage in Russia of the invasion of Ukraine including threatening Voice of America.

Why it matters: Russia's Putin-dominated parliament will hold a special session this Friday "to consider a bill that would make 'unofficial' reporting on Russias further invasion of Ukraine punishable by up to 15 years in prison," per an emailed statement from State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

Driving the news: The Russian government's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, claims VOA's news site "contains false messages about terrorist attacks or other kind (sic) of information of public concern," according to a statement from the broadcaster.

Reality check: The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on Wednesday he was immediately launching an investigation into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide committed in Ukraine.

Context: The action follows a series of sanctions imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government by the U.S. and other countries over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

What they're saying: "Any attempts to interfere with the free flow of news and information are deeply troubling. We find this order to be in direct opposition to the values of all democratic societies," said acting VOA director Yolanda Lpez in a statement.

The bottom line: "Russia is engaged in an unprovoked war on Ukraine. At home, the Kremlin is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth, and Moscows efforts to mislead and suppress the truth of the brutal invasion are intensifying," Price said.

Go deeper: The latest on the Russia-Ukraine crisis

Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment from Price.

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Russia threatens to block VOA unless it removes Ukraine invasion coverage - Axios