For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
maybe kyle rittenhouse can go international and go to ukraine to protect their property?
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
maybe kyle rittenhouse can go international and go to ukraine to protect their property?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
maybe kyle rittenhouse can go international and go to ukraine to protect their property?
you sir are on to something......
i was just using his excuse and applying it to some place that really needs help in defending property.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
maybe kyle rittenhouse can go international and go to ukraine to protect their property?
you sir are on to something......
i was just using his excuse and applying it to some place that really needs help in defending property.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
They are not allowed on airplanes, likely cuz covid is mad crazy currently???
Yesterday at 8:03 p.m. EST|Updated yesterday at 9:06 p.m. EST
Ukrainian
border guards who insulted Russian forces this week in a recorded
exchange that went viral may not have been killed, Ukrainian officials
said Saturday, contradicting an earlier claim by Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky.
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said in a statement posted to its Facebook
page that the guards may be alive, after Russian media reported that
they were taken as prisoners from their base on Snake Island in the
Black Sea to Sevastopol, a port city that Russia controls on the Crimean
Peninsula.
Zelensky
cited the guards’ story Thursday while highlighting Ukrainian
resistance to a Russian invasion, saying that 13 guards had “died
heroically.” He said he would recognize each with the title Hero of
Ukraine.
Key moments from the third day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
On
Feb. 26, explosions and widespread damage were seen on the streets of
Ukraine as Russia continued its country-wide attack. (The Washington
Post)
“May the memory of those who gave their lives for Ukraine live forever,” Zelensky said.
The
guards’ actions drew international attention after an audio recording
of their encounter with the Russians was published on the website of the
Ukrainian news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda. A Ukrainian official confirmed its authenticity to The Washington Post on Thursday.
In the clip, a Russian voice warns the border guards that they will be attacked if they do not give up.
“I
am a Russian warship,” a voice from the invaders says. “I ask you to
lay down your arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary
deaths. Otherwise, you will be bombed.”
The Ukrainians responded boldly before they were attacked.
“Russian warship,” came the reply, “go f--- yourself.”
Ukrainian
officials said in the Facebook post Saturday that the border guards
were attacked by both Russian aircraft and weapons from the ship, and
that Ukrainian officials lost communication with the guards after
infrastructure was destroyed. It now appears it was assumed the guards
were killed.
Ukrainian
officials said Saturday that they were working to determine what
happened to the guards and praised them for digging in. It was not clear
how many guards were on the island when the attack began or if any were
killed.
The
border guards’ message for the Russians spread rapidly, with many
comparing it to famous rallying cries from earlier wars. Maj. Gen. Mick
Ryan, an Australian military officer, compared it to “NUTS!” a response
that then-U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe sent to Nazi forces who
sought an American surrender during the Battle of Bastogne in World War
II.
“Today, none of us will ever forgot what these servants of their nation did there,” Ryan tweeted.
The Kyiv Post reported Saturday that the message for the Russian ship appeared on a digital road sign hanging over a Ukrainian highway.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
They are not allowed on airplanes, likely cuz covid is mad crazy currently???
Only the vaccinated are allowed to fly and join the military these days…
For those looking to contribute more than money here is an opportunity…
maybe all of those "freedom fighting" truckers who said they were fighting a tyrannical dictator might want to do it for real now that playtime is over?
While restrictions remain in place at the border and with airlines I guess we will never know…which is what they were fighting for..salud!!
Why the Toughest Sanctions on Russia Are the Hardest for Europe to Wield
Moscow relies on the money it makes by selling oil and gas, but that energy fuels Europe’s economy and heats its homes.
The punishing
sanctions that the United States and European Union have so far
announced against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine include shutting
the government and banks out of global financial markets, restricting
technology exports and freezing assets of influential Russians.
Noticeably missing from that list is the one reprisal that would cause
Russia the most pain: choking off the export of Russian fuel.
The
omission is not surprising. In recent years, the European Union has
received nearly 40 percent of its gas and more than a quarter of its oil
from Russia. That energy
heats Europe’s homes, powers its factories and fuels its vehicles,
while pumping enormous sums of money into the Russian economy.
Losing out on those revenues would be hard for Russia, which relies
heavily on energy exports to finance its government operations and
support its economy. Oil and gas exports provide more than a third of the national budget. But a cutoff would hurt Europe as well.
“You want the
sanctions to hurt the perpetrator more than the victim,” said David L.
Goldwyn, who served as a State Department special envoy on energy in the
Obama administration.
The situation
would surprise some of last century’s cold warriors. Throughout most of
the post-World War II era of superpower confrontation, many analysts
believed that the more economically intertwined the Soviet Union and the
West became, the less likely it was that conflicts would arise. Trade
and economic self-interest would ultimately make allies out of
everybody, the argument went.
Now, the European Union is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 37 percent of its global trade in 2020. About 70 percent of Russian gas exports and half of its oil exports go to Europe.
The flip side of mutual interest is mutual pain.
European leaders are caught between wanting to punish Russia for its aggression and to protect their own economies.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Mickey will no doubt post Heather Cox Richardson's letter in his excellent thread, but I'm never sure how many read that and I think her letter today is well worth checking out, so I'll post it here as well. Excellent stuff, this!
Southern
novelist William Faulkner’s famous line saying “The past is never dead.
It’s not even past,” is usually interpreted as a reflection on how the
evils of our history continue to shape the present. But Faulkner also
argued, equally accurately, that the past is “not even past” because
what happens in the present changes the way we remember the past.
Russia’s
attack on Ukraine and the defiant and heroic response of the people of
Ukraine to that new invasion are changing the way we remember the past.
Less
than a week ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched an assault
on Ukraine, and with his large military force, rebuilt after the
military’s poor showing in its 2008 invasion of Georgia, it seemed to
most observers that such an attack would be quick and deadly. He seemed
unstoppable. For all that his position at home has been weakening for a
while now as a slow economy and the political opposition of people like
Alexei Navalny have turned people against him, his global influence
seemed to be growing. That he believed an attack on Ukraine would be
quick and successful was clear today when a number of Russian state
media outlets published an essay, obviously written before the invasion,
announcing Russia’s victory in Ukraine, saying ominously that “Putin
solved the Ukrainian question forever…. Ukraine has returned to Russia.”
But
Ukrainians changed the story line. While the war is still underway and
deadly, and while Russia continues to escalate its attacks, no matter
what happens the world will never go back to where it was a week ago.
Suddenly, autocracy, rather than democracy, appears to be on the ropes.
In
that new story, countries are organizing against Putin’s aggression and
the authoritarianism behind it. Leaders of the world’s major economies,
including Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore, though not
China, are working together to deny Putin’s access to the world’s
financial markets.
As
countries work together, international sanctions appear to be having an
effect: a Russian bank this morning offered to exchange rubles for
dollars at a rate of 171:1. Before the announcement that Europe and the
U.S. would target Russia’s central bank, the rate was 83:1. Monday
morning, Moscow time, the ruble plunged 30%. As Russia’s economy
descends into chaos, investors are jumping out: today BP, Russia’s
largest foreign investor, announced it is abandoning its investment in
the Russian oil company Rosneft and pulling out of the country, at a
loss of what is estimated to be about $25 billion.
The
European Union has suddenly taken on a large military role in the
world, announcing it would supply fighter jets to Ukraine. Sweden, which
is a member of the E.U., will also send military aid to Ukraine. And
German chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany, which has tended
to underfund its military, would commit 100 billion euros, which is
about $112.7 billion, to support its armed forces. The E.U. has also
prohibited all Russian planes from its airspace, including
Russian-chartered private jets.
Michael
McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, tweeted: “Russian elites
fear Putin. But they no longer respect him. He has ruined their
lives—damaged their fortunes, damaged the future of their kids, and may
now have turned society away from them. They were living just fine until
a week ago. Now, their lives will never be the same.”
Global
power is different this week than last. Anti-authoritarian nations are
pushing back on Russia and the techniques Putin has used to gain
outsized influence. Today the E.U. banned media outlets operated by the
Russian state. The White House and our allies also announced a new
“transatlantic task force that will identify and freeze the assets of
sanctioned individuals and companies—Russian officials and elites close
to the Russian government, as well as their families, and their
enablers.”
That
word “enablers” seems an important one, for since 2016 there have been
plenty of apologists for Putin here in the U.S. And yet now, with the
weight of popular opinion shifting toward a defense of democracy,
Republicans who previously cozied up to Putin are suddenly stating their
support for Ukraine and trying to suggest that Putin has gotten out of
line only because he sees Biden as weak. Under Trump, they say, Putin
never would have invaded Ukraine, and they are praising Trump for
providing aid to Ukraine in 2019.
They
are hoping that their present support for Ukraine and democracy makes
us forget their past support for Putin, even as former president Trump
continues to call him “smart.” And yet, Republicans changed their
party’s 2016 platform to favor Russia over Ukraine; accepted Trump’s
abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria in October 2019,
giving Russia a strategic foothold in the Middle East; and looked the
other way when Trump withheld $391 million to help Ukraine resist
Russian invasion until newly elected Ukraine president Volodymyr
Zelensky agreed to help rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election. (Trump
did release the money after the story of the “perfect phone call” came
out, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which investigated
the withholding of funds, concluded that holding back the money at all
was illegal.)
But
rather than making us forget Republicans’ enabling of Putin’s
expansion, the new story in which democracy has the upper hand might
have the opposite effect. Now that people can clearly see exactly the
man Republicans have supported, they will want to know why our leaders,
who have taken an oath to our democratic Constitution, were willing to
throw in their lot with a foreign autocrat. The answer to that question
might well force us to rethink a lot of what we thought we knew about
the last several years.
In today’s America, the past certainly is not past.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Truck manufacturer AB Volvo has immediately suspended production and sales in Russia as a result of the economic sanctions. The company's press officer Claes Eliasson told DN.
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
Analysis: Ukraine war tests growing China-Russia partnership
By KEN MORITSUGU
Today
BEIJING (AP) — Three weeks ago, the leaders of China and Russia declared that the friendship between their countries “has no limits” as they met in Beijing on the eve of the Winter Olympics. But that was before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a gambit that is testing just how far China is willing to go.
The nuclear-armed neighboring giants have grown closer in recent years, raising the specter of an alliance of authoritarian states that could challenge a U.S.-led democratic West in a new Cold War. Yet China has much to lose in such a scenario, and President Xi Jinping has spoken out against the “Cold War mentality” of those who portray his country's rise as a threat.
The emergence of a China-Russia axis is far from a foregone conclusion. Trade with Europe and the United States is a major driver of China's economic growth, even as its estrangement with the U.S. and its appetite for energy have led it to deepen ties with Russia.
“The ongoing conflict in Ukraine will reveal whether there is a deeper bond or whether the relationship is essentially transactional,” Anthony Saich, a China expert said in a Q&A posted on the website of Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
He outlined three possible actions that would indicate “China has thrown its lot in with Russia." These include Beijing using a veto, rather than an abstention, of any U.N. resolution to criticize Russia’s actions; recognition of a puppet regime in Ukraine put in place by Russia; and a refusal to call the attack an invasion even after civilian deaths are clearly confirmed.
“The two abstentions show that China has adopted a more prudent attitude than before amid the extremely broad criticism and protest of the world against Russia’s all-round attacks,” said Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University of China.
Li Fan, a Russian studies professor at Renmin, said that China and Russia have “a neighborly, friendly strategic partnership” but that China isn’t taking sides in the current crisis. “It is not that China supports Russia’s military operation,” she said.
Russia’s move to put its nuclear forces on high alert Sunday, escalating the crisis, may make China more cautious.
This balancing act helps explain Beijing's sometimes contradictory positions on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the assiduous efforts of officials to avoid getting pinned down on certain questions — including whether they call what's happening an invasion.
China has said that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be respected — a stance that runs counter to an invasion — while also opposing sanctions on Russia and blaming the U.S. and NATO's eastward expansion for being the root cause of the crisis.
“China is trying to have its cake on Ukraine and eat it too," Asia Society president and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote in a post on the Asia Society Policy Institute website. He noted that China has lifted import restrictions on Russian wheat, which could offset some of the economic pain of sanctions.
For many of those imposing sanctions, China's actions amount to support for the invasion.
“You don’t go and throw a lifeline to Russia in the middle of a period when they’re invading another country,” Australia's current Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
In a series of calls with European counterparts late last week, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “the present situation is something we do not want to see.” He called for talks to end the crisis, but he withheld from criticizing Russia.
It is unclear whether Putin sought Xi's support when he came to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Feb. 4. The Russian leader's attendance was a face-saving event for Xi after the U.S. announced a diplomatic boycott over China's human rights record and many major countries didn't send representatives.
A joint statement was issued after Xi and Putin met that declared “friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Without mentioning Ukraine, the Russo-Chinese statement clearly opposed NATO expansion and coalitions that “intensify geopolitical rivalry" — a likely reference to U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to strengthen ties with other democratic nations in the face of China's rise.
It accused unnamed “actors” of advocating unilateral approaches and resorting to force to address international issues, which could apply not only to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The communique also declared the “new inter-state relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era."
Harvard's Saich called the statement “a dramatic step forward in the relationship” but added it is premature to consider it a definitive alliance.
Half a century ago, in the midst of the Cold War, it was China and the United States who found common cause against Russia. This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking 1972 trip to China.
At the time, China's ties with the Soviet Union had soured, and its leaders were worried about a Soviet invasion. Fifty years later, the relationship among the three great powers has changed in hard-to-imagine ways. U.S.-China ties are on the rocks, and Beijing and Moscow are reaching out to each other instead.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Ken Moritsugu, AP news director for Greater China, has covered Asia for more than 16 years.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Historic sanctions on Russia had roots in emotional appeal from Zelensky By David J. Lynch, Michael Birnbaum, Ellen Nakashima and Paul Sonne February 27 at 6:00 PM EST As the leaders of the European Union gathered for an emergency summit on Thursday night, momentum was already moving toward imposing tough new sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. But a handful of key leaders, notably including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, were reluctant to proceed with some of the harshest proposals. Scholz told reporters on the way into the meeting in Brussels that he wanted to focus on implementing sanctions that had already been approved before enacting new ones. After a perfunctory debate, the presidents and prime ministers quickly approved sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and some of Russia’s biggest banks. Talk of barring Russia from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT, however, stalled amid skepticism on the part of Scholz and the leaders of Austria, Italy and Cyprus, according to officials familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations. Then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dialed into the meeting via teleconference with a bracing appeal that left some of the world-weary politicians with watery eyes. In just five minutes, Zelensky — speaking from the battlefield of Kyiv — pleaded with European leaders for an honest assessment of his country’s ambition to join the European Union and for genuine help in its fight with the Russian invaders. Ukraine needed its neighbors to step up with food, ammunition, fuel, sanctions, all of it. [War in Ukraine: Live Updates] “It was extremely, extremely emotional,” said a European official briefed on the call. “He was essentially saying, ‘Look, we are here dying for European ideals.’” Before ending the video call, Zelensky told the gathering matter-of-factly that it might be the last time they saw him alive, according to a senior European official who was present. Just that quickly, Zelensky’s personal appeal overwhelmed the resistance from European leaders to imposing measures that could drive the Russian economy into a state of near collapse. The result has been a rapid-fire series of developments boosting Ukraine’s fight to hold off the Russian military and shattering the limits on European assertiveness in national security affairs. The actions culminated on Saturday, when the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union announced they would bar several major Russian banks from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT, crack down on Russian oligarchs, and prevent the Russian central bank from bailing out the domestic economy. The unprecedented moves led Russians to crowd ATMs in a desperate bid to withdraw cash and sparked a furious response from Putin, who called them “illegitimate” and ordered his nuclear forces to a higher state of alert. Surprised by the unusually rapid European decision, the White House scrambled over the weekend to catch up in drafting its own related measures, according to one American and one European official. The latest sanctions mean the Western allies are effectively waging financial war against Russia, matching Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine with attacks on the foundation of a $1.5 trillion economy. “We’re not going to fight with bullets. We’re going to choke them financially,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. [Economic sanctions will attempt to slow down Russian tanks] American and European officials were expected to make public details of the new sanctions late Sunday, before financial markets open in Asia. But even before they have taken effect, the Russian financial system is wobbling. The ruble, which already was near a historic low against the dollar, plunged in informal trading in Moscow. “The Russian ruble has been crushed and it’s going to get crushed further,” said Chandler. On Sunday, the fraying of Russian ties with the global economy accelerated. The European Union closed its airspace to Russian aircraft and announced it would fund the purchase of weapons for the first time in what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called a “watershed moment.” [Rosneft stake was one of largest Western investments in Russia] The oil giant BP said it would “exit” its nearly 20 percent stake in the Russian energy company Rosneft. Two directors from BP, chief executive Bernard Looney and former executive Robert Dudley, have resigned from the Rosneft board. FedEx and United Parcel Service also announced they have suspended shipments to Russia. On Saturday, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut the Russian government debt rating to “junk.” That will force the managers of some Western investment funds to dump their holdings and will likely raise borrowing costs for major Russian corporations as well. [West takes aim at Russian central bank in blow to economy] After a slow start earlier this week that drew criticism from Republicans, the Western sanctions campaign is closing like a vise on the Russian economy. “There’ll be a huge sudden spike in the cost of living, a huge change in the availability of imported products, including medicine and technology, and a huge jolt to the economic power structure,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You are essentially directing a financial crisis in another country.” Since the United States and Europe imposed less comprehensive sanctions in 2014 following the Russian takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Putin has stockpiled foreign exchange reserves and shifted away from the dollar. It was a costly strategy. Even as the Russian central bank accumulated $630 billion in reserves, up from just $356 billion in 2015, Putin presided over average annual economic growth of just 0.8 percent. Russia sold off most of its U.S. treasury securities in recent years and bulked up on gold, which now accounts for 20 percent of its total reserves, according to the Institute for International Finance. But Russia would need to sell that gold for dollars, euros or yen before it could use those reserves to support the ruble. And the sanctions, which Japan joined on Sunday, make that impossible. “It’s still legal tender, but you can’t spend it,” said Posen, a former member of the Bank of England’s policymaking committee. For millions of Russians, the looming economic calamity threatens to turn the clock back. Russians have a visceral memory of the country’s 1998 financial crisis, when Moscow devalued the ruble and defaulted on its foreign debt. The economic blow wiped out the savings of millions of people. As a result of the 1998 crisis, many Russians hold their savings in dollars or euros. But according to the Levada Center polling group, only 32 percent of Russians had savings as of October. Because Russians are paid in rubles, the value of their salaries in real terms stands to drop dramatically. Putin has long presented his rule as the stable alternative to the chaos of the 1990s. In an interview two years ago with the Russian state news agency Tass, Putin said that during the 2008 global financial crisis, he thought, “What I will not allow is a repeat of the 1998 situation, when all citizens completely lost their savings.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The party I voted for last election here in Sweden only party which voted against giving "lethal aid" to Ukraine.
Comment from another party ("liberal"):
Just attended the Finance Committee's meeting on direct aid to Ukraine. The fact that the Left Party in this exceptional situation refuses to be apart of sending anti-tank weapons to the army in Ukraine will also reserve a special place in hell for them. Seven out of eight parties support the decision.
Strong words..
The former head of the Left Party ceriticies his own party:
Ukraine has the right to defend itself. It is in Sweden's security interest that Russia's invasion does not succeed.
The Left Party is in favour of sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine. As a member of The Left Party, I call on the party leadership to also support the decision on anti-tank weaponry to Ukraine.
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
Comments
The whole world is watching Putin, you p.o.s.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
you sir are on to something......
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
i really wish russia would be getting counterattacked though.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Ukrainian border guards may have survived reported last stand on Snake Island
Ukrainian border guards who insulted Russian forces this week in a recorded exchange that went viral may not have been killed, Ukrainian officials said Saturday, contradicting an earlier claim by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said in a statement posted to its Facebook page that the guards may be alive, after Russian media reported that they were taken as prisoners from their base on Snake Island in the Black Sea to Sevastopol, a port city that Russia controls on the Crimean Peninsula.
Zelensky cited the guards’ story Thursday while highlighting Ukrainian resistance to a Russian invasion, saying that 13 guards had “died heroically.” He said he would recognize each with the title Hero of Ukraine.
“May the memory of those who gave their lives for Ukraine live forever,” Zelensky said.
The guards’ actions drew international attention after an audio recording of their encounter with the Russians was published on the website of the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda. A Ukrainian official confirmed its authenticity to The Washington Post on Thursday.
On Ukraine’s Snake Island, a defiant last stand against Russian forces
In the clip, a Russian voice warns the border guards that they will be attacked if they do not give up.
“I am a Russian warship,” a voice from the invaders says. “I ask you to lay down your arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary deaths. Otherwise, you will be bombed.”
The Ukrainians responded boldly before they were attacked.
“Russian warship,” came the reply, “go f--- yourself.”
Ukrainian officials said in the Facebook post Saturday that the border guards were attacked by both Russian aircraft and weapons from the ship, and that Ukrainian officials lost communication with the guards after infrastructure was destroyed. It now appears it was assumed the guards were killed.
More on the war in Ukraine
Ukrainian officials said Saturday that they were working to determine what happened to the guards and praised them for digging in. It was not clear how many guards were on the island when the attack began or if any were killed.
The border guards’ message for the Russians spread rapidly, with many comparing it to famous rallying cries from earlier wars. Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, an Australian military officer, compared it to “NUTS!” a response that then-U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe sent to Nazi forces who sought an American surrender during the Battle of Bastogne in World War II.
“Today, none of us will ever forgot what these servants of their nation did there,” Ryan tweeted.
The Kyiv Post reported Saturday that the message for the Russian ship appeared on a digital road sign hanging over a Ukrainian highway.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Why the Toughest Sanctions on Russia Are the Hardest for Europe to Wield
Moscow relies on the money it makes by selling oil and gas, but that energy fuels Europe’s economy and heats its homes.
The punishing sanctions that the United States and European Union have so far announced against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine include shutting the government and banks out of global financial markets, restricting technology exports and freezing assets of influential Russians. Noticeably missing from that list is the one reprisal that would cause Russia the most pain: choking off the export of Russian fuel.
The omission is not surprising. In recent years, the European Union has received nearly 40 percent of its gas and more than a quarter of its oil from Russia. That energy heats Europe’s homes, powers its factories and fuels its vehicles, while pumping enormous sums of money into the Russian economy.
Losing out on those revenues would be hard for Russia, which relies heavily on energy exports to finance its government operations and support its economy. Oil and gas exports provide more than a third of the national budget. But a cutoff would hurt Europe as well.
“You want the sanctions to hurt the perpetrator more than the victim,” said David L. Goldwyn, who served as a State Department special envoy on energy in the Obama administration.
The situation would surprise some of last century’s cold warriors. Throughout most of the post-World War II era of superpower confrontation, many analysts believed that the more economically intertwined the Soviet Union and the West became, the less likely it was that conflicts would arise. Trade and economic self-interest would ultimately make allies out of everybody, the argument went.
Now, the European Union is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 37 percent of its global trade in 2020. About 70 percent of Russian gas exports and half of its oil exports go to Europe.
The flip side of mutual interest is mutual pain.
European leaders are caught between wanting to punish Russia for its aggression and to protect their own economies.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
February 27, 2022
Heather Cox RichardsonSouthern novelist William Faulkner’s famous line saying “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” is usually interpreted as a reflection on how the evils of our history continue to shape the present. But Faulkner also argued, equally accurately, that the past is “not even past” because what happens in the present changes the way we remember the past.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the defiant and heroic response of the people of Ukraine to that new invasion are changing the way we remember the past.
Less than a week ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched an assault on Ukraine, and with his large military force, rebuilt after the military’s poor showing in its 2008 invasion of Georgia, it seemed to most observers that such an attack would be quick and deadly. He seemed unstoppable. For all that his position at home has been weakening for a while now as a slow economy and the political opposition of people like Alexei Navalny have turned people against him, his global influence seemed to be growing. That he believed an attack on Ukraine would be quick and successful was clear today when a number of Russian state media outlets published an essay, obviously written before the invasion, announcing Russia’s victory in Ukraine, saying ominously that “Putin solved the Ukrainian question forever…. Ukraine has returned to Russia.”
But Ukrainians changed the story line. While the war is still underway and deadly, and while Russia continues to escalate its attacks, no matter what happens the world will never go back to where it was a week ago. Suddenly, autocracy, rather than democracy, appears to be on the ropes.
In that new story, countries are organizing against Putin’s aggression and the authoritarianism behind it. Leaders of the world’s major economies, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore, though not China, are working together to deny Putin’s access to the world’s financial markets.
As countries work together, international sanctions appear to be having an effect: a Russian bank this morning offered to exchange rubles for dollars at a rate of 171:1. Before the announcement that Europe and the U.S. would target Russia’s central bank, the rate was 83:1. Monday morning, Moscow time, the ruble plunged 30%. As Russia’s economy descends into chaos, investors are jumping out: today BP, Russia’s largest foreign investor, announced it is abandoning its investment in the Russian oil company Rosneft and pulling out of the country, at a loss of what is estimated to be about $25 billion.
The European Union has suddenly taken on a large military role in the world, announcing it would supply fighter jets to Ukraine. Sweden, which is a member of the E.U., will also send military aid to Ukraine. And German chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany, which has tended to underfund its military, would commit 100 billion euros, which is about $112.7 billion, to support its armed forces. The E.U. has also prohibited all Russian planes from its airspace, including Russian-chartered private jets.
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, tweeted: “Russian elites fear Putin. But they no longer respect him. He has ruined their lives—damaged their fortunes, damaged the future of their kids, and may now have turned society away from them. They were living just fine until a week ago. Now, their lives will never be the same.”
Global power is different this week than last. Anti-authoritarian nations are pushing back on Russia and the techniques Putin has used to gain outsized influence. Today the E.U. banned media outlets operated by the Russian state. The White House and our allies also announced a new “transatlantic task force that will identify and freeze the assets of sanctioned individuals and companies—Russian officials and elites close to the Russian government, as well as their families, and their enablers.”
That word “enablers” seems an important one, for since 2016 there have been plenty of apologists for Putin here in the U.S. And yet now, with the weight of popular opinion shifting toward a defense of democracy, Republicans who previously cozied up to Putin are suddenly stating their support for Ukraine and trying to suggest that Putin has gotten out of line only because he sees Biden as weak. Under Trump, they say, Putin never would have invaded Ukraine, and they are praising Trump for providing aid to Ukraine in 2019.
They are hoping that their present support for Ukraine and democracy makes us forget their past support for Putin, even as former president Trump continues to call him “smart.” And yet, Republicans changed their party’s 2016 platform to favor Russia over Ukraine; accepted Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria in October 2019, giving Russia a strategic foothold in the Middle East; and looked the other way when Trump withheld $391 million to help Ukraine resist Russian invasion until newly elected Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to help rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election. (Trump did release the money after the story of the “perfect phone call” came out, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which investigated the withholding of funds, concluded that holding back the money at all was illegal.)
But rather than making us forget Republicans’ enabling of Putin’s expansion, the new story in which democracy has the upper hand might have the opposite effect. Now that people can clearly see exactly the man Republicans have supported, they will want to know why our leaders, who have taken an oath to our democratic Constitution, were willing to throw in their lot with a foreign autocrat. The answer to that question might well force us to rethink a lot of what we thought we knew about the last several years.
In today’s America, the past certainly is not past.
I'm not finding verification of this on any reliable news source. Will check again tomorrow. It's late, I'm done in.
Truck manufacturer AB Volvo has immediately suspended production and sales in Russia as a result of the economic sanctions. The company's press officer Claes Eliasson told DN.
BEIJING (AP) — Three weeks ago, the leaders of China and Russia declared that the friendship between their countries “has no limits” as they met in Beijing on the eve of the Winter Olympics. But that was before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a gambit that is testing just how far China is willing to go.
The nuclear-armed neighboring giants have grown closer in recent years, raising the specter of an alliance of authoritarian states that could challenge a U.S.-led democratic West in a new Cold War. Yet China has much to lose in such a scenario, and President Xi Jinping has spoken out against the “Cold War mentality” of those who portray his country's rise as a threat.
The emergence of a China-Russia axis is far from a foregone conclusion. Trade with Europe and the United States is a major driver of China's economic growth, even as its estrangement with the U.S. and its appetite for energy have led it to deepen ties with Russia.
“The ongoing conflict in Ukraine will reveal whether there is a deeper bond or whether the relationship is essentially transactional,” Anthony Saich, a China expert said in a Q&A posted on the website of Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
He outlined three possible actions that would indicate “China has thrown its lot in with Russia." These include Beijing using a veto, rather than an abstention, of any U.N. resolution to criticize Russia’s actions; recognition of a puppet regime in Ukraine put in place by Russia; and a refusal to call the attack an invasion even after civilian deaths are clearly confirmed.
China, along with India and the United Arab Emirates, already abstained from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution Friday demanding Russia stop its attack on Ukraine. Russia vetoed it. China abstained again on another vote on Sunday, though it was a procedural one not open to veto.
“The two abstentions show that China has adopted a more prudent attitude than before amid the extremely broad criticism and protest of the world against Russia’s all-round attacks,” said Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University of China.
Li Fan, a Russian studies professor at Renmin, said that China and Russia have “a neighborly, friendly strategic partnership” but that China isn’t taking sides in the current crisis. “It is not that China supports Russia’s military operation,” she said.
Russia’s move to put its nuclear forces on high alert Sunday, escalating the crisis, may make China more cautious.
This balancing act helps explain Beijing's sometimes contradictory positions on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the assiduous efforts of officials to avoid getting pinned down on certain questions — including whether they call what's happening an invasion.
China has said that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be respected — a stance that runs counter to an invasion — while also opposing sanctions on Russia and blaming the U.S. and NATO's eastward expansion for being the root cause of the crisis.
“China is trying to have its cake on Ukraine and eat it too," Asia Society president and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote in a post on the Asia Society Policy Institute website. He noted that China has lifted import restrictions on Russian wheat, which could offset some of the economic pain of sanctions.
For many of those imposing sanctions, China's actions amount to support for the invasion.
“You don’t go and throw a lifeline to Russia in the middle of a period when they’re invading another country,” Australia's current Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
In a series of calls with European counterparts late last week, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “the present situation is something we do not want to see.” He called for talks to end the crisis, but he withheld from criticizing Russia.
It is unclear whether Putin sought Xi's support when he came to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Feb. 4. The Russian leader's attendance was a face-saving event for Xi after the U.S. announced a diplomatic boycott over China's human rights record and many major countries didn't send representatives.
A joint statement was issued after Xi and Putin met that declared “friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Without mentioning Ukraine, the Russo-Chinese statement clearly opposed NATO expansion and coalitions that “intensify geopolitical rivalry" — a likely reference to U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to strengthen ties with other democratic nations in the face of China's rise.
It accused unnamed “actors” of advocating unilateral approaches and resorting to force to address international issues, which could apply not only to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The communique also declared the “new inter-state relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era."
Harvard's Saich called the statement “a dramatic step forward in the relationship” but added it is premature to consider it a definitive alliance.
Half a century ago, in the midst of the Cold War, it was China and the United States who found common cause against Russia. This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking 1972 trip to China.
At the time, China's ties with the Soviet Union had soured, and its leaders were worried about a Soviet invasion. Fifty years later, the relationship among the three great powers has changed in hard-to-imagine ways. U.S.-China ties are on the rocks, and Beijing and Moscow are reaching out to each other instead.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Ken Moritsugu, AP news director for Greater China, has covered Asia for more than 16 years.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the Ukraine crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
By David J. Lynch, Michael Birnbaum, Ellen Nakashima and Paul Sonne
February 27 at 6:00 PM EST
As the leaders of the European Union gathered for an emergency summit on Thursday night, momentum was already moving toward imposing tough new sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
But a handful of key leaders, notably including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, were reluctant to proceed with some of the harshest proposals. Scholz told reporters on the way into the meeting in Brussels that he wanted to focus on implementing sanctions that had already been approved before enacting new ones.
After a perfunctory debate, the presidents and prime ministers quickly approved sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and some of Russia’s biggest banks. Talk of barring Russia from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT, however, stalled amid skepticism on the part of Scholz and the leaders of Austria, Italy and Cyprus, according to officials familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.
Then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dialed into the meeting via teleconference with a bracing appeal that left some of the world-weary politicians with watery eyes. In just five minutes, Zelensky — speaking from the battlefield of Kyiv — pleaded with European leaders for an honest assessment of his country’s ambition to join the European Union and for genuine help in its fight with the Russian invaders. Ukraine needed its neighbors to step up with food, ammunition, fuel, sanctions, all of it.
[War in Ukraine: Live Updates]
“It was extremely, extremely emotional,” said a European official briefed on the call. “He was essentially saying, ‘Look, we are here dying for European ideals.’” Before ending the video call, Zelensky told the gathering matter-of-factly that it might be the last time they saw him alive, according to a senior European official who was present.
Just that quickly, Zelensky’s personal appeal overwhelmed the resistance from European leaders to imposing measures that could drive the Russian economy into a state of near collapse. The result has been a rapid-fire series of developments boosting Ukraine’s fight to hold off the Russian military and shattering the limits on European assertiveness in national security affairs.
The actions culminated on Saturday, when the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union announced they would bar several major Russian banks from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT, crack down on Russian oligarchs, and prevent the Russian central bank from bailing out the domestic economy.
The unprecedented moves led Russians to crowd ATMs in a desperate bid to withdraw cash and sparked a furious response from Putin, who called them “illegitimate” and ordered his nuclear forces to a higher state of alert.
Surprised by the unusually rapid European decision, the White House scrambled over the weekend to catch up in drafting its own related measures, according to one American and one European official. The latest sanctions mean the Western allies are effectively waging financial war against Russia, matching Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine with attacks on the foundation of a $1.5 trillion economy.
“We’re not going to fight with bullets. We’re going to choke them financially,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex.
[Economic sanctions will attempt to slow down Russian tanks]
American and European officials were expected to make public details of the new sanctions late Sunday, before financial markets open in Asia. But even before they have taken effect, the Russian financial system is wobbling. The ruble, which already was near a historic low against the dollar, plunged in informal trading in Moscow. “The Russian ruble has been crushed and it’s going to get crushed further,” said Chandler.
On Sunday, the fraying of Russian ties with the global economy accelerated. The European Union closed its airspace to Russian aircraft and announced it would fund the purchase of weapons for the first time in what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called a “watershed moment.”
[Rosneft stake was one of largest Western investments in Russia]
The oil giant BP said it would “exit” its nearly 20 percent stake in the Russian energy company Rosneft. Two directors from BP, chief executive Bernard Looney and former executive Robert Dudley, have resigned from the Rosneft board. FedEx and United Parcel Service also announced they have suspended shipments to Russia.
On Saturday, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut the Russian government debt rating to “junk.” That will force the managers of some Western investment funds to dump their holdings and will likely raise borrowing costs for major Russian corporations as well.
[West takes aim at Russian central bank in blow to economy]
After a slow start earlier this week that drew criticism from Republicans, the Western sanctions campaign is closing like a vise on the Russian economy.
“There’ll be a huge sudden spike in the cost of living, a huge change in the availability of imported products, including medicine and technology, and a huge jolt to the economic power structure,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You are essentially directing a financial crisis in another country.”
Since the United States and Europe imposed less comprehensive sanctions in 2014 following the Russian takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Putin has stockpiled foreign exchange reserves and shifted away from the dollar.
It was a costly strategy. Even as the Russian central bank accumulated $630 billion in reserves, up from just $356 billion in 2015, Putin presided over average annual economic growth of just 0.8 percent. Russia sold off most of its U.S. treasury securities in recent years and bulked up on gold, which now accounts for 20 percent of its total reserves, according to the Institute for International Finance.
But Russia would need to sell that gold for dollars, euros or yen before it could use those reserves to support the ruble. And the sanctions, which Japan joined on Sunday, make that impossible. “It’s still legal tender, but you can’t spend it,” said Posen, a former member of the Bank of England’s policymaking committee.
For millions of Russians, the looming economic calamity threatens to turn the clock back. Russians have a visceral memory of the country’s 1998 financial crisis, when Moscow devalued the ruble and defaulted on its foreign debt. The economic blow wiped out the savings of millions of people.
As a result of the 1998 crisis, many Russians hold their savings in dollars or euros. But according to the Levada Center polling group, only 32 percent of Russians had savings as of October. Because Russians are paid in rubles, the value of their salaries in real terms stands to drop dramatically.
Putin has long presented his rule as the stable alternative to the chaos of the 1990s. In an interview two years ago with the Russian state news agency Tass, Putin said that during the 2008 global financial crisis, he thought, “What I will not allow is a repeat of the 1998 situation, when all citizens completely lost their savings.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
David Edwards (@DavidEdwards) Tweeted:
China says it opposes sanctions after western countries move to block Russian banks from SWIFT
Comment from another party ("liberal"):
Just attended the Finance Committee's meeting on direct aid to Ukraine. The fact that the Left Party in this exceptional situation refuses to be apart of sending anti-tank weapons to the army in Ukraine will also reserve a special place in hell for them. Seven out of eight parties support the decision.
Strong words..
The former head of the Left Party ceriticies his own party: