As Ukraine war rages, Israel grapples with fate of oligarchs

By JOSEF FEDERMAN and ILAN BEN ZION

A banner in the colors of Russia's national flag depicting Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich and reading "the Roman Empire" is shown during the English Premier League soccer match between Chelsea and Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Sunday, March 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is grappling with how to deal with dozens of Jewish Russian oligarchs as Western nations step up sanctions on businesspeople with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A worried Israeli government has formed a high-level committee to see how the country can maintain its status as a haven for any Jew without running afoul of the biting sanctions targeting Putin’s inner circle.

“Israel will not be a route to bypass sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and other Western countries,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid declared Monday during a stop in Slovakia.

Several dozen Jewish tycoons from Russia are believed to have taken on Israeli citizenship or residency in recent years. Many have good working relations with the Kremlin, and at least four -- Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and Viktor Vekselberg -- have been sanctioned internationally because of their purported connections to Putin. Some of the sanctions stretch back even to before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month.

Israel, which has emerged as an unlikely mediator between Ukraine and Russia, has not joined the sanctions imposed by the U.S., Britain, European Union and others. But as the war in Ukraine drags on, and other names are added to the list, the pressure is increasing.

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 TV station over the weekend, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, called on Israel to join the group of countries that have sanctioned Russia.

“What we are asking among other things is for every democracy around the world to join us in the financial and export control sanctions that we have put on Putin,” she said. “You don’t want to become the last haven for dirty money that’s fueling Putin’s wars.”

Aaron David Miller, a now-retired veteran U.S. diplomat, said on Twitter that Nuland’s comments were the “toughest battering of Israeli policy since crisis began or of any policy in very long while.”

Israel, founded as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, grants automatic citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, an estimated 1 million Jews from Russia and other former Soviet republics have moved to Israel. In recent years, a growing number of tycoons from the former Soviet Union have joined them.

Some, such as former energy magnate Leonid Nevzlin, came after falling out with Putin. Others appeared to have done so as hedges against trouble abroad.

Abramovich, for instance, took Israeli citizenship in 2018 after his British visa was not renewed, apparently as part of British authorities’ efforts to crack down on Putin associates after a former Russian spy was poisoned in England. Although he appears to spend little time in the country, he has bought some choice real estate, including a home in a trendy Tel Aviv neighborhood reportedly purchased from the husband of Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot.

Some of the tycoons have kept low public profiles, while others have embraced their Jewish roots, emerging as major philanthropists to Jewish causes or investing in Israel’s high-flying technology sector. With a limited number of places to go, a growing number of Jewish tycoons, especially those with Israeli citizenship, could find themselves spending more time in Israel.

Israeli media have reported private jets belonging to oligarchs coming in and out of the country in recent days. Channel 12 said late Sunday that one of Abramovich’s planes had landed in Israel, though it was unclear if he was onboard. Israeli media reported he was seen at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on Monday, around the same time as his private jet flew to Istanbul.

While Israel weighs its moves, Jewish organizations already are taking a closer look at their relations with Russian oligarchs.

Last week, Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, said it was suspending a reported donation of tens millions of dollars from Abramovich “in light of recent developments.” In Ukraine, the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, built at the ravine where over 30,000 Jews were massacred in just two days in 1941, said that Fridman, who was born in Ukraine, had resigned from its advisory board due to the sanctions.

Lior Haiat, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said the government has formed a special inter-ministerial committee to study the sanctions issue. The fate of affected oligarchs is a central part of that mission.

On Monday, Lapid said the ministry was working with other government bodies, including Israel’s Central Bank, to make sure tycoons do not use the country to avert sanctions.

Lapid also has advised his colleagues to keep their distance from the oligarchs.

“You have to be very careful because those guys have connections and they can call you on the phone and ask you for things,” Lapid recently told the Cabinet. “Don’t commit to anything because it could cause diplomatic damage. Say you can’t help them and give them the number of the Foreign Ministry.”

His comments, first reported in Israeli media, were confirmed by officials who attended the meeting. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing closed Cabinet proceedings.

Israel, one of the few countries that has good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, may be able to insulate itself from the international pressure as long as it continues to mediate between the warring sides. Joining the sanctions would risk drawing Russian ire and jeopardize Israel’s unique role.

Ksenia Svetlova, an international-affairs expert and former Israeli lawmaker born in Russia, said Israel would hold out from taking a stance as long as possible.

“It depends on what kind of pressure they will exercise against Israel,” she said. “Not voluntarily, certainly.”

In Russian invasion of Ukraine, Cold War echoes reverberate
By JAKE COYLE

March 13, 2022

1 of 4

President Joe Biden announces Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to the Supreme Court at the White House in Washington on Feb. 25, 2022, left, and President Vladimir Putin speaks during a visit to the construction site of the National Space Agency at Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 27, 2022. The invasion of Ukraine has rapidly returned echoes of a Cold War mentality to the United States, with a familiar foe in Russia. (AP Photo)


NEW YORK (AP) — A rivalry with Russia. A proxy battleground. Nuclear brinksmanship. For many generations of Americans, it’s just like old times.

The invasion of Ukraine has rapidly returned echoes of a Cold War mentality to the United States, with a familiar foe in Russia. Bars have poured out their Russian vodka. McDonald’s, a symbol of the end of the Soviet Union when it first opened in Moscow, has shuttered its Russian locations. Once again, a U.S. president sees a pitched ideological battle. “We will save democracy,” President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address.

For an America where Russia never quite went out of style as an evergreen villain in film and television, revived tensions with the Kremlin have drawn from a well-worn geopolitical script. A familiar, chilly East-West wind is blowing again.

“It’s very much a Cold War echo,” says James Hershberg, professor of history and international affairs at Georgetown University and former director of the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Hershberg sees much that’s different about today’s inflamed tensions with Russia. Vladimir Putin’s aggressions, he says, don’t seem driven by ideology the way communism was for the Soviet Union. A transformed media landscape, too, has helped turn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into a global protagonist.

But in a crisis that pits two nuclear superpowers on opposing sides, history is repeating in other ways. A Russian strategic overreach, Hershberg says, is again sparking a potentially perilous moment in international order.

“We are in a second Cuban Missile Crisis in many ways in terms of the danger of escalation,” says Hershberg, whose books include “Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam.” “Putin is acting so irrationally he makes Nikita Khrushchev appear like a rational actor in comparison.”

The largest land conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia’s two-plus weeks of war in Ukraine has rallied Western alliances like few events before it. In repudiating Putin’s invasion, the U.S. and its European allies have enacted crippling economic sanctions on Russia -- which Biden on Tuesday extended to Russian crude oil -- while still drawing the line on military engagement with Russia.

“If we’re talking about a capitalized Cold War, I don’t think I could call this Cold War II,” says Fredrik Logevall, professor of history and international affairs at Harvard and Pulitzer-Prize winning author most recently of “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956.”

“But,” Logevall says, “if we’re talking more generally about a cold war, if we mean a titanic struggle that involves all aspects of national power waged between two incompatible systems but short of outright military conflict — then yeah, I guess this is a cold war.”

The Cold War is innately connected to the crisis in Ukraine partly because it so much informs Putin’s world view. A former KGB agent, he once called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. The invasion of Ukraine is intended to deter Western influence and NATO infringement from Russia’s sphere of influence, and potentially to restore a Texas-sized part of the former Soviet Union.

Barely two weeks in, the Cold War has often been invoked. The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said “the threat to global security now is more complex and probably higher” than during the Cold War, partly because there aren’t the same back channels of communication. A Russian Foreign Ministry official, Alexander Darchiyev, according to an Interfax report, recently suggested that “perhaps it would be worth recalling the well-forgotten principle that worked during the Cold War — peaceful coexistence.”

Even before war began in Ukraine, Americans had a historically dim view of Russia. According to Gallup poll conducted in February, 85% of Americans viewed Russia unfavorably, easily the country’s worst rating in more than three decades — a slide accelerated by Russia’s meddling in U.S. elections, its annexation of Crimea and the nerve agent attack on Putin’s leading opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who’s currently imprisoned.

And while former president Donald Trump has maintained his esteem for Putin, anti-Russian opinion has uncommon bipartisan support. Gallup found that 88% of both Republicans and Democrats have an unfavorable view of Russia. Nothing unites like a common enemy.

Nina Khrushcheva, a Moscow-born professor of international affairs at the New School in New York and the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, maintains that the Cold War never really went away — that the West’s view of Russia remained stuck in the broad portrayals of villains Boris and Natasha in “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoons. To her, Putin’s invasion was devastating because it confirmed the worst about her native country. Now, she begins her classes by apologizing.

“Putin is the global villain he deserves to be, and Russia is finished for decades to come,” says Khrushcheva, whose great-grandfather was premier of the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when John F. Kennedy was president of the United States. “My country just killed itself,” she says, and the U.S. “got their enemy back.”

“They got their enemy that has always been, always deserves to be and is always at the forefront of the American mind,” says Khrushcheva. “Russia has no excuse. But for America, it’s a field day. America is back and it’s on a white horse saving a white country in the middle of Europe against the horrible Russian Bear.”

Logevall, who co-authored the book “America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity,” doesn’t expect a Cold War rerun. The world isn’t as bipolar as it was decades ago. China, which signed a pact with Russia shortly before the invasion of Ukraine, looms much larger. And the interconnectedness of the global economy -- where waves of corporations have severed ties with Russia -- makes isolated coexistence harder to tolerate.

The conflict in Ukraine seems sure to be at least a coda to the Cold War, if not a new beginning.

“Putin feels great resentment about how the Cold War ended. The West declaring victory. Russia losing power and influence. I think he resents a certain Western triumphalism,” Logevall says. “In a way, I think history is what drives him.”

___

Follow Associated Press Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JakeCoyleAP

Russia’s war idles some European mills as energy costs soar

By COLLEEN BARRY

March 13, 2022

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A fisherman mends a net in front of his fishing boat with a banner reading "stop for gasoline increase", in the Roman port of Fiumicino, Friday, March 11, 2022. Fishermen, facing huge spikes in oil prices, stayed in port, mending nets instead of casting them. Nowhere more than in Italy, the European Union’s third-largest economy, is dependence on Russian energy taking a higher toll on industry. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)


MILAN (AP) — Italian paper mills that make everything from pizza boxes to furniture packaging ground to a halt as Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent natural gas prices skyrocketing.

And it’s not just paper. Italian steel mills, likewise, turned off electric furnaces last week. And fishermen, facing huge spikes in oil prices, stayed in port, mending nets instead of casting them.

Nowhere more than in Italy, the European Union’s third-largest economy, is dependence on Russian energy taking a higher toll on industry. Some 40% of electricity is generated from natural gas that largely comes from Russia, compared with roughly one-quarter in Germany, another major importer and the continent’s largest economy.

Over the past decade, Italy’s dependence on Russian natural gas has surged from 27% to 43% — a fact lamented by Premier Mario Draghi. It will take at least two years to replace, his energy transition minister says.

Even before the war, Europe was facing a serious energy crunch that drove up costs for electricity, food, supplies and everything in between for people and businesses. Ever higher prices tied to fears that the conflict will lead to an energy cutoff are hitting the continent much harder than the U.S. because it imports so much of its oil and gas from Russia.

European leaders meeting Friday in Versailles outside Paris discussed ways of easing the pain. Draghi pushed to diversify gas sources, develop renewables and introduce a cap on natural gas prices. He said his foreign minister, who recently visited Algeria and Qatar, was working on new gas markets.

“We are talking about errors made over many years,” said Francesco Zago, CEO of the Veneto-based paper and packaging manufacturer Pro-Gest. “We get too much gas from Russia. In school, they tell us we need to diversify the sources, otherwise there is a danger.”

Natural gas prices were on the rise last year as reserves dwindled in Europe, but Zago said his company was able to stabilize prices and continue operating. That changed with the Russian invasion, when already high prices soared from 90 euros a megawatt hour to over 300 euros a megawatt hour.

“We found ourselves facing huge losses,” Zago said.

To remain profitable, he said they would have had to nearly double prices from 680 euros a ton to 1,200 euros — not doable on the marketplace.

He suspended operations at six mills that recycle paper to supply one-third of all of Italy’s packaging needs, and he is keeping a close eye on the energy market to see when production can relaunch. For now, there is still enough stock to keep open the company’s sites that make cardboard boxes and other packaging, supplying industries from food to pharmaceuticals to furniture. But that could run out soon.

Likewise, Acciaierie Venete shut three of its steel mills for a few days last week as prices spiked to 10 times above normal. The makers of high-quality steel for automotive and agricultural machinery had enough stock to work on finished product, waiting for prices to dip so they could reopen.

“Never, ever has this happened that we had to shut down ovens,” said Francesco Semino, an executive at the steel-making company based in the northeastern region of Veneto.

The urgency of Italy’s energy situation is trickling down to consumers in the form of higher heating bills, and more recently, rising prices at the pump, with gasoline topping 2 euros a liter this week, or nearly $6 a gallon.

Radio call-in shows are soliciting ideas about how to save energy, reviving memories of long-abandoned tricks like ember-fueled bedwarmers. Italy’s state broadcaster has launched a campaign with lists of how to save energy, including turning off lights, lowering thermostats and regularly defrosting refrigerators, under the motto “M’illumino di meno,” or “I light up less.”

Truckers who say they can’t afford higher gasoline prices are set to strike this coming week. Fishermen took the hit last week, deciding not to trawl the waters off Italy, with fishing boats along the entire peninsula moored in port.

At current prices, it costs 1,250 euros a day to run boats out of Fiumicino, leaving little room for profits after plying the sea for cod, sea bass, sea bream, octopus, squid and shrimp, said Pasquale Di Bartolomeo, who runs one of 22 boats out of the port near Rome.

Restaurants, he said, will make do with frozen seafood or farm-raised fish. He hopes the prices ease so he can return to work.

“The family needs to eat, there are expenses,” Di Bartolomeo said.

Italy decreased its gas consumption from 2010 to 2014, thanks to the addition of subsidized wind and solar power, but reliance on natural gas pushed back up again in recent years as it took polluting coal power plants offline.

They have been substituted mostly by natural gas as renewables stalled, partly because of Italy’s infamous bureaucracy that has kept many investors away, said Matteo Di Castelnuovo, an energy economist at Milan’s Bocconi University.

“Italy clearly underestimated the problem of increasing its gas consumption the last few years, and with that, its dependence on Russian gas,” he said.

The government has pledged to simplify red tape, and this week approved six new wind parks that will produce more than 400 megawatts of energy. Energy transition minister Roberto Cingolani has floated the idea of next-generation nuclear to a reluctant population.

“Nuclear fusion will not save us from Russian gas,″ Di Castelnuovo said, referring to a technology that is still decades away.

Italy’s dependence on Russian gas can most quickly and effectively be reduced by simple conservation methods, he said, given the time and investments it takes to transition to other energy sources.

That can include such measures as improving home insulation, using appliances that consume less energy and lowering the thermostat.

“My heat, my thermostat, is actually paying for Putin’s missiles and bombs,” Di Castelnuovo said. “It is good enough for me to lower it by 2 degrees and wear a jumper instead.”

Toxic Putin is going for bust. The west must stop him before this contagion spreads

Analysis: if we do not refuse to be blackmailed and step in to stop Russia, Ukraine will only be the start

Last week’s shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol could be a harbinger of much worse to come.

 Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Simon Tisdall

THE GUARDIAN/OBSERVER
Sun 13 Mar 2022 

Politically speaking, Vladimir Putin is a dead man walking. As dictators always do, he has fatally over-reached. Bunker-bound and bonkers, there’s no way back into the world for him. At home, too, he looks increasingly isolated.

But, militarily speaking, he’s not giving up. In Ukraine, the toxic president is going for bust. The worrying question: what will he do next?

Insofar as Putin still has a plan, it is to bomb and batter the Ukrainian people into submission, by whatever means necessary, as quickly as possible. If that requires using chemical weapons, such as chlorine gas, as in Syria, who can doubt he will do so. Last week’s Mariupol maternity hospital war crime was a harbinger of worse, perhaps far worse, to come.

Diplomats and analysts believe that, despite Ukraine’s unexpectedly effective resistance, Russia’s grip on the country is inexorably tightening. Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv, says the capital only has sufficient supplies for one or two weeks if attacked. Half the population has fled. If the allied powers sincerely want Ukraine to survive, time is running out.

The west must now maximise pressure on Putin – military as well as economic – as a matter of utmost urgency. Ukraine’s citizens and soldiers cannot be expected to hold out for very much longer without increased, all-round support. Ukraine’s future as an independent democratic state may be decided in the coming fortnight. So, too, may be the future of Putinism in Russia itself.

President Putin is going for bust in Ukraine, trying to bomb the country into submission. 

Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/TASS

The oppressive, corrupt regime in Moscow that has blighted Russian lives for over 20 years, and spread fear and discord around the world, has never been weaker. This is a huge moment. Europe’s future security architecture could indeed be remodelled, as Russia has often urged, but on a post-Putin basis of cooperative, lawful, democratic co-existence, not a balance of terror.

This tantalising prospect is offset by the risk of all-out conflict with a nuclear-armed tyrant who, hemmed in by his own miscalculations, may lash out wildly. Nato’s ill-judged refusal to provide any form of no-fly zone, as requested by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, or for example to create a UN-mandated safe zone on the ground in western Ukraine, stems from such fears.

So what will Putin do? Three main scenarios are in view: a compromise peace deal; a stalemate; or a wider, escalating war. After two weeks of fighting, there is much talk of talks but no actual peace process. Dashing hopes it might intervene, China has kept its distance. Last week’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Turkey was a deliberate stalling exercise by Moscow. The two sides remain miles apart.

Ukraine’s leaders will not agree to anything permanent while cities are besieged, vast swaths of their country are occupied, and heinous war crimes proliferate – and why should they? Nor is it likely that Putin will abandon his insistence that Ukraine remain separate from Nato and the EU, or give up his claims to Crimea and recently captured territory along the southern seaboard.

Under a second scenario, the war drags on, degenerating into a Donbas-like stalemate or frozen conflict. This would suit no one. It would be disastrous for Ukraine’s citizens, both the displaced and those who remain; for Ukraine’s integrity as a nation state; for bogged-down, demoralised Russian forces facing determined insurgents; and for international relations and stability, endlessly polarised and poisoned by Ukraine-related tensions.

Knowing this, and spurning peace, Putin is actively pursuing the third scenario: “doubling down” on military force, as CIA director William Burns put it last week, encircling cities, using hungry, freezing civilians as hostages, seizing more territory, and threatening a wider war, potentially involving chemical or even battlefield nuclear weapons.

Here is the crux of the west’s dilemma. The US and UK are pumping increasingly advanced weaponry into Ukraine on a vast scale. British anti-tank missiles, for example, are reportedly proving grimly lethal. Now Starstreak anti-aircraft weapons are also being deployed, ostensibly for “defensive”, not “offensive”, purposes.

Such sophistry aside, there can be no doubting where this massive Berlin airlift-type build-up is leading. Nato’s rejection of a no-fly zone and the US veto on supplying Polish MiG fighters to Ukraine’s air force cannot disguise the reality that the allies, de facto, are already party to this conflict or, in legal parlance, are “co-combatants”.


Russian bombing of maternity hospital ‘genocide’, says Zelenskiy

Putin characterises sanctions as western economic warfare. How much longer before he declares that Russia is also under western military attack, and escalates accordingly? That’s the firm expectation in the Baltic republics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – frontline former Soviet republics that Putin regards, like Ukraine, as not “real” countries. The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad is another looming flashpoint.

Valdis Dombrovskis, a former Latvian prime minister, warned last week the Baltic states may be next in the firing line. “If we do not support Ukraine, it’s not going to stop in Ukraine… Unfortunately, it is likely this aggression will continue in other countries,” he said.

Discussing Putin’s veiled nuclear threat, Dombrovskis, an EU commission vice-president, said the west must not be intimidated.

“The question is, to what extent we are giving in to this blackmail because it can be used all the time against everything. Putin will continue his aggressive wars, he will always use this blackmail.”

Plainly, there is no risk-free path through this horror. But any outcome that destroys a European democracy, or rewards Russian aggression, is unsustainable in the long term. That will only guarantee more grief down the road. Logically, practically, morally, the west really has no choice.

Its leaders must now employ all possible levers – including the threat of direct military action – to stop Russia in its tracks in Ukraine, stop the mass murder of civilians, and stop the spread of the deadly Putin contagion.

ETHIC CLEANSING

'Cultural cleansing': Ukraine's heritage is in danger, UNESCO warns

By Daniel Bellamy with AP • Updated: 12/03/2022 - 14:36

Snow covers the city centre with a Christmas tree, St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, December 2021 - Copyright AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

The UN's cultural agency has warned that major historical sites in Ukraine are in danger of being damaged and even destroyed as Russia continues its offensive.

"City centres are seriously damaged, some of which have sites and monuments that date back to the 11th century," Lazare Eloundou, UNESCO's World Heritage Director said, speaking from Paris.

"Today, museums are damaged, some with collections inside. There are also cultural venues that are damaged. It is a whole cultural life that risks disappearing."

The deliberate destruction of a country's or culture's heritage is a war crime.

UNESCO says the targeting of cultural sites has evolved into a tactic of war to damage and attempt to destroy societies over a prolonged period.

And in an address to the UN Security Council in 2015, UNESCO's former Director-General Irina Bokova described it as "cultural cleansing".

UNESCO urges Russia to refrain from targeting cultural sites

Ukraine and Russia have close cultural and religious ties, but since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, a partial schism has developed between the Orthodox Churches of both countries.

In 2019, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was granted independence by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul.

It marked a historic split from Russia, which Ukrainian leaders saw then and still see today as vital to the country's security.

The decree, known as Tomos, has pressured Ukrainian clerics to choose between the Russian-supported Ukrainian churches and the new church.

The Ukrainian church had been under Moscow's patriarchate for centuries, but since Ukraine became independent in 1991, tensions accumulated and then intensified in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea.

Putin's objection not NATO but 'a more European Ukraine' — ex-EU chief Barroso

With these political and religious tensions in mind, UNESCO's World Heritage Director Lazare Eloundou is particularly worried as fighting nears Kyiv.

"A site which for us is of great concern in the city of Kyiv, which is a World Heritage Site. This site has two very important ensembles: the St. Sophia Cathedral and also the Lavra monastic complex. These two places are testimony to the birth of the Russian Orthodox Church."

Eloundou has urged all UNESCO member states -- including Russia -- not to target any cultural sites.

"It is important that, when hostilities are launched, countries mark with this sign, this emblem, their most important historical sites so that they are well identified, clearly visible and are not targeted. This is what we have recommended to the Ukrainian authorities to do for their sites."



Meanwhile, Russian cultural officials have asked for major works of art that are currently on loan to galleries in Milan to be returned.

They include Renaissance artist Titian's "Young Woman with the Feathered Hat," which belongs to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Italy's Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said earlier this week that "it seems evident that when the owner asks for their works to be returned, they must be returned."

The ministry said it is currently surveying what Italian works of art are on loan to Russian museums.

India’s Silence on Russian Invasion: Why ‘Morals’ Matter in Foreign Policy

The current state of international politics paints a grim picture of a dissolution of a universal value-based moral compass.

UN Ambassadors vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting, on a resolution regarding Russia's actions toward Ukraine, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, February 25, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

Deepanshu Mohan

A lot is being said on India’s position in the UN on the Ukraine-Russia crisis. The position, thus far, has been broadly of ‘abstention’ and ‘silence’. The Indian government has also failed to explain the causal reasons for its repeated vote and its inability to call a spade-a-spade given how Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine is both unprovoked and in clear violation of basic tenets and principles of international law.

I argued recently that a prolonged ‘silence’ of India – and/or the inability of the Modi government to condone or condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine – with each passing week may indirectly affect us (and our interests) in the longer term, despite the bonhomie we might share with Russia. If A’s friend commits murder and A maintains a position of ‘silence’ or gives the friend a free pass, what does it say about A and her/his moral character?

Yes, this isn’t India’s war. And, yes, maybe the Indian government, being late in evacuating its own citizens (given how late the advisories for evacuation were issued) didn’t have a choice but to be ‘silent’ for the first couple of weeks, given the administration had to work with both Russian and Ukrainian authorities to get its citizens out. That’s understandable.

But, once the evacuation of Indians is complete (as it is about to be), India’s geopolitical position of ‘silence’ will increasingly be questioned (in a way it already is). More importantly, India (like many other democratic nations) has a moral responsibility to say more – and do more – to counter Putin’s Russia.

Also read: India’s Tightrope Walk on Russian Invasion of Ukraine May Have Long-Term Consequences

To many ultra-realists/supporters of the pro-government position (there are many shouting in TV studios now), the very mention of the word ‘moral’ or ‘moral responsibility’ seems problematic. Whataboutery has been common in the discourse too. Ultra-realists may argue what’s so special about condemning a great power for this crisis – or ask why India should support the West’s attack on Russian actions when Americans too have been guilty of intervening in other nations and having its own wars (from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan).

Still, it would be morally obtuse to ‘compare’ one great power’s military aggression to another.

It is true how ‘American exceptionalism’ has been entrenched in 20th century international politics discourse and was part of shaping a US-led international order; an order which is on the verge of collapse now. But, as Theodore Roosevelt put it a century ago,

“Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on combining power with high purpose”.

Based as much as on ideas of ethnicity, America has long seen itself ‘as a cause as well as a country’.

Dominant powers surely promote their political values. Imagine how the world would look today if Adolf Hitler had emerged victorious in World War II or if Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union had prevailed in the Cold War. Of the three great ideological narratives of 20th century – fascism, communism and liberalism – only the latter was left standing at its end.

US President Woodrow Wilson, recognised as a ‘thought leader’ in the American and post-World War II international order, offered a liberal internationalist project with two main aims: to tame international anarchy through the erection of binding international law and organisation, and to change other states in the system and inch them toward constitutional democracy.

Wilsonian liberalism – anchored by the US – sought a world made safe for democracy. Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi’s views too from India were in broader convergence with this thought. Alas, the current state of international politics paints a grim picture of a dissolution of a universal value-based moral compass.

As Joseph Nye argues in his recent book Do Morals Matter?,

“The American order after 1945 (too) was neither global nor always very liberal. So-called American hegemony left out more than half the world (the Soviet bloc and China) and included a number of illiberal authoritarian states. (At the same) Defenders argue the liberal international order, albeit imperfect, made the world a better place because it produced an era of unprecedented growth in the world economy, which raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and allowed the spread of liberty and democracy. Future presidents will have to make moral choices about foreign policy in a world where the post-1945 Pax Americana and Wilsonian vision have changed.”

Realists who trace their (western) intellectual ancestry to classic thinkers like Hobbes, Machiavelli, Thucydides argue that in an anarchic world, foreign policy is largely ‘amoral’. Thucydides famously said,

“The powerful do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.”

Nevertheless, humans exercising ‘selfishness’ and ‘aggression’ didn’t make us the most dominant species on the planet. It was because of our ability to exercise restraint, to cooperate, to reason, with both intuition and prudence, that made us dominant and standout.

It is important for leaders, especially in the current context, to realise and understand how both intuition and reason are core parts of moral reasoning, and how they must be put into thought for principle, policy and practice.

Practicing an ultra-realist view that ethics or moral reasoning has nothing to contribute because there are no real choices in foreign policy and only one’s own country counts, is a misconception. Another misconception may confuse a leader’s moral character with his moral consequences, and still another makes judgments based on moral rhetoric than results. Vladimir Putin may give a ‘moral’ reason for invading Ukraine, but that can’t be accepted.

Also read: Citing Need To Keep Door Open for Diplomacy, India Abstains From UNSC Vote on Russia

Nye’s contribution is critical in this regard. Nye argues,

“As a practical matter, in our daily lives most people make moral judgments along three dimensions: intentions, means, and consequences. Intentions are more than just goals.”

Lyndon Johnson may have had ‘good’ intentions when he sent American troops to Vietnam, but a leader’s good intentions, according to Nye, are not proof of what is misleadingly called “moral clarity”. The second important dimension of moral judgment is means. How do we treat others? Does a leader consider the ‘soft power of attraction’ and ‘the importance of developing the trust’ of other countries?

According to Nye, when it comes to ‘means’, leaders must decide how to combine the hard power of inducements and threats, and the soft power of values, culture and policies that attract people to their goal.

A leader who pursues moral but unrealistic goals or uses ineffective means can produce terrible moral consequences at home and abroad. Putin’s actions in Russia resembles to that of a war criminal so far. His military commands have bombed civilian areas inside Ukraine, killed innocent people and attacked maternity hospitals. His actions, at the very least, must invoke a collective sense of moral conscience amongst nations – including India – to put their faith in peace and mutual-cooperation.

This isn’t required for a ‘West-enabled narrative’ or for enforcing ‘American moralism’, but is critical for securing international peace and a stable world order.

Deepanshu Mohan is associate professor of Economics and director, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University.

PUTIN'S NEO-NAZI'S
Bosnian Serb branch of Russian 'Night Wolves' biker group stage pro-Putin protests

By Aleksandar Brezar with AP • Updated: 13/03/2022 - 11:28

A boy wears Russian insignia on his hat as he rallies in Banjaluka, Bosnia, Saturday, 12 March 2022 - Copyright AP Photo/Armin Durgut

About one hundred Bosnian Serb nationalists demonstrated Saturday in the country's second-largest city Banjaluka in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Participants waved Russian flags and described Russia's decision to invade its much smaller neighbour as a legitimate "battle to liberate [Ukraine's] subjugated people".

"Russia is not at war with Ukraine, it is at war with the dark Euro-Atlantic forces that want to dominate the world and destroy it," said Zdravko Močević, one of over 100 people -- mostly men -- who joined the rally.

The pro-Russia protests are one of the few in Europe since Moscow invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

The largest demonstrations in support of the Kremlin saw thousands take to the streets of Serbia's capital Belgrade on 4 March, carrying placards with the letter Z -- now synonymous with the invasion -- and Russian and Serb nationalist flags.

Dozens of Serb nationalists hold pro-Russia rally in Montenegro

The gathering in Banjaluka was organised by Bosnian Serb members of the Night Wolves, a local branch of the Russian motorcycle club that staunchly supports President Vladimir Putin.

Putin has repeatedly referred to the group as "friends", and has appeared at their rallies, riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The Night Wolves took part in the 2014 occupation of Crimea and the fighting in Donbas.


Speakers at the Banjaluka event included representatives of several local organisations, including the Serb-Russian Bridge and Serb People's Movement "It's Our Choice".



Bosnian Serb secessionist leader Milorad Dodik who was recently slapped with US sanctions for alleged corruption is widely understood to be the Kremlin's favourite in the region.

Dodik has also maintained close ties with the local branch of the Night Wolves.

Political power in multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina is shared between Bosniak, Croat and Serb ethnic communities, enabling the country’s three main ethnic groups to dominate domestic politics.

This arrangement came out of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, effectively ending the 1992-1995 war between the three sides that killed over 100,000 people and displaced millions.

A sticker with a letter Z is seen on a car during a rally in support of Russia in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, March 13, 2022. Despite formally seeking EU membership, Serbia has refused to introduce international sanctions against its ally Russia. EU officials have repeatedly warned Serbia that it will have to align itself with the bloc's foreign policies if it wants to join. 

Dodik, whose SNSD party is struggling to retain popularity in the run-up to the general elections in the autumn, currently serves as the Serb member of the country's tripartite presidency.

Bosnia’s biggest political crisis for 26 years fuels anguish and discontent

Despite Dodik's vocal opposition, Bosnia joined a historic vote earlier this month in the UN General Assembly denouncing Russia for invading Ukraine.

At the same time on Saturday, at least 5,000 Bosnians gathered in the northeastern city of Tuzla at a peace rally, expressing their support for Ukraine and demanding the end of the war.

Russian State TV protest 'sent shockwaves through all of Russian society' says American on the ground

Sarah K. Burris
March 14, 2022


Yakov Kronrod went back to Russia to care for his mother months before the invasion of Ukraine, so he was on the ground watching as a Channel One editor took the bold move to stage a protest on live television.

Marina Ovsyannikova, the editor of Channel One, held up a sign saying that Russians were being lied to and not to believe the propaganda. She was detained and taken to the Ostankino police department. Russia's Vladimir Putin passed a law that any person who says something that conflicts with the government can be thrown in jail for 15 years.



According to Kronrod, even pro-Putin outlets have reported on the story, he said, delivering her message even farther to more people.

"It sends shock waves through all of Russian society. Yandex News had a story about it, and they rarely have anything that's against the main narrative," said Kronrod. "Her Facebook page was getting thousands of people commenting every minute. Literally, it exploded. Everyone was texting each other, calling each other saying, did you see? Did you see what happened? And many of the human rights activists that I'm talking to feel this may very well be the start of the wave to see someone like that Channel 1 has 250 million viewers, it's the number one watched station by most common Russians. For a lot of Russians, this was the first time they saw any dissenting voice."

See the interview below:

  

Russian State TV protest 'sent shockwaves through all of Russian society'www.youtube.com

'They're lying to you': Russian TV employee interrupts news broadcast with anti-war sign

The anchor can be seen trying to talk over Marina unsuccessfully before the broadcast cut away to a recorded segment.


Nyi Nyi Thet |  March 15, 2022

A Russian state tv news programme was interrupted when an employee rushed into the shot holding an anti-war sign.

Here is the clip:

Her sign read: "Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here".

And then in English: "Russians against the war".

Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the station, also shouted "Stop the war. No to war." according to The Guardian.

The anchor can be seen trying to talk over Marina unsuccessfully before the broadcast cut away to a recorded segment.

Marina had also recorded a message before her broadcast protest.

In the video, she says her father is Ukrainian and that she was ashamed of how she had worked at the station for a "number of years" and how she had contributed to the "zombification of the Russian people".

According to Buzzfeed News' translation of the video, she ended her video with this:

"Now the whole world has turned away from us," she said, "and the next 10 generations of our descendants won't wash off the shame of this fratricidal war."

"We are Russian people who think, who are smart. It's only in our power to stop all this madness," she concluded. "Go to protests. Don't be afraid of anything. They can't imprison us all."

Ukrainian President Zelensky later thanked Marina for her actions.

According to The Guardian, Marina was arrested shortly after her protest.

Related article

Image from Twitter

Living next door to Russia: How Moscow's war in Ukraine sparked a seismic shift in Finland

By David Mac Dougall • Updated: 10/03/2022

People hold banners and Ukrainian flags during a protest against the Russia invasion, in Helsinki, Saturday, March 5, 2022 - Copyright Credit: AP

"A Russian is a Russian" the old Finnish saying goes, "even if you fry him in butter."

While political leaders have warned against holding individual Russians responsible for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, this one phrase -- that everything except Russians tastes better after being fried in butter -- sums up an ingrained wariness in the national psyche when it comes to attitudes about their huge eastern neighbour.

With a 1,300-kilometre shared border -- the longest in the European Union -- more than a hundred years as part of the Russian Empire, and two bloody wars in the 20th century (not to mention a couple of decades of Finlandisation, when the Kremlin had the final say on any major political decisions), the Finns like to think they know a thing or two about dealing with Russia.

Even the canny Finns, though, were caught by surprise at the speed of developments that unfolded since 24 February, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

In just two weeks there's already been a seismic shift for politics, business and society in the Nordic nation. And the question of an application to join NATO, long since put on the back burner of public debate, has become the number one subject of political discourse from Hanko in the south to Utsjoki in the north, and all points in between.

The issue is certainly getting a good airing - or to use another Finnish phrase, the cat has been put on the table.

"I think everything has changed in a few weeks. The European Union has changed a lot. And the discussion has changed totally. And it's understandable when people are very afraid," says Jussi Saramo, the deputy leader of Finland's Left Alliance party, one of the five which make up the government coalition.

In light of the Russian invasion, the Left Alliance will launch an internal debate with a view to overhauling and updating their foreign and security policies - perhaps even a shift to being more positive on NATO, something unthinkable this time last month.

That party, and the whole government, already crossed some invisible policy line when they approved the export of offensive weapons to Ukraine, to be used against Russia. The Finnish default of not poking the bear has been thoroughly cast aside.

File picture of the Finnish Parliament, Eduskunta, Helsinki

David Mac Dougall

Most politicians still wary on the NATO question

Finland's security policy timeline can be split into the period before the Russian invasion of Ukraine when only two parties in parliament were advocates of applying to join NATO; and after the invasion, with every Finnish political party now actively debating the question of becoming a member of the military alliance, and a number of MPs openly changing their mind in favour of applying.

Vladimir Putin's pre-invasion rhetoric threatened political and military consequences for Finland if it made NATO overtures: and if Putin's intention was to silence any Finnish debate, he badly miscalculated.

But it's not completely cut and dried: a poll this week of all 200 Finnish MPs by public broadcaster Yle asking simply whether Finland should join NATO got 58 replies saying 'yes'. Just 9 came out directly and said 'no', while 15 said 'maybe' and 118 didn't answer at all, suggesting many MPs are still working out their own position.

While two recent opinion polls found that (within the margin of error) 50% of Finns now support joining Nato, some MPs are likely waiting to see if there's a sustained swing in public opinion - even if support right now is higher than it's ever been.

Jussi Saramo says he's been impressed by the way President Niinistö, who leads on foreign policy outside the EU, has worked with the leaders of all the parties in parliament, not just those in government, to find consensus during the Ukraine crisis.

"I think it's a very Finnish way to work on this issue," the south Finland MP tells Euronews.

"Our message has been that everybody should stay calm. It's not like Putin is attacking Finland tomorrow, he has a lot of problems in Ukraine right now. So we have time to analyse it and work properly without panic. Even if it seems that some parties and some media are giving people panic [about the imminent need to apply to join NATO] without reason."

File picture of Hesburger restaurant

Vesa-Matti Väärä / Hesburger

Consumers push wholesale pivot away from the Russian market

If the discussion about Finland's security policy position has evolved quickly, then the issue of Finnish companies doing business with Russia has become a hot topic just as fast.

Although only 4% of Finnish export trade is with Russia, and trade in both directions slumped during the COVID pandemic, the Helsinki Chamber of Commerce estimates that 90% of Finnish businesses will be impacted somehow by sanctions and divestment in Russia. Given the shared border and innumerable personal contacts between the two countries, it's no surprise perhaps how deeply the impact is felt.

In the last two weeks, at breakneck speed, Russian products have been cleared from Finnish supermarket shelves; Russian vodka is gone from the state-run Alko stores; Finnish businesses say they'll stop using Russian raw materials in their products, stop selling consumer goods imported from Russia, and stop selling their own products in Russian markets.

Even grocery chain Lidl, which has a promotion coming up on food items from Eastern Europe, says it won't sell any of the 'Russian' products even though they're not actually made in Russia.

File picture at S-Group Prisma supermarket in St. Petersburg, Russia

One of Finland's big two retail chains S-Group -- with annual income in excess of €10 billion -- is closing and selling more than a dozen supermarkets in Russia, and trying to find buyers for its two Sokos brand hotels in St. Petersburg as well, as rapid divestment becomes the order of the day.

Companies that didn't move quickly enough like fast-food chain Hesburger, are feeling a backlash from the public - a reaction "like a bear shot in the ass", as Finns would say. The company first announced it was keeping its 44 Russia and Belarus restaurants open while closing its Ukraine outlets, but had to backtrack within a few hours after a negative public outcry.

Even beloved Finnish confectionery and bakery brand Fazer had to admit it was slow to react to unfolding events before finally shuttering its Russian business interests - but not before mocked-up images of its signature chocolate bar drenched in blood were shared widely on social media, including by politicians.

"I think the reaction on social media has been very strong. Consumers have reacted strongly. And since we have very many Finnish consumer product companies in Russia, they were required to leave, or at least publish something about leaving, immediately," explains Pia Pakarinen, CEO of the Helsinki Chamber of Commerce.

The Finnish labour market ideal has also been turned on its head in a matter of weeks: usually, the rights of employees would be a major consideration for Finnish companies when making business decisions. But faced with an almost immediate exit from the Russian market, that has gone out the window.

"Normally the public is against laying off employees, and mentioning their wellbeing would be a good sign. But in this case, it doesn't mean anything," says Pakarinen, a former deputy mayor of Helsinki from the National Coalition Party.

Finnish PM Sanna Marin, left, welcomes Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson in Helsinki, 5th March 2022

Roni Rekomaa/Lehtikuva

Protecting Finland's Russian population

A legacy of Finland's long shared history with Russia, and a product of geography, are the tens of thousands of Russians who make Finland their home, and thousands more Finns who speak Russian as their first language.

There's been a strong message from the country's leaders, and even its security services, on ensuring the safety of those people.

"There is no place in Finland for any kind of violence or vandalism against ordinary people, regardless of where they are or what language they speak," Prime Minister Sanna Marin said at the beginning of March, in between a whirlwind of diplomatic meetings with her counterparts from Sweden and Estonia. Her ministers too have been shuttling around the region for talks with their Nordic and Baltic opposite numbers.

In a rare show of political unity, Finland's parliamentary parties issued a statement of support for people of Russian origin, calling for them not to be discriminated against or harassed "because of the war started by the Kremlin".

"No-one is to blame for the situation in Ukraine simply because of their origin or language," the parties said.

For a country that can often be quite set in its ways in many respects, Finns have seen an unprecedented pace of change when it comes to Russia in the last fortnight.

There is a cost to all this change: whether it's the removal of a Soviet-era peace statue in a Helsinki park; the impact of trade sanctions on so many businesses; Finnair services cancelled because they can't overfly Russia to their main Asian markets; and political and cultural upheaval around security and NATO.

But it seems that so far, Finns are mostly okay with this evolution, with paying this high price.

Or to use another Finnish phrase, they're willing to pay the price of strawberries.

What do Russians think of Putin's invasion of Ukraine?

By Anastasia Trofimova • Updated: 03/03/2022

Four Russians tell Euronews their views on Moscow's invasion of Ukraine - 

 Copyright Credit: Anastasia Trofimova


“Guys, where’s the main protest?” asks 28-year-old Ksenia, who’s taken to the street to protest for the first time in her life.

It’s 9 pm in Moscow and the police have already broken up the bulk of the protests. Since anyone with anti-war signs is arrested immediately, protesters casually stroll along until a large enough crowd gathers to shout their opposition to what's going on in Ukraine.

Two middle-aged women hiss “no war!” to the police before running away, laughing nervously.

“Let’s work, go!” the policeman orders his underlings. A group of three young police officers take off down the street but don’t find any suitable targets. They finally spot a man, who, as he's being dragged to the police van, is revealed to be very drunk. He is released.

The protesters trickle along smaller streets, following location updates from dedicated Telegram channels. Convoys of police vans follow. It’s a massive game of cat and mouse. The night ends with a 39-year-old man driving a car into the police barriers at Pushkin Square with signs “This is war!” and “Rise up, people!” The car starts to burn; the man is arrested.


On the sixth day of the war in Ukraine, there have been more than 6,000 arrests at anti-war protests across Russia.

Ksenia

Credit: Anastasia Trofimova

“The night of (the invasion), I was in a really great mood," recalls Ksenia. "My friend and I were celebrating February 23 (Day of the Defender of the Fatherland or, more commonly, Men’s Day).

"We were outside, drinking wine and singing on the swings. At 6:05 am Forbes announced Putin declared the start of the military operation. And that’s it. My world divided into a before and after.”

Ksenia works in PR and speaks bluntly.

“Putin is crazy. No sane person would do anything like this. Ukraine will persevere. Meanwhile, we’re going to be in [the] shit.”

'It's been a long time coming'

“You’re not one of those liberals, are you?” asks 49-year-old Yuri. He’s not a fan of anti-war protesters like Ksenia.

Yuri

Credit: Anastasia Trofimova

“I’m against the war. But to be honest, it’s been a long time coming. The problem is not with Ukraine, but with those Anglo-Saxons who are creeping upon us. Just look at what happened to countries they’ve got into, like Syria. And now they’re trying to get at us (create internal strife) via Ukraine. Therefore, I think all of this is justified and right.”

The liberals that Yuri hates would respond in kind by calling him “a victim of the zombie-box”, or state television. This ideological division runs through many Russian families. However, Yuri’s sentiment is too common to dismiss as crazy talk on the fringes.

The fear of NATO was and is very real here. Examples of Yugoslavia and Libya, two states bombed by NATO forces, are used to drive fears that Russia may be next. The day before the start of the war, Putin told the nation of WWII-era promises not to expand NATO eastward and said those promises had been broken five times. Ukraine's flirtation with NATO membership pushed those fears into overdrive.

Nikita

Credit: Anastasia Trofimova

Yuri is one of many seeing the events through a prism of fear.

“If I’m called up, I’ll go," he said. "Russians are not afraid of the army. All of us have children. At least my children will be protected.”

What does he think of the sanctions on Russia?

“Our people have always been under some type of sanctions. We’re used to it. If we survived during the hunger and sieges, we’ll make it.”

It’s sunny, people are taking selfies on Red Square, while a long convoy of National Guard buses rolls by the Kremlin walls. More protests are expected.

Nikita, 20, tells Euronews: “I’m mostly against war. But I don’t know what I would’ve done in the place of the government. If war didn’t start now, then maybe five or six years down the road Ukraine could’ve joined NATO and the consequences would’ve been much different for our country. Of course, I really feel bad for the ordinary people who cannot influence their government’s decisions.” Do you mean Russians or Ukrainians, Nikita is asked. “All of us. Our guys are dying over there and so are Ukrainians.”

Olesya

Credit: Anastasia Trofimova

“I’m against war," said Olesya, 45, who has most of her relatives in the separatist region of Donbas. "But I think this should’ve been done in 2014 and then we wouldn’t have war today. Where was the West, with all its humanitarian concerns, when the Ukrainians shelled the people of Donbas?”

The war in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. Next, two separatist regions in Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk, declared their independence from Kyiv. It sparked a conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists, which has seen casualties on both sides.

But even though justification of the Ukraine invasion can be found among Russians, there have been no demonstrations of support.

On the contrary, the people taking to the streets are those against it, despite threats of arrests. Most Russians have family and friends in Ukraine.

“War is always awful. War never leads to anything good and won’t this time either,” – says 18-year-old Tonya, wearing a bag with a hand-stitched "No war" sign.

“I’m scared and hurt for my friends in Ukraine, who write to me ‘we’re going down into the bomb shelter’. We joke, ‘It’s been an explosive morning, hasn’t it?’ and she says, ‘It’s been simply bombastic’. In the past three days, I’ve slept for 10 hours in total. The rest of the time I’m crying”.

A war with a country with the strongest historical and cultural ties to Russia was laughable, ridiculous, absurd. Until February 24, 2022. Putin’s attack on Ukraine took most Russians by surprise.

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