A protest in a small Sri Lankan town that quickly turned deadly



Wed, April 20, 2022, 
By Devjyot Ghoshal

RAMBUKKANA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - When K.D. Chaminda Lakshan was wheeled into the Kegalle Teaching Hospital in central Sri Lanka around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, the father of two was fighting for his life.

Hours earlier, the 41-year-old had been waiting outside a filling station in the nearby town of Rambukkana, when people angered by long queues for petrol clashed with police.

Lakshan was likely hit by live ammunition, which police said they used to scatter the demonstrators, and died later on Tuesday, the hospital's director Mihiri Priyangani told Reuters.

His was the first death during an unprecedented wave of unrest that has roiled Sri Lanka since last month, underlining the risk of more violence as the country faces its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in largely peaceful protests against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government, angered by shortages of essentials like medicine and fuel, lengthy power cuts and spiralling inflation.

Tourism has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine have added to Sri Lanka's financial woes.

In Rambukkana, a small town of low-rise buildings surrounded by forested hills in the centre of the country, residents recounted how some people had lined up at a fuel station overnight to get petrol, but on Tuesday morning there was none.

"The shortage is causing frustration," said Kausala Desilva, 39, who runs a small restaurant near the station. "We weren't informed about when supplies would come."

The crisis is gnawing at middle-class households as well as poorer families, some of them already reeling from the pandemic.

Indika Priyantha Kumara, who runs a baking business, said that prices of eggs, butter, flour and sugar had gone up in recent weeks, and cooking gas had become scarce.

"Life has never been so difficult," said Kumara, who had a large bandage on his forehead covering an injury he said he sustained during the protests. "We can't live with these shortages."

'REASONABLE FORCE'

In separate statements on Wednesday, President Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, said that Sri Lankan police would carry out an impartial investigation into the incident at Rambukkana.

Police have said that their actions, including initially firing tear gas, were justified because protesters were attempting to set alight a fuel tanker that they had blocked at the railway crossing.

"According to the police officers who participated in the operation... they state that they used reasonable force according to the law," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told reporters on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, Reuters reporters saw rocks, tear gas canisters and bullet cases strewn across the ground near the scene.

Locals in Rambukkana said the protest that blocked the crossing had gone on for several hours without any violence, until the police fired tear gas and the crowd retaliated.

"It was very peaceful," said Kumara, "We didn't damage anything."

Video footage taken by a resident near the railway crossing seen by Reuters shows what he said were people arguing with a group of police at around 4:30 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Tuesday. Reuters could not independently verify the images.

By around 6 p.m., the Kegalle Teaching Hospital had started receiving casualties from Rambukkana, including Lakshan and three others with suspected gunshot wounds who are still in intensive care.

Priyangani, the medical director, said some had been wounded in the abdomen.

Outside their family home where dozens had gathered on Wednesday afternoon, Lakshan's daughter quietly wept as she remembered her father, a small businessman.

"My father was a very good person who loved to help other people," said Piumi Upekshika Lakshani, 19. "He never bothered or troubled anyone."

(Additional reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Cynthia Osterman)

Rights group demands probe into Sri Lanka police shooting

BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI and KRISHAN FRANCIS
Thu, April 21, 2022,

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — An international human rights group urged Sri Lankan authorities to conduct a prompt and impartial probe into a police shooting that left one person dead and 13 others injured during protests over the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

New York-based Human Rights Watch asked the government to probe the “apparent use of excessive force by police” in the incident and “take appropriate steps against any wrongdoing.”

Patricia Grossman, the group’s associate Asia director, said the use of live ammunition by police against demonstrators “appears to be a flagrant misuse of lethal force.”

“People protesting government policies that affect their lives and livelihoods shouldn’t have to fear for their lives,” she said in a statement late Wednesday. “International law prohibits the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers unless there is an imminent threat to life.”


The group said Sri Lanka has a long history of failing to provide justice and redress to victims of human rights violations.

The statement came hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pledged an impartial and transparent inquiry into the shooting, which was the first by security forces during weeks of protests and reignited widespread demonstrations across the Indian Ocean island nation.

The shooting occurred in Rambukkana, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo. Police said the demonstrators were blocking railway tracks and roads and ignored police warnings to disperse. Police also said protesters threw rocks at them.

The calls for an investigation came as Parliament on Thursday observed a minute of silence in memory of more than 260 people killed in 2019 in Islamic State group-inspired suicide bomb attacks on churches and tourist hotels.


Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, at a multi-religious memorial service in Colombo, reiterated his criticism of what he called the government's lack of interest in uncovering those whose alleged inaction contributed to the attacks.

Ranjith has urged authorities to investigate possible links between the attackers and some members of the state intelligence service after reports that they knew at least one of the attackers and had met with him.

Protesters who have camped outside the office of Sri Lanka’s president for 13 days demanding his resignation also offered alms to Buddhist and Christian clergy in memory of the dead.

Much of the anger expressed in weeks of growing protests has been directed at Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who head an influential clan that has been in power for most of the past two decades. Five other family members are lawmakers, three of whom resigned as Cabinet ministers two weeks ago.

Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy, with nearly $7 billion of its total $25 billion in foreign debt due for repayment this year. A severe shortage of foreign exchange means the country lacks money to buy imported goods.

Sri Lankans have endured months of shortages of essentials such as food, cooking gas, fuel and medicine, lining up for hours to buy the limited stocks available. Fuel prices have risen several times in recent months, resulting in sharp increases in transport costs and prices of other goods. There was another round of increases earlier this week.

The government has announced it is suspending repayment of foreign loans pending talks with the International Monetary Fund on a rescue plan.

China has pledged about $31 million in emergency aid, including 5,000 tons of rice, medicine and raw materials, Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry announced the aid after Foreign Minister Gamini Peiris met with Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong. Qi earlier said China is mulling a request for $2.5 billion in economic assistance including a credit line to buy essentials and a loan.

The debt crisis is partly blamed on projects built with Chinese loans that have not made money.

THIRD WORLD USA

Spike in deaths of homeless people not due to COVID, study finds

David Knowles
·Senior Editor
Thu, April 21, 2022

BERKELEY, Calif. — In a state where tent cities continue to proliferate underneath freeway overpasses and rows of broken-down RVs provide shelter to a growing number of people, the number of deaths among the homeless has been soaring in recent years.

“It’s like a wartime death toll in places where there is no war,” Maria Raven, an emergency room doctor in San Francisco and the co-author of a study on homelessness deaths during the coronavirus pandemic, told the New York Times.

The study, which focused on the deaths of indigent people living in San Francisco, found that “twice as many people died while homeless in the year starting March 17, 2020, compared with any prior year.” Between that date and March 16, 2021, 331 deaths among homeless people were recorded.

People walk past homeless encampments on the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles in April 2021. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

The leading cause of death, however, was not COVID-19, and death by overdose was due primarily to exposure to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says is “80-100 times stronger than morphine.”

In fact, for the year covered in the study, “COVID-19 was not listed as the primary cause of any deaths” among the city’s homeless.

California is home to the largest percentage of an estimated 500,000 homeless Americans, accounting for roughly one-quarter of the total, the Times reported. Yet the number of deaths reported among the homeless is also on the rise in cities like Indianapolis, Nashville, Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas. Still, as the Times noted, based on reporting from officials in 58 California counties that tally the deaths of homeless people, last year the state recorded at least 4,800 such fatalities.

A homeless encampment in Los Angeles. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

Nearly 2,000 of last year’s deaths of homeless people were recorded in Los Angeles County.

A study of the deaths of homeless people living in Alameda County, which includes Berkeley, from 2018 through 2020 found that 57% of those fatalities “took place outside of a medical setting,” instead occurring “on streets/sidewalks, outdoors, in vehicles, encampments, shelters, others' residences and other locations.”

As with the study conducted in San Francisco, the leading cause of death in the county was from drug overdoses, with “25% of homeless deaths between 2018 and 2020 (190) ... directly due to drug overdose, with the number of overdoses among people experiencing homelessness rising sharply in 2020.”

With sky-high housing costs, especially in urban centers like the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, Californians are often stretched to make rent or pay a mortgage. A March poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that nearly 55% of state residents said they were concerned about not having enough money to cover their housing costs.

According to data compiled by Zillow, California's median home price rose by more than 20% in 2021, to $793,100. In the coming year it is expected to rise another 5.2%, to $834,400.

As of September 2021, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in California was $1,996, according to Statista.

Time running out in Horn of Africa as millions confront hunger: UN


Sharon Udasin
Wed, April 20, 2022

With major precipitation failing to materialize nearly a month into the Horn of Africa’s rainy season, the number of people suffering from drought-induced hunger could surge from an estimated 14 million to 20 million by the end of the year, the United Nations’ food agency warns.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says unending drought conditions, exacerbated by stagnant and decreasing humanitarian aid, are straining communities in the Horn of Africa — a large peninsular region in East Africa that generally includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti as well as parts of Kenya.

This critical situation has been exacerbated by knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine, as food and fuel prices have soared to unprecedented highs, the WFP noted, adding “time is fast running out for families who are struggling to survive.”

“We know from past experience that acting early to avert a humanitarian catastrophe is vital, yet our ability to launch the response has been limited due to a lack of funding to date,” Michael Dunford, WFP’s regional director for Eastern Africa, said in a Tuesday statement.


Somalia is facing a particularly severe risk of famine, while half a million Kenyans are what the WFP described as “one step away from catastrophic levels of hunger.” Meanwhile, malnutrition rates in Ethiopia have surged well above emergency thresholds, according to the WFP.

The cost of a food basket has risen by 66 percent and 36 percent in Ethiopia and Somalia, respectively. Both nations rely on wheat from Black Sea basin countries, the WFP noted, adding that some transit routes have seen a surge in shipping costs since the beginning of the year.

In Ethiopia, the WFP described a situation of widespread crop failure, with over a million livestock deaths and an estimated 7.2 million people waking up hungry every day in the southern and southeastern portions of the country.

While WFP representatives are on the ground, the program said it requires $239 million over the next six months to respond to the drought in this area.

In Kenya, meanwhile, the number of people in need of assistance had increased fourfold in less than two years, according to the WFP. Escalating drought conditions have left 3.1 million people acutely food insecure, including half a million individuals who are confronting emergency levels of hunger.

The WFP said that it requires $42 million over the next six months to nourish the most critically impacted areas in the country’s northern and eastern regions.

As far as Somalia is concerned, the WFP found that some 6 million people — 40 percent of the population — are facing “acute food insecurity,” and that the country faces “a very real risk of famine in the coming months if the rains don’t arrive and humanitarian assistance isn’t received.”

To help bridge these gaps, the WFP said it has been scaling up emergency food and nutrition assistance that will support 3 million people by the middle of this year. However, the organization stressed that it still requires $192 million in relief funding over the next six months.

The WFP said it last pushed for additional funding for the agency in February, but less than 4 percent of requested funding had been secured.

Acknowledging that the Horn of Africa also experienced a severe drought in 2016-2017, the WFP explained that catastrophe was avoided during that period due to early action. At the time, the organization said it was able to scale up assistance before widespread hunger occurred.

This year, however, a critical lack of resources has led to a different situation entirely, the program warned.

“WFP and other humanitarian agencies have been warning the international community since last year that this drought could be disastrous if we didn’t act immediately,” Dunford, the regional director, said.

“But funding has failed to materialize at the scale required,” he added.

ALL WORKERS NEED A UNION

Goldman Sachs keeps intern pay at $85,000 as Wall Street rivals raise salaries

Paul Clarke - 


© Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Goldman Sachs has decided not to up pay for its interns, despite hiking salaries for other lower-level roles as an intense battle for talent continues.

Incoming summer interns at the bank can expect a pro-rata salary of $85,000, according to a letter seen by Financial News.

This is effectively the same entry-level pay level the bank offered before it hiked salaries for first-year analysts to $110,000 in August.

Interns will also receive a $2,500 bonus for the eight to 10 weeks they stay at the bank this summer.

While Goldman has become one of the highest payers for junior and mid-ranking dealmakers as rival banks bid to secure top talent, the decision to hold intern pay contrasts with some Wall Street and European peers, including JPMorgan which are offering their summer interns salaries commensurate with full-time roles, for which pay has increased to $110,000 for those in their first year on the job.

Investment banks have been clambering to keep hold of junior bankers over the past 12 months as a boom in deals has led to 100-hour weeks and a spike in burnout. The issue was thrust into the spotlight in March last year when a group of 13 Goldman Sachs analysts in San Francisco highlighted a surge in workload and declining mental and physical health.

All major players have responded with at least one salary hike for analysts. Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS are among those to increase entry-level pay to $110,000. In London, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley now offer starting salaries of £70,000.

Internships are the primary route into a full-time banking job and remain fiercely contested, despite the hit to the sector’s image over the past year.

Goldman Sachs received a record 236,000 applications for its 2022 intake, with a 1.5% success rate, CNBC reported. Meanwhile, JPMorgan had over 270,000 vying for its internships, the bank told The Times, an increase of 20% on last year.

Pay might be seen as a secondary consideration for internships, as candidates look to open the door to a career in banking. But Goldman has handed out bumper bonuses to other staff this year, putting it ahead of its rivals, according to a report from recruiters Dartmouth Partners.

The bank paid out £180,000 in bonuses to associates on average, the data shows, while vice-presidents were paid variable compensation of £350,000. These were the highest numbers in the City.

This story originally appeared at FNLondon.com

CORPORATIONS AREN'T DEMOCRATIC

JPMorgan employees describe the 'fear of God' and 'panic' as the company tracks their office attendance

Sarah Jackson,Reed Alexander,Aaron Weinman

Thu, April 21, 2022, 

Jamie Dimon, Chair and CEO of JPMorgan ChaseJ. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

• JPMorgan has asked hybrid employees to come into the office at least 3 days a week.

• The bank is tracking ID swipes to monitor staffers' office attendance.

• One executive described there being a "fear of God" and "panic" over the attendance quotas.

JPMorgan has started tracking staffers' office attendance, and employees say it's creating an atmosphere of mistrust and panic.

Insider reported Wednesday that the banking giant has taken to monitoring employee ID swipes in order to enforce its return-to-office policies, citing four people with direct knowledge of the program. This data helps generate reports that are then used to enforce in-office quotas.

JPMorgan has asked hybrid employees to work from the office at least three days a week, according to a copy of an internal email viewed by Insider.

In a recent letter to shareholders, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said 50% of the bank's global employees must return to the office five days a week, 40% can follow a hybrid schedule with some days at home and some in the office, and the remaining 10% can work remotely full-time. The bank employs more than 270,000 people.

The tracking and enforcement actions have stoked frustrations about micromanagement.

"At JPMorgan, nobody trusts you," a London-based technology staffer told Insider. "The higher-ups don't trust you to do your job if they're not constantly watching you in the office."

A senior asset-management executive also based in London told Insider the return-to-office measures aren't a hit with managers either, saying some appeared "deathly afraid" of their teams falling short of 100% compliance.

"I don't know whether it's because they themselves are too timid or whether it's because the fear of God has been put into them by a bank manager," the executive said. "But every time there's something that requires participation, you sense the panic."

Both London-based employees told Insider they're now looking for work elsewhere as a result.

SpaceX shut down a Russian electromagnetic warfare attack in Ukraine last month — and the Pentagon is taking notes

Airman 1st Class Zoe Thacker

Stephen Losey

Wed, April 20, 2022, 

WASHINGTON — Russia’s halting efforts to conduct electromagnetic warfare in Ukraine show how important it is to quickly respond, and immediately shut down, such attacks, Pentagon experts said Wednesday.

But the U.S. needs to get much better at its own EW rapid response, they said during the C4ISRNET Conference Wednesday — and can learn a lot from how the private sector has handled these situations.

Brig. Gen. Tad Clark, director of the Air Force’s electromagnetic spectrum superiority directorate, said modern wars will increasingly involve electromagnetic warfare, particularly to shape the battlefield when conflicts begin.

Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, pointed to SpaceX’s ability last month to swiftly stymie a Russian effort to jam its Starlink satellite broadband service, which was keeping Ukraine connected to the Internet. SpaceX founder Elon Musk steered thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine after an official sent him a tweet asking for help keeping the besieged country online.

“The next day [after reports about the Russian jamming effort hit the media], Starlink had slung a line of code and fixed it,” Tremper said. “And suddenly that [Russian jamming attack] was not effective anymore. From [the] EW technologist’s perspective, that is fantastic … and how they did that was eye-watering to me.”

The government, on the other hand, has a “significant timeline to make those types of corrections” as it muddles through analyses of what happened, decides how to fix it and gets a contract in place for the fix.

“We need to be able to have that agility,” Tremper said. “We need to be able to change our electromagnetic posture to be able to change, very dynamically, what we’re trying to do without losing capability along the way.”

Redundancy is also critical so the U.S. could keep operating on another system if an EW attack succeeded at knocking one out, Tremper said.

The U.S. needs to think a lot more innovatively when it comes to building new EW equipment, Clark said. It won’t be enough to just buy upgraded versions of legacy systems, he said — the U.S. has to come up with new systems that allow for much greater resilience and speed.

This includes incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into next-generation systems to be able to respond faster, he said. Increased use of digital engineering can also help the military model new equipment with a computer and work out the kinks before going through the time-consuming typical acquisition and testing process.

Clark said the Air Force’s in-development Compass Call, the EC-37B, is a prime example of how digital engineering is transforming how the service approaches new electromagnetic warfare capabilities.

Software coders and engineers are working with Compass Call operators on the ground to figure out creative ways to jam enemy signals, Clark said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taught the U.S. a great deal about the sophistication and reliability of Russian equipment, they said, and their troops’ ability to carry out missions in a synchronized way.

In particular, Tremper said, it has shown how important it is to properly train the personnel assigned to carry out electromagnetic warfare operations. Trying to carry out EW while moving forward inside the territory you’re invading, and not in a secure location, makes it even trickier.

“It’s a very hard problem, if you don’t have well-trained operators,” Tremper said. “The degree of coordination and synchronization of these types of operations is such that the undertrained operator will have a harder time pulling off those types of events successfully.”

Tremper said the Pentagon expected a “much stronger” EW showing from Russia — but cautioned that isn’t to say all of Russia’s efforts have failed.

Russia says it’s fighting Nazis in Ukraine. 

It doesn’t mean what you think.

Fred Weir

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Wed, April 20, 2022, 

Increasing numbers of Russians appear to be backing their government’s rationale for waging its “special military operation” in Ukraine. That seems to include the notion that Russia is presently fighting against the same enemy that it did during World War II: “Nazis.”

It must seem baffling to Western audiences that Ukrainians, who democratically elected a Jewish president barely three years ago, could in any way be referred to as “Nazis,” as Russian media reports routinely describe its enemies.

Editor’s note: This article was edited in order to conform with Russian legislation criminalizing references to Russia’s current action in Ukraine as anything other than a “special military operation.”

The answer appears to lie in the very different ways that Russia and the West experienced WWII – still known in Russia as the “Great Patriotic War” – and digested its lessons. In particular, the two sides take divergent views on what crimes against humanity the Nazis committed that define their monstrosity.

The Monitor spoke to two Russian and two Ukrainian thinkers in an attempt to understand the domestic appeal of the Russian narrative, which a host of new polls indicate has consolidated public opinion behind the Kremlin. This support is coming despite the obvious fact that Russia initiated the “special military operation” that continues to inflict vast destruction upon Ukraine, including immense devastation in cities like Mariupol, and serious costs upon Russia, like the sinking of its flagship cruiser Moskva.

“A person who thinks one nation is above all others”

In the official Russian telling, neo-Nazis and Nazi-influenced groups infiltrated Ukraine’s government and military establishments during and after the 2014 Maidan revolt, which changed power in Kyiv from a Russian-friendly to pro-Western government.

When Russian-speaking separatists in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine raised a Russian-backed rebellion, the Kyiv government launched a war against them that continues to this day. Ultranationalist paramilitary units with neo-Nazi ties, such as the Azov, Aidar, and Dnipro-1 and -2 battalions, which were later incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard, spearheaded that war.

Hence, the official Russian narrative claims the present “special military operation” is a struggle to liberate the Russian-speaking population of Donbas from external occupation, which they insist includes actual Nazis as well as regular Ukrainian forces who are fulfilling a Nazi-inspired agenda.

It is a narrative that has considerable traction among average Russians. A recent VTISOM poll found that 88% of Russians believe that there are organizations in Ukraine that profess the ideology of Nazism, and 76% believe that Ukrainian Nazi organizations pose a threat to Russia and Russian citizens.

And there is much discussion about the Nazi threat in Ukraine among Russian commentators. Unlike Soviet times, the fighting there does not take place amid a news blackout or completely made-up information and imagery. Indeed, many embedded Russian war correspondents broadcast visually jarring daily reports from the front lines, and make no effort to disguise the devastation in places like Mariupol.

Instead, the emphasis of Russian authorities is on controlling the narrative, the psychological framework within which Russians view these events. That is where the Nazi metaphor for the Ukrainian enemy becomes potent.

Key to understanding the metaphor’s power in Russia is understanding the Soviet world’s very different experience of WWII and the Nazis, says Masha Lipman, a senior associate at the PONARS Eurasia program at George Washington University.

“In the West, WWII is in large part about the Holocaust, the ultimate evil of the ‘Final Solution,’ and this defined the development of the West after the war,” she says. “In Russia, the Great Patriotic War is connected with the assault on the USSR, the terrible losses among Soviet citizens [of all nationalities], and the great victory over Nazi Germany.

“Official rhetoric makes no reference to the Holocaust. Rather it was a victory over the evil force that tried to destroy the Soviet Union, not a force that was devoted to exterminating the Jews,” she says. “Broadly speaking, the symbolism is different. That has become much more graphic and distinct in recent years as Russia got involved in memory wars with the West.”

That can be seen in public understanding. Nina, a Moscow pensioner who follows the news, says she believes a Nazi is “a person who thinks one nation is above all others and the rest should be killed. It is difficult to figure out exactly what exactly is happening in Ukraine right now. I don’t follow it closely, but there were definitely Nazis in Ukraine. Not the whole population of course, but some squads.”

Not everyone thinks the same. Irina, a municipal worker nearing retirement age, says, “I think what’s going on in Ukraine has nothing to do with Nazis, no matter what we are told by our authorities. The aim perhaps is to demonstrate that we are good, but I think this is an attempt to pit us against one other. I suffer a lot about it all.”

“A gift to Russian propaganda”

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser and strong supporter of the military operation, claims that Ukrainian leaders, though mostly not Nazis themselves, allowed themselves to become hostages to a right-wing nationalist agenda that exalted WWII-era Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera, and allowed actual neo-Nazis to occupy key positions in military and government institutions.

“This Ukrainian regime is infiltrated by Nazis, and it needs them to survive,” he says. “It’s not about whether [President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is Jewish or not. He is their hostage. I am sure he hates the Nazis, but he is afraid of them. And just because the Ukrainian Nazis don’t pursue anti-Semitic goals – at least for now – doesn’t make them less Nazi. They channel their chauvinism and xenophobia into Russophobia” and turn it against not only Russia, but also that big part of the Ukrainian population that speaks Russian and wants good relations with Russia, he says.

Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian political scientist at the University of Ottawa, says that there are neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine, and though they are a tiny proportion of the population, they have played an “outsized role” in political and military affairs. That has led to confusion and played a prominent part in Russian media coverage of the operation.

As Russian and separatist forces occupy former Azov Regiment premises in the embattled city of Mariupol, they have showcased reams of neo-Nazi paraphernalia they have found there, displayed Azov prisoners festooned with swastikas and other right-wing tattoos, and filmed local citizens recounting what they say are their unpleasant experiences with the group, which has been the main force defending Mariupol for the past eight years.

“That is a gift to Russian propaganda, that these groups were not dealt with before,” says Professor Katchanovski. “Neo-Nazis are a relatively small segment of Ukraine, but the fact that they are integrated in the Ukrainian armed forces and tolerated by Zelenskyy is a problem. ... These right-wing groups are real enough, but the [Kremlin] claim about Nazis in the Ukrainian government and army as a pretext for this illegal invasion of Ukraine is basically false.”

Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist and expert at the Institute of East European Studies, Free University of Berlin, says that the Kremlin’s fixation on the WWII metaphor for the current military operation is more than just a convenient pretext, but it is rooted in the Russian regime’s lack of post-Soviet legitimacy.

Soviet achievements like the victory over Nazi Germany are “fundamental for Russians to understand who they are,” he says. “Nazis are absolute enemies. You can’t do anything with Nazis other than defeat them. This Soviet frame is very powerful; indeed, no other one would work [to rationalize the military operation against Ukraine].”

Prominent Russian TV presenter says war 'against Europe and the world' is on the way following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine

Matthew Loh
Thu, April 21, 2022

Russian TV journalist Vladimir Solovyov said Russia is already waging a "de facto" war against NATO.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

A prominent Russian TV presenter says Moscow's war in Ukraine will extend to Europe and the world.

The Kremlin is already starting to wage a "de facto" war against NATO countries, he said.

"Ukrainians alone are no longer enough," Vladimir Solovyov said, in a clip posted by The Daily Beast's Julia Davis.

A prominent Russian TV presenter said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is approaching a "new stage" in which Moscow will find itself at war with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — and by extension, the entire world.

"I believe the special military operation is entering a new stage. Ukrainians alone are no longer enough," said Vladimir Solovyov, according to the translation of a video clip tweeted on Thursday by The Daily Beast's Julia Davis.


In the widely shared clip, Solovyov noted that NATO countries have been supplying weapons to Ukraine. "We'll see not only NATO weapons being drawn into this, but also their operators," he warned while speaking on his show "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov."

Solovyov, a prominent state media figure and supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has often repeated and amplified the Kremlin's pro-war rhetoric on the state-owned channel Russia-1.



In the clip, he noted that Russia was "starting to wage war against NATO countries."

We'll be grinding up NATO's war machine as well as citizens of NATO countries," Solovyov said. "When this operation concludes, NATO will have to ask itself: 'Do we have what we need to defend ourselves? Do we have the people to defend ourselves?'

"And there will be no mercy. There will be no mercy," he added.

Echoing Putin's call for the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine, Solovyov said: "Not only will Ukraine have to be denazified, the war against Europe and the world is developing a more specific outline, which means we'll have to act differently, and to act much more harshly."

His comments come as several NATO member states announced they would provide Ukrainian troops with advanced weapons and heavy artillery and training on how to use the equipment.

For instance, the US is now sending hundreds of tank-busting "Switchblade" drones designed to crash into targets and explode and dozens of long-range artillery systems called howitzers. The UK has also said it would provide 120 armored vehicles and anti-ship missile systems.

Solovyov's recent statements on the war align with what some military analysts and Putin critics have predicted: That the Russian leader seeks control of regions beyond Ukraine, particularly Eastern Europe.

"We must understand that, in his head, Putin is at war not with Ukraine," exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky told CNN on April 4. "He's at war with the United States and NATO. He said this more than once."

Russian General Lets Slip a Secret Plan to Invade Another Country and Seize Ukraine’s Entire Coastline

IMPERIAL MARCH

The Russian military now says the official plan is to create a land corridor all the way along Ukraine’s coast to Moldova, where another border is under threat.


Barbie Latza Nadeau
Correspondent-At-Large
Updated Apr. 22, 2022 





As Russian troops tighten their grip on the strategic port town of Mariupol, their strategy is finally becoming clear. Russian military commander Rustam Minnekaev now says the second phase of President Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” is focused on establishing a “land corridor” from the Donbas all the way to Moldova, which would cut off the rest of Ukraine from the sea.

“One of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine. This will provide a land corridor to the Crimea, as well as influence the vital objects of the Ukrainian economy,” Minnekaev said Friday at a meeting with the Union of Defense Industries, as reported by the Russian state-owned Interfax. “Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population.” Transnistria is a separatist region of Moldova that has so far not been officially involved in the war despite hosting a Russian military base since the 1990s.

The general’s words suggest that Moldova’s sovereign borders would also come under threat from further Russian expansion. Phony efforts to protect Russian-speaking peoples have often foreshadowed Putin’s imperial invasions.

In reality, Russian speakers have been struck down in the hundreds in eastern Ukraine during the brutal invasion.

If successful, the strategy would include taking the port of the former seaside resort town of Odesa near the Moldovan border, which has suffered sporadic bombardments but no full-fledged invasion so far. Russia’s warship Moskva was hit about 75 miles off the coast of Odesa two weeks ago, before it sank en route to Crimea.

The refocusing of troops from northern Ukraine to the southern regions of the country has further choked Mariupol, where Ukrainian troops and civilians are holed up in a steel factory surrounded by Russian troops. Satellite imagery identified a growing number of graves outside the port city, where Ukrainian officials say up to 200 new graves have been dug since April 3.

While the Russian military has largely now left northern Ukraine alone save for sporadic missile strikes, fresh evidence of Russia’s ruthless tactics there in recent weeks continue to build a case for widespread war crimes. Andrii Nebytov, the head of police for Kyiv region, told CNN that they are examining 1,084 bodies found in the region outside Kyiv, including Bucha, for signs of torture. “These are civilians who had nothing to do with territorial defense or other military formations,” he said. “The vast majority—between 50 percent and 75 percent—are people killed by small arms, either a machine gun or a sniper rifle, depending on the location.”

Among the atrocities are evidence of widespread rape and sexual mutilation. The youngest victim who survived to tell her story is just 15, according to CNN. Several female bodies in mass graves show evidence of horrific crimes as well.

On Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Office described Russian atrocities against Ukrainians as a “horror story of violations against civilians” that shows no sign of abating.

Ethiopians queue up to volunteer for Russia's fight in Ukraine

WAR OF AGRESSION AGAINST TIGRAY

WAS GOOD PRACTICE (THEY FAILED)

Ethiopians queue up to volunteer for Russia's fight in Ukraine

Thu, April 21, 2022
By Dawit Endeshaw

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The queues formed early each morning outside the Russian embassy in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. Drawn by rumours on social media, young men and old, many with their military records in hand, arrived with hopes of fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

What began as a trickle of volunteers swelled over two weeks to scores, two neighbourhood residents told Reuters.

On Tuesday, Reuters reporters saw several hundred men registering with Ethiopian security guards outside the embassy. The guards recorded their names and asked for proof of military service.

There is no evidence that any Ethiopians have been sent to Ukraine, nor is it clear if any ever will be.

A man who came out of the embassy and addressed the volunteers in Russian through an interpreter said Russia had enough forces for now, but that they would be contacted when they were needed.

The Russian embassy did not respond to questions from Reuters about the man's identity or whether Russia was deploying Ethiopian volunteers to Ukraine. It issued a statement later on Tuesday saying that it was not recruiting fighters, and that the Ethiopians who showed up outside were well-wishers expressing "solidarity and support for the Russian Federation".

The Ethiopian foreign ministry welcomed the Russian statement for what it called "refuting the unfounded reports of recruitment for the Russian Armed Forces" but did not respond to Reuters questions. Neither did the Russian foreign ministry.

Ukraine's embassy in Addis Ababa referred questions to the Ethiopian authorities.

Ethiopia has called on all sides in the war to exercise restraint and did not vote on a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine which Russia calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise the country.

But many in Ethiopia have voiced solidarity with Russia, which has enjoyed close relations with the Horn of Africa nation since the Soviet era.

Social media rumours of a $2,000 payment to join up and the possibility of work in Russia after the war tantalised some of the men in the queues. Many parts of Ethiopia are riven by conflict and annual inflation hovers around 30%.

"I am willing to support the Russia government and, in return, once I get out, I will get benefits," Leta Kibru told Reuters outside the embassy, where he returned on Tuesday to check on what he said was his application.

"Living in Ethiopia is becoming difficult," said the 30-year-old street vendor, who said he had retired from the Ethiopian army in 2018 and now sells clothing and mobile phones. "What I need is to live in Europe."

Leta said he had heard about a $2,000 payout from friends who had registered before him. Two others in the queues this week said they had seen posts on Facebook saying the embassy was signing up recruits.

Reuters was not able to find any posts on the subject from official sources or confirm any such offer.

The rumours followed news reports in March that Russian President Vladimir Putin had given the green light for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russian-backed rebels to fight in Ukraine, although Reuters has not been able to confirm that any have been sent there.

"The reason I want to go to Russia is not to fight Ukraine but it is because I am not benefiting from my country," said Binyam Woldetsadik, a 40-year-old security guard who said he served in Ethiopia's 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea.

"I'd rather be a national of a different country."

By late Wednesday morning, when Binyam showed up, the number of volunteers outside the Russian embassy had dwindled to around 20. A guard told him the embassy was no longer accepting registrations, he said.

(Writing by Aaron Ross; additional reporting by Alessandra Prentice in Kyiv; editing by Katharine Houreld, Alexandra Zavis and Nick Macfie)