Putin's 'de-Nazify' claims in Ukraine obscure his Nazi problem at home


Anna Nemtsova and Kim Hjelmgaard
Mon, May 23, 2022,

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he invaded Ukraine to "de-Nazify" the county, whose democratically elected leader is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Experts say it's an absurd allegation, not least because although Ukraine has attracted radicals of all stripes, it highlights the activities of a politically marginal group no more representative of Ukraine than of the United States or Western Europe.

In fact, while extremist groups in Russia have expressed a range of views about Putin's invasion of Ukraine, his biggest Nazi problem may be at home where some far-right hate groups sympathize with Ukrainians and threats to their independence, and are having trouble squaring the reality of Putin's assault on Ukraine with their racist beliefs.

"Putin’s war in Ukraine makes no sense. He is not building 'Russkiy Mir,' said Dmitry Demushkin, the former leader of an outlawed skinhead gang called Slavic Union that champions white nationalist, racist and extreme-right neo-Nazi views.

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Russkiy Mir is a quasi-ideology that Putin has over the years used in his speeches to evoke the concept of a "Russian World" united by language, culture and the Russian Orthodox Church. Demushkin spent two years in Russia's notoriously brutal prison colony system after being convicted in 2017 of organizing a banned extremist group and inciting racial hatred online. After his release, Demushkin was elected mayor of a wealthy Moscow suburb, a role in which he lasted just a few months. He now organizes body-building contests. Many participants have far-right tattoos that feature Nazi symbols or refer to anti-Semitic, homophobic and white supremacist slogans.

"Putin’s failure (in Ukraine) is close," Demushkin predicted. "Russian people are like dirt for him. ... He failed at all his goals. ... (Ukraine President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy is now the world’s most popular leader who speaks to parliaments, political leaders visit him, the West gives Ukraine billions of dollars, Finland and Sweden are applying to join NATO. ... Pretty soon the majority of Russians will realize Putin is not fighting against fascists or drug addicts in Ukraine, but with cities who were supposed to embrace us."

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization at the Kremlin in Moscow, on May 16, 2022.

Alexander Verkhovsky, the director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, an organization that monitors ultra-nationalist activities, hate crimes and hate speech, said that the majority of neo-Nazi groups and their supporters in Russia are now opposed to Putin and the Kremlin because the Russian government is sending Russian men who they consider their "white Slavic brothers" to die in Ukraine.

Members of these groups also object, he said, "to how much Putin promotes Chechen (fighters)" – volunteer militia units deployed alongside Russian troops in Ukraine who are from the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya. These fighters have a reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness honed from years of guerrilla warfare against Moscow in the 1990s and early 2000s. Chechnya is home to a majority-Muslim population.

Verkhovsky said Putin has attempted to crackdown on neo-Nazi groups and that over the last few months Russia's Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB, has been arresting far-right extremists all over the country.

One of the most significant, he said, was the arrest of activists from the so-called Nationalist Socialism or White Power group who the Kremlin accused of planning to assassinate Vladimir Solovyov, an anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian TV anchor who peddles propaganda and inflammatory rumors on state media. Solovyov has been sanctioned by the European Union for spreading propaganda. Italian authorities recently seized Solovyov's property – two villas – on Lake Como.

"Putin can't allow Nazis in Russia, when he claims he's fighting them in Ukraine," said Verkhovsky. "The FSB conducts constant special operations against them."

From Potemkin to Putin:What a centuries-old myth says about Russia's Ukraine war

Still, some neo-Nazi groups have pushed back against Putin's war in Ukraine.

Members of Russian ultra-nationalist hate groups discuss potential unrest and actions against authorities on social media channels such as Telegram, a popular platform in the Russian-speaking world that has offered a more accurate view of the war.

Earlier this month, a Telegram channel called "White Color," popular among Russian neo-Nazi activists, claimed credit for a purported arson attack on a military recruitment office that appeared to be in the central Russian city of Nizhnevartovsk. The text in the post reads: "We are starting the fire of revolt. It's brighter. You won't catch everybody."

SOVA, the monitoring group, says the number of violent attacks by Russian far-right extremists is on the rise despite the increased scrutiny from the Kremlin. There were no recorded murders by ultra-nationalist groups in 2020, for example. But in 2021, there were three murders and more than 70 attacks on homeless people, drug users, anti-fascist activists and anybody who they believe "spoils the white race," said Verkhovsky.

David Fishman, a professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York who has done extensive field research in Ukraine, said that Putin's attempt to link Ukraine with Nazis is part of a disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting the Zelenskyy government. He said that it was important not to dismiss Ukraine's extreme far-right groups because, like extremists everywhere, they tend to be "armed and prone to violence." But he said that Ukraine's ultra-nationalists have not attacked Jews or Jewish institutions in the country and that "it's not a bigger problem in Ukraine than elsewhere in Europe. It's a problem everywhere in Europe."

Fishman noted a 2018 survey from the Washington-based Pew Research Center "fact tank" that found that in some countries in Central and Eastern Europe, roughly one-in-five adults or more said that they would not be willing to accept Jews as fellow citizens.

In Poland, which has been widely praised for accepting millions of Ukrainian refugees in recent months, the figure was 18%. In Russia, it was 14%. In Ukraine, 5%. Nearly a third of Polish adults say they would not accept a Jewish person as a member of their family.

Russia has accused Ukraine's Azov Regiment, whose injured fighters recently surrendered from a besieged final stronghold in Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, of being

"Nazi criminals" who should not be included in prisoner exchanges.

It's true the Azov regiment was created in 2014 by far-right activists who wore insignia reminiscent of symbols used by SS units in Nazi Germany. The volunteer battalion was initially deployed against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. The Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation describes Azov as an "extreme-right nationalist paramilitary organization."

However, it has since been fully integrated into Ukraine's National Guard, a military wing of the interior ministry, and Zelenskyy says the unit has entirely shed its radical past. Today, Azov acknowledges its founder was Andriy Biletsky, a political figure who holds racist and white supremacist views. But it denies allegations of racism or Nazism and points out that Ukrainians and foreigners of various backgrounds, including Greeks, Jews, Crimean Tatars and Russians, all serve in the battalion.

"When there's a foreign enemy, it has a unifying effect," said Fishman, who added that many right-wing personalities and officials in Russia appear to eagerly support Putin's war in Ukraine and don't think he's gone far enough militarily.

Still, Putin's baseless claims that his invasion is aimed at clearing Ukraine of Nazis is difficult to fathom given that Russia has established "filtration" camps where Ukrainian citizens are being forcibly sent for interrogation. Some people who have passed through these camps have been allowed to return to Ukrainian-held territory, but others have been shipped off to remote parts of Russia after facing arbitrary threats and violence, strip searches, family separation and harsh questioning.

Zelenskyy and Ukrainians who have experienced these camps have compared them to Nazi concentration camps.

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Galina Odnorog, a volunteer at the Epicenter refugee center in Zaporizhzhia, in south-eastern Ukraine, said that civilians are asked if they have ever supported the Ukrainian army or publicly spoken in support of Ukraine's language, culture and heritage.

Epicenter began to receive hundreds of internally displaced Ukrainians every day in the first week of March. Many shared their stories of "filtration." Ukraine's Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova says that almost two million Ukrainians, including 200,000 children, have been forced to go to Russia. The “filtration camps” are holding up to 20,000 Ukrainians, Denisova told reporters in a recent briefing.

"There was one 4-year-old girl who ended up in our shelter after a filtration camp because she was separated from her mother who was in the army," said Odnorog.

In late April, a bus driver named Alexander Nesterenko said that "Russians filtrated us at every check point on the way from Energodar to Zaporizhzhia, made us take off our shirts to make sure we did not have any swastika tattoos or bruises from shooting weapons ... Even simple expression of love for Ukrainian nation could cause us serious trouble."

Alexander Etkind, a Russian-born historian who teaches at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, said that regardless of whether neo-Nazi groups and other extremists in Russia back or object to Putin's aggressions in Ukraine, there is no one in the current context who is farther to the right or more extreme than Putin himself.

"He's been willing to kill a lot people in Ukraine. Everyone is a moderate by comparison."

More:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Putin wants to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine but Russia has its own Nazi problem

How the CIA's Hunt for a Russian Mole Blinded It To Putin's Rise

Robert Baer

TIME
Sat, May 21, 2022, 4:30 AM·6 min read

Russian President Vladimir Putin walks along St.George's Hall to take part in an inauguaration ceremony in Moscow's Kremlin, 07 May 2004. Putin is starting his second term with a solemn ceremony in an ornate Kremlin hall, nearly two months after easily winning re-election as leader of what he called a "vast, great power." 

Credit - ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO-AFP Images)

War, by nature, tends to have winners and losers. The war in Ukraine, a universal disaster, seems to have more losers than winners, though. But before this conflict, few might have expected one of its few winners to be a much tarnished organization thousands of miles away.

The CIA, along with other American intelligence agencies, has dazzled the world over the past several months. First, in the months leading up to the invasion, the U.S. used satellite imagery to continually insist Putin was planning an invasion, even when he denied it. Now, stories are emerging of Ukraine using U.S. intelligence to target Russian generals and warships. There are even suggestions that the U.S. has flexed its muscles by intentionally leaking its involvement.

But we shouldn’t let our pride over what we do know drown out of concern for what we don’t know. For example, we had we had no idea how weak Russia’s military actually was, that it had become a Potemkin village that couldn’t fight its way out of a Ukrainian paper bag. Consider General Milley’s prediction that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours. We didn’t know just for example, that thanks to corruption the Russian army relied on faulty Chinese tires.

And yet, what we don’t know about Putin and Russia goes so much deeper than that. In the 90s, the CIA completely missed KGB hardliners plotting against Gorbachev, then Yeltsin. And then, most importantly, it missed the rise of Putin.

Although Putin has become one of the most powerful men in the world, to this day we still don’t have an authoritative, firsthand account of how he got to where he did. We don’t know, for example, who in the KGB backed Putin and what was expected of him after he got to the Kremlin. Without even these most basic facts, how can we expect to have any sense of whether his fascist rhetoric about nuclear weapons or further territorial expansions is real or just bluster?

For all the flashy successes of American intelligence of late, we lack the deeper understanding of the Russia and Putin required to calculate his next move. There’s a few explanations for this. For one, the CIA, in line with the post-Cold War view that Russia was America’s best friend, completely rolled back its spying on Russia, letting go of some of the CIA’s best Russian spies. Things got worse after 9/11, as few case officers wanted to work in Moscow during the War on Terror. But above all was a problem few Americans wanted to admit: moles.

In the 80s and 90s, America clearly had a mole problem. Russian agents around the world were disappearing. Sensitive information was showing up in Russia. But with the Berlin Wall coming down, there was little appetite for mole hunting at Langley.

Nevertheless, a small group of the CIA’s veteran counterintelligence persisted, understanding what was at stake. Eventually, with the help of a Russian asset called “Max,” they brought down Aldrich Ames, now known as one of the most notorious traitors in U.S. history. But Ames’ treason could reasonably account for only a fraction of the losses.

So they kept hunting. Called the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), three counterintelligence veterans—Laine Bannerman, Diana Worthen, and Maryann Hough—and one FBI agent, Jim Milburn, were tasked with reviewing all the available evidence. After months of painstaking work (in which they also raised the first suspicions about an FBI mole, who turned out to be Robert Hanssen), it was clear to them that the evidence all pointed at one suspect: their own boss, the head of CIA counterintelligence, the very man in charge of making sure American intelligence wasn’t penetrated by foreign government. He was the very man who caught Ames, which seems counterintuitive, until you enter the so-called “wilderness of mirrors” and consider the level at which the KGB plays the game. If he really was a mole, there was no telling how much damage someone with his access could have caused. What SIU couldn’t have been sure of is whether the Russians had planted the evidence against him, with the intention of sending the FBI and CIA off on a damaging ghost hunt.

There’s a reason you’ve never heard about any of this, from the mole hunt to the dramatic aftermath at Langley. Until the key participants, including the man at the center of the allegations, decided to talk to me on the record for my book, The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin’s Russia, it was buried. The rumors have persisted, and the FBI continues to investigate to this day, but most agree that the CIA never got to the bottom of its mole problem.

We don’t know for sure the damage done by the Fourth Man or other undiscovered moles in American intelligence. We know about lost agents and sensitive information that has turned up in Moscow. We know that moles betrayed our taps and microwave on Russian military communications.

Most of all, we know this: in 1998, tipped off a friendly intelligence that all four of the CIA’s remaining Russian agents had been compromised to the Russians, the CIA whisked them away to safety. The CIA did not have a single source of any value in Moscow, leaving it entirely blind to the rise of the KGB’s own Vladimir Putin in 1999. When the U.S. ambassador to Moscow in 1999 told me that Moscow taxi drivers were better informed about Putin’s rise than the CIA, I finally understood just how bad it was.

The moles of the 80s and 90s may seem like old news, and yet they are a clear sign that the KGB has been outplaying the U.S. for years. And with Russia once again an emergent enemy, the CIA has scrambled to catch up. But we are more than a step behind, continuing to guess at Putin’s motives and calculus, frantically imagining what he might or might not do next.

As I, and others like Douglas London, have argued for years, technology is not a substitute for human intelligence. There is clear, public evidence that the CIA is doubling down on its efforts to recruit Russian spies. This is crucial: hopefully now we’ll see the flood of high-level defectors we didn’t see after the Cold War (in hindsight, a clear sign the KGB was lying in wait).

This might be an opportunity, for example, to land a well-placed spy in the FSB, the successor to the KGB’s infamous Second Chief Directorate, which the CIA never managed to penetrate. Putin got his start in the Second, went on to run the FSB, and then eventually believed the agency’s flawed intelligence that conquering Ukraine would be easy. With an FSB chief recently imprisoned, morale is likely low, and it should be easy pickings for the CIA. There, the CIA might finally get its elusive answers about how Putin came to power.

But recruiting spies isn’t just about getting information about our enemies. It’s also the only way to clear our own house of moles, past or present. Even if the moles of the Cold War are retired or buried, the CIA might now be able to figure out to resolve mysteries like the Fourth Man, clearing the path towards a better understanding of how Putin and his KGB colleagues operate.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Can't Figure Out Why People Are Picking On Murderous White Supremacists

Mary Papenfuss

HUFFPOST
Sun, May 22, 2022

Extremist GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) wondered in a weekend interview why people are picking on homicidal white supremacists.

She said that there are so many other criminals to complain about instead — like undocumented immigrants. She also said people should be talking about the “Asian man” who killed a member of a California church last week, and the “Black man” who drove his car into Wisconsin shoppers last year.

She added, incongruously, that it “shouldn’t be about race.”

Greene made the comments as she attacked Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) for railing last week in the House against the avowed white supremacist suspected in the horrific assault at a Buffalo supermarket targeting Black people last week that killed ten people.

Why is there a “target” on white supremacists? she asked in an interview from her car (below) with the right-wing outlet Real America’s Voice.

“White supremacy shouldn’t be the main target,” the lawmaker argued. “We should be more concerned about the illegal invasion at the border, the crime happening every single day on our streets, especially in cities like Chicago. We should go after criminals that break the law and not pursue people based on their skin color.”



But race clearly is critically important in hate crimes. The FBI reported last year that the number of hate crimes in the U.S. in 2020 was the highest in two decades, triggered by a surge in assaults largely by white men on Black and Asian Americans, Hispanics and Jews.

There were 51 hate-crime murders in America in 2019, the highestat that time since the FBI began tracking the toll in the 1990s. Most murder victims were Blacks, Hispanics and Jews.

“Preventing racial hate crimes means tackling white supremacist ideology,” said a position paper posted last week by the Brookings Institution. Over the past 20 years, the number of hate groups in the U.S. has jumped 100%, it noted.

Nadler’s reference to the Buffalo shootings that so incensed Greene was part of his argument to pass the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act to crack down on the problem. The bill is supported by Democrats, but Republicans are lukewarm.

Nadler also referred to the killing of more than 20 people in an El Paso store in 2019 and the shooting deaths of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

The killings all involved white shooters inspired by the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which baselessly claims there’s a plot to replace whites with people of color, immigrants and Jews. Greene’s reference to an immigrant “invasion” was a clear dog whistle to believers in the imagined plot.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Opinion: How replacement conspiracy theory threatens capitalism (and your pension)

John A. Tures
Sat, May 21, 2022

Replacement theory has allegedly been used as a motive for killing Hispanics at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh Synagogue, and African-American shoppers, store workers and a police officer at a Buffalo supermarket, along with many other similar acts of terrorism.

Critics have battled with supporters over how evil the theory is. What we’ve missed is exactly how replacement theory targets capitalism, our republic and even most whites in America as well as non-whites.

Replacement theorists contend that the percentage of non-whites is growing in America, and in Europe, and massive deportations of immigrants won’t change that. So? How is that so bad?

More: Michigan man is 4th conviction in white supremacist group


More: Opinion: How white panic over 'Great Replacement' begets violence

Replacement theorists then move into conjecture. The Jewish publication "The Forward" reported that Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson claimed, “This is a voting rights question.”

“I have less political power because they’re importing a brand-new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that? The power that I have as an American guaranteed at birth is one man, one vote and they’re diluting it. No, they are not allowed to do that. Why are we putting up with this?” Carlson said.

Tucker Carlson speaks during the first day of the AmericaFest hosted by Turning Point USA on Saturday, Dec. 18, 2021, in Phoenix.

Who is 'they'?

But unless Carlson’s family was on the Mayflower or in Independence Hall in Philadelphia in September of 1787, those who have come from other countries have been “diluting” the Carlson vote for decades.

These include Italian Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, East Europeans who came to America... my ancestors. So unless you’re the “right sort” of white, you’re diluting Tucker’s vote. And our Constitution, which has been amended several times to “dilute” Tucker’s vote, must also be an enemy of Replacement Theory.

Maybe it is a racial question. A “brand-new electorate” could be a code word for “non-white.”

But this repulsive racist rant is actually countered by conservatives, who argue that Republicans are making in-roads with African-Americans and Hispanics.

One of my students, who is conservative, made the finals of a statewide conference with a paper demonstrating that non-whites moved closer to Trump between the 2016 and 2020 elections.

I’ve written about plenty of evidence showing that non-whites can be as socially conservative, if not more socially conservative, than the white population. Is having this country populated with more conservative Christians really so bad? Or is it really about the skin-color thing?
Replacement theory proponents miss the mark

At the infamous 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, marchers allegedly chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Why would Jewish people want to “dilute” their numbers in America? Replacement theory peddlers don’t say.

Replacement theorists aren’t done, though it’s ironic that the theory was imported from France. The alleged Buffalo killer allegedly posted a manifesto that claimed: “Millions of people pouring across our borders, legally. Invited by the state and corporate entities to replace the white people who have failed to reproduce, failed to create the cheap labor, failed to create new consumers and tax base that the corporations and states need to have to thrive.”

So now replacement theory opposes free markets and capitalism? Now I see why National Socialists like the theory so much.

CNN also notes that such immigration also creates enough of a base to fund pensions for the growing, older (ironically whiter) retirement population.

Who can I show the ads the Biden Administration has been running in Latin America, encouraging people not to migrate to the United States? Replacement theory has that wrong too.

Replacement theory flies in the face of capitalism and our Constitution and hurts non-white and even white Americans. This French theory is the only thing actually in need of replacement.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College.


John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Opinion: 'Great Replacement Theory' is an anti-capitalist scam

‘Replacement theory’ still Republican orthodoxy despite Buffalo shooting

David Smith in Washington
Sun, May 22, 2022

Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA

When a white man used a semi-automatic assault-style rifle to kill 10 people at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, last weekend, attention quickly turned to the likely motive.

The “great replacement” theory describes a supposed elite conspiracy to change the demographics of America, replacing and disempowering white people – and their influence – with people of color, immigrants and Muslims. In recent years the lie has gone from far-right fringe to Republican party mainstream.

Related: ‘His heart is broken’: Buffalo mourns shooting victims as first funeral held

But anyone hoping that Buffalo would break the fever looks set to be disappointed. On the contrary, critics say, Republicans will probably intensify their racist rhetoric to prey on fears and energise supporters for the midterm elections, increasing the likelihood of more Buffalo-style violence.

“It’s good for raising money and good for agitating the base that is already stressed and strapped by inflation and economic concerns and other social changes that they don’t like,” said Michael Steele, the first African American chairman of the Republican National Committee. “It’s exploitive and it’s going to result in more harm to African Americans and other minority communities.”

Payton Gendron, 18, was jailed without bail on a charge of first-degree murder after police said he opened fire last Saturday at a Tops Friendly Markets outlet in Buffalo. Investigators are studying Gendron’s online postings, which include a 180-page manifesto that outlines replacement theory.

During a visit to the crime scene on Tuesday, Joe Biden warned of “a hate that through the media and politics, the internet, has radicalised angry, alienated, lost and isolated individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced – that’s the word, ‘replaced’ – by the ‘other’ – by people who don’t look like them and who are therefore, in a perverse ideology that they possess and being fed, lesser beings”.

The president said he condemns “those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit” and described silence as “complicity”. Yet Republicans did remain mostly silent. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, was asked about replacement theory three times on Tuesday but failed to provide a direct answer.

Steele commented: “I don’t see them changing course. It works for their purposes. The leadership has not come out and condemned it. They refuse to acknowledge any link or nexus between that and the obvious evidence of that connection presented by the killer in Buffalo and so they try to continue to turn a blind eye to it.”

They need to take ownership of the fact that Trumpism is a cancer. Maga Republicans are a cancer on this republic
Mark Takano

Hate crimes and domestic terrorism are on the rise in the US. A white man who gunned down 23 people in El Paso, Texas, claimed that he was enraged by “the Hispanic invasion of Texas”. A white man who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh accused Jews of allowing immigrant “invaders” into the country.

In recent years various iterations of the theory, straining to avoid overt racism or antisemitism, have been articulated by Republicans at congressional hearings and in election campaigns. They have been amplified by rightwing media and given the ultimate platform by Donald Trump at the White House.

Elise Stefanik, the Republican chairwoman in the House of Representatives and a staunch Trump supporter, has been condemned for a Facebook ad last September that accused Democrats of trying to “overthrow our current electorate” through amnesty and enabling non-citizens to vote. Her office has denied any link to replacement theory.

Ron Johnson, a senator for Wisconsin, has described replacement theory as “the Democrat grand plan”. He said in a radio interview last month: “I’ve got to believe they want to change the makeup of the electorate.”

In the Trump era, Republicans evidently see no political incentive in distancing themselves from replacement theory. In an opinion poll released last week, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about one in three Americans believes that an effort is under way to replace US-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gain.

Several Republican Senate candidates are drawing on replacement theory as they campaign for November’s midterm elections. In Ohio, Trump-endorsed JD Vance told the conservative Fox News network that Democrats “have decided that they can’t win re-election in 2024 unless they bring a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here”.

In Missouri, the Senate candidate Eric Schmitt, the current state attorney general, said Democrats are “fundamentally trying to change this country through illegal immigration”. And in Arizona, which borders Mexico, another Senate candidate, Blake Masters, accused Democrats of trying to flood the nation with millions of immigrants “to change the demographics of our country”.

It’s exploitive and it’s going to result in more harm to African Americans and other minority communities
Michael Steele

The message now sits naturally in a party moulded by Trump, who promised to build a border wall, demonised illegal immigrants and hired “alt-right” figures such as Steve Bannon. His campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” (Maga), was widely seen as a nostalgic nod to a simpler, whiter time.

Mark Takano, a Democratic congressman and vice-chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said: “They need to take ownership of the fact that Trumpism is a cancer. Maga Republicans are a cancer on this republic.”

“It is an already energised portion of the base and for them to pour water on this fire seems to them like a huge loss. It will be a huge loss for many of them to stamp it out. But they have to have faith that they will arise out of those ashes, that it’s not worth the power they think they will attain by allowing themselves to take advantage of this very potent fire.”

At a press conference on the steps of the US Capitol on Thursday, leading Democrats urged their Republican colleagues to join in the condemnation of replacement theory before it inspires another deadly attack.

Joyce Beatty, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, described replacement theory as “a key plank of the Republican platform”, adding: “Time and time again, domestic terrorists are using the great replacement theory to justify their crimes.

“Right here on Capitol Hill, we hear our Republican colleagues echoing versions of this theory. We must confront it. Let me say it in very clear terms: the Republican leadership is not innocent and, whether they use a dog whistle or a bullhorn, they do not get a pass.”

Fox News’s most watched host, Tucker Carlson, has been one of the theory’s biggest proponents. A study of five years’ worth of Carlson’s show by the New York Times newspaper found 400 instances in which he talked about Democratic politicians and others seeking to force demographic change through immigration.

Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee and former senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee, said: “Any time that you devote airtime to espouse these extreme viewpoints you are lending it legitimacy and normalising it and telling your audience that this is an acceptable viewpoint that deserves to be aired in the public domain. That’s exactly what Fox News has done and they have blood on their hands.”

Hundreds protest Biden's Tokyo visit for Quad meeting

Sun, May 22, 2022, 
STORY: "Their (Japan and U.S.) actions are extremely dangerous now. Japan and the U.S. are trying to conduct a war of aggression on China," said protest organiser Shunkichi Takayama, who said Biden's trip to Japan and holding the Quad summit could stoke tensions with neighbouring China.

On the second leg of his first Asia trip as president, Biden will meet with leaders of Japan, India and Australia, the "Quad," another cornerstone of his strategy to push back against China's expanding influence.

Biden is also expected to launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) - a programme to bind regional countries more closely through common standards in areas including supply-chain resilience, clean energy, infrastructure and digital trade.

Washington has lacked an economic pillar to its Indo-Pacific engagement since former President Donald Trump quit a multinational trans-Pacific trade agreement, leaving the field open to China to expand its influence.

Russia's war on Ukraine based on flawed logic, Chinese military scholar wrote in article scrubbed from the web

Sat, May 21, 2022

Russia's security rationale for attacking Ukraine was flawed and the aftermath underlines the importance of diplomatic flexibility, a Chinese scholar formerly with Beijing's top military academy has said.

"I still don't see how any country would have dared to invade the world's No 2 military power," Gong Fangbin, a retired professor of the People's Liberation Army National Defence University, wrote in a recent online article.

"Russia has shown the world time and again that no one dares touch an inch of its land," he said, countering Moscow's argument that it was cornered by the West and Nato into invading Ukraine.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

"What's the real reason [for Moscow] to attack Ukraine? I think it's because the Russian leaders have taken the wrong path for rejuvenation."

Gong argued that the rationale to attack Ukraine over so-called security concerns was flawed. And the dilemma faced by Russia as it takes heavy losses on the ground is the result of having chosen a path "long forsaken by human civilisation", he wrote in his article posted on WeChat last Tuesday.

The article, however, has since disappeared from the social media platform.

Gong confirmed to the Post that he wrote the article but declined a request for an interview.

Gong, a military veteran who fought in the China-Vietnam war of 1979, is among a small but growing number of Chinese intellectuals voicing scepticism about Moscow's rationale for its military aggression against Ukraine, despite heavy censorship of the sharing of such views.

"In the age of liberalisation of global trade, countries don't have to gain power through ... grabbing land. This can be done through technology and capital," Gong had written. "But Russia is still obsessed with owning land."

At a Beijing seminar in April, China's ambassador to Ukraine between 2005 and 2007, Gao Yusheng, argued that Russia had shown signs of having lost the war and its global status was set to decline. A summary of his remarks, first published by news outlet ifeng.com in mid-May, was quickly censored.

But there are others making their opinions known. Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, said earlier this month that China had not benefited from the war and Russia was set to pay "a huge price".

And in March, Hu Wei, a political scientist affiliated with the State Council - China's cabinet - called on Beijing to distance itself from Russia as soon as possible over its war on Ukraine.

As the war enters its third month, Beijing still refuses to condemn Russia's act of aggression, despite mounting pressure from the US and its allies. It has also sought to rally international support to criticise the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia, citing disruption to the global economy.

Since Russia launched its military assault on February 24, China has repeatedly said it respects Ukraine's sovereignty. However President Xi Jinping is among the very few world leaders yet to hold direct talks with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.

Volodymyr Zelensky receives a standing ovation as he addresses Sweden's parliament via video link. Photo: AP alt=Volodymyr Zelensky receives a standing ovation as he addresses Sweden's parliament via video link. Photo: AP>

Meanwhile, Chinese diplomats have sought to contain damage from the country's close, "no limits" relationship with Moscow, as declared in a joint statement issued after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Xi in Beijing ahead of the Winter Olympics.

The diplomatic damage control has involved firmly denying suggestions that China may offer military assistance to Russia, and trying to isolate the Ukraine issue from Beijing's relations with Europe.

Military scholar Gong had argued in another article earlier this month that the Ukraine war underlined how foreign policy flexibility might suffer if it was too closely tied to domestic politics.

This came after he had referenced the situation in yet another article in March, where he argued that countries only make decisions based on their own interests, and hence it was wrong to consider any country as a "strategic buffer", as Russia says it had hoped Ukraine would be.

Failure to understand this, Gong argued, would lead one to also believe in the narrative that China's economic development in the last 50 years owed much to Russia's confrontation with the United States.

"If a country is full of convictions related to strategic barriers and buffer zones, it would be tying itself to the vehicles of others and thus lose autonomy, consistency and necessary flexibility," he warned.

Additional reporting by Jack Lau
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP)

Why Shale driller is paying dividends instead of more oil and gas

Shale drillers have been plagued by pipeline constraints, rising oilfield supply prices, and a shortage of rough necks and rigs. But there’s another reason why the highest oil and gas prices in the last few years haven’t tempted US drillers to increase production: their executives are no longer paid.

It was once encouraged by compensation programs to produce certain amounts of oil and gas. Little consideration of economics.. After years of losses, investors have demanded a change in the way bonuses are created, putting more emphasis on profitability. Now, executives paid for pumps can get more rewards by keeping costs down and returning cash to shareholders.

Shift contributes to A major shift in energy stockOtherwise, the market is sluggish. Energy stocks led the bull market in 2021, with stocks in the S & P 500 up 46% this year, while the broader index fell 18%.

Focusing on profitability rather than growth also helps explain the modest reaction of drillers to the highest oil and gas prices over a decade.US oil and gas production Blockade lowSince then, oil prices have doubled to about $ 113 per barrel, and natural gas has quadrupled to over $ 8 per million British thermal units, yet production is below pre-pandemic levels. I am.

Marcus McGregor, Money Manager Conning’s Head of Product Research, said: “They don’t get paid for doing so.”

Analysts expect oil and gas prices to remain high, as US producers are hesitant to drill further.

The shale liler Told investors For the past few weeks, they have adhered to the drilling plans created when commodity prices were much lower and maintained stable production. Instead of chasing fuel price increases through drilling, Cher executives say they use profits to pay off debt, pay dividends, and buy back shares to increase the value of issued shares.

Nine shale oil companies that reported their first-quarter results in the first week of May summarized: Invested $ 9.4 billion in shareholders Buybacks and dividends were about 54% more than we invested in new drilling projects.

Among them, Pioneer’s output decreased by 2% from the previous quarter, adjusting for sales. Meanwhile, Western Texas excavators will return $ 2 billion to shareholders, pay a dividend of $ 7.38 per share, and repurchase in the first quarter to $ 250 million. The company is currently awarding bonuses primarily related to cost control, achieving free cash flow, and achieving return goals. Over the past few years, 40% of Pioneer bonuses have been associated with production goals.

At Range Resources, CEO Jeffrey Ventura received a $ 1.65 million cash bonus in 2019. More than half of this is due to Appalachia’s gas producers exceeding their production and reserves targets, even as gas prices have fallen. This year, as in the previous two, production and reserves have been removed from Range’s bonus calculations and replaced with incentives to keep costs down and increase revenue. Range, who declined to comment, told investors to repay debt, buy back shares, revive quarterly dividends suspended during the pandemic later this year, reduce drilling and stay within budget.

According to Meridian Compensation Partners LLC, production was included in less than half of last year’s disclosed bonus plans, down from 89% of the 2018 Big Sher Liller incentive formula. Wage consultants have found that the weight given to annual cash bonus production has shrunk from 24% three years ago to 11%.Meanwhile, cash flow targets, rate of return indicators, and Environmental goals..

“Companies were burning cash and trying to maximize production,” said Christoph Nelson, Credit Research Director, Income Research + Management, Investment Manager. “It’s not what investors are looking for anymore.”

In the decade before the pandemic, US shale producers spent a great deal of time claiming domestic oil and gas deposits made available by new drilling techniques. Companies competed for the right to shale sweet spots, then drilled to secure long-term leases and reserve additional oil and gas reserves.

The oil and gas flood overturned concerns that the United States was running out of fossil fuels, which overwhelmed the market and pushed down American energy bills. But the benefit was that of Wall Street.

According to Deloitte LLP, between 2010 and 2019, shale companies spent about $ 1.1 trillion, but lost about $ 300 billion in free cash flow, income minus investment and daily costs. rice field. The company expects producers to make up most of their losses with two profits this year and earlier.

When OPEC started price competition in late 2014, oil crashed and Bankruptcy increases Among North American free market producers.With shareholders Activist investor We focused on paid plans that reward production growth, regardless of what price the barrel got. Investors have thrown lifelines to many companies, Buy over $ 60 billion in new stock The producer reduced their debt burden and sold it because it was floating.

But as soon as prices recovered, shale producers surged again. Critics of paid pump compensation have doubled their efforts.

Activist investor Carl Icahn aimed Occidental Petroleum Executive Compensation He criticized how much the company was spending on drilling after announcing its acquisition of rival Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in 2019.


Vicki Hollb, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, says that there are currently few incentives to increase production.

Occidental and Anadarko executives have been rewarded for achieving the production mark. Currently, the combined company output, which declined in the first quarter, has not affected the annual bonus.

CEO Vicki Hollb told investors earlier this month that Occidental is unlikely to increase production. Expensive drilling and oilfield supplies I got it. “If you try to accelerate something now, it’s almost a destruction of value,” she said. Last year, most of Hollub’s $ 2.4 million annual incentive compensation was based on keeping accidental costs per barrel below $ 18.70, according to the company’s recent agent.

This year, Occidental’s share price is the top performer of the S & P 500, up 118%.

Analysts expect oil and gas prices to remain high, as US producers are hesitant to drill further. When a major challenge comes in the fall, executives may feel pressure to increase market share, especially if spending plans for 2023 are drafted and supply chain issues are alleviated, managing partners and Mark Viviano, who urged the board to rewrite the bonus plan as a public head, said the shares of energy investment company Kimmeridge.

“I don’t know how long capital discipline will last with $ 100 of oil,” said former Viviano. Oversaw a portfolio of energy stocks Wellington Management says, “Are these companies expanding their production because they found a religion or because of actual operational constraints?”

Electricity bills in the United States are soaring and can rise as households break air conditioners. WSJ’s Katherine Blunt explains why electricity and gas prices have risen significantly this year and provides tips on how to manage costs.Illustration: Mike Chesslick


Copyright © 2022 DowJones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Brazil regulator probes whether activist's funds engaged in insider trading -documents

Mon, May 23, 2022
By Tatiana Bautzer

SAO PAULO, May 23 (Reuters) - Brazilian regulators are probing potential insider trading violations by activist investor Nelson Tanure related to his acquisition of medical labs company Alliar, according to documents seen by Reuters.

Tanure, who in the past has waged takeover battles in the oil and telecom industries, last November proposed buying a controlling interest in Centro de Imagem Diagnosticos SA , as Alliar is formally known. The deal was finally announced on April 14.

Brazil securities regulator CVM is now probing how funds controlled by Tanure were trading Alliar shares with knowledge of non-public information derived from the funds' talks to buy the company, which would constitute insider trading, the documents show.

Tanure representatives said earlier this month that the fund that now controls Alliar, Fundo de Saude, and the investor's lawyers have not been notified of any insider trading probe.

Trades during the talks, which lasted from November until mid-April, are being probed by the CVM. Its records are under seal, but the probe was active as of mid-May, according to one of the documents.

Tanure has been successful in recent years buying companies such as oil producer PetroRio SA and homebuilder Gafisa SA but he has also been fined by the CVM in the past over abuse of controlling power.

Alliar's shares surged by 22.5% on Nov. 18 after a Brazilian newspaper reported that Tanure would buy the company at 20.50 reais per share.

Between Nov. 18 and Nov. 30, four investment vehicles controlled by Tanure, which already held a 29% stake in the company, sold 1.5 million common shares in Alliar for 25.465 million reais, according to the documents, reaping an average price 39% above its Nov. 17 closing price, or 7 million reais more than what the shares would have fetched before the news.

On Dec. 22, the company announced that shareholders could opt to sell their shares to Tanure's vehicles only within two years. As the deal could take longer to close, markets were doubtful about the need for a tender offer to minority shareholders, and shares fell.

In the CVM's analysis of the trading of Alliar shares, the regulator alleged that the funds knew about the plan to allow investors to sell their shares within two years through a derivatives contract, since they were a party in the talks, and knew that when the disclosure of the contract's existence became public, shares would fall.

In the document, CVM manager Marco Antonio Papera Monteiro said the funds' conduct suggested evidence of "potential crimes."

Asked to comment on the allegations in the document, Tanure representatives repeated that they were not aware of any probe. The CVM declined to comment.

On April 14, the company announced most shareholders had opted to sell immediately and that Tanure's vehicles had built a 63.3% stake. It also said Tanure would launch an offer for all outstanding shares.

In a statement earlier this month, Tanure representatives said the deal closure was successful and that the transaction was "transparent."

Alliar is the latest holding of Tanure, who since the 1990s has acquired stakes in newspapers, shipyards, Brazilian telecom company Oi SA, an oil company and a homebuilder.

In an earlier run-in with the CVM, the regulator fined him 130 million reais ($26.7 million) in 2019 for "abuse of controlling power" at shipyard Verolme. CVM said part of Verolme's cash was diverted to other companies controlled by Tanure.

In the case of Verolme, the fine was ultimately reduced by 85% to 16.2 million reais after an appeal to Conselho de Recursos do Sistema Financeiro Nacional. Unlike other market violators, Tanure was not restricted by regulators from working in listed companies. He is currently a board member at Alliar. ($1 = 4.8639 reais) (Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo Editing by Christian Plumb and Matthew Lewis)

Geopolitics Takes A Back Seat As Biden Drops Sanctions On Venezuela

Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, May 22, 2022, 

When Biden sent a delegation to Caracas in early March, rumors began to circulate that the U.S. was considering reopening relations with Venezuela as oil prices soared. Now, after a period of silence from Washington on the subject, it appears that the U.S. is going to ease its sanctions on the Latin American oil giant. At the same time that the U.S. is lifting some sanctions, Venezuela is working with Iran to help revive its oil industry. It seems geopolitics has taken a back seat to the global energy crisis as oil prices soar.

The U.S. imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela under the Trump administration in 2019 due to ongoing human rights violations by President Nicolás Maduro. Under President Biden, there were discussions about reopening some trade links by allowing crude-for-diesel exchanges on humanitarian grounds, although this never came to fruition. However, the U.S. oil and gas firm Chevron has been allowed to continue limited operations in Venezuela in order to help avoid the collapse of the country’s oil industry. There has been speculation in recent months around whether Biden would ease restrictions on Venezuela in response to global crude shortages and a severe rise in oil prices, with several commentators highlighting the dangers of such a move.

The White House announced in May that it was reconsidering its restrictions on Venezuelan oil, entering discussions with Maduro. Biden will now allow Chevron Corp. to negotiate its oil license with state-owned oil producer Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), thereby reducing certain sanctions on the oil-rich state. Although no further oil drilling or additional revenues for the Maduro government will be permitted. The move follows a meeting between US officials and Maduro in March to discuss how to move forward.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed rumors about the shift in policy by tweeting “Venezuela aspires that these decisions of the United States of America pave the way for the absolute lifting of the illegal sanctions that affect all of our people.”

But the Republican opposition has been quick to criticize Biden’s actions. Senator John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, strongly opposes the easing of sanctions on Venezuela, stating "our experience buying Russian energy should have taught President [Joe] Biden that buying energy from tyrants is a dangerous proposition."

The White House apparently responded to a request by Maduro’s political opposition to ease sanctions, although the opposition said that the request came from Maduro. The Biden Administration hopes that dangling oil industry allowances in front of the president may encourage him to make greater political concessions with the opposition, putting Venezuela on track for free and fair presidential elections in 2024.

Despite ongoing sanctions, Venezuela has been trading oil products with U.S.-sanctioned Iran in recent months, using discreet shipping methods. Venezuela has also increased its oil exports to China. Iran has been using ship-to-ship transfers to deliver oil products to Venezuela, as well as other clandestine methods. Although Venezuela has around 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, its crude is extra-heavy and requires condensate to dilute it, which has been in short supply.

Iran has also shipped gasoline and equipment to Venezuela to support the reparation of PDVSA's rundown refineries. This month, the state-owned National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company signed a $116 million contract to restore the EL Palito 146,000-bpd refinery to restart production. This builds on the agreement between the two countries, established in 2021, to swap Iranian condensate for Venezuelan heavy crude.

In April, more than 200,000 barrels of Iranian heavy crude were shipped to Venezuela’s 310,000-bpd Cardon refinery. In addition, 400,000 barrels of Iranian oil reached the Dino I carrier, en route to the Jose port. A further 2 million barrels of condensate were expected to reach Jose the same month. Despite the ongoing sanctions, Iran and Venezuela are becoming increasingly successful at boosting their energy trades.

The new agreement follows a meeting earlier in the month between Iran’s oil minister and President Maduro in Caracus. The two sides discussed “the construction of routes and mechanisms to overcome the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States government and allied countries” in the meeting, according to the PDVSA. The two countries have been working together to overcome the sanctions imposed on both states by the U.S., as they each look for a way to redevelop their hard-hit oil industries.

Iran has boosted its oil production and exports over the last year as several countries have become more willing to open their doors to Iranian energy as a nuclear deal looks more promising. As a result of President Trump’s reimposition of sanctions on Iran after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, the country’s crude exports fell dramatically. But as talks for a new nuclear deal recommenced under president Biden last year, Iran’s oil production increased, rising to an average of 2.4 million bpd in 2021 and around 3.8 million bpd this year.

As the U.S. slightly eases its sanctions on Venezuela, it suggests greater potential for the country’s oil industry. Having boosted output and exports in recent months, it will likely build upon its existing relationship with U.S.-sanctioned Iran to help develop more trade routes and get ready to boost supply if greater allowances come into place.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com