Friday, February 25, 2022

Anti-war protesters outside Russia's Consulate General in Kirkenes on Friday. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Russians, Ukrainians and Norwegians in joint anti-war protest

"Putin to The Hague" - The message was clear on the doorsteps to Russia's Consulate General in the Norwegian border town.

February 25, 2022

People in Kirkenes, a 15 minutes drive from the border to Russia’s Murmansk region, are shaken by news coming from the war zones in Ukraine. The small town has a mixed population, mainly Norwegians, but also many with Russian and Ukrainian background.

On Friday, three nationalities teamed up protesting in front of Moscow’s diplomatic mission, the northernmost Russian Consulate General in mainland Europe.

The messages were clear: “Stop War” - ”Putin to Haag” and “Putin, Hands off Ukraine.”

“We are here to support Ukraine,” says Natalia.

“It’s a shame what happens. I just have to tell my grandchildren that I have protested.”

Natalia says that most of her friends in Russia support Ukraine, but they are afraid to publicly protest.

“I can understand, yesterday nearly 2,000 protesters were arrested. Really strong people,” she says.

Natalia’s homemade poster has a short message: “Putin to The Hague” - the Netherland city home to the UN’s International Court of Justice.

“I think he is mad. But, he can’t avoid facing court,” she makes clear.

*Natalia and Inna want Russia to stop the military attack on Ukraine. Photo: Thomas Nilsen*

While Natalia is originally from Russia, her friend Inna is from Ukraine.

“It is absolutely awful, I talk on the phone with friends and family yesterday, at night and in the morning. They are in the northeast region where fighting takes place. Bombs are not only hitting military targets but also civilian water supply and heating systems, so they are there in cold apartments without water,” Inna tells.

“Putin, please stop the war,” is the message Inna wants to bring to the Russian Consulate General in Kirkenes. During the protest, however, none of the diplomates opened the door.

Several Norwegians also joined the ad-hoc demonstration, among them town council members Pål Gabrielsen and Brede Sæter.

“We have just proposed to raise the Ukrainian flag outside the Town Hall to show support,” says Gabrielsen, who formerly has been Mayor of the municipality.

Kirkenes Town Hall is next to Russia’s Consulate General.

*Brede Sæter (left) and Pål Gabrielsen are both city town council members. Kirkenes Town Hall in the background. Photo: Thomas Nilsen*

Kirkenes (Sør-Varanger) municipality has two friendships towns (municipalities) on Russia’s Kola Peninsula. Both home to powerful military assets of the Northern Fleet; Severomorsk and Pechenga.

“The fact that Putin has started a war against Ukraine puts a kind of another frame to the cooperation and the friendship agreements we have. We have to evaluate and clearly state our opinions,” Pål Gabrielsen says.

“Our message to Putin is clear. Withdraw the troops, the ongoing war is dangerous for the entire world,” he says.

The Russian Consulate General in Kirkenes has not made any public statements.

In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin on Friday afternoon said on national TV that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government is a “band of drug addicts and neo-Nazis that had lodged itself in Kyiv and taken hostage the entire Ukrainian people.”

In Oslo, Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt called in Russian Ambassador Teimuraz Ramishvili on the carpet with a clear message to stop the unprovoked attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre called on Putin to stop the war.

“Norway condemns Russia’s military attack on Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. This attack is a serious violation of international law and will have dramatic consequences for the people of Ukraine,” Støre wrote on Twitter.

*Kirkenes has dual language street signs in Norwegian and Russian. Fears of Putin’s totalitarian regime and his war against Ukraine now shatter cross-border ties. Photo: Thomas Nilsen*

Putin Suggests Ukrainian Military Seize Power From 'Gang of Junkies, Neo-Nazis in Kiev

Russian President Vladimir Putin - Sputnik International, 1920, 25.02.2022

Go to the photo bank

Tim Korso

The Russian president announced on 24 February the start of a special military operation in Ukraine to defend the Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics (DPR and LPR) from the attacks of the Ukrainian forces.

President Vladimir Putin has addressed the Russian Security Council to discuss the latest updates in the context of the Russian special operation in Ukraine.

Read the full text of his speech:

Good afternoon, dear colleagues!

Today we will discuss the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine.

The main clashes of the Russian Army, as expected, are not taking place with regular units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but with nationalist formations, which, as you know, are directly responsible for the genocide in Donbass and the bloodshed of civilians in the people's republics.

In addition, the nationalist elements embedded in the regular Ukrainian units not only incite them to offer armed resistance, but, in fact, play the role of blocking units.

Moreover, according to the available information, and this is confirmed by the results of objective control, we see that Bandera supporters and neo-Nazis are deploying heavy weapons, including multiple launch rocket systems, right in the central regions of large cities, including Kiev and Kharkov. They plan to provoke return fire from Russian strike systems on residential areas. In fact, they act in the same way as terrorists do around the world, hiding behind people in the hope of later blaming Russia for the civilian casualties.

It is known that all this is happening on the recommendation of foreign instructors, primarily American advisers.

Once again, I appeal to the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Do not allow neo-Nazis and Bandera supporters to use your children, your wives, and elderly people as human shields. Take power into your own hands. It seems that it will be easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of junkies and neo-Nazis, who settled in Kiev and took the entire Ukrainian people hostage.

I also want to give the highest assessment to the actions of Russian soldiers and officers. They act courageously, professionally, heroically, fulfilling their military duty, successfully solving the most important task of ensuring the security of our people and our fatherland.

Putin calls on Ukraine military to seize power to better negotiate with Russia

By Karen Graham
Published February 25, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the Ukrainian military to seize power in their country on Friday, a day after Moscow launched an invasion of its southern neighbor.

Speaking during Friday’s meeting of his Security Council, Putin claimed that most Ukrainian military units are reluctant to engage with the Russian forces.

Putin also claimed that the Ukrainian military is made up of right-wing radical nationalists, although he offered no evidence for his claims

“I once again appeal to the military personnel of the armed forces of Ukraine: do not allow neo-Nazis and (Ukrainian radical nationalists) to use your children, wives, and elders as human shields,” Putin said at a televised meeting with Russia’s security council, according to Reuters.

“Take power into your own hands, it will be easier for us to reach an agreement.”

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, tells reporters that Ukrainian officials have stopped responding to Russia’s proposal to hold talks in Belarus, according to the New York Times.

He says Ukrainians are setting up multiple-launch rocket systems in residential neighborhoods in Kyiv and elsewhere. “We believe this situation to be extremely dangerous,” Mr. Peskov said in a hastily arranged call with reporters.

In the meantime, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is considering whether to suspend Russia as a member, and a decision is due soon, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Friday,

The Council of Europe is separate from the European Union and was formed after the Second World War to protect human rights and the rule of law.

“The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, on the initiative of Ukraine and Poland, launched the procedure for suspending Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe. Final decision coming soon,” Morawiecki wrote on Twitter, reports the Business Standard.

Do protests show Russians don't buy Putin's 'Nazi' Ukraine rhetoric? It's too early to tell

According to Russian officials Ukraine is a threat to Russia and is being run by a clique of Nazi and pro-Western puppets acting on behalf of the oligarchs.

Dominic Waghorn
International Affairs Editor @DominicWaghorn
Friday 25 February 2022

Hundreds protest in St Petersburg to voice their opposition to Putin's invasion of Ukraine

The official version of this war being pushed in Russian state media is it is a special military operation limited to eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Russian troops moving from the breakaway self-styled people's republics are being welcomed as liberators, say officials.

Ukraine is run by a clique of Nazis and pro-Western puppets in the pocket of oligarchs, say the Russians.

The country needs to be liberated from Nazism and militarism, says foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Troops enter Kyiv: follow like Ukraine updates

A spokesperson from Russia's finance ministry told Sky News 'there is a need to resort to such methods' when asked about Ukrainian casualties.

Pretty rich from a government that's just launched possibly the biggest military campaign in Europe since the Second World War.

Do the Russians buy it? It's too early to say.

Certainly not the hundreds if not thousands of brave Russians who came out to protest in more than 50 countries last night.

1:09
Play Video - Moscow: Arrests at anti-war protest

Hundreds of people took to the streets in Russia, condemning Putin's decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine. Over 1,700 anti-war protesters have been arrested across 53 Russian cities.

Only the bravest would dare demonstrate given the government's repressive intolerance of dissent so there will be many more who would have wanted to join them.

They are likely to be reading the truth about this operation from international media.

The majority of Russians though will be receiving the official line from state media that Ukraine is a threat to Russia that requires this special military operation.

Read more: What is happening and where is Ukraine under attack?

Claims Russian troops are being welcomed by Ukrainians as liberators, however fake, will reassure them this is necessary.

Polls so far suggest that Russian sympathy for Ukrainians has reduced since Vladimir Putin recognised the breakaway republics in the Donbas and Russian state-owned media justified it with claims of Ukrainian attacks.

Polls also suggest the majority of Russians blame the current crisis on Kyiv and Washington.

Image:Russian President Vladimir Putin gets animated

As the bigger picture becomes clear, that this is in reality a much larger military operation, it is harder to predict Russian public sentiment.

In particular when Russians start coming home in body bags in considerable numbers.

News of significant numbers of Ukrainian casualties is also likely to reduce public support.

For that reason most analysts have said Putin has only a small window in which to carry out this offensive.

That assumes he cares about public support. His rule has become increasingly autocratic and repressive.

On a war footing his government will have more leeway to crush dissent. Opposition will be condemned as unpatriotic.

The securocratic elite that supports him will become more entrenched in power.

In the short to intermediate term that is likely to secure Putin's grip on power and that may be his primary motive for this action.

But longer term, turning Russia into a pariah state with a weaker and weaker economy damages his legacy and may weaken his chances of securing his future and succession.

Under bombing, Ukraine’s climate scientists withdraw from global meeting

‘It’s not possible because there’s real danger for me and my family,’ says head of delegation.

Ukraine’s delegation withdrew from the IPCC online negotiations as it was forced to hide in bomb shelters | John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images

BY ZIA WEISE AND KARL MATHIESEN
February 25, 2022

Russia’s invasion has forced Ukraine’s top climate experts to exit a global scientific meeting finalizing a major report on the impacts of global warming.

Delegates were in the final days of a two-week negotiation on the wording of a summary of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) investigation — due for release on February 28 — into the impacts of climate change on societies and ecosystems around the planet.

But Ukraine’s delegation has had to withdraw from the online negotiations as its members were forced to hide in bomb shelters.

Svitlana Krakovska, a climate scientist who heads the Ukrainian delegation, said she informed the IPCC they had to withdraw on Thursday, in part due to a lack of internet access.

“We have some delegates from other cities, not only Kyiv, and they were forced to go to shelters,” she said. “But most important is that it’s very difficult to think about climate change impacts when you have impacts of Russian missiles in our Kyiv, and tanks everywhere.”

Krakovska, who lives in the Ukrainian capital with her four children, said she tried to continue working.

“But then I just realized that it's not possible because there’s real danger for me and my family, and all our delegates,” she said.

This latest cycle of IPCC reports marks the first time Ukrainians are involved as lead authors, so withdrawing now felt “not fair,” she said.

It was also bitter for Krakovska to consider that, in her mind, the drivers of the war and climate change were the same.

“There’s this connection … all the money for this aggression comes from oil, from fossil fuels. The more we use this, the more we sponsor this aggression,” she said.

Meanwhile, Russian climate diplomats have used the meeting to downplay the warnings of the IPCC report.

According to two people with knowledge of the process, Russia's delegates have repeatedly tried to insert mentions of the benefits of global warming, including new opportunities for resource extraction and shipping, and positive impacts on agriculture in Russia’s Arctic areas.

Russia's pushback is not unusual compared to past behavior at the IPCC. But one person involved in the negotiations said: “What we saw was a much more concerted effort. That seems to be much more politically driven to emphasize these opportunities."

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

In an open letter on Tuesday, around 650 Russian scientists — including dozens from the government-chartered Russian Academy of Sciences — condemned the war and said the invasion has turned Russia into a “pariah,” with consequences for the pursuit of knowledge in that country.

“After all, conducting scientific research is unthinkable without full cooperation with colleagues from other countries. The isolation of Russia from the world means further cultural and technological degradation of our country in the complete absence of positive prospects. War with Ukraine is a step to nowhere,” the letter said.

The IPCC reports, which are published roughly every seven years, are the authoritative summary of the state of climate science and are designed to help guide public policy.

Negotiations at the IPCC are expected to wrap up on Friday, but were only 55 percent completed at the time of publication. Delegates said they expected talks to run over.

BAMAKO –The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a US$ 7.1 million climate risk insurance payment from the African Risk Capacity, ARC-Replica to help support 204,000 people in drought-affected regions of Mali including Bandiagara, Gao, Kayes and Segou.

With a population already struggling with the effects of persistent conflicts, political instability, and the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, this first-ever climate risk insurance payment in Mali will help WFP provide emergency and resilience-building support in a timely manner to those most vulnerable to climate extremes from March to May 2022. WFP’s response will complement that of the Government of Mali which will also receive insurance compensation from ARC-Replica for climate shocks. Both WFP and government response plans have been prepared jointly and will be implemented in a coordinated manner to achieve impactful results

"The impact of poor rains is clearly visible in affected communities and could prove devastating for many families. Cereal production has decreased, and pasture and water for livestock has shrunk, forcing people to sell off their livestock” said Sally Haydock, WFP’s Country Director and Representative.

“This payout comes at a vital time - helping families adapt to most severe impacts of climate change and preserve their livelihoods” she added.

WFP’s support will complement the Government of Mali’s response which will also receive insurance compensation from ARC-Replica for climate shocks. Both WFP and government response plans have been prepared jointly and will be implemented in a coordinated manner to achieve impactful results.

In 2021, Mali experienced the most severe lack of rains in five years caused by periodic dry spells and low rainfall, all of which have compromised the country's agricultural output, putting 1.9 million people across the country at risk of severe food insecurity - mostly in the regions of Kayes, Gao, Mopti, Segou, and Timbuktu.

"ARC Replica is a valuable programme that complements and supports the efforts of the Malian Government in the fight against food insecurity and malnutrition. The government strategy is to provide half rations to populations in food crisis situations to contribute to national solidarity. Our common interest is to always work together to relieve the populations affected by drought and strengthen their resilience to climate shocks, with innovative solutions such as those offered by the ARC mutual insurance company," affirmed Mrs. DICKO Bassa Diane, Deputy Minister Commissioner of the Food security council.

With this climate insurance payment, WFP will provide early food assistance through cash transfers to 161,000 women, men and children affected by climate shocks. Over 20,000 children aged from 6 to 23 months, and pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers will receive nutritional support and services. To reinforce communities’ resilience to climate shocks, 23,000 people will benefit from community asset building programmes such as pastoral wells, water towers and fishponds that will help diversify their production and livelihoods and reduce the impact of future rains deficiencies.

Established to help governments improve their capacities to plan, prepare and respond to natural disasters caused by extreme weather events, ARC-replica is an innovative approach to climate risk management which allows countries - like Mali - to extend their climate insurance coverage to more vulnerable people in their countries.

As an ARC-Replica technical partner, WFP uses the ARC insurance funds to improve its emergency and resilience-building response as it offers more flexibility for early emergency response than regular humanitarian funding systems. In collaboration with ARC, WFP will continue strengthening the technical and operational capacities of the Government of Mali in managing and preventing food insecurity and malnutrition caused by climate shocks.

In Mali, WFP has been subscribing to the climate insurance policy since 2017 to finance early response in case of drought. In 2021, WFP’s insurance premium was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Government of Germany.

# # #

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change

‘Pure Orwell’: how Russian state media spins invasion as liberation

State propaganda mobilised to sooth public’s deep unease over incursion into Ukraine

Ukraine invasion: live updates

A man clears debris at a damaged residential building in a suburb of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

Pjotr Sauer in Moscow
Fri 25 Feb 2022

Turn on Russian state television on Friday afternoon and you will see little sign that the country’s missiles are pounding the Ukrainian capital.

Instead, the full force of the state propaganda machine has been mobilised to portray Moscow’s invasion as a defensive campaign to “liberate” Ukraine, focusing much of its coverage on the alleged protection of the Donbas, supposedly under attack by Kyiv.

“Our situation is very concerning. The enemy is attacking our positions, entering civilian houses,” said Leonid Pasechnik, the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, to the Rossiya-24 channel.

RT news channel in spotlight in UK over pro-Russia slant on Ukraine crisis

A breaking news banner on Channel One said that “Ukraine launched three missiles at the Donetsk People’s Republic in the last seven minutes”.

The Russian state news mostly follows Vladimir Putin’s narrative on the war, which he laid out in his address to the nation early on Thursday morning when he announced a limited “special military operation” to “demilitarise” Ukraine and protect citizens in the Donbas from what he claimed was a Ukrainian “genocide”.

Throughout Friday morning, a Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital was often simply denied.

“Kyiv, as a city where civilians live, hasn’t been bombed by anyone. There hasn’t been any terror there or instructions to cause such terror,” said the Channel One pundit Artyom Sheinin on Friday, contradicting the myriad of reports that have shown the opposite.

As it becomes harder for state media to ignore the full-scale invasion into Ukrainian territory, some channels have started to frame Russian soldiers as eagerly anticipated liberators.

“The people in the city Kharkiv only have one issue with the Russian army: ‘What took you so long?’” said Olga Skabeyeva, one of the country’s most prominent state television hosts.

Coverage of the invasion contrasts steeply with that of other Russian military campaigns. During Russia’s 2015 military intervention in Syria, viewers were often treated to flashy videos of fighter jets destroying their targets. The avoidance of such videos this time serves as a sign that Russian authorities are aware of the country’s deep unease with the conflict.

Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past polling has found, and 62% of the population say they get their news from television. But polls also show that most people under 40 prefer to get their news online and from social media.

Despite a state crackdown on Russian media, readers can still choose from several independent outlets that have been reporting critically on the country’s involvement in the war, including the popular online platform Meduza and the television channel Dozhd – both recently branded as “foreign agents”.

Those who can read English are still able to access foreign press, and there are also many popular independent Telegram channels run by journalists turned bloggers.

In contrast to WhatsApp, the widely used encrypted messaging app Telegram allows readers to “follow” users in a similar way to Twitter, which is accessed by only 3% of the population. Alexei Pivovarov, a veteran Russian journalist, runs a channel with almost 500,000 followers, aggregating independent news on the war coming from Russia, Ukraine and the west.

Other channels are more opinionated. Commenting on a recent statement by the Kremlin official Valentina Matviyenko, who defended the invasion by saying it “was is the only option to stop a brotherly war”, the Telegram user Stalingulag wrote to his 300,000 followers: “This is pure Orwell, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery.”

Signs are emerging that the Kremlin will try to gain a monopoly on the way Russians perceive events in Ukraine by censoring independent outlets reporting on the war.

On Thursday Russia’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, demanded that Russian media cite only “official information and data” when covering the conflict. The watchdog vowed to immediately block outlets that did not comply with the order.

In a similar move, Russia previously threatened to block at least 10 news outlets unless they deleted their coverage of video investigations by the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny into high-level corruption. Most outlets gave in to the demands.

Over at the state broadcaster RT – which has parroted many of the themes on the war that were aired on Russian state television – the first signs have emerged that its staff are uncomfortable with the network’s war coverage.

At least one English-language RT staff member and one frequent RT contributor in Moscow have quit the network in recent days over the editorial position on the war, the Guardian has learned.

“In light of recent events, earlier today I resigned from RT with immediate effect,” the former RT staff news writer in Moscow Jonny Tickle tweeted on Thursday.

The frequent RT contributor who resigned said, on condition of anonymity, that there had “been an exodus of staff already” at the channel.

“Several people already quit – and lots more said to be contemplating.”

Russian state media denies its military attacked Kyiv and even claims Ukraine shot down its own plane there

Kieran Corcoran

Damage to a building in Kyiv Ukraine, on the morning of February 25, 2022. Russia insisted it was not attacking the city.

Pierre Crom/Getty Images

Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought fighting to the streets of its capital city, Kyiv.

But Russian state media was at pains to avoid that fact, and sometimes denied it.

Insider's review of outlets found a common narrative that obscured the realities of the conflict.

On Thursday and into Friday it was clear to most people around the world that Russia had invaded Ukraine, and moved quickly to attack its capital, Kyiv.

Explosions were reported in the city of 2.8 million as its residents huddled in bomb shelters.

Videos showed Russian helicopters bombarding an airfield and gunfire in Kyiv's outskirts.

Ukrainian soldiers at a checkpoint in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 25, 2022.

Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images

But those receiving their news from Russia's vast array of state media outlets were given no sense of this, according to a review by Insider and other monitors.

Here is a selection of stories from the front pages of major Russian outlets in the early afternoon of Friday, the second day of hostilities around Kyiv.

They had a common theme: Russia is winning, Ukraine is planning atrocities, and there are no Russian attacks on Kyiv.

The prominent RIA Novosti agency followed that narrative on Friday morning.

News coverage from Russia's RIA Novosti agency on February 25, 2022. Its top story reports the claim that damage in Kyiv was from Ukraine's military shooting down its own plane. RIA Novosti

It reported a claim that more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered, including 82 on Zmiinyi Island in the Black Sea. (Ukraine said that its troops refused to surrender and died fighting. Audio appeared to show the outgunned soldiers telling a warship to "go fuck yourself.")

RIA also noted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for peace negotiations with Russia, though without the context of attacks on Kyiv. It also aired the outlandish claim that Ukraine was trying to develop nuclear weapons, for which there is no evidence, but which Russia also cited to justify its attack.

'Shot down its own jet'

One prominent story was about Kyiv — but claimed that the damage to buildings there was from Ukraine accidentally shooting down one of its own fighter jets. The story cited an unnamed Russian defense source, who also said Russia was not attacking Kyiv.

The Interfax agency had a similar approach. Its top story was an official denial that Russia was attacking Kyiv, which also reported that Ukraine had shot down its own plane by mistake.

Russia's military, on the other hand, was reported to have destroyed 11 Ukrainian air fields and a naval base. Its choice for "photo of the week" was not to do with the war, but a wildlife image of cranes in China at sundown.

The TASS agency, which publishes in both English and Russian, also carried the claim about the plane being shot down.

A headline from the TASS state news agency on February 25, 2022. TASS

The agency also reported on a speech by Zelensky lamenting that Ukraine was left to face Russia by itself — but omitted anything Zelensky said about strikes on Kyiv.

It wrote instead that Russia said its forces were "not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population."

A telling moment on Friday morning on Russia's Channel 1 appeared to show the difficulty of maintaining such a position.

Francis Scarr, a BBC employee in Moscow, described a brief conflict between a guest and host on the news show "Time Will Tell."

Per Scarr's translation, host Vladislav Shurygin began to describe videos of Russian shelling in Kyiv, arguing that it was necessary despite the evident suffering among the people there.

But the host, Artynom Sheynin, interrupted, telling him that there was in fact no suffering.

"Because Kyiv," he said, "as a city where civilians live, hasn't been bombed by anyone."

Although Russia's system of state media outlets is large and influential, there are many other ways for Russians to find news, including homegrown independent outlets and foreign press.

Large protests against the war erupted on Thursday, prompting mass arrests. Celebrities and other public figures also spoke out against the war, despite the risk of censure.

The other front in Putin’s Ukraine invasion: online disinformation

Digital disinformation has long been a favorite tactic of the Kremlin’s and the Ukraine crisis is proving to be no exception.

By Brian Contreras

The Los Angeles Times

Fri., Feb. 25, 2022

As Russian bombs and cruise missiles rocked cities across Ukraine early Thursday morning, another front in the long-simmering conflict was erupting. The internet quickly became a battlefield in its own right, with propaganda and disinformation threatening to muddy the water for Americans following the crisis from afar.

Digital disinformation has long been a favorite tactic of the Kremlin’s — as Americans learned via the proliferation of “fake news” during the 2016 presidential election — and the Ukraine crisis is proving to be no exception. Over the last few days, researchers have warned that President Vladimir Putin’s regime is pushing, and will continue to push, false narratives aimed at justifying its aggression.

At least some of those narratives are finding purchase among an American public divided by previous waves of disinformation, said Graham Brookie, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “What we see … is not an insignificant amount of organic audience engagement from U.S. citizens that are predisposed to have their previously held beliefs reinforced by Russian disinformation.”

For instance, he said, anti-vaccine groups that are already skeptical of the U.S. government are now primed to disbelieve the official U.S. government narrative around Ukraine.

Russian “influence operations” relying on disinformation “exist at a steady state,” and have for years, added Brookie, but the ramp-up to war in Ukraine has brought “a massive surge.”

Jennifer Granston, head of insights at the social media analytics firm Zignal Labs, said the conspiracy theory that the Ukraine conflict is a government-manufactured distraction from supposed harms of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the disinformation narratives her company has monitored in recent days, along with the claim, embraced by a Russian state media outlet, that the invasion is a mere “peacekeeping mission.”

Reaction to Russia-backed propaganda has been mixed. Even among far-right groups that have in the past been sympathetic toward Putin — a strongman leader whom former U.S. President Trump often praised — the complexities of the present moment have left some split in their loyalties.

“The online far-right space is rather confusing right now,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Some commenters on fringe sites are securely pro-Putin, and are attacking NATO and the idea that any intervention should happen in Ukraine. I’ve even seen posts asking that Putin invade the U.S. and spare us from Biden.”

“But the conversation is pretty complex and wide ranging,” she added via email. “There are also posts on Telegram supported by American white supremacists trying to recruit for the Azov Battalion” — a neo-Nazi unit in the Ukrainian military.

Daniel J. Jones, president of the nonprofit research group Advance Democracy, noted a similar dynamic. Historically, he said, American fringe groups have helped spread Russian misinformation, and Russia has amplified “homegrown” American misinformation in turn.

But that interplay has been upended by the current Ukraine crisis. “Most of the U.S. right-wing groups and platforms we monitor are claiming that the invasion would never have happened under former President Trump,” Jones said over text message; some such groups even claim the crisis was manufactured by Biden “to distract from his ‘corruption’ and poll numbers.”

Regardless of how the conflict is received by Americans, Putin’s first priority is controlling information within his own country, said Brookie, the director of the digital forensics lab. He called Putin’s recent speech about Ukraine a “tour de force of historical revisionism … focused on shoring up support, or at least making a show of shoring up support, to the Russian people.”

To disseminate his preferred narratives across the social internet, Putin relies heavily on content produced by state-affiliated media outlets RT and Sputnik. In 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said false news stories and conspiracy theories originally reported by RT and Sputnik were frequently amplified by sites such as Breitbart and InfoWars, filtering from there into the broader conservative media ecosystem.

RT was all-in on Ukraine coverage Thursday. “War in Ukraine started 8 years ago, Russia is now ending it, Moscow claims,” read one headline. On Facebook, where it has more than 7 million followers, the outlet posted a 26-second video with the caption, “Putin on military operation: ‘What is happening is a necessary measure, we were left no other option.’”

While RT may look like a slick broadcast channel, it’s closer in spirit to the Soviet-era newspaper Pravda, some observers said. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all label it as state-controlled media.

“It is definitely the mouthpiece of the Russian government,” said Kathryn Stoner, a Stanford University political science professor and author of “Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order.”

This week the National Broadcasting Council in Poland adopted a resolution to remove Russian channels, including RT, from its register. A United Kingdom official also expressed concern that RT would spread “harmful disinformation” about the Ukraine crisis, according to Reuters.

The outlet did not respond to a request for comment from The Times.

“We’re in a moment of new media disruption, where the world is getting used to social media channels and this has been very much exploited by Kremlin media working to confuse the situation,” said Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at USC, during a Thursday panel discussion on the information war in Ukraine. “I am struck by how unready the U.S. government is for an information war with the Russians.”

Ukraine: what Russia has learned about western responses from its past military manoeuvres

Russian armoured personnel carriers on their way to Gori in Georgia during the Russo-Georgian War in 2008. Alamy

Published: February 25, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals a change in the approach of the Russian armed forces, as well as an uncompromising political approach. This reflects lessons learnt from military operations over two decades and observing others.

The Kremlin has used its military power on a number of occasions since 1991 to achieve strategic and foreign policy goals. In the process it has achieved a number of firsts.

The 1994-1996 Chechen conflict was Russia’s first post-Soviet war. In 2008, Georgia was Russia’s first war of the era against a foreign state. And Syria was portrayed as Russia’s first western-style intervention, fought as much as possible at distance, either through the use of long-range precision strike or proxy forces.

One of President Vladimir Putin’s first priorities on taking power in 2000 was to halt the perceived decline of the Russian armed forces, which have undergone a comprehensive programme of reform and modernisation. There was a clear transformation between the 1994-96 Chechen conflict and Russia’s ongoing operations in Syria and Ukraine.

Lessons from Georgia

The 2008 war with Georgia saw the Russian armed forces fight a conventional war, after years of conflict against insurgents seeking independence from Russia in Chechnya and the north Caucasus. Despite overwhelming numerical superiority and the rapid expulsion of the Georgian armed forces from South Ossetia, Russia’s military performance in the 2008 war highlighted some continuing significant weaknesses.

These included a lack of precision-guided munitions and an inability to gain air superiority in the area of operations. This led to the conclusion that Russia was still poorly prepared to fight a modern conflict, even against a weaker opponent.

In the wake of the war with Georgia, ambitious defence reform was initiated by former defence minister Anatoly Serdyukhov. There was considerable investment in modernisation and rearmament. The biggest reform was a ten-year weapons-modernisation programme launched in 2010. The aim was to go from only 10% of kit classed as “modern” to 70% by 2020.

A particular focus has been on the development of long-range and high-precision weapons. Russia believes that such weapons play a decisive role in contemporary conflict, used to target an adversary’s critical national infrastructure. Russia demonstrated its new capabilities in precision strike in October 2015, when it fired Kalibr missile strikes from ships in the Caspian Sea to hit targets over 1,500km away in Syria.

Russian army special forces on patrol in Chechnya in 1995. Alamy

The Kremlin has also drawn lessons about how to present its military interventions. Putin has framed the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” to protect civilians from “genocide”. This is a cynical attempt to portray the invasion as a humanitarian intervention.

Moscow took a similar approach in 2008. It maintained that its invasion was intended to stop the alleged genocide of the Ossetian people by Georgian forces, and to protect Russian citizens resident in South Ossetia.

Nato’s air campaign against Serbia in 1999 appeared to set a precedent for military action. The alliance circumvented the UN, arguing that its campaign was necessary to halt crimes against humanity that were being conducted by a state within its own borders.

Critics argued that humanitarian intervention was a pretext for the use of force against a sovereign state. This emboldened others (including Russia) to follow suit and pursue their own interests under the guise of humanitarian intervention. Moscow did not hesitate to use associated arguments to defend its actions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
Learning from western responses

The Russian intervention in Georgia demonstrated the lengths Moscow was prepared to go to in order to prevent countries in what it considers to be its sphere of influence integrating more closely with the west. Russia’s invasion of Georgia also demonstrated the apparent weakness of the west, highlighting a lack of unity.

There was a very limited response to the invasion and subsequent recognition by Russia and a small group of allies of Georgia’s breakaway territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as independent states. Georgia continues to consider them under occupation. This action has clear parallels to that of the breakaway pro-Russian regions in Ukraine.

Moscow exploited the lack of consensus amongst western allies during its 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russian involvement was deliberately ambiguous, such as the use of troops in unmarked military uniforms, in order to confuse and forestall any international response.

The 2008 crisis revealed the limits of western influence within Russia’s “zone of privileged interest”. It also drew attention to the lack of internal unity within organisations such as Nato over relations with Moscow and future engagement with the area. It could be argued that this emboldened Putin to take action in Ukraine.

Read more: Ukraine's military is outgunned but can still inflict a great deal of pain on Russian forces

Part of the problem is Europe’s over-reliance on Russia as a supplier of natural gas. This has been a long-running issue for European energy security and Europe has long been aware of the dangers.

Little progress has been made in reducing dependence on Russian gas since the wake-up call of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. In 2020 Russian gas giant Gazprom exported 174.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Europe. This was down from the record highs of around 200bcm in 2018 and 2019, despite diplomatic tensions and the EU’s long-running objective to reduce its dependence on Russia.

Revenues from oil and gas exports have enabled Russia to continue investing in its military capabilities. These exports are also a critical vulnerability for a number of European states.

Unlike Russia, the west did not learn from 2008. Putin clearly considered western sanctions to be a price worth paying, and calculated that western support for Ukraine would not extend to direct military intervention. Because of this, western warnings about the consequences of a military invasion have not been taken seriously and failed to deter Putin from sending his troops into Ukraine.

Author

Tracey German
Reader in Conflict and Security, King's College London
Disclosure statement
Tracey German is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
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A TROTSKYIST (JUST KIDDING)

Khodorkovsky says only revolution can topple Russia's Putin

By Guy Faulconbridge -
© Reuters/HENRY NICHOLLS

LONDON (Reuters) - Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man before he fell foul of the Kremlin, said on Friday that only revolution would topple Vladimir Putin, and he expected the Kremlin chief to crack down further on dissent at home after invading Ukraine.

Khodorkovsky, who under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s became one of Russia's most powerful oligarchs, said he doubted that the Russian people supported the invasion.

"I am in absolute shock from what has taken place," Khodorkovsky said of the invasion on a video call with reporters. At times he appeared to be close to tears.

As he spoke, Russian missiles were raining down on Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv and families cowered in shelters as Russian forces pressed their offensive.

Khodorkovsky, 58, said Putin wanted to take Ukraine, destroy its defences and install a "puppet government" in Kyiv. The West should help Ukraine, including by arming its people, or it will face a long, and potentially bloody, occupation, he said.

REVOLUTION

"The screws will be tightened" on dissent within Russia too, Khodorkovsky added.

"Changing the Putin regime through democratic means cannot happen; change can come exclusively through revolution - either revolution from above or revolution from below," he said.

"A revolution is possible either as the result of a military defeat or when Putin passes away," he said.

He cast the 69-year-old Putin, Russia's paramount leader since 1999, as a "dictator" who was living in a tightly controlled "information bubble" and who constantly needed to prove himself to his entourage.

Russian officials dismiss such criticism and point to Putin's repeated electoral victories and polling which shows he remains popular. Putin has said Khodorkovsky is a criminal.

Khodorkovsky was convicted of tax evasion and fraud in 2005 in a Moscow trial which he said was motivated by enemies who wanted to rip apart his oil and gas company YUKOS and punish him for his political ambitions. He always denied the charges.

YUKOS was crippled with massive back-tax claims and then its main Siberian oil production units were sold off by the state, only to be bought later by state-controlled firms.

Khodorkovsky was pardoned by Putin in 2013 and left Russia.

He dismissed speculation that Putin was behaving irrationally over Ukraine, but said the Russian leader appeared to doubt the loyalty of some in his entourage.

He pointed to how Putin had chastised foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin before television cameras on Feb. 21.

Asked if Putin would go further than Ukraine, Khodorkovsky said: "I am convinced that if Putin achieves his aims in Ukraine then he will want to punish someone else later."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kate Holton and Gareth Jones)

The CounterPoint Blog

The Rise of Private Military Companies

PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANY
PMCS

February 25, 2022
Louis Bernd — CEP Research Intern

The first two entries in this series, “ISIS ‘Down’ but ‘Not Out’ in Iraq” and “Justice Necessary Before Yazidis Can Find Peace,” addressed the scope and effects of military missions and transitional justice, respectively. This article expands on these issues by analyzing the growing privatization of warfare in Iraq and beyond.

Recently, the privatization of warfare has gained public attention because of the activities of the notorious Wagner Group, a Russia-affiliated organization known for its ruthlessness in Syria, Ukraine, and most recently, Mali. While the Wagner Group has been impactful, it is not the only group of its kind. Mercenary activity has been on the rise for years, and the stereotype of mercenaries as cheap imitations of national soldiers is a grave oversight. Private Military Companies (PMCs) are often comprised of former highly skilled military personnel. They are often neither geographically nor ideologically bound. While PMCs can be powerful forces on the battlefield, their presence can also be highly problematic.

Commercially organized mercenary involvement in international conflicts gained worldwide attention in 2007 when four Blackwater contractors opened fire on Nisour Square in Baghdad, Iraq. Seventeen unarmed civilians and several Iraqi police officers were killed in what became known as the Nisour Square massacre. This incident started a debate about PMCs' accountability and reliability, which continues today. While Blackwater, now named Academi, faced a backlash and scrutiny, the privatization of force has not slowed. The market for force has become global and is growing rapidly. Major mercenary activities on all sides of conflicts have been reported in Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, Syria, and Yemen. Furthermore, PMCs have diversified, with some being linked to states, such as Wagner, and others operating similar to global businesses and loose recruiting networks—devoid of all allegiances and affiliations.

Private force has several benefits for those who employ them. For one, it is far cheaper to rent a heavily armed, battle-hardened mercenary group for a few weeks than it is to maintain a comparable standing army. For example, the Nigerian military apparatus fought Boko Haram for years, but solicited the services of several PMCs to bolster its capability to secure the country’s elections in 2015. A further benefit is that mercenaries who die in battle do not potentially impact national politics like fallen soldiers. Indeed, killed mercenaries often go unnoticed and unreported. Additionally, PMCs can be hard to trace, granting the employing state or organization plausible deniability. A prime example is the Wagner Group. While the Kremlin denies ties to Wagner, investigative journalists’ reports reveal how closely the two are interlinked. Wagner mercenaries train at Russian bases, are flown on Russian military planes, and are airlifted to Russian hospitals if necessary. Indeed, the Wagner Group seems to act primarily as a Russian proxy, granting President Putin a degree of plausible deniability.

PMCs are not only employed by states, but also by companies, NGOs, and individuals. A typical example involves mining operations guarded by mercenaries employed by a multinational corporation. Thus, the battlefields of today can be confusing and unpredictable. Private force can be used against extremist groups as well as for their benefit. Thus far, the United Nations has abstained from employing PMCs for peacekeeping missions, but with challenges in recruiting sufficiently qualified peacekeeping forces and a tight funding environment, PMCs may be one stop-gap option.

However, private force often comes with complications. PMCs thrive in the chaos they help create, since conflicts mean business. Thus, they have little commercial incentive to contribute to ending conflicts and are rarely employed to do so. Furthermore, their operational tactics and methods are not regulated, which has led to past excesses. Numerous reports on severe human rights abuses by PMCs strongly indicate the lack of established best practices and the virtual impunity with which many operate. This is not to say that national militaries are incapable of committing war crimes, but the potential for accountability of private contractors is far lower.

The use of PMCs is now an established practice in conflict zones and the market for these private forces is growing rapidly, despite the risks, especially in countries already struggling with weak governance. Rather than enhancing security, the unregulated deployment of PMCs can be detrimental to long-term stabilization operations. Without international rules, the real risk exists that the most detrimental aspects of PMCs are likely to continue to proliferate, especially in complex conflict zones. Unfortunately, thus far international law is lacking enforcement power. Even if perpetrators of PMC-related crimes are brought to court, complicated jurisdictional and legal questions make legal accountability far from assured. Germany has recently made potential progress in this regard by prosecuting an Iraqi ISIS fighter under universal jurisdiction. However, while universal jurisdiction can be used for the most severe crimes, such as genocide, which was at the center of the case in Germany, it is difficult to apply this standard to other crimes.

As their use proliferates, the role, purpose, use, and operations of PMCs deserve far greater public, political, and legal scrutiny. Governments should work toward building a stronger international regulatory framework, including sufficient enforcement powers, to prevent abuses by these heavily armed forces for hire.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: War! What's it Good For? Profit

Russia surprised by Lebanon's condemnation of invasion

February 25, 2022

Lebanon's President Michel Aoun (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) attend a meeting at Moscow's Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on March 26, 2019

[Russian Presidential Press and Information Office - Anadolu Agency]

February 25, 2022

Russia's embassy in Lebanon was surprised by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry statement that condemned the Russian military operations in Ukraine, it said in a statement on its Facebook page, Reuters reports.

"The statement … surprised us by violating the policy of Self-distancing and by taking one side against another in these events, noting that Russia spared no effort in contributing to the advancement and stability of the Lebanese Republic," the statement said.

Lebanon condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, and called on Moscow to halt its military operations at once.

The timing of Imran Khan’s Russia visit is fraught with implications for Pakistan

Although Islamabad claims to be neutral, it does belong to a bloc – of debtor nations whose economies are governed by US dictates.

FS Aijazuddin, Dawn.com

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan takes part in a ceremony in Moscow, Russia. | Alexander Nemenov / Reuters

Pakistan’s governments have been variously arrogant, condescending, incompetent, steeped in self-interest, mired in corruption. They included constitutional contortionists and presidential despots anointed with the unholy oil of judicial dispensation. Most are best forgotten. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan can claim a unique title for his period in office – governance by naiveté.

Having had “greatness thrust” upon him, he has struggled manfully to show that he possesses the vision, the skill and the tenacity to pull Pakistan out of the pitch dug up by previous spoilers.

Over the past three years, Imran Khan has shown that he is the right man – for the wrong job. To his adoring admirers, he is still a flawless messiah, hindered by defective disciples. He has 28 cabinet ministers, four ministers of state (more are planned to free ministers to strategise the next election), and 19 special assistants – a motley lot, responsible for various disciplines. What they lack is ministerial discipline.
Governance by naiveté

Halfway through his term, Imran Khan decided to identify 10 ministries and divisions as examples of efficient governance, worthy of public commendation.

How, some asked, does one measure ministerial performance when each is responsible for disparate aspects of Pakistan’s radial activities? If ministers are to be judged individually, then where is the concept of collective cabinet responsibility?

The criteria used for preferring some ministries/ divisions over others laid itself open to question, worse, to derision. Nevertheless, PM Khan, following his instinct for doing the wrong thing for the right reason, persisted.

He justified this exercise as something he had benefited from himself at his alma mater Aitchison College. (The Khan’s frequent references to his student days makes many wonder whether he ever left Aitchison.) According to him, its pupils’ rewards and punishment (known as “stars and daggers”) were announced in assembly, in Voltaire’s words “pour encourager les autres”.

He announced the results of the ministerial assessments at a public ceremony held on February 10 in Islamabad. His foreign minister – also an Aitchisonian – obviously had not paid attention in his school assembly. His foreign ministry came eleventh in the race – ahead certainly of 22 other ministries/ divisions which obtained a score of 80% plus above, but still not good enough for inclusion in the PM’s top ten hit parade.

The foreign minister and fellow underachievers, warned off by a premature leak of the results, expressed their resentment by pointedly abstaining from the awards ceremony. Undeterred, the PM announced that such ministerial “appraisals” would in future be a quarterly affair and that “bonuses would be given on its basis”.

And how will such bonuses be computed, paid to whom, and out of whose exchequer? The public suspects that this largesse will simply make some rich ministers even richer.

Was such an exercise necessary? All the PM achieved was to present to the nation an image of a cleft cabinet: on one side, 10 smiling scraping sycophants; on the other, disgruntled, demotivated disloyalists.
International role

Imran Khan, like other leaders whenever wobbly at home (eg Nixon/ de Gaulle/ Thatcher), believes that he has a higher role to play on the international stage. He is convinced that his brief visit to Beijing to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics reaffirmed China’s “iron brother” relationship with Pakistan, and an endorsement of him personally.

His chilly reception in Beijing, though, by Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Jianghao was degrees below the protocol extended to his predecessors.

As if on the rebound, he is now in Russia to meet President Putin, the same Putin who 10 years ago cancelled his own trip to Islamabad, citing the insecurity caused by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s container dharnas. The PM has gone to Moscow ostensibly to strengthen the “ropes of sand” that bind the two nations.

The timing of this visit is fraught with implications. Russia has confronted the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over Ukraine. The PM, before leaving for Moscow, tried to allay the suspicions of Pakistan’s “with us or against us?” Western allies by insisting that we are not part of any bloc. Seventy-five years of alignment belies this assertion. Pakistan does belong to a bloc – of debtor nations whose economies are governed by US dictates.

At home, Imran Khan cuts a Caesarean figure. As the Ides of March near, he fears political assassination by a conspiracy of unforgiving opponents, disaffected allies and ambitious subordinates.

In his factional autobiography Pakistan: A Personal History (2011), Imran Khan narrated how, at the age of four, he saw a swimming pool for the first time. Heedlessly, he jumped in and “sank straight to the bottom”. Later in life, he plunged equally daringly into the dangerous depths of national politics.

To some, Imran Khan, now almost 70, is again out of his depth, and still floundering.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

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