WAR AND THE INTERNET

Google blocks RT, other Russian channels from earning ad dollars

YouTube app is seen on a smartphone in this illustration

Paresh Dave
Sat, February 26, 2022
By Paresh Dave

(Reuters) -Alphabet Inc's Google barred on Saturday Russia's state-owned media outlet RT and other channels from receiving money for ads on their websites, apps and YouTube videos, similar to a move by Facebook after the invasion of Ukraine.

Citing "extraordinary circumstances," Google's YouTube unit said it was "pausing a number of channels’ ability to monetize on YouTube." These included several Russian channels affiliated with recent sanctions, such as those by the European Union.

Ad placement is largely controlled by YouTube.

Google added later that it was also barring Russian state-funded media outlets from using its ad technology to generate revenue on their own websites and apps.

In addition, the Russian media will not be able to buy ads through Google Tools or place ads on Google services such as search and Gmail, spokesman Michael Aciman said.

"We’re actively monitoring new developments and will take further steps if necessary," Aciman said.

On Wednesday, the European Union unveiled sanctions on individuals such as Margarita Simonyan, whom it called RT's editor-in-chief and "a central figure" of Russian propaganda.

Videos from affected media will also come up less often in recommendations, YouTube spokesperson Farshad Shadloo said. He added that RT and several other channels would no longer be accessible in Ukraine after a Ukrainian government request.

On Saturday, Ukraine Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Twitter he contacted YouTube "to block the propagandist Russian channels — such as Russia 24, TASS, RIA Novosti."

RT and Simonyan did not respond to requests for comment. YouTube declined to identify the other channels restricted.

For years, lawmakers and some users have urged Google for more action on channels linked to the Russian government, concerned that they spread misinformation and should not profit by it.

Russia received an estimated $7 million to $32 million over the two years to December 2018 from ads across 26 YouTube channels it backed, digital researcher Omelas told Reuters at the time.

YouTube has previously said it did not treat state-funded media channels that comply with its rules differently from others when it comes to sharing ad revenue.

On Friday, Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc barred Russian state media from running ads or generating revenue from ads on its services.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Clarence Fernandez)

California-based app Premise battles accusations of helping Russian military


Vadim Ghirda

Louise Matsakis
Sat, February 26, 2022

Premise, a San Francisco-based tech company that pays users around the world to share market research and intelligence information with companies and governments, said it suspended its activities in Ukraine on Friday “out of an abundance of caution” after Ukrainian officials accused it of assisting Russia.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine alleged in a Facebook post that enemies were using Premise’s smartphone app to collect data in the western city of Stryi and other parts of the country for the Kremlin.

Premise CEO Maury Blackman said in a statement on Friday that the accusations were “unequivocally false” and that the company does not work for the Russian military or government. “Our company and our team worldwide strongly support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people defending themselves against this illegal act of aggression by Russia,” he said.

Premise did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a separate news release also published on Friday, Blackman said that “the public statement of the Ukraine Defense Ministry that has gotten circulation is incorrect.”

Prior to the Russian invasion, Blackman said Premise and its customers surveyed people in Ukraine and asked them to take pictures in order to “understand citizens’ perceptions.” He said findings from those reports had been published publicly.

But Premise’s recent activities in Ukraine seem to have been different, according to several Twitter users appearing to be located in the country. They shared screenshots they said were from the Premise app offering Ukrainians jobs paying 30 cents for photos of damage caused by explosions and $3.25 for the location of nearby medical facilities. One Twitter user said they could not immediately comment because the area where they were was under attack. A second Twitter user did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NBC News couldn’t determine from the photos which of Premise’s clients may have paid for the tasks. The company has previously said that it doesn’t “reveal the end customer” to its users. The Wall Street Journal reported that Premise was working in Ukraine on behalf of Western democracies that wanted to understand the country’s infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Launched in 2013, Premise is one of a number of research firms that reward people, frequently in developing countries, for completing small piecemeal tasks, such as answering surveys, taking pictures, and reporting the prices of goods in nearby stores. The data helps corporations understand local markets and has also frequently been used to train artificial intelligence systems.

Mary L. Gray, the co-author of “Ghost Work,” a book about the people who work for piecework apps like Premise, said on Twitter that it’s important to consider how they are treated.

“If we want healthy information, we need to care about the work conditions of anyone who could be asked to perform a task mediated by platforms,” she wrote.

In recent years, Premise has begun working with the U.S. military and foreign governments, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal published in June. The company said in its release that it works in more than 125 countries and in 37 languages to find “data for every decision.”

Patreon took down an account run by one of Ukraine's biggest charitable foundations because the organization uses donations to supply equipment for the country's military



Sarah Jackson
Fri, February 25, 2022

Patreon has taken down an account run by a major Ukraine charitable foundation, Come Back Alive.


The foundation's page, savelife.in.ua, said funds raised would go to its "media and veterans divisions."


Patreon says the page violates its policies because Come Back Alive uses funds for equipment for Ukraine's military.

Patreon has suspended a page run by a major Ukraine charitable foundation that helps get equipment to the country's military.

The membership platform said Thursday that it removed the account savelife.in.ua.

Before its suspension, the Patreon page said funds raised through its account will "fund the operations of our media and veteran divisions, visible to 2,500,000 of our Facebook followers."

"The posts and videos created with the help of your donations will show the rehabilitation of Ukrainian veterans and their return to a peaceful life," it said.

Patreon, however, says it took down the account because the non-governmental organization that runs it, called Come Back Alive, uses contributions to "finance and train military personnel."

"We don't allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity," Patreon said in a blog post. "It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page."

Ukraine's official website says Come Back Alive is the country's "main charity fund," and Come Back Alive says that a payment made to it is a "charitable donation to Ukrainian military."

The foundation has said it used funds for military vehicles, mobile surveillance systems, tablets with software for artillerymen, and the training of hundreds of snipers and thousands of gunners, according to Patreon. CNBC reports that the NGO uses donations to distribute military equipment like helmets, body armor, and medical kits to Ukrainian soldiers.

The director of Come Back Alive, Taras Chmut, told CNBC that the Patreon page received small donations in recent months, but more than $300,000 poured in after the news broke that Russia had invaded Ukraine.

Patreon says funds remaining in the account will be refunded. The company suggested other organizations for people to donate to instead, including the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, Voices of Children, and Revived Soldiers Ukraine.

"We are shocked and heartbroken at the invasion of Ukraine," Patreon said in its blog post. "Like so many around the world, we are watching this tragedy closely and wishing for the safety of the Ukrainian people in harm's way."

Yandex warns Russian users of unreliable information online after Moscow threatens media


 The logo of Russian internet group Yandex is pictured at the company's headquarter in Moscow

Fri, February 25, 2022
By Alexander Marrow and Gleb Stolyarov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian tech giant Yandex has started warning Russian users looking for news about Ukraine on its search engine of unreliable information on the internet, after Moscow threatened Russian media over what they publish.

Authorities on Thursday threatened to block media reports that contain what Moscow described as "false information" regarding its military operation in Ukraine, an offensive that has seen Ukrainian forces battle Russian invaders on three sides and missiles pound the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.


"Some material on the internet may contain inaccurate information. Please be attentive," read a message under the Yandex search bar when looking for the latest news about Ukraine. The message was only displayed to users searching in Russian.

Yandex said the banner message automatically appears on search queries for which there is an abnormal spike in growth or rapid updates in the news.

"The banner is not linked to any demands," Yandex said.

The company said the banner had first appeared on Thursday evening.

Earlier on Thursday, Russia's state communications regulator Roskomnadzor said the amount of unverified and unreliable information appearing online had increased significantly, and reminded editors that they must establish whether information is truthful before it is published.

There was no indication that Roskomnadzor had started blocking reports for Russian users. Earlier this month, the regulator ordered some outlets to remove reports from their websites about corruption allegations aired by jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

"They must use information and data received only from official Russian sources," Roskomnadzor said of reports about Russia's "special operation". Those spreading what it termed "false information" could be fined or have their reports blocked.

'MILITARY CENSORSHIP'

"Roskomnadzor is trying to establish military censorship in Russia," said Tikhon Dzyadko, editor in chief of TV Rain (Dozhd), a media outlet that last year fell victim to a crackdown on media outlets that Russia considers "foreign agents".

The media regulator has also taken umbrage with U.S. firms in recent days, demanding that Meta Platforms stop restricting Russian media including the RIA news agency and the defence ministry's Zvezda TV channel on Facebook.

Roskomnadzor wants Alphabet's Google to remove restrictions blocking the YouTube channel of Denis Pushilin, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine that Moscow recognised as independent this week.

"In connection with regular blocking by Western internet services, Roskomnadzor urges users to create accounts on Russian resources and to use Russian social networks," the regulator said.

Facebook and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Alexander Marrow and Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Pozsar Says $300 Billion Russia Cash Pile Can Roil Money Markets



Garfield Reynolds
Fri, February 25, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Russia still has about $300 billion of foreign currency held offshore -- enough to disrupt money markets if it’s frozen by sanctions or moved suddenly to avoid them.

That’s according to Credit Suisse Group AG strategist Zoltan Pozsar, who parsed data from the Bank of Russia and financial markets to calculate that a much larger share is held in dollars than official numbers suggest. The Bank of Russia’s dollar exposure is about 50%, compared with the 20% it reports, Credit Suisse estimates.

That’s enough to substantially shift funding markets, according to Pozsar.

“$300 billion -– in the extreme -– can either be potentially trapped by sanctions, or moved somehow from West to East to avoid being trapped by sanctions,” Pozsar wrote in a report Thursday.

Russia’s multi-year push to remove the dollar’s hold over its economy has so far helped ease the impact of sanctions from the U.S. and its allies. Any unreported reserves would be far harder to track and target with sanctions, though it does raise the potential for the U.S. and others to target more accounts -- if they can identify where that money is. Pozsar wrote in his note that the offshore currency holdings he outlined could be vulnerable to sanctions, or to being moved out of their potential reach, potentially fueling further de-dollarization.

Russia’s central bank and private sector have almost $1 trillion of liquid wealth, with dollars accounting for more than most people realize, even after the country sold all its Treasuries holdings in 2018, Pozsar wrote. He estimates about $200 billion is held in foreign-exchange swaps, with another $100 billion in deposits at foreign banks.

Russia’s Yearslong Quest to Quit Dollar Is Blunting Sanctions

The U.S. has vowed to inflict a “severe cost on the Russian economy” that will hamper its ability to do business in foreign currencies, as Western nation warn that Kyiv could fall. Ukraine’s foreign minister said the capital was hit with “horrific” rocket strikes as Russian tanks, troops and aircraft pushed closer to the city.

Equities slumped along with bond yields this week as Russia prepared for and then carried out the assault on its neighbor. Risk sentiment revived late Thursday in the U.S after sanctions from the Biden administration spared Russian oil exports and avoided blocking access to the Swift global payment network. Asian equities advanced Friday, while yields on Treasuries rose.

“When flows change, spreads can gap,” Pozsar wrote. “If things escalate, it’s hard not to see a direct impact on FX swaps and U.S. dollar Libor fixings given Russia’s vast financial surpluses and where those surpluses are deployed.”

U.S. largest pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS exposed to Russian assets

Fri, February 25, 2022
By Davide Barbuscia

NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuters) - California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), the two largest U.S. pensions funds, have exposure to Russian assets, which have come under pressure after Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, according to statements from the funds.

A spokesperson for CalPERS, which manages the largest U.S. public pension fund, said late on Thursday that the fund had around $900 million of exposure to Russia, but no Russian debt.

The spokesperson did not elaborate on the breakdown of the Russian assets and declined to comment on potential plans to trim those allocations.

CalSTRS, the second-largest U.S. pension fund, said it had investments in Russia and was monitoring potential risks to its portfolio. Its exposure to Russian assets was worth over $800 million in June last year, according to the latest available data and Reuters calculations.

CalPERS manages nearly $500 billion in assets, while CalSTRS has assets totalling around $320 billion.

"CalSTRS will follow any relevant financial sanctions levied by the United States Government," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

International sanctions aimed at further limiting Russia's ability to access global financial markets after the country's attack on Ukraine have pressured already battered Russian assets.

Yields on Russian benchmark 10-year OFZ rouble bonds , which move inversely to prices, rose to 14.09% on Thursday, their highest since early 2015, though the bonds pared back some losses on Friday. The dollar-denominated RTS stock index rose sharply on Friday but still stood near a two-year low.

According to the latest available data on its website and Reuters calculations, CalSTRS had exposure to nine Russian local sovereign bonds, so-called OFZs, with a market value of nearly $32 million as of June. Its holdings of Russian roubles had a market value of about $1.5 million at that time.

On the equity side, its allocations were worth around $800 million in June and included securities issued by energy companies like Gazprom and Lukoil, as well as by sanctions-hit Russian banks Sberbank and VTB.

"CalSTRS has investments in Russia, and as with all investments, we monitor potential risks to the portfolio to ensure our investments are protected. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a potential risk and we are closely following developments", the spokesperson said.

Several global money managers have trimmed their exposure to Russian assets this week and in the weeks prior to the invasion.

Two Danish pension funds this week said they were pulling back from Russia, and Canada's second-biggest pension fund, Caisse de depot, said on Thursday it had sold its Russian positions.

Large U.S. money managers like BlackRock, Vanguard, and PIMCO, manage funds with billions of dollars of exposure to Russian bonds, according to data from industry tracker Morningstar Direct.

Among U.S. domiciled funds, the PIMCO Income Fund Institutional Class had the largest allocation to Russian government bonds, estimated at $1.16 billion by taking the portfolio weight times the fund's total net assets as of the end of last month, Morningstar data showed.

PIMCO declined to comment on plans to trim its allocations to Russian assets. Vanguard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A BlackRock spokesperson said on Thursday the world's largest asset manager was monitoring regulatory guidelines on Russia. (Reporting by Davide Barbuscia; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili, Bernard Orr)

Caisse de Depot Sells Russia Holdings; CPPIB Reports No Exposure

Layan Odeh
Thu, February 24, 2022, 



(Bloomberg) -- Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, Canada’s second-largest pension fund, sold securities affected by Western sanctions being imposed on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, Chief Executive Officer Charles Emond said.

“As from today and for the future, we decided to sell all the securities under sanctions, that’s our position as an institution,” Emond told reporters Thursday at a briefing in Quebec.

Emond didn’t provide an estimate of the value of the holdings. The securities included are in the oil and gas and financial services sectors, he said.

Even so, Emond said it’s “impossible” not to have exposure to Russian assets given that they are part of many global indexes. CDPQ manages about C$420 billion ($327.6 billion).

In a statement, a CDPQ representative said that the organization “will continue to carefully respect all Canadian sanctions and our position hasn’t changed: We have no interest in direct investments in Russia.”

Separately, Canada’s largest pension fund said that it hadn’t made any acquisitions in Russia and has no direct exposure to the country.

“We made a conscious decision years ago not to have Russia as one of our markets,” Canada Pension Plan Investment Board spokesman Frank Switzer said in a statement.

U.S. TV News Correspondents In Ukraine Grapple With Realities of War Reporting

Alex Weprin
Fri, February 25, 2022, 5:48 PM·10 min read


Perhaps the most surprising thing about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was how surprising it was.

U.S. TV news correspondents had been preparing for a potential invasion for weeks, but to have it actually happen so suddenly was, in the words of one reporter, “jarring and unsettling.

“There was something very strange about it, hearing about it for weeks, and then it taking everyone by surprise,” CBS News correspondent Holly Williams told The Hollywood Reporter from inside the country Friday, where she has been reporting for weeks.

“On Sunday, people were walking around, strolling around, didn’t really think it was going to happen, eating in restaurants, which we were doing until the day it happened,” says Martha Raddatz, the anchor of ABC’s This Week, who anchored the Sunday show from Ukraine last weekend and continued reporting from the country as the invasion began. “Then that morning there were air raids in Lviv, where we were. That really changed everything, in the way everybody looked at what was happening; it was scary for them, frightening. You had parents trying to explain to their children what an air raid siren is without trying to freak them out.”

Martha Raddatz reporting from Ukraine for an ABC News Special Report. - Credit: Courtesy of ABC

The networks were not alone in their surprise. Reuters reported that the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, was in Kyiv when the attack began, and was unable to evacuate by land until Friday.

“Things changed in an instant,” adds Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst. “One day there were civilians in cafes and eating in restaurants in Kyiv’s central square, and the next day there were airstrikes targeting the center of the city.”

“The volume of the warnings coming out of Washington seemed totally at odds with what we were seeing on the ground here,” says ABC News senior foreign correspondent Ian Pannell. “It was like the boy who cried wolf, they kept saying invasion is imminent, Putin is going to attack, they are going to Kyiv. It seemed so outlandish, so unbelievable, so illogical, that nobody could believe it. I didn’t believe it, and I am willing to admit I was wrong, and I think everyone who watches the Kremlin who is based in Russia, they got it wrong.”

For network correspondents, war is a part of the job, but in Ukraine, the stakes seem higher.

“The reason this conflict is different is because it has a nuclear power doing a lot of the charging in mainland Europe, on the borders of NATO. And that is what brings the consequences, geopolitically, to a higher level,” says CNN international security editor Nick Paton Walsh. “That Cold War standoff, the sort of thing that was held in check by the idea of mutually assured destruction. You have got one of the elements of the Cold War, in its new nasty, revanchist, 21st century form, knocking at the door of the biggest military coalition [NATO] in history. It means that all the consequences of the nasty cruelties of what Russia is doing here comes with greater risks attached.”

The threat of such a war spurred on more than a few changes in plans among those covering the story.

“I had been in Iran, in Tehran, covering their anniversary and the nuclear talks,” Raddatz recalls. “I flew back home on Feb. 13, and then headed over here the 15th. I think I saw the last half of the Super Bowl, and then headed over here on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The ABC team pivoted so This Week could originate from Ukraine, with Raddatz interviewing the acting U.S. ambassador to the country, Kristina Kvien (who left the country a couple days later).

“Trust me I was exhausted after a week in Iran, but I was like, ‘We gotta go, we have got to do it,’” Raddatz adds.

CBS News correspondent Christina Ruffini had been in Munich, covering the Munich Security Conference, and had stayed in Europe with plans to cover a potential meeting between Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. She had already been booked on a flight back to the U.S. when she called an audible and asked to travel to Poland to cover the invasion from the Ukraine-Poland border.

What she saw there on the Polish side of the border reminded her of “covering a hurricane,” with long lines for gas, and empty ATMs.

“We checked into our hotel and as we were checking in, a woman with two screaming babies walked by us,” Ruffini recalls. “The desk clerk looked, quite frankly, like he was about to have a stroke, and my producer, who speaks Polish, Russian, a little bit of Ukrainian, German, and English, she said they were speaking Ukrainian.”

“So we asked the desk clerk, and he said, in the last day they had completely booked up, almost the entire city [of Rzeszow] had booked up with Ukrainian refugees, and they weren’t leaving in the near future,” Ruffini adds.

CBS News correspondent Christina Ruffini reporting from the Poland-Ukraine border. - Credit: Courtesy of CBS News/Christina Ruffini

Ultimately, it is moments like that which have stuck with the correspondents on the ground — parents explaining air raid sirens to kids, families sheltering in the subway — that underscore to those watching around the world what the stakes in the conflict really are.

“The core of any conflict are the people who are trapped in the middle, the people who don’t get a vote. The kids, the elderly, the ones who didn’t choose war,” says Pannell, who had returned from a visit to a local Kyiv synagogue a few hours earlier, just before Shabbat began.

“We met the rabbi and his wife — you meet amazing people in war zones — they both had Israeli passports, but they also both had U.S. visas. They could have left for their safety, but they chose to stay and care for their community,” Pannell adds. “They now have 50 people living in the synagogue, and they are caring for 800 in the community, including one 104-year-old Holocaust survivor, who fought the Nazis as a young woman when they occupied Ukraine. And she said to the rabbi’s wife, ‘Are the Russians coming to kill me? Please will you stay and look after me?’ And that is why they stayed behind.”

It is those powerful stories that have been a refuge from the combat footage and destruction and air raid sirens (one of which went off in the background while Pannell was speaking with THR).

“As journalists it is pretty easy to just focus on the explosions and the bullets and the military action taking place, but we have to find a way to humanize these stories, because we have to make people care about these stories happening thousands of miles away,” Yingst says. “The story is the Ukrainian people. It is the soldiers on the front lines, the children here, who are going to grow up in a different environment because their country is being invaded.”

“They are so innocent amid the backdrop of tragedy. I think they represent something much greater,” he adds. “We were in the subways of Kyiv, with civilians who were hiding from the Russian air campaign, and talking with these civilians, there was this little kid, maybe 4 or 5 years old, just playing with his dad. Running through his legs, running around laughing and joking. I just thought for a second, this is what’s at risk here, his future is at risk.”

Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst is reporting from Kyiv.

 - Credit: Courtesy Fox News Channel

And it isn’t just the children, many of the Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian forces are young as well. Williams says she spent “a lot of time” with them in recent weeks in the eastern part of the country, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian military for years.

“It is really upsetting. I suppose some of the people I’ve met have already lost their lives. And they are very young people. It is very distressing,” Williams says. She recalled traveling with some of the Ukrainian forces:

“We were on a military truck, driving through the mud, and one of the young soldiers we were with had picked a flower, one of the first spring flowers that had grown in the fields,” she recalled. “And he was in the back of this truck, and he was just kind of bathed in golden light, carrying this little flower that he picked. When I look back at that, it seems very poignant.”

Across the border in Poland, Ruffini says that almost all the refugees she encountered were women and children, with the government of Ukraine barring most men from leaving the country so they can help with defending the cities.

“We did run into a younger guy, I think he was in his early 20s, and he was working here in Poland, so he was already out,” Ruffini says. “But he was waiting for transportation to go back into Ukraine because he said he has military training, and he is going to go back in and fight for his country.”

But the reporters covering the conflict, of course, can eventually leave and return home (Raddatz spoke to THR from Slovakia after driving for hours from Lviv: “We were told by people who should know that if I didn’t leave today, I would probably be stuck there for weeks.”). In order to bring the images and stories of that conflict, however, they have to stay somewhat in harm’s way until it is safe to leave. Pannell likened it to “hostile camping” because of all the supplies and training required.

“Kyiv is being encircled by Russian forces. It is a pretty sobering thought that you might not be able to get out, you may have to hunker down,” he adds.

But for all the work involved, the war in Ukraine is also personal for many of those covering it. Not only because of the lives lost, and the refugees looking for safety, but because of what it portends for the future.

“This particular war is significantly more troubling for me, as someone who is a European, because it is the specter of something beginning for possibly the decade ahead, which may impact the security of an entire continent that has been spoiled from harm, from stability, for so long,” Walsh says. “As a reporter, there was a feeling that maybe there might be a pause in that churn of conflict [after Syria and Afghanistan]. And here is something coming along which was born of fears people had, that Putin had a few wires that were disconnected, or short-circuited, and here we are watching something unfold which I fear is not going to stop at the Dnieper River [which travels through Kyiv].”

It was what Raddatz said was the most “sobering moment” of her time in Ukraine. She had been speaking all week with a senior U.S. defense official, who had told her just a few hours earlier what they thought would happen when Russia attacked.

“We were all standing by for the invasion to start, and we were waiting for this to happen. He texted me, this senior Pentagon official, and said, ‘You are likely in the last few hours of peace on the European continent for a long time to come. Be careful.’ That was pretty sobering, and it brought the importance of the story home,” Raddatz recalls. “What is really scary is what happens next.”

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CBS News’ Holly Williams On The “Surreal” Experience Of Reporting On The Front Lines Of Ukraine

Ted Johnson
Fri, February 25, 2022


CBS News’ Holly Williams calls the experience of covering Russia’s invasion “surreal,” and even if that word gets a bit overused, she has good reason.

“This is Europe,” she told Deadline in an interview on Thursday. “For a lot of Americans, it’s very recognizable. It’s a similar lifestyle. It’s the same shops. It’s the same kind of quality of life. And now they’re being hit by airstrikes and missile strikes. It’s very distressing, actually, as someone who’s spent a lot of time here.”

Williams, a foreign correspondent for CBS News since 2012, reported from the front lines of the crisis in the prelude to the invasion, with a story on a village in eastern Ukraine that already was the scene of shelling on Monday night, as the country’s military have been fighting Russian-backed separatists.

More Stories On Russia-Ukraine Conflict

“We’re afraid. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid,” one woman, a factory worker, told her. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Williams, who had been to the area with the president of Ukraine last year, said people “are kind of hanging on to a kind of tenuous existence a few miles from the frontline.”

“What was so sad about that place is that they said to us that there was a lot of fighting there in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and then things had kind of calmed down,” she said. “And then suddenly there was shelling in the village again. And the people who live in that village are not wealthy people. They are mainly factory workers. They don’t earn a lot of money. And so when there’s shelling in there, and then their apartment is covered in shrapnel damage, and they lose their possessions and their windows are blown out — quite apart from the fear, which is obviously huge, there’s also this this big financial hit. And then the anxiety. The woman we interviewed said, ‘What should she do?’ This is where her livelihood is. This is where her home is. Where do you run?”

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz And Ian Pannell On Covering The Human Side Of Ukraine War: “Praying For The Best, And Fearing That The Worst Is Coming”

On Thursday morning, when the Russian attacks started, Williams was in Kharkiv, reporting from a vantage point on a balcony in the city. As much as there were warnings that an invasion was imminent, what was striking for her an other correspondents was how the first sound of explosions came so soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation.

“Before it happened, there was always the possibility that Putin was playing this kind of high-stakes game of Cold War brinkmanship,” Williams said. “And the Russians were even talking about comparisons with the Cuban Missile Crisis. There was an attempt to kind of extract concessions from the West over this crisis. So there was always the possibility that ultimately Vladimir Putin perhaps didn’t want to launch an invasion of Ukraine, or perhaps not a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, perhaps a smaller incursion with a different kind of strategic purpose.”

As the situation grew more dire in recent weeks, Williams said, Ukrainians had different ways of showing their concern. “Different threat assessments, just like different governments have different threat assessments,” she said.

Fox News’ Steve Harrigan On What Happens If Russia Moves Into Kyiv: “It Could Get Very Ugly Here”

“Most Ukrainians we spoke to were extremely worried, but then some of them would say, ‘Well, you know, I think it’s only a 10% chance,’ whereas others would say ‘No, I think he’s gonna do it, and I have my emergency bag packed and I’m ready to go,’ or ‘I’m training with a gun and I’m going to defend my country.’ I think what was really interesting for a lot of foreign journalists is that they were just was so stoical for so long, and not panicking.”

The government, she said, had a message to not panic.

“They’ve been living with Russian aggression for many years,” she said. “Ukraine already had been invaded by Russia back in 2014, when they seized Crimea. They had this war out east that’s been very deadly. And then I think part of it is that a lot of Ukrainians felt this kind of sense of pride and determination that that they may have felt intimidated, but they they didn’t want to show it.”

Williams, who covered the protests in Ukraine in 2014 and has returned multiple times since then, says that Ukrainians are “still incredibly stoic.”

CNN’s Matthew Chance On The Start Of The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine: “The Question We Should Be Looking At Now Is, Where Does This Stop?”

“I’m not seeing people weeping in the street,” she said. “I’m not seeing people have panic attacks. But we are now for the first time we’re seeing panic buying in supermarkets, for instance. In that capital of Kyiv, there’s this huge traffic jam leading out of the city, people trying to head west. People were lining up to donate blood here in Kharkiv today. A lot of people are taking shelter here in Kharkiv, and it’s the same story in Kyiv, in the subway system. Because, obviously, they’re deep down. There’s a lot of cover from missile and airstrikes. We were just down there a few hours ago, and there are hundreds of people sitting down there, with maybe a suitcase with their kids. Some people taking their pets down there. They’ve got cats and dogs down there.”

That’s the kind of story that she thinks resonates with U.S. viewers.

“It’s my job as a journalist to kind of shine a light on what’s happening to people, to make that connection, so the Americans can kind of see just what it’s like for ordinary Ukrainians to be living through this,” Williams said. “And if I do a story that’s impactful in that way, then I think I’ve kind of done my job for that day.”

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Michael Gove calls for seizure of 

pro-Kremlin oligarchs' lavish 

UK homes

Edward Malnick
Sat, February 26, 2022

Michael Gove

Michael Gove has warned that the Government must do more to seize lavish UK homes owned by Vladimir Putin's allies, as ministers fast-tracked plans to publicly reveal overseas owners of British land and property.

The Housing Secretary used a specially-convened Cabinet meeting on Thursday to insist that more action was needed, after independent research suggested that £1.5billion worth of property has been bought by Russians accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin, since 2016.

As part of an initial push to address the issue, No 10 is planning to bring forward an economic crime bill as soon as next week to introduce measures including a register of the ultimate owners of overseas firms that control land and property in the UK.


Tory MPs and peers have been pushing for such a measure for several years to prevent London from becoming a "playground" for Mr Putin's allies and draft legislation was first drawn up in 2018. The register could still take a year to be brought into operation.

The emergency legislation will also contain measures to bolster the system of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs), under which people can be ordered to reveal the source of their wealth and face having their properties seized if they cannot demonstrate that it was obtained legitimately.
'McMafia' orders to be toughened

To date, none of the so-called “McMafia Orders” have been obtained since the end of 2019 and UWOs have only been obtained nine times since their inception in 2018, according to the House of Commons Library.

A Government source said the reforms would give authorities "strengthened powers to investigate and prosecute those corrupt Russian elites who are laundering money and assets in the UK."

The reforms will bolster the system so that UWOs can be used against "complex ownership structures" including where properties are owned by overseas shell companies, according to government sources.

The plans also include allowing agencies to target company directors who have "some form of control" over properties and giving authorities more time to review material before taking action.

The changes would also prevent authorities from incurring substantial legal costs if they use UWOs "reasonably" - based on the belief that a series of legal challenges have reduced the "risk appetite" for targeting kleptocrats with the measures.

A government source said: "It is time to shut down the racket of illicit money in British property. We are sending a strong signal that the UK’s property market is not open to corrupt individuals and regimes laundering their money."

More kleptocrats are also expected to be targeted with direct sanctions in the coming weeks, following initial rounds of sanctions announced last week.

HACKERS VS RUSSIA

Anonymous claims responsibility for Russian government website outages


TSAR PUTIN

Igor Bonifacic
·Contributing Writer
Sat, February 26, 2022, 12:00 PM·2 min read

On Saturday morning, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its third day, some of the country’s official government websites went down following a series of alleged cyberattacks. Among the sites that aren’t accessible as of the writing of this article include that of the Kremlin and the country’s Ministry of Defence. Several Twitter accounts claiming affiliation with Anonymous say the international hacking collective is behind the attacks.

“Faced with this series of attacks that Ukraine has been suffering from the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, we could not help but support the Ukrainian people,” said one account. At the start of the conflict, the group said it would launch a “cyber war against the Russian government.” However, the Kremlin has denied Anonymous is behind the attacks, according to CNN.

It’s believed Anonymous is also responsible for hacking several Russian state TV channels. People have uploaded videos showing those channels playing Ukrainian music and displaying images of the country’s flag and other nationalistic symbols.



The collective has also pledged to “keep the Ukrainian people online as best we can,” even as the invasion takes a heavy toll on the country's internet infrastructure. While there hasn’t been a widespread blackout, some parts of Ukraine, particularly those areas where fighting has been the most intense, have seen greatly diminished access. That's something that has prevented people from staying in touch with their loved ones.

Kremlin website goes down as Russian TV channels ‘hacked to play Ukrainian songs’

Graeme Massie
Sat, February 26, 2022

The Kremlin’s website went down and Russian TV channels were “hacked to play Ukrainian songs” following a string of reported cyberattacks as Vladimir Putin’s attack on the country continued.

Ukraine’s state telecommunications agency announced on Saturday that six Russian government websites, including the Kremlin’s, were down, according to The Kyiv Independent.

The agency also stated that the Russian media regulator’s website had gone down, and that hackers had got Russian TV channels to play the Ukrainian music.

Hacking collective Anonymous took to Twitter on Saturday morning and said that it was “at war with Russia. Stay tuned.”

The latest move comes after the collective’s Twitter account declared on Thursday that the group was “currently involved in operations against the Russian Federation.”

“We want the Russian people to understand that we know it’s hard for them to speak out against their dictator for fear of reprisals,” they stated.

“We, as a collective want only peace in the world. We want a future for all of humanity. So, while people around the globe smash your internet providers to bits, understand that it’s entirely directed at the actions of the Russian government and Putin.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukraine’s armed forces had “derailed” Vladimir Putin’s plans to capture Kyiv.

Following intense fighting in Kyiv which saw an apartment building in the capital hit by a missile, president Zelensky remained defiant as he urged Ukrainians to defend the nation stating: “We will give you arms,” in a video address.

(AP) UKRANIAN CIVILIAN  VOLUNTEER YELLOW ARM BAND

“We have withstood and are successfully repelling enemy attacks. The fighting goes on,” the Ukrainian president said in an emotional speech.

The country’s state rail service also announced on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had blown up all rail lines linking the country with Russia.

Anti-war sentiment grows in Russia 

despite govt crackdown

DASHA LITVINOVA and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

Sat, February 26, 2022, 

MOSCOW (AP) — As Russian troops were closing in on the Ukrainian capital, more and more Russians spoke out Saturday against the invasion, even as the government's official rhetoric grew increasingly harsher.

Street protests, albeit small, resumed in the Russian capital of Moscow, the second-largest city of St. Petersburg and other Russian cities for the third straight day, with people taking to the streets despite mass detentions on Thursday and Friday. According to OVD-Info, rights group that tracks political arrests, at least 460 people in 34 cities were detained over anti-war protests on Saturday, including over 200 in Moscow.

Open letters condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine kept pouring, too. More than 6,000 medical workers put their names under one on Saturday; over 3,400 architects and engineers endorsed another while 500 teachers signed a third one. Similar letters by journalists, municipal council members, cultural figures and other professional groups have been making the rounds since Thursday.

A prominent contemporary art museum in Moscow called Garage announced Saturday it was halting its work on exhibitions and postponing them “until the human and political tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine has ceased."

“We cannot support the illusion of normality when such events are taking place,” the statement by the museum read. “We see ourselves as part of a wider world that is not divided by war.”

An online petition to stop the attack on Ukraine, launched shortly after it started on Thursday morning, garnered over 780,000 signatures by Saturday evening, making it one of the most supported online petitions in Russia in recent years.

Statements decrying the invasion even came from some parliament members, who earlier this week voted to recognize the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, a move that preceded the Russian assault. Two lawmakers from the Communist Party, which usually toes the Kremlin's line, spoke out against the hostilities on social media.

Oleg Smolin said he “was shocked” when the attack started and “was convinced that military force should be used in politics only as a last resort.” His fellow lawmaker Mikhail Matveyev said “the war must be immediately stopped” and that he voted for “Russia becoming a shield against the bombing of Donbas, not for the bombing of Kyiv.”

Russian authorities, meanwhile, took a harsher stance towards those denouncing the invasion, both at home and abroad.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow may respond to Western sanctions by opting out of the last nuclear arms deal with the U.S., cutting diplomatic ties with Western nations and freezing their assets.

He also warned that Moscow could restore the death penalty after Russia was removed from Europe's top rights group — a chilling statement that shocked human rights activists in a country that has had a moratorium on capital punishment since August 1996.

Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Kremlin human rights council, deplored it as a “catastrophe” and a “return to the Middle Ages.”

The Western sanctions imposed new tight restrictions on Russian financial operations, a draconian ban on technology exports to Russia and froze the assets of Putin and his foreign minister. Russian membership in the Council of Europe was also suspended.

Washington and its allies say even tougher sanctions are possible, including kicking Russia out of SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.

Medvedev was a placeholder president in 2008-2012 when Putin had to shift into the prime minister’s seat because of term limits. He then let Putin reclaim the presidency and served as his prime minister for eight years.

During his tenure as president, Medvedev was widely seen as more liberal compared with Putin, but on Saturday he made a series of threats that even the most hawkish Kremlin figures haven't mentioned to date.

Medvedev noted that the sanctions offer the Kremlin a pretext to completely review its ties with the West, suggesting that Russia could opt out of the New START nuclear arms control treaty that limits the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

The treaty, which Medvedev signed in 2010 with then-U.S. President Barack Obama, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance. The pact, the last remaining U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control agreement, had been set to expire in February 2021 but Moscow and Washington extended it for another five years.

If Russia opts out of the agreement now, it will remove any checks on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and raise new threats to global security.

Medvedev also raised the prospect of cutting diplomatic ties with Western countries, charging that “there is no particular need in maintaining diplomatic relations.” Referring to Western threats to freeze the assets of Russian companies and individuals, Medvedev warned that Moscow wouldn't hesitate to do the same.

Cracking down on critics at home, Russian authorities demanded that top independent news outlets take down stories about the fighting in Ukraine that deviated from the official government line.

Russia’s state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, charged that reports about "Russian armed forces firing at Ukrainian cities and the death of civilians in Ukraine as a result of the actions of the Russian army, as well as materials in which the ongoing operation is called ‘an attack,’ ‘an invasion,’ or ‘a declaration of war’” were untrue and demanded that the outlets take them down or face steep fines and restrictions.

On Friday, the watchdog also announced “partial restrictions” on access to Facebook in response to the platform limiting the accounts of several Kremlin-backed media.

On Saturday, Russian internet users reported problems with accessing Facebook and Twitter, both of which have played a major role in amplifying dissent in Russia in recent years.

___

Follow all AP stories on tensions and fighting over Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

CHICAGO HAS A LARGE UKRAINIAN DIASPORA

‘Our families are dying,’ say demonstrators as truck convoy rolls to Buckingham Fountain to show support for Ukraine, call for peace

A TRUCKER CONVOY I SUPPORT

John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Stephanie Casanova, Chicago Tribune
Sat, February 26, 2022, 3:36 PM·4 min read


Zoryana Smozhanyk and her parents stood outside their cars across from the Buckingham Fountain late Saturday morning talking as they waited for a truck convoy in support of Ukraine to arrive.

Close to noon, trucks began to pull up along Columbus Drive, lining up from Jackson Drive to Roosevelt Road and parked as the Smozhanyks and hundreds of other Ukrainians and their backers who gathered to welcome them looked on.

The event, Trucker Convoy for Ukraine, began about 8:30 a.m. in northwest suburban East Dundee. Dozens of semis rolled out about an hour later, ending up at the fountain.

Downtown, demonstrators spread out on all corners of Columbus Drive and Ida B. Wells Drive holding yellow and blue flags and signs and condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin for his actions, some with harsher language than others.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, igniting the largest attack on European soil since World War II. Putin has ignored widespread condemnation of his actions and threatened any interfering country with “consequences you have never seen.”

Stepan Nozhak, who has been a truck driver more than six years, organized the convoy as a way to stand behind Ukraine’s efforts to keep control of their country as Russia invades, said Nozhak’s wife, Mariia Salii.

“This is how we can let (the) world know what is happening in our country,” Salii said. “That our families are dying.”

Salii rode in her husband’s truck as the vehicles, also including vans and cars, drove about 40 miles into Chicago, getting honks from other motorists.

Protesters also marched Thursday and Friday in the Loop drawing attention to what’s happening to their country.

Nozhak moved to the U.S. almost 9 years ago and Salii 7 years ago.

Nozhak’s mother and his 16-year-old sister live in Ukraine. So does Salii’s dad, she said.

Salii said she’s scared when she gets a phone call from home or a text message, or when she opens a news story.

Late Wednesday night, Salii got a text from a friend saying, “There is war in Ukraine,” she said.

She said it was unreal and she didn’t believe it would actually happen.

“I was shocked. I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I had panic attacks and this anxiety.”

Salii worried her dad will be asked to join the front lines.

Iryna Ostafiichuk’s parents are in Western Ukraine where they’re not on the line of fire but they have still heard sirens and hidden in their basement.

“It is definitely scary because the person who started the war, no one knows what to expect from him,” said Ostafiichuk, who held a Ukrainian flag. “It’s just devastating to hear all the news. That our spirit, Ukraninans’ spirit just irritates someone’s demons so bad that they’re just starting a war.”

Smozhanyk was working out when she saw that her country was being attacked.

“I was on a StairMaster at a gym and I saw it on the TV, and I almost fell off the StairMaster,” she said. “So it was not a good feeling. I had slept three hours that day. And I had a very long workday afterward. I was very shaky physically, emotionally.”

Smozhanyk and her parents moved to the U.S. in 2010 after getting approved for a green card, she said. They wanted a better life for their daughter.

She has a sister and two brothers with their own families in Ukraine, along with extended cousins.

“My cousin told me he was in bomb shelter and he saw smoke coming out from the shelling,” Smozhanyk said.

Their family is trying to move away from the line of fire but plans to stay in Ukraine for now, she said.

As they waited Saturday, Smozhanyk and her parents chatted with a friend they’d just met, Aleksei Kobernik, who is from Russia and was at Saturday’s rally to speak up against Russia’s recent attacks on Ukraine.

Kobernik said he sees it as his duty to show solidarity and to say not all Russians are supportive of their president.

Kobernik, who moved to U.S. two years ago, spoke in Russian, Smozhanyk translating for him.

“I wish for this to end as soon as it possibly can,” Kobernik said. “So as few as possible Ukrainians have to die for this.”

scasanova@chicagotribune.com

Russia says it is surprised by

Lebanon's condemnation of 

invasion

RUSSIA HAS NO FRIENDS ONLY CLIENT STATES

BEIRUT (Reuters) -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.

"The statement... surprised us by violating the policy of dissociation 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 foreign ministry statement led to internal criticism from some cabinet ministers, members of parliament and political parties including the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

"What foreign policy is Lebanon following and where is Lebanon's interest in that? Please clarify for us foreign minister," Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim Al Moussawi wrote on Twitter.

Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Hugh Lawson)