'We call on President Putin to stop this war immediately', NATO Secretary General says

Issued on: 04/03/2022 -

00:31

"This is President Putin's war, one he has chosen, planned and is waging against a peaceful country. We call on PresidentPutin to stop this war immediately, withdrawal all his forces without conditions and engage in genuine diplomacy now," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference on Friday (March 4).

Analysis: NATO rejects calls for no-fly zone over Ukraine

Issued on: 04/03/2022 

03:59
Video by: Douglas HERBERT

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday (March 5) said the alliance would not impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine after calls from Kyiv to help stop Russia's bombardments. FRANCE 24's Douglas Herbert gives his analysis.

What can NATO do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

Issued on: 04/03/2022 

04:23
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday (March 4) said the alliance would not impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine after calls from Kyiv to help stop Russia's bombardments. Natia Seskuria, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, gives her analysis.

NATO emergency meeting: "Sanctions will have an effect"

Thornike GORDADZE, Senior Fellow IISS

Issued on: 04/03/2022 -

 

07:47

REPLAY: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives press conference after meeting over Ukraine

Issued on: 04/03/2022 - 

33:48

NATO's chief said on Friday (March 4) the Western military alliance would not set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine nor send its troops there, but promised other help to Kyiv and urged President Vladimir Putin to end immediately Russia's invasion.

Residents of Kyiv do whatever it takes to resist Russian invasion

Mehdi CHEBIL 

Residents in Kyiv have organised huge resistance efforts to deter the Russian invasion. On the ninth day of the conflict, FRANCE 24 joined the civilian and military forces who have sworn to defend the Ukrainian capital against Putin’s army.

© Mehdi Chebil

Trellis fencing, combat boots, sleeping bags: Kostya Kravets throws anything he thinks might be useful into two large black sports bags. The 43-year-old accountant knows that his Territorial Defence unit needs anything and everything he can provide.

“The absolute priority at the moment is bullet-proof vests and helmets. We also need drones, walkie-talkies and diesel generators,“ Kravets tells FRANCE 24, before leaving for his base in Tarasivka in southwest Kyiv. Every minute counts in the fight to fortify the capital and surrounding areas.

He has barely left before others enter the ordinary-looking building in Kyiv, now transformed into a hive of resistance operations. Entire rooms have been set aside for storing medicine, water, clothes and electronics. Similar hubs have opened up around the capital since the start of the war. The sense of solidarity, the flood of donations and the dedication of volunteers contains echoes of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution in 2014 – a series of violent protests that overthrew the country’s Russia-backed government.

Today, the juggernaut of the Russian military may be in close proximity, but it has not dented the spirit of the resistance.

'We are 100% ready'

“From a military perspective, we are 100% ready. The Russians are going to try and enter Kyiv, but they’re going to realise it’s impossible … They have swallowed their own propaganda and think the Ukrainians are going to welcome them with flowers,” says Serhiy Prytula, a politician and former actor who is running the logistics hub.

“The Russians still don’t understand where they are.”

Prytula, who became well known in Ukraine from TV shows such as The Voice, says there is a waiting list of “more than 1,500 people” for a bullet-proof vest. An international effort to transport large quantities of ballistic protection and other equipment from Poland via Lviv has been set up.

Efforts among volunteers mean that the Territorial Defence Forces – the second front of the resistance in Kyiv – have been provided with equipment. The civil reserve forces received arms as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine.

“We need the Territorial Defence Force so that the army can concentrate on combat operations. The whole country is now part of territorial defence,” says Prytula.

The reserve fighters, who wear yellow arm bands, have become omnipresent in the streets of Kyiv. They can be found in large numbers in the northern quarters of the capital, where Russian reconnaissance fighters launched their first attacks at the start of the conflict.

Inexperienced but motivated

“Our objective is to carry out vehicle checks, verify documents, search for saboteurs, enforce the curfew and prevent looting,” says Oleg, a neighbourhood supervisor with the Territorial Defence in northern Kyiv. The 50-year-old business man has the air of a typical new recruit: inexperienced but motivated. He was overseas when Russia invaded Ukraine, but quickly returned to Kyiv by car to defend his country.

“We have seen how the Russian world works. There is no choice, no elections, we have to obey someone chosen in Moscow,” he says. Oleg is originally from east Ukraine and spent one year living in administrative zones run by Luhansk separatists in Donbas.

“Ukraine is free. It is a place where we can speak freely and disagree … We didn’t want war, but now we have no choice. We have to fight.”

'We won’t stay at home'

This opinion is shared by a group in their 20s, who have come to help strengthen a checkpoint by digging trenches. The excavated earth is then shovelled into white bags and used to barricade positions held by members of the Territorial Defence.

“My uncle has already signed up. My boyfriend and I called, and have even been to the recruitment centre twice since the invasion started. We don’t want to stay at home, and we won’t stay at home,” says economics student Marina Mahdenko.

She celebrated her 23rd birthday on March 1, the same day that Russian strikes destroyed the television tower in Kyiv. As she lives nearby she heard the explosions, which killed five people. For her and her friends, there is no question of spending the rest of their lives in a state subjugated by Moscow.

'We want to be alongside the army'

This flood of volunteers joining the Territorial Defence Force has allowed more experienced fighters to take the fight forwards, knowing that someone is covering their backs.

“We want to be alongside the army, taking the offensive and killing invaders,” says one such fighter, 54-year-old Evgeniy Yarantsev.

He is stationed around 10 kilometres northeast of Oleg and Marina’s checkpoint, near to Hostomel Airport.

His troop has been engaged in relentless fighting at the strategic site since the first day of the invasion, when Russian paratroopers attempted a surprise attack.

“Of the 200 airborne troops that tried to capture the airport so that Russian planes could land here, two-thirds were killed and the rest are in position in nearby forests … We had good results in the first few days,” he says, smiling to reveal multiple gold teeth. Nonetheless, the veteran expects a long, hard war. Some in his troop have already been killed and injured; Yarantsev already has a slight injury to his left eye.

Those losses have done little to dampen morale among the soldiers, and this troop in particular shares a long and bloody history. Most met for the first time on the barricades during the Maidan Revolution before forming an autonomous troop to fight separatist, pro-Russian forces in Donbas.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reunited them to fight the biggest battle of their lives. To mark the occasion, Yarantsev baptised the group the “Conan Unit” after the 1982 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian. Perhaps an omen of the epic battles to come.

This story was translated from the original in French

War in Ukraine: The situation in Kyiv
Issued on: 04/03/2022

01:28

Tens of thousands of residents have fled Ukraine's capital to the relative safety of the west of Ukraine and neighbouring countries but many others remain in Kyiv.

Mass exodus in Ukraine as residents flee Russian invasion
Issued on: 04/03/2022

02:16

More than 1.2 million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring countries since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, United Nations figures showed Friday. FRANCE 24's Cyril Payen reports from Ukraine.

War in Ukraine: Russian bombing continues

Issued on: 04/03/2022 

01:43
Russia has intensified strikes across the country during the nine days of conflict, with fresh reports of civilian casualties and devastating damage, particularly in southern areas near Kherson, the first major city to fall to Moscow's troops.

Months after pledge, India yet to submit emissions targets
By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL

today

Smoke rises from a coal-powered steel plant at Hehal village near Ranchi, in eastern state of Jharkhand, Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021. India has yet to submit its targets for cutting greenhouse emissions to the U.N climate agency. Four months have passed since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced its 'net-zero' target and short-term goals for increasing clean energy.

 (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri,file)


NEW DELHI (AP) — Four months after India announced its “net-zero” target at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, the country has yet to submit its targets for cutting greenhouse emissions, underscoring the difficulty of overhauling energy policy amid a growing population.

When asked about the delay during an unrelated event in the capital New Delhi on Tuesday, Indian environment minister Bhupender Yadav downplayed it, saying that several ministries were still discussing the matter to chart out a roadmap.

India’s Ministry of Environment, which drafts the targets and submits them to the UN Climate Agency, and the country’s top federal official in the Ministry of Power, did not respond to requests for comment this week.

“We don’t have time anymore” to wait for all countries to start reducing emissions, said New Climate Institute scientist Niklas Höhne, who tracks emission pledges for Climate Action Tracker.

Höhne added that it would be useful if India specified targets achievable with its own resources and formulated a clear plan for what could achieved with financial help from other nations.

During November’s conference in Glasgow, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his nation would stop adding greenhouses gases to the atmosphere by 2070 -- two decades after the U.S., and 10 years after China. He said that India would increase its current capacity for non-fossil fuel electricity to 500 gigawatts and use energy from clean sources to meet half of its needs. Modi also said that India would cut carbon emissions by a billion tons compared with the previous target and reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45%.

Since these 2030 targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions haven’t yet been submitted to the U.N. climate agency, they can’t yet be counted towards the global effort.

India is not the only country to be slow to turn in targets. The 2015 Paris agreement on climate, which India signed, required countries to submit their climate targets, called Nationally Determined Contributions, by the end of 2020. Many nations missed that deadline. The more urgent deadline was to get submission in before the November negotiations in Glasgow and most nations did. Of the five top emitting nations, only India has not submitted its plans.

The delays underscore the challenges that India faces in achieving these goals. A parliamentary committee calculated that India would require over $20 billion in investment to meet its clean energy targets while only half of that was available — prompting the opposition to ask the government whether it formulated a clear roadmap before committing internationally.

India’s role is key for the world’s climate targets. It has the third-highest emissions in the world, after China and the United States, and its energy needs are expected to grow faster than any other country in the coming decades. At the same time, historically it has contributed least to the world’s cumulative emissions among the group of 20 industrial nations known as the G20.

The typical American, for instance, uses 16 times more electricity than the average Indian, according to data from the World Bank.

Many in the South Asian country of 1.4 billion residents still live in poverty and its leaders have consistently argued that it needs the “carbon space” to grow. Even in the most optimistic scenario, some of India’s future energy needs will have to be met through coal -- the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

This was partly why the country had demanded a last-minute change to crucial language during the U.N. climate conference to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal power. India said that developing countries were “entitled to the responsible use of fossil fuels” for their growth and blamed “unsustainable lifestyles and wasteful consumption patterns” of rich countries for the current climate catastrophe.

 Women walk past as flames rise out of fissures in the ground above coal mines in the village of Liloripathra near Dhanbad, an eastern Indian city in Jharkhand state, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. India has yet to submit its targets for cutting greenhouse emissions to the U.N climate agency. Four months have passed since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced its 'net-zero' target and short-term goals for increasing clean energy. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri,file)

In any case, India faces the same reality that other nations do: Unless emissions are drastically reduced, large parts of the world will become uninhabitable due to climate shocks like deadly fires, floods, and unlivable heat, a new U.N. report said Monday. The country lost $87 billion in 2020 because of natural disasters like cyclones, floods and droughts, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

At Glasgow, Modi had stressed that India’s goals couldn’t be achieved without adequate climate finance, a stand that India has long reiterated, and called for rich countries to provide $1 trillion in help.

The lack of finance is a vital stumbling block, said Harjeet Singh, an advisor with the Climate Action Network International. He said that if he were to put himself in the shoes of a finance minister of a developing country like India, “How do I do it if I don’t see a stream of funding? Rich countries are failing in their commitment.”

Singh said that there was some hope in the plan announced by the U.S., Britain, France and Germany to provide $8.5 billion in loans and grants over five years to help South Africa phase out coal, a source of 90% of its electricity. But he added that it remained to be seen if that money would make it to those most impacted.

India’s opposition parliamentarians criticized the government for not consulting with chief ministers or state leaders before announcing India’s net-zero targets in December in the parliament. Parliamentarian Kanimozhi Karunanidhi said that India had only a fraction of the solar energy needed to meet what had been promised at Glasgow.

“I want to know how can we achieve so much? What we’ve done is nothing compared to what we’ve promised to the world,” said Karunanidhi, from Thoothukkudi in southern India.

__ Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receive support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Study: Viewing X-rays, other imaging tests can prompt healthy behavior changes

Showing patients results from imaging tests may prompt them to change behaviors that place their health at risk, a new study has found. 

Photo by Puwadol Jaturawutthichai/Shutterstock

March 3 (UPI) -- People shown images from x-rays and ultrasound scans that indicate their potential risk for developing cancers and other diseases are more likely to make lifestyle changes to improve their health, an analysis published Thursday by PLOS Medicine found.

Adults who underwent imaging procedures such as computed tomography, ultrasound and radiography and then shown the results were up to nearly three times more likely to modify behaviors that had increased their risk for certain diseases compared to those who did not see the images, the data showed.

The most common changes made after seeing their imaging results included quitting smoking, exercising more, eating healthier diets, protecting their skin from the sun and improving oral hygiene, the researchers said.

Many participants also started taking medications designed to control blood pressure, cholesterol levels and blood sugar after seeing their imaging results, according to the researchers.

"Medical imaging scans are used ever more widely by healthcare professionals," study co-author Gareth Hollands said in a press release.

"This study suggests that showing the scan results to patients to highlight the state of their health could motivate them to behave in a healthier way," said Hollands, a senior research associate at the University of Cambridge in England.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from 21 previous studies from the United States and Europe that collectively enrolled more than 9,000 adult participants, the researchers said.

Participants were shown either visual examples of personalized risk information after an imaging procedure, such as computed tomography, ultrasound or radiography, in addition to reading health information or advice. Or they received health information or advice with no visual examples.

Computed tomography is a computerized X-ray imaging procedure in which narrow beams of X-rays are used to capture 3D images of body parts, including organs, according to the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

The technology typically is used to spot cancerous tumors, as well as potential damage to the heart caused by heart disease, among other applications, the institute says.

Diagnostic ultrasound, also called sonography or diagnostic medical sonography, also is a non-invasive imaging approach that uses high-frequency sound waves to produce pictures of structures within the body.

Commonly used to assess fetal health during pregnancy, these images can provide valuable information for diagnosing and treating a variety of diseases and conditions, including those that affect the digestive tract, according to the institute.

Radiography, a type of X-ray technology that provides two-dimensional images typically is used to diagnose bone and joint diseases, the institute says.

Non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, account for more than two-thirds of deaths globally each year, the World Health Organization estimates.

Many of these diseases are linked with behaviors such as smoking, poor diet and lack of physical exercise, Hollands and his colleagues said.

Behavior change can reduce a person's risk for many diseases, the researchers said.

In the studies included in this analysis, patients shown their imaging results were more likely to quit or reduce tobacco use, eat a healthier diet, engage in more physical activity and take steps to improve oral hygiene, according to the researchers.

Some of the included studies also indicated that patients shown imaging results stopped tanning bed use to reduce their risk for skin cancers and increased skin self-examination, the researchers said.

The growth of medical imaging technology could be capitalized on to help people change and reduce disease risks, they said.

BIDEN STILL GETS NO LOVE
U.S. economy smashes expectations with close to 700,000 new jobs in February
By UPI Staff

Friday's report said that job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, healthcare and construction. File Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI | License Photo

March 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. economy added close to 700,000 jobs during the month of February, the Labor Department said Friday in its monthly assessment -- marking the second straight month that the jobs report soared past expectations.

The department said there were 678,000 new jobs last month. Most economists predicted that the report would show about 440,000 new jobs.

FULL EMPLOYMENT BY ANY OTHER NAME

"The unemployment rate edged down to 3.8%," the department said in a statement. "Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, healthcare and construction."

Earlier this week, ADP and Moody's Analytics said in their monthly labor snapshot that the economy added 475,000 private-sector jobs during February, substantially more than analysts expected.

RELATED U.S. economy added 475K private jobs in February, ADP/Moody's report says

The new report noted, however, that the total U.S. workforce is still about 2 million jobs shy of where it was two years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Today's report shows that my plan to build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out is working to get America back to work," President Joe Biden said in a statement Friday.

"Since I took office, the economy has created 7.4 million jobs. That's 7.4 million jobs providing families with dignity and a little more breathing room."

By sector, the report said that leisure and hospitality added about 180,000 jobs, professional and business services added almost 100,000 and healthcare 64,000.

The department also noted that average hourly earnings for American workers have increased by 5.1% over the past year to $31.58 in February, although it was up just one cent from January.

Friday's was the second consecutive jobs report that surprised leading economists with a positive performance. The January jobs report also surprised just about everyone a month ago when it showed an addition of almost 470,000 new jobs. Analysts were expecting only 150,000.

President Joe Biden is seen on a television screen at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City on February 24.

 Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

RELATED Full Text: President Joe Biden's 2022 State of the Union address

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Biden underscored that the economy added 6.5 million new jobs during 2021 and pledged moves that will create more, such as the bipartisan infrastructure law.

"This progress is the result of the new economic approach I talked about in the State of the Union -- grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out," Biden added. "And it's a result of our success combating COVID-19 and moving forward safely."

Earlier Friday, the White House announced a move by Siemens USA for a $54 million expansion that is expected to produce hundreds of new jobs.

"President Biden will also announce the most robust updates to the implementation of the Buy American Act in nearly 70 years to ensure taxpayer dollars create good-paying jobs here at home, strengthen critical supply chains and position U.S. businesses to compete in strategic industries," the White House said in a statement.

Phenomenon thought to be closest black hole is actually a 'stellar vampire'

By Calley Hair

New research indicates that HR 6819, previously believed to be a triple system with a black hole, is in fact a system of two stars with no black hole. This artist’s impression shows what the system might look like; it’s composed of a "vampire" star with a disc around it in the foreground and star that has been stripped of its atmosphere in the background. Illustration by L. Calçada/ESO

March 2 (UPI) -- Astronomers on Wednesday announced new findings indicating that an interstellar system 1,000 light years away from Earth does not actually include a black hole, a reversal of a previous observation.

If it did exist, the black hole in the HR 6819 system located in the constellation Telescopium would have been the closest to Earth. When a team of researchers examined the movement of two stars in 2020, the first star orbited the second while the second star moved in a wider orbit. They believed there had to be a black hole at the center to explain the pattern.

But astronomers now say it's a case of mistaken identity. The stars' movement is the result of a common but short-lived phenomenon called "stellar vampirism." One star is stripping away and absorbing mass from the other, according to the study published Wednesday in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The debunking team included the scientist who thought he discovered the black hole two years ago, European Southern Observatory astronomer Thomas Rivinius, as well as ESO fellow Julia Bodensteiner and Abigail Frost of Belgian university KU Leuven.

"We agreed that there were two sources of light in the system, so the question was whether they orbit each other closely, as in the stripped-star scenario, or are far apart from each other, as in the black hole scenario," Rivinius said in an ESO press release.

To analyze fresh data, the team used an instrument on the ESO's Very Large Telescope called the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, as well as a tool on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer called GRAVITY.

"These data proved to be the final piece of the puzzle, and allowed us to conclude that HR 6819 is a binary system with no black hole," Frost said.

Frost, the new study's leader, added that catching a binary star system in a vampiric phase "is extremely difficult as it is so short."

"This makes our findings for HR 6819 very exciting, as it presents a perfect candidate to study how this vampirism affects the evolution of massive stars, and in turn the formation of their associated phenomena including gravitational waves and violent supernova explosions," Frost said.

Bodensteiner explained that the team likely observed the system just after one star had sucked the atmosphere off its companion, causing the vampire star to rotate more rapidly.

"This is a common phenomenon in close binary systems," Bodensteiner said.

Russian lawmakers pass bill that bans false news reports about war in Ukraine


Lawmakers in the parliamentary Duma, pictured, passed a bill Friday that seeks to quell independent media reports and bar them from describing Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine as a "war" or "invasion."

 File Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE

March 4 (UPI) -- Russian lawmakers passed a bill on Friday that targets journalists and criminalizes any reports that the government considers to be false news about the fighting in Ukraine.

The bill passed by lawmakers in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, says that reporters can face as many as 10 years in prison for giving out false information -- and 15 years if the offense has "grave consequences."

The proposal would prohibit describing the Russian campaign as an "invasion" or "war," and encourages reporters to call it "a special military operation."

Damage is seen to a building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on February 28 after it was hit by Russian artillery. Photo by Ukraine State Emergency Press Service via EPA-EFE

The bill says part of the reason for the proposal is that Ukrainian media are using footage from fighting in the Donbas region several years ago and presenting it as evidence of war crimes against Russia for its current military campaign.

Lawmakers say the reports are creating a negative image of Russia as a "bloody aggressor" and whipping up "panic in society."

UKRAINIANS ENJOYING EVENING BONFIRE  

The Committee To Protect Journalists said in a statement on Thursday that the Russian law is an "obvious threat to free speech and the independent press."

The bill now goes to the upper house and, if passed, will be enacted by President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has been cracking down on independent media, and Russian media are being ordered to publish only information from official government sources.

KHARKIV SUNDAY MORNING AFTER STREET PARTY 

Eerie string of lights spotted in night sky over Switzerland

By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com

Starlink satellites can sometimes show up as chains of tiny streaks in the sky, as seen in this NASA photo taken from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy NASA

A star-studded night sky over Vetroz, Switzerland, was interrupted by an eerie string of lights last weekend -- but one skywatcher was outside waiting for the lights to appear.

"This is it," the man said while filming what appeared to be a row of stars gliding across the sky.

To the untrained eye, the lights could spark rumors of UFOs, but not to folks who were anticipating them. In fact, the parade of lights appeared right on schedule last Saturday.

A train of SpaceX Starlink satellites flies over the Swiss Alps on February 26. Image by Newsflare

The lights were not from a UFO but dozens of new SpaceX Starlink satellites that were launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Southern California a week ago.

The formations are known as satellite trains, as the objects follow each other in quick succession. In cases like the one in Switzerland, the train can be tightly packed, but in other cases they can be spread farther apart.

The Starlink satellites are not emitting light, but rather are reflecting light from the sun. This is most pronounced in the hours just after nightfall or just before daybreak.

SpaceX has launched over 2,000 Starlink satellites over the past few years and plans to launch thousands more. The most recent launch occurred on Thursday. The private space company made news last month after 40 of the satellites were knocked out by a solar storm.

Thousands of satellites are required for SpaceX to achieve its goal of providing high-speed Internet access around the world. It could be a game-changer for remote areas where Internet access is extremely limited or unavailable.

However, the fleet of Internet-providing satellites does not come without a catch.

Thousands of satellites constantly orbiting the Earth can interfere with astronomers taking observations of the night sky, as well as contribute to the growing issue of satellites and debris in low-Earth orbit.

SpaceX has worked to make the satellites less reflective, but when the conditions are right like they were over Switzerland, the satellites can easily be seen with the naked eye.

"Wasn't sure whether that one would be visible but it is," the man said about the train of satellites while recording the video.

The satellites tend to appear the brightest in the sky in the days immediately following launch before becoming "invisible to the naked eye within a week of launch," according to SpaceX.

SpaceX is planning at least two more Starlink launches in March and more will follow throughout 2022.

For a chance to see a train of Starlink satellites like the video from Switzerland, observers will need cloud-free weather to keep an eye on the sky during the nights following launch.

Trump Tries to Take Credit for Ukraine’s Resistance Against Russia … Days After Calling Putin a ‘Genius’ for Invading

The former president boasted that he sent Ukraine weapons, conveniently ignoring that he was impeached for delaying military aid to the country

By PETER WADE

ROLLING STONE

MARCH 2, 2022

Former President Trump anointed himself a savior of the Ukraine resistance, a week after he called President Vladimir Putin a “genius,” “smart,” and a “peacekeeper” as Russian troops invaded separatist-backed regions in Ukraine.

During an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News on Wednesday, Trump bragged about supplying Ukraine with weapons and military aid when he was president. “[Russia] is in much deeper than they thought, to a certain extent because of the weapons that I gave, and that the Ukrainians used so well … amazing,” he said.

Trump conveniently ignored that he was impeached for attempting to use said military aid as leverage to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into digging up dirt on the Biden Family.

Trump just last week called Putin a “genius” for sending tanks into eastern Ukraine. “That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen,” the former president said on a conservative podcast. “There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep the peace all right. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy … I know him very well. Very, very well.”

Despite his praise of Putin, Trump on Wednesday called the Russian president’s attack on a sovereign nation “a holocaust.” Russia has “to stop killing these people,” he told Bartiromo, saying that a “deal” might bring the conflict to an end.

“You have to work out a deal,” he said. “They have to stop killing these people. They’re killing all of these people, and they have to stop it, and they have to stop it now. But they don’t respect the United States and the United States is like, I don’t know, they’re not doing anything about it. This is a — this is a holocaust. This is a horrible thing that’s happening. You’re witnessing and you’re seeing it on television every night.”

“I think Russia, something could be done with them, because they are not looking so good,” Trump added. “But they don’t respect the United States, they aren’t doing anything about it.”

Trump has flip flopped frequently in recent weeks. In addition to praising Putin before backing Ukraine, he also gave himself credit for NATO’s existence, even though as president he threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the organization. “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly,” Trump said in a Monday statement. He also bragged about the weapons he reluctantly provided to Ukraine. “It was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets,” he wrote. “Let History so note!”

While the former president seems to fancy himself savvy in international relations, his former national security advisor, John Bolton, cast doubt on Trump’s knowledge of the region and his influence on Putin during his administration. “[Trump] barely knew where Ukraine was,” Bolton said in a recent appearance on far-right network Newsmax.

Bolton also dismissed Trump’s claim that Putin wouldn’t have invaded if he were still president.

“This horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president,” Trump told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over the weekend.

“It’s just not accurate to say that Trump’s behavior somehow deterred the Russians,” Bolton said.

China’s Propaganda Machine Gears Up for Putin — and Blames America for the Invasion

China’s Communist Party wants you to think the West fueled Russia’s invasion and that China is the world’s new peacemaker

By ANDY KROLL
ROLLING STONE
MARCH 2,2022

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pose during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on Feb. 4, 2022.
Alexei Druzhinin/TASS/Getty Images

For most of February, a Twitter user named @SpicyPandaAcc churned out one uplifting tweet after another about the 2022 Winter Olympics and their host city Beijing.

The Spicy Panda account celebrated Chinese aerial skier Xu Mengtao, a gold medalist and a “role model” who “tells us love and persistence will make a dream come true.” Spicy Panda praised Beijing and its many attractions, tweeting on February 14 that a “tour of the snow-kissed Forbidden City is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!” The account’s boosterism extended to the Chinese Communist Party, with Spicy Panda lauding the party’s carbon emissions goals and hailing the Winter Games as “a watershed for the accelerated implementation of hydrogen energy in China. #Beijing2022.”

On occasion, Spicy Panda took a more hard-edged tone, like when it criticized the Biden administration’s pull-out from Afghanistan or when it shared an American freestyle skier’s praise for China’s Covid protocols at the games: “#AaronBlunck revealed the real China that is totally different from what some American media have said!”

On Feb. 22, Spicy Panda shared one final video about the Olympics. (“Happy moments come and go, but memories stay!”) Then it abruptly switched its focus to the looming conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “‘#Ukraine is not just a neighbor. It is an inherent part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.’ ——Russian President Putin #RussiaUkraineCrisis #Russian.” As Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Spicy Panda shared videos from the Russian state-owned RT network and promoted other pro-Putin content until Twitter suspended the account in late February.

At one point, Spicy Panda boasted close to 50,000 followers, and its tweets often generated hundreds of shares by what looked to be bot-like accounts. Spicy Panda’s bio was vague, containing just a single line: “Shed light on the unspoken truth and offer sharp and spicy insights into the changing world.” But according to Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor who studies disinformation and state actors on social media, @SpicyPandaAcc was “one of the best quality Chinese propaganda accounts I’ve ever seen,” adding that the account was one of a fleet of such propaganda accounts. And if one gets pulled off Twitter, Linvill says, another account will soon take its place.

Disinformation and social-media experts say Spicy Panda was just one example of how the Chinese government has used Russia’s attack on Ukraine as an opportunity to wage its own propaganda war that targets both its domestic population and the English-speaking world beyond its borders.

So far, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda has stopped short of fully supporting Russia in the bloody conflict in Ukraine, experts say. Rather, the overarching point of this campaign is to depict China as a rational, sober world power, and the United States and the West as a reckless, violent, and imperialistic forces that threaten global peace.

“They are trying to contrast themselves with what they now see as a fraying, destructive security apparatus across Europe,” says Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council and coauthor of the book Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media. “China is trying to say, ‘We’re peaceful, but look at how the West, and especially the United States, always turns to violence.’ “

In recent years, China has adopted a largely favorable stance toward Putin and the Russian government, with Chinese President Xi Jinping calling Putin his “best friend.” In the days before and after the Russian invasion, Chinese officials have refused to use the word “invasion” to describe Russia’s actions and have opposed sanctions on Russian individuals and banks. When the United Nations Security Council voted to condemn the invasion, China abstained from the vote. At the same time, spokespeople for the Chinese Communist Party have blamed the U.S. and NATO for sparking the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and Chinese social-media platforms have amplified Russian messaging, including by promoting Putin’s bombastic speech attempting to justify the invasion and suppressing pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia content, researchers say.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a flood of disinformation in multiple languages to influence people’s perception of the conflict. This has been true in Russia for almost a decade, as pro-Putin politicians and state-owned media have sought to change public opinion after the Ukrainian people in 2014 ousted a pro-Russian president and resisted Putin’s attempts to keep the country within Russia’s sphere of influence.

As researcher and investigative journalist Jane Lytvynenko pointed out, in the days and weeks leading up to the invasion, Russian officials spread misleading or outright false claims about their plans, claiming that Ukraine was a threat to Russia, that it supported terrorist attacks on Russia, and that its desire to join NATO posed an existential threat to Russia. Putin and Russian politicians who belong to his United Russia political party say an incursion into Ukraine would be a “de-Nazification” mission, likening Ukraine’s government to Adolf Hitler’s.

Since the invasion began, much of Russia’s disinformation content has appeared in the Russian language, as opposed to the Russian influence operations in English that targeted the 2016 and 2020 American elections. The need for a campaign targeting Russian citizens in their own native tongue is obvious, according to Darren Linvill, the Clemson professor. “Putin is very focused on justifying this activity to the Russian people,” he says.

In China’s case, the ruling Communist Party’s objectives are more subtle. They align within the country’s broader goal of asserting its role as a — if not the — global power of the 21st century.

One recurring theme in Chinese propaganda is the notion that the United States initiated and is fueling the conflict in Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party understands the power of a viral meme and often uses political cartoons in its propaganda, experts say. For instance, Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, tweeted this cartoon on Feb. 25:

On Feb. 27, Hua Chunying, another Chinese foreign ministry official, took aim on Twitter at both the U.S. and NATO, claiming that if those two entities “really care about peace and the #Ukrainian people, why can’t they simply say they won’t take Ukraine into NATO and allow Ukraine to be a bridge instead of a battlefield?”

The Chinese also like to use domestic critics of the U.S. government in their propaganda. It’s a tactic that Kenton Thibaut, a resident China fellow at Digital Forensic Research, describes as “borrowing foreign voices.” Chinese spokeswoman Hua Chunying’s tweet, for instance, built on an earlier tweet from former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard who said that the Russian invasion could’ve been “avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.” Beneath that, Hua also shared Gabbard’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show where she made similar comments.

Thibaut, the Chinese disinformation expert, says she’s seen the Gabbard-Carlson clip in heavy rotation in Chinese propaganda. She’s also seen a clip featuring another Fox News host, Laura Ingraham, used by the Chinese. The larger aim of repurposing this English-language content, Thibaut says, is to promote the idea that the U.S. “is really the cause of this conflict. It’s U.S. imperialism, overreach, and interventionism.”

Within China’s borders, the disinformation campaign has a different look, researchers say. The domestic propaganda tends to promote the image of China as a peaceful world power — a country whose rise to economic and military might happened “without a shot fired,” as the Communist Party likes to (inaccurately) put it. The country’s propagandists and its censors appear to be working in concert to elevate stories and posts that play up themes of peace talks, negotiations, and de-escalation, while blocking content that speaks to the horrors of the invasion and the popular unrest in response to that attack. The effect of this, researchers say, is a near-complete blackout on any pro-Ukraine content on domestic platforms.

According to research provided by Thibaut, posts censored by WeChat, a popular Chinese social-media platform, say things like “Russian anti-war people burned their passports: ‘Apologize to the world!'”; “Rally for Ukraine!”; “Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Historic Mistake That Endangers National Fortune!”

Kenton Thibaut/Atlantic Council

Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic County’s Digital Forensic Lab says China is playing a different game than any other nation as it relates to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. While the Chinese have made clear their antagonism toward the U.S., there isn’t an overtly pro-Putin tone in their domestic Chinese propaganda. That’s in line with China’s decision to abstain from the U.N. Security Council vote condemning the Russian invasion. “They’re picking neither,” Brooking says. “The message is: it’s a shame what the west has pushed Russia to do.”

Brooking adds: “The ideal outcome for China is that China positions itself as the adult in the room.”