The World’s Most Painful Trade Is Finally Ending as Dollar Peaks




Ruth Carson
Thu, February 23, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Some of the world’s top investors are betting the worst of the dollar’s rampage is over after the surge upended the global economy in ways that had few parallels in modern history.

Having skyrocketed to generational highs last year — deepening poverty and turbocharging inflation from Pakistan to Ghana — the currency has now entered what some forecasters are calling the start of a multi-year decline.

Investors say the dollar is on the way down because the bulk of Federal Reserve rate increases is over, and virtually every other currency will strengthen as their central banks keep tightening. While recent data have led traders to rethink how high US rates will go, a shift to risk assets from equities to emerging markets is already underway on bets that the greenback’s strength will ease. Many investors are sticking with these bets, even after the greenback recently recouped its losses for the year, raising the stakes for dollar bears.

“The dollar’s peak is behind us for sure and a structurally weaker dollar lies ahead,” said George Boubouras, a three-decade market veteran and head of research at hedge fund K2 Asset Management. “Yes inflation in the US is stubborn, yes the rates market is signaling higher-for-longer US rates but that doesn’t take away the fact that other economies in the world are catching up with the US.”

The relief that a weaker dollar will bring to the world economy cannot be overstated. Import prices for developing nations will fall, helping to lower global inflation. It’s also likely to boost the price of everything from gold to risk assets such as equities and cryptocurrencies as sentiment improves.

That may help to ease some of the damage in 2022, when a stronger greenback left a trail of destruction in its wake: Inflation charged higher as the cost of food and oil jumped, nations such as Ghana were driven to the brink of a debt default while stock and bond investors were saddled with outsized losses.

King Dollar Upends the Global Economy With No End in Sight

The US currency’s strength is set to wane with the Fed’s yield premium as other central banks display a similar resolve in slowing price growth. Policy makers in the euro zone and Australia are signaling that more rate hikes are needed to vanquish inflation, while speculation is mounting that the Bank of Japan will abandon its ultra-loose stance this year.

Swaps data show that US borrowing costs are likely to peak in July and a rate cut may come as early as the first Fed review in 2024 as price gains return to the US central bank’s target.

These bets are evident in the greenback’s moves, with the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index having fallen about 8% since rallying to a record high in September. In tandem, investors bought emerging-market bonds and stocks at the fastest pace in almost two years last month.

Dollar Bears

“We think the dollar has peaked and that a multi-year bearish trend has begun,” said Siddharth Mathur, head of emerging markets research Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas SA in Singapore. “We are structural dollar bears and project weakness in 2023, especially in the second half.”

Some market participants see the Fed opting for modest rate increases on expectations that price pressures will ease. That view is somewhat at odds with the US central bank’s assessment that inflation remains a worry, and further hikes are needed to bring it down to the 2% target.

“There’s still a lot of Fed tightening in the system that hasn’t worked its way through yet,” said Eric Stein, chief investment officer, fixed income at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. “The Fed says they are going to get inflation to 2%, but in reality I’d say they get more to a level of like 3%. I don’t think they will continue to push rates to 6% just because of that.”

Fed Inclined Toward More Hikes to Curb Inflation, Minutes Show

All this means that the currencies which suffered under the weight of a stronger dollar are likely to strengthen. The yen has already climbed more than 12% against the greenback since dropping to a three-decade low in October and strategists surveyed by Bloomberg see it gaining a further 9% by year-end.

The euro has risen about 11% from the low reached in September while the greenback has lost ground against most of its Group-of-10 peers in the past three months. The Bloomberg JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index has advanced more than 5% since falling to a trough in October.

“Many of the dollar-supportive factors of 2022 have abated,” said Dwyfor Evans, head of APAC macro strategy at State Street Global Markets. “Other central banks in the G-10 space are playing catch-up on rates and if the impact of the China re-opening is to give global demand conditions a lift, then cautious safe haven buying is on the back foot.”

China Reopening Will Boost Global Economy at Crucial Moment

Going Short

Some investors are already testing the theory that the dollar’s dominance is over. abrdn turned neutral on the greenback late last year from a long position, while Jupiter Asset Management is shorting the US currency outright.

K2 Asset Management has dialed back its long dollar exposure since October, and expects commodity currencies such as the Canadian and Australian dollars to outperform this year. Similarly, hedge funds’ bearish wagers against the greenback swelled to the most since August 2021 in early January and JPMorgan Asset Management expects the yen and euro to advance further.

“It’s been a case of US exceptionalism for a long time,” said Kerry Craig, strategist at JPMorgan Asset, which oversees over $2.2 trillion. “Now suddenly you have a much better view of the euro zone. The yen will be well supported. You’ve got the bonus now of thinking about China’s reopening.”

Some investors like abrdn’s James Athey are biding their time before making the next bearish move on the US currency. He’s waiting for the “final leg of risk off,” a scenario where a realization of the weak global outlook will spur a fresh bout of dollar demand.

“Once this has happened, the Fed has cut rates and risk assets have found a bottom, we would be looking to get into pro-cyclical dollar shorts,” said the investment director of rates management in London.

Greenback enthusiasts can also look to the so-called dollar smile theory for clues on the outlook. Developed by investor Stephen Jen and his Morgan Stanley colleagues in 2001, it predicts gains for the dollar during times when the U.S. economy is either in a deep slump or growing strongly, and underperformance during times of moderate growth.

Haven Bids

To be clear, no one is betting that the dollar’s decline will be a straight line as US rates continue to rise and the threat of a global recession and geopolitical risks foster demand for havens.

“The dollar has peaked but we do not expect a full reversal of the dollar strength we saw over the past two years,” said Omar Slim, co-head of Asia ex-Japan fixed-income at PineBridge Investments in Singapore. The Fed is likely to keep rates high as inflation lingers at elevated levels, and this will help “mitigate dollar weakness.”

Others go one step further, arguing that elevated US yields are likely to continue attracting investors and help prop up the dollar.

“Our base case is for a recovery in the dollar into year end,” Elsa Lignos, head of FX strategy at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note this month. “The dollar remains the highest yielder in the G-10 and higher-yielding than several emerging markets.”

For investors like Deutsche Bank AG’s Stefanie Holtze-Jen, recognizing that the Fed is likely to slow its rate-hike trajectory is key in plotting the dollar’s path for 2023. It’s also equally important to account for the dollar’s status as the world’s dominant reserve asset.

“It has peaked,” said Holtze-Jen, Asia Pacific chief investment officer at the private banking arm of Deutsche in Singapore. But the dollar “will stay supported because of that safe haven notion that it still enjoys.”

--With assistance from Liz McCormick and Garfield Reynolds.

German energy boss warns: Don't let guard down on gas supply

DAVID McHUGH

AP
Thu, February 23, 2023

BONN, Germany (AP) — The temperature outside Klaus Mueller's office almost resembles spring, exactly the kind of mild weather that helped Germany get through the winter without Russian natural gas.

But Germany's chief utility regulator is not ready to sound the all clear on an energy crisis spawned by the war in Ukraine, even with natural gas reserves abundant and prices well down from their peak.

Too much could go wrong — especially if consumers and companies grow weary of the conservation habits they learned during a winter fraught with fear of rolling blackouts and rationing, Mueller, head of the Federal Network Agency, said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.

Plus, there's next winter to think about.

Other risks, such as a pipeline accident or a sudden cold snap, could set back plans to keep natural gas storage as full as possible as Europe learns to live without the cheap Russian gas that fueled its economy for decades.

Mueller would only concede that he's “optimistic” this winter will end without a further gas crunch, especially after Germany cut gas use by 14% in 2022 through lowering thermostats, switching to other fuels or halting energy-intensive industrial production. Gas use fell 19% in the last six months across the whole 27-nation European Union.

“But at the same time, we're focused already on winter 2023-24, and we know that Germany, and large parts of Europe, will have to get through the next winter without Russian pipeline gas," he said. And “the risks are in plain sight.”

While he's thankful for warmer-than-usual winter weather that cut gas use for heating, “will next winter be so mild? No one can say," Mueller said.

“Second, we have to see if the industrial firms and private households are tired of the efforts related to conservation — or will they redouble their efforts based on experience thus far? We're pushing for the second to be the case,” he said.

Mueller says he hopes the public responds to an approach based on transparency — not exaggerating risk but not sugarcoating it either. Yet the experience with measures such as masking and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic show “that always being told what to do is not especially popular.”

Key for the months and years ahead is a push to use heat pumps instead of gas heating, still the case in roughly half of German homes. Above all, higher prices will force homeowners and businesses to adapt simply to lower their costs.

Gas prices have fallen to under 50 euros ($53) per megawatt hour — the lowest level in nearly a year and a half — from a record 350 euros per megawatt hour in August, according to FactSet. But they are still well above the 18 euros per megawatt hour in March 2021, just before Russia started massing troops on Ukraine's border.

Mueller said it will take six months to a year for lower prices to filter through to less expensive utility bills for consumers. Asked whether prices two or three times their pre-crisis level are the “new normal," Mueller avoided the phrase, saying there are too many uncertainties that could affect gas prices going forward.

Mueller, formerly head of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations and environment minister from the Greens party in northern Germany's Schleswig-Holstein region, took over the network agency in March 2022, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Natural gas prices had already risen on fears of lost supply, although Western sanctions against Moscow initially spared oil and natural gas. There were concerns about Europe's dependency on Russian gas used to heat homes, generate electricity and fire up industrial processes like making glass and fertilizer.

What followed was a scramble to find alternative pipeline supplies from friendly countries like Norway and to line up floating terminals that can import liquefied natural gas that comes by ship from suppliers including the U.S. and Qatar.

Russia had already limited supplies in the run-up to the invasion, leaving storage low. Then it started cutting back supplies, first to countries that wouldn't meet a demand to pay in Russian currency. On Aug. 31, it cut off the major Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany, citing technical problems.

There's still a bit of Russian gas — about 7% of supply — flowing to Europe through Ukraine to Slovakia and via Turkey to Bulgaria.

The race to find new supplies was expensive — 10 billion euros went toward the floating terminals, and consumers are seeing painfully higher bills and inflation. But gas storage was full by December. Drawn down over the winter, storage facilities will have to be filled again over the summer.

One of Mueller’s first responsibilities as regulator was overseeing the establishment of a 24-hour crisis center next to his agency's skyscraper headquarters in Bonn, Germany’s capital until the 1999-2000 move to Berlin.

That’s where the agency would have decided which companies would get priority access to energy if supplies failed and the government declared a gas emergency. The center, equipped with diesel generators and stocks of food so it could operate even in a blackout, never had to be used.

Asked when he realized Germany had made it through the winter, Mueller said he was reassured by the full storage levels around Christmas. But complete relief is yet to come.

“When it's really spring here will be the moment when we will have made it," he said. “We're still a couple of weeks away, and I'd rather stay cautious.”

Colombia’s Risky Plan To Import Gas From Venezuela

Editor OilPrice.com
Thu, February 23, 2023 

Leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s controversial plan to end hydrocarbon exploration sparked fears it will roil the oil dependent economy and endanger the strife-torn country’s energy security. While there was speculation that Petro would soften his approach, the president’s commitment to ceasing issuing new exploration contracts was reiterated by energy minister, Irene Vélez, at the Davos World Economic Forum. This further compounded existing fears of an energy crisis occurring because of Colombia’s dependence on natural gas. To assuage mounting disquiet and curtail the risks the policy poses, Petro secured an agreement with neighboring oil-rich Venezuela, where diplomatic relations were only recently reestablished, to supply natural gas. While Venezuela has natural gas reserves of nearly 200 trillion cubic feet the plan is fraught with considerable risk which could prevent its successful execution.

A looming natural gas crisis has existed in Colombia for nearly a decade. Ailing supply due to declining production at mature aging gas fields coupled with scant proven reserves because of a lack of exploration and rising consumption saw a supply shortfall emerge during 2016. Since then, the supply gap has widened not only forcing Colombia to import greater volumes of liquified natural gas but to enact policies aimed at incentivizing natural gas exploration and production. The situation was so dire that compared to 2021, when Colombia was importing around 5,000 metric tons per month, the Andean country was planning to quadruple 2022 imports to nearly 21,000 metric tons. This is because LPG is a popular industrial and household fuel which is experiencing strong demand growth.

The threat posed by diminishing production will be compounded by Petro’s plan to end issuing hydrocarbon exploration contracts. This will weigh heavily on already meagre proven natural gas reserves of 3.1 trillion cubic feet which are only sufficient for another eight years of production. A large proportion of those reserves are from associated gas reservoirs where the extracted fuel is a byproduct of petroleum production. A considerable portion of that natural gas is consumed by oil companies for a variety of purposes including for gas injected enhanced recovery, as a fuel for the gas-fired electric plants which power operations and as a diluent mixed with heavy oil so that it flows. If Petro proceeds with his plan analysts believe Colombia will no longer be energy self-sufficient by as early as 2024 forcing the fiscally fragile country to ramp-up natural gas imports.

Related: Drilling Giant Chesapeake Cuts Rigs Amid Plunge In U.S Gas Prices

While an agreement with Venezuela, in theory, can address many of the risks faced by Colombia due to dwindling natural gas reserves, declining production from mature fields and rising consumption it also comes with significant risk. After Velez reiterated at Davos (Spanish) that Colombia will cease issuing new contracts for hydrocarbon exploration Finance Minister José Antonio Ocampo confirmed the Andean country (Spanish) will import natural gas from Venezuela, 25 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA. That volume is miniscule in comparison to Colombia’s current output of around 1,100 million cubic feet per day.

A privately controlled Venezuelan owned company Prodata, which was granted a 30-year export license by the Maduro regime, will ship the natural gas to Colombia. The plan is to utilize the PDVSA owned 500 million cubic feet per day capacity Antonio Ricaurte Trans-Caribbean gas pipeline to transport the gas. The 139-mile-long pipeline connects the municipality of Bajo Grande in Venezuela’s western state of Zulia, the historic heart of the OPEC member’s petroleum industry, to Riohacha the capital of Colombia’s northeastern department of Guajira. Incidentally, it is Guajira where Colombia’s largest non-associated gas fields, the offshore Chuchupa and onshore Ballena fields, are located.

The Antonio Ricaurte pipeline was inaugurated in 2009 and initially used to export Colombian gas from the Chevron operated Ballena field to Zulia. There was a plan to reverse the pipeline’s flow by 2011 and for Colombia to import gas to Venezuela, which never occurred., primarily because of PDVSA’s parlous finances, corroding infrastructure and U.S. sanctions, all of which have worsened since then. By 2015, the Antonio Ricaurte pipeline had fallen into disuse because of deteriorating relations between the two countries, the Obama White House’s declaration Venezuela is a threat to national security and PDVSA’s deteriorating finances. In early June 2015 the national oil company announced it would not renew the natural gas importation contract.

Natural gas in Venezuela, like Colombia, is an indispensable fuel for Venezuelan industry and households. The reliance upon the gas has grown exponentially since the OPEC member’s economy collapsed with it becoming a crucial source of household energy. OPEC data shows Venezuela produced 2.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day during 2021 which while 32% greater than 2020, when the pandemic disrupted operations, was less than the 2.4 billion cubic feet per day pumped during 2018. By 2022 supply constraints were so acute PDVSA’s LPG production of 20,000 barrels per day was less than half of the 55,000 barrels per day required to meet domestic demand. That massive shortfall, which emerged after the Trump White House ratcheted-up sanctions during January 2019, is aggravating the country’s economic and humanitarian crises. It is for this reason that the Biden administration granted a waiver permitting LPG exports and re-exports to Venezuela, which is valid until July 2023.

PDVSA’s badly corroded energy infrastructure is blocking efforts to bolster hydrocarbon production. This will not improve until U.S. sanctions are eased to where foreign energy majors can invest profitably in Venezuela. Energy companies are fleeing the OPEC member with eight having exited during the last five years, among them supermajors TotalEnergies and Equinor which quit their joint venture with PDVSA during 2021. The Biden administration authorized Chevron, which is now the only western driller with a significant presence in Venezuela, to recommence lifting petroleum and export it to the U.S. but the company is prevented from expanding operations in the pariah state. This sees Chevron limiting its activities to rehabilitating exist wells and infrastructure.

Those developments don’t bode well for PDVSA being able to obtain the substantial investment required to rebuild shattered energy infrastructure which is imperative to expanding Venezuela’s hydrocarbon production. Even when U.S.sanctions are significantly relaxed it will take at least a decade and a massive amount of capital, estimated to be greater than $110 billion, to restore hydrocarbon sector operations to pre-Chavez levels. This creates serious doubts as to whether PDVSA can expand natural gas production which is a crucial requirement for successfully supplying the fossil fuel to Colombia.

Washington’s strict sanctions will potentially prevent Colombia, a key regional U.S. ally, from successfully importing natural gas from Venezuela. Those measures essentially block U.S. companies and persons from conducting transactions and working with the Maduro regime as well as national oil company PDVSA. It is the potential impact of Washington’s sanctions, which can cripple a business’s access to financial markets and operations, that is a pivotal deterrent for foreign companies considering operating in Venezuela or conducting transactions with the Maduro regime. The U.S. has sanctioned foreign entities for facilitating the sale of crude oil PDVSA’s crude oil. For these reasons, along with rising concerns over diminished energy security, that Trinidad and Tobago sought a license from the U.S. Treasury, which was granted in January 2023, to develop a Venezuelan gas field. It is difficult to see how the Petro administration can receive and pay for Venezuelan gas imports without falling afoul of U.S. sanctions.

Then there are the issues relating to the appalling state of the PDVSA owned Antonio Ricaurte pipeline. Since falling into disuse in 2015 the pipeline’s condition has deteriorated so badly that it is currently inoperable. Economist Mauricio Cárdenas who was Finance Minister for President Juan Manuel Santos, who secured the peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials), warned that the deal is riddled with obstacles. He was quoted in Venezuelan industry journal Petroguia as stating:

"The problem now is that the pipeline has deteriorated because it has not been used for many years, equipment, valves and segments of the pipeline have been stolen and that is why the first thing to do is recover the pipeline, but that costs hundreds of millions of dollars,"

U.S. sanctions prevent Venezuela’s national oil company and Caracas from accessing international capital markets while discouraging foreign energy companies from doing business in Venezuela. For those reasons PDVSA will struggle to obtain the required skilled labor, parts and funding to bring the Antonio Ricaurte pipeline back online which is the primary prerequisite for shipping natural gas to Colombia.

Aside from these fundamental barriers to importing Venezuelan natural gas into Colombia, there are further concerns relating to the cost. Ecopetrol President Felipe Bayon asserted the cost of (Spanish) Venezuelan gas for consumers could be five times higher than domestically sourced natural gas. When that is considered in conjunction with the political unreliability of the Maduro regime and U.S. sanctions on Venezuela it is difficult to see any agreement to import Venezuelan natural gas being successfully executed. This means the agreement appears to be a political ploy aimed at cementing newly re-established diplomatic relations with Caracas rather than a genuine attempt to guarantee Colombia’s energy security and ward off a crisis.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

 NATO WAR

Ukrainian soldiers training on German tanks say they’ve ‘swapped Ladas for Mercedes’

Jorg Luyken

The Telegraph
Wed, February 22, 2023 

Bundeswehr 

Ukrainian soldiers on training in Germany say that they have “swapped Ladas for Mercedes” as they express their delight at finally getting the chance to use German-built tanks.

On an army base on a rain-swept moor in northern Germany, Ukrainian soldiers have been given five weeks to master the complexities of the Leopard 2 battle tank before they head back to the front in their war-torn country.

With many of the soldiers barely versed in tank battle, the training is intense.

The work day starts at 7am and lasts for 12 hours. Sunday is the only rest day, but even here the Ukrainians are eager to get on to the training field, one German soldier said.


The Telegraph was one of a few media outlets granted access to the training facilities in the town of Munster earlier this week to meet some of the soldiers and the German squaddies training them.

The visit took place under tight security conditions, with the press banned from taking any pictures around the facility.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian soldiers who agreed to be interviewed pulled scarves up over their noses and wore tinted glasses.

Any questions about the specifics of the training programme, such as how many soldiers were involved and when it would finish, were rebuffed by German officials with a curt “no comment”.

Anatoli, a stockily built tank commander in his late fifties, said that his experience with Germany’s Leopard tanks had been a revelation.

“Up until now we have been fighting with Ladas, now we’re finally getting a modern Mercedes,” he said.

Vitali, a paratrooper who is being trained on the lighter Marder tank, said confidently that: “I don’t want to compare (it to a Soviet tank). You will soon see. We’ll show everything in battle.”

The men are two of several hundred soldiers taken to Germany under tight secrecy earlier this month for training on the weapons systems.

After months of delay, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, agreed in January to supply Kyiv with 40 Marder tanks and 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks, as well as carry out the necessary training of soldiers at German bases.

Vitali would say only that he was previously a state official before joining the army after the outbreak of the war last year.

The German tanks are “a drop in the ocean... but they will bring our victory nearer,” he said.

German soldiers charged with bringing their Ukrainian colleagues up to speed on the vehicles in record time say they have been impressed by how quickly they’ve taken on new skills.

“They are hungry for knowledge. You can see that they really want to absorb everything like dry sponges,” one trainer said.

Vladimir Klitschko -

But the challenges involved in making sure they are battle ready by the end of March are immense.

Around 80 per cent of the recruits in Germany for training only have the most basic of combat experience, one German trainer said.

With the pressure on, they were “working round the clock”, he conceded.

The lack of a common language means that “a lot of the time we are using our hands and feet to communicate”, another instructor said.

On the same day that the press were granted access, Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, also paid an official visit to the training facilities.

Along with him was a surprise guest - Ukraine’s former champion boxer Vladimir Klitschko.

Mr Klitschko told The Telegraph on the sidelines of the event that he believed that Germany had finally understood the importance of arming his country.

“I understand that it is part of the German mentality that weapons are something they don’t really want to talk about,” he said. “But eventually, Germany has understood that the war is going to escalate if it is not stopped with weapons.

“We are not fighting with fists, we are fighting with weapons,” added the former world heavyweight title holder.

Germany has promised to deliver the tanks by the end of March.

The Marder infantry fighting vehicles are part of a wider Western deployment that will include at least 60 Bradley Fighting Vehicles from the US. These arrived at Bremen harbour in northern Germany earlier this month and are also now headed for the warzone.

Ukrainian military personnel stand infront of a Marder infantry fighting vehicles at the Panzertruppenschule (Tank School) in Munster 

Berlin is still engaged in furious diplomacy to build an alliance of countries that will contribute to two battalions of Leopard tanks.

Loud concerns have been raised that Mr Scholz’s slow decision on supplying battle tanks might mean that they arrive too late to fend off a Russian offensive expected in the coming weeks.

But the Ukrainian soldiers training in Munster expressed confidence that their comrades back home would hold the line.

“We are sure that our comrades can hold back the attacker until we arrive,” said Vitali.

He couldn't say whether he will have time to see his family once the training in Germany is over, but added, “we will be back on the front soon”.

PHOTOS  Craig Stennett for The Telegraph

Word war: In Russia-Ukraine war, information became a weapon


 Destroyed Russian armored vehicles sit on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 31, 2022. In the year since Russia invaded Ukraine, disinformation and propaganda have emerged as key weapons in the Kremlin's arsenal. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File) 

DAVID KLEPPER
Wed, February 22, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, and the first to see algorithms and TikTok videos deployed alongside fighter planes and tanks.

The online fight has played out on computer screens and smartphones around the globe as Russia used disinformation, propaganda and conspiracy theories to justify its invasion, silence domestic opposition and sow discord among its adversaries.

Now in its second year, the war is likely to spawn even more disinformation as Russia looks to break the will of Ukraine and its allies.

“The natural question is: What's next to come? We know that Russia is preparing for a protracted conflict,” said Samantha Lewis, a manager of strategic geopolitics with the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. “Ukrainian morale is almost certainly a key target of Russian psychological operations. And there’s the risk of international complacency."

A look at Russia's disinformation war since the conflict began:

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

The Kremlin's propaganda efforts against Ukraine began many years ago and increased sharply in the months immediately before the invasion, according to Ksenia Iliuk, a Ukrainian disinformation expert who has tracked Russia's information operations.

Russia tailored the messages for specific audiences around the world.

In Eastern Europe, Russia spread baseless rumors of Ukrainian refugees committing crimes or taking local jobs. In Western Europe, the message was that corrupt Ukrainian leaders couldn't be trusted, and that a long war could escalate or lead to higher food and oil prices.

In Latin America, Russia’s local embassies spread Spanish-language claims suggesting its invasion of Ukraine was a struggle against Western imperialism. Similar messages accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy and belligerence were spread in Asia, Africa and other parts of the world with a history of colonialism.

Russia's information agencies flooded Ukraine with propaganda, calling its military weak and its leaders ineffective and corrupt. But if the message was intended to reduce resistance to the invaders, it backfired in the face of Ukrainian defiance, Iliuk said.

“Russian propaganda has been failing in Ukraine," she said. “Russian propaganda and disinformation are indeed a threat and can be very sophisticated. But it's not always working. It's not always finding an audience.”

BLAME THE VICTIM

Many of Russia's fabrications try to justify the invasion or blame others for atrocities carried out by its forces.

After Russian soldiers tortured and executed civilians in Bucha last spring, images of charred corpses and people shot at close range horrified the world. Russian state TV, however, claimed the corpses were actors, and that the devastation was faked. Associated Press journalists saw the bodies themselves.

Russia initially celebrated a missile strike on a rail station in the Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk, until reports of civilian casualties surfaced. Suddenly Russian news outlets were insisting the missile wasn't theirs.

“When they realized that civilians were killed and injured, they changed the messaging, trying to promote the idea that it was a Ukrainian missile,” said Roman Osadchuk, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which has tracked Russian disinformation since before the war began.

One of the most popular conspiracy theories about the war also had Russian help. According to the claim, the U.S. runs a series of secret germ warfare labs in Ukraine — labs conducting work dangerous enough to justify Russia's invasion.

Like many conspiracy theories, the hoax is rooted in some truth. The U.S. has funded biological research in Ukraine, but the labs are not owned by the U.S., and their existence is far from secret.

The work is part of an initiative called the Biological Threat Reduction Program, which aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or manmade. The U.S. efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction.

EXTENDED WHACK-A-MOLE

As European governments and U.S.-based tech companies looked for ways to turn off the Kremlin's propaganda megaphone, Russia found new ways to get its message out.

Early in the war, Russia relied heavily on state media outlets like RT and Sputnik to spread pro-Russian talking points as well as false claims about the conflict.

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter responded by adding labels to the accounts of Russian state media and government officials. When the European Union called for a ban on Russian state media, YouTube responded by blocking the channels of RT and Sputnik. TikTok, owned by a Chinese company now based in Singapore, did the same.

Russia then pivoted again to tap its diplomats, who have used their Twitter and Facebook accounts to spread false narratives about the war and Russian atrocities. Many platforms are reluctant to censor or suspend diplomatic accounts, giving ambassadors an added layer of protection.

After its state media was muzzled, Russia expanded its use of networks of fake social media accounts. It also evaded bans on its accounts by taking identifying features — such as RT's logo — off of videos before reposting them.

Some efforts were sophisticated, like a sprawling network of fake accounts that linked to websites created to look like real German and British newspapers. Meta identified and removed that network from its platforms last fall.

Others were far cruder, employing fake accounts that were easily spotted before they could even attract a following.

“These campaigns resembled smash and grab operations that used thousands of fake accounts,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. “This covert activity is aggressive and it is persistent.”

GETTING AHEAD OF THE CLAIMS

Ukraine and its allies scored early victories in the information war by predicting Russia's next moves and by revealing them publicly.

Weeks before the war, U.S. intelligence officials learned that Russia planned to carry out an attack that it would blame on Ukraine as a pretext for invasion. Instead of withholding the information, the government publicized it as a way to disrupt Russia's plans.

By “ prebutting ” Russia's claims, the U.S. and its allies were attempting to blunt the impact of disinformation. The next month, the White House did it again when it disclosed suspicions that Russia might seek to blame a chemical or biological attack on Ukraine.

The invasion prompted tech companies to try new strategies, too. Google, the owner of YouTube, launched a pilot program in Eastern Europe designed to help internet users detect and avoid misinformation about refugees fleeing the war. The initiative utilized short online videos that teach people how misinformation can trick the brain.

The project was so successful that Google now plans to roll out a similar campaign in Germany.

Iliuk, the Ukrainian disinformation researcher, said she believes there's a greater awareness now, a year after the invasion, of the dangers posed by Russian disinformation, and a growing optimism that it can be checked.

“It is very hard, especially when you hear the bombs outside of your window,” she said. “There was this huge realization that this (Russian disinformation) is a threat. That this is something that could literally kill us.”

PUTINS ID
Russia's Medvedev floats idea of pushing back Poland's borders


Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council, delivers a speech in Saint Petersburg

Fri, February 24, 2023

By Andrew Osborn and Caleb Davis

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that the only way for Moscow to ensure a lasting peace with Ukraine was to push back the borders of hostile states as far as possible, even if that meant the frontiers of NATO member Poland.

Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, made the comments in a message on his Telegram account exactly a year after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in what it called a "special military operation" to protect Russian speakers and ensure its own security.

Ukraine says it is defending itself from an unprovoked colonial-style war of aggression and has vowed to retake all of its own territory by force, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Medvedev, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, forecast on Friday that Russia would be victorious and that some kind of loose agreement would eventually end the fighting.

"Victory will be achieved. We all want it to happen as soon as possible. And that day will come," said Medvedev. He predicted that tough negotiations with Ukraine and the West would follow that would culminate in "some kind of agreement."

But he said that deal would lack what he called "fundamental agreements on real borders" and not amount to an over-arching European security pact, making it vital for Russia to extend its own borders now.

"That is why it is so important to achieve all the goals of the special military operation. To push back the borders that threaten our country as far as possible, even if they are the borders of Poland," said Medvedev.

Poland shares long eastern borders with Ukraine and with Russia's ally Belarus, and a frontier of some 200 km (125 miles) in its northeastern corner with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Any encroachment on Poland's borders would bring Russia for the first time into direct conflict with NATO. U.S. President Joe Biden pledged in a speech in Warsaw this week to defend "every inch" of NATO territory if it was attacked.

Medvedev, 57, has adopted an increasingly hawkish tone and made a series of outspoken interventions since the war began with some political analysts suggesting he is one of the people that Putin might one day consider as a successor.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Caleb Davis; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

What is China's peace proposal for Ukraine War?
 

 United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Feb. 18, 2023. One year into Russia's war against Ukraine, China is offering a 12-point proposal to end the fighting. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

Fri, February 24, 2023 

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — One year into Russia's war against Ukraine, China is offering a 12-point proposal to end the fighting.

The proposal follows China's recent announcement that it is trying to act as mediator in the war that has re-energized Western alliances viewed by Beijing and Moscow as rivals. China's top diplomat indicated that the plan was coming at a security conference this week in Munich, Germany.

With its release, President Xi Jinping's government is reiterating China's claim to being neutral, despite blocking efforts at the United Nations to condemn the invasion. The document echoes Russian claims that Western governments are to blame for the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion and criticizes sanctions on Russia.

At the Munich meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed skepticism about Beijing's position before the plan's release. He said China has provided non-lethal assistance that supports Russian President Vladimir Putin's war effort and said the U.S. has intelligence that Beijing is “considering providing lethal support.” China has called the allegation a “smear” and said it lacks evidence.

WHAT HAS CHINA PROPOSED?

China’s proposal calls for a cease-fire and peace talks, and an end to sanctions against Russia.

China placed responsibility for sanctions on other “relevant countries” without naming them. These countries, it says, “should stop abusing unilateral sanctions” and “do their share in de-escalating the Ukraine crisis.”

Many of the 12 points were very general and did not contain specific proposals.

Without mentioning either Russia or Ukraine, it says sovereignty of all countries should be upheld. It didn't specify what that would look like for Ukraine, and the land taken from it since Russia seized Crimea in 2014.

The proposal also condemns a “Cold War mentality,” a term that often refers to the United States and the U.S.-European military alliance NATO. “The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs,” the proposal says. Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded a promise that Ukraine will not join the bloc before the invasion.

Other points call for a cease-fire, peace talks, protection for prisoners of war and stopping attacks on civilians, without elaborating, as well as keeping nuclear power plants safe and facilitating grain exports.

“The basic tone and the fundamental message in the policy is quite pro-Russia,” said Li Mingjiang, a professor of Chinese foreign policy and international security at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

DOES CHINA BACK RUSSIA IN ITS WAR ON UKRAINE?

China has offered contradictory statements regarding its stance. It says Russia was provoked into taking action by NATO’s eastward expansion, but has also claimed neutrality on the war.

Ahead of Russia's attack, Xi and Putin attended the opening of last year's Winter Olympics in Beijing and issued a statement that their governments had a “no limits” friendship. China has since ignored Western criticism and reaffirmed that pledge.

Putin has said he expects Xi to visit Russia in the next few months. China has yet to confirm that.

China is “trying to have it both ways,” Blinken said Sunday on NBC.

“Publicly, they present themselves as a country striving for peace in Ukraine, but privately, as I said, we’ve seen already over these past months the provision of non-lethal assistance that does go directly to aiding and abetting Russia’s war effort.”

HAS CHINA PROVIDED SUPPORT TO RUSSIA?

China’s support for Russia has been largely rhetorical and political. Beijing has helped to prevent efforts to condemn Moscow at the United Nations. There is no public evidence it is currently supplying arms to Russia, but the U.S. has said China is providing non-lethal support already and may do more.

Blinken, at the Munich conference, said the United States has long been concerned that China would provide weapons to Russia. “We have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia,” he said.

Blinken said he expressed to the Chinese envoy to the meeting, Wang Yi, that “this would be a serious problem.”

NATO's chief said Wednesday he had seen some signs that China may be ready to provide arms and warned that would be it would be supporting a violation of international law.

Russian and Chinese forces have held joint drills since the invasion, most recently with the South African navy in a shipping lane off the South African coast.

Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov expressed doubt about China's willingness to send lethal aid to Russia.

“I think that if China will help them … it will not (be) weaponry. It will (be) some kinds of like clothes,” Reznikov said in Kyiv Monday.

Explainer-What have Russia and China said about peace in Ukraine?


Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with China's top diplomat Wang Yi in Moscow   BEWARE OF LAUGING ADVERSARIES

Thu, February 23, 2023
By Caleb Davis

(Reuters) - China's top diplomat Wang Yi held talks with President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials in Moscow this week amid speculation that the two sides would discuss a Chinese plan to bring about peace in Ukraine after almost a year of war.

Moscow has denied that Wang and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed a specific proposal but both sides said they touched on political ways to end the conflict, with Russia welcoming what it called China's "balanced position".

Beijing has accused the United States and the West of fanning the flames of conflict in Ukraine, but it has refused to explicitly endorse Russia's invasion.

WHAT IS CHINA'S PEACE PROPOSAL?

China has said it will set out its position on how to settle the Ukraine conflict through political means in an upcoming paper, which Russian state media say will be published on the one-year anniversary of Russia's "special military operation".

Wang said at last week's Munich Security Conference that the document would reference principles from the United Nations' founding charter and take into account territorial integrity, sovereignty and security concerns.

"I suggest that everybody starts to think calmly, especially friends in Europe, about what kind of efforts we can make to stop this war," Wang said on Saturday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to deliver a "peace speech" on the Feb. 24 anniversary of the invasion, although analysts have cast doubt on whether Beijing's efforts to act as peacemaker will go beyond rhetoric.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday warned China against supplying weapons to Russia. "We haven't seen any supplies of lethal aid from China to Russia, but we have seen signs that they are considering and may be planning for that," he told Reuters.

WHAT HAS UKRAINE SAID?

Ukraine said it was looking forward to hearing China's proposal but that it would need to examine it closely before reaching any conclusions, adding that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had his own plan for peace.

"(Wang Yi) shared with me key elements of the Chinese peace plan," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday.

"Once we receive the paper we will thoroughly examine it and come with our own conclusions," he said.

Zelenskiy last year proposed his own 10-point peace plan, which calls on Russia to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine and to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Russia still controls nearly a fifth of Ukraine, despite losing swathes of land in major battlefield setbacks last year.

WHAT HAS RUSSIA SAID?

Russia said on Wednesday that it welcomed China taking a more active role in efforts to resolve the conflict.

"When it comes to addressing hot international issues, we and China share much of the same vision," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Weeks before the invasion, Putin and Xi agreed to a "no limits" partnership, as the two countries seek to counter-balance what they see as attempts by the United States to dominate global affairs.

Meeting Putin on Wednesday, Wang said China was willing to play a "constructive role" to end the Ukraine conflict.

"The Chinese side will, as in the past, firmly adhere to an objective and impartial position and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis," Wang was quoted in Russian state media as saying.

Putin said Russia's relations with China were "developing" and said Xi would visit Moscow.

WHAT HAS THE WEST SAID?

Beijing's attempts to reach a peace deal and Wang's visit to Moscow have been met with a mixed reaction in the West, which believes Russia's increasing reliance on China make it one of the few countries able to truly influence Moscow.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said China had an obligation to use that influence to seek peace in Ukraine.

"China, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is obligated to use its influence to secure world peace," said Baerbock, who also met Wang at last week's security conference.

The United States was sceptical, warning that Wang's visit to Russia on the eve of the war's first anniversary was more evidence of Beijing's growing alignment with Moscow.

"China is trying to have it both ways," said U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

"China is trying to broadcast and disguise itself in this veneer of neutrality, even as it deepens its engagement with Russia in key ways – politically, diplomatically, economically, and potentially in the security realm as well," he said.

Xi has stood by Putin during the conflict in Ukraine, resisting Western pressure to isolate Moscow.

Trade between the two countries has soared since the invasion, and China is Russia's biggest buyer of oil, a key source of revenue for Moscow.

(Reporting by Caleb Davis; Editing by Nick Macfie)

WW3.0 ONE YEAR LATER

United Nations approves resolution calling for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine



Laura Kelly
Thu, February 23, 2023 

The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution calling for the Russian military to withdraw from all the territory of Ukraine, in a vote that marked one year since Moscow launched a full invasion of the country.

While 141 countries voted in favor of the resolution, mirroring a similar vote that occurred in the general assembly one year prior, Russia tallied two additional votes in opposition since a U.N. vote on the war in October.

The resolution holds no power to compel Russia to withdraw from Ukraine but is meant to send a political signal of global opposition to Moscow’s actions and demonstrate its isolation.

“Colleagues, this vote will go down in history,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in remarks the day before.


“On the one-year anniversary of this conflict, we will see where the nations of the world stand on the matter of peace in Ukraine.”

The United Nations General Assembly is a key venue for Ukraine and its supporters to build consensus among the world’s nations that Russia is setting a dangerous precedent that can embolden other aggressive nations to violate another country’s borders.

The symbolic votes also allow the U.N. to circumvent a stalemate on action from the body’s Security Council, where any binding enforcement measures can be blocked by Russia’s veto power as a permanent member of the body.

General Assembly votes have been a key barometer of the success of each side of the war to sway international opinion. Moving countries with declared positions of neutrality amid Russia’s war has proven challenging for Ukraine and its major allies, such as the U.S.

This includes an abstention on the vote from China, which has long provided a buffer for Russia at the United Nations. China views Russia’s war in Ukraine with concern but has maintained close ties with Moscow for its own interests, which include competing for superiority on the global stage against the U.S.

South Africa and India were also among the 32 countries that abstained from the vote, pointing to the continued struggle of U.S. diplomats to shift those countries into Ukraine’s column.

India’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ruchira Kamboj said the resolution had “inherent limitations” that compelled their vote of abstention and said key questions need to be answered.

“Can any process that does not involve either of the two sides ever lead to a credible and meaningful solution? Has the U.N. system and particularly its principal organ the U.N. Security Council based on a 1945 world construct, not be rendered ineffective to address contemporary challenges to global peace and security?” she asked.

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian nations in Russia’s sphere of influence, also abstained.

Seven countries voted against the resolution, titled “Principles of the Charter of the United Nations, underlining, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” including Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Eritrea.

Mali and Nicaragua also voted against the resolution, marking a change for the two countries that had abstained in the vote a year prior.

Ahmed Qureia, top Palestinian negotiator with Israel, dies


FILE - Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia looks on during an interview with The Associated Press in his office in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem, Monday, April 23, 2012. Qureia, a former architect of interim peace deals with Israel, has died Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023, at age 85.

 (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File) 

Thu, February 23, 2023

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Ahmed Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister and one of the architects of interim peace deals with Israel, has died at age 85.

A key player in the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Qureia witnessed the rise of the dream of Palestinian statehood that surged during the negotiations. But he also saw those hopes recede, with the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict drifting further than ever. Domestically, Qureia was riddled with corruption charges that tainted his reputation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed Qureia's death on Wednesday. The cause of death was not immediately made public, but Qureia had been ill for some time with a heart condition.

“Abu Alaa stood in the lead defending the causes of his home and people,” Abbas said in a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency, using Qureia’s nickname.


Born in 1937 in Abu Dis, suburb of east Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, Qureia joined the Fatah movement in 1968.

He rose quickly through the ranks under the leadership of its founder, late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and became a member of its decision-making body, the Central Committee, in 1989. He was also a member of the PLO Executive Committee.

Qureia headed the Palestinian delegation to Oslo, where intensive talks with Israel led to the peace accords in 1993, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian territories. During ensuing rounds of negotiations with Israelis, he met all Israeli prime ministers who were in office before 2004, including Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert, and U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Peace talks have collapsed in the three decades since the accords. Israel has driven up settlement building in the West Bank, and imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Islamic militant Hamas took power there after it routed forces loyal to Fatah. Violence is again flaring up between the sides, especially in the West Bank.

In a 2013 interview with the Associated Press marking two decades since the Oslo agreements, Qureia said that if he knew then what he knows now he wouldn’t have agreed to the accords.

“With such kinds of blocs of settlements? No. With the closure of Jerusalem? No. Not at all,” Qureia said in an interview at his office in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

After the establishment of the PA, Qureia won a seat in the first parliamentary elections in 1996 and chaired the Palestinian Legislative Council.

After Abbas resigned as the PA’s first prime minister in 2003, Arafat replaced him with Qureia. He held the post until 2006, when the militant Hamas group scored a landslide victory in the second Palestinian elections.

During his tenure as prime minister, Qureia was the subject of controversy after reports accused his family of having financial interest in a company that sold Egyptian cement to Israel, which the latter used to build the West Bank separation barrier.

White supremacists behind over 80% of extremism-related U.S. murders in 2022


Rally against guns and white supremacy in front of the White House in Washington


Thu, February 23, 2023 
By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mass shootings in the United States accounted for most extremism-related fatalities last year in the country with over 80% of those murders committed by white supremacists, data released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) showed on Thursday.

The advocacy group labeled 25 murders in 2022 as "extremist-related," with 18 of those "committed in whole or part for ideological motives."

Two mass shootings - one in May in Buffalo, New York, wherein an avowed white supremacist fatally shot 10 Black people, and another in November in Colorado Springs wherein five people were killed in an LGBTQ nightclub - accounted for most of the extremist-related murders of 2022, the ADL report showed.

White supremacists commit the highest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists, according to the ADL report.

"All the extremist-related murders in 2022 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds," the ADL report said.

ADL's Center on Extremism reported an overall decrease from 2021 when 33 extremist-related killings were documented. ADL had documented 22 extremist-related killings in 2020.

Human rights groups have raised concerns over white supremacy in the United States in recent years.

President Joe Biden has labeled white supremacy as poison and called on Americans to reject it. In December, he established an inter-agency group to coordinate efforts to counter antisemitism, Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination.

The issue of white supremacy came back into headlines late last year when former President Donald Trump hosted white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his private club in Florida. Trump said the encounter with Fuentes happened inadvertently while he was having dinner with Ye, the musician formerly known as Kanye West.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)

Extremism-related mass killings spiked in past decade: ADL

Julia Mueller
Thu, February 23, 2023 

Mass killings in the U.S. by people with ties to extreme causes or movements have spiked significantly in the past decade, according to new research from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Of 46 total extremist-related, ideologically-motivated mass killings identified by the ADL’s Center on Extremism in the more than five decades since 1970, 26 have occurred in the last 12 years alone.

The past decade saw at least three times more extremist-linked mass killings in the U.S. than any other 10-year period since 1970. While five were recorded in the first 10 years of the new millennium, 21 were recorded between 2011 and 2020.

Just two years into the tally for the next decade, 2021 and 2022 have already seen five extremist-related mass killings — as many as were seen in total between 2001 and 2010.


The ADL report says mass killings are “one of the largest threats that extremists pose to public safety today” following shootings last year in Buffalo, N.Y., where 10 Black people were killed in a grocery store, and in Colorado Springs, Colo., where five people were killed at an LGBT nightclub.

“Most of these mass killings were committed by right-wing extremists, but left-wing and domestic Islamist extremists were also responsible for incidents … Of particular concern in recent years are shootings inspired by white supremacist ‘accelerationist’ propaganda urging such attacks,” the report reads.

Domestic extremists killed at least 25 people in 12 separate incidents in the U.S. last year — 21 of those 25 murders were linked to white supremacists, which ADL notes as an “unusually high” figure.

US mass killings linked to extremism spiked over last decade


 A group prays at the site of a memorial for the victims of the Buffalo supermarket shooting outside the Tops Friendly Market on May 21, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y. The number of U.S. mass killings linked to extremism was at least three times higher in the last decade than the total from any 10-year period since the 1970s. That's according to a report released to The Associated Press by the Anti-Defamation League. 

(AP Photo/Joshua Bessex, File)

LINDSAY WHITEHURST
Wed, February 22, 2023 
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of U.S. mass killings linked to extremism over the past decade was at least three times higher than the total from any other 10-year period since the 1970s, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League.

The report, provided to The Associated Press ahead of its public release Thursday, also found that all extremist killings identified in 2022 were linked to right-wing extremism, with an especially high number linked to white supremacy. They include a racist mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 Black shoppers dead and a mass shooting that killed five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that we live in an age of extremist mass killings,” the report from the group's Center on Extremism says.

Between two and seven domestic extremism-related mass killings occurred every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, but in the 2010s that number skyrocketed to 21, the report found.


The trend has since continued with five domestic extremist mass killings in 2021 and 2022, as many as there were during the first decade of the new millennium.

The number of victims has risen as well. Between 2010 and 2020, 164 people died in ideological extremist-related mass killings, according to the report. That’s much more than in any other decade except the 1990s, when the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people.

Extremist killings are those carried out by people with ties to extreme movements and ideologies.

Several factors combined to drive the numbers up between 2010 and 2020. There were shootings inspired by the rise of the Islamic State group as well as a handful targeting police officers after civilian shootings and others linked to the increasing promotion of violence by white supremacists, said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the ADL’s Center on Extremism.

The center tracks slayings linked to various forms of extremism in the United States and compiles them in an annual report. It tracked 25 extremism-related killings last year, a decrease from the 33 the year before.

Ninety-three percent of the killings in 2022 were committed with firearms. The report also noted that no police officers were killed by extremists last year, for the first time since 2011.

With the waning of the Islamic State group, the main threat in the near future will likely be white supremacist shooters, the report found. The increase in the number of mass killing attempts, meanwhile, is one of the most alarming trends in recent years, said Center on Extremism Vice President Oren Segal.

“We cannot stand idly by and accept this as the new norm,” Segal said.