Russian Tensions
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How I feel sorry for the Russian oligarchs.
Ferrari and Lamborghini announced they will not sell their cars to them.
Rolex joined Gucci in withdrawing their “must-have” finery.
Oh, damn this war…
Meanwhile, as it was for Venezuela, Iran may benefit in their embargo being relaxed so to get more oil on to the international market.
But on a serious note, WHO has said health facilities have been attacked and medicines are in short supply.
Why isn’t there more demand for those to be sent to Ukraine than bombs and bullets?
Fossil fuel monopolies the big winners in the Ukraine war
Reports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma – how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60670173
“Our people need to protest but they also need to save their lives,” said Federov, the Melitopol mayor. “I have asked them – please do not go near the Russian soldiers, go around them.”
Vadym Gaev, the mayor of Novopskov, a town near Donbas, told the BBC there had been daily protests but they had stopped three days ago when Russian soldiers shot three protestors – non-fatally – and beat another. Gaev said the Russian troops told an intermediary they had authorisation to shoot protesters, so there should be no more protests.
Novopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.
“A new ‘administration’ has been appointed. The only thing we know is that it is going around government buildings and asking people to co-operate, and they are refusing.”
Two Russian trucks with humanitarian markings came into the city centre last week and attempted to hand out food, but they also brought a film crew. Nearly everyone refused, she said. They were filming and people said actors arrived to take the food,” Ivan Federov, the mayor of Melitopol, said he had heard about these ‘humanitarian convoys’ too. But there were “no real Russian trucks and no real Russian food,” he said.
If the war turns nuclear, it could possibly start small scale and in a limited way with battlefield nuclear weapons to decisively induce a state of “shock and awe” in the local populace and to counter the relatively bad news for the Russian military thus far as it struggles to overcome entrenched resistance. It has not been the walkover it may perhaps have anticipated. However, things could develop a momentum of their own making it easier to deploy strategic nuclear weapons if the West starts intervening in response. War tends to promote irrationalism after all
I see the American regime has thankfully turned down the crazed idea of the Polish regime to donate all its Soviet-era planes to the Americans to hand over the Ukrainian airforce. What a dumb proposal. How could it not be construed as an act of malicious intent by NATO towards Russia, thereby inviting nuclear retaliation since Russia will not win a conventional war against NATO? These sociopaths in power couldn’t seem to care less for the well-being of ordinary folk. They have got their luxury bunkers they can scurry to in the event of nuclear war
also
Finland to join NATO.
As might be expected, the Daily Excess got it wrong. What the Finnish President was suggesting was not a speedy decision to join NATO but a speedy debate on the pros and cons of doing this.
Meanwhile the Swedish prime minister has rejected Sweden joining.
NATO to give warplanes to Poland, so Poland can pass them on to Ukraine, which will bring Russian retaliation on Poland, a NATO member.
This is another false lead. The truth seems to be the exact opposite. Poland to give planes to NATO so that NATO can pass them on to Ukraine. To which the response has been: no thanks, we don’t want to provoke a Third World War.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/poland-mig-29-jets-us-ukraine
Incidentally, this shows that, like it or not, having nuclear weapons is a deterrent. If Russia didn’t have them then NATO wouldn’t have had any qualms about attacking. No wonder other capitalist states want to acquire nuclear weapons and, in increasing numbers, probably will — it’s Theodore Roosevelt’s big stick. Or, like it or not again, join a military alliance like NATO even if that means having to follow the lead of the state that holds the big stick. It’s logical under capitalism. What a crazy system.
But they are provoking Russia into a bigger war, with sanctions. How much economic throttling can a capitalist state take?
And why are the fiercely anti-Russian former Soviet states like the Baltics, Ukraine and Poland not deterred by the risk of World War III, but seem eager to provoke it?
They must know they would also be annihilated – but crazily think it worth the risk, and keep pleading with the US.Revealing news item in today’s Times
“RT website faces ban
Ministers are considering blocking RT’s website in Britain amidst a surge in traffic … Daily visits to RT.com hit nearly eight million in February, up 95 per cent on last year.”So the government wants to ban an off-message website because too many people are looking at it. Most will just be people looking for more information on what going on so they can inform their own opinion or maybe just want to know what the other side is saying. The government, apparently, sees them as naives who are going to be misled by Russian state propaganda and must be protected from this and have access only to its own propaganda. Talk about the nanny state. Or a flawed democratic state.
https://brooklynrail.org/2022/03/field-notes/Ukraine-The-Economic-Consequences-of-the-War
Ukraine: The Economic Consequences of the War
By Michael Roberts
“Because Putin has not played ball with American interests, just like Saddam’s Iraq, Assad’s Syria, or Chavez’s Venezuela, the US (with the rather reluctant support of the EU) has strode in to isolate and surround Russia militarily and squeeze its economy. Ukraine has become a pawn in this confrontation between Western imperialism and Russian crony capitalism. It is suffering like all small states in geopolitical confrontations—such is the intertwining of politics and economics.”This looks like the babies on bayonets moment. Note how the report uses the words “says” and “claims” as if it does not really believe what Zelenksky says. In fact his claim seems to be contradicted by the regional Governor who says only that 17 people were injured. Today other reports are saying that there were no deaths. Clearly a maternity hospital was hit but can’t have been completely reduced to rubble. Otherwise there would be hundreds of deaths.
Extreme scepticism would seem to be in order.
With Russian news outlets suffering restricted coverage, i note the BBC now shifts its focus to China’s CGTN as being pro-Russian
Watching a video today posted by China's People's Daily newspaper to a mainland audience, which it says shows Russia is providing humanitarian aid to Ukrainians. Says it was filmed in Kharkiv, and that the supplies came from the Tula Oblasthttps://t.co/BBOS8NZCgN pic.twitter.com/auVjElKDdB
— Kerry Allen 凯丽 (@kerrya11en) March 9, 2022
Will it be suppressed also?
I also read that some commentators now seek UN ‘peacekeeper’ intervention
Now they are saying that only 3 were killed in that hit on the hospital in Mariupol. No babies discovered under the rouble.
Not an iron-clad guarantee but should reassurE you a little bit, AC
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he did not believe that Russia’s standoff with the West over Ukraine would lead to nuclear war.
“I don’t want to believe, and I do not believe, that a nuclear war could start,” he told a news conference After meeting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
Lavrov also dismissed the prospect of an attack on any Baltic nation, saying the suggestions from the West are “old hoaxes.”
ALB, we are piggie in the middle of a propaganda war where both sides tell lies.
Russia has set up its own fact-checker website but it doesn’t mean it can be relied upon
If anybody has the time, there is reverse image search
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