Feb 20: Buonasera Mag
Day 361: BidenInKyiv UASitRep China EU Moldova NorthSea Meloni HUN Erdogan GDPR Poland A&Ps-Vadym Sumlenny Browder Braw Michel Panyi Halushka Smolkenko Lautman Plokhy Lau INew Kurkochkina
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
It was a HUGE news day this morning! Grab a coffee…
Stories we’re following…
Russia attacks 9 regions across Ukraine over the past 24 hours. A man in the liberated town of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv Oblast was killed at home, according to Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov. He said that a projectile hit the victim's house during the shelling.
Ukraine ‘balances situation’ on front line, prepares for military maneuvers in near future. President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a meeting with the country’s military leadership on Feb.19 that the Ukrainian military “levels the situation (on the front line), doing everything to prepare actions for the near future."
Russia changes tactics of missile strikes. Russian troops have started concealing missiles in the Dniester and Southern Buh riverbeds, allowing them to travel low to the ground to bypass Ukrainian air defense systems, Yuriy Ihnat, the spokesperson for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said.
Kuleba urges allies to start training Ukrainian pilots before decision on aircraft delivery is made. "We propose to start with training. This is our request to all our friends who can potentially share aircraft with us," he said at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 18.
Foreign Ministry: Russia blocks rotation of IAEA mission at occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Feb.19 that Russia had blocked the rotation of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts at Europe's largest nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian city of Energodar, which has been occupied shortly after Feb. 24.
Russia's Rostec says it is stepping up production of hypersonic missiles. Russian state arms conglomerate Rostec said on Feb. 19 that it is scaling up the production of Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles for the Russian Defense Ministry.
Russia uses sexual violence as weapon in its war against Ukraine. “Russia uses sexual violence as a weapon of war. We record such cases wherever the Russian military is stationed,” Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said during the meeting with UK’s MP Alicia Kearns in Munich. The two discussed ways to bring criminals to justice and compensate for damages at the expense of Russia.
ISW: Kadyrov likely rejected Wagner’s proposal to work against Russian Defense Ministry. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has likely rejected Russia’s Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s proposal to cooperate in a “renewed informational attack” against the Russian Defense Ministry, a D.C.-based think-tank analyzing the war said in its latest report.
The Kremlin said that Russia's relations with Moldova were very tense and it accused Moldovan leaders of pursuing an anti-Russian agenda, one week after Chisinau said it had foiled a Russian coup attempt.
US concerned China may provide Russia with weapons. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Feb. 18 that Washington has concerns that Beijing is considering supplying Moscow with "lethal support," such as weaponry.
China told the United States to keep out of its relationship with Russia, just as Beijing's top diplomat prepared for a visit to Moscow, and possibly a meeting with Vladimir Putin, to discuss ideas for peace in Ukraine.
Speaking ahead of a visit by China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, to Moscow today, President Zelensky said Kyiv would like Beijing “to be on our side” in an interview with Die Welt. He said:
For us, it is important that China does not support the Russian Federation in this war. In fact, I would like it to be on our side. At the moment, however, I don’t think it’s possible. But I do see an opportunity for China to make a pragmatic assessment of what is happening here. Because if China allies itself with Russia, there will be a world war, and I do think that China is aware of that.
US ambassador to UN: China would overstep line by supplying lethal support to Russia. In an interview with CNN, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said "that would be a red line" if China provided lethal aid to Russia.
Russia has been trying to gain intelligence to sabotage critical infrastructure in the Dutch part of the North Sea, according to the Dutch intelligence agency MIVD. A Russian ship was detected at an offshore windfarm in the North Sea as it tried to map out energy infrastructure, Reuters is reporting MIVD head General Jan Swillens saying at a news conference. Russia is “secretly charting this infrastructure and is undertaking activities which indicate preparations for disruption and sabotage”, they warned.
EU at the Munich Security Conference: The EU is urgently exploring ways for its member countries to team up to buy ammunition to help Ukraine, following warnings from Kyiv that its forces need more supplies quickly, diplomats and officials said. EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the idea of joint procurement of 155mm artillery shells at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.
Borrell: 'Ukrainians receive a lot of applause, but not enough ammunition.' European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell called upon the bloc's members to step up their military support for Ukraine, underscoring that "a lot of applause" is not helpful without actions. "(President Volodymyr) Zelensky and the Ukrainians get a lot of applause, but not enough ammunition," Borrell said. "It's a paradox. They need less applause and more weapons."
Bloomberg: EU members may agree to pool ammunition purchases for Ukraine in March. The proposal, which was put forward by Estonia and is estimated to cost €4 billion ($4.3 billion), won tentative approval from Romania and the Netherlands.
Ukraine sanctions Moscow Stock Exchange, Russian bankers. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law a new set of sanctions on Feb. 19, targeting 333 Russians connected to the banking sector and the Moscow Stock Exchange. The sanctions will be in effect for the next ten years.
Raiffeisen Bank International's shares suffered their worst daily drop since the onset of the Ukraine war, after news that the Austrian lender has drawn the attention of U.S. sanctions officials over its Russian business.
State Department says, Blinken and Erdogan discussed "supporting Ukraine as it defends itself from Russian aggression and emphasized the need to work more closely on bilateral issues, including defense, energy, trade, and collective security."
Japan planning to allocate further $5.5Bln in aid to Ukraine - Japanese PM Kishida. Speaking at a global forum in Tokyo, he also said he would mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by hosting an online Group of Seven (G7) summit with President Zelensky.
AFP: International talks aimed at taxing tech giants that do business in multiple countries but declare profits only in few jurisdictions have hit a standstill due to opposition from countries including the US and India, France's finance minister said Monday.
Minister: French armored vehicles to arrive in Ukraine next week. French AMX-10RC wheeled tank destroyers are set to arrive in Ukraine at the end of next week, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in an interview published on Feb. 18.
The Dutch government said it would close its consulate in St Petersburg, Russia, and that it would limit the number of Russian diplomats allowed at the Russian embassy in The Hague. “Russia keeps trying to secretly get intelligence agents into the Netherlands under cover of diplomacy. We cannot and shall not allow that,” the foreign minister, Wopke Hoekstra, said.
Meloni to visit Kyiv on Feb. 21. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is set to visit Kyiv on Feb. 21 and meet President Volodymyr Zelensky, Italian daily newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano reported on Feb. 19. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that Meloni would "soon" visit Kyiv.
Hungarian PM Orban said Europe was “indirectly at war with Russia” as several European countries pledge to send battle tanks to help Ukraine fight Moscow’s invasion. Landlocked Hungary is heavily reliant on Russian natural gas and crude oil imports, and Russian energy giant Rosatom is building a nuclear plant in the country based on a 2014 contract.
South Korea’s foreign minister, Park Jin, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the global attention on that war had emboldened North Korea which launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan’s west coast earlier in the day.
Casey Michel, America’s Cultural Institutions Are Quietly Fueled by Russian Corruption- Foreign Policy (2020)
A new database compiled by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective reveals that seven of these post-Soviet oligarchs connected to interference efforts have donated between $372 million and $435 million to more than 200 of the most prestigious non-profit institutions in the U.S. over the past two decades. The list of recipients covers the gauntlet: from prestigious think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations, to world-renowned universities such as Harvard and the University of Southern California, to cultural icons such as the New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
The most obvious question is: Why exactly do these oligarchs bankroll think tanks, universities, cultural centers, and religious groups? Unlike kleptocratic networks that stash their cash in assets such as real estate, hedge funds, and anonymous shell companies, there’s no possibility of money laundering through philanthropic donations.
Rather, the gifts appear to follow two specific threads. On the one hand, donating to institutions such as think tanks may be about establishing a potential toehold over policy decisions in Washington. The second primary reasoning behind such donations relates to so-called reputation laundering. Broadly speaking, reputation laundering refers to donors positioning themselves as philanthropists, obscuring links to prior business practices and relations with sanctioned oligarchs or kleptocratic regimes.
Left and right share the same messages
Over the past year, I’ve been monitoring messaging about Russia’s war against Ukraine, and what has been confirmed is that elements on the political left and right share the same basic messaging. It’s founded on anti-American sentiment, which sees the United States as an imperial power. I still can’t phathom why they can’t see that Russia is an imperial power, and authoritarian in nature to boot. I get it, but I really don’t. Sergej has provided an example of the messaging below, and this same left-wing politician could be found in Italy, as in France or Spain or The Netherlands.
Russian influence in Hungary- The Beet Podcast, Meduza
For Orbán and his government, the invasion came as a shock. And for a brief moment, it seemed as though Budapest would finally reverse its longstanding pro-Kremlin stance. But instead, Hungarian officials have opted to walk the line, supporting round after round of EU sanctions against Russia and welcoming more than 2.1 million Ukrainian refugees, while also blocking the passage of weapons through Hungarian territory to Ukraine, brandishing their EU veto power, and refusing to forsake Russian energy imports.
To find out more about Russian influence in Hungary and its impact on the Orbán government’s response to the war in Ukraine, The Naked Pravda sat down with three expert guests: (1:36) Journalist Szabolcs Panyi, (10:44) Andras Tóth-Czifra, and (14:14) Zsuzsanna Vegh.
AFP & Anna Smolchenko, 'Existential War': Putin Steels Russia for Long Conflict- The Moscow Times
When Russia introduced patriotism classes in primary and secondary schools last September, Tatyana Chervenko decided she was not going to peddle Kremlin "propaganda" to her eighth-grade students in Moscow.
Chervenko was motivated by her concern that authorities were using Soviet-style tools to foster patriotism and militarize society — just weeks before the Kremlin announced the first army call-up since World War II.
In December, after resisting mounting pressure from her employers, Chervenko was fired.
Political analysts and sociologists say that one year after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine, the Kremlin is putting society on a war footing and digging in for a years-long conflict. Sociologist Grigory Yudin said the Kremlin was preparing Russians for a "major, existential war" and the education system was being leveraged to meet that goal. "We are talking about a radical, complete transformation of education to mobilize Russian youth for war," Yudin told AFP.
Plokhy & Sarotte,The Shoals of Ukraine, Foreign Affairs (2020)
At first, it might seem surprising that Ukraine, a country on the fringes of Europe, is suddenly at the turbulent center of American politics and foreign policy. With an impeachment inquiry in Washington adding further detail to the story of the Trump administration’s efforts to tie U.S. security assistance for the country to Ukrainian cooperation in investigating President Donald Trump’s Democratic opponents, Trump’s presidency itself hangs in the balance. And the repercussions go even further, raising questions about the legitimacy and sustainability of U.S. power itself.
In fact, that Ukraine is at the center of this storm should not be surprising at all. Over the past quarter century, nearly all major efforts at establishing a durable post–Cold War order on the Eurasian continent have foundered on the shoals of Ukraine. For it is in Ukraine that the disconnect between triumphalist end-of-history delusions and the ongoing realities of great-power competition can be seen in its starkest form.
Programming note…
INews published our episode “Nika Gvaramia- Fight for Justice” featuring unseen footage. EuroFile thanks Inna Kurochkina and the team.