May 21 Buonasera Mag
Azovstal, Russia's sanctions list, $40B, Schroeder, Fascism, The Occupant
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.
Here are some other stories we’re following…
President Zelensky proposed a formal deal with the country’s allies to secure Russian compensation for the damage its forces have caused during the war.
Reuters: representatives from the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand walked out of an Asia-Pacific (APEC) trade ministers meeting in Bangkok today in protest, while the Russian representative was speaking.
Russia has declared victory in its months-long operation to capture Mariupol after Ukraine ordered the last of its troops holed up in the city’s Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms.
Russia’s Gazprom on Saturday halted gas exports to neighbouring Finland.
Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Dodik has told EU Council president Michel that Bosnia needs to maintain neutrality and will not join EU sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
President Biden signs Ukraine funding bill. The United States will provide nearly $40bn, or £32bn, in aid for Ukraine, according to a statement from the White House.
Finance ministers from the G7 group of nations have agreed on a further $9.5bn (£7.6bn) of financial aid for Ukraine - bringing their total commitment to almost $20bn (£16bn).
Canada has sanctioned Russian-born billionaire and newspaper owner Alexander Lebedev.Lebedev is one of 13 people included in the latest sanctions announced by Canada on Friday, including oligarchs with links to the Russian president’s regime and their family.
Interfax reports that Russian Transport Minister Savelyev said Western sanctions have “practically broken the entire logistics system” [for exports] in Russia, and now it’s necessary to find “new routes”.
Finally: the Financial Times has reported that former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has stepped down as chair of the board of Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil giant, after weeks of controversy over his refusal to distance himself from the Kremlin over the Ukraine invasion.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Moldova
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has disclosed that the UK has begun discussions with its international allies about sending modern weaponry to Moldova to protect it from Russia.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Truss said: “I would want to see Moldova equipped to Nato standard. This is a discussion we’re having with our allies.
“Putin has been absolutely clear about his ambitions to create a greater Russia – and just because his attempts to take Kyiv weren’t successful it doesn’t mean he’s abandoned those ambitions.”
Timothy Snyder, We Should Say It. Russia Is Fascist.
Fascism was never defeated as an idea.
As a cult of irrationality and violence, it could not be vanquished as an argument: So long as Nazi Germany seemed strong, Europeans and others were tempted. It was only on the battlefields of World War II that fascism was defeated. Now it’s back — and this time, the country fighting a fascist war of destruction is Russia. Should Russia win, fascists around the world will be comforted.
I was hesitant in the past to define Putin as ‘fascist’ but Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine confirmed this for me and Prof Snyder’s article above provides the analysis in this regard.
Interview with Olga Tokariuk, journalist with ORF TVThek
How could the Russian war against Ukraine end? What do the Ukrainian people want?
More fires in Russia…
The Russian sanctions list
Russia bans 963 Americans, including President Biden, from entering country; the published list includes President Biden, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the CIA chief, William Burns.
The Insider, Runet Sovereignty. How the Kremlin is building a national web with censorship even a VPN won't defeat
Under the pretext of war, the Kremlin began blocking access to independent media outlets on the Internet, including Dozhd and Ekho Moskvy, and The Insider stopped loading for many people. But this was only the beginning of the final phase of the battle against the free Internet, which is bound to culminate in the emergence of a «sovereign Runet».
The Occupant
On May 11, the online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda released a short documentary called “The Occupant” (“Okupant,” in Ukrainian), which tells the story of a Russian lieutenant named Yury Shalaev. According to the newspaper, 24-year-old Shalaev served as the commander of a motorized rifle platoon in a military unit based in Shali, Chechnya. He was deployed to Ukraine on March 3, as part of Russia’s full-scale invasion — and he recorded his wartime experiences on his phone. The newspaper’s journalists turned the recordings into a 24-minute documentary that offers a window into Shalaev’s life before and after his arrival in Ukraine.
They can always surrender…
Just for laughs…
We’re signing off…thanks for reading.
Mo & Scott