Nov 8 Buonasera Mag
Day 258: COP27, US arms to UA, Reznikov, RU oil in Cuba, Putin & escalation, Vika Tsyganova, Zeitenwende, Chinese operations in Canada, Dr Ben Schmitt
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.
Since I’m travelling, EuroFile will be published in a reduced format. It’ll be business as usual by Saturday.
Stories we’re following…
Roger Harrabin, Why scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis- The Guardian
More and more scientists are now admitting publicly that they are scared by the recent climate extremes, such as the floods in Pakistan and west Africa, the droughts and heatwaves in Europe and east Africa, and the rampant ice melt at the poles.
That is not because an increase in extremes was not predicted. It was always high on the list of concerns alongside longer-term issues such as sea level rise. It is the suddenness and ferocity of recent events that is alarming researchers, combined with the ill-defined threat of tipping points, by which aspects of heating would become unstoppable.
Joshua Yaffa, Inside the U.S. Effort to Arm Ukraine- The New Yorker
(This is a superb long read article- please take time to read through the entire piece.)
Since the start of the Russian invasion, the Biden Administration has provided valuable intelligence and increasingly powerful weaponry—a risky choice that has paid off in the battle against Putin.
Washington encouraged Ukraine to rely on judicious planning and the efficiency of Western weaponry rather than try to outshoot the Russian military. NATO had chosen a similar strategy in the latter stages of the Cold War, when it found itself with far fewer tanks and artillery than the Soviet Union. “We told the Ukrainians if they try and fight like the Russians, they will lose,” the senior Defense Department official said. “Our mission was to help Ukraine compensate for quantitative inferiority with qualitative superiority.”
Ukraine has a fleet of reconnaissance drones and a loose network of human sources within areas controlled by the Russian military, but its ability to gather intelligence on the battlefield greatly diminishes about fifteen miles beyond the front line. U.S. spy satellites, meanwhile, can capture snapshots of troop positions anywhere on earth. Closer to the ground, U.S. military spy planes, flying along the borders, augment the picture, and intelligence intercepts can allow analysts to listen in on communications between Russian commanders. Since the invasion, the U.S. and other Western partners have shared a great deal of this information with Ukraine. Mykola Bielieskov, a defense expert at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, in Kyiv, said, “That’s a major field where the U.S. is helping us.”
Funding Russia’s war…
Amid economic and political turmoil, Cuba has received at least $322 million worth of oil from Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine as authorities struggle to offset diminished shipments from close ally Venezuela, according to estimates by oil industry experts.
The 4 million barrels of Urals crude oil received by Cuba “is the largest quantity since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Jorge Piñón, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center who closely tracks oil shipments to the island.
The figure marks a significant increase compared to recent years when Cuba received $35 million worth of Russian petroleum in 2017 and $55.5 million in 2018, but nothing in the following years, according to United Nations data on world trade. And it turns the Caribbean island into another market for oil from Russia, helping the country evade international sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine while keeping its industry afloat.
“All of this is very convenient for Russia because, due to the sanctions, Russian ports are full of oil tankers,” Piñón said. “This allows them to continue to monetize the oil instead of shutting down wells, which are expensive to reopen later.”
Farida Rustamova & Maxim Tovkaylo, "Putin Always Chooses Escalation"- Faridaily
Over the last few weeks, we have spoken to 15 civil servants, parliamentary deputies, and executives at public and private companies. More than half were senior managers. All of our sources in the elite — who all spoke on the condition of anonymity — said the military conflict will only escalate in the coming months. Yet none can predict what will happen if Russia loses.
Almost all of our interviewees said they could see mobilization coming. “It was obvious the military needed more men. And it was clear the announcement would come after the [local] elections. And after the vote, it all happened,” recalled a high-ranking federal official.
“One source who regularly attends meetings in the Kremlin described the events as follows: “The Ukrainian offensive finally gave the generals an excuse to push through the decision to mobilize. Everywhere the generals voiced the need for more resources. They called for a critical mass of boots on the ground. It's like when renovating a house. Initially, the workmen promise to do everything on time and with the available resources, and then something goes wrong, and they tell you: ‘Well, what did you expect? We don’t have this and that.’ The generals pulled the wool over our eyes.”
Daniel Malloy, What does ‘Zeitenwende’ mean anyway?- Atlantic Council
Put simply, the Zeitenwende marks the beginning of a new history. We must adjust our minds accordingly, and actions will follow. To understand the Zeitenwende, however, one has to comprehend our different concepts of security.
Germany’s much-criticized philosophy of change through trade was neither greedy nor new. After all, the American revolutionary Thomas Paine said in the eighteenth century that free trade would extirpate the system of war. No one gains from war; everyone loses. Bringing about change through trade instead of war is based on trust as the core of all communities, from local to global. But not everyone accepts common rules, so a robust defense is always necessary against rogue actors.
Sam Cooper, Canadian intelligence warned PM Trudeau that China covertly funded 2019 election candidates: Sources- Global News
Canadian intelligence officials have warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference, which includes funding a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election, according to Global News sources.
Based on recent information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), those efforts allegedly involve payments through intermediaries to candidates affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), placing agents into the offices of MPs in order to influence policy, seeking to co-opt and corrupt former Canadian officials to gain leverage in Ottawa, and mounting aggressive campaigns to punish Canadian politicians whom the People’s Republic of China (PRC) views as threats to its interests.
Americans are at the polls- latest Radicalized Pod ep with Ruth Ben-Ghiat
New from Iran…
