Europe
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
Biden, in Poland, calls Putin a “butcher,” gives a thunderous speech, and concludes with a call for regime change—
—And then walks it back. He just mispoke, his handlers say. Or we all misheard.
I don’t get it. The speech was excellent, actually. Why walk it back? Be aggressive and resolute—or be weak—but for God’s sake, don’t be both.
Ukraine
Russian artillery has damaged or destroyed (reports vary) a Holocaust Memorial in Kharkiv Oblast.
Russians are deporting Ukrainians from Mariupol to Russia en masse—at least 6,000 people have already been displaced. Russians reportedly force people on buses and take them to “filtration camps,” after which they’re sent to distant Russian cities.
This is exactly what the Soviet NKVD and Red Army did in central Europe in 1939 and again in 1945. The very same.
Medvedev’s speech
Russian ex-president and deputy head of security council Dmitry Medvedev gave a speech today in which he claimed Russia’s war with Ukraine had killed the unipolar order, hailed the strength of the emerging Russia-China-India bloc, and laid out the conditions under which Russia would use nuclear weapons.
Number one is the situation when Russia is struck by a nuclear missile. The second case is any use of other nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies. The third is an attack on a critical infrastructure that will have paralyzed our nuclear deterrent forces. And the fourth case is when an act of aggression is committed against Russia and its allies, which jeopardized the existence of the country itself, even without the use of nuclear weapons, that is, with the use of conventional weapons.
Hardly reassuring, given the recent statements from the Kremlin indicating that it views the West as an existential threat.
He also claimed Russia-West tensions were worse than the Cold War when, he noted, the US didn’t try to impose individual sanctions on Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev, and said avenues for dialogue were even more narrow.
India responded with puzzlement, having been unaware it was part of this emerging bloc.
Also, in a speech in the Moscow City Duma, Russian Deputy Sergei Savostyanov suggested that the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine was going so well that Russia shouldn’t stop there:
In addition to Ukraine, in order to gain a more complete process of ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, in addition to Ukraine, it is advisable to include the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), Poland, Moldova and Kazakhstan in the zone of denazification and demilitarization.
Russia’s Kyiv offensive stalls, as Ukrainians counterattack in the south. The stalemated Russian assault has been a major headache for the Kremlin, but US officials warn of new troops on the move toward Ukraine.
Dmitry Vitalievich Bulgakov is now the Acting Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation:
Elsewhere in Europe
Azerbaijan enters Russian peacekeeper’ zone in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azeri forces executed four strikes using Bayraktar TB-2 drones on units of the armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the area of the settlement of Furukh.
EU recovery fund could be repurposed over Ukraine, German finance minister says. Huge. Before this fund was formed in 20202, Germany resisted any sort of combined EU debt raising capacity As Peter Zeihan put it:
Now Germany—“I’m-not-paying-for-your-mistakes” Germany—is suggesting the EU raise more debt to finance a war versus Russia. In many ways this is a bigger and more effective step than Germany asking EU members to deploy their militaries to Ukraine to fight Russia directly. Not only does it put all EU members’ financial futures behind the effort, it’s an attempt to lash the entire global financial system to an anti-Russian effort, with the EU spearheading the process.
This speech, by French Senator Claude Malhuret, is superb. If you need subtitles, just go to the gear symbol, choose “Subtitles,” then choose the target language. It’s best in French, though; he’s an elegant and fluent speaker.
“Don’t Leave the Space Open.” How the West Can Defeat Putin in Cyberspace and Beyond. Victories in cyber and information warfare should be a model for confronting the Russian military, says Molly McKew, a longtime adviser to former Soviet republics on information warfare.
Blundering into a nuclear war in Ukraine: a hypothetical scenario:
NTI experts believe that the most likely use of nuclear weapons in any scenario would be unintentional—that humanity would blunder into a nuclear war. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a prime example of a regional conflict that could inadvertently escalate beyond any of the protagonists’ expectations. History is replete with similar instances of humanity stumbling into devastating conflict.
What follows is a hypothetical scenario illustrating just one possible pathway to a global, catastrophic nuclear war. …
Middle East
The United States’ clueless diplomacy won’t stop a nuclear Iran. A new nuclear deal will strengthen the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps without derailing the regime’s long-term ambitions.
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