U.S. Technology, a Longtime Tool for Russia, Becomes a Vulnerability
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WASHINGTON — With magnifying glasses, screwdrivers and a delicate touch from a soldering gun, two men from an investigative group that tracks weapons pried open Russian munitions and equipment that had been captured across Ukraine.
Over a week’s visit to Ukraine last month, the investigators pulled apart every piece of advanced Russian hardware they could get their hands on, such as small laser range finders and guidance sections of cruise missiles. The researchers, who were invited by the Ukrainian security service to independently analyze advanced Russian gear, found that almost all of it included parts from companies based in the United States and the European Union: microchips, circuit boards, engines, antenna and other equipment.
“Advanced Russian weapons and communications systems have been built around Western chips,” said Damien Spleeters, one of the investigators with Conflict Armament Research, which identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition. He added that Russian companies had enjoyed access to an “unabated supply” of Western technology for decades.
U.S. officials have long been proud of their country’s ability to supply technology and munitions to the rest of the world. But since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the United States has faced an unfortunate reality: The tools that Russian forces are using to wage war are often powered by American innovation.
Still, while the technology made by American and European companies has been turned against Ukraine, the situation has also given the United States and its allies an important source of leverage against Russia. The United States and dozens of countries have used export bans to cut off shipments of advanced technology, hobbling Russia’s ability to produce weapons to replace those that have been destroyed in the war, according to American and European officials.
On Thursday, the Biden administration announced further sanctions and restrictions on Russia and Belarus, adding 71 organizations to a government list that prevents them from buying advanced technology. The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against a yacht-management company that caters to Russian oligarchs.
While some analysts have urged caution about drawing early conclusions, saying the measures will take time to have a full effect, the Biden administration has called them a success. Since Western allies announced extensive restrictions on exports of semiconductors, computers, lasers, telecommunications equipment and other goods in February, Russia has had difficulty obtaining microchips to replenish its supply of precision-guided munitions, according to one senior U.S. official, who, along with most other officials interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters based on intelligence.
On Tuesday, when asked if a chip shortage was crippling the Russian military, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who oversees export controls, said the answer was “an unqualified yes.”
“U.S. exports to Russia in the categories where we have export controls, including semiconductors, are down by over 90 percent since Feb. 24,” she said. “So that is crippling.”
The restrictions halt direct technological exports from the United States and dozens of partner nations to Russia. But they also go beyond traditional wartime sanctions issued by the U.S. government by placing limitations on certain high-tech goods that are manufactured anywhere in the world using American machinery, software or blueprints. That means countries that are not in the sanctions coalition with the United States and Europe must also follow the rules or potentially face their own sanctions.
Russia has stopped publishing monthly trade data since the invasion, but customs data from its major trading partners show that shipments of essential parts and components have fallen sharply. According to data compiled by Matthew C. Klein, an economics researcher who tracks the effect of the export controls, Russian imports of manufactured goods from nine major economies for which data is available were down 51 percent in April compared with the average from September 2021 to February 2022.
The restrictions have rendered the old-school bombing runs on tank factories and shipyards of past wars unnecessary, Mr. Klein wrote. “The democracies can replicate the effect of well-targeted bombing runs with the right set of sanctions precisely because the Russian military depends on imported equipment.”
Russia is one of the world’s largest arms exporters, especially to India, but its industry relies heavily on imported inputs. In 2018, Russian sources satisfied only about half of the military-related equipment and services the country needed, such as transportation equipment, computers, optical equipment, machinery and fabricated metal, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development compiled by Mr. Klein.
The remainder of equipment and services used by Russia were imported, with about a third coming from the United States, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and other partner governments that imposed sanctions together on Moscow.
U.S. officials say that in concert with a wide variety of other sanctions that ban or discourage commercial relations, the export controls have been highly effective. They have pointed to Russian tank factories that have furloughed workers and struggled with shortages of parts. The U.S. government has also received reports that the Russian military is scrambling to find parts for satellites, avionics and night vision goggles, officials say.
Technology restrictions have harmed other Russian industries as well, U.S. officials say. Equipment for the oil and gas industry has been degraded, maintenance for tractors and heavy equipment made by Caterpillar and John Deere has halted, and up to 70 percent of the commercial airplanes operated by Russian airlines, which no longer receive spare parts and maintenance from Airbus and Boeing, are grounded, officials say.
But some experts have sounded notes of caution. Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va., voiced skepticism about some claims that the export controls were forcing some tank factories and other defense companies in Russia to shutter.
“There’s not been much evidence to substantiate reports of problems in Russia’s defense sector,” he said. It was still too early in the war to expect meaningful supply chain problems in Russia’s defense industry, he said, and the sourcing for those early claims was unclear.
Maria Snegovaya, a visiting scholar at George Washington University who has studied sanctions on Russia, said the lack of critical technologies and maintenance was likely to start being felt widely across Russian industry in the fall, as companies run out of parts and supplies or need upkeep on equipment. She and other analysts said even the production of daily goods such as printer paper would be affected; Russian companies had bought the dye to turn the paper white from Western companies.
“We expect random disruptions in Russia’s production chains to manifest themselves more frequently,” Ms. Snegovaya said. “The question is: Are Russian companies able to find substitutes?”
U.S. officials say the Russian government and companies there have been looking for ways to get around the controls but have so far been largely unsuccessful. The Biden administration has threatened to penalize any company that helps Russia evade sanctions by cutting it off from access to U.S. technology.
In an interview last month, Ms. Raimondo said the United States was not seeing any systematic circumvention of the export controls by any country, including China, which aligned itself with Russia before and during the invasion of Ukraine. Companies were making independent decisions not to engage with Russia, even though the country was “trying very hard to get around” the global coalition of allies that had imposed export controls, Ms. Raimondo said.
“The world knows just how very serious we are, and our allies are, about prosecuting any violation,” she said. “There will be real consequences for any companies or countries that do try to get around the export controls.”
Chinese trade data also suggest that most companies are following the restrictions. Although China has continued to buy Russian energy, Chinese exports to the country have fallen sharply since the invasion.
But Mr. Spleeters said Russia’s military had used creative methods to get around past restrictions on technology imports — such as buying foreign products by way of front companies, third countries or civil distributors — and could turn to the same methods to circumvent sanctions.
Mr. Spleeters’s research has revealed efforts by some actors to disguise the presence of Western technology in Russian equipment. During his trip to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Mr. Spleeters and his colleague unscrewed three casings holding advanced Azart encrypted radios, which provide secure communication channels for Russian forces.
They found that the first two contained microchips with parts of their manufacturing marks carefully obliterated, seemingly an effort to disguise their origin. But inside the third radio was an identical chip that had slipped by its Russian censors, showing it had been made by a company based in the United States. (Mr. Spleeters said his group would not publicize the names of the manufacturers until he had sent requests for information to each company asking how its wares ended up in the hands of the Russian military.)
Mr. Spleeters said it was not clear who had altered the markings or when the chips were delivered to Russia, though he said the attempt to mask their origin was intentional. In 2014, after the Russian invasion of Crimea, the United States imposed restrictions that were largely unilateral on shipping Russian high-technology items that could help its military abilities.
“It was neatly erased, maybe with a tool to take out just one line of markings,” Mr. Spleeters said. “Someone knew exactly what they were doing.”
Whether the recently imposed sanctions would result in a fundamental reduction of these kinds of supplies to Moscow was unclear, he said, given that Russia has such a large stockpile of Western technology.
His team also dissected the remnants of three different Russian surveillance drones, two of them called Orlan and Tachyon and one previously unknown model that Ukrainian officials called Kartograf. Inside the Orlan, they found six separate parts from companies with headquarters in the United States, and one each from companies based in Switzerland and Japan. In the other two drones, they pulled parts from corporations in the United States as well as in China, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan.
As Mr. Spleeters and his colleague worked, he asked a member of the Ukrainian security service about their findings of Western parts powering Russian weapons.
“It’s just business,” the officer replied.
“It’s a big business, and people were just selling chips and not caring or not able to know what they’d be used for eventually,” Mr. Spleeters said of the Western electronics companies. “I don’t think they’d be able to know who’d use them and for what purpose.”
The unpalatable truth in Ukraine
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At one point in the novel “Sign of the Four,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s inimitable detective Sherlock Holmes explains and demonstrates to Dr. Watson his method of observation and deduction. Confronted with an apparently inexplicable circumstance, Dr. Watson is utterly perplexed. He simply cannot understand how the event in question came to pass, given the facts as he understands them and the laws of nature. Slightly irritated at his plodding companion’s bafflement, Holmes once again shares with him the methodological key to solving all such mysteries: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
And the truth is, once we have eliminated all the impossible scenarios, the least improbable outcome of the war in Ukraine is a Russian victory.
Note that I did not say such an outcome would be desirable. Russia’s inevitable victory is anything but. Nor did I say it would be total. The outcome of this war is going to fall far short of the Kremlin’s initial hopes and expectations. Nor, finally, did I say it would be without significant cost. Any conceivable Russian victory now will entail such a loss of blood and treasure that it will have to be judged Pyrrhic at best.
But it will be a victory nonetheless — and we in the West had better come to grips with that hard truth.
Let’s begin by eliminating the impossible.
The first unrealistic endgame is the reduction of Ukraine to a vassal state of the Russian empire. This would entail the kind of operation initially envisioned by the Kremlin: a quick decapitating military strike, the installation of a pro-Moscow regime in Kyiv and either the formal incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Federation or its informal incorporation into a Russian sphere of influence (like Belarus).
While perhaps the initial objective of Russia’s “special military operation,” this outcome is now obviously an impossibility. Russia did not have the ability to impose this vision in February, and it is decidedly less able to impose it 100 days later. Indeed, even the Russians themselves have conceded as much. Their rhetoric and military operations suggest that even they believe such an outcome to be beyond the realm of the possible.
The second impossible scenario is the total defeat of the Russian military and the restoration of Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders. In this scenario, the Ukrainian military, having blunted the initial Russian offensive, launches a successful counter-offensive that ultimately drives the Russians not only out of the territories they captured in 2022 but out of the Donbas and Crimea as well. The resulting political dispensation would be an independent Ukraine restored to its internationally recognized borders and free to join NATO and/or associate with the European Union (EU) as it saw fit.
While advocated by many within and beyond Ukraine, this outcome is simply impossible. Whatever the shortcomings displayed by Russian forces in the opening phase of the war – when they were first stopped at the gates of Kyiv and then driven from the north of the country altogether – recent battlefield developments suggest that they have found their footing and are not going to be pushed out of the territories taken in 2014.
Indeed, there is no reason to believe that they will even be displaced from much of the territory they have seized along the coast of the Sea of Azov. While there will doubtless be shifts on the battlefield as a result of offensives here and counter-offensives there, the correlation of forces simply do not augur a total victory for Ukraine. So, despite the willful delusions of some and the idealistic hopes others, this outcome is simply impossible.
The third and final impossible scenario is a limited Ukrainian victory that would reverse all or most of the Russian gains since Feb. 24, 2022. In this scenario, while the Donbas and Crimea remain in Russian hands, all the territory captured by Russia since its recent re-invasion would be liberated by Ukrainian forces and restored to Ukrainian control.
While once viewed as a realistic outcome, by now it should be obvious that this is impossible. Just as Ukraine lacks the ability to liberate all its pre-2014 territory, it also lacks the ability to liberate the recently conquered territory in the Donbas or along the Azov coast. Unlike in the north of Ukraine, these territories are central to Russian interests in Ukraine and, as such, Russia simply will not withdraw from them as it withdrew from Kyiv earlier in the war. Nor will Ukrainian forces – themselves, it should be noted, suffering terrible attrition all along the battle front and growing weaker with each passing day – be strong enough to compel them to do so. No, like the previous two scenarios, this one is simply an impossibility.
And that leaves only one other conceivable outcome: a fragmented and partly dismembered Ukraine, neither fully part of the West nor entirely within the Russian sphere of influence. A Ukraine fragmented in that the whole of the Donbas and perhaps other territories will be left beyond Kyiv’s control; partly dismembered in that Crimea will remain part of Russia (at least in Russian eyes); and not fully part of the West in that it will not be free to join NATO or even to have a meaningful partnership with the EU. Simply put, this outcome is not only not impossible, it’s not even improbable.
And when this final scenario comes to pass, who will have won the war in Ukraine?
Well, it won’t be Ukraine. While such an outcome will satisfy the basic existential goals of Kyiv, it will be a far cry from the more maximalist ambitions expressed both before and after Feb. 24. No, when this scenario inevitably comes to pass, it will clearly be a defeat for Kyiv.
Similarly, such an outcome will not satisfy the maximalist ambitions of those in Moscow who thought that their initial thunder run would resolve the Ukraine issue once and for all. But it will satisfy the Kremlin’s most basic and fundamental geopolitical desideratum: a neutralized Ukraine beyond both the geopolitical ambit of NATO and the geoeconomic orbit of the EU. It will also “restore” Crimea to its rightful place in Russia. And finally, it will demonstrate that interfering in Russia’s natural sphere of influence is unwise. In these ways, when the impossible has been eliminated, the resulting outcome will clearly be a victory for Moscow.
All of which suggests that, at the end of the day, it might be necessary to tweak Holmes’s aphorism just a bit. At least when it comes to thinking about the possible outcomes of the war in Ukraine, perhaps it ought to read something more like: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable unpalatable, must be the truth.”
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Exclusive: Putin Treated for Cancer in April, U.S. Intelligence Report Says
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"Война может закончиться в любой момент". У Зеленского рассказали о другой математике боевых действий
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"Война может закончиться через месяц, а может закончиться до зимы. Война - это не только математика на поле боя - сколько выстрелов у нас, сколько у Российской Федерации. Сегодня на востоке мы, к сожалению, имеем определенную концентрацию ресурсов у россиян, техники и живой силы, и имеем очень интенсивные боевые действия. Завтра у нас будет больше ресурсов, с которыми нам помогут наши партнеры, и тогда математика будет другой", - объяснил он.
По словам Подоляка, получив все необходимое от Запада, украинская армия перейдет в "более интенсивное контрнаступление".
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Цитата:
31 мая. 2022 г.
Цитата:
3 июн. 2022 г.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Ukraine foreign minister lambasts France's Macron for saying Russia should not be "humiliated"
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Ukraine's foreign minister reacted angrily to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron that "we must not humiliate Russia."
Macron has kept a line of communication open with the Kremlin and flew to Moscow in February in a failed effort to deter Russia from invading Ukraine.
In an interview published Saturday, Macron said in an interview with regional newspapers in France: "We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means. I am convinced that it is France's role to be a mediating power."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Saturday that "calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it. Because it is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives."
Ukrainian officials have been swift to reject any proposals suggesting territory be ceded to Russia as part of peace negotiations. Russia currently occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine.
"I think, and I told [Putin], that he is making a historic and fundamental mistake for his people, for himself and for history," Macron said in his interview. Macron has not been to Ukraine since the invasion but said he is open to the possibility.
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‘Unbelievable’: Turkey gives Lithuanian crowdfunders free drone for Ukraine
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A Turkish defence contractor has agreed to donate the $6m (£4.7m) armed unmanned drone, which Lithuania was crowdfunding for, in support of Ukraine’s war against Russian invaders.
The donation of the Bayraktar TB2 drone is part of what appears to be a tightening of security and defence ties between Ankara and Vilnius ahead of a critical Nato summit in Madrid later this month.
“It is unbelievable, but Turkey just agreed to give the Bayraktar that Lithuania gathered money for free!” Lithuania defence minister Arvydas Anusauskas wrote on Thursday in a tweet sprinkled with capital letters, exclamation points and emojis.
The millions raised so far as part of a Lithuanian journalist’s campaign to buy the drone would be spent on buying precision missiles for the unmanned aerial vehicle and providing other support for Ukraine, he wrote.
The weapon, produced by Istanbul-based Baykar Technologies, has been made famous by its effective use by Ukrainian forces against the invading Russians. A photo released on Thursday showed Mr Anusauskas’s deputy, Vilius Semaska, posing next to a Bayraktar TB2 alongside Baykar top executives Haluk and Selcuk Bayraktar, a son-in-law of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The people of Lithuania have honourably raised funds to buy a Bayraktar TB2 for Ukraine,” Baykar said in a statement. “Upon learning this, Baykar will gift a Bayraktar TB2 to Lithuania free of charge and asks those funds go to Ukraine for humanitarian aid.”
Television journalist and activist Andrius Tapinas raised the money in three-and-a-half days, mostly with donations of less than £50, according to a press release.
“We are also delivering a powerful challenge for every European,” Mr Tapinas was quoted as saying in the press announcement. “Put pressure on your stars, your businesses, and your politicians, by asking them: why can’t we do the same [that] this crazy country has done in just a few days.”
News about Turkey’s donation of the drone came a day after Mr Semaska signed a deal that would pave the way for cooperation with Turkey’s Defence Industry Agency, which oversees the country’s arms industry. By law, Ankara must approve any arms exports.
“The acquisition of combat drones is in the plans, possibly a Bayraktar, too,” Mr Anusaskas told reporters on Tuesday, declining to elaborate on specific purchases. “What previously seemed unconvincing or inappropriate for our conditions is changing, and attitudes are changing.”
The two Nato countries will both attend a potentially contentious 29 June summit in Madrid, where the military alliance will discuss allowing Sweden and Finland into the bloc.
Turkey has opposed entry by the two long-neutral countries over their alleged support for autonomy-minded Kurdish organisations that Ankara considers a security threat.
Lithuania, like the other two Baltic states Estonia and Latvia, is gaining influence and prominence as among the most outspoken and active members of the ad hoc coalition backing Ukraine against Russian invaders. All three former Soviet republics are among the top five donors to Ukraine by percentage of GDP.
US national security advisor Jake Sullivan held a call with counterparts from the Baltic states, all historically menaced by various Moscow rulers, in which he “underscored the ironclad US commitment to Nato’s Article 5,” which would trigger alliance-wide intervention in any attack on a member, according to a White House press release.
Kövér László szerint Zelenszkij elnöknek pszichés problémája van
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Kövér Lászlót a nemzeti összetartozás napján arról kérdezte a Hír TV riportere, hogy ha vége a háborúnak, számítania kell-e a kárpátaljai magyarságnak valamiféle retorzióra az ukrán kormány részéről. A házelnök válaszában kifejtette, hogy Volodimir Zelenszkij magatartása előtt értetlenül áll:
„Amióta az eszemet tudom és figyelem a világpolitika eseményeit (...), nem emlékszem rá, hogy egy segítségre szoruló, bajban lévő ország vezetője olyan hangot mert volna megütni bárkivel szemben, mint amilyen hangot Zelenszkij elnök úr nem csak Magyarországgal szemben, hanem akár a német kancellárral szemben is megüt. Általában (...) aki segítségre szorul, az kérni szokott udvariasan, persze konokul, kitartóan, de mindig csak kérni, sohasem követelőzni és végképp nem fenyegetőzni. Fenyegetőzni az ember általában az ellenségeivel szemben szokott, azokkal szemben, akit barátul akar megnyerni, ritkán.
Itt van egy személyes, pszichés probléma, amivel én a magam részéről nem tudok mit kezdeni - mondta.
Kövér szerint pedig a kárpátaljai magyarságnak van félnivalója a háború után az ukránoktól. „Nagyon oda kell figyelnünk, hogy nehogy véletlenül a nagyobb baj örve alatt valakinek eszébe jusson szépen elintézni a magyar kisebbség, a magyar közösség kérdését. Mondjuk egy olyan nyomással, ami arra késztetné a közösségünk tagjait, hogy hagyják ott a szülőföldjüket 1100 esztendő után” - mondta olyan mozdulat kíséretében, mint amikor az ember lesöpri a tenyeréről a koszt.
Report: Merkel slams war in Ukraine, hints at next role
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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has slammed Russia's attack on Ukraine and suggested a possible return to the limelight in her first semi-public comments since leaving office, the country's dpa news agency reported Thursday.
Speaking at a trade union event late Wednesday, Merkel reportedly said she felt the need to address the war in Ukraine despite not wanting to provide any commentary from the sidelines, having stepped down as chancellor last December.
Dpa quoted the former long-time leader saying she supported “all efforts by the German government as well as the European Union, the United States, our partners in the G-7, in NATO and the U.N. to stop the barbaric war of attack by Russia.”
Merkel also expressed solidarity with Ukraine and said she supported Kyiv's right to self-defense, dpa reported.
It was unclear whether Merkel addressed the criticism directed at her by Ukrainian officials for backing energy deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin even after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. Her office didn't immediately respond to a request for a transcript of the speech.
The 67-year-old also emphasized the importance of unity within the European Union's 27 nations, saying everyone should contribute to the goal of unity on the continent, according to dpa.
Merkel hinted that she herself might play a role in that at the European level going forward.
“I will have to disappoint those who are counting on me disappearing,” dpa quoted her as saying.
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Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, says Emmanuel Macron
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Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has said, to allow an improvement in diplomatic relations between the west and Moscow whenever the war comes to an end.
The French president said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had made a “historic and fundamental” error in invading Ukraine, but that nevertheless a wider escalation in hostilities had to be avoided.
Giving an interview to a group of regional newspapers in his home country, Macron said: “We must not humiliate Russia so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels.”
The role of France was to be that of “a mediating power”, the president added, saying he had put “time and energy” into ensuring the conflict did not escalate into a wider war, including negotiating with the Russian president.
“I have lost count of the conversations I have had with Vladimir Putin since December,” Macron said. They amounted to 100 hours’ worth, he added, which were “at the request of” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Macron has consistently sought to engage directly with Putin and has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the conflict, including on an 80-minute phone call at the end of last month with the Russian leader and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
That has led to periodic accusations that the French leader wants Ukraine to make concessions to secure a peace agreement, although the Élysée Palace says any peace agreement must be negotiated between Putin and Zelenskiy, showing “due respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
None of the discussions, however, appear to have borne fruit. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passed the 100-day mark on Friday, with little sign of the war ending amid heavy fighting in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk.
Macron said he believed Putin had “isolated himself” and did not know what to do next. “Isolating oneself is one thing, but being able to get out of it is a difficult path,” the French president added.
Elsewhere, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said overnight he had spoken to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, in his efforts to deal with Ankara’s resistance to Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance.
Stoltenberg said he had “a constructive phone call” with Erdoğan and welcomed Turkey’s efforts to reach a maritime agreement between Russia and Ukraine to allow for the resumption of food exports from Ukraine’s blockaded ports.
Turkey is threatening to block the accession of Finland and Sweden, who have sought to join Nato in the aftermath of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, accusing the two countries of supporting Kurdish figures Ankara says are terrorists.
Erdoğan’s office said the president had emphasised that Sweden and Finland should “make it clear that they have stopped supporting terrorism”, lift defence export restrictions placed on Turkey, and be “ready to show alliance solidarity”.
The two Nordic countries had imposed curbs after Turkey launched a military operation to take control of areas in Syria previously held by the country’s Kurdish minority. Stoltenberg tweeted late on Friday that he discussed with Marin “the need to address Turkey’s concerns and move forward” to ensure the Finnish and Swedish membership applications were approved.
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Продолжение поста от 04.06.2022 г. следует…
Последний раз редактировалось: Dimitriy (05.06.2022 0:49), всего редактировалось 1 раз
Enemy tongue: eastern Ukrainians reject their Russian birth language
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Gamlet Zinkivskyi grew up speaking Russian in the city of Kharkiv, just like his parents. But when Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, it was the final push for him to switch fully to Ukrainian.
“Unfortunately, I grew up speaking Russian, but it’s not pleasant to speak the same language as the army that is destroying whole areas of our country,” said Zinkivskyi, a 35-year-old street artist widely known to Kharkiv residents, who usually refer to him by his first name.
The switch of language is part of a broader journey towards a more pronounced Ukrainian identity for Zinkivskyi, something shared by many in the largely Russian-speaking areas of east and south Ukraine. It is a process which has become more pronounced in the past three months, but it has been brewing for some years.
As a young artist, Zinkivskyi had a longstanding dream: an exhibition in Moscow. Kharkiv is just a few dozen miles from the border with Russia and has long been almost entirely Russian-speaking. Culturally, Moscow felt like the centre of the universe. But when Zinkivskyi finally made it to a gallery there in 2012, he was horrified. “They were obnoxious and patronising about Kharkiv and Ukraine, and frankly I thought: fuck them,” he said. He returned to Kharkiv and became more focused on the Ukrainian art scene.
After the annexation of Crimea, in 2014, Zinkivskyi started trying to speak some Ukrainian with a few friends. Now he has fully switched, and for the first time is also introducing political and patriotic themes into his art.
The language issue is something that comes up again and again in Kharkiv. Oleksandra Panchenko, a 22-year-old interior designer, said that since 2014 she had been trying hard to improve her Ukrainian, but conceded that she still often speaks Russian with friends.
However, she is adamant that by the time she has children, she will be fluent enough to speak only Ukrainian at home. “I grew up in a Russian-language family, my kids will grow up in a Ukrainian-language family,” she said.
Back in 2014, there were separatist rumblings in Kharkiv, with some people looking to the swift annexation of Crimea and wondering if all of eastern Ukraine might not be better off inside Russia. But eight years of observing the miserable conditions in the Russian proxy states of Donetsk and Luhansk dampened those feelings, and Russia’s invasion has almost entirely extinguished them.
Panchenko, who has painted her nails blue and yellow and describes herself as a staunch patriot, made a guess at the political allegiances of Kharkiv residents before the war, based on her broad circle of acquaintances. About 10% of the city used to be what are disparagingly known as vatniki – aggressively pro-Russian – she said. She described 30% as being like her, “Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine”, and 50% were “neutral – they felt Ukrainian but not that strongly”.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has pushed people in this neutral category more firmly into the patriotic camp, creating a much broader and more passionate pro-Ukrainian base than ever existed previously, particularly in the east of the country.
“There were a lot of neutral people here, but as soon as it came to the war, a lot of them decided to fight,” said Vsevolod Kozhemyako, a businessman who runs an agricultural company and once featured on the Forbes list of the 100 richest Ukrainians.
Kozhemyako was skiing in Europe when the war began, and left his family to return to Ukraine and set up a volunteer battalion. His unit has been based close to the frontline outside Kharkiv, in settlements that have come under relentless Russian fire.
Three out of four of Kozhemyako’s grandparents were Russian, and during the Soviet era his passport listed his nationality as Russian. However, he said that ever since the Orange Revolution of 2004 he had been a strong Ukrainian patriot and rejected the influence of Russia in Ukraine.
“Russians and Ukrainians are absolutely different. I am Russian-speaking, I think in Russian and I have three-quarter Russian blood, but the part of Ukrainian blood in me made its mark,” he said in an interview in Kharkiv city centre, where he now allows himself the occasional day away from his unit.
Kozhemyako and Zinkivskyi are old acquaintances, and when the artist told the businessman he wanted to sign up, Kozhemyako welcomed him to the battalion, but told him he should fight with a paintbrush and not a gun. Since then, Zinkivskyi has been busy painting slogans on buildings damaged by Russian missiles. He also crossed out the street signs on Pushkin Street and renamed it English Street, which he says is recognition of British military support for Ukraine.
“Gamlet is very patriotic and his works are quite philosophical,” said Kozhemyako. “They make people think in the direction of a new Ukraine. This is very important, especially now.”
The geographical and cultural variations inside Ukraine were one of the reasons why Putin and other Russian leaders tried to claim the country was an artificial construct. Instead, they now find their bloody invasion has done more than anything to bring the different parts of Ukraine together under a common identity, in opposition to Moscow.
The Russian invasion has simultaneously given those who might be neutral in their allegiances a stark choice about what kind of country they want to identify with, and provided a rallying point that allows for a broad and inclusive idea of what it means to be a Ukrainian patriot.
In the early days of the war, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, passed a decree banning the activities of a number of pro-Russian parties, and the country’s most notorious pro-Russian politician, Viktor Medvedchuk, was arrested.
Medvedchuk, whose daughter is Putin’s goddaughter, has long been seen as Putin’s man in Kyiv. But even some of his close associates have rebranded themselves as patriots in the wake of the invasion.
Yuriy Zagorodny, a member of parliament, had been at Medvedchuk’s side since they both worked in the administration of former president Leonid Kuchma in the early 2000s. However, he said, he made a decision in the early days of the war that his relationship with Medvedchuk was over. “Ukraine is my homeland, Russia is an aggressor and Putin is the main criminal of the 21st century,” he said in an interview in Kyiv, employing dramatically different rhetoric to what he had used during a previous interview in mid-February.
Zagorodny said he had joined the territorial defence unit in his home town, south of Kyiv, in the first days of the war. He had spent some nights on a checkpoint and other days overseeing the construction of trenches.
He said he had spent hours checking the documents of drivers of passing cars; then when he had to travel to Kyiv for parliamentary sittings, he was stopped at another checkpoint, where the men pulled him out of the car and subjected him to verbal abuse when they saw he was an MP from Medvedchuk’s party. He assured the men he was a firm patriot. “I do have a feeling of guilt, but what we wanted was peaceful coexistence between the countries. Of course, now, that’s all over,” said Zagorodny.
“Changing shoes in mid-air” is the Ukrainian expression for this kind of rapid transformation in views to fit in with the prevailing climate, but for all that there may be cynical self-preservation at work, there is also a sense that people have had to make a choice: either come down on the side of a Ukraine that is fighting for the right to exist, or on that of a Russia that launches missiles and bombs on sleeping cities, and where freedom of expression is no longer legal.
For many, it is an easy choice, and by launching the attack on Ukraine in the way he did, Putin has deprived Russia of many of its natural supporters in the country.
“My 11-year old nephew talks about ‘Putler’ – a mix of Putin and Hitler. He will spend his whole life hating Russia, and his children will too. Maybe in several generations that will change, but not sooner than that,” said Zagorodny.
In the port of Odesa, the mayor, Hennadiy Trukhanov, widely seen as pro-Russian, released an angry video in the early days of the war in response to the Kremlin’s claims that it was defending Russian speakers in the country. “Who the fuck are you planning to defend here?” he asked. In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, the mayor, Oleksandr Vilkul, previously seen as pro-Russian, has also rebranded himself as a patriot and taken up defence of the city.
As well as strengthening the sense of Ukrainian identity among politicians and the general population in the south and east of the country, the war has also helped increase respect for these areas in the patriotic strongholds of western and central Ukraine, where some doubted the loyalty of parts of the east, particularly after 2014.
Kozhemyako said any doubts about these regions should now be considered settled: “A lot of people in western Ukraine saw how Kharkiv fights,” he said.
West Point expected to be ordered to take down portrait of Robert E. Lee
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For 70 years, the slave-owning Confederate general Robert E. Lee has stared down at West Point cadets from a massive portrait in the academy’s library, a slave guiding his horse in the background.
But that portrait could be coming down.
The commission that was established to rename military bases that honor Confederate generals is expected to recommend that West Point remove the 20-foot portrait of Lee in his gray Confederate uniform, according to two people familiar with the group’s deliberations.
The commander of the Confederate Army, who served as superintendent from Sept. 1, 1852, to March 31, 1855, before breaking up with the Union, has a long and complicated history with West Point. His name and likeness are all over the New York campus, from street signs to another portrait hanging in the dining hall. But the portrait in the library has drawn particular scrutiny.
Other depictions of Lee as superintendent, before the Civil War, are more of a gray area. One portrait, gifted to the academy by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1931 and displayed in the dining hall, depicts Lee in his blue U.S. military uniform.
The commission is expected to recommend that West Point — which is now led by the first Black superintendent in its history, Army Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams — remove anything that commemorates Lee in association with the Confederacy, one of the people said. Anything “historic” that commemorates Lee when he was superintendent may remain. A spokesperson for the commission declined to comment.
The commission will submit its recommendations, which have not yet been finalized, in a written report to Congress by Oct. 1, as mandated by the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. Congress and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the nation’s first Black defense secretary, must approve the recommendations.
What to do with the depictions of Lee at West Point is just one of many questions the commission is grappling with in the coming months. The eight-member group is charged with reviewing a long list of Defense Department “assets” that commemorate the Confederate States of America, including 10 honoring Lee at West Point alone.
After receiving more than 34,000 submissions during a public comment period, the group last month released its recommendations to rename nine Army bases that commemorate Confederate leaders.
Austin said in a statement at the time that he was “pleased” to see the group’s progress.
“Today’s announcement highlights the Commission’s efforts to propose nine new installation names that reflect the courage, values, sacrifices, and diversity of our military men and women,” Austin said.
One Black Army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, praised the recommendation, noting that West Point should strive to build “better leaders who can learn from and not repeat history.”
“The civil war without a doubt represented a pivotal and for some a painful moment in history,” the officer said. “Removing symbols from public areas that underscore a racist ideology is one of the best and fundamental ways to bring a broken nation together.”
As of October 2019, 63 percent of cadets were white, while only 12 percent identified as Black.
The creation of the commission was one of the reasons then-President Donald Trump vetoed the 2021 NDAA in December 2020, resulting in Congress’ first override of his presidency. Trump gave the commencement address at West Point in June 2020 amid controversy over renaming the bases and accusations that he was politicizing the armed forces.
After the override in January 2021, the Trump administration named four individuals to the commission, including several loyalists to the former president. President Joe Biden’s Defense secretary, Austin, removed all of these members.
Retired Adm. Michelle Howard, the Navy’s first female four-star admiral and the first Black woman to command a Navy ship, now serves as chair, and the group’s members include retired Gen. Thomas Bostick, the first Black graduate of West Point to serve as chief of engineers of the U.S. Army and commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The most high-profile decision from the group’s initial recommendations is the renaming of Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the headquarters of Army Special Operations Command and the home of the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, which was named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. If the proposal is adopted, the base would be renamed Fort Liberty, in commemoration of “the American value of Liberty.”
Some critics argued that the name is too bland and the base should be renamed after a person who served the community. But the local community advocated strongly in favor of Fort Liberty, the people familiar with the discussions said.
“The Naming Commission sought to find names that would be inspirational to the Soldiers and civilians who serve on our Army posts, and to the communities who support them,” said Howard, the commission’s chair, in a statement when the names were released last month.
Although the commission’s other recommendations have not yet been approved, there is already opposition to removing likenesses of Lee from West Point.
“What does bother me is when you have woke, politically correct liberals who are trying to erase history,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2020.
“West Point is not just a military academy. It is, essentially, a museum to the United States Army. And the cadets there need to learn about their history,” Cotton said. “That’s why they have a line of portraits of every superintendent of West Point. Robert E. Lee was one of those superintendents, from 1852 to 1855.”
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Минобороны Великобритании назвала ключевой фактор последних тактических успехов армии РФ на Донбассе
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Министерство обороны Великобритании опираясь на данные разведки считает, что объединение авиационных и артиллерийских ударов стало ключевым фактором последних тактических успехов РФ на востоке Украины.
Также Минобороны Великобритании отмечает, что невзирая на некоторые тактические успехи, российские оккупанты продолжают своершать одну и ту же ошибку с самого начала войны:
«Неспособность армии РФ подавить или уничтожить украинские стратегические системы противовоздушной обороны в первые дни конфликта ограничила ее способность оказывать тактическую воздушную поддержку наземным маневрам».
Поэтому по мнению британской разведки российская воздушная деятельность в большинстве своем ограничивалась ударами с дальних расстояний крылатыми ракетами воздушного и надводного запуска, чтобы воспрепятствовать перемещению украинских подкреплений и припасов. Однако, сами по себе эти удары не оказали ожидаемого эффекта, и в результате российские запасы «высокоточных управляемых ракет», вероятно, значительно иссякли.
«С перемещением оперативного фокуса на Донбасс Россия смогла там увеличить использование тактической авиации для поддержки своего ползучего продвижения [при этом авиация РФ работает с большой дистанции, часто даже не залетая в воздушное пространство Украины – Прим. Ред.], совмещая авиаудары и массированный артиллерийский огонь. Совместное применение авиационных и артиллерийских ударов явилось ключевым фактором последних тактических успехов России в регионе».
AP war photos: From Iwo Jima to the napalm girl and beyond
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The girl, naked and screaming, ran directly toward Nick Ut’s camera -- and into history.
Her name is Kim Phuc, and the instant the Associated Press photographer captured her image 50 years ago -- on June 8, 1972 -- she became more than a victim of an American napalm strike on a Vietnamese hamlet. She was and is an international symbol of that unpopular war, and of the torment inflicted on innocents in all wars.
For nearly a century, the AP has covered war with images. Some won Pulitzer Prizes, like Ut’s napalm girl, like Eddie Adam’s breathtaking photo of the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner, like Joe Rosenthal’s tableau of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi.
They and others are engraved in global memory, often resonating in ways that words and video do not.
Some show war’s action -- a Palestinian with stone in hand confronts an Israeli tank; Korean refugees crawl over a shattered bridge, like ants; a statue of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein crashes to the ground.
But others focus on the pain, and the losses. A Marine, bleeding profusely around his neck, is evacuated by helicopter after a bombing in Afghanistan. A man displays scars left by machete-wielding gangs in the Rwandan genocide. A Palestinian woman, her face a mask of fury and grief, brandishes helmets left behind by those responsible for a massacre at the Sabra refugee camp in Lebanon.
All too often, the war photos depict young victims.
Thirty-eight years apart, in Vietnam and Syria, fathers clutch the bodies of their dead children. In between, in 1994, a 7-year-old boy lies mortally wounded in a pool of blood in Serajevo.
And then, this year, Evgeniy Maloletka captured the aftermath of the Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine. Five men carried a pregnant woman on a stretcher. Her pelvis had been crushed; she would not survive.
Nor would her unborn child.
Russia claims advances in Ukraine amid fierce fighting
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia on Tuesday claimed to have taken control of 97% of one of the two provinces that make up Ukraine’s Donbas, bringing the Kremlin closer to its goal of fully capturing the eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow’s forces hold nearly all of Luhansk province. And it appears that Russia now occupies roughly half of Donetsk province, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts.
After abandoning its bungled attempt to storm Kyiv two months ago, Russia declared that taking the entire Donbas is its main objective. Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian government forces in the Donbas since 2014, and the region has borne the brunt of the Russian onslaught in recent weeks.
Early in the war, Russian troops also took control of the entire Kherson region and a large part of the Zaporizhzhia region, both in the south. Russian officials and their local appointees have talked about plans for those regions to either declare their independence or be folded into Russia.
But in what may be the latest instance of anti-Russian sabotage inside Ukraine, Russian state media said Tuesday that an explosion at a cafe in the city of Kherson wounded four people. Tass called the apparent bombing in the Russian-occupied city a “terror act.”
Before the Feb. 24 invasion, Ukrainian officials said Russia controlled some 7% of the country, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and areas held by the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces hold 20% of the country.
While Russia has superior firepower, the Ukrainian defenders are entrenched and have shown the ability to counterattack.
While insisting on Ukraine’s need to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Zelenskyy said at a Financial Times conference Tuesday that he is still open to peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But a former senior U.S. intelligence officer said the time isn’t right.
“You’re not going to get to the negotiating table until neither side feels they have an advantage that they could push,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor of the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.
The Russians “think they will be able to take the whole of the Donbas and then might use that as the opportunity to call for negotiations,” Kendall-Taylor said at an online seminar organized by Columbia and New York universities.
Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, said Moscow’s forces have seized the residential quarters of Sievierodonetsk and are fighting to take control of an industrial zone on the city’s outskirts and nearby towns.
Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk have seen heavy fighting in recent weeks. They are among a few cities and towns in the Luhansk region still holding out against the Russian invasion, which is being helped by local pro-Kremlin forces.
Shoigu added that Russian troops were pressing their offensive toward the town of Popasna and have taken control of Lyman and Sviatohirsk and 15 other towns in the region.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak urged his people not to be downhearted about the battlefield reverses.
“Don’t let the news that we’ve ceded something scare you,” he said in a video address. “It is clear that tactical maneuvers are ongoing. We cede something, we take something back.”
Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai conceded that Russian forces control the industrial outskirts of Sievierodonetsk.
“The toughest street battles continue, with varying degrees of success,” Haidai said. “The situation constantly changes, but the Ukrainians are repelling attacks.”
Moscow’s forces also kept up their artillery barrage of Lysychansk. Haidai said Russian troops shelled a market, a school and a college building, destroying the latter. At least three people were wounded, he said.
“A total destruction of the city is under way. Russian shelling has intensified significantly over the past 24 hours. Russians are using scorched-earth tactics,” Haidai said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military has begun training Ukrainian forces on the sophisticated multiple rocket launchers that the Biden administration agreed last week to provide. The Pentagon said the training is going on at a base in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, is mounted on a truck and can carry a container with six rockets, which can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers). Officials said it would take about three weeks of training before they could go to the battlefront.
The war also brought a standoff Tuesday between the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and Ukrainian authorities over the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, wants to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant to help maintain its safety after it was taken by Russian troops in March.
But Energoatom, the Ukrainian state company overseeing the country’s nuclear plants, said in a blunt statement that Grossi isn’t welcome. It said his planned tour is “yet another attempt to legitimize the occupier’s presence there.”
Amid fears of a global food crisis because of the war, the Kremlin said Ukraine needs to remove sea mines near its Black Sea port of Odesa to allow essential grain exports to resume from there. Ukrainian officials have expressed concern that removing the mines could enable Moscow’s forces to attack.
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Russia's envoy storms out of U.N. meeting amid allegations his country is weaponizing rape and food in Ukraine
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United Nations — The Biden administration's Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the Security Council on Monday that the "mountain of credible reports of atrocities committed by Russia's forces against civilians has grown every day" since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. She said those reports "include horrific accounts of sexual violence."
"Growing evidence of sexual violence is emerging by day from de-occupied areas," said Albania's U.N. Ambassador Ferit Hoxha, who hosted the Council meeting. "We know now from the findings in the liberated towns and cities in Kyiv Oblast that civilians have been targeted, tortured, killed on a large scale, and that women and girls have been subjects of rape as a weapon of war."
Thomas-Greenfield said Russian forces were "wielding sexual violence as a weapon of war," and that the U.S. government had received reports "that Russian soldiers raped Ukrainian women for hours — and then killed them."
In April, Ukrainian lawmaker Kira Rudyk told CBS News that sexual violence was being used systematically "in all the areas that were occupied by the Russians."
The U.N.'s special envoy for sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, said the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights' monitoring team in the country had already evaluated 124 reports received from across Ukraine of alleged conflict-related sexual violence targeting women, girls, men and boys in the regions of Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Zakarpattia and Zhytomyr.
In grim detail, Patten outlined first-hand accounts given by Ukrainians to a national hotline over less than three months of war, including rape, gang rape, pregnancy following rape, attempted rape, threats of rape, coercion to watch an act of sexual violence committed against a partner or a child, and forced nudity.
Russia storms out
Addressing the Council on Monday, European Commission President Charles Michel called the violence against Ukrainian civilians "shameful acts… in a shameful war," which he said "must be exposed to the light of day and prosecuted."
Michel told Council members that Russia was singularly responsible for the current global food supply crisis.
"Let us be honest: The Kremlin is using food supplies as a stealth missile against developing countries," said the senior European official. "The dramatic consequences of Russia's war are spilling over across the globe. This is driving up food prices, pushing people into poverty, and destabilizing entire regions."
Michel said he'd seen "millions of tons of grain and wheat stuck in containers and ships" during a recent visit to the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, blaming Russian warships in the Black Sea, Russia's attacks on transport infrastructure, and "Russia's tanks, bombs and mines that are preventing Ukraine from planting and harvesting."
As Michel continued to lambast Russia for the "barbaric" war, Moscow's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia — who in his own statement to the Council dismissed the accusations of sexual violence by Russian soldiers as lies — walked out in protest.
"You may leave the room," Michel said as he left. "Maybe it's easier not to listen to the truth, dear ambassador."
Russia's Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy later said Nebenzia had left because the European Commission chief was making "unsubstantiated claims, many of which have been already debunked."
СМИ: США предупредили 14 стран о возможных поставках зерна, украденного из Украины
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По данным газеты, в середине мая дипломатическое ведомство США направило предупреждение в отношении трех российских судов, подозреваемых в перевозке украденного украинского зерна. Послание было направлено в страны Восточной и Северной Африки, включая Кению и Танзанию, а также в Пакистан, Бангладеш, Шри-Ланку и Турцию.
Как пишет газета, предупреждение не было прямым призывом к странам, о которых идет речь, не покупать краденое продовольствие и было отправлено в духе сотрудничества, а не принуждения. По мнению Хасана Ханнендже, директора кенийского аналитического центра HORN International Institute for Strategic Studies, процитированного в статье, африканские страны без колебаний воспользуются российским предложением, когда столкнутся с угрозой голода.
Напомним, что РФ и Украина являются ведущими поставщиками зерна в Африку, поставляя вместе 40% импортируемой пшеницы. По данным Всемирной продовольственной программы ООН, цены на пшеницу в прошлом году выросли на 23%, а преобладающая засуха в регионе Африканского Рога вызвала нехватку продовольствия для 17 миллионов человек. В Сомали 200 000 человек находятся на грани голода.
Стоит отметить, что российские войска воруют и вывозят зерно с оккупированных территорий Украины, при этом продолжая блокировать акваторию Черного моря. 7 июня, был нанесен удар по второму по величине зерновому терминалу в Николаеве. Все эти действия армии РФ могут привести к глобальному продовольственному кризису.
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Уничтоженный россиянами зерновой терминал в Николаевском порту был вторым по величине в Украине - Боррель
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Цитата:
Глава дипломатии ЕС: Российский ракетный удар по зерновому терминалу в Николаеве - шаг к мировому продовольственному кризису
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Российские войска разрушили в Николаеве второй по величине зерновой терминал. На это отреагировал в Twitter глава дипломатии ЕС Жозеп Боррель.
«Российский ракетный удар - шаг к мировому продовольственному кризису», - написал Жозеп Боррель на сообщение украинского агентства «Укринформ». Глава евросоюзной дипломатии добавил, что в свете таких вестей, дезинформация, распространяемая президентом Владимиром Путиным, представляется еще более циничной.
Из-за войны в этом году урожай в Украине будет почти вполовину меньше, чем обычно. Производство пшеницы снизится на 40%. Последствия этого может почувствовать целый рынок продовольствия, от Африки до Америки. По словам директора аграрного предприятия под Киевом Александра Фищуна, в марте посевы пострадали от атак войск РФ, а растения, посаженные после изгнания оккупантов могут не успеть созреть в связи с отсрочкой посевной.
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Inside the Russian blockade of Ukraine threatening global food supplies
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Odesa, Ukraine — A senior official in eastern Ukraine says Russia is sending more troops into the country in a bid to capture another key city. The governor of the Luhansk region, in Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, says Ukrainian forces are having more and more trouble keeping the Russian forces at bay. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Russian forces now control 20% of his country — a vast swath of the east, along Russia's border.
But Russia's troops aren't only squeezing Ukraine by land, they are also cutting off its access to the sea, and as Ukraine has long been dubbed the breadbasket of Europe, that blockade is causing global food shortages.
CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay has been in Odesa, the once thriving seaport where the food crisis is coming to a head. More than 20 million tons of grain are stuck on the city's coast.
President Zelenskyy has said the mountain of stalled food could triple in size by this fall unless the Russian forces' blockade of the city ends.
On Monday, Russia's envoy to the United Nations stormed out of a Security Council meeting in New York as European Commission President Charles Michel lambasted his country for "using food supplies as a stealth missile against developing countries."
Much of the humanitarian food aid distributed in crisis and conflict zones had come from Ukraine before the Russian invasion began in February. Ukraine has long provided wheat and corn to some of the neediest populations in the world.
Now, Livesay says many of the nation's wheat fields have been reduced to minefields, or active battlefields.
Those brave enough to continue working the land are risking their lives so others can eat.
But the flow of food out of Ukraine has been cut to a trickle by Russia's invasion by land and its blockade by sea.
The best way to beat that multi-fronted attack, according to Zelenskyy, is with advanced missile systems, like those currently on their way from the United States. The Ukrainian leader says the heavy weaponry could be used to enable safe passage for shipping through the Black Sea.
"I only believe that as soon as we get these systems, it will be the most powerful guarantee" he said.
Russian ships aren't the only threat to Odesa. There are also mines — mostly Russian, but Ukrainian, too. They've been laid to protect the city, Captain Natalia Humeniuk told Livesay, as "the danger of a Russian amphibious assault on Odesa is still very real."
She accused Russia of framing her country by using old Ukrainian mines that Putin's forces captured when Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 to block the passage of food shipments now.
As fears mount of a worsening global food crisis, France's government has urged the world to find a so-called off-ramp for Putin to end his disastrous war — one that would avoid humiliating the Russian president.
Humeniuk isn't convinced that's still a viable option.
"It's impossible for Putin to humiliate himself or his country more than he already has," she told CBS News.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called Russia's food blockade "blackmail," and accused Moscow of stealing the grain to sell for its own profit.
Farmers in southern Ukraine have told Livesay the Russian invaders aren't just stealing their grain, but their equipment as well.
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Продолжение поста от 07.06.2022 г. следует…
Последний раз редактировалось: Dimitriy (08.06.2022 0:57), всего редактировалось 1 раз
Turkey, Russia agree on Ukrainian grain exports from Odessa: Izvestia
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The Russian government plans to allow ships carrying grain supplies to leave the port of Odessa in Ukraine, according to a report, easing a blockade that has triggered fears of widespread shortages and hunger.
The Russian leadership has agreed with Kyiv and Ankara on a scheme to release grain shipments from Odessa, which has been subject to a blockade, the pro-government Izvestia reported, citing government circles.
"In the territorial waters of the neighboring country, Turkish military forces will take over the demining and they will also escort the ships as far as neutral waters," Monday's report said.
Russian warships would then escort the vessels carrying grain to the Bosporus.
The step comes as food prices soar after Moscow's war on Ukraine led to massive turbulence on world markets. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, and the collapse in its deliveries following Russia's invasion has hit African countries hard.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently received President of the African Union and Senegal Macky Sall to discuss the issue.
While Putin denied Russia was responsible for the high prices, he said he was willing to facilitate grain deliveries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected in Ankara on Wednesday for talks on the issue. After the talks, the scheme to release grain from Odessa is expected to be officially approved, the newspaper said.
Due to its war against Ukraine, Russia is "directly responsible" for shortages in the international trade in grains, the European Union's foreign policy chief meanwhile said Sunday.
"Russia's ongoing blockade of Ukraine's ports is preventing the export of tons of grain, like corn and wheat, currently trapped in Ukraine, one of the main world producers," Josep Borrell stated on Twitter.
Borrell pointed out that EU sanctions target Russia's capacity to continue the war and do not target wheat, adding agriculture products and their transport are "explicitly excluded" from sanctions.
"Russia is directly responsible for any shortages in international trade in grains, and instead of ending its aggression, is actively seeking to transfer responsibility on international sanctions. This is #disinformation," he added.
Borrell went on to say that the bloc will continue to show solidarity with countries in addressing the war's consequences.
Putin "needs to end his war against Ukraine. Ukraine's territorial integrity must be restored," he underlined, adding this is in the interest of the whole world.
Цитата:
Turkey pushes for Ukraine grain exports deal as key meeting due
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Turkey has seen “significant progress” in negotiations and is coordinating closely with Russia and Ukraine to agree on a plan that would restart grain exports from Ukrainian ports, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said, even as conflict rages elsewhere in the country.
Turkey is involved in efforts by the United Nations to reach an agreement on a plan that would open a safe shipping corridor to address a global food crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion in February which halted Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports.
Akar’s remarks came a day after reports suggested Ankara and Moscow had reached a tentative deal to restart shipments of Ukraine’s agricultural products, but Ukraine has yet to endorse the plan.
The issue of blocked grain will be on the agenda on Wednesday during Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Turkey.
Turkey is said to have offered military help to clear mines off the key Black Sea port of Odessa and escort grain ships. Kyiv worries that removing defenses could leave the port open to Russian attack.
Akar said the four sides are working out how mines floating off the port of Odessa and elsewhere along Ukraine’s coast will be cleared and who will do it, and who would safeguard the corridor.
“We are making efforts to conclude this as soon as possible,” he told reporters in embargoed remarks after a Cabinet meeting late on Monday.
The parties are willing to resolve the issue, but mutual trust remains a sticking point, Akar said. “Everybody wants to be sure of certain things. We are working to establish such trust.”
“A lot of progress has been made on this issue” and technical planning continues, the minister said.
In a phone call later on Tuesday, Akar discussed grain exports from Ukraine with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, Interfax news agency reported, citing the Russian defense ministry.
Lavrov visits Turkey
Turkey neighbors Ukraine and Russia at sea and has said it is ready to take on a role within an “observation mechanism” if a deal is reached.
Turkey has proposed establishing a center in Istanbul to coordinate and monitor demining efforts and shipments to global markets.
That could involve Turkish naval escorts for tankers leaving Ukraine and heading toward Turkey’s straits onward to world markets.
Agriculture and Forestry Minister Vahit Kirişci late Monday also said parties were close to agreeing on a deal on the corridor.
Kirişci also said Turkey and Ukraine had agreed on a 25% discount on grain products to be purchased from Ukraine, without elaborating.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will host his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks on the plan on Wednesday.
Lavrov said Monday he was optimistic that military officials can work out a solution.
Western leaders have blamed Russia for holding the world for ransom by blockading Ukrainian ports. Moscow says Western sanctions are to blame for the situation.
Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies, while Russia is also a big fertilizer exporter and Ukraine is a major exporter of corn and sunflower oil.
Nearly 25 million tons of grain stuck
As much as 25 million tons of grain are stuck in Ukraine awaiting shipment, a figure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday said could triple by the autumn.
Only a maximum of 2 million tons a month could be exported if Russia refuses to lift its blockade, Taras Vysotskyi, Ukraine’s first deputy minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, said separately on Tuesday.
Ukraine exported up to 6 million tons of grain a month before Russia invaded the country, but in recent months the volumes have fallen to about 1 million tons.
Even if Russia’s port blockade is lifted, Vysotskyi said Ukraine would need about six months to demine the waters around its Black Sea ports, meaning the world would remain short of grains for some time.
Ukraine’s grain, oilseed and vegetable oil exports rose 80% in May to 1.743 million tons, but the volumes are still significantly below the exports in May 2021, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy on Monday asked for a secure corridor for Ukrainian vessels and said Kyiv is in talks with countries like Turkey and the U.K. about security guarantees for Ukrainian ships
He also said Kyiv is not ready to agree to a plan to export its grain by rail across Belarus for shipment via the Baltic Sea, an idea that was touted as a solution by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow assured Ankara it would not attack Odessa if the corridor is created, Presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalın said on Friday.
Separately, Russia said on Tuesday that two major Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov seized by Russian forces were ready to resume grain shipments, but the Kremlin said Kyiv still needed to demine the approaches to its ports for exports to take place.
Russian Defense Minister Shoigu said the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol, the latter city destroyed after a three-month Russian siege, had resumed their operations.
“The demining of Mariupol’s port has been completed. It is functioning normally, and has received its first cargo ships,” he said in televised comments.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Ukraine still needed to demine its coast for grain exports to take place.
“This will allow ships, once checked by our military to make sure they are not carrying any weapons, to enter the ports, load grain and with our help, proceed to international waters,” he said.
Россия начала вывозить зерно с захваченных территорий Украины по железной дороге
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Россия начала вывозить зерно с захваченных территорий юга Украины по железной дороге.
Назначенный россиянами "председатель" Запорожской ОВГА Евгений Балицкий заявил, что первый железнодорожный состав с зерном отправился из подконтрольной РФ части Запорожской области в Крым.
"В направлении Крыма пошли первые вагоны, железнодорожные вагоны, 11 вагонов пошли с зерном с мелитопольского элеватора", - сказал Балицкий.
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Владимир Ступников, Генеральный директор коммуникационного агентства АУРА в составе Газпром-Медиа Холдинга. Социальные медиа становятся все более важным инструментом в работе каждого PR-специалиста, и одной из относительно новых, но стремительно растущих платформ, является Telegram. Этот мессенджер, изначально позиционировавшийся как безопасный и приватный инструмент связи, приобретает все большую популярность и привлекает внимание маркетологов и PR-специалистов по всему миру.
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