Shrinking water supply will mean more fallow fields in the San Joaquin Valley

Los Angeles Times

Column: Shrinking water supply will mean more fallow fields in the San Joaquin Valley

George Skelton – February 20, 2023

KINGSBURG, CA - APRIL 21: Irrigation along Bethel Ave. on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 in Kingsburg, CA. A deepening drought and new regulations are causing some California growers to consider an end to farming. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Irrigation in Kingsburg, Calif., in 2021. A deepening drought and new regulations are causing serious challenges for some California growers. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Downpours or drought, California’s farm belt will need to tighten up in the next two decades and grow fewer crops.

There simply won’t be enough water to sustain present irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley.

Groundwater is dangerously depleted. Wells are drying up and the land is sinking in many places, cracking canals. Surface water supplies have been cut back because of drought, and future deliveries are uncertain due to climate change and environmental regulations.

We’ve known all this for years, but long-term projections have become even more grim, according to a new study by the Public Policy Institute of California.

“We found that annual water supplies could decline by 20% by 2040,” PPIC experts wrote. That would mean around 3.2 million acre-feet — almost the amount giant Oroville Dam can hold in California’ second-largest reservoir.

For many generations, Californians have taken pride in the state’s bountiful harvests of fruits, vegetables, nuts and wine grapes. We’re envied by the nation for our production of varied foods — from avocados to almonds, from peaches to pistachios, from okra to oranges.

But by the end of this century, will agriculture still be robust?

Agriculture is water intensive. And water is becoming increasingly worrisome in the West, particularly with overuse of the Colorado River. There’s plenty of water off our coast, but we’ve only begun to dip our toe into desalination.

PPIC researchers offered a glimmer of hope for the San Joaquin Valley. With government teamwork — local, state and federal — and agriculture itself, the financial blow could be lightened, they said.

That would mean loosening the rules on farmers selling their entitled water to other growers. There’d also need to be investments in infrastructure to import additional water supplies.

But realistically all that seems iffy given California’s historic water wars. Selling water means taking it from one crop and pouring it on another. And most new supplies would come from other interests — such as farmers to the north or the coastal salmon fishing industry.

Compromising probably would require money — perhaps tax money — to pay farmers to fallow their land and governments to build new canals and repair old ones.

Growers and local irrigation districts would need to write checks.

“Locals need to have skin in the game. Everybody’s always happy to have someone else pay for their crops,” says Ellen Hanak, vice president and director of the PPIC Water Policy Center.

The PPIC found that at least 500,000 acres of San Joaquin Valley cropland will need to be fallowed in the next 20 years. The institute initially calculated that figure four years ago. But now it’s considered a best-case scenario, requiring an additional 1 million acre-feet of water.

“Needless to say, this would be a very heavy lift,” the researchers wrote.

A more likely scenario, the PPIC says, would be to expand water supplies by 500,000 acre-feet annually and wind up being forced to fallow about 650,000 acres.

But even half a million more acre-feet of water seems wishful.

The worst-case scenario would be losing 3.2 million acre-feet of water and fallowing nearly 900,000 acres, one-fifth of currently irrigated land.

Plan on it. Prepare to plant solar panels.

The biggest reason farmers face a severe water shortage is that for decades they’ve over-pumped aquifers. And government didn’t have the guts to stop them.

Finally in 2014, California became the last Western state to begin regulating groundwater use — but very slowly. By law, groundwater usage doesn’t have to become sustainable for 20 years.

Meanwhile, farmers have been drilling deeper and faster to extract water — not necessarily even their own — before they’re restricted by law.

“The real promise of the groundwater act is making sure people are not using groundwater they shouldn’t,” Hanak says. “If you use someone else’s surface water you’re going to court. But with groundwater, no one has been minding the shop.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom and water officials everywhere talk optimistically about recharging aquifers. Great idea. But first you need to find the water for recharging.

That can come from rare mega-storms, as we had in January. But there need to be facilities for moving the rampaging water and rules that permit it.

The water can be pumped onto barren land — storm or not — and allowed to sink into the ground. But a landowner must agree.

Here’s an idea: Turn barren, fallowed cropland into wetlands that recharge aquifers. Nurture wildlife. California lost 95% of its wetlands in the last century.

Climate change may also reduce available surface water.

Hotter, drier air may cause snowpacks to evaporate or soak into the mountaintops before the water can flow down into reservoirs. Or Sierra snow may melt quickly and descend in torrents so fast it can’t be captured in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

It’s all guesswork now.

PPIC researchers also predicted increased environmental restrictions on water in an effort to protect salmon and other fish.

I wouldn’t bet on that. Farm interests tend to outmuscle fish interests.

Newsom, for example, is trying to waive environmental rules aimed at keeping juvenile salmon alive in the delta. He wants more water to be stored for farmers.

Some footnotes:

The San Joaquin Valley produces more than half of California’s agriculture. The wetter Sacramento Valley produces nearly one-fourth. Together they make up the Central Valley.

Agriculture uses 80% of California’s developed water. The rest goes to domestic use — business and residential.

But agriculture generates only about 2% of the state’s gross product, down from 5% 60 years ago. It’s 14% of the San Joaquin Valley’s gross domestic product.

Three of my solutions:

Plant fewer thirsty crops, such as almonds that have proliferated.

Expedite groundwater regulations and aquifer recharging.

Get serious about inevitable desalination.

Belly fat is linked to serious health issues… here is how to get rid of it in 2023

The Telegraph

Belly fat is linked to serious health issues… here is how to get rid of it in 2023

Lowenna Waters – February 20, 2023

how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit - PA
how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit – PA

Due to our often sedentary lifestyles and stressful jobs – self-medicated with biscuits and pub trips – belly fat can easily build up.

Fat deposits around the middle have previously been linked to serious health issues, including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

In its extreme, obesity reduces life expectancy by an average of three to 10 years, depending on severity, according to the NHS. It is also estimated that obesity and being overweight contribute to at least one in every 13 deaths in Europe.

So, with many of us feeling that we have put on a little weight here and there, and with stubborn tummy fat hard to shift – how can you get back in shape in 2023?

How to get rid of fat in 10 easy steps
1. Drink less alcohol
how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit alcohol - iStockphoto
how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit alcohol – iStockphoto

Yes, it can be very tempting to reach for the Merlot at the end of a particularly taxing day, but studies show that alcohol is one of the main offenders when it comes to storing belly fat. Consider this: if you consume just two glasses of wine an evening, that’s an extra 72,000 calories a year, which equates to 20 pounds of fat.

Alcohol contains a very high amount of “empty” calories which don’t have any nutritional value. Women are more likely to store the fat created by these surplus calories on their hips, thighs and arms, whereas men store it on their tummy, hence the “beer belly”.

If you’re keen on reducing your tummy fat quickly, it’s advised that you cut out alcohol from your diet completely. If that sounds too severe, try to at least stay under the NHS-recommended 14 units (spread across three days or more). Aim to cut down your intake by capping your nightly intake to two glasses, and always having several alcohol-free days each week.

2. Eat a high protein diet
protein steak how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit - iStockphoto
protein steak how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit – iStockphoto

There’s a good amount of evidence to suggest that protein is key to losing tummy fat. Firstly, it releases the hormone PYY, which helps to send a message to your brain that you’re full. A good portion of protein in a meal should help you avoid overeating.

Many observational studies prove that people with a higher protein intake have lower levels of belly fat. It also raises your metabolic rate, making you more likely to build muscle during and after exercise. Try to get a serving with every meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

3. Reduce your stress levels

Stress causes your body to gain fat because it triggers the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn increases your appetite.

How do you relieve stress? To an extent, the answer is entirely personal – we’re all different – but studies consistently show that getting out in nature and regular bouts of meditation work to reduce our anxiety.

4. Don’t eat a lot of sugary foods

Calorie for calorie, sugar is different to other food groups such as protein, complex carbohydrates, and fat, because it confuses your normal appetite controls and causes your body to produce fat.

Refined sugars are often hidden in a plethora of different products that you wouldn’t expect such as fruit juices. Make sure to check the labels before eating the products.

5. Address food sensitivities

People often have food sensitivities that go unaddressed for years. If you think you may be suffering from an allergy, it’s important that you report it to your doctor who may refer you to a dietitian.

Common food sensitivities include dairy and gluten, both of which can result in an inflammation of the gut, making it even more prone to developing more sensitivities. Addressing these allergies can have dramatic impacts on weight loss, and even mood and behaviour.

6. Build up your strength
resistance training how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit - MBI / Alamy Stock Photo
resistance training how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit – MBI / Alamy Stock Photo

Everyone knows that regular exercise is necessary in order to lose weight; however, not everyone knows that resistance training is one of the best ways to do so.

Resistance training, also known as weight lifting or strength training, is important for improving and maintaining muscle mass. It also helps to spike our metabolisms, which means your body burns fat even after you’ve put the weights down.

However, it’s worth saying that the best possible training plan probably combines a variety of exercises.

7. Get plenty of sleep
sleep how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit
sleep how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit

Sleep is one of the most important aspects of your overall health and wellbeing, especially when it comes to managing your weight. A 2013 study by the University of Colorado found that one week of sleeping about five hours a night led participants to gain an average of two pounds.

Easy ways to improve the quality of your sleep are by making sure you don’t look at screens late at night and by doing some gentle yoga before bed.

8. Eat fatty fish every week

Omega-3 fatty acids are lauded with such attractive qualities as delaying ageing and fighting degenerative diseases. However, it’s less well known that eating fatty fish is also excellent for weight loss (when accompanied by a balanced diet and regular exercise, of course).

Foods such as mackerel and herring are high in protein and “good fats” that help to break down some of the more dangerous fats in your body. Try to eat fish two or three times a week.

9. Replace some of your cooking fats with coconut oil
low fat cooking oils coconut how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit
low fat cooking oils coconut how to lose weight diet fitness health issues 2022 uk men women struggling to get rid of belly fat new year resolution fit

Put aside the butter and olive oil and try coconut oil instead.

According to Web MD – and other medically-led sites – the medium-chain fats in coconut oil boost metabolism and decrease the amount of fat you store in response to high calorie intake.

10. Eat plenty of soluble fiber

Soluble fibre is ideal for aiding weight loss because it forms a gel with the food in your digestive tract, slowing it down as it passes through. This type of fibre promotes gut bacteria diversity, which has been frequently linked to a lower risk of belly fat.

Excellent foods to eat to increase your soluble fibre intake include avocados, legumes (try lentils, peas or chickpeas) and blackberries. In a 2021 study, volunteers ate one meal provided by researchers each day – one group ate an avocado, while a control group ate a meal similar in calories, but with the Instagrammer favourite left out.

“Female participants who consumed an avocado a day as part of their meal had a reduction in visceral abdominal fat,” says study leader Naiman Khan, the Illinois professor of kinesiology and community health. “However, fat distribution in males did not change, and neither males nor females had improvements in glucose tolerance.”

Easy exercises to burn belly fat

The best way to burn belly fat is to add around 30 minutes of cardio or aerobic exercise into your daily exercise routine.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota ranked a variety common exercises based on information obtained from the US National Institutes of Health. The research calculated the number of calories burned during an hour of each exercise, with surprising results. With this in mind, these are some of the best work-outs to try:

Walking

Picking up the pace of your walk can work wonders for burning fat. When it comes to enjoying a brisk walk (3.5mph), you can burn between 314 and 391 calories.

A 2013 study by the University of Michigan also found that walking on uneven terrain while hiking increases the amount of energy your body uses by 28 per cent compared to walking on flat ground.

Skipping

Similarly to the above, skipping can help burn between 861-1,074 calories per hour, and thus burns fat. It is also a weight-bearing exercise so can help to improve bone density, which helps stave off osteoporosis.

Running

It goes without saying that running is a great way to burn calories. Running at 8mph will burn around 861-1,074 per hour (depending on your weight); you can burn 606-755 calories even running at 5mph, and 657-819 by simply running up the stairs.

Additionally, a 2005 study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that sedentary women who incorporated stair climbing into their daily activities increased their VO2 max, or maximum aerobic capacity, by 17.1 per cent and reduced “bad” LDL cholesterol by 7.7 per cent. (Read our guide to the best fitness trackers to learn how to track your workouts.)

Swimming

Experts agree that “vigorous swimming” is a full-body workout that is great for your joints. (By vigorous we’re sure they don’t mean splashing about in the shallow end.) It will help burn between 715-892 calories per hour of activity.

Breaststroke is the least beneficial stroke for burning calories, but a much better cardiovascular workout than the other strokes.

This guide is kept updated with the latest advice. 

What Happens When You Die? Hospice Workers Share Conversations With Patients as They Near the End of Their Life

Parade

What Happens When You Die? Hospice Workers Share Conversations With Patients as They Near the End of Their Life

Lyssa Goldberg – February 19, 2023

Hospice workers share some of their impactful conversations with patients.

Talking about mortality can definitely be a frightening subject. But for some people, like those who work in hospice, discussing what happens when you die may feel like a more natural conversation to have.

So, what does it feel like to be days from death? And what happens to you when you die? While some of these questions may never be answered, we spoke to several hospice care professionals across the U.S. to find out what they’ve learned from their patients in their final days as they prepared to make a transition from life to death.

“Very few people are afraid of death. They’re afraid of dying, the process leading to death,” says Travis Overbeck, National Director of Patient Experience for Seasons Hospice.

Of course, no one truly knows what comes next, but some patients have a very clear idea of what they believe should happen once they die, says Overbeck. Hospice workers like himself get to explore their patients’ belief systems and ask them what they’d like their death to look like.

For instance, in the Buddhist tradition, there’s an expectation of silence at the time of death, according to Overbeck, and there should not be any wailing or grieving at the individual’s bedside so they can make their way peacefully into the next life.

“I’ve seen so many patients at the time of death. Most often, there’s this sense of peace and calm, and it’s really beautiful,” Overbeck says. “That’s why I do what I do. It’s all about bringing that peace and comfort to our patients at end of life.”

Here are some of the most common themes that have emerged from end-of-life conversations with hospice workers.

“Would you mind praying for me?”

Overbeck, a chaplain who sees patients of all faiths and backgrounds but practices Christianity himself, remembers his final conversations with a Jewish patient in her last days of life. She said, “I know you’re Christian, and I know I’m Jewish, but would you mind praying for me?”

“What would you like me to pray for?” Overbeck replied.

“I pray that when I die, it will be peaceful, and I will be comforted,” was the patient’s request.

After some conversation, they prayed together and the two hit it off. When Overbeck returned to the hospital the next day, the patient’s friend found him in the hallway. She told Overbeck that the patient had become unresponsive—but before she stopped speaking, the patient asked her friend to have Overbeck pray for her again if he returned.

Overbeck entered the patient’s room and, knowing that hearing is typically the last sense to go, he reintroduced himself and said, “I’m going to go ahead and pray for you.” He prayed again for peace and a comfortable transition. And at the end of his prayers, suddenly the patient began to talk.

“I’m going on a journey to a place I’ve never been before,” she started, “and everybody is sparkling, and everybody is smiling at me.” The patient died about 45 minutes later.

“I don’t care what belief system you are or aren’t. At the end of the day, that’s real. That was her experience,” Overbeck says.

Related35 Scriptures On Healing

Bringing life closure

Much of Overbeck’s work is dedicated to tying up loose ends and bringing his patients’ life to closure, whether that’s reuniting family members that have become estranged or ensuring the patient’s legacy is preserved. “There’s a process in dying,” Overbeck says. “It’s the opportunities to say, ‘I love you,’ opportunities to say, ‘I forgive you,’ opportunities to ask for forgiveness, opportunities to say, ‘Goodbye.’”

Overbeck recalls another conversation with a patient who was the CEO of a very large, well-known company. “Travis, I had it all,” the CEO told Overbeck. “I had the vacation homes. I was able to send my kids to the finest schools. We traveled the world. But at some point, I lost my focus. I began to value my job and my money more than anything else.”

Along the way, it cost him not only his marriage but his relationship with his kids. In fact, the patient had a grandchild he’d never even meet. Overbeck asked the patient for permission to reach out to his family. A few phone calls later, they were flying into town to visit the hospital.

Overbeck helped facilitate conversations between the patient and his family members, and while he acknowledges it wasn’t easy, he was ultimately able to bring them a feeling of closure. Most importantly, the patient was able to meet his grandchild for the first time. The patient died later that day.

“The biggest realization that I’ve had is that we all have a finite amount of time—it’s about how you’re going to live with that time,” Overbeck says.

Cultivating gratitude

Carolyn Gartner, licensed clinical social worker with Visiting Nurse Service of New York Hospice and Palliative Care, began practicing meditation and studying Buddhism around the same time she started pursuing social work.

Working in hospice care, she’s found her patients hold a perspective of gratitude and acceptance that parallels what she’s been taught through her meditation practice. “I feel my older patients really understand the idea of letting go, and not letting small things bother you,” Gartner says. “We get so caught up in the day-to-day, and I see my older patients are a good role model for how those things pass.”

Related: 100 Benefits of Meditation

Gartner works with a diverse array of patients throughout Brooklyn, from celebrities to patients in public housing. Recently, she and a chaplain from VNSNY Hospice went to visit a Jamaican patient who loves Bob Marley music.

The patient’s daughter told them that her mother had experienced a severe explosion of pain the day before, so Gartner prepared to handle the situation sensitively, thinking perhaps the patient wouldn’t want to listen to music that day.

When they walked in the door, however, the patient was wearing a big smile on her face and said: “Okay, ladies, when are you starting the Bob Marley?’”

“I do think that this work, almost every day, reinforces to me: We are energy. We are light. There is a spirit,” Gartner says.

At end-of-life, people like to reflect on their life story, Gartner says. Patients will take out old photos and share stories of joy and pain all in one session. Having studied screenwriting as an undergrad at New York University, Gartner uses these same storytelling techniques with her patients to learn and listen to their stories.

“My observation is that people will often die the way they live, so it’s really interesting to see how people process what they’ve gone through,” she says.

While the patients may seem ready to accept what comes next, Gartner says it’s the families who often need help coming to terms with it. VNSNY Hospice assists with the pre-bereavement process for family caregivers so they can see beyond the grief and enjoy the time they have left with the patient.

“Patients almost always know what’s going on in their body. It’s the family who doesn’t,” she says.

Related: 50 Gratitude Quotes

Seeing lost loved ones

Over the years, Kalah Walker, patient care administrator for VITAS Healthcare, has seen numerous hospice cases where the patients will call out to their loved ones who’ve passed, as if they’re seeing someone that everyone else cannot.

Often, they look out into the distance, and the hospice worker knows it’s the name of a family member who’s no longer with us. Generally, this happens within the last days of their life, Walker notes.

“You know what they’re seeing when they’re looking off into the distance…,” she said. “Once they do that, they’re able to let go.”

Sometimes, the patients will ask their hospice worker if they can see the family member too. Walker says it’s important to be there in the moment with them, agree, and allow the moment to happen as the patient is experiencing it. “There’s a nurse who gets to be there to bring life into this world, and we get to stand there and hold a patient’s hands or their family’s hands as a life leaves this world,” she says.

Walker says the real work with end-of-life care comes after the patient passes, however. “Hospice isn’t just about death and dying. It’s about learning about what’s really important in life and keeping those memories alive,” Walker said.

VITAS’ staff supports families who’ve experienced loss with programs like gifting them memory bears as reminders of their loved ones or butterfly release ceremonies. At the butterfly release ceremony, families will open a package and release butterflies into the sky, giving them a chance to reflect and experience a feeling of release themselves. “I’ve seen the butterflies sit there in the moment. You notice they kind of hover around, and it’s almost as if that butterfly is the loved one,” Walker says.

Next up, here are six steps to starting a meditation practice.

Sources
  • Travis Overbeck, National Director of Patient Experience for Seasons Hospice
  • Carolyn Gartner, licensed clinical social worker with Visiting Nurse Service of New York Hospice and Palliative Care
  • Kalah Walker, patient care administrator for VITAS Healthcare

US warns China not to send weapons to Russia for Ukraine war

Associated Press

US warns China not to send weapons to Russia for Ukraine war

Lynn Berry – February 19, 2023

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives at Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023. (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives at Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023. (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Pool Photo via AP)
China's Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi speaks at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023. The 59th Munich Security Conference (MSC) is taking place from Feb. 17 to Feb. 19, 2023 at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
China’s Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi speaks at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023. The 59th Munich Security Conference (MSC) is taking place from Feb. 17 to Feb. 19, 2023 at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence suggests China is considering providing arms and ammunition to Russia, an involvement in the Kremlin’s war effort that would be a “serious problem,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Blinken said the United States long has been concerned that China would provide weapons to Russia. He pointed to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s promise to Russian President Vladimir Putin of a partnership with “no limits” when they met just weeks before Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Since then, ties between the two countries have only grown stronger.

“We’ve been watching this very, very closely. And, for the most part, China has been engaged in providing rhetorical, political, diplomatic support to Russia, but we have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” Blinken said in an interview that aired Sunday, a day after his meeting at a security conference in Munich with Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official.

“It was important for me to share very clearly with Wang Yi that this would be a serious problem,” Blinken said.

With Putin determined to show some progress on the battlefield as the war nears the one-year mark, Russian forces have been on the offensive in eastern Ukraine.

“The Ukrainians are holding very strong, the Russians are suffering horrific losses in this effort,” Blinken said. He estimated that Russia has 97% of its ground troops in Ukraine.

The Russians also are eager to capture more territory before Ukraine receives the more advanced weapons recently pledged by the U.S. and its European allies.

“But what Secretary Blinken said is big news to me,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Graham said the world should “come down hard on China” if it provides lethal weapons to Russia and he advised Chinese leaders not to do anything rash.

“To the Chinese, if you jump on the Putin train now, you’re dumber than dirt,” he said. “It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after you saw the movie. Don’t do this.”

Graham said it would be the “most catastrophic thing that could happen to the U.S.-China relationship. … That would change everything forever.”

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have been heightened in recent weeks after the U.S. shot down what it says was a Chinese spy balloon. China insists it was used mainly for meteorological research and was blown off course.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, also expressed her concern about any effort by the Chinese to arm Russia, saying “that would be a red line.”

Retired Gen. Jack Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, said he agreed with the Biden administration’s decision to expose China’s possible readiness to provide some lethal weapons to Russia. He said it may persuade China to hold off.

“And I think coming out and exposing and I would go further and tell them what we think they are attempting to provide, China will pull back likely after that public exposure,” Keane said.

Blinken and Graham were on ABC’s “This Week,” Thomas-Greenfield appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Keane spoke on “Fox News Sunday.”

‘Lethal’ Chinese Gifts to Putin Could Spark ‘New Cold War’ With U.S.

Daily Beast

‘Lethal’ Chinese Gifts to Putin Could Spark ‘New Cold War’ With U.S.

Jose Pagliery – February 19, 2023

Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS
Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS

China is now considering a new escalation against the West by delivering weapons and ammunition to Russia in its war against Ukraine—crossing a red line that could spark a “new Cold War,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed on taped Sunday morning news programs.

The claim, if true, would be a startling change that would squarely position China on Russia’s side, violating the U.S.-led international pressure campaign to isolate and punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for his expansionary military campaign.

“We see China considering this. We have not seen them cross that line,” he said. “We are concerned that this is something that China was not doing for many months but may be considering now.”

On CBS and NBC, Blinken said the United States is only now sharing this intelligence with allies, hinting that China’s sudden shift is a relatively new development.

Blinken spoke from Munich, Germany, where he is attending the Münchner Sicherheitskonferenzan, an annual international security meeting that’s been going on since the height of the last Cold War in 1963.

U.S. Says Russia Will Be Held Accountable for ‘Crimes Against Humanity’

Although he would not clarify what kinds of weapons China is preparing to send Russia’s way, he did classify it as “lethal aid” that would include arms and ammunition—and possibly more. He did, however, note that the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to economics allows little differentiation between the government and corporations there, a hint that could mean that weapon deliveries might come from Chinese companies that would be “separate” from Chinese officials themselves.

Discussing the matter with CBS “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, the American secretary of state said that China’s recent moves on Russia—coupled with the recent Chinese spy balloon debacle, poses a major threat to world stability.

Blinken warned about the danger of “veering into conflict” with “a new Cold War,” a claim he also made on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with moderator Chuck Todd. Blinken said he cautioned China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, about the dangers when they met on Saturday in Munich.

He stressed “the importance of not crossing that line” and said “it would have serious consequences.”

50-year-old muscles just can’t grow big like they used to – the biology of how muscles change with age

The Conversation

50-year-old muscles just can’t grow big like they used to – the biology of how muscles change with age

Roger Fielding, Senior Scientist Team Lead Nutrition Exercise Physiology and Sarcopenia Team Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Professor of Medicine, Tufts University – February 19, 2023

Why is it harder to build muscle as you age? <a href=
Why is it harder to build muscle as you age? DjelicS/iStock via Getty Images

There is perhaps no better way to see the absolute pinnacle of human athletic abilities than by watching the Olympics. But at the Olympics – and at almost all professional sporting events – you rarely see a competitor over 40 years old and almost never see a single athlete over 50. This is because with every additional year spent on Earth, bodies age and muscles don’t respond to exercise the same as they used to.

I lead a team of scientists who study the health benefits of exercise, strength training and diet in older people. We investigate how older people respond to exercise and try to understand the underlying biological mechanisms that cause muscles to increase in size and strength after resistance or strength training.

Old and young people build muscle in the same way. But as you age, many of the biological processes that turn exercise into muscle become less effective. This makes it harder for older people to build strength but also makes it that much more important for everyone to continue exercising as they age.

Lifting weights and doing pushups and other strength training exercises cause muscles to grow in size and strength. <a href=
Lifting weights and doing pushups and other strength training exercises cause muscles to grow in size and strength. Thomas Barwick/Digital Vision via Getty Images
How the body builds muscle

The exercise I study is the type that makes you stronger. Strength training includes exercises like pushups and situps, but also weightlifting and resistance training using bands or workout machines.

When you do strength training, over time, exercises that at first felt difficult become easier as your muscles increase in strength and size – a process called hypertrophy. Bigger muscles simply have larger muscle fibers and cells, and this allows you to lift heavier weights. As you keep working out, you can continue to increase the difficulty or weight of the exercises as your muscles get bigger and stronger.

It is easy to see that working out makes muscles bigger, but what is actually happening to the cells as muscles increase in strength and size in response to resistance training?

Muscles move your limbs and body by contracting or releasing. <a href=
Muscles move your limbs and body by contracting or releasing. J. Gordon Betts, Kelly A. Young, James A. Wise, Eddie Johnson, Brandon Poe, Dean H. Kruse, Oksana Korol, Jody E. Johnson, Mark Womble, Peter DeSaix via OpenStaxCC BY

Any time you move your body, you are doing so by shortening and pulling with your muscles – a process called contraction. This is how muscles spend energy to generate force and produce movement. Every time you contract a muscle – especially when you have to work hard to do the contraction, like when lifting weights – the action causes changes to the levels of various chemicals in your muscles. In addition to the chemical changes, there are also specialized receptors on the surface of muscle cells that detect when you move a muscle, generate force or otherwise alter the biochemical machinery within a muscle.

In a healthy young person, when these chemical and mechanical sensory systems detect muscle movement, they turn on a number of specialized chemical pathways within the muscle. These pathways in turn trigger the production of more proteins that get incorporated into the muscle fibers and cause the muscle to increase in size.

These cellular pathways also turn on genes that code for specific proteins in cells that make up the muscles contracting machinery. This activation of gene expression is a longer-term process, with genes being turned on or off for several hours after a single session of resistance exercise.

The overall effect of these many exercise-induced changes is to cause your muscles to get bigger.

How older muscles change

While the basic biology of all people, young or old, is more or less the same, something is behind the lack of senior citizens in professional sports. So what changes in a person’s muscles as they age?

What my colleagues and I have found in our research is that in young muscle, a little bit of exercise produces a strong signal for the many processes that trigger muscle growth. In older people’s muscles, by comparison, the signal telling muscles to grow is much weaker for a given amount of exercise. These changes begin to occur when a person reaches around 50 years old and become more pronounced as time goes on.

In a recent study, we wanted to see if the changes in signaling were accompanied by any changes in which genes – and how many of them – respond to exercise. Using a technique that allowed us to measure changes in thousands of genes in response to resistance exercise, we found that when younger men exercise, there are changes in the expression of more than 150 genes. When we looked at older men, we found changes in the expression of only 42 genes. This difference in gene expression seems to explain, at least partly, the more visible variation between how young and old people respond to strength training.

Strength training can help maintain overall fitness and allow you to keep doing other things you love as you age. <a href=
Strength training can help maintain overall fitness and allow you to keep doing other things you love as you age. Peathegee Inc via Getty Images
Staying fit as you age

When you put together all of the various molecular differences in how older adults respond to strength training, the result is that older people do not gain muscle mass as well as young people.

But this reality should not discourage older people from exercising. If anything, it should encourage you to exercise more as you age.

Exercise still remains one of the most important activities older adults can do for their health. The work my colleagues and I have done clearly shows that although the responses to training lessen with age, they are by no means reduced to zero.

We showed that older adults with mobility problems who participate in a regular program of aerobic and resistance exercise can reduce their risk of becoming disabled by about 20%. We also found a similar 20% reduction in risk of becoming disabled among people who are already physically frail if they did the same workout program.

While younger people may get stronger and build bigger muscles much faster than their older counterparts, older people still get incredibly valuable health benefits from exercise, including improved strength, physical function and reduced disability. So the next time you are sweating during a workout session, remember that you are building muscle strength that is vital to maintaining mobility and good health throughout a long life.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

This Deadly Chemical Should Be Banned

Rebecca Fuoco, David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz – February 19, 2023

Ms. Fuoco is the director of science communications at the Green Science Policy Institute. Dr. Rosner is a professor of sociomedical sciences and history at Columbia. Dr. Markowitz is a history professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

A column of flames and dark smoke reaches high into the sky.
A black plume and flames rise over East Palestine, Ohio, from a controlled burn of chemicals carried by a derailed train.Credit…Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Like a scene out of some postapocalyptic movie, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio convened a news conference on Feb. 5 to deliver a stark warning. “We are ordering them to leave,” he said of residents of the small rural community of East Palestine, Ohio, and a neighboring part of Pennsylvania. “This is a matter of life and death.” To emphasize the point, he added: “Those in the red area are facing grave danger of death if they are still in that area.”

In this case, the “grave danger of death” was not a zombie fungus or lethal bacteria but chemicals. The red area was an area one mile by two miles surrounding the town, on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border about 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Two days earlier, it was the site of a fiery derailment of train cars carrying the gas vinyl chloride and other chemicals. Freight trains typically transport more than two million carloads of hazardous materials each year, including many chemicals. Vinyl chloride is particularly dangerous and increasingly common, used primarily to make polyvinyl chloride, better known as PVC, a hard plastic resin used to produce pipes, wire, cable coatings and packaging. We should begin phasing out the use of this chemical.

It was a particular concern in East Palestine after the derailment. Because vinyl chloride is so flammable, it created a risk of an explosion that could launch deadly shrapnel as far as a mile. To avoid such a catastrophe, railroad officials vented the vinyl chloride and burned it off.

But shrapnel wasn’t the only risk. Inhaling vinyl chloride fumes can be deadly. Even people in neighboring towns were at risk. On Feb. 10, seven days after the crash, the Environmental Protection Agency said that chemicals were “known to have been and continue to be” released to the air, surface soil and surface waters.

Residents complained last week of rashes, headaches and a lingering odor. Thousands of dead fish turned up in streams near the crash site.

Vinyl chloride is not just suspected of causing cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer considers it a Group 1 carcinogen known to cause liver cancer in highly exposed industrial workers. It has also been associated with brain and lung cancers, lymphoma and leukemia.

We need to stop producing and using vinyl chloride and its most important end product, PVC plastics. Increasingly, major businesses are phasing it out. Many European communities have banned or restricted its use, even as the PVC plastics industry is expanding.

The United States should begin eliminating PVC by categories of use. Legislation has been floated in California to prohibit PVC in food packaging — a ban that could be expanded to other nonessential needs. Though PVC is inexpensive, it is replaceable in most cases. Alternatives include glass, ceramics, linoleum, polyesters and more.

Also, discarded PVC should be labeled a hazardous waste. The designation would put the burden on users for its safe storage, transportation and disposal, creating an incentive to accelerate its elimination. The E.P.A. tentatively rejected such an action in January but is still accepting public comment on the proposal.

You might wonder why such a hazardous chemical, among others, is being transported along American railways and through our communities. It’s because vinyl chloride is one of the most produced petrochemicals in the world. Tens of millions of tons of it are manufactured annually. (It was used as an aerosol propellant in household consumer products like hair spray until it was banned in aerosols by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1974.)

Vinyl chloride manufacturers laid the groundwork for the chemical’s proliferation decades ago with cover-ups and disinformation campaigns. Their own research showed that exposure led to deadly cancers in rodents. Numerous studies have found that workers regularly exposed to the chemical during the 1970s developed malignant liver cancers at very high rates. Chemical companies knew early on they were unleashing a dangerous substance into the world.

The extraordinary efforts of the chemical industry to continue selling products it knew were harmful were recounted by two of us in our 2002 book “Deceit and Denial.”

In addition to the manufacturing and transportation risks of vinyl chloride, PVC plastics can release endocrine-disrupting phthalates, used to soften PVC, and cancer-causing dioxins into air and water during much of their life cycle.

Many of the vinyl chloride and PVC production facilities are clustered with other petrochemical facilities along an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River in Louisiana between Baton Rouge and New Orleans known as Cancer Alley. People in one town in the area, most of whom are Black, are about 50 times as likely to develop cancer as the average American. They face the constant threat of chemical accidents.

The PVC plastics industry is expanding in other parts of the country. Growing plastics hubs in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia could become new cancer alleys.

As long as PVC production continues, the risk of vinyl chloride spills will persist. Worse, more workers and communities will be exposed to the ticking time bombs of cancer and other severe health harms.

America Can’t Go ‘Wobbly’ on Ukraine

David French – February 19, 2023

A gravedigger standing in an open grave in a cemetary that is filled with Ukrainian Flags.
Cemetery workers pre-digging graves in anticipation of more military funerals at a cemetery in Kharkiv, last month.Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

As we approach the first anniversary of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, two ominous trends are emerging at once. First, Russia is doubling down. It’s pouring fresh troops into Ukraine and launching new offensive operations.

Second, poll after poll after poll demonstrate that American support for Ukraine is slipping away. While Americans have sympathy for Ukraine, declining percentages are willing to spend American resources to keep Ukraine in the fight.

Yet the outcome of the war is simply too important — to America as well as Ukraine — to allow our support to falter. On the war’s anniversary it’s time for a concerted effort to persuade Americans of a single idea: We should support Ukraine as much as it takes, as long as it takes, until the Russian military suffers a decisive, unmistakable defeat.

Instead, domestic agreement is fraying. As The Washington Post reported last week, the Biden administration is telling Ukraine there are no guarantees of future support, and it’s “raising the pressure” on Ukraine “to make significant gains on the battlefield” in the short term, while Western aid still flows.

According to The Post, the administration is even qualifying the meaning of President Biden’s State of the Union pledge to support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” It quotes an administration official saying, “‘As long as it takes’ pertains to the amount of conflict,” but “it doesn’t pertain to the amount of assistance.”

This is a dangerous notion. Despite the remarkable success of the Ukrainian military thus far, pushing Ukraine to mount a premature offensive could have catastrophic results. It will take time for Ukraine to receive the deliveries of advanced Western tanks, for example. And deploying those tanks before Ukrainian soldiers are fully trained and before Ukraine has a maintenance infrastructure in place could result in unacceptable losses and squandered resources.

Compounding the challenge, the modest numbers of new Western weapons may not be enough to decisively break Russian lines, especially given that Russia has had time to build an “immense” network of fortifications in the Donbas region. Ukraine needs both quality and quantity to defeat the Russian military, and while dribbling small numbers of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other weapons into the fight is much better than nothing, it is likely to be far short of adequate for the demands of combat on this scale. Ukraine, after all, is confronting one of the world’s great powers — even if it is not quite as great as we may have believed a year ago.

Rather than press Ukraine to undertake offensive operations, the administration and Democratic and Republican congressional allies must impress upon the American public the extraordinary high stakes for America in the outcome of a war fought so many thousands of miles from our shores.

One of the miracles of modern life is that it’s been generations since the great powers have gone to war against one another. The humanitarian catastrophes of the first two world wars are the stuff of history books for everyone but the last surviving veterans of World War II. But those same history books teach us that large-scale European conflicts implicate vital American interests and draw Americans into deadly conflict. There is no better way to prevent American men and women from dying in European battlefields than helping Ukraine defeat Russia and thereby deterring a general European war.

What more, if Russia defeats Ukraine, a dangerous precedent will be set. Nuclear-armed powers will prove they can invade smaller foes and then rattle the nuclear saber to deter an effective response, creating a one-way ratchet toward territorial aggression. Ironically enough, the effort to placate Russia to avoid escalation is likely to result in more aggression from nuclear-armed foes.

Moreover, if Russia ultimately defeats Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will have a message for his people: Russia confronted Ukraine and NATO, and Russia won. Russian victory will have a galvanizing impact on illiberal and authoritarian movements in the West. Western retreat from a winnable war will prove in many quarters the Russian critique of the “woke” West, that it is simply too self-indulgent, decadent and individualistic to survive and thrive.

Make no mistake, this is a winnable war. Yes, Ukraine alone cannot withstand Russia over the long term. It lacks the personnel and the industrial base. But American industrial output dwarfs Russia’s, and our superior arms can help address the personnel gap. Better weapons can overcome the challenge of fewer people. America, the arsenal of democracy, has the capacity to help Ukraine win even a long fight. The question is whether we have the will.

American defenders of Ukraine will have to make their case, repeatedly, persuasively, and firmly. They’ll have to overcome not only the natural reluctance of the American people to spend large sums abroad when there are undeniable problems at home, but also a vicious and vitriolic new right that hates the Ukrainian cause, and is spewing that hatred to an audience millions strong.

Consider these words, from prominent right-wing Americans, when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed Congress last December. Tucker Carlson of Fox News derided Zelensky for wearing fatigues in the Capitol, saying he “dressed like the manager of a strip club.” The popular right-wing podcaster Candace Owens said, “I just want to punch him” in response to a video of Zelensky thanking Americans for their support. Not to be outdone, Donald Trump Jr. called Zelensky an “international welfare queen.”

Insults are not arguments. But insults can be answered by arguments. And the argument for defeating Russian aggression, destroying the offensive capability of the Russian military, and thereby potentially deterring future aggression in Ukraine and beyond, are overwhelming. Ukraine needs American aid to win its war, and America can help Ukraine win while expending a fraction of the cost of the American defense budget.

In 1990, as the United States and its allies mobilized their militaries to respond to Saddam Hussein’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Kuwait, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain told President George H.W. Bush, “This is no time to go wobbly.” At that moment, American troops and American treasure were on the line. Now only American treasure is at stake. But the same words apply — they apply to President Biden, to Congress, and, crucially, to the American people. This is no time to go wobbly.

It’s awful to say this about any war, given the horrific loss of life, but this one is winnable. And Russian aggression cannot prevail.

One Year Into War, Putin Is Crafting the Russia He Craves

In Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion has met setback after setback. But its effect at home has been very different.

Anton Troianovski from Berlin, and Valerie Hopkins from Moscow

February 19, 2023

A mural of soldiers, painted in grays with a slogan above in yellow, on the end of a row of stucco-fronted houses
A patriotic mural in Moscow dedicated to victory in World War II. The Kremlin is tapping into Russian pride in the nation’s victory over the Nazis to demonize Ukraine.

Photographs by Nanna Heitmann

The grievances, paranoia and imperialist mind-set that drove President Vladimir V. Putin to invade Ukraine have seeped deep into Russian life after a year of war — a broad, if uneven, societal upheaval that has left the Russian leader more dominant than ever at home.

Schoolchildren collect empty cans to make candles for soldiers in the trenches, while learning in a new weekly class that the Russian military has always liberated humanity from “aggressors who seek world domination.”

Museums and theaters, which remained islands of artistic freedom during previous crackdowns, have seen that special status evaporate, their antiwar performers and artists expunged. New exhibits put on by the state have titles like “NATOzism” — a play on “Nazism” that seeks to cast the Western military alliance as posing a threat as existential as the Nazis of World War II.

Many of the activist groups and rights organizations that have sprung up in the first 30 years of post-Soviet Russia have met an abrupt end, while nationalist groups once seen as fringe have taken center stage.

As Friday’s first anniversary of the invasion approaches, Russia’s military has suffered setback after setback, falling far short of its goal of taking control of Ukraine. But at home, facing little resistance, Mr. Putin’s year of war has allowed him to go further than many thought possible in reshaping Russia in his image.

A man in military uniform gesturing to a group of children in casual clothes and army caps, in front of a mural of urban combat
Schoolchildren during a tour of the Victory Museum in Moscow, dedicated to Russia’s sacrifices and ultimate victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
An exhibit at the Victory Museum titled “Everyday Nazism” includes artifacts from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as evidence for the false assertion that Ukraine is committing “genocide” against Russians.
An exhibit at the Victory Museum titled “Everyday Nazism” includes artifacts from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as evidence for the false assertion that Ukraine is committing “genocide” against Russians.

“Liberalism in Russia is dead forever, thank God,” Konstantin Malofeyev, an ultraconservative business tycoon, bragged in a phone interview on Saturday. “The longer this war lasts, the more Russian society is cleansing itself from liberalism and the Western poison.”

That the invasion has dragged on for a year has made Russia’s transformation go far deeper, he said, than it would have had Mr. Putin’s hopes for a swift victory been realized.

“If the Blitzkrieg had succeeded, nothing would have changed,” he said.

The Kremlin for years sought to keep Mr. Malofeyev at arm’s length, even as he funded pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and called for Russia to be reformed into an empire of “traditional values,” free of Western influence. But that changed after the invasion, as Mr. Putin turned “traditional values” into a rallying cry — signing a new anti-gay law, for instance — while styling himself as another Peter the Great retaking lost Russian lands.

Most important, Mr. Malofeyev said, Russia’s liberals have either been silenced or have fled the country, while Western companies have left voluntarily.

That change was evident last Wednesday at a gathering off the traffic-jammed Garden Ring road in Moscow, where some of the most prominent rights activists who have remained in Russia came together for the latest of many recent farewells: The Sakharov Center, a human rights archive that was a liberal hub for decades, was opening its last exhibit before being forced to shut under a new law.

The center’s chairman, Vyacheslav Bakhmin, once a Soviet dissident, told the assembled crowd that “what we just couldn’t have imagined two years ago or even a year ago is happening today.”

A delighted young girl hefting a large rifle, under a woman’s supervision, amid dummies of soldiers with V and Z patches.
An exhibition of military equipment in Moscow in August.
A green toy tank, the heads of a man and child poking out, on a path marked with red barriers. A poster of tanks is behind.
The exhibition included toy tanks for children to drive.

“A new system of values has been built,” Aleksandr Daniel, an expert on Soviet dissidents, said afterward. “Brutal and archaic public values.”

A year ago, as Washington warned of an imminent invasion, most Russians dismissed the possibility; Mr. Putin, after all, had styled himself as a peace-loving president who would never attack another country. So after the invasion started — stunning some of the president’s closest aides — the Kremlin scrambled to adjust its propaganda to justify it.

It was the West that went to war against Russia by backing “Nazis” who took power in Ukraine in 2014, the false message went, and the goal of Mr. Putin’s “special military operation” was to end the war the West had started.

In a series of addresses aimed at shoring up domestic support, Mr. Putin cast the invasion as a near-holy war for Russia’s very identity, declaring that it was fighting to prevent liberal gender norms and acceptance of homosexuality from being forced upon it by an aggressive West.

The full power of the state was deployed to spread and enforce that message. National television channels, all controlled by the Kremlin, dropped entertainment programming in favor of more news and political talk shows; schools were directed to add a regular flag-raising ceremony and “patriotic” education; the police hunted down people for offenses like antiwar Facebook posts, helping to push hundreds of thousands of Russians out of the country.

“Society in general has gone off the rails,” Sergei Chernyshov, who runs a private high school in the Siberian metropolis of Novosibirsk, said in a phone interview. “They’ve flipped the ideas of good and evil.”

Students visiting the Victory Museum wore green army caps.
Students visiting the Victory Museum wore green army caps.
Fireworks over a lit Red Square at night, with dozens of rows of uniformed musicians between two banks of spectators.
Fireworks burst over a military music festival in Red Square in August.

Mr. Chernyshov, one of the few Russian school heads who has spoken out against the war, described the narrative of Russian soldiers fighting in defense of their nation as so easily digestible that much of society truly came to believe it — especially since the message meshed seamlessly with one of the most emotionally evocative chapters of Russian history: their nation’s victory in World War II.

A nationwide campaign urging children to make candles for soldiers has become so popular, he said, that anyone questioning it in a school chat group might be called a “Nazi and an accomplice of the West.”

At the same time, he argued, daily life has changed little for Russians without a family member fighting in Ukraine, which has hidden or assuaged the costs of the war. Western officials estimate that at least 200,000 Russians have been killed or wounded in Ukraine, a far more serious toll than analysts had predicted when the war began. Yet the economy has suffered much less than analysts predicted, with Western sanctions having failed to drastically reduce average Russians’ quality of life even as many Western brands departed.

“One of the scariest observations, I think, is that for the most part, nothing has changed for people,” Mr. Chernyshov said, describing the urban rhythm of restaurants and concerts and his students going on dates. “This tragedy gets pushed to the periphery.”

In Moscow, Mr. Putin’s new ideology of war is on display at the Victory Museum — a sprawling hilltop compound dedicated to the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. One new exhibit, “NATOzism,” declares that “the purpose of creating NATO was to achieve world domination.” A second, “Everyday Nazism,” includes artifacts from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, which has far-right connections, as evidence for the false assertion that Ukraine is committing “genocide” against Russians.

“It was scary, creepy and awful,” one patron named Liza, 19, said of what the exhibit had shown her, declining to give her last name because of the political sensitivity of the subject. She said she was distressed to learn of this behavior by the Ukrainians, as presented by Russian propaganda. “It shouldn’t be that way,” she said, signaling her support for Mr. Putin’s invasion.

Hundreds of students were visiting on a recent afternoon, and primary schoolchildren marched in green army caps as their chaperone called out, “Left, left, one, two, three!” and addressed them as “soldiers.” In the main hall, the studio of Victory TV — a channel started in 2020 to focus on World War II — was filming a live talk show.

Men in green uniforms with heads bowed or arms folded, facing a gesturing figure in black.
A priest blessing men who had just been conscripted into the Russian Army at a recruiting office in Moscow in November.
A small crowd mostly of women and children in coats. One of the children, in a gray woolen hat, is crying.
Families of conscripted Russian men saying farewell.

“The framework of the conflict helped people to come to terms with it,” said Denis Volkov, the director of the Levada Center, an independent pollster in Moscow. “The West is against us. Here are our soldiers, there are the enemy soldiers, and in this framework, you have to take sides.”

Weeks after launching his invasion, Mr. Putin declared that Russia faced a much-needed “self-purification of society.” He has glibly wished “all the best!” to Western businesses that have left the country and said their departures created “unique development opportunities” for Russian companies.

But in Khabarovsk, a city on the Chinese border in Russia’s Far East, Vitaly Blazhevich, a local English teacher, says the locals miss Western brands like H&M, the clothing retailer. When it came to the war, he went on, the dominant emotion was one of passive acceptance and the hope that things would end soon.

“People are nostalgic for what turned out to have been the good times,” he said.

Mr. Blazhevich taught at a Khabarovsk state university until he was forced to resign on Friday, he said, for criticizing Mr. Putin in a YouTube interview with Radio Liberty, the American-funded Russian-language news outlet. They were the kind of comments that would probably not have been punished before the war. Now, he said, the government’s repression of dissent “is like a steamroller” — “everyone is just being rolled into the asphalt.”

Mr. Malofeyev, the conservative tycoon, said Russia still needed another year “for society to cleanse itself completely from the last fateful years.” He said that anything short of “victory” in Ukraine, complete with a parade in Kyiv, could still cause some of the last year’s transformation to be undone.

“If there is a cease-fire in the course of the spring,” he said, “then a certain liberal comeback is possible.”

In Moscow, at the farewell event at the Sakharov Center, some of the older attendees noted that in the arc of Russian history, a Kremlin crackdown on dissent was nothing new. Yan Rachinsky, chairman of Memorial, the rights group forced to disband in late 2021, said the Soviets banned so much “that there was nothing left to ban.”

“But you can’t ban people from thinking,” Mr. Rachinsky went on. “What the authorities are doing today does not guarantee them any longevity.”

Conscripted soldiers being greeted as they returned to Moscow.
Conscripted soldiers being greeted as they returned to Moscow.

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. He was previously Moscow bureau chief of The Washington Post and spent nine years with The Wall Street Journal in Berlin and New York.

Valerie Hopkins is an international correspondent for The Times, covering the war in Ukraine, as well as Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Russia tells Macron: Don’t forget Napoleon when you talk of regime change

Reuters

Russia tells Macron: Don’t forget Napoleon when you talk of regime change

February 19, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Plenary meeting of the Forum for the Islam of France (FORIF) in Paris
Plenary meeting of the Forum for the Islam of France (FORIF) in Paris
Russian foreign ministry's spokeswoman Zakharova attends a meeting in Moscow
Russian foreign ministry’s spokeswoman Zakharova attends a meeting in Moscow

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Sunday scolded Emmanuel Macron over remarks about wanting to see Russia defeated, saying Moscow still remembered the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte and accusing the French president of duplicitous diplomacy with the Kremlin.

Macron told paper Le Journal du Dimanche France wanted Russia to be defeated in Ukraine but had never wanted to “crush” it.

“About ‘Never’: France did not begin with Macron, and the remains of Napoleon, revered at the state level, rest in the centre of Paris. France – and Russia – should understand,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

“In general, Macron is priceless,” she said, adding that his remarks showed the West had engaged in discussions about regime change in Russia while Macron had repeatedly sought meetings with the Russian leadership.

Macron has drawn criticism from some NATO allies for delivering mixed messages regarding his policy on the war between Ukraine and Russia, with some considering Paris a weak link in the Western alliance.

On Friday, Macron urged allies to step up military support for Ukraine, but also said he did not believe in regime change and that there would have to be negotiations at some point.

“Let’s be clear, I don’t believe for one second in regime change, and when I hear a lot of people calling for regime change I ask them, ‘For which change? Who’s next? Who is your leader?'”

Clarifying those comments, he said in the paper that he did not believe a democratic solution from within civil society would emerge in Russia after years of a hardening of Moscow’s position and conflict. He added that he saw no alternative to Putin, who had to be brought back to the negotiating table.

“All the options other than Vladimir Putin in the current system seem worse to me,” Macron said.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and John Irish in Munich; Editing by Hugh Lawson)