Associated Press

Chinese leader promises more jobs to support recovery

Associated Press – March 10, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — China’s government hopes to generate as many as 13 million new jobs this year to help reverse a painful economic slowdown, the country’s No. 2 leader said Friday.

Premier Li Keqiang promised “pro-job policies” including tax and fee cuts totaling 2.5 trillion yuan ($400 billion) for businesses, especially small entrepreneurs.

Job losses spiked after economic growth slid to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter of 2021, down from the full year’s 8.1% expansion. That followed a plunge in construction after Beijing tightened controls on debt in its vast real estate industry, adding to strains from the coronavirus pandemic and weak export demand.

China has been hit this month by higher energy costs after Russia’s attack on Ukraine caused global oil prices to soar.

“China aims to create 11 million — or preferably 13 million — urban jobs in 2022,” Li said at a news conference after the closing of the annual meeting of China’s ceremonial legislature.

Li called on Washington to repeal tariffs hikes on Chinese goods imposed in a fight with Beijing over its technology ambitions but gave no indication of possible concessions or other initiatives to resolve the conflict.

Trade envoys of the two governments have yet to meet since President Joe Biden took office in January 2020. They have talked by phone but announced no plans for face-to-face talks or changes in their official stances.

Li said Chinese business leaders he talked with support tax cuts as the quickest way to generate jobs instead of government-led investment or handing out vouchers to households to boost consumer spending.

“We need to rely on market-oriented avenues and means to resolve issues related to employment,” Li said.

Economic growth tumbled last year after Beijing tightened control on surging debt in the real estate industry, which Chinese leaders say is dangerously high. That triggered a slump in housing sales and construction, important economic engines.

Forecasters expect activity to weaken further before rebounding in mid-year. That is due in part to Beijing’s desire to rely on its traditional tool of encouraging real estate investment, which might push up debt and housing costs.

The ruling party earlier announced an annual economic growth target of 5.5%. That was the weakest goal since the 1990s and would be a marked decline from last year’s 8.1% growth.

Economists say achieving even that modest target will require additional government stimulus. Li earlier announced plans to inject money into the economy through higher spending on public works but said Beijing wants to restrain its budget deficit.

Li warned global conditions are “very challenging” after saying earlier that hitting Beijing’s growth target will require ”arduous efforts.”

The weeklong meeting of the 3,000-plus members of the National People’s Congress took place against a backdrop of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the COVID-19 surge.

On Friday, Li called for ceasefire negotiations in Ukraine and promised Chinese help but avoided criticizing Russia and gave no indication Beijing was backing off its support for President Vladimir Putin.

Chinese state media have echoed Russia’s position and said Washington was to blame for the war.

The NPC meeting also served as a sounding board for public concerns including the trafficking of women and children following an outcry over reports of a mother found chained in a shed.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine echoes Beijing’s tensions with Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy the ruling party claims as part of its territory and has threatened to invade.

A spokesperson for NPC delegation from the ruling party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, this week blamed “separatist activities and collusion with external forces” for tensions with Taiwan and said the more the “United States and Japan make waves on the Taiwan question, the tougher actions we will take.”

The White House and U.S. State Department this week accused Beijing of aiding Russian disinformation efforts, including false claims over U.S. biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Wednesday said China “urges the U.S. to disclose details on U.S.-financed biological labs in Ukraine, including types of viruses stored and research has been conducted.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the allegations “outright lies” invented by Russia “in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions in Ukraine.”

This week, China has seen the number of domestic COVID-19 cases shoot to highs that are small compared to much of the world but have been unseen in China since the original outbreak two years ago. On Friday, 397 cases of local transmission were reported nationwide.

Reuters

Russia moves towards nationalizing assets of firms that leave – ruling party

March 9, 2022

(Reuters) – Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, said on Wednesday that a government commission had approved the first step towards nationalising assets of foreign firms that leave the country in the wake of economic sanctions over Ukraine.

United Russia added in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that the commission on lawmaking activity had supported a bill allowing for firms more than 25% owned by foreigners from “unfriendly states” to be put into external administration.

“This will prevent bankruptcy and save jobs,” it said.

Corporate actions to censure Russia over its invasion of Ukraine vary widely, with some firms like U.S. carmaker Ford temporarily shutting down factories but others like British energy company BP promising to exit the country.

United Russia said according to the proposed bill companies who had announced they were leaving Russia could refuse to go into administration if within five days they resumed activities or sold shares, providing that the business and employees remained.

Otherwise, a court would appoint a temporary administration for three months, after which the shares of the new organization would be put up for auction and the old one would be liquidated, it added.

Reuters

Kyiv governor calls fight for city ‘Judgement Day’

March 9, 2022

STORY: New recruits to Ukraine’s territorial defense forces in Kyiv got a lesson on Wednesday in newly-arrived weaponry, meant to punch a hole through a Russian tank.

And this instructor, who only gave his name as Alex, told Reuters these men were ready to welcome the Russian army when it tries to take the city.

“Russians can enter Kyiv but they’re not gonna leave it. They’re all gonna be burned up here.”

Many expected Kyiv to quickly fall in the early days of the war.

But more than two weeks into the Russian invasion – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – Moscow’s military missteps and tenacious Ukrainian resistance has kept the capitol from changing hands.

“Of course, we understand and see that the enemy wants to seize Kyiv, we understand that very well.”

Oleksiy Kuleba is the governor of the Kyiv region.

“Of course, they were not able to seize Kyiv immediately; their aim was to do so in two or three days. This is a well-known fact. They failed because of the heroic actions of our armed forces and ordinary people who stood up to defend our city, our country.”

He spoke to Reuters about the struggle ahead in almost apocalyptic terms.

“For us, this is Judgment Day. It is a struggle between good and evil. And either way, we would die, but we would not let them seize our city.”

Sounds and symbols of Ukrainian resolve spring up around the city.

On Wednesday, the remaining musicians of the Kyiv-Classic Symphony Orchestra performed the Ukrainian and the European Union anthems. The show was broadcast live on Ukrainian TV.

The conductor called the concert an action for peace.

That is the message here: praying for peace; preparing for battle.

The Telegraph

Britain to send world’s most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Ukraine

Dominic Nicholls – March 9, 2022

Britain is set to send the world’s most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Ukraine, the Defence Secretary has announced.

Ben Wallace on Wednesday told MPs he is looking at providing the Starstreak High-Velocity Missile systems to the Ukrainians, stepping up the UK’s military assistance to Kyiv.

Designed to destroy fighter jets and helicopters, Starstreak is the fastest short-range surface-to-air missile in the world, travelling at over Mach 3.

The missile uses three dart-like projectiles allowing multiple hits on the target. It can be fired from the shoulder, from a lightweight multiple launcher or from armoured vehicles.

Earlier versions of the system, which is made by defence firm Thales in Belfast, were deployed on top of tower blocks for the 2012 London Olympics, a move which caused some concern among residents.

As it was, no missiles were fired during the Olympic games.

The system relies on its immense speed to defeat aircraft manoeuvring around a battlefield.

‘Defensive’ lethal aid

Military officials hope the missile, described as “defensive” lethal aid by Mr Wallace, will help Ukraine gain control of the skies and further erode Russia’s fighter jet and helicopter fleets.

Once fired, the missile carrying the three darts uses a small charge to blast it clear of the launch tube. This motor cuts out before the missile has left the tube to prevent injury to the operator.

At about four metres from the soldier firing the weapon, a second booster fires to accelerate the missile rapidly to over Mach 3.

The missile homes in on the target aiming for two laser beams “painted” on the aircraft by the launch unit. All the soldier firing the weapon has to do is keep the target in the sights.

Three times the speed of sound

The target aircraft has no time to hide behind buildings or outrun the missile, which travels at more than three times the speed of sound.

Approaching the target, the three darts, known as “hitiles”, separate from the missile and coast towards the aircraft.

The kinetic energy generated by travelling at such speed will destroy most targets, but to ensure complete destruction each dart contains a delayed initiation 0.9kg blast fragmentation warhead that explodes inside the aircraft.Addressing the Commons, Mr Wallace explained the rationale for the potential donation of such missiles. “As the conflict intensifies, the Russians are changing their tactics, so the Ukrainians need to, too,” he said.

“We can all see the horrific devastation inflicted on civilian areas by Russian artillery and airstrikes, which have been indiscriminate and murderous. It is therefore vital that Ukraine maintains its ability to fly and to suppress Russian air attack,” he added.

Highlighting that the international community has already given man-portable air defence missiles, he said the Ukrainian forces’ capability “needs strengthening”.

Following requests for further help from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Wallace said providing Starstreak will “allow the Ukrainian forces to better defend their skies”

He sought to characterise the weapon supplies as defensive and tactical in nature, so as to avoid handing Vladimir Putin an excuse to refer again to the potential use of nuclear weapons.

“Everything we do is bound by the decision to supply defensive systems and [is] calibrated not to escalate to a strategic level,” the Defence Secretary said.

However, in another sign that London is stepping up the level of support it is prepared to give, he announced that Britain is about to dispatch a “small consignment” of Javelin missiles to Ukraine.

The US and Estonia have already been supplying Kyiv with the infrared-guided anti-tank munitions. Ukraine has been sent a variety of arms that target tanks by the West, including Panzerfaust 3 anti-tank weapons from the Netherlands, and AT4 anti-missile launchers from Sweden.

Mr Wallace updated the Commons on other lethal assistance the UK has provided to the Ukrainians in the 14 days since the Russian assault commenced.

This includes 1,615 next-generation light anti-weapons known as “NLAWs”, on top of 2,000 of the missiles that were sent before Moscow invaded.

The Defence Secretary highlighted that body armour, helmets, boots, ear defenders, ration packs, range-finders and communications equipment had also been donated to Ukraine.

“We shall also be increasing supplies of rations, medical equipment, and other non-lethal military aid,” he said.

Britain was the first European nation to supply lethal aid to Kyiv, he said, adding that the UK has also “invested in building Ukrainian military capacity since 2015”, alongside the US, Canada and Sweden.

Reuters

Britain plans to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles – minister

March 9, 2022

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is planning to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles to help it defend its skies from Russian invasion, defence minister Ben Wallace said, stressing that the technology fell within the definition of defensive weapons.

“It is vital… that Ukraine maintains its ability to fly and suppress Russian air attack,” Wallace told lawmakers.

“In response to Ukrainian requests, the government has taken the decision to explore the donation of STARStreak high-velocity man-portable anti-air missiles. We believe that this system will remain within the definition of defensive weapons, but will allow the Ukrainian force to better defend their skies.”

Wallace said the decision had been taken in principle to supply the systems, and the government was working out how to get them into Ukraine and train Ukrainian forces to use them.

The STARStreak system is made by Thales.

If confirmed, the supply would mark a significant step in Britain’s support for Ukraine. So far, Ukraine has praised Britain’s contribution of thousands of anti-tank missiles which have helped slow the Russian advance on Kyiv.

However Britain’s support has been limited to defensive weaponry.

“Everything we do is bound by the decision to supply defensive systems, and are calibrated not to escalate to a strategic level,” Wallace said.

As a member of the NATO military alliance, Britain has rejected pleas from Ukraine to impose a no-fly zone over the country. Britain says that could mean NATO forces shooting down Russian planes, resulting in a significant escalation of the conflict.

A proposed plan to allow Poland to donate fighter jets for use in Ukraine was rejected by the United States on Tuesday. Poland now says any supply of fighter jets to Ukraine must be done jointly by NATO countries.

Wallace said that was a matter for Poland.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, writing by Alistair Smout; editing by William James, Michael Holden and Nick Macfie)

Defense News

Britain mulls giving ‘Starstreak’ air-defense weapons to Ukraine

Andrew Chuter – March 9, 2022

LONDON — Britain has stepped up its supply of weapons to the Ukrainian military, adding Starstreak anti-air missiles to a list that already includes significant numbers of anti-tank weapons.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told lawmakers Mar. 9 that the government was “exploring” the supply of Starstreak but later confirmed that the decision had already been taken in principle to provide the Thales UK-built, short-range weapon.

Issues such as training still had to be resolved, however, said the defense secretary.

Wallace also told Parliament that Britain would supply limited numbers of Lockheed Martin- and Raytheon-built Javelin anti-tank missiles alongside non-lethal items such as ration packs and medical supplies.

“We believe that this system will remain within the definition of defensive weapons but will allow the defending force to better defend the skies,” Wallace said, referring to the Starstreak capabilities.

Wallace told lawmakers that Russia was now using unguided bombs, and that with 95 percent of its forces around Ukraine committed, Moscow was trying to encourage private Russian troops from organizations like the Wagner Group to join the fight.

Citing Ukrainian data, he said Russia is believed to have lost 285 tanks, 985 armored vehicles, 44 aircraft, 48 helicopters, 109 artillery pieces. Some 11,000 Russian troops had been killed, he added, noting that the Ukrainian figures were unverified.

Starstreak is a high-velocity missile designed to provide air defense against helicopters, low flying fixed wing jets and unmanned air vehicles out to a range upwards of 4 miles.

The British have fielded the weapon since 1997, first mounted on an armored vehicle, but more recently as a lightweight, multiple-missile launcher and in shoulder-launched configurations.

Starstreak is the second significant weapon system supplied to the Ukrainian military by the British recently.

Just ahead of the Russian invasion Royal Air Force C-17 airlifters delivered Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAW) to Ukraine.

Like the Starstreak, the NLAW was built at a Thales UK factory just outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, although the anti-tank weapon was largely developed by Saab in Sweden as a collaborative effort between the two countries.

Wallace updated lawmakers on the volume of NLAWs supplied to the Ukraine, saying Britain had initially provided 2000 weapons but had now increased that number to 3615 missiles, with efforts continuing to deliver more.

The weapons are coming from British military stockpiles. Wallace said work was underway to replenish them.

The weapons supply is part of a wider aid contribution from the British, which includes a big increase in humanitarian donations by the government.

Although Britain is pouring money into aid and the supply of weapons Wallace didn’t address the broader issue of increased defense spending during his statement.

The government announced a £16.5 billion ($22.3 billion) increase over four years in 2021, but a yet-bigger increase would appear to have broad support across Parliament.

The parliamentary Defence Committee has been advocating a substantial rise in Britain’s underfunded military for several years.

A plan for increased spending could come as soon as the next few weeks.

How much is enough is a difficult question, said John Louth, an independent defense analyst here.

“They will have to consider going back to the 1980s spending levels if not before,” he added. “Certainly I can see it going up to 3.5% of gross domestic product [from 2percent now], maybe a little more. The lesson from the Cold War though is that it’s no good doing that unless you are taking an integrated approach with allies.”

Like other analysts here Louth reckons the government’s integrated defense review, released just 12 months ago, will need a rethink, if not shredding, in the wake of the Russian invasion.

Louth said rethinking the role and capabilities of Britain’s shrinking army Army was the immediate priority.

“The British Army have to wake up to the fact that the future isn’t going to be exquisite, highly technical stand-off weapons. It is probably going to be lots of people in traditional looking vehicles with the ability to maneuver. It changes the sense of the Army just being a recruiting ground for the special forces,” he said.

The Washington Post

The secret world of offshore banking is proving it can stand up to kleptocrats

Brooke Harrington – March 8, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has produced an unexpected side effect: The complicated offshore financial system is rapidly proving it can dismantle itself.

The war has galvanized an extraordinary coalition among tax havens that usually compete fiercely with one another to attract Russian wealth. Led by the European Union, the United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Monaco – all of which have long been favored asset hiding places for Russia’s richest individuals – are suddenly cooperating to impose sanctions and expel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cronies from the zone of legal and financial impunity known as “fiscal paradise.”

In addition to separate sanctions on Russian banks and other organizations, each of those jurisdictions has now frozen or seized the personal wealth of top Russian government officials, billionaire business executives and state media representatives. Other jurisdictions have also joined the fight. Singapore stopped short of individual sanctions, but the popular tax haven made the “almost unprecedented” move to shut out Russian banks. Even Cyprus – so dependent on Putin’s cronies that it has been described as a “Russian bank with dirty money posing as an E.U. state” – has risked the wrath of its top clients by breaking off an agreement to let Russian planes use Cypriot airspace and Russian naval ships dock in Cypriot ports.

These are extraordinary developments in their own right, no matter what Putin does next in Ukraine. Even if the sanctions don’t produce the intended Russian withdrawal, they have shown that tax havens can act collectively in the best interests of society by refusing to aid and abet kleptocrats. This is such a revelation because for decades, offshore centers – ranging from giants like the United States and Switzerland to tiny islands such as Nevis in the Caribbean – have insisted that this cannot be done under any circumstances. But as several commentators have noted, the news keeps showing us that the impossible is indeed possible.

Most importantly, the fiscal paradises of the world have demonstrated that they are willing and able, when they wish, to break down their own walls of silence and complicity – even though this threatens their core business model. Just how serious a threat that represents to kleptocrats can be judged by their reactions to this move. When the Panama Papers exposed what many suspected to be portions of Putin’s personal fortune, he allegedly viewed the revelations as a “personal attack,” demanding retaliation against the West in the form of interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Those data leaks, filled with revelations about rampant corruption among government and business leaders worldwide, were the first breach in the nearly impenetrable secrecy that has always been the main product of the world’s tax havens.

A few years later, Putin now describes coordinated sanctions against supporters of his regime as “akin to an act of war.” The coalition dealing out the sanctions apparently views these measures in the same light. The French finance minister described last week’s seizure of a yacht owned by Igor Sechin – a former deputy prime minister, now considered the second-most powerful Russian after Putin himself – as part of an “all-out economic and financial war in Russia.”

With Russian offshore wealth estimated conservatively as equivalent to 85 percent of the country’s GDP, there is a great deal at stake, but it is not just the money. Anti-corruption campaigners like Alexei Navalny who have fought for years against Russian kleptocracy insist that sanctioning and seizing oligarchs’ offshore wealth is essential to halting the abuses of Putin’s regime.

Just two years ago, Navalny claimed sanctions on Russian oligarchs were failing precisely because they were implemented in a piecemeal, “chaotic” and halfhearted manner by countries like the United States and Great Britain. But that has changed almost overnight. While some critics still view progress on sanctions as unnecessarily slow – especially in “Londongrad,” as the British capital is sometimes known because of its friendliness to Russian wealth – some observers have already declared that “the era of Russian money in London is over.”

Where will Russian wealth go now that Putin’s war has galvanized so many other tax havens to unite in shutting out the oligarchs? Now that the offshore system has shown that it can expel some of its most cherished clients from fiscal paradise, kleptocrats from outside Russia must be wondering whether that fate will befall them next. They cannot unsee what we have all seen: that the wall of offshore omerta can and will be breached in unpredictable ways.

It would be a consummate irony if Putin himself accomplished with his invasion of Ukraine what a string of devastating offshore leaks could not: the self-destruction of the offshore financial system. He has unquestionably, if unintentionally, accelerated the process “John Doe” and the insiders behind the 2017 Paradise Papers and 2021 Pandora Papers leaks began by breaching the wall of seemingly impenetrable tax haven secrecy.

Brooke Harrington is a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College and the author of “Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent.”

The Guardian

‘They were sent as cannon fodder’: Siberian governor confronted by relatives of Russian unit

Pjotr Sauer – March 8, 2022

A Russian governor in Siberia has been confronted by angry citizens who blamed him for deploying a local riot police unit to Ukraine to become “cannon fodder”, a video clip circulating online showed.

The footage, first posted by Radio Free Europe (RFE) on Monday, showed a fiery exchange between Sergei Tsivilyov, the governor of the Kemerovo region, and people in the city of Novokuznetsk.

“They lied to everyone, they deceived everyone … Why did you send them there?” one woman asks Tsivilyov, saying that the soldiers thought they were going for military drills in Belarus.

“They didn’t know their objective … They were sent as cannon fodder,” the woman adds.

The governor would not have been responsible for the decision to deploy the unit, which would have been made by the country’s national guard, a separate internal military force directly subordinated to the president, Vladimir Putin.

According to RFE, the confrontation took place on Saturday at the gymnasium of the training base for riot police units, some of whose officers were killed or captured in Ukraine.

As the fighting in Ukraine nears its third week, more and more relatives of killed and captured Russian soldiers have expressed their opposition to the war, saying their loved ones were not told in advance about the country’s plans to invade Ukraine. Videos of captured Russian soldiers issued by the Ukrainians also appear to show that Russian troops were not informed of the invasion until the very end.

Western military experts have raised questions about Russian troops’ morale and preparedness in Ukraine, which could explain why Moscow’s blitzkrieg plan to overwhelm Ukraine and take Kyiv has so far failed.

Russia has revealed very little information about the state of its soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Last week, Russia’s defence ministry said that 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine. Ukraine’s military claimed on Sunday that more than 11,000 Russian troops had been killed since the invasion of Ukraine began.

In the video, Tsivilyov defended the invasion, saying that Russia’s actions in Ukraine “shouldn’t be criticised”.

“Look, you can shout and blame everyone right now, but I think that, while a military operation is in process, one shouldn’t make any conclusions,” Tsivilyov said.

Russian officials, as well as state media, have been referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion”.

Authorities have also introduced a number of new laws aimed at stifling public opposition to the war.

On Friday, Putin signed into law a bill that introduced jail terms of up to 15 years for fake news about the Russian army, forcing many Russian and international outlets to cease their coverage of the events.

And while the authorities have been successful at getting a large segment of the population behind its war efforts, videos such as the Novokuznetsk footage circulating online suggest the war is deeply unpopular among those who have lost friends and relatives in Ukraine.

The Guardian previously spoke to family members of a Russian sniper captured in Ukraine, who similarly expressed anger and shock about their relative’s involvement in the war.

“Young boys are thrown like cannon fodder, and most importantly for what? For palaces in Gelendzhik?” the close family member of the captured sniper Leonid Paktishev said, referring to the palatial mansion on the Black Sea that Russian independent journalists have said is linked to Putin.

The Guardian – Interview

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova: ‘You cannot play nice with Putin. He is insane. He might open fire on his own people’

Zoe Williams – March 8, 2022

The Russian artist – who spent two years in a Siberian jail for singing an anti-Putin ‘punk prayer’ – is using NFTs to fight the dictator, raising $7m in five days. At a time like this, she says, only activism will keep you sane

Nadya Tolokonnikova is in a geographically undisclosed location, speaking to me by Zoom, in a Pussy Riot T-shirt, looking purposeful, driven and singleminded. Her feminist protest art has been deadly serious since its inception, when she founded Pussy Riot in 2011. The watching world may have been entertained by its playful notes, the guerrilla gigs in unauthorised places, culminating in the event for which she was prosecuted, in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, when she sang Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Drive Putin Away.

But the consequences have always been seismic and severe. Tolokonnikova, along with two other members of Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism in 2012, separated from their very young children, went on hunger strike, endured unimaginably harsh conditions and were named prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.

Tolokonnikova is “nomadic by nature”, she says. “This planet is my home. I’ve always been an anarchist. I’m not really a big fan of borders or nation states.” But beneath those abstracts there exist concrete dangers. She was declared a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin in December, as was the independent news outlet she founded upon her release from prison, Mediazone.

“Putin just signed a law that said you’re going to get 15 years in jail for even discussing the war in Ukraine,” she says matter-of-factly. “You cannot even call it a war, you have to call it a special military operation.” The jeopardy of being a known Russian dissident is greater now than it has been in decades, and nobody understands that more keenly than Tolokonnikova, who was born in 1989, too young to remember Perestroika.

Yet her focus is anything but self-protective. When Putin invaded Ukraine on 24 February, she and various collaborators from the world of cryptocurrency launched the Ukraine DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation). It was a 1/1 NFT of the Ukrainian flag, and the group invited people to bid for collective ownership of the image, raising $7.1m in five days.

“We felt, me and my friends in crypto, that we had to react somehow. I’m personally convinced that in situations like this, activism is the only thing that can keep you sane. Just looking at disasters and tragedies and not doing anything about it is really detrimental for the world, but also it slowly destroys you and makes you feel helpless.” The money has already been distributed to the organisation Come Back Alive, which has been mobilising support for the Ukrainian army since 2014 with medical care, ammunition, training and defence analytics.

I was ready to die. If you fight with a dictator, you have to show them that you are ready to fight to the end

Tolokonnikova is devastated by the invasion of Ukraine. “I’m in a panic, I’m crying every day. I don’t think it was in any sense necessary, I don’t think it was in any sense logical. It wasn’t something that had to happen, it’s a disaster that will end thousands of people’s lives. I’m freaking out.” Yet she never had the luxury of complacency about what Putin was capable of. “The global community was extremely complacent, and I see two reasons: hypocrisy, based on greed. People would make statements that they did not support Putin’s politics, and his oppression of the political opposition, and the wars that he started – this isn’t the first war by any means. But at the same time they would continue doing business with him.” Nobody was interested in following the money; asking how the oligarchs coming out of Russia, fetching up in Europe and Miami, had come upon their vast wealth.

“Stupidity,” she continues, bluntly: “this is the second reason. People underestimate how dangerous dictators are. In 2014, we spoke to the UK parliament, we spoke at the Senate in the US, we were asked by a lot of people how they should talk to Putin, how they should frame the conversation, and I always advised that they should be as strict as they could. You cannot play nice with Putin.” This wisdom was won, not so much by her arrest for offending the thin-skinned leader but during her time in prison. “Dictators act a lot like prison wardens. They treat kindness as weakness.”

Both during her sentence and following her release in 2014, Tolokonnikova campaigned in ways that political prisoners throughout history would recognise. First, with a hunger strike. “Starting that, I was pretty much ready to die. If you fight with a dictator, you have to show them that you are ready to fight to the end. I think this is why Ukraine is actually winning: they might lose some cities but they’re willing to fight to the end, and that is not the case for the Russian army.”

She gained support worldwide, and from figures such as Madonna and Hillary Clinton. She began to exchange letters with Slavoj Žižek which were subsequently turned into a book, Comradely Greetings. What she remembers now, though, was the concrete impact on prison conditions. A week into her hunger strike, Putin’s right-hand man on human rights called her personally, in prison, to discuss the brutal conditions she was protesting against: 18 hour days of labour with only one day off every six weeks; very little sleep; horrific violence at the hands of guards and other inmates.

“This was fairly insane. I was the lowest person on the social ladder, and he had to call me.” Later, the prison director and architect of this slave labour system, Yury Kupriyanov, was convicted for it and served a suspended two-year sentence, and the Russian correctional headquarters “had to make a statement. They named me, and said I was right.”

Everything I’m doing is to be a greater pain in the arse to Putin

Tolokonnikova’s sentence left its mark: “I was traumatised by prison. I was barely functional when I got released. I suffered from a really severe depression in 2014. I’m still on medication for depression caused by PTSD.” The daughter from whom she was separated by incarceration is now 14; “she’s a social democrat,” Tolokonnikova says approvingly, if a bit wryly. “She says that in her generation, people want greater equality.”

Her experience hasn’t blunted her activism, which is now concentrated at the frontier of technological possibility. She originally thought cryptocurrencies were just a toy for rich techies but their potential for activists – being independent of central banks and governments, immune to corporate takeover – dawned on her in early 2021, and since that time she has raised: “quite substantial sums for different charitable causes. We raised money for a shelter for victims of domestic violence. We were able to move dozens of women from a really dangerous place in Russia, outside of Russia. We raised money in August of last year for political prisoners in Russia.”

Besides that, today she is helping launch the UnicornDAO, a crypto fund whose mission is to buy artworks from female and LGBTQ+ artists. “It’s not going to be just buying up their works of art; we’re going to be working with them, helping them in various ways to have stable and sustainable careers.” Unicorn’s first purchase was by the Russian-born, New York-based artist Olive Allen.

“I feel like the NFT world is a great way to redistribute money,” Tolokonnikova says, “but we see these old patterns being repeated. Misogyny doesn’t go anywhere, it just migrates over to digital artwork. Women account for only five per cent of all NFT sales. It’s so much more difficult to prove there is value in your words if you happen to be a woman.”

These explorations in crypto can sound mercurial, one minute driving cultural change, the next raising money, the next trying to create democratic agency independent of nation states – and it’s by no means clear what that would look like – but Tolokonnikova’s reading of Russian politics, and what it would take to force change, is entirely practical. It would take “a mass uprising, millions of people coming to the streets and refusing to leave until Putin is gone. That is obviously incredibly dangerous. Putin is insane, so he might open fire at his own people. I definitely understand why everybody is not already on the streets.”

Alongside that, “another force of change may come from Putin’s closet circle. I honestly think Putin is digging his own grave now. The number of oligarchs who are close to him who have publicly supported Ukraine, and are standing against the war, is significant, and that hasn’t happened in 20 years.”

She sees a worthy successor to Putin in opposition leader Alexei Navalny. “Better social programes, and redistribution, that’s all part of his programe. I’ve known him since 2007 – it has been really interesting to witness his platform become more and more social democratic, even though he doesn’t describe himself as that. He doesn’t use labels. I think it’s smart. He doesn’t want to divide people.” And as she recalls her own time in prison, Tolokonnikova urges the world not to forget that Navalny still languishes in jail. Her own work, specifically the UnicornDAO, “is not connected to Putin directly anyhow. But everything I’m doing is to be a greater pain in the arse to Putin, because it’s so personal to me.”

Yahoo! Finance

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ‘is really splitting Russian society,’ expert explains

Michael B. Kelley, Director Editorial – March 7, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin owns the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, one expert explained, and that means that the totalitarian leader will also own what comes next.

“This was a decision that was taken by a single individual in consultation with maybe a half dozen members of his national security council,” Timothy Frye, professor of post-Soviet foreign policy at Columbia University, told Yahoo Finance (video above). “So there’s very little elite buy-in. And the Russian public has always been skittish about conflict with Ukraine and is perfectly willing to recognize Ukrainian sovereignty. The public opinion is very clear on that question. So what we’ve seen is a great deal of repression within Russia, both of the mass public and a real attempt to silence elite opinion. And that’s a very difficult thing to do in a country with as diverse interest as Russia has.”

‘This invasion is really splitting Russian society’

Frye, author of “Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia,” added that this doesn’t mean that Putin could easily be overthrown — after all, “it’s really difficult to overthrow an autocrat.” Instead, Russia experts are watching to see if significant cracks emerge in support for Putin from elites and the public.

“The information environment of Russia is really still controlled by the Russian state, even as lots of videos are getting through,” Frye explained. “And it’s really unclear what direction the kind of battle of hearts and minds are going to go. When your country is involved in a war, patriotic elements within the country often rise up. So I think this invasion is really splitting Russian society between those who favor a view of fortress Russia versus those who want to bring Russia into the 21st century. And it’s really unclear which side is going to win out.”

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, the West swiftly moved to punish Putin’s regime by freezing Russian assets, cutting off some of the country’s banks from the SWIFT messaging system, sanctioning individual Russian oligarchs, and other measures. Various prominent companies also distanced themselves from Russia. Domestically, thousands of Russians have been arrested for protesting the war.

In terms of the economic pain, Frye noted that “the Russian economy is already at the threat of seizing up. The sanctions on the central bank are really unprecedented. And they’re much greater than I think anyone expected, certainly than Vladimir Putin expected.”

‘Ukraine seems to be in no mood to negotiate’

Asked about what comes next, Frye explained that “one thing that Putin has always been very afraid of domestic instability. So I think the impact of these sanctions and all of the Western policy are less to try to get the economic elites to turn on Putin than just trying to make the country ungovernable. And at some point, that might be one way we could constrain Putin from pushing further into Ukraine and to try to find some negotiated agreement.”

In the meantime, there is a brutal war raging in Ukraine. Russia seems to have failed to meet its objectives thus far and is increasingly bombing civilians. The Ukrainian resistance, meanwhile, appears to be both strong in battle and determined to revolt against any attempt at Russian occupation of the country.

Negotiations between the two sides are ongoing.

“Russia’s ability to occupy the country given the incredible hostility of the Ukrainian population towards Russia… would make a long-term occupation really difficult,” Frye said, later adding: “Ukraine seems to be in no mood to negotiate. They feel like they can wear down the Russian government. And by inflicting costs, they can really make life uncomfortable for Putin.”

Yahoo! News

Ukraine: Russian invasion ‘not going well’ and ‘getting more desperate’, says UK minister

Kate Buck – March 8, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is ‘not going particularly well’ and the Kremlin is ‘getting more desperate’ as Vladimir Putin’s troops feel ‘let down’ by their leaders, a minister has claimed.

Western officials believe Putin had hoped to have Ukraine well under his control within days of launching the invasion, but say poor planning, bad leadership and a fierce line of resistance from the Ukrainian people have stalled the Russian progress.

The US defence office has claimed Russia has deployed nearly all the 150,000 troops who were stationed on the border, but has only “made little progress”.

An unnamed official added the Russians are “frustrated by a stiff Ukrainian resistance as well as their own internal challenges”.

The nation’s largest cities are still under Ukrainian control, but coming under constant Russian bombardment as Putin’s force step-up their campaign of misery.

Speaking to Sky News, UK defense secretary Ben Wallace said: “Well it’s not going particularly well for the Russians, it’s day 13, way off their timetable. 

“On one level sadly there’s lots of casualties, we’ve seen the indiscriminate shelling which has killed numerous civilians.

“We’ve also recognised that probably the biggest casualties so far in the war are Russian military soldiers who have been let down by appalling leaders, appalling leadership and appalling plans, and now you see them literally at large scales dying.”

On Wednesday, Russia admitted for the first time admitted it had suffered heavy losses, saying in a statement 498 of its troops had died.

The UK has said the death toll will be “considerably higher” than figures released by the Kremlin.

Ukrainian officials have claimed over 9,000 Russian soldiers have died. The figure has not been independently verified.

Read more: Putin isn’t insane and won’t use nuclear weapons, says ex-Russian foreign minister

“I think that is something that will be seen in the Kremlin, whether they will admit to each other the failure of their aggressive and illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Wallace added.

A 40-mile-convoy of around 15,000 soldiers has been spotted outside of Kyiv for days now, but has stalled, reportedly due to supply issues.

Wallace added: “We’ve seen the column is still stuck north of Kyiv, there are reports overnight of Ukrainian special forces destroying over 20 Russian helicopters and I think we can see that Russia have a real logistic problem.

Watch: Lviv mayor calls for global help to feed refugees

Mayor of western Ukrainian city pleads for global help to feed refugees

The mayor of Lviv calls for international help because the city in far western Ukraine is struggling to feed and house the thousands of people who have fled there from war-torn regions of the country.

“That affects morale, they’re getting more desperate and you can see them getting more desperate because they’re shelling more and more innocent people, they’re trying even to get out on humanitarian corridors as we saw yesterday

“I think this goes right to the heart of the challenge that Russia has built itself a trap and the international community has united against them and we’re seeing the devastation that it’s leaving behind.”

Russia’s invasion has sparked the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War Two.

The UN’s latest figures have say 2 million refugees have fled their homes and gone into neighbouring countries for safety.

The capital of Kyiv and second-largest city of Kharkiv still remain under the control of the Ukrainians but have come under severe shelling from Russian forces.

International attention has turned to the town of Irpin in recent days, after Putin’s troops shelled humanitarian corridors which had opened up for people to evacuate.