Business Insider

Russia is seizing Western-built airliners while sanctions block parts, maintenance, and support

Taylor Rains – March 14, 2022

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law authorizing the seizure of hundreds of Western-built aircraft operated by Russian airlines.
• The planes are owned by aircraft lessors, which have canceled contracts following sanctions against Russia.
• The seize could pose a risk to passengers because the planes may not receive proper maintenance repairs due to sanctions.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that will allow Russian airlines to take control of hundreds of the Western-built planes leased from international firms, Russian news agency TASS reported, per The Wall Street Journal.

The jets will be added to the country’s aircraft register and be deployed on domestic routes, according to Reuters. The news comes on the heels of the island of Bermuda revoking the airworthiness certificates for over 700 leased aircraft in Russia, which went into effect Saturday night.

The battle between Russia and lessors has been ongoing since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with the EU forcing aircraft leasing companies to cancel their contracts with Russian airlines by March 28, meaning those foreign planes need to be returned to their owners.

However, Russian authorities and airlines have made the task difficult, including airspace closures and a ban on most international flights.

Meanwhile, European and US sanctions have cut Russian airlines off from planemakers Airbus and Boeing, which produced the bulk of the leased aircraft. That means the two Western companies cannot provide support in the form of maintenance, spare parts, or updates for the complex machines, which could pose a risk for passengers and airline staff, the Wall Street Journal noted.

As Boeing and Airbus are banned from shipping spare parts to Russia, this could force airlines to turn to risky alternatives, like buying uncertified supplies from China or “cannibalizing” parts from planes on the ground, including lessor jets.

According to aviation consultancy Ishka, $10 billion worth of planes is stranded in Russia.

“The lessors may end up having to take a writeoff,” Nick Cunningham, an analyst with Agency Partners, told Bloomberg.

HuffPost

Russia Facing ‘Outright Defeat’ And ‘Sudden’ Collapse In Ukraine, Author Says

Ed Mazza – March 13, 2022

Author and political scientist Francis Fukuyama said the Russian military is now facing the possibility of “outright defeat” in Ukraine.

And he’s warning Russian President Vladimir Putin that the end could be swift ― for both his military and his more than two-decade rule.

“The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition,” Fukuyama wrote for the American Purpose website. “The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize.”

Fukuyama, author of 1992′s “The End of History and the Last Man,” blamed incompetent planning by Moscow, which anticipated that its forces would be welcomed in Ukraine.

“Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations,” wrote Fukuyama, who holds several positions at Stanford, including Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Now, those soldiers are stuck outside of cities, facing both supply issues and constant attacks from Ukrainian forces.

If they’re defeated, he predicted, that would also spell the end of Putin.

“Putin will not survive the defeat of his army,” Fukuyama wrote. “He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?

Read Fukuyama’s full analysis here.

The Week

220,000 Ukrainians have returned home in the last 2 weeks

Catherine Garcia, Night editor – March 14, 2022

In the last two weeks, 220,000 Ukrainians have made the trek home, the country’s border guard said — many were traveling when the Russian invasion began, others needed to tie up loose ends at their foreign jobs, some are returning to fight, and a few say it’s even harder to be a refugee than it is to be back in Ukraine.

On their journey last week from the Ukrainian town of Mykolaiv to Poznan, Poland, Zhanna Sinitsyna, her 30-year-old daughter Nadiia, and 12-year-old granddaughter Kira witnessed explosions and heard gunfire. Once in Poznan, the plan was to find work and send money to Mykolaiv, where Zhanna’s husband and 19-year-old son are part of efforts to defend the city.

They were unable to find an affordable place to stay in Poznan near areas with employment opportunities and quickly discovered they didn’t have enough money to purchase necessities. After just two days, Zhanna convinced Nadiia and Kira to return to Mykolaiv on Saturday, despite their concerns. “In my soul, Mykolaiv is my home,” Zhanna told The Washington Post. “And I need to be home.”

Oleksii Zvieriev is from the Kyiv suburb Brovary, and works as a truck driver, delivering goods across Europe. On the day Russia invaded, he decided that as soon as the job was over, he would go back to Ukraine and start fighting. Standing at a train station in Przemysl, Poland, on Saturday night, he told the Post he was keeping his word and heading home.

“It’s hard to talk about the emotions of going back into a war,” Zvieriev said. “I have friends sitting in basements telling me they’re hearing explosions all the time. I can’t stop worrying.” Two of his friends — one 40 years old, the other 25 — were killed shortly after picking up arms against Russia. 

NBC News

Why are Ukraine’s cheap, slow drones so successful against Russian targets?

Ken Dilanian and Courtney Kube – March 14, 2022

The video shows a Russian missile launcher sitting in the open. Suddenly, it is enveloped in a huge fireball.

Ukrainian officials say what looked like a video game was actually the work of a small, relatively cheap Turkish-made drone that has had a surprisingly lethal impact on Russia forces.

A U.S. defense official said Monday that Ukraine has made “terrific” use of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, which can loiter over tanks and artillery and destroy them with devastatingly accurate missile fire. The official said the U.S. is working to help keep the drones flying.

Ukraine received a new shipment of the drones this month, Ukraine’s defense minister said on Facebook. He didn’t say how many. It’s unclear whether the U.S. has made efforts to facilitate the supply of the Turkish drone or other similar systems to Ukraine, in addition to the Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles it is providing.

Before the war began, military experts predicted that Russian forces would have little trouble dealing with Ukraine’s complement of as many as 20 Turkish drones. With a price tag in the single-digit millions, the Bayraktars are far cheaper than drones like the U.S. Reaper but also much slower and smaller, with a wingspan of 39 feet.

As so often has been the case in this war, however, the experts misjudged the competence of the Russian military.

“It’s quite startling to see all these videos of Bayraktars apparently knocking out Russian surface-to-air missile batteries, which are exactly the kind of system that’s equipped to shoot them down,” said David Hambling, a London-based drone expert.

That is confounding, Hambling said, because the drones should be easy for the Russians to blow out of the sky — or disable with electronic jamming.

“It is literally a World War I aircraft, in terms of performance,” he said. “It’s got a 110-horsepower engine. It is not stealthy. It is not supersonic. It’s a clay pigeon — a real easy target.”

If nothing else, the Russians should be able to down the drones with fighter jets, Hambling said. But without air superiority, Russia hasn’t been flying regular combat air patrols. As for electronic jamming, one of the mysteries of the Ukraine invasion is why the Russians haven’t made more use of what experts believe is their advanced electronic warfare capability.

The bottom line is that the Turkish drones continue to star in videos shared across Twitter and other social media platforms that feature them blowing Russian vehicles to smithereens. Ukrainians have even praised them in song. It’s unclear how many have been shot down, but some, at least, remain effective, U.S. officials said.

“It is puzzling,” Hambling said. “It may be massive incompetence by the Russians. It may be that the Ukrainians have discovered some sneaky tactics they can use.”

It’s hardly the first time the Bayraktar has played an important role in an armed conflict.

Azerbaijan used small Turkish-made drones to devastating effect against the Armenian military in 2020, bringing a decisive end to a stalemate over a disputed enclave that had gone on for years.

Video released by Azerbaijan shows the drones pummeling artillery, tank and troop emplacements surrounded by trenches that offered no protection whatsoever from the fiery death raining down from above.

The Turkish drones also had a significant impact in battles against Russian-made military gear in Libya and Syria.

The drones are manufactured by Baykar Technology, whose chief technology officer, Selçuk Bayraktar, is a son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“I’m sure it’s going to be selling extremely well,” Hambling said.

Many experts have argued that another type of unmanned weapons system would be even more helpful to Ukrainian forces: a so-called kamikaze drone, a vehicle packed with explosives that is essentially a smart guided missile launched miles away from a target. Two Israeli companies make versions of those drones, the Harop and the Hero. The U.S. military fields a system called the Switchblade, the larger version of which can destroy tanks. That weapon isn’t approved for export except to the U.K.

Turkey, which has sought to maintain friendly relations with both Russia and the West, was sanctioned by the U.S. in December 2020 over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems. Erdoğan declined to say Monday whether Turkey would buy more Russian weapons.

“Under the current circumstances, it would be premature to talk about what the future shows right now,” he said Monday during a visit to Germany, according to Reuters. “We have to see what the conditions bring. We have to maintain our friendship with Mr. Zelenskyy and Mr. Putin.”

Deadline

Antiwar Protester Storms Set Of State-Run Russian Newscast With Message “Don’t Believe The Propaganda”

Ted Johnson – March 14, 2022

A woman appeared in the background of the set of a state-run Russian newscast and shouted “no war” and “don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”

The woman was later identified as Marina Ovsyannikova and was an employee at the network Channel One, according to the Associated Press, citing the OVD-Info website. In a pre-recorded video, Ovskyannikova said that “what is going on in Ukraine now is a crime, and Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility for this aggression lies only on one person and that person is Vladimir Putin.” She said that her father is Ukrainian and her mother is Russian.

“Unfortunately, I have been working at Channel One during recent years, working on Kremlin propaganda, and now I am very ashamed. I’m ashamed that I’ve allowed the lies to be said on TV screens. I am ashamed that I let the Russian people be zombified.”

The woman was detained and is in police custody, according to the AP. The Russian News Agency TASS also reported that she had been detained and, citing a source, may be charged under a law that bans “public actions aimed at discrediting the armed forces.”

In her message, Ovskyannikova also urged Russians to protest.

! Russia's main propaganda "news program" tonight. pic.twitter.com/lrRVnF8LoW

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 14, 2022

Yahoo! News

‘Russia is the global enemy’: Fallout from Ukraine invasion could last for years

Alexander Nazaryan, Senior W. H. Correspondent – March 14, 2022

WASHINGTON — When he invaded Ukraine, Vladimir Putin almost certainly expected a quick, decisive conquest that would restore the Kremlin’s influence in Eastern Europe and burnish his own status as a Russian leader on par with Peter and Catherine the Great.

Weeks later, Russia is a hobbled pariah, while the dogged Ukrainian resistance — led by charismatic President Volodymyr Zelensky — has attained admiration in much of the world.

There is little doubt that the Russian army has the firepower to level its smaller neighbor if it chooses to. But the costs to Russian society could be enormous for years, even generations, to come.

“Russia is done,” said New School political scientist Nina Khrushcheva, whose great-grandfather was Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, an ethnic Russian whose rise through the communist ranks mostly took place in Ukraine. In fact, it was Khrushchev — who grew up in a peasant family on the Ukrainian border — who returned Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 as a Soviet administrative region, putting in motion the geopolitical shifts that would, much later, result in war.

Six decades later — in 2014 — Putin first invaded Ukraine to recover Crimea, as well as two eastern territories home to many ethnic Russians. When he launched a full-scale invasion last month, he blamed his Soviet predecessors for making mistakes he said it was now his duty to correct.

Few outside the Kremlin see it that way. “Russia is hated by the rest of the world,” Khrushcheva said, predicting a period of deepening international isolation. “Russia is the global enemy. That doesn’t end quickly,” she said, pessimistically envisioning “another 100 years of us being villains of the universe.” On Friday, President Biden announced that the United States, the European Union, Canada and Asia were all revoking Russia’s status as a favored trading partner, a move that comes on top of several rounds of sanctions and an exodus by Western corporations like McDonald’s.

Though it is not clear how long the sanctions will last, “it’s pretty clear that Russia will become poorer and more technologically backward. The choices for its citizens will be radically diminished and for many, many years to come,” Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations told The Hill.

Moscow will certainly look to Beijing in response, and while China has avoided joining the chorus of condemnation directed at Russia, its own vast ambitions could leave Putin indebted to a dangerous degree.

What is already clear, however, is that three decades of hoping that Russia would emerge from the Cold War, like Germany, as a full-fledged modern democracy have been decisively dashed. The departure of McDonald’s, which opened on Red Square in 1990 to surging fascination, was a poignant symbol of disappointment in how little has changed since communism’s collapse.

The initial sanctions were not a surprise to the Kremlin, which almost welcomed them with a show of defiance. Nor, so far, have they served as a deterrent. In Putin’s own speeches and writings — including a remarkably frank English-language essay two years ago in the National Interest, an American publication — he discusses history in geopolitical terms, and he may be willing to countenance collective suffering to achieve his vision of a restored Russian empire that encompasses Ukraine and perhaps other ex-Soviet states. But achieving that vision has already caused widespread suffering for Russians and Ukrainians alike, leading to the kind of near-universal condemnation that is rare in a world of complex and competing national interests.

“Vladimir Putin is isolated and morally dead,” the lead editorial in a recent issue of the Economist thundered, with the magazine comparing him to Joseph Stalin, the brutal Soviet dictator whose image Putin has assiduously worked to rehabilitate.

Khrushcheva thinks such comparisons are unfair — to Stalin. “Even Stalin had an idea,” she said, adding that she has no sympathy for the ruthless Soviet despot who sent millions of his citizens to death and prison. The point of the comparison, rather, is to underscore Putin’s failure to articulate a reason for invading Ukraine, a nation that does share many cultural and historical ties with Russia but has been sovereign since 1991.

She deemed Putin’s vision of a “pan-Slavic state” encompassing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus as “beyond backward-looking,” not to mention out of touch with a Russian populace whose appetite for war he may have misjudged.

Still, war is being waged in the Russian name. And the longer it continues, the more dangerous Putin arguably becomes. Projecting strength is a key feature of his foreign policy — and has been for decades. “You must hit first, and hit so hard that your opponent will not rise to his feet,” he told Russian interviewers in 2000 about the second war he launched against Chechnya. The conflict reduced the breakaway republic to rubble, leaving little but grief and destruction in the wake of the Russian army.

Similar fears are mounting with Russian troops approaching Kyiv, though Putin may not be willing to outright destroy the historically significant city. Failing to seize the Ukrainian capital, however, would be tantamount to defeat. “I don’t think Russia has a ‘best outcome,'” Khrushcheva believes. “Russia doesn’t have a good solution — at all.”

An outcome short of clear victory could prove personally devastating for Putin, who has wielded his power virtually unchallenged for two decades. So far, attempts at a negotiated peace have failed while confusion over the path ahead — on both diplomatic and military fronts — appears to be deepening.

The political scientist Francis Fukuyama believes that a Ukrainian resistance bolstered by the West will ultimately prevail against a Russian military that has the advantage of size but suffers from poor leadership and low morale. The war will end in an “outright defeat” for Russia, Fukuyama argued in a recent blog post, and the subsequent collapse of Putin’s regime: “He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?”

Khrushcheva thinks that even if Putin is replaced as president, the kleptocratic power structure he created will remain, simply allowing a successor to take over without making reforms, the way Dmitry Medvedev did when he became president in 2008. (Putin could not serve a third term at that time because of term limits; he has since changed that law, assuring his own rule into near perpetuity.)

“The system is not going anywhere,” Khrushcheva told Yahoo News. And she finds discussion of a post-Putin Russia far too premature. “His popularity is rising,” she said. Though polling can be inaccurate in Russia, his approval rating last month was above 70 percent. “People will rally around the flag,” Khrushcheva predicted. And she did not have in mind the banners of Ukrainian yellow and blue that have become commonplace in many Western cities.

Business Insider

Captured Russian pilot admits to bombing civilians, urges Russia to stop assault: ‘We have already lost this war’

Katie Balevic – March 12, 2022

• A captured Russian pilot admitted to targeting Ukrainian civilians and urged Russia to call off the assault on Ukraine.
• Lt. Colonel Krishtop Maxim Sergeevich was shot down on March 6 and taken into custody, Interfax Ukraine reported.
• “I think we have already lost this war,” Krishtop said at a press conference with other prisoners of war.

A captured Russian pilot admitted to targeting Ukrainian civilians and urged Russia to call off the assault on Ukraine.

Lieutenant Colonel Krishtop Maxim Sergeevich was shot down on March 6 and taken into custody by Ukrainian forces, Interfax Ukraine reported. At a press conference on Friday, Krishtop said he carried out three bombing missions, Newsweek reported.

“In the process of completing the task, I realized that the target was not enemy military facilities, but residential buildings, peaceful people,” Krishtop said, per Newsweek. “But I carried out the criminal order.”

Related video: New videos show mass grave in Ukraine after 9 days of Russian shelling

 

Putin initially said that his invasion of Ukraine would not target any civilians, but the offensive has since bombed multiple towns and cities, resulting in a massive refugee crisis and over 1,546 confirmed Ukrainian casualties.

Krishtop, who served as Russia’s Deputy Commander of the 47th Aviation Regiment, said he deployed FAB-500 bombs, which are 500 kg — or 1,100 lb — explosives frequently used by the Russian military. A recent video shows two Ukrainians carefully defusing a similar bomb in Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine.

“I recognize the enormity of the crimes committed by me,” Krishtop said, per Newsweek. “I want to ask forgiveness from the entire Ukrainian people for the misfortune that we brought them. I will do everything in my power to end this war as quickly as possible, and bring those responsible for this genocide of Ukrainians to justice.”

Krishtop made the comments at a press conference alongside other other Russian pilots held as prisoners of war, according to Interfax. Ukraine has conducted several similar news conferences with prisoners of war in an attempt to counter Russian propaganda about the war, The Washington Post reported.

The Kremlin has banned referring to the conflict as a “war” or “invasion,” instead insisting that it be referred to as a “special military operation.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has criminalized sharing information about the war domestically, threatening dissenters with arrest and prison time.

“I also urge all military personnel of the Russian Federation to stop carrying out military crimes against the peaceful people of Ukraine,” Krishtop said. “I think we have already lost this war.”

MSNBC – MaddowBlog -From The Rachel Maddow Show

Team Trump’s fundraising tactics face difficult questions (again)

Donald Trump’s team told donors they could win a dinner with the former president. No winner was ever chosen. The pattern of dubious tactics doesn’t help.

By Steve Benen – March 14, 2022

If you’re on the mailing list for Donald Trump’s political operation, you probably received a recent email about a contest. In fact, you probably received several such emails, alerting you to an exciting possibility: By making a contribution of any size, you’d become eligible to win a dinner with the former president in New Orleans.

The Republican’s leadership PAC, Save America, made the fundraising appeal sound quite enticing, telling prospective donors that Team Trump would pay for the meal, the plane ticket, and even the price of the room at a “very nice” hotel. All the former president’s supporters had to do was throw some money his way.

The Washington Post reported that someone was supposed to win this contest, but no one did.

[N]o such winner was flown to New Orleans last weekend, according to four people familiar with the matter. No flight or “very nice” hotel was booked. Trump had no individual meeting with a small-dollar donor, instead only privately greeting a handful of Republican Party donors who gave large checks, taking pictures with some of the party’s most well-heeled members and speaking to a larger group of donors who each gave tens of thousands of dollars.

By way of an explanation, a spokesperson for the former president told the Post, “President Trump has awarded more than 100 prizes to contest winners across America, but due to an administrative error in this individual circumstance, the contest winner was not properly notified for last weekend’s event in New Orleans. Consistent with the rules of the sweepstakes, a substitute prize will be awarded to the winner.”

Naturally, there are some legal questions surrounding such circumstances: If a political operation commits to naming a winner to a contest, and collects money as part of the arrangement, there’s an expectation that the operation will deliver. The article added, “Legal experts and former prosecutors said the question is whether the author of the fundraising solicitations knew there would never be a dinner with Trump.”

In other words, if a genuine “administrative error” occurred “in this individual circumstance,” then this was an accident, and Save America has nothing to worry about.

In fact, at face value, the controversy exposed by the Post apparently ran its course rather quickly: Team Trump conceded that the reporting was accurate, acknowledged the mistake, and said it intended to take steps to put things right. So, problem solved?

Not quite.

First, the former president himself intervened over the weekend in ways that weren’t exactly helpful. On Saturday, the day after his spokesperson told the Post that it’s reporting was correct and there’d been an “administrative error,” Trump issued a written statement claiming that the article was “inaccurate” and “fake news.”

That ought to help clear things up.

Second, it’s awfully tough to give Trump and his team the benefit of the doubt when questions arise about sketchy fundraising tactics.

As regular readers know, before the Republican even reached the White House, Trump had an unusually ugly record when it came to separating those he perceives as fools from their money. He ran a fraudulent charitable foundation, for example, and created a fraudulent “university” that was designed to do little more than rip off its “students.”

The pattern of dubious schemes didn’t end there. As Election Day 2020 approached, Trump relied on brazenly underhanded tactics. The New York Times reported nearly a year ago that banks and credit card companies were soon inundated “with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.”

After Trump lost, his operation sent additional appeals, pleading with donors to “join the fight” to “secure our elections.” In reality, the Republicans didn’t use any of the raised money to finance any fights related to securing any elections.

Now there was an “administrative error” that prevented Team Trump from fulfilling a pledge made in fundraising messages? Maybe so, but it’s not like these guys have a reservoir of credibility from which to draw.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics.”

Associated Press

Invasion jolts Russia’s friends in tiny West-leaning Moldova

AP Helena Alvesap – March 13, 2022

Russia Ukraine War Gagauzia

The monument of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin seen in the center of Comrat, Moldova, Saturday, March 12, 2022. Across the border from war-engulfed Ukraine, tiny, impoverished Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic now looking eagerly Westward, has watched with trepidation as the Russian invasion unfolds. In Gagauzia, a small, autonomous part of the country that’s traditionally felt closer to the Kremlin than the West, people would normally back Russia, which they never wanted to leave when Moldova gained independence. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

COMRAT, Moldova (AP) — Across the border from war-engulfed Ukraine, tiny, impoverished Moldova — an ex-Soviet republic now looking eagerly Westward — has watched with trepidation as the Russian invasion unfolds.

In Gagauzia, a small, autonomous part of the country that’s traditionally felt closer to the Kremlin than the West, people would normally back Russia, which they never wanted to leave when Moldova gained independence. But this time, most have trouble identifying with either side in the war.

Anna Koejoglo says she’s deeply conflicted.

“I have sisters (in Ukraine), I have nephews there, my own son is in Kyiv,” the 52-year-old said, quickly adding that her other, younger, son is studying in Russia.

“My heart is (broken), my insides are burning,” she told The Associated Press.

Koejoglo is one of Moldova’s 160,000 Gagauz, an Orthodox Christian people of Turkic origin who were settled there by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. They make up over 80% of Gagauzia’s population, but only 5% of Moldova’s 2.6 million people.

In the early 1990s, when landlocked Moldova voted to leave the Soviet Union, its Gagauz and Russian minorities wanted to stay. But unlike Russian-backed separatists in eastern Moldova who took up arms in 1992 to establish the unrecognized, breakaway Trans-Dniester area — which Russia essentially controls, maintaining some 1,500 troops there — the Gagauz in the south chose to compromise.

In 1994, they reached an agreement with the government in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, settling for a high degree of autonomy. Still, Gagauzia has maintained a strong relationship with Russia, where many Gagauz find education and job opportunities. Its population generally opposes the pro-Western shift embraced by ethnic Moldovans who account for 75% of the country’s people.

For Peotr Sarangi, a 25-year-old Gagauz, the old ties still hold strong.

“(The) Gagauzian population supports Russia more, many remain pro-Russian,” he said.

Although Moldova is neutral militarily and has no plans to join NATO, it formally applied for EU membership when the Russian invasion began. It’s also taken in about a tenth of the more than 2.3 million Ukrainians who fled their country for safety.

Ilona Manolo, a 20-year-old Gagauz, has no qualms in laying the blame with Moscow. “I think that Russia is at fault. … I’d rather support (Ukrainian) refugees,” than Russia, she said.

There’s similar sentiment elsewhere among Moldova’s rich patchwork of ethnic minorities — even expressed by ethnic Russians who live outside the separatist region of Trans-Dniester.

One of the latter group, Nikola Sidorov, described the invasion of Ukraine as a “terrible thing.” He said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin “went too far (and) needs to calm down.”

The 79-year-old added that the issue has become a subject of heated debates among his ethnic kin in Moldova’s second largest city, Balti, where ethnic Russians make up some 15% of the population.

An ethnic Ukrainian who lives in Balti said her sympathies were divided.

“I’m very sorry for the people of Ukraine … but I also feel sorry for Russians,” said Iulia Popovic, 66. “I understand that it is all (happening because of) politics and that the situation is very difficult.”

The Week

Shock and awe: An unprecedented financial conflict

The Week Staff – March 13, 2022

Never has a major world economy been handcuffed by the kinds of financial restrictions that have been imposed on Russia, said Patricia Cohen and Jeanna Smialek in The New York Times. Just days after Ukraine was invaded, its Western allies “froze hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets held in their own financial institutions; removed Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system; and made foreign investment in the country exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.” The Russian ruble sank to a record low while Russian stocks on the London exchange lost more than 90 percent of their value last week. Russia has learned that “autonomy is a myth in a modern globalized world.” However, “the West’s overwhelming control could encourage other nations to create alternative financial systems” that can resist future sanctions.

Disentangling a country from the current financial system is no simple task, said Gillian Tett in the Financial Times. “The full impact of sanctions” won’t be realized until March 12, the date of formal exclusion of seven Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system that lets institutions send and receive transfers internationally. We also simply “do not know how a freeze of Russian assets will ricochet around interlinked contracts.” In response to the sanctions, Russia is requiring companies to pay their debts in rubles, leaving derivatives tied to $41 billion in debt in limbo, with questions about exactly what constitutes a default. The fear is that sanctions will create further problems — or “contagion” in the world financial system’s pipeline.

There was a loophole in the SWIFT penalty, said economist Noah Smith in his Substack newsletter: Russian banks can still use it for energy payments. “Since energy is the main thing Russia exports,” the West did not “really unleash the full power of the SWIFT cutoff.” This week, however, President Biden announced that the U.S. would no longer buy Russian oil and gas, said Eric Levitz in New York magazine. And most of the big oil companies had already created a de facto embargo, because they “don’t want to be seen bankrolling war crimes.”

“Weaponizing the monetary system against a G-20 country will have lasting repercussions,” said Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street Journal. To isolate itself from potential sanctions aimed at debasing its currency, Russia stockpiled one of the world’s largest reserves of foreign currency — $640 billion. Half that sovereign wealth, however, is held by Western central banks that have now been cut off from dealing with Moscow. This raises questions about “the entire artifice of ‘money’ as a universal store of value.” If currency balances can no longer “guarantee buying essential stuff, Moscow would be wise to stop accumulating them” — and other nations may follow suit. China, for example, “owns $3.3 trillion in currency reserves” that it now knows could be rendered worthless. It will be hard to hold all that in renminbi, but “stockpiling commodities is an alternative.” Economists have long equated currency reserves to “savings in a piggy bank.” The Russia sanctions may have just broken the bank.