Tucker Carlson Goes Big On Protecting Putin With Bizarre Warning
Josephine Harvey – March 29, 2022
Fox News host Tucker Carlson offered a warning on Monday about the repercussions of removing Russian President Vladimir Putin from power, and suggested that Islamic extremists would somehow get hold of the country’s nuclear weapons and use them on Americans.
“So, Russia has a large and restive population of Islamic extremists. Do we think it’s possible that with no one running the country ― because of course we have no chosen successor to Putin ― is it possible, if we did that, that one of those 6,000 nuclear weapons might wind up in the hands of some anti-American terror group and be used against our civilian population here?” he asked. “A nuclear weapon! Well, it’s not just possible, it’s likely.”
Earlier this month, a Mother Jones report revealed a leaked Kremlin memo that directed Russian state-sponsored media to use Carlson’s broadcasts “as much as possible” due to his criticism of the U.S. and NATO and defense of Putin.
Carlson’s scaremongering comments were in response to a speech Biden made in Poland, where he said of Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
White House officials promptly clarified that the remark did not reflect a change in U.S. policy and that Biden was not advocating for regime change in Russia, but that Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”
Other than Carlson, the off-script remark was also blasted by foreign policy experts who warned it was dangerous and would play into Putin’s narrative.
Should Putin lose his grasp on power in Russia, or be assassinated, he would likely be succeeded by another member of the Kremlin elite.
Boxer Vladimir Klitschko Condemns Tucker Carlson and Others Opposing Ukraine Aid: ‘Blood Is on Your Hands’
Harper Lambert – March 28, 2022
Olympic gold medalist and former heavyweight champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko made a strong statement against conservative pundits who don’t believe America should lend support to Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
He spoke out during a Monday appearance on Newsmax TV’s “The Balance.” When host Eric Bolling asked Klitschko about American conservatives – such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens – who believe the U.S. should take an isolationist stance on the war, he replied that there’s blood on the hands of anyone who doesn’t stand with Ukraine.
“If you passively observe what is going on, and we do share the same principles of freedom and democratic principles, like the United States, like the Western world, so to speak,” Klitschko said. “If you are passively observing, you are part of this invasion. Blood is on your hands, too.”
He continued, “If you still have business and trade with Russia, and you don’t isolate Russia economically, you’re bringing bullets and rockets into the Russian army’s hands that kills, today, the innocent.”
Earlier in the segment, Klitschko – who is the younger brother of Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko – insisted that Ukraine would remain strong and persevere through the attack.
“We’re going to win this war, we’re going to defend our country, our homes our families, and our children,” he told Bolling. “Ukraine is a free nation and we will stand with it.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, Carlson and Owens have echoed Vladimir Putin’s justification of its military action as “self-defense.” Carlson has repeatedly aired a conspiracy theory stating that the U.S. has secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine on his television show. Owens pins the blame for the war on the United States, supporting Putin’s claim that Russia was defending itself against the eastward expansion of NATO.
Currently, the Russian army continues its attack on Ukraine’s forces in the east. Peace talks are scheduled to take place this week in Turkey between Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Some Ukrainians believe Russia is targeting landmarks to erase country from the map
Conor Devlin – March 28, 2022
Kharkiv’s Fine Arts Museum was locked up tight and the workers had gone. It was after midnight on March 3, a week after the Russian army had invaded Ukraine. The two-story museum, with its 25,000 works of art, had seen no damage.
That changed in an instant. A Russian shell exploded nearby, shaking the building and shattering all its windows. Fortunately, the museum’s director, Myzgina Valentyna, and her staff had taken down the art and moved it to a secure location.
Kharkiv’s 17th century Holy Dormition Cathedral was not so lucky. A day before the museum was hit, Russian forces shelled the cathedral as residents hid inside. While no civilians were injured, the attack destroyed the church’s stained-glass windows and badly damaged some decorations.
Valentyna told NBC News the museum cannot be repaired right now. “The situation in the city is very, very difficult,” she said.
Image: Building of the Fine Art Museum damaged by shelling in Kharkiv (Oleksandr Lapshyn / Reuters)
Ukraine is home to seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and since the Russians launched their invasion, at least 39 landmarks across the country have been damaged, looted or reduced to ruins, according to the Transatlantic Dialogue Center, a Ukrainian political nonprofit based in Kyiv. On March 23, Mariupol’s city council confirmed via Telegram that the Russian military destroyed the city’s Arkhip Kuindzhi Art Museum, housing over 2,000 exhibits and an extensive collection of works by prominent Ukrainian artists. The fate of the artwork remains unclear.
Targeting historic monuments and cultural heritage sites is a war crime under international law, according to The Hague Convention of 1954. But that all seems to be part of Russia’s plan, some cultural authorities say. “They just want to erase from the map Ukraine — our heritage, our history, our identity and Ukraine as an independent state,” said Iryna Podolyak, Ukraine’s former vice minister of culture, who said Russia’s military seems to be targeting cultural heritage sites in addition to houses, hospitals and schools.
Fire trucks near the Dormition Cathedral after shelling by Russian forces of Constitution Square in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 2, 2022. (Sergey Bobok / AFP – Getty Images)
Collateral or intentional damage?
Russia’s military tactics have made it harder to determine whether landmarks are being specifically targeted or whether damage is a byproduct of attacks on the civilian population. Russian forces have shelled nonmilitary areas from long distances in an attempt to demoralize Ukraine and drive civilians out of cities.
Russia has framed the invasion as a rescue of ethnic Russians and a purge of “Nazi” elements from a territory where it has blood and family ties.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.N. diplomats via video message on March 1 that “as President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly emphasized, we treat the Ukrainian people, their language and traditions with unfailing respect.”
But on Feb. 21, Putin said in a speech, “There is no nationhood in Ukraine. … Contemporary Ukraine was completely created by Russia … by Soviet Russia.”
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, a professor in Jewish studies at Northwestern University, believes the damage is both collateral and intentional, but “is more likely to be called deliberate destruction.” He notes that Russian authorities have been confiscating textbooks on Ukrainian history from libraries in occupied areas and burning them.
“Putin is absolutely confident, as many Russian bureaucrats [were] in the 1860s,” said Petrovsky-Shtern, “that Ukrainian language doesn’t exist, that Ukrainian people do not exist, that Ukraine is a nonentity and can never be sovereign because there is no such country as Ukraine.”
By leveling the country’s landmarks, some experts argue, Putin will try to redefine Ukraine’s history and culture as Russian. “If we are speaking about Russian politics, during the last few years, we could say that the Russian president and government says there is no Ukrainian culture and everybody is all Russian,” said Igor Kozhan, director general of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.
Monument of city founder Duke de Richelieu is seen covered with sand bags for protection in Odessa (Liashonok Nina / Reuters)
This reappropriation is part of Putin’s justification for his war of choice, a belief that Ukrainian cultural experts assert is pure fiction. “It is just the imagination of a sick person,” said Podolyak.
Ukrainians have also hurled the Nazi charge right back at the Russians, as they did Saturday after Russia allegedly damaged an important reminder of genocide. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense tweeted on March 26 that the Russians had “fired on and damaged” the Holocaust Memorial at Drobitsky Yar, site of a German massacre of approximately 15,000 Jewish civilians during World War II. “The Nazis have returned,” said the tweet. “Exactly 80 years later.”
Protecting landmarks
As Ukraine’s museums, monuments and heritage sites come under siege, Ukrainians are banding together to protect their landmarks. Peter Voitsekhovsky, an analyst at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, a nonprofit, said residents in Odesa had piled sandbags around the city’s famed 19th century Opera House and the iconic statue of Odesa’s founder, the Duke of Richelieu. Voitsekhovsky said that for Odesans, the Richelieu statue holds the same significance as the Statue of Liberty does for Americans. “With Ukraine’s rich history, there are so many places that are symbols for the soul of the nation,” he added. “But you cannot cover the whole country with all its temples, monuments and churches with sandbags.”
In Lviv, a city in western Ukraine that dates to 1237 and is a UNESCO world Heritage site, workers have covered historic statues in protective materials, installed metal sheets over the stained-glass windows in the town’s Latin Cathedral and removed religious icons from the churches. As the Russian army smashed across the border on Feb. 24, Igor Kozhan’s staff sprang into action, securing the windows, strengthening the walls and transporting the National Museum’s collection to a safe place.
Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum (Bernat Armangue / AP file)
Kozhan also helped draw plans to move the collection out of Ukraine to museums in Western Europe as needed. But he believes “the Russian army won’t be shown on our city streets.”
One of the most important heritage sites in all of Ukraine is St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv. Over 1,000 years old, this gold-domed church was once the center of Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity and is home to a spectacular collection of frescoes, icons and mosaics. But one mosaic stands out. It depicts the Virgin Mary on a gold background with her hands raised toward the sky.
Yuri Shevchuk, a lecturer of Ukrainian at Columbia University, explained that Ukrainians refer to this mosaic as the “Indestructible Wall.” Local legend says that as long as this wall remains standing, Ukraine will never perish.
Romney: NATO would rethink U.S. relationship if Trump wins in 2024
David Knowles, Senior Editor – March 29, 2022
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Tuesday in a CNN interview that if former President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the NATO alliance would be significantly damaged. Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, said NATO members would wonder whether they could continue to count on the United States.
“If he were to come back as the U.S. president, I think it would represent a pretty dramatic departure for the world, and they would rethink whether they can count on the United States to lead NATO to lead other nations as they push back against China and against Russia,” Romney said
Sen. Mitt Romney. (Greg Nash/Pool via Reuters)
During his presidency, Trump downplayed the U.S. commitment to NATO and publicly criticized the alliance, primarily over the perception that member states were not contributing enough financial support. He also flirted with the idea of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO, according to former national security adviser John Bolton.
“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton told the Washington Post in early March. “And I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was waiting for that.”
Trump’s critics often argue that Putin’s top strategic priority was to weaken the NATO alliance, and Trump was seen as an ally in attaining that goal.
As Putin massed troops along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus earlier this year and summarily declared two eastern regions of Ukraine as independent states, Trump lavished praise on Putin.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “He used the word ‘independent,’ and ‘We’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
As global opinion of Putin plummeted following the start of the Russian invasion, however, Trump sought to portray himself as NATO’s savior.
Former President Donald Trump holds a rally in Commerce, Ga., on March 26. (Alyssa Pointer/Reuters)
“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars,” the former president said in a written statement. “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly.”
There is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim that NATO was in any danger of disbanding over the issue of dues.
In the run-up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO members banded together in their opposition to a Russian attack, and have acted largely in unison with regard to sanctions on the Russian government.
Asked whether Trump had permanently damaged NATO during his presidency, Romney responded, “Well, I think what’s happened to NATO is that they have said, ‘Can we rely on the U.S.?’ And is this America First idea, which is the president saying to everybody, ‘Hey, go off and do your own thing,’ I think that approach is one that frightens other members of NATO, and they wonder, are we committed to NATO and to our mutual defense, or are we all going to go off on our own?”
NEWS: @MittRomney tells me NATO would be permanently damaged if Trump is elected president again
Trump’s warm public approach to Putin does not appear to be going away. On Monday, Trump solicited help from the Russian autocrat to obtain damaging information about President Biden’s son Hunter.
While Trump hasn’t committed to run for a second term in 2024, he indicated at a political rally in Georgia over the weekend that he “may just have to do it again.”
US lawmakers have a new idea for what to do with seized Russian assets
Ben Werschkul, Senior Producer and Writer – March 29, 2022
Those sanctioned Russian assets are piling up.
Oligarch yachts, estates, planes, and other items in the West may sit out of their owners’ hands — but they are not yet necessarily in the control of Western governments.
The rules vary across Europe where most of the seizures have taken place following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. The White House recently offered examples of assets that have been taken off the table and noted some had been seized while others were impounded. Under U.S. law, any sanctioned assets would be in a state of legal limbo and put aside, but could eventually be returned to their owners.
Now policymakers in the U.S. — both on Capitol Hill and perhaps in the administration — are pushing to change the uncertain status of those assets around the world. Some want to not just take possession of the assets of Kremlin-connected billionaires, but also sell them and give the proceeds to Ukraine.
As Senator Rob Portman (R OH) recently put it on the Senate floor, we should be expanding sanctions and “seizing, not just freezing, assets from Kremlin supporters” alongside other measures.
An Italian Finance police car is parked in front of the yacht “Lady M”, linked to Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov, at Imperia’s harbor in Northern Italy on March 5. (ANDREA BERNARDI/AFP via Getty Images)
Portman and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) have introduced a bill, the RELIEF for Ukraine Act, which directs any funds from seized Russian assets towards Ukrainian refugees, reconstruction, and other efforts.
‘We have far further to go to fully address this threat’
President Joe Biden pledged to seize the “ill-begotten gains” of Russian oligarchs during his State of the Union Address on March 1. During a speech Tuesday in London, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo outlined how the U.S. government and its allies may go further in sanctioning Russian individuals.
Adeyemo, who’s in Europe to shore up alliances, touted the work to “share information and intelligence and to facilitate the enforcement of our sanctions, namely to freeze and seize assets of sanctioned individuals.”
“We have far further to go to fully address this threat and restore justice for the people of Ukraine,” Adeymo added, without saying where the assets could go.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo in Brussels on March 29. (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Adeyemo also noted that the West may sanction those who help Russian oligarchs hide their assets.
‘Our bill makes Putin and Russian oligarchs pay the price’
The intentions of the bill from Portman and Bennet are clear: If enacted, it would create a new Ukraine Relief Fund administered by the Department of State.
“Our bill makes Putin and Russian oligarchs pay the price by ensuring that funds from their seized assets go directly to the Ukrainian people to support them through many difficult years ahead of resettlement, reconstruction, and recovery,” Bennet said in a statement.
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Rob Portman (R-OH) at the U.S. Capitol in 2014. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
To be sure, Ukraine could use the extra money.
Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, recently said the war in Ukraine has cost her country $564.9 billion by damaging infrastructure and hindering economic growth. However, the oligarchs may be able to easily compensate for those losses. An oft-cited 2017 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated Russian oligarch wealth and came to the startling conclusion that rich Russians held around $800 billion in assets outside of Russia, as of 2015.
Or to put it more starkly: “There is as much financial wealth held by rich Russians abroad — in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Cyprus, and similar offshore centers — than held by the entire Russian population in Russia itself,” Filip Novokmet, Thomas Piketty, and Gabriel Zucman wrote.
In the end, any action would likely take place under the umbrella of a recently formed multinational task force that includes the U.S. That would allow Western governments to work together to track and allocate the assets, which so far have been found largely in Europe.
Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.
Russian troops were ‘kicked’ out of Kyiv instead of withdrawing as Moscow claims, Ukrainian MP says
Matthew Loh – March 30, 2022
Ukrainian MPs Anastasia Radina (third from right) and Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze (fourth from right) met with members of Congress this week to discuss Ukraine’s requests from the US. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Russia withdrew its forces near Kyiv because its troops were “kicked” out, a Ukrainian MP said, per CNN.
The troop scaleback announced by Moscow was really to “save face,” said MP Anastasia Radina.
During a visit to the US, she and other Ukrainian lawmakers warned that negotiations with Russia should not be trusted.
A Ukrainian member of parliament said Russia’s intention in withdrawing troops from the Kyiv region was to “save face” and that its forces had been “kicked” out, casting doubt on whether Moscow genuinely is interested in making peace.
“We feel these are not real peace talks at this point,” said MP Anastasia Radina, head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s anti-corruption committee, per CNN.
“We feel that what Russia is doing is trying to save face. They say they are withdrawing troops from the Kyiv region. That’s not true for one simple reason: They’re not withdrawing… They were kicked [out],” Radina continued.
She and another Ukrainian MP — Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Integration of Ukraine to the European Union — spoke to reporters on Wednesday while visiting Washington DC, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand reported.
Klympush-Tsintsadze shared Radina’s skepticism over Russia’s claims that it is working to achieve peace with Ukraine, calling the recent ceasefire negotiations a “smokescreen” by Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy his forces time to regroup, according to CNN.
The lawmakers had traveled to the US to push members of Congress for more military equipment — such as fighter jets and air defense systems — and aid to be provided to Ukraine, and for more punitive economic measures to be taken against Russia, according to The Associated Press.
One of their key messages to the US was to not put faith in negotiations with Moscow, AP reported.
“Putin cannot be trusted,” said Yevheniya Kravchuk, a Ukrainian MP, per the outlet.
Kyiv and Moscow were both reported to have shown a willingness to concede earlier sticking points, with Ukraine offering complete neutrality in exchange for security guarantees and Russia dropping several of its initial core demands like the “denazification” of its neighbor.
However, it remains unclear whether a genuine ceasefire can be brokered soon, with either side having downplayed the possibility of a significant breakthrough before and after the talks.
Shortly after the Istanbul meeting, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin announced that Moscow would dial down its military assaults on Kyiv and Chernihiv in northern Ukraine.
Fomin said Russia’s decision aimed “to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing on the signing of the above [peace] agreement.”
The Pentagon and Ukrainian military later questioned Russia’s motives for its apparent scaleback, saying the Kremlin was likely repositioning troops for a push into other war fronts. Despite its claims of pulling back, Russia continued to bombard Kyiv’s suburbs after the peace talks.
Klympush-Tsintsadze on Wednesday also mentioned another obstacle for the ceasefire effort: Ukraine’s neutrality from NATO would need to be put to a referendum that she and her colleagues say is unlikely to pass.
“Neutrality is not an option for Ukraine,” she said, per CNN. “I want everybody to understand we were non-aligned. We were a non-bloc country back in 2014. It did not preclude Putin from attacking us at that point. And it did not preclude him from grabbing part of our territory. So it will not stop him.”
It has been 35 days since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the United Nation’s latest tally, at least 1,179 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, while 1,860 have been injured. However, the UN noted that the actual casualty figures are likely far higher.
50% of U.S. Lakes and Rivers Are Too Polluted for Swimming, Fishing, Drinking
Olivia Rosane – March 29, 2022
A steel mill on Indiana’s Grand Calumet River. Cavan Images / Getty Images
Fifty years ago, the U.S. passed the Clean Water Act with the goal of ensuring “fishable, swimmable” water across the U.S. by 1983.
Now, a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) finds the country has fallen far short of that goal. In fact, about half of the nation’s lakes and rivers are too polluted for swimming, fishing or drinking.
“The Clean Water Act should be celebrated on its 50th birthday for making America’s waterways significantly cleaner,” EIP Executive Director Eric Schaeffer said in a press release announcing the report. “However, we need more funding, stronger enforcement, and better control of farm runoff to clean up waters that are still polluted after half a century. Let’s give EPA and states the tools they need to finish the job – we owe that much to our children and to future generations.”
The report was based on reports that states are required to submit under the Clean Water Act on the pollution levels of their rivers, streams, lakes and estuaries. According to the most recent reports, more than half of the lakes and rivers are considered “impaired,” meaning that they fall short of standards for fishing, swimming, aquatic life and drinking.
Specifically, around 51 percent of rivers and streams and 55 percent of lake acres are considered impaired, The Hill reported. Further, 26 percent of estuary miles are also impaired.
The Clean Water Act was a landmark legislative achievement when it was passed in 1972. It promised to end the discharge of all pollutants into navigable waters by 1985, according to the press release. However, it has fallen short of that goal for several reasons, according to the report.
The act has strong controls for pollution pumped directly into waterways from factories or sewage plants but not for indirect pollution such as agricultural runoff from factory farms.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dragged its feet in updating industry-specific technology-based limits for water pollution control systems. By 2022, two-thirds of these industry-specific limits had not been updated in more than 30 years.
Budget cuts have hampered the ability of the EPA and state agencies to enforce the law.
Permit requirements are poorly enforced.
Total Maximum Daily Loads, a kind of pollution control plan, are insufficient.
There are problems effectively managing watersheds that cover two or more states.
The report also broke down pollution by state. Indiana has the most miles of rivers and streams too impaired for swimming and recreation.
“Indiana’s waters have benefited from the Clean Water Act, but unfortunately, they also illustrate some of the gaps in the law,” Dr. Indra Frank, Environmental Health & Water Policy Director for the Hoosier Environmental Council, said in the press release. “We have seen persistent, unresolved impairments, especially for E coli bacteria in our rivers and streams, in part from industrial agricultural runoff. And we have also seen examples of Clean Water Act permits used to send water contaminated with coal-ash into our rivers. We need to halt pollution like this.”
Florida, meanwhile, had the most lake acres impaired for swimming and aquatic life.
“Florida’s toxic-algae crisis is the direct result of lax enforcement of phosphorus and nitrogen pollution limits in cleanup plans required by the Clean Water Act,” Friends of the Everglades Executive Director Eve Samples said in the press release. “Because these limits rely on voluntary ‘best management practices’ and a presumption of compliance, agricultural polluters regularly exceed phosphorus runoff limits while dodging responsibility — leading to harmful algal blooms in Florida’s lakes, rivers, estuaries, and even on saltwater beaches.”
The report did propose several solutions that range from making sure that the EPA and other agencies carry out their duties under the existing law to strengthening the act with new legislation to control runoff pollution.
This last is particularly important because agricultural runoff and other indirect pollution sources are the leading causes of waterway pollution.
“Factory-style animal production has become an industry with a massive waste disposal problem and should be regulated like other large industries,” the study authors wrote.
Voice of the people: Truth and facts can be become of matter of life and death
The Ledger – March 29, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via video conference in Moscow, Russia, last week.
Truth and facts can be become of matter of life and death
Reporting from journalists has indicated that as much as 60% of Russians do not believe that Vladimir Putin has attacked Ukraine and is bombing and killing Ukrainian citizens. This means that we should not count on the Russian people to remove Putin from power.
A Russian child in Ukraine was told by parents back in Russia that this attack and killing of Ukrainians is not true. Russian state media has conditioned its citizens to believe its version of invasion.
Hard to believe? Here in America, tens of millions of our citizens believe the last presidential election was stolen from the incumbent. Latching on to the Big Lie cost the lives of a number of people during the insurrection at our Capitol Jan. 6. In addition, the same lack of truth and facts puts dozens of public officials in harm’s way from the supporters of the Big Lie.
Some elements of our media are in the same business as the Russian state media, spreading misinformation to advance their causes. The truth and facts can be become of matter of life and death, especially with regard to the life of our democracy.
U.S. Senators want Russia removed from U.N. Human Rights Council
Patricia Zengerle – March 29, 2022
FILE PHOTO: Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A dozen members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged President Joe Biden’s administration to push for Russia’s removal from the United Nations Human Rights Council, citing its invasion of Ukraine.
In a letter dated Monday and made public on Tuesday, the eight Democrats and four Republicans asked the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to introduce a resolution to remove Russia from the rights body, citing widespread casualties in Ukraine and the destruction of residential buildings, hospital and schools.
Support for Ukraine is one of the rare areas of bipartisan agreement in the bitterly divided U.S. Congress, which has approved billions of dollars in aide for the government in Kyiv.
“Swift action must be taken to show the world the United States and our allies will not stand for indiscriminate and unprovoked attacks on civilians and democracies. The time has come for Russia to no longer have a seat on the Council,” said the letter, led by the committee’s top Republican, Senator Jim Risch, and its Democratic chairman, Senator Bob Menendez.
In the letter, the senators said states engaging in a pattern of gross and systemic rights abuses can be removed by a two-thirds vote in the U.N. General Assembly.
“We implore you to introduce a resolution in the UN General Assembly to call for the removal of the Russian Federation from the UNHRC immediately,” they wrote.
American officials at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York referred a request for comment to the office in Geneva, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Human Rights Council is based in Geneva.
Russia, which has called its actions since Feb. 24 a “special operation,” has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine.
Only one country has been suspended from the 47-member Geneva-based council: Libya. The North African country was suspended in 2011 because of violence against protesters by forces loyal to its then-leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Some senior officials addressing the council during a meeting earlier this month questioned Russia’s membership, but did not explicitly call for its suspension.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Stephen Coates and Jonathan Oatis)
Recently I reached out to Serhiy Leshchenko, one of Ukraine’s most prominent investigative journalists, whom I’d met in Kyiv shortly before Donald Trump’s first impeachment. At the time, Leshchenko was being regularly smeared by people in Trump’s orbit who placed the journalist at the center of an elaborate conspiracy theory designed to make it look as if Trump was fighting corruption in Ukraine, not encouraging it.
Now Leshchenko is advising the chief of staff for Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, on Russian disinformation. He’s been especially worried about Russian lies about Ukrainian chemical and biological weapons, fearing that their purpose is to sow confusion ahead of a possible Russian chemical weapons attack. “Every day they have dozens of different stakeholders” promoting falsehoods about unconventional weapons made in Ukraine, he said. “It has to have an explanation. Why do they repeatedly say the same stuff?”
Leshchenko’s fear is shared by some American officials. “Based on a number of factors, some of which I can’t discuss, I sadly would be surprised if they don’t use chemical weapons,” Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told me last week.
Given the stakes, it’s alarming to Leshchenko to hear influential Americans repeating Russian talking points. “You maybe know this Georgia congresswoman, Marjorie Greene?” he asked, and then mentioned a recent floor speech in which Greene speculated that bioweapons labs in Ukraine could end up killing people.
Last week, further juicing the conspiracy theory, the Russian government linked the alleged biolabs to Hunter Biden and George Soros. On Thursday, Tucker Carlson picked up the Hunter Biden story line. (America has funded programs in Ukraine to secure labs studying pathogens and toxins, sometimes for vaccine development, and to watch for disease outbreaks.)
There is, said Leshchenko, a pattern to Russian disinformation campaigns. This one started, he said, with anonymous social media accounts. Then it was propagated by Russian propaganda outfits like Russia Today, followed by Russian officials like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Vladimir Putin himself. Finally it went global. In information warfare, Leshchenko said, it helps to have “international recognition” of fictitious claims. Elements of the American right were happy to supply it.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has for the moment led many Republicans to rediscover their inner Cold Warriors. But pro-Putin sentiment — or, at least, anti-anti-Putin sentiment — remains strong on parts of the right. As NBC’s Ben Collins and Kevin Collier reported, “The biolab conspiracy theory has taken over as the prevailing narrative on pro-Trump and QAnon websites like The Great Awakening and Patriots.”
With Trump out of power, it can be tempting to dismiss the import of such fantasies, but the Republican Party doesn’t have a great record of standing up to its fringe — witness the recent QAnon-inflected attempt to link the Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to pedophilia. Having watched Trump try to extort Zelensky, Ukrainians know it can be geopolitically consequential when crackpot Russian conspiracy theories gain a foothold in American politics.
Putin, presumably, knows this as well, which helps explain why he’s appealing to Anglophone culture warriors. On Friday, Putin gave a speech in which he complained about cancel culture and compared Russia’s international isolation to denunciations of the “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling for her views on gender. It was preposterous, but it was also a signal to the Western right that his struggle is theirs. It’s what Putin has been doing for years, particularly in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in 2014, when, as Casey Michel wrote in Politico, “Moscow began forging a new role for itself at the helm of the global Christian right.”
Defending itself from Russia, Ukraine has been waging a globalized culture war of its own, trying to rally the world to an idealized liberal internationalism. Zelensky has framed Ukraine’s fight for survival as a fight not just for national self-determination, but for progressive modernity. As he said in his address to Congress, “Today, the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future.” He speaks to the highest aspirations of Western audiences who’ve been starved for inspiration.
Some of the most resonant videos coming out of Ukraine are about their determination to keep music in their lives even in wartime — like the man playing cello on a ruined street in Kharkiv, and the people in Odessa building fortifications while a band performs Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life.” These videos go viral because they link the staggering courage of the Ukrainians to a common Western culture: Ukrainians seem like us as we wish we were.
The ability of Ukraine to elicit international solidarity has been among its most potent weapons in this war. Against it, Putin needs some solidarity of his own, and the natural place for him to look for it is among liberalism’s enemies. He is working to cultivate cynicism about Ukrainian heroism, and convince those alienated by Western culture to identify with Russia. If he’s going to visit further atrocities on the Ukrainians, it helps to have Americans claiming it’s their own fault.
