Good podcast here covering what’s going on in both Ukraine and Russia. Host Konstantin Kisin was born in Russia and spent his younger years growing up there before immigrating to the UK. His wife is Ukrainian. He still has lots of friends and family in both countries and he’s spent the last week talking to them and watching a lot of Russian TV. He shares what he’s learned.
Triggernometry- War in Ukraine: What’s next? YouTube version
Audio only version (The YouTube version is 20 minutes longer.)
Zerohedge- Russia To Ban Fertilizer Exports To ‘Not Friendly’ Countries
Western Producer- Russia’s proposed ban adds fuel to fertilizer price fire
Russia is the world’s second largest producer of ammonia, urea and potash and the fifth largest producer of processed phosphates, according to institute. The country accounts for 23 percent of global ammonia exports as well as 14 percent of urea, 21 percent of potash and 10 percent of processed phosphate exports. Russia also supplies one-third of Europe’s natural gas, the main feedstock in producing nitrogen fertilizers.
China is responsible for another 10 percent of global urea exports and about one-third of the phosphate trade. It has banned exports of both commodities through the end of June. Together the two countries account for about one-quarter of the world’s urea exports and one-half of its phosphate shipments.
Bloomberg- European Fertilizer Output Cuts
Yara is temporarily curtailing production at Ferrara in Italy and Le Havre in France, the Oslo-based company said on Wednesday. Output of ammonia and urea at its European facilities will be just 45% of capacity by the end of this week. The two plants produce 1 million tons of ammonia and 900,000 tons a year of urea between them. Hungarian fertilizer producer Nitrogenmuvex is also temporarily halting production of ammonia due to high gas prices.
Who is it the sanctions are designed to hurt again?
Mark Steyn- War in Europe: Day Twelve
Well, the fifteen days to flatten the Tsar is turning out as usual: “Ensuring Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine fails could take “months, if not years“, the [UK] deputy prime minister has told Sky News.” Oh, well. Tough for the Ukrainians and the Russkies, but I’m nowhere near, right? Wrong:
Peter Hitchens- One glorious day in Sevastopol 12 years ago, I saw what was coming.
It was almost funny to see. I hoped at that time that it would work out well. For the Ukrainians had begun to be silly. In a country crammed with Russians, they were trying to make Russian a second-class language. Russians who had lived there happily for decades were pressured to take Ukrainian citizenship and adopt Ukrainian versions of their Christian names.
The schools were promoting a national hero, Stepan Bandera, who Russians strongly disliked and regarded as a terrorist. And they were teaching history which often had an anti-Russian tinge. Quite a few people told me they felt put upon by these policies. Why couldn’t they just be left alone?
Until that point, Ukraine had been a reasonably harmonious country in its 20-odd years of existence. After that visit I saw big trouble coming, both in the Crimea and in the Don Basin, where I also travelled that year.
Glenn Greenwald- “Some 74% of Americans – including solid majorities of Republicans and Democrats – said the US and its allies in the NATO should impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine, the poll found. An equally bipartisan 80% of Americans said the United States should stop buying Russian oil.”
These views are fully bipartisan. There was (and, to a lesser extent, still is) some heterodoxy and debate within right-wing media circles, but GOP officials themselves have been 100% pro-Ukraine along with Dems from the start. From a Feb. 23 poll, just over 2 weeks ago: “A majority of Americans oppose a major US role in the ongoing tensions between Ukraine and Russia.” When both parties’ leaders fully unite in messaging with almost all of the US corporate media, it’s potent.
Related- “Phone Hasn’t Stopped Ringing” – The World’s Ultra Rich Are Panic Buying Doomsday Bunkers
Update: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday he has no plans to suspend Russian energy imports as the EU’s energy needs currently can’t be secured without them.
More: Westphalian Times- On July 21, 2021, the Quebec government refused to approve the construction of a liquified natural gas (LNG) facility that would have carried natural gas from Western Canada to Eastern Canada to be exported to Europe and Asia. The proposed project was to be built in Saguenay, Quebec but Quebec Minister Benoit Charette killed the project because the CAQ government did not believe the project would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that the project would discourage European and Asian countries from investing in and moving to ‘cleaner’ energy sources.
“The freedom convoy is what you get when you stand up to authoritarianism early. War in Ukraine is what you get when you stand up to it too late. “
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RFD-TV- China lifts wheat import restrictions on Russia
The two nations made the deal during the Beijing Games, which included a “decades-long agreement” for Russia to supply China with oil and gas.
Visual Capitalist- How China Overtook the U.S. as the World’s Major Trading Partner
The Economist- Russia’s 20 year shift in trade from US to China
WSJ- If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock
ZeroHedge- So Many Holes In SWIFT Sanctions On Russia, They Are Useless
h/t Scott
Global- Russian firms rush to open Chinese bank accounts amid sanctions over Ukraine: report
Did anyone even bother to check?
The Counter Signal- Trudeau holds random Russians hostage
“A charter aircraft that carried Russian foreign nationals has been held at the Yellowknife airport. We will continue to hold Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra wrote in a Tweet.
And I’m thinking there’s way more than two movies right now.
Zerohedge- What Are Putin’s Next Steps In Ukraine?
Zerohedge- This Is Economic War – Central Banks Are The West’s Paladins
At multiple points leading up to the current crisis, there were ways for the United States and Europe to create off-ramps for both Moscow and Kyiv, to shepherd a negotiated settlement so that both sides got a minimum of what they needed, and some of what they wanted.
What might that have looked like? For Moscow, a recognition of its strategic claim on Crimea and the port of Sevastopol as the home of its Black Sea Fleet. For Kyiv, the promise of political independence and greater integration with Europe in exchange for territorial concessions.
The West should have also considered the folly and recklessness of floating the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine, something no serious person ever thought Russia would accept without going to war to prevent it. And yet as far back as 2008, the United States openly discussed the possibility of Ukraine’s membership in NATO, even as Kyiv still claimed sovereignty over Russia’s most important naval base in Sevastopol. Under these conditions, the idea of Ukraine joining NATO was preposterous.
h/t Jim
Pepe Escobar- Follow the money: how Russia will bypass western economic warfare
The US and EU are over-reaching on Russian sanctions. The end result could be the de-dollarization of the global economy and massive commodity shortages worldwide.
Those with IQs over 50 in the European Union (EU) must have understood that Russia simply could not be totally excluded from SWIFT, but maybe only a few of its banks: after all, European traders depend on Russian energy.
From Moscow’s point of view, that’s a minor issue. A number of Russian banks are already connected to China’s CIPS system. For instance, if someone wants to buy Russian oil and gas with CIPS, payment must be in the Chinese yuan currency. CIPS is independent of SWIFT.
Additionally, Moscow already linked its SPFS payment system not only to China but also to India and member nations of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). SPFS already links to approximately 400 banks.
Zerohedge- Big Oil Is Turning Its Back On Russia
Ironically, the West and Russia have returned to a context of mutually assured destruction. This time it’s not nuclear holocaust, but economic devastation that’s on the line if energy sanctions are placed on Russian exports at the same time that energy supplies are already devastatingly tight.
Zerohedge- These Are Russia’s Most Important Export Partners
Francisco- That’s okay we’ve got Chrystia Freeland looking out for us. We’ll be just fine.
For their crappy economic policies.
Globe and Mail- Canadians should brace for economic collateral damage as sanctions mount, Chrystia Freeland says
Terrence Corcoran- Putin blows up NetZero and the green reset, Massive failure of two branches of the United Nations
Transgender acceptance in Ukraine is not widespread, and changing legal documents to match gender requires a long process with psychiatric examinations. CBS News spoke with one woman in Kyiv who is now battling a "war within a war" amid Russia's invasion https://t.co/DJ6vFwmLuR pic.twitter.com/7Qp4eTCGMt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 1, 2022
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with anything here. But if you want to know why Putin invaded Ukraine this is his explanation, in his own words. Unfiltered.
h/t Aaron Clarey
Much more here…
Matt Walsh- This is the early days of covid all over again. People are hysterical. Media feeding the panic. Lots of blatantly false information being spread around. You are expected to believe everything you hear. People who question the narrative are shouted down and shamed.
James Lindsay- I don’t know what’s going on in Ukraine right now, but I do know the news won’t help me understand it correctly.
UnHerd- Konstantin Kisin: Has the media got Ukraine wrong?
Audio only version of UnHerd
Francisco- The UnHerd interview with Konstanin Kisin is excellent. He admits he’s part of the alternative media which also by and large doesn’t have a good handle on what’s going on yet. But then goes on to give his own account of what he understands the situation to be, both on a micro and a macro level. He’s a recent Russian immigrant and his wife is Ukrainian. “It’s not really about the Ukraine, it’s about you”.
Grab a coffee.
Alasdair Macleod- How Ukraine Fits Into the Global Jigsaw
The danger for us all is not a boots-on-the-ground war — that’s likely to only involve the pre-emptive attacks on military installations Putin initiated last night — but a financial war for which Russia is fully prepared.
h/t Scott
The Russians are trolling the war machine https://t.co/6924zT4clQ
— Michael Malice (@michaelmalice) February 17, 2022
@ChristopherJMNew: Pentagon orders all US troops in Ukraine to leave and reposition in Europe. The US has military personnel stationed at the embassy in Kyiv and trainers in western Ukraine. We saw some of them just last week training Ukrainians on bunker busters.