Friday, February 25, 2022

Four Times Opinion Writers Analyze Russia’s Invasion: ‘The World Has Changed Overnight’

Ukrainian troops at a frontline military outpost shortly before the area was hit by artillery fire from Russian-backed separatists in the village of Novo Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Feb. 19. | Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Read the article and listen to the podcast here.

Democracy Now! US News & World Headlines – February 25, 2022

Ukraine Reportedly Battling Russian Troops on the Outskirts of Kyiv | DW News

Feb 25, 2022 • Russian forces would enter areas outside Kyiv on Friday, a top Ukrainian defense official has said. Ukraine's president called on the international community to help his country.

Explosions were heard in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv, which lies close to Ukraine's eastern border with Russia, on Friday with the mayor telling residents to seek shelter from Russian missiles in subway stations, basements and bomb shelters, Reuters news agency reported. Air raid sirens were set off in cities across the country as reports emerged of rockets landing in residential areas.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that Russia wanted to "liberate Ukrainians from oppression," adding that the invading force is not planning to occupy Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The aim of the invasion, according to Lavrov, is to demilitarize Ukraine. He went on to say that Russia wants the Ukrainian people to be independent and determine their own destiny. Lavrov added that Moscow would engage in talks with Kyiv, but only after the Ukrainian military laid down its weapons.

The Kremlin on Friday also pledged to retaliate to Western sanctions. It acknowledged that sanctions would be damaging, but that the problems they may cause would be solvable. "It goes without saying that retaliatory measures will follow," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "Just how symmetrical or asymmetrical they will be depends on the analysis, the restrictions have yet to be analysed," he added. The comments from the Kremlin came as the EU announced that it was preparing further emergency sanctions against Russia.



Putin is an evil man; a wicked man! – © Mark

Au-delà de l'Ukraine, la Russie regarde déjà vers l'ex-Yougoslavie

Vladimir Poutine (ici le 25 juillet 2021) aurait les yeux rivés sur les pays de l'ex-Yougoslavie. Alexei Nikolsky / TASS via Reuters

LE FIGARO : VU D'AILLEURS - La stratégie de pouvoir de Poutine vise les républiques qui ont succédé à la Yougoslavie, dans lesquelles les forces prorusses donnent déjà le ton aujourd'hui. Cela concerne tout particulièrement un pays.

Par Carolina Drüten (Die Welt)

L'Otan arme son flanc sud-est. L'Alliance prévoit de déployer un «battlegroup» sous commandement français en Roumanie dès ce printemps: environ un millier de soldats prêts à combattre et censés souligner la volonté de défense collective de l'Occident – un message direct envoyé à Moscou.

Pendant longtemps, l'Alliance s'est concentrée sur son flanc nord-est. Jusqu'à présent, des groupes de combat n'avaient été déployés qu'en Estonie, en Lituanie, en Lettonie et en Pologne. Pourtant, le renforcement du flanc sud-est ne revêt pas un intérêt pour l'Alliance que dans le cadre de cette crise ukrainienne. Car une région souvent négligée jusqu'à présent joue un rôle central dans la stratégie russe, une stratégie qui vise à reconquérir les sphères d'influence perdues après la guerre froide.

Au-delà de la mer Noire et des anciens États du Pacte de Varsovie que sont la Roumanie et la Bulgarie, Moscou vise les républiques qui ont succédé à la Yougoslavie, des républiques dans lesquelles des forces parfois ouvertement prorusses donnent aujourd'hui le ton. » | Par LENA | vendredi 25 février 2022

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EN DIRECT - Suivez minute par minute l'évolution de la guerre en Ukraine ici.

„Die City ist abhängig vom schmutzigen Geld“

Der Eaton Square in London heißt gelegentlich auch „Roter Platz“. | Bild: EPA

OLIGARCHEN IN LONDON

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: In der britischen Hauptstadt leben viele russische Superreiche und Oligarchen – manche nennen die Stadt daher „Londongrad“ oder „Moskau an der Themse“. Für sie wird es nun ungemütlich.

Der Eaton Square, eine der teuersten Adresse Londons, wird auch „Roter Platz“ genannt – so hoch ist die Dichte russischer Superreicher, die sich dort Luxusapartments gekauft haben. Der Milliardär und Putin-Freund Roman Abramowitsch erwarb hier vor zwei Jahrzehnten ein Haus für 28 Millionen Pfund, eine von mehreren Immobilien, die der FC-Chelsea-Eigentümer sich in der britischen Hauptstadt angeschafft hat. Auch der Oligarch Oleg Deripaska besitzt eine Residenz am Eaton Square, nur wenige Gehminuten vom Buckingham Palast und vom Botschaftsviertel entfernt. Vor den prachtvollen, sechsstöckigen Häusern aus georgianischer Zeit stehen dicke Mercedes-Autos, Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis und Maseratis. Am Abend liegen die Häuser um den großen Platz aber fast völlig dunkel. In den Fenstern brennt kein Licht: Es wohnen hier kaum Menschen, die meisten Häuser dienen nur als Geldspeicher.

Fast drei Jahrzehnte lang hat London reiche Russen und ihr Geld mit offenen Armen empfangen. Sowohl Konservative als auch Labour wollte Investoren anlocken. In die feinen Stadtteilen Kensington und Chelsea oder Westminster kamen so viele, dass die Hauptstadt den Spitznamen „Londongrad“ oder auch „Moskau an der Themse“ erhielt. Durch sogenannte „Goldene Visa“ konnten Investoren, die mindestens 2 Millionen Pfund mitbrachten, eine Eintrittskarte fürs Königreich erwerben. Für 10 Millionen Pfund bekam man ein Expressverfahren zur Aufenthaltsgenehmigung für die Insel. Das jüngste Programm startete die Labour-Regierung im Jahr 2008 nach der Finanzkrise, um Geld auf die Insel zu holen. Von den 13.213 Investoren-Visa gingen 2600 an Russen und gut 4200 an Chinesen, die so die Eintrittskarte fürs Königreich erhielten. » | Von Philip Plickert, Wirtschaftskorrespondent mit Sitz in London. | Freitag, 25. Februar 2022

Um weiterzulesen, finden Sie die beliebtesten Abonnements der FAZ hier.

Related here and here.

Guerre en Ukraine : la résistance de Kiev et des Ukrainiens aux assauts militaires de la Russie

LE MONDE : RÉCIT | Les soldats russes se rapprochent de la capitale ukrainienne tandis qu’ailleurs, des fronts militaires se multiplient, des villes sont encerclées et des réfugiés fuient les combats. La situation militaire n’est pas encore désespérée, mais une partie du pays se projette déjà dans une logique de guerre de résistance.

Au deuxième jour de la guerre lancée par Vladimir Poutine contre l’Ukraine, passée la sidération, le tableau des opérations militaires s’éclaircit. Premier enseignement : l’armée ukrainienne se bat. Second enseignement : elle recule.

A Kiev comme à Moscou, les militaires ont ressorti des cartes d’états-majors qui semblaient destinées à prendre la poussière. S’y dessinent des fronts multiples, des villes encerclées, des réfugiés fuyant les combats et une capitale européenne aux abords de laquelle résonne le bruit des hélicoptères de combat et des canons. » | Par Benoît Vitkine (Moscou, correspondant) et Faustine Vincent | vendredi 25 février 2022

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Ukrainian Officials Report Missile Attacks in Kyiv

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Ukraine’s president denounced Russia in a televised address: “They say that civilian objects are not a target for them. It is a lie. They do not distinguish in which areas to operate.”

Destroyed Russian Army rocket launchers in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Friday. | Maksim Levin/Reuters

The Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, was under bombardment on Friday morning, with missile strikes and a rocket crashing into a residential building as the second day of Russia’s military offensive pressed closer to the heart of the government.

Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the outskirts of Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million people, where President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in a television address that he was “target No. 1” of the Russian advance.

By midmorning, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said that Russian forces had entered the Obolon district, a few miles north of central Kyiv, and urged people in the capital to stay indoors. In a sign of the potentially chaotic fight that could unfold, the ministry said on Facebook that Kyiv residents should “prepare Molotov cocktails” to deter “the occupier.”

Mr. Zelensky said that 137 Ukrainians, military and civilian, had been killed in the Russian invasion that began on Thursday morning, and that Russian “sabotage groups” had entered the capital with the aim of decapitating Ukraine’s government “by destroying the head of the state.” Russian troops enter the outskirts of Kyiv. » | Shashank Bengali and Marc Santor | Published: Thursday, February 24, 2022; Updated: Friday, February 25, 2022

Follow NYT live news updates on Russia invading Ukraine.

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Russia Ukraine Conflict: Putin Launches Full-scale Invasion

Feb 24, 2022 • It was as sudden as it was brutal and relentless. Ukrainians woke up to find themselves plunged into the midst of war. Explosions and air raid sirens rang out here in Kyiv and cities across the country as Russia launched a full scale invasion on multiple fronts in the early hours of the morning, firing missiles at key military infrastructure sites.

Its troops are reported to be advancing from the north of Kyiv. Other cities that have been targeted include Odessa, the major port on the Black Sea, and there are reports of hundreds of explosions in Mariupol, which is located close to Russian-occupied territory.

But also in towns like Lutsk in Ukraine's west. It shows the breadth of the assault from the Russian military.

Ukraine has declared martial law, urging citizens to take up arms to defend their country. There are reports of heavy casualties already on both sides. And as the West threatened to cripple Moscow's economy with devastating sanctions, an ominous warning from Vladimir Putin to any country trying to interfere - you will face "consequences you have never seen", he declared.


Top Hat : 1935 – Heaven | Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers

Kenny Rogers : Crazy

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Guerre en Ukraine : les Vingt-Sept adoptent des sanctions «massives» contre Moscou

Emmanuel Macron à son arrivée à Bruxelles, jeudi. YVES HERMAN / REUTERS

FIGARO / EN DIRECT / EN COURS: Réunis à Bruxelles, les pays membres ont tranché pour un train de mesures touchant l'énergie, les transports et la finance russes. Ces sanctions s'ajoutent à celles annoncées un peu plus tôt par Joe Biden en riposte à l'invasion russe. L'Otan tiendra un sommet en visioconférence vendredi.

Les dernières informations à retenir

Vladimir Poutine a annoncé jeudi une opération militaire en Ukraine dans une déclaration surprise à la télévision peu avant 04 heures du matin.

Le ministre ukrainien des Affaires étrangères, Dmytro Kouleba, a peu après annoncé le début d'une «invasion de grande ampleur». L'armée russe a affirmé avoir détruit 74 installations militaires, dont 11 aérodromes dans le pays, ainsi que 18 stations radar des systèmes de défense antimissile, des déclarations invérifiables.

Une série d'explosions ont été entendues à Kiev, où les sirènes d'alarme anti-bombardement ont retenti. Dans l'après-midi, le maire a annoncé un couvre-feu. Explosions également à Kramatorsk, ville dans l'est qui sert de quartier général à l'armée ukrainienne, à Kharkiv, deuxième ville du pays située près de la frontière russe, à Odessa, sur la mer Noire, ainsi qu'à Marioupol, plus grande ville ukrainienne proche de la zone de front.

La Russie a pris le contrôle de la centrale de Tchernobyl, site du pire accident nucléaire de l'histoire en 1986, a annoncé la présidence ukrainienne. » | Par Alain Barluet, Patrick Saint-Paul, Anna Darroman, Mayeul Aldebert, Hugues Maillot, Jeanne Sénéchal et Laura Andrieu | jeudi 24 février 2022

Ein Bild, das für sich spricht.

Une image qui parle d'elle-même. / A picture that speaks for itself.

Für dieses ausdrucksvolle Bild bedanke ich mich bei motherjones.com auf Pinterest.

‘Putin Chose This War,’ Biden Says about Ukraine Attack

Feb 24, 2022 • US President Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin bears full responsibility for attacking Ukraine and said Russia will face the consequences because of it.


Punish Russia to the max! Glory be to the US! God bless Biden! And God bless America! – © Mark

A Poke in the Eye for Putin!

Ein Stich ins Auge für Putin! / Un coup dans l'oeil pour Poutine !

With many thanks to The Proud Gay on Pinterest for this delightful photo.

MP Calls for Roman Abramovich to Be Stripped of Chelsea Ownership

Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea Football Club in 2003 but has rarely been seen in Britain recently | ALEXANDER HASSENSTEIN/UEFA/GETTY IMAGES

THE TIMES: Roman Abramovich has been named as a person of interest by the UK government due to his links to the Russian state and his “public association with corrupt activity and practices”, according to a leaked document.

A confidential Home Office document dated 2019 cited the owner of Chelsea Football Club as an example of Russian billionaires that the government was monitoring.

It stated that the government would use “the relevant tools at its disposal, including immigration powers” to prevent Russian oligarchs using the UK to facilitate illicit finance.

Abramovich is not understood to have been barred from the country by the Home Office. » | Matt Dathan, Home Affairs Editor | Thursday, February 24, 2022

New subscribers to THE TIMES – special offer: Full digital access for three months for just £1.

Are we Brits so damn poor that we must prostitute ourselves to these Russian oligarchs? Kick them out! It doesn’t matter how many billions they have in their shady bank accounts. Their influence is polluting our body politic. And as for giving titles such as ‘Lord’ to Russians, it is nothing short of a disgrace.

We can thank the Tories for this, of course. To Tories, the bottom line means everything; principles count for little, or perhaps nothing.

Whilst these people are allowed to influence our politics, Putin will have his poisonous tentacles wrapped around British politics too. – © Mark

Putin Is Teaching Us a Brutal Lesson About History

Ben Wiseman

OPINION

THE NEW YORK TIMES: What I see on the faces and hear in the voices of so many of the people around me is sheer disbelief about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a brutal war in Europe: Aren’t we supposed to be past this? Didn’t history move on? The Wall came down, the Cold War ended, and democratic liberalism was the wave of the future, which wouldn’t be so kind to strongmen like Vladimir Putin.

Well, Putin didn’t get the message. Nor did plenty of others around the world. Our notions about history were innocent and disregarded most of it. They also depended on a solipsistic projection of Western — and, especially American — culture and beliefs onto nations that share neither.

I don’t know if it’s a boomer thing, a modern thing, an elite thing or some other thing, but in my lifetime, in this country, among many of my generational peers, there has been a sense that people had learned particular lessons and were evolving past extremes of pettiness and barbarism, certainly in the corners of the globe deemed more enlightened.

In Europe, so devastated and so educated by World War II, sovereign nations wouldn’t be invaded just because their neighbors were mightier, meaner and more rapacious. That was a grandiosity and folly of the past — before the European Union and before all of our “advances,” a word we’ve used so frequently and clung to so tightly, as if the accretion of knowledge and the epiphanies of science were guarantors, or at least harbingers, of affluence and peace. » | Frank Bruni | Thursday, February 24, 2022

THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD OPINION: No Justification for a Brazen Invasion »

Russia Pushes into Area around Chernobyl, Ukraine Officials Say

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The advance, part of a multipronged Russian assault against Ukraine, risked damaging the cement-encased nuclear reactor that melted down in 1986.

Cities across Ukraine were damaged from Russian attacks. Ukrainian officials reported that more than 40 soldiers were killed and dozens wounded in fighting. | Ukrainian State Emergency Service, via Reuters

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — On Day 1 of the first major land war in Europe in decades, the Russian military plunged into Ukraine by land, sea and air, killing dozens of Ukrainian soldiers, and ominously touching off a pitched battle at the highly radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone that risked damaging the cement-encased nuclear reactor that melted down in 1986.

The day began before sunrise with the terrifying thud of artillery strikes on airports and military installations all over Ukraine. And by sunset, Russian special forces and airborne troops were pushing into the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv. While the ultimate goal of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his generals remained unclear, American officials assessed that the end game was likely the decapitation of Ukraine’s government and the replacement of its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, with a Russian-controlled puppet regime.

As of early evening Thursday, Mr. Zelensky remained in place as commander in chief, and Ukrainian forces, which officials said shot down several Russian jets and a helicopter, were engaged in fierce battles all along a broad front line to maintain control over their country.

It was in the toxic marshes of the Chernobyl exclusion zone in northern Ukraine that one of the most dangerous battles was playing out. » | Michael Schwirtz, Valerie Hopkins and Andrew E. Kramer | Thursday, February 24, 2022

Guerre en Ukraine : la Russie a pris le contrôle de la centrale de Tchernobyl, selon la présidence ukrainienne : La capitale ukrainienne a imposé un couvre-feu alors que les Russes ont conquis l’aéroport militaire de Hostomel, situé à 25 km au nord-ouest de Kiev. La Russie a envahi le territoire ukrainien et le bombarde depuis jeudi au petit matin. »

Ukraine loses control of the Chernobyl nuclear site – presidential adviser »

Guerre en Ukraine : le président Zelensky appelle les citoyens à se battre et promet des armes

Fireball after Russian Missile Hits Airport in Western Ukraine - BBC News

Feb 24, 2022 • Russian forces have launched a military assault on neighbouring Ukraine, crossing its borders and bombing military targets near big cities.

A missile sparked a fireball as it hit Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport in western Ukraine.

Russia's military breached the border in a number of places, in the north, south and east, including from Belarus, a long-time Russian ally. There are reports of fighting in some parts of eastern Ukraine.


Who Can Prevail on Putin Now War in Ukraine Has Started? Peace Depends on It

THE GUARDIAN – OPINION: The Russian leader listens to China’s Xi Jinping and a circle of rich cronies. Only they may be able to prevent huge bloodshed

Russian president Vladimir Putin with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, 4 February 2022. Photograph: Alexei Druzhinin/AP

All Europe must have awoken this morning and heard the news with horror. Sometimes history refuses to die. The fate of 44 million Ukrainians at the mercy of Russia and its vast army is appalling to contemplate. Indeed, so wild and mendacious are the utterances of Vladimir Putin in the past 24 hours that they suggest a dictator deranged and out of control. It is precisely the danger that was forecast by strategic theorists at the dawn of the nuclear age.

As of this morning, Putin’s declared intention is to “demilitarise” Ukraine and assert Russia’s de facto sovereignty over the Donbas east of the country. The latter is chiefly an exaggeration of what Russia has done covertly since 2014. The former is hard to see other than as formal conquest. This is no longer some border dispute or separatist uprising, but the concerted assault of a great power on a substantial neighbour.

Ukraine’s friends and sympathisers have been fulsome in offering comfort and “support”. Ever since 1989, western Europe has been eager, perhaps over-eager, to welcome former Soviet bloc countries into its embrace. Many thought this a mistake. Offering Nato and EU membership up to Russia’s border was certain to inflame that country’s well-known sense of insecurity, but the risk was taken. At the same time any idea of including Ukraine and Georgia in that embrace was rightly thought a risk too far. Putin has now grotesquely proved that risk. » | Simon Jenkins | Thursday, February 24, 2022

AUF DEUTSCH:

China will keine Invasion erkennen: Erst vor Kurzem haben sich Xi Jinping und Wladimir Putin eine „Freundschaft ohne Grenzen“ versprochen. Wie weit reicht sie nach dem russischen Angriff auf die Ukraine? Von einer Invasion will man in Peking jedenfalls nichts wissen. »