"Where you can find almost anything with A Click A Pick!"
Go to content
World Monthly Headline News March 2022 - Page 1
Emails and documents show just how closely Italian, French, German and Austrian politicians coordinate with Moscow
Holger Roonemaa, Martin Laine, Michael Weiss

Last November, during Matteo’s working visit to Moscow, my boss arranged a private meeting with him, renting a room on the same floor of the Lotte Hotel to prevent the Western press from catching wind of the meeting. So wrote Mikhail Yakushev, a Russian national, in a Microsoft Word document he emailed to himself on June 18, 2019. Yakushev is the director of Tsargrad, an organization in Russia that describes itself as a group of companies whose mission is “the revival of the greatness of the Russian Empire.” “Matteo” referred to Matteo Salvini, the former Italian deputy prime minister and interior minister and current leader of the League, Italy’s nationalist and anti-migrant party. Now a senator in Italy’s upper chamber of Parliament, Salvini has been an avowed admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom in 2019 he labeled “the best statesman currently on earth.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says Russia is deliberately targeting population centers as its campaign stalls due to Ukrainian defenses
By Alan Cullison and Isabel Coles

KYIV, Ukraine—Russia’s assault on Ukraine has forced more than 10 million people to abandon their homes, the United Nations said, with the scale of the humanitarian disaster showing little sign of easing as Moscow presses its attack with missile strikes and artillery fire. “The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million have fled—either displaced inside the country, or as refugees abroad,” the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Sunday. That means almost a quarter of the country’s prewar population has been uprooted.
By Alan Crawford

Russia’s use of hypersonic missiles against Ukraine appears to mark a shift in strategy in response to its losses on the battlefield, one that may signal a new phase of the war while serving to show the world its abundant firepower. Western military analysts point to President Vladimir Putin’s ground campaign getting bogged down, with Russian troops failing to achieve their initial objectives and underestimating the scale of Ukraine’s resistance. They say the result is likely to be increased use of artillery bombardments, causing even more civilian casualties.
Reuters

LVIV, Ukraine, March 20 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy chided Israel in an address to its parliament on Sunday, asking why it was not providing missile defences to his country or sanctioning Russia over its invasion. Replying to Zelenskiy, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was non-committal, saying in a statement that Israel, which has sent a field hospital and other humanitarian aid to Ukraine, would continue to assist its people "as much as we can". A mediator in the Ukraine-Russia crisis, Israel has condemned the Russian invasion. But it has been wary of straining relations with Moscow, a powerbroker in neighbouring Syria where Israeli forces frequently attack pro-Iranian militia. "Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best … and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews," Zelenskiy, who is Jewish himself, told the Knesset in a video call. more...
John Bacon, David Jackson, Jorge L. Ortiz | USA TODAY

The pounding of the besieged southern port city of Mariupol intensified Sunday and a top U.S. official expressed concern about the prospect of Russian-organized "concentration and prisoner camps" as Russia's bloody assault on Ukraine waded deeper into its fourth week. The Mariupol city council accused the Russian military of bombing an art school where about 400 people had taken shelter. There was no immediate word on casualties at the school, but the city council said on social media the building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble. A few days earlier, Russian forces bombed a theater in Mariupol where civilians took shelter. Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been encircled by Russian troops for weeks, cut off from energy, food and water supplies and facing a relentless bombardment. more...
By Lalit K Jha

Russia has become a global economic pariah after it attacked Ukraine and the international community has joined the United States in imposing tough sanctions against Moscow, the Joe Biden administration has claimed. US President Biden termed the package of economic sanctions enforced against Russia "most significant in history" and claimed that it has caused consequential damage to the Russian economy. "It has caused the Russian economy to crater. The Ruble is now down 50 per cent and worth less than one American penny since Putin announced his war," he told reporters at the White House after announcing an immediate ban on import of Russian oil and gas. more...
Ellen Knickmeyer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The signs are abundant of how Ukraine frustrated Vladimir Putin's hopes for a swift victory and how Russia’s military proved far from ready for the fight. A truck carrying Russian troops crashes, its doors blown open by a rocket-propelled grenade. Foreign-supplied drones target Russian command posts. Orthodox priests in trailing vestments parade Ukraine's blue and yellow flag in defiance of their Russian captors in the occupied city of Berdyansk. Russia has lost hundreds of tanks, many left charred or abandoned along the roads, and its death toll is on a pace to outstrip that of the country's previous military campaigns in recent years. Yet more than three weeks into the war, with Putin’s initial aim of an easy change in government in Kyiv long gone, Russia's military still has a strong hand. With their greater might and stockpile of city-flattening munitions, Russian forces can fight on for whatever the Russian president may plan next, whether leveraging a negotiated settlement or brute destruction, military analysts say. more...
It is official Fox News is the propaganda wing of the Republican Party and Russia.

By Aaron McDade

In a 35-minute interview aired Friday on Russian state-owned television network RT, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that Fox News is the only American media outlet that offers "alternative" points of view, and called the removal of former President Donald Trump from Twitter and other social media "censorship." This comes as the latest back-and-forth on media and propaganda between the two countries as the war in Ukraine rages on. "So we know the manners and the tricks which are being used by the Western countries to manipulate media," Lavrov said. "We understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent Western media. If you take the United States only Fox News is trying to present some alternative points of view." more...
Reuters

OSLO, March 16 (Reuters) - Russian gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline were steady while lower through Ukraine on Wednesday as the Yamal-Europe pipeline remained in reverse mode for a second day, flowing to Poland from Germany. Flows to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline across the Baltic Sea were stable at 73,769,549 kWh/h on Wednesday morning, data from the pipeline operator company showed. Eastbound flows into Poland from Germany along the Yamal-Europe pipeline stood at 4,337,770 kilowatt hours per hour (kWh/h) at the Mallnow border point, data from operator Gascade showed. more...
Analysis: Safe in his palace, Syrian leader appears to have given Moscow carte blanche to airlift his army
Martin Chulov Middle East

After 11 years of war, the destruction of towns, cities and much of the Syrian military, Bashar al-Assad’s army has launched a recruitment drive. But the recruits are not fresh from bootcamps and will not fight on the home front. They are the vanguard of what could be the biggest state-backed mercenary force in the world. Within days, Syrian troops could be deployed to reinforce the stalled Russian frontlines in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin is about to extract a lethal price for Moscow’s rescue of the Syrian leader. The first Syrian troops to join Putin’s ranks – an advance force of 150 – arrived in Russia on Thursday, European intelligence officials claim. Ukrainian military intelligence, echoing a claim by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, believes 40,000 Syrians have signed up to fight – a figure that would represent a sizeable chunk of the battle-ready capacity of the country’s entire military. more...
NBC News

While blaming the West and Ukraine’s leaders for the conflict, the Russian president alluded to the possibility of talks, as long as “the problems which are fundamental for Russia” are on the table. video...
NBC News

Russia is facing allegations of committing war crimes against Ukrainian civilians as the invasion escalates, with President Biden labelling President Putin as a “war criminal.” Human rights lawyer and head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, Oleksandra Matviychuk, joins News NOW to explain how war crimes compare to conventional warfare and whether the allegations could impact U.S. involvement in the conflict. video...
By NOMAAN MERCHANT

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than two weeks into a war he expected to dominate in two days, Vladimir Putin is projecting anger, frustration at his military’s failures and a willingness to cause even more violence and destruction in Ukraine, in the assessment of U.S. intelligence officials. Officials in recent days have publicly said they’re worried the Russian president will escalate the conflict to try to break Ukraine’s resistance. Russia still holds overwhelming military advantages and can bombard the country for weeks more. And while the rest of the world reacts to horrific images of the war he started, Putin remains insulated from domestic pressure by what CIA Director William Burns called a “propaganda bubble.” more...
Steve Inskeep

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that merely stopping the invasion of Ukraine may not be enough for Russia to gain relief from Western economic sanctions. The U.S. also wants an assurance that there will never be another such invasion. In an interview with NPR, Blinken spoke of Western sanctions that cratered the Russian ruble, led global firms to shutter their Russian operations, and closed the Moscow stock market. He said the unplugging of much of Russia's economy from the West is beginning to wreak long-term effects that are "growing over time." He insisted that U.S. sanctions against Russia are "not designed to be permanent," and that they could "go away" if Russia should change its behavior. But he said any Russian pullback would have to be, "in effect, irreversible," so that "this can't happen again, that Russia won't pick up and do exactly what it's doing in a year or two years or three years." more...
By Zack Budryk

Saudi and Chinese officials are in talks to price some of the Gulf nation’s oil sales in yuan rather than dollars or euros, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The two nations have intermittently discussed the matter for six years, but talks have reportedly stepped up in 2022, with Riyadh disgruntled over the United States' nuclear negotiations with Iran and its lack of backing for Saudi Arabia's military operation in neighboring Yemen. Nearly 80 percent of global oil sales are priced in dollars, and since the mid-1970s the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar for oil trading as part of a security agreement with the U.S. government, according to the Journal. more...
By Pavel Polityuk and Carlos Barria

LVIV/IRPIN, Ukraine, March 7 (Reuters) - A Western ban on Russian oil imports may more than double the price to $300 a barrel and prompt the closure of the main gas pipeline to Germany, Moscow warned on Monday, as talks on Ukraine hardly advanced amid efforts to agree on civilian safe passage. Russia's invasion, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two, has created 1.7 million refugees, a raft of sanctions on Moscow, and fears of wider conflict in the West unthought-of for decades. more...
The Lead

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh reports that many of the Russian tactics in Ukraine are familiar to Syrians who suffered a similar fate when Russia attacked Syria. video...
Reuters

LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday it had put U.S. President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a dozen top U.S. officials on a "stop list" that bars them from entering the country. Alongside Biden, U.S. officials on the list included Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, CIA chief William Burns, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. more...
By Charles Riley, CNN Business

London (CNN Business) Russia has sent the clearest signal yet that it will soon default — the first time it will have failed to meet its foreign debt obligations since the Bolshevik revolution more than a century ago. Half of the country's foreign reserves — roughly $315 billion — have been frozen by Western sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov said on Sunday. As a result, Moscow will repay creditors from "countries that are unfriendly" in rubles until the sanctions are lifted, he said. Credit ratings agencies would likely consider Russia to be in default if Moscow misses payments or repays debt issued in dollars or euros with other currencies such as the ruble or China's yuan. A default could drive the few remaining foreign investors out of Russia and further isolate the country's crumbling economy. more...
Karen Gilchrist

The Russian journalist who interrupted a state TV news bulletin and denounced the war in Ukraine has been fined 30,000 rubles ($280) by a Russian court. Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Russian-owned Channel One, burst onto the set of a live broadcast of the nightly news on Monday evening, holding a sign protesting the Russian invasion and shouting “stop the war.” Concerns for the journalist’s safety quickly arose after a human rights lawyer said she had not been heard from for several hours. However, a photo surfaced on Tuesday afternoon showing Ovsyannikova with her lawyer. more...
By Betsy Klein, Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins and Kate Sullivan, CNN

(CNN) President Joe Biden will travel to Europe next week to meet with world leaders and discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. The President will travel to Brussels, Belgium, to participate in a NATO summit on March 24 and will also join a European Council meeting, Psaki told reporters at a White House briefing. The trip, which will be one of the most closely watched visits to Europe by an American president in decades, comes weeks after Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Biden will "discuss ongoing deterrence and defense efforts," during the NATO summit and reaffirm the US' commitment to its NATO allies, Psaki said. more...
Chris Stokel-Walker and Dan Milmo

Ukraine appealed for a global army of IT experts to help in the battle against Putin – and many answered the call. We speak to people on the digital frontline. Kali learned how to use technology by playing with his grandfather’s phone. Now, the Swiss teenager is trying to paralyse the digital presence of the Russian government and the Belarussian railway. Kali – and many others who contributed to this article – declined to share his real name because some of the action he is taking is illegal and because he fears Russian retaliation. He is one of about 300,000 people who have signed up to a group on the chat app Telegram called “IT Army of Ukraine”, through which participants are assigned tasks designed to take the fight to Vladimir Putin. In so doing, they are trying to level the playing field between one of the world’s superpowers and Ukraine as it faces bombardment and invasion. more...
Stuart Anderson

The invasion of Ukraine has brought sanctions and economic isolation to Russia, halting the era of globalization Russians enjoyed after the end of the Soviet Union. Countries have gone from little integration with the global economy to becoming closely integrated. However, this might be the first time a country’s inhabitants have experienced an abrupt end to globalization after enjoying it for many years. To better understand the impact of this monumental change, I interviewed Brian D. Taylor, a professor of political science at Syracuse University and the author of the highly acclaimed book The Code of Putinism. more...
Kelsey Vlamis

Prosecutors in Russia have issued stark warnings to Western companies that pull out of the country or criticize its government, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Companies from various business sectors have been told that their corporate leaders could be arrested if they criticize Russia, and that companies shutting down operations in the country could have their assets seized, sources told The Journal. Russia said last week that it could seize the assets of companies that suspended operations in Russia. Droves of major US and European companies have pulled out of the country after it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Russia has also been hit with crippling economic sanctions by the West. more...
By Clarissa Ward, Mick Krever, Brian Stelter and Lauren Kent, CNN

Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN) Award-winning American journalist Brent Renaud was killed by Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Irpin, police in Kyiv said in social media posts on Sunday. Another American journalist, Juan Arredondo, was wounded. In a tweet, Kyiv region police identified the dead man as Renaud, who was 50. Police posted a photo of his body and his American passport as evidence, as well as a photo of an outdated New York Times press badge with Renaud's name. Andriy Nebitov, the head of the Kyiv region police, said in a Facebook post that Russian forces shot Renaud, adding that "the occupants cynically kill even journalists of international media, who've been trying to tell the truth about atrocities of Russian military in Ukraine." more...
By Sam Fossum, Kaitlan Collins and Jim Sciutto, CNN

Washington, DC (CNN) Russia has asked China for military assistance in Ukraine, including drones, as it continues its unprovoked invasion, a senior US official told CNN. Potential assistance from the Chinese would be a significant development in Russia's invasion, and could upend the hold Ukrainian forces still have in the country. When asked by CNN about the reporting of Russia's request for military aid, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US, said in a statement, "I've never heard of that." Liu expressed concern for "the Ukraine situation" -- calling it "indeed disconcerting" -- and said China has and will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. more...
An independent journalist describes what life is like inside Russia’s parallel universe.
By Sean Illing

Almost everyone outside Russia views Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine the same way: as an obscene and unnecessary atrocity. But that’s because the outside world can see clearly what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine. For the average Russian, the picture looks very different. They know there’s something happening in Ukraine, but it’s not a “war” — it’s a “special military operation.” And if you watch the news, which is controlled by the state, you’re not seeing images of bombed apartment buildings or dead civilians on the streets, because that’s what a war looks like and there’s definitely not a war in Ukraine. Indeed, Putin signed a law last week mandating up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information” about the conflict, which includes using words like “war” or “invasion.” And while the state has largely controlled media in Russia, it has now shut down the last remaining independent channel and is even blocking Facebook in the hope of controlling the internet as well. more...
By Matt Peterson

Vladimir Putin probably won’t be able to win his war in Ukraine. The Ukrainians aren’t likely to win it, either. And, as the violence persists, the rest of the world will pay a high and rising price. The integration of global markets that enabled the West to punish the Russian economy in response to Putin’s aggression is leading to higher costs at home, chiefly through rising oil and gas prices, snarled supply lines, and scarcer goods. Consumers are just starting to feel the negative effects in the U.S. and Europe, and they.. more...
Associated Press

The “Evropeisky” mall in Moscow was once a symbol of a Russia integrated into the global consumer economy, with atriums named after cities like London, Paris and Rome. But now large parts of the seven-story shopping center have gone quiet after Western brands from Apple to Victoria’s Secret closed their Russian operations in the two weeks since the country invaded Ukraine. Hundreds of companies have similarly announced plans to curtail ties to Russia, with the pace accelerating over the past week as the deadly violence and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine worsens, and as Western governments ratchet up economic sanctions. more...
By Olafimihan Oshin

Russian officials have reportedly contacted Chinese counterparts about obtaining military equipment from the country amid the Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. U.S. officials told the Washington Post and New York Times of the potential arms deal, but did not disclose any details on what type of weaponry had been requested by Russia. The Times reported that Moscow also requested additional economic support from Beijing, which has become a key ally as much of the world seeks to isolate Russia. more...
AP News

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — A military drone that apparently flew all the way from the Ukrainian war zone over three European NATO-member states before crashing in an urban zone of the Croatian capital was armed with an explosive device, Croatia’s defense minister said Sunday. The Soviet-made aircraft crossed Romania and Hungary before entering Croatia, slamming into a field near a student dormitory late Thursday. About 40 parked cars were damaged in the large explosion, but no one was injured. “Traces of explosives and clues suggesting that this was not a reconnaissance aircraft were found. We found parts of an air bomb,” Croatian Defense Minister Mario Banozic said at the crash site. He said that this further raises a question about whether the drone belonged to Russia or Ukraine. more...
By Mark Thompson, CNN Business

London (CNN Business) Russia's richest businessman has warned the Kremlin against confiscating assets of companies that have fled in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, saying such a step would set the country back more than 100 years. Vladimir Potanin, president of metals giant Norilsk Nickel (NILSY) and its biggest shareholder, said that Russia risked returning to the tumultuous days of the 1917 revolution if it slammed the door on Western companies and investors. He urged the Russian government to proceed with extreme caution regarding the seizure of assets. "Firstly, it would take us back a hundred years, to 1917, and the consequences of such a step — global distrust of Russia on the part of investors — we would experience for many decades," he said in a message posted on Norilsk Nickel's Telegram account on Thursday. more...
Documents released by the hacking group show that Russia is censoring the narrative regarding its role in its war with Ukraine.
By ARIELLA MARSDEN

The Ukrainian Anonymous hacker group has hacked into Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal agency responsible for monitoring and censoring media, and released 360,000 files, the group announced on Twitter on Thursday. Among the censored documents released by Anonymous, some of which are dated as late as March 5, are ones that show Moscow censored anything that referred to the war as a Russian invasion of Ukraine. more...
Zahra Tayeb

Russians are attempting to sell McDonald's menu items online at highly inflated prices, following the closure of more than 800 restaurants in the country. Insider viewed multiple listings on Avito, a Russian classified-ads website, which offered products including Big Macs and McMuffins. Avito is described on LinkedIn as the most popular classifieds site in Russia and the second-biggest in the world. One Moscow-based seller advertised a Big Mac for the equivalent of $36. In Russia, the burger would usually cost 135 roubles, or around $1, according to The Economist's Big Mac index. more...
The Associated Press

The “Evropeisky” mall in Moscow was once a symbol of a Russia integrated into the global consumer economy, with atriums named after cities like London, Paris and Rome. But now large parts of the seven-story shopping center have gone quiet after Western brands from Apple to Victoria’s Secret closed their Russian operations in the two weeks since the country invaded Ukraine. Hundreds of companies have similarly announced plans to curtail ties to Russia, with the pace accelerating over the past week as the deadly violence and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine worsens, and as Western governments ratchet up economic sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded Thursday by saying that if foreign companies shut down production in Russia, he favored a plan to “bring in outside management and then transfer these companies to those who want to work.” more...
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iran has claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck early Sunday near a sprawling U.S. consulate complex in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, saying it was retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed two members of its Revolutionary Guard. No injuries were reported in the attack, which marked a significant escalation between the U.S. and Iran. Hostility between the longtime foes has often played out in Iraq, whose government is allied with both countries. Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said on its website that it launched the attack against an Israeli “strategic center of conspiracy” in Irbil. It did not elaborate, but in a statement said Israel had itself been on the offensive, citing the recent strike that killed two Revolutionary Guards. more...
By Mary Kay Linge

Russian military forces have installed a new mayor for the embattled city of Melitopol — one day after its elected mayor was kidnapped by a group of 10 Russian soldiers. Galina Danilchenko, a former member of the city council, was proclaimed the acting mayor on local TV Saturday, CNN reported. Mayor Ivan Fedorov was taken from Melitopol’s crisis center Friday with a plastic bag over his head after he “refused to cooperate with the enemy,” Ukraine’s parliament said. More than 2,000 residents of the Russian-occupied city in the Kremlin-backed rebel region of Luhansk staged a rally to support Fedorov Saturday, while Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded his immediate release.  more...
By Aziz El Yaakoubi

RIYADH, March 12 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia executed 81 men including seven Yemenis and one Syrian on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in the kingdom's biggest mass execution in decades. The number dwarfed the 67 executions reported there in all of 2021 and the 27 in 2020. Offences ranged from joining militant groups to holding "deviant beliefs", the ministry said in a statement. "These individuals, totalling 81, were convicted of various crimes including murdering innocent men, women and children," the statement read. more...
by: The Associated Press via Nexstar Media Wire

BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday ordered a lockdown of the 9 million residents of the northeastern city of Changchun amid a new spike in COVID-19 cases in the area attributed to the highly contagious omicron variant. Residents are required to remain at home, with one family member permitted to venture out to buy food and other necessities every two days. All residents must undergo three rounds of mass testing, while non-essential businesses have been closed and transport links suspended. more...
By Essi Lehto and Nora Buli

HELSINKI (Reuters) -Finland's much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor started test production on Saturday, operator TVO said, delivering power to the national grid which over time is expected to reduce the need for electricity imports and lead to lower prices. Plagued by technological problems that became the subject of lawsuits, the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) reactor had originally been due to open in 2009. It is Finland's first new nuclear plant in over four decades and Europe's first in almost 15 years. Olkiluoto 3 started test production at just over 0.1 gigawatt, a small fraction of its capacity, with a ramp-up to full, regular electricity output planned by the end of July. more...
DAVID KLEPPER and ANGELO FICHERA

Russia's baseless claims about secret American biological warfare labs in Ukraine are taking root in the U.S. too, uniting COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, QAnon adherents and some supporters of ex-President Donald Trump. Despite rebuttals from independent scientists, Ukrainian leaders and officials at the White House and Pentagon, the online popularity of the claims suggests some Americans are willing to trust Kremlin propaganda over the U.S. media and government. Like any effective conspiracy theory, the Russian claim relies on some truths: Ukraine does maintain a network of biological labs dedicated to research into pathogens, and those labs have received funding and research support from the U.S. more...
The Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia executed on Saturday 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history. The number of executed surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever militant attack to target the kingdom and Islam's holiest site. It wasn't clear why the kingdom choose Saturday for the executions, though they came as much of the world's attention remained focused on Russia's war on Ukraine. The number of death penalty cases being carried out in Saudi Arabia had dropped during the coronavirus pandemic, though the kingdom continued to behead convicts under King Salman and his assertive son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. more...
Tom Boggioni

According to a report from the Daily Beast's Shannon Vavra, officials at the Pentagon told reporters on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's desire to bring in foreign fighters to help with his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is not going well. With the western world uniting against Russia's war on Ukraine -- and the invasion and subjugation of the country taking way longer than Putin reportedly believed it would -- "Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Friday that Russia is recruiting 16,000 people from the Middle East to help fight in Ukraine," the Beast reported. However, as Vavra notes, U.S. military officials are claiming they aren't seeing an influx of foreign fighters headed into Ukraine. more...
Story by Reuters

India said on Friday it had accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan this week because of a "technical malfunction" during routine maintenance, giving its version of events after Pakistan summoned India's envoy to protest.
Military experts have in the past warned of the risk of accidents or miscalculations by the nuclear-armed neighbors, which have fought three wars and engaged in numerous smaller armed clashes, usually over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Tensions have eased in recent months, and the incident -- which may have been the first of its kind -- immediately raised questions about safety mechanisms. more...
By Mark Trevelyan

LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms (FB.O) said Friday that a temporary change in its content policy, only for Ukraine, was needed to let users voice opposition to Russia's attack, as Russia opened a criminal case after the company said it would allow posts such as "death to the Russian invaders." Russian prosecutors asked a court to designate the U.S. tech giant as an "extremist organisation," and the communications regulator said it would restrict access to Meta's Instagram starting March 14. The company said the decision would affect 80 million users in Russia. more...
By Justin Klawans

Russians may be able to get their hands on a Big Mac after all, despite McDonald's officially closing all locations throughout the country. The McDonald's Corporation announced on Tuesday that it would become the latest international company to sever ties with Russia amidst the ongoing Ukraine invasion. All 847 McDonald's locations within the country temporarily closed, although Russian officials are considering circumventing trademark restrictions in an effort to reopen. The fast-food chain was one of the first Western franchises to branch out to Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and soon became an icon of post-Soviet life. Its departure from the country represented a major blow to a Russian economy that is already facing heavy sanctions. more...
By Jonathan Landay, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis

March 11 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Friday said it had no evidence Ukraine had a biological weapons program while Washington and its allies accused Russia of spreading the unproven claim as a possible prelude to launching its own biological or chemical attacks. Russia called the meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council to reassert through its envoy Vassily Nebenzia, without providing evidence, that Ukraine ran biological weapons laboratories with U.S. Defense Department support. more...
By Steve Holland and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) - The United States, together with the Group of Seven nations and the European Union, will move on Friday to revoke Russia's "most favored nation" status over its invasion of Ukraine, multiple people familiar with the situation told Reuters. President Joe Biden will announce the plans at the White House at 10:15 a.m. EST (1515 GMT), said one of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. The White House said Biden would announce "actions to continue to hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine", but gave no details. more...
By Greg Wilson | WashingtonExaminer

Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council Friday morning to present what it claims is evidence of U.S. involvement in "military biological activities" in Ukraine. The request was announced in a tweet by Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy and followed claims by Russia and China that the United States is involved in secret biological research in Ukraine. The U.S. has denied the claims and warned Russia could be spreading misinformation to lay the groundwork for a so-called "false flag" operation. more...
polygraph.info

Russia’s all-out attack on Ukraine is entering its second week. As of March 8, according to the Pentagon, 100 percent of the invasion forces Russia built up over the last year are now in Ukraine. Russian forces have fired nearly 700 missiles into Ukraine. Multiple cities are under siege, and Ukrainian authorities said Russia destroyed a Mariupol hospital complex, violating a cease-fire. There is no exact count of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed, but estimates are in the thousands. more...
Photo of Carolyn Said
Carolyn Said

A Silicon Valley employee and her children are the subjects of photos so devastating that they shocked the world: a Ukrainian family lying dead on the pavement, killed by Russian mortar fire while trying to flee the conflict. The images of Ukrainian soldiers tending to the bloodied bodies of a woman, her teenage son and young daughter, and their friend ran on the front page of the New York Times this week, along with online videos of the unprovoked attack on civilians. They stirred international outrage and a pledge from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to punish the perpetrators. “There will be no quiet place on Earth for you,” Zelenskyy said. “Except for the grave.” more...
Reuters

March 10 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia's economy was experiencing a shock and that measures were being taken to soften the impact of what it described as an "absolutely unprecedented" economic war being waged against Moscow. The West has imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. "Our economy is experiencing a shock impact now and there are negative consequences, they will be minimised," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. more...
By Simone McCarthy and CNN's Beijing Bureau

Beijing (CNN) In public statements and at international summits, Chinese officials have attempted to stake out a seemingly neutral position on the war in Ukraine, neither condemning Russian actions nor ruling out the possibility Beijing could act as a mediator in a push for peace. But while its international messaging has kept many guessing as to Beijing's true intentions, much of its domestic media coverage of Russia's invasion tells a wholly different story. There, an alternate reality is playing out for China's 1.4 billion people, one in which the invasion is nothing more than a "special military operation," according to its national broadcaster CCTV; the United States may be funding a biological weapons program in Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a victim standing up for a beleaguered Russia. more...
Bill Goodykoontz | Arizona Republic

On Monday's front page, The New York Times published a photo of a woman and her two children dead on the streets of Irpin, near Kyiv.  It’s terrifying and unimaginably sad. It’s also essential to our understanding of what’s going on in Ukraine. In the photo, Ukrainian soldiers work to try to save a man, identified as a friend of the family, who lay beside them. The four had been hit by a mortar as they tried to escape Irpin. Now, more than ever, we should be grateful for the chance to see it. Journalist Lynsey Addario took the photo and wrote about the attack. The story includes this description: “Their luggage, a blue roller suitcase and some backpacks, was scattered about, along with a green carrying case for a small dog that was barking.” more...
“We do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one,” Defense Department spokesperson John Kirby said.
By Paul McLeary and Alexander Ward

The Polish government stunned Washington on Tuesday by announcing it was ready to transfer its 28 MiG-29 fighter planes to the U.S., with the understanding that they would be handed over to Ukrainian pilots fighting off the Russian invasion. The move, which came with a request that the U.S. supply Poland with used jets with “corresponding capabilities,” came after a week of back-and-forth negotiations between Washington and Warsaw over transferring the jets to Ukraine, which needs replacement jets to fight off the Russians. After vociferous denials by Warsaw that it was even considering donating MiGs to Ukraine, the offer arrived completely unexpected. more...
Zachary Basu

Vladimir Putin's plan to seize Ukraine's capital in the first two days of Russia's invasion has been a complete failure, thrown off course by a fierce Ukrainian resistance, poor planning and a series of profound miscalculations. Why it matters: An isolated and angry Putin is expected to double down on his brutality as the war in Ukraine drags on for weeks, months or even years, according to top U.S. intelligence officials. It could be his undoing. Driving the news: "He has no sustainable political end game in the face of what is going to continue to be fierce resistance from the Ukrainians," CIA Director Bill Burns testified to a House committee Tuesday. Even if Russia eventually captures Kyiv, the U.S. intelligence community does not see a way that a pro-Russian puppet regime can stay in power given the Ukrainian people's absolute refusal to capitulate. more...
By John Feng

China, ostensibly neutral on Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, took a significant step into Moscow's camp on Tuesday when a government official repeated a Russian conspiracy theory about the existence of U.S.-funded biological weapons in the country. At a regular press briefing in Beijing, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, read out a Russian media report about the alleged discovery of a "military biological program" in Ukraine in the days after the large-scale offensive began. The United States should publicly disclose information about its biological research facilities in the country, Zhao said. more...
Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan
By Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan

LONDON (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday the United States must explain what Moscow claims was a military biological programme in Ukraine - an allegation Washington has already dismissed as "absurd" misinformation. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said evidence of the alleged programme had been uncovered by Russia during what it calls its military operation in Ukraine, which its forces invaded on Feb. 24. It involved deadly pathogens including plague and anthrax, she said. A Ukrainian presidential spokesperson said: "Ukraine strictly denies any such allegation". more...
By Jeremy Herb, Kylie Atwood, Jennifer Hansler and Oren Liebermann, CNN

(CNN) The Pentagon on Tuesday evening dismissed Poland's proposal floated hours earlier to transfer its MiG-29 fighter jets to the United States for delivery to Ukraine. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement that the Pentagon did not believe Poland's proposal was "tenable," just hours after Polish officials released a statement saying the government was ready to deploy all of its MiG-29 fighter jets to US Air Force's Rammstein Air Base in Germany so they could then be provided to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. "It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it," Kirby said. "We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland's proposal is a tenable one." more...
Official Chinese news sites have also published baseless claims that the US trained Ukrainian neo-Nazis to destabilize Hong Kong during protests there in 2019
By Jordyn Haime

TAIPEI (JTA) — Many countries have roundly rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s argument that his attack on Ukraine is needed to achieve the “denazification” of that country. But the argument is alive and well in Chinese state-run media. “Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned in a televised speech a few days ago that the military operation against Ukraine is aimed at protecting the people who have suffered abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years. For this reason, Russia will seek to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine,” one article on the state-backed site Wen Wei Po read. more...
Crude prices spike, Dow futures fall about 350 points
By Mike Murphy

U.S. stock-index futures fell sharply after trading began late Sunday, as investors remain rattled by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00, -0.72% tumbled more than 400 points, while S&P 500 futures ES00, -0.64% and Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00, -0.74% each fell more than 1.5% early Monday. Last week, all three major indexes booked losses, with the Dow falling for a fourth straight week. Dow DJIA, -0.97% dropped 179.86 points, or 0.5%, to close at 33,614.80, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.95%  fell 34.62 points, or 0.8%, to finish at 4,328.87, and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -1.01%  shed 224.5 points, or 1.7%, to end at 13,313.44. more...
A wave of sanctions hitting Russia highlights the complex web of connections that make up contemporary global society – and its ultimate fragility.
By David Z Morris

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is facing a wave of truly unprecedented financial sanctions in retaliation for its widely scorned invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions have suddenly revealed the massive power that lay dormant in the unified global banking system for decades. But it likely also marks the beginning of that power’s end, and the dawn of something more fragmented. Russia’s dependence on systems like SWIFT bank messaging, correspondent banking and ApplePay is a product of the global dominance of a unified market-capitalist status quo. This status quo represents the neoliberal “End of History” that was widely presumed to have arrived with the fall of the Soviet Union. But there may be no better sign of the end of the End of History than the weaponization of finance happening right now. more...
Reuters

SYDNEY, March 1 (Reuters) - Military helicopters airlifted stranded people from rooftops of flooded neighbourhoods in eastern Australia and a tenth victim was found on Tuesday following days of torrential rain as the wild weather slowly shifts south toward Sydney. more...
By Yaron Steinbuch

Terrifying video captured drug cartel members lining up several people against a wall during a funeral — shooting them dead, cleaning up the scene and leaving behind a bag full of brains. The gruesome attack occurred Sunday outside a funeral service for the mother of an alleged hitman who had worked for the Jalisco cartel, which has been fighting bloody turf battles in Michoacan against rival gangs. In the footage, which was captured by a resident of the town San Jose de Gracia, bursts of gunfire break out and smoke covers the scene of the carnage. more...
By Brian Fung, CNN Business

Washington (CNN Business) As hacking by nation-states has grown more pervasive in recent years, Microsoft has long called for the creation of a new Geneva Convention governing cyberspace. But now, for the first time, the tech giant appears to be suggesting that cyberattacks tied to the war in Ukraine could potentially be considered war crimes under existing international law. On Monday, Microsoft (MSFT (MSFT)) said that in the hours leading up to Russia's invasion, it detected a new form of "offensive and destructive" software targeting Ukrainian institutions. Microsoft also said it has observed a barrage of cyberattacks zeroing in on Ukraine's agricultural, commercial, finance and energy sectors. more...
Arjun Kharpal

Payment and credit card giants Visa and Mastercard have blocked financial institutions from their networks in response to sanctions targeting Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Last week, Russia launched an unprecedented invasion of Ukraine, forcing the U.S. and governments around the world to impose a series of sanctions aimed at cutting off Moscow from the global financial system. Last week, the U.S. placed a number of Russian individuals and financial institutions on a sanctions list called the Specially Designated Nationals list. It effectively blocks U.S. companies and people from doing business with any individual or entity on that list. Washington also sanctioned Russia’s central bank on Monday. more...
By Matt Egan, CNN Business

New York (CNN Business) Russia faces the specter of a full-blown financial meltdown. Punishing sanctions leveled by the West have sent the ruble crashing to record lows, shuttered Moscow's stock market and made Russian assets toxic on the world stage. The White House has even taken aim at Vladimir Putin's financial fortress, removing access to at least a chunk of Russia's $630 billion rainy-day fund that was designed to cushion the economic blow of this very crisis. more...
Rajan Dhall

(Kitco News) - Statista Data Journalist Katharina Buchholz has recently put together some data on where the Russian central bank's gold is being held. It seems like a very prominent subject at the moment as governments around the world are putting sanctions on the nation. China was the single-biggest foreign holder of Russian central bank reserves as of June 30, 2021, holding 13.8 percent of the total of Russia’s reserves. It has been said that this is a mix of gold and foreign currency and roughly the same share of assets held in Chinese currency Yuan Renminbi. more...
By Carolyn Cohn and Lawrence White

LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday it was placing temporary curbs on foreigners seeking to exit Russian assets, putting the brakes on an accelerating investor exodus driven by crippling Western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. more...
By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The harsh sanctions imposed on Russia and the resulting crash of the ruble have the Kremlin scrambling to keep the country’s economy running. For Vladimir Putin, that means finding workarounds to the Western economic blockade even as his forces continue to invade Ukraine. Former Treasury Department officials and sanctions experts expect Russia to try to mitigate the impact of the financial penalties by relying on energy sales and leaning on the country’s reserves in gold and Chinese currency. Putin also is expected to move funds through smaller banks and accounts of elite families not covered by the sanctions, deal in cryptocurrency and rely on Russia’s relationship with China. Right now, “the biggest two avenues that Russia has are China and energy,” said John Smith, former director of Treasury’s financial intelligence and enforcement arm. more...
Russia's ruble worth less than 1 cent after West tightens sanctions
CBS News

Russia's currency is tumbling after Western nations on Saturday agreed to put crippling sanctions on the country's financial sector in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The ruble fell about 30% against the dollar Monday — making it worth less than 1 U.S. cent — after the U.S., European Union and United Kingdom announced moves to block some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system and to restrict Russia's use of its massive foreign currency reserves. The system is used to move billions of dollars around more than 11,000 banks and other financial institutions around the world. more...
Back to content