Nuclear threat, public executions, and the Collapse of Kremlin's Economy: Western media digest as of March 4

Authors

Olexandra Zakharova , Ksenia Lisna

Ukraine is constantly in the Western media. They continue to express concern about the situation in Ukraine—in particular, they were frightened by the story of the fire at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and the threat of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe. International companies continue to refuse cooperation with Russia, but at the same time, from the NATO countries, only Lithuania is ready to close the sky over Ukraine.

Ukrainians are massively expressing dissatisfaction in the social media with the fact that the West is acting too slowly, and the West itself is afraid to enter the active phase of the Russia—NATO war, fearing the bombing of peaceful cities of Ukraine's neighboring countries. Of course, our citizens who have been under shelling for 9 days react quite emotionally to this.

We have made a compilation of what the Western media report about Russia and Ukraine and created a digest to understand the rhetoric of the West as of March 4, 2022.

Nuclear threat and Russia's "care" for its citizens

The Guardian, in particular, posted a video of the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia NPP and quoted a tweet from the US Embassy in Ukraine:

"It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further."

On March 4, BBC pointed out that Russia restricts the access of its own citizens to the electronic resources of the outlet.

A BBC spokesperson stated:

"Access to accurate, independent information is a fundamental human right which should not be denied to the people of Russia, millions of whom rely on BBC News every week."

He also added that the outlet will make every effort to make BBC News available in Russia and around the world.

"We will continue our efforts to make BBC News available in Russia, and across the rest of the world."

NATO: calls for diplomacy and "does not seek war with the RF"

Deutsche Welle quoted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg as saying that in the coming days there would be "probably more death, more suffering, and more destruction" over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the Alliance refused to implement a no-fly zone requested by Kyiv.

He said the Alliance called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war immediately and engage in further diplomacy.

"This is President Putin's war, one he has chosen, planned and is waging against a peaceful country. We call on President Putin to stop this war immediately, withdraw all his forces without conditions and engage in genuine diplomacy now," Stoltenberg stated.

He stressed that NATO's role is to avoid spreading the conflict beyond Ukraine and that the Alliance does not seek war with Russia.

Stoltenberg also added: alliance's members had agreed that there should not be no NATO aircraft in the airspace of Ukraine and no NATO troops on the territory of Ukraine, thereby rejecting Kyiv's call for a no-fly zone.

Hunting Putin: "Somebody take this guy out"

Sky News quoted US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham as calling on Russians to kill Vladimir Putin.

According to him, the only way to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that "in Russia to take this guy out."

"Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military," he said on Twitter, referencing Marcus Junius Brutus, who took a leading role in the assassination of Julius Ceaser in 44 BC and Stauffenberg, the German army officer who unsuccessfully attempted to kill Adolf Hitler.

"The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out," the Senator added.

According to the outlet, the comments angered Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, who called them "unacceptable and outrageous." According to him, Russophobia in the United States is off the charts.

Genocide from "liberators": Kremlin plans public executions of Ukrainians

The British outlet Daily Mail quotes a European intelligence official as saying that Russia "is planning to stage public executions in captured Ukrainian cities in an effort to break morale."

The crackdown on protests, the imprisonment of political opponents, and public executions are all part of the invasion strategy, he said.

The publication refers to Bloomberg journalists who claim that the source of information is an anonymous official who saw the documents of Russia's intelligence agency the Federal Security Service.

Bloomberg's political editor Kitty Donaldson added that the Russian authorities "are planning violent crowd control and repressive detention of protest organizers in order to break Ukrainian morale."

Isolation of Russia and boycott by Western companies: How securities become "toilet paper"

Reuters reported that Russia's global financial isolation intensified on Friday after the London Stock Exchange (LSE) suspended trading in the last Russian securities. In addition, some insurance companies withdrew cover from exporters over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Together with banks and investors, they are increasing economic pressure on Moscow by refusing to invest in Russia and suspending their services.

For instance, the outlet quotes Royal London CEO Barry O'Dwyer, who said that his company still cannot trade Russian assets, but "as soon as such an opportunity arises, they obviously intend to divest."

The outlet also quotes the words of the CEO of Schroders, a large investment group from Britain. He said that Russian stocks and bonds are now "in the realms of utterly uninvestable."

CNN Business gives a list of companies that have joined the boycott of Russia. Now it also includes:

Spotify (SPOT) that stated on Wednesday that it had closed its office in Russia "indefinitely" and restricted shows "owned and operated by Russian state-affiliated media";
Roku (ROKU), a company that sells equipment that allows users to stream content through the Internet, has banned the RT TV channels worldwide.

Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor also intends to withdraw from its joint ventures in Russia. The company stated that at the end of 2021 it had long-term investments in Russia in the amount of $1.2 billion. It has operated in Russia for more than 30 years and has a cooperation agreement with Rosneft.

French oil company TotalEnergies also condemned Russia's actions and stated it would no longer provide capital for new projects in the country. The company has been doing business in Russia for 25 years and recently helped launch a major LNG project on the Siberian coast.

Instead of conclusion. The West is not ready for NATO aircraft to officially appear in the Ukrainian skies—they wait until the last moment, hoping for the exhaustion of the Russian army reserves, the collapse of the Kremlin's economy and political changes in the Russian Federation. Europe and the United States hope that Ukraine will make it till that time without a direct NATO—Russia war. The Alliance is trying to help Kyiv, but in a way that does not directly participate in the war. Whether it will be too late when the West nevertheless decides to intervene, we will find out pretty soon. This is a matter of days: although Russia has failed to fulfill all Putin's tasks, the threats of nuclear and humanitarian catastrophes and the number of war victims are growing hourly.