Western media continue to report about the situation in Ukraine and offer more and more new options for helping Kyiv, including calling on China to join the sanctions.
Vladimir Putin is already being directly advised to learn from the experience of Adolf Hitler, Russians are losing their savings, and a student from Florida monitors the planes of Russian oligarchs. Meanwhile, for several days now, the English-language media have a report by an FSB officer at their disposal that has been circulating on the net for several days. In this report, complete failure of the Kremlin is being admitted.
has compiled an up-to-date overview of what the European and American media are reporting, highlighting 12 days of an active Russian invasion.
US urges Beijing to stop Moscow
Photo: Getty Images
With each passing day, the war in Ukraine is becoming a greater tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but also a greater threat to the future of Europe and the world as a whole, The New York Times reported on March 7.
"There is only one country that might have the power to stop it now, and it’s not the United States. It’s China," the authors of the article believe.
In their opinion, if China joins the economic boycott of Russia, it could shock Vladimir Putin enough to stop the war.
At a minimum, this would make the bloody dictator think that, apart from India, he no longer has significant allies.
Why would Xi Jinping oppose Putin
Photo: Getty Images
The outlet explained why Chinese President Xi Jinping should adopt an anti-Russian stance instead of dreaming of taking over Taiwan.
Rather, the answer lies in the financial plane: the last 80 years of relative peace among the big states have led to rapid globalization and the economic rise of China.
This has helped some 800 million Chinese get out of poverty since 1980, the article author stresses. The continued growth of Beijing's economy depends on its ability to export and learn from this world of steady integration and modernization of free markets.
The whole "Faustian bargain" between the Chinese Communist Party and the citizens of the country will only work as long as the people's well-being continues to increase, and this is highly dependent on the stability of the global economy and trading system.
War innovations as threat to Beijing and Trump's joke
Photo: Getty Images
For strategists possessed by old beliefs that any war that weakens America and Russia, two of modern China's main rivals, will be a boon, the author advises considering the following:
The outlet notes that the war has shown new methods of resistance that have not been used before or have not been used for a long time, and "China would be wise to study them all."
If Russia is not stopped now, the new capabilities could eventually be used against China if it takes over Taiwan. Also, the campaign launched against the Russian Federation could cause such serious damage to it that the economic consequences will shock the whole world.
Former President Donald Trump, amid calls for China, meanwhile joked that American planes could bomb Russia with Chinese flags on their wings.
The joke, however, was "not lost" only by the pro-Kremlin media, traditionally extending this to a real "threat" for Moscow.
Sanctions similar to a nuclear explosion
Photo: Getty Images
The most important innovation in this war is the use of the economic equivalent of a nuclear bomb, deployed simultaneously by large states and super-powerful people, explains The New York Times.
Joint US, EU and UK sanctions are hurting the Kremlin's economy, posing a serious threat to companies and destroying the savings of millions of Russians at an unprecedented rate.
In addition, global connections around the world are so intertwined that superempowered individuals, companies, and social activist groups are imposing their own sanctions and boycotts without the involvement of governments.
This increases isolation and tightens the economic noose around Russia's throat. The global pro-Ukrainian resistance movement is collectively "canceling" Putin and Russia.
Putin's money abroad and the "evaporating" ruble
Photo: Wikipedia
The administration of US President Joe Biden, in an attempt to contain Putin, has assembled a powerful package of deep and wide economic sanctions and warned the Russian leader that if he invades Ukraine, he will put the economic viability of his country and regime at stake, New York reminds. Unfortunately, the Kremlin has made its choice.
Since facing sanctions in 2014 for annexing Crimea and fomenting an uprising in eastern Ukraine, Putin has amassed about $630 billion in foreign exchange and gold reserves to try to shield Russia from new shocks and help the central bank protect the ruble.
Ever since Putin faced sanctions in 2014 for annexing Crimea and fomenting rebellion in eastern Ukraine, he has been amassing reserves of foreign currency and gold—some $630 billion worth—to try to insulate Russia from new shocks and help the central bank protect the ruble.
But it turned out that Russia's strategy for foreign exchange reserves had a serious flaw: about half of the money was stored abroad in foreign banks—and now Russia cannot get to them due to sanctions, Fortune notes. In addition, this leads to the impoverishment of ordinary Russians.
Bloomberg quotes Marina Gretskaya, a 32-year-old Russian, who has been working in London since 2021 in the field of communications. She kept the equivalent of $7,400 in her ruble savings account at the Russian online bank Tinkoff, but after the ruble plummeted more than 30% against the dollar, about $2,000 of her savings simply evaporated.
Elon Musk's stalker switches to Kremlin oligarchs
Photo: Patrick Pleul/Getty Images, Jack-Sweeney/LinkedIn
Added to the abovementioned are sanctions, boycotts, and pressure points coming from superempowered non-state actors.
For example, Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old University of Central Florida student, created a Twitter account, @RUOligarchJets, that tracks the private jets of Russian billionaires close to Putin.
Jack Sweeney is the same student who used to monitor the movements of Elon Musk's personal plane, and he repeatedly asked him to stop, because it could threaten his safety, offering to pay the guy $5,000. The student, calling himself a fan of the SpaceX founder, blackmailed Musk in response, demanding to "add one zero" and give him $50,000. In the end, the billionaire ran out of patience and blocked Sweeney's bot, putting an end to this story.
But now Jack seems to be putting his talents to better use: a new account tracking Kremlin oligarchs has garnered 53,000 followers in just a few days, and now has nearly 400,000 of them.
Putin, ask Hitler
Photo: Getty Images
The outlet stresses that another weapon against the Kremlin can be considered the fact that the West has rediscovered its vote. Faced with the raw, primitive onslaught by Russia against a "flawed but aspiring democracy like Ukraine, the free world has been aroused."
There are two great dangers associated with the realities of the new world. If the economic nuclear bomb that the US and its allies have just detonated in Russia rapidly destroys its economy, Putin could go to even greater, even unthinkable extremes, such as launching a nuclear weapon.
The second danger—and China should keep this in mind—is that while nation-states may choose to lift their sanctions against the Kremlin, the nonstate actors may not.
One example is Anonymous, a global hacker consortium that hacks Russian websites without being subject to any government.
"Putin was a total ignoramus about the world he was living in, and so he bet the farm in the 21st-century casino of globalization, where, in the end, the house always wins—or there is no house left," the author of the article notes.
In his opinion, there are signs that China is recognizing some of these new realities, and its attempt to stay on the sidelines will not be successful. Therefore, Beijing is being called upon to join the West in opposing Putin.
Oil and gas paid for with Ukraine’s blood
The BBC, in turn, quotes Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who calls for an embargo on the sale of energy resources from Russia.
Energy sources imported by the US and Europe are paying for the Russian military operation, he said at a joint meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Vilnius.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has already scheduled a meeting with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels to discuss Italy's current dependence on Russian energy and the possibility of taking steps to diversify supplies.
Italy and Germany are among the European countries that will be hit the hardest by restrictions on Russian oil imports.
Reuters cites the words of the President of Lithuania, who warned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that failure to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine would lead to global conflict.
Gitanas Nauseda said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "will not stop in Ukraine" and that the world has an obligation to help Ukrainians "by all available means."
Putin's Nazi failure
Photo: Getty Images
The Times quotes an FSB analyst as calling the war a "total failure" that can only be compared to the collapse of Nazi Germany.
The report says the Russian death toll could already number 10,000. The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the death of only 498 of its servicemen in Ukraine.
The FSB is blamed for the failure of the invasion, but the agency was given no warning and was not prepared to deal with the effects of the devastating sanctions.
Although the officers were ordered to assess the effects of Western sanctions, they were told that this was work "for the sake of box-checking".
Kadyrov's anger and the search for nuclear weapons
The FSB officer reports in this letter that Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader and an ally of Putin, was on the verge of outright conflict with the Russians after his "hit squad", sent to kill President Zelenskyy, was destroyed by Ukrainian forces.
The source acknowledges at the same time that the death of the President will not give any chances for occupation: even with minimal resistance from the people, more than 500,000 people will be needed, and Ukrainians frankly hate Moscow.
The Russian foreign intelligence service also unsuccessfully tried to "find compromising evidence" about the creation of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
The Kremlin "caught up" with Hitler in 1944 in just 12 days
The war, according to an FSB source, was given a "provisional deadline" of June 2022 because by then the Russian economy would have collapsed.
The author of the letter does not rule out an international conflict, expecting that "some f***ing adviser will convince the leadership" to send an ultimatum to the West with the threat of war that could end in a third world war.
Dead soldiers are gnawed by dogs
Anxiety is growing in Russia and people are starting to speak out. 70-year-old Lyudmila Narusova, a representative of the Federation Council, acknowledged the huge number of casualties of the Russian Federation.
She was once the wife of Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg, who died under mysterious circumstances in 2000, when Putin became president.
Narusova confirmed that conscripts had been forced to sign contracts obliging them to fight in Ukraine. At the same time, The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia said that many soldiers had been tricked into enlisting. They had been told they were heading to the border for drills, but their contracts were changed.
Narusova also stated that dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine lay "unburied, wild, stray dogs gnawing on bodies that in some cases cannot be identified because they are burnt"
On March 6, conscripts were withdrawn from the warzone in Ukraine, who had been forced to sign a contract, the politician added, but out of a company of one hundred people, only four survived.
Instead of an afterword. It looks like the West is really trying to figure out how to survive without Russian oil and gas and provide Ukraine with all possible assistance. Threats to Putin and hints that he should learn from the experience of Hitler may be a bluff, but this bluff may frighten his already trembling circle.
In addition, it is also interesting that China, with whom the United States had not the easiest trade relations even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was called for a common anti-Russian coalition.
has already reported that Putin's closest associates are shocked by his decision to start a war and were not ready for sanctions, and among those who are at a loss is the head of the Russian army and the FSB.
Ukrainians, meanwhile, continue to defend themselves with the means available to them, accepting all possible assistance and hoping that the war will not last until June—by that time, the number of victims and demolitions will become even greater, and the collapse of the Russian economy against this background will be little consolation.
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