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Chip startups using light instead of wires gaining speed and investments – Reuters

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

April 26 (Reuters) - Computers using light rather than electric currents for processing, only years ago seen as research projects, are gaining traction and startups that have solved the engineering challenge of using photons in chips are getting big funding.

In the latest example, Ayar Labs, a startup developing this technology called silicon photonics, said on Tuesday it had raised $130 million from investors including chip giant Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O).

While the transistor-based silicon chip has increased computing power exponentially over past decades as transistors have reached the width of several atoms, shrinking them further is challenging. Not only is it hard to make something so miniscule, but as they get smaller, signals can bleed between them.

So, Moore's law, which said every two years the density of the transistors on a chip would double and bring down costs, is slowing, pushing the industry to seek new solutions to handle increasingly heavy artificial intelligence computing needs.

According to data firm PitchBook, last year silicon photonics startups raised over $750 million, doubling from 2020. In 2016 that was about $18 million.

"A.I. is growing like crazy and taking over large parts of the data center," Ayar Labs CEO Charles Wuischpard told Reuters in an interview. "The data movement challenge and the energy consumption in that data movement is a big, big issue."

The challenge is that many large machine-learning algorithms can use hundreds or thousands of chips for computing, and there is a bottleneck on the speed of data transmission between chips or servers using current electrical methods.

Light has been used to transmit data through fiber-optic cables, including undersea cables, for decades, but bringing it to the chip level was hard as devices used for creating light or controlling it have not been as easy to shrink as transistors.

PitchBooks senior emerging technology analyst Brendan Burke expects silicon photonics to become common hardware in data centers by 2025 and estimates the market will reach $3 billion by then, similar to the market size of the A.I. graphic chips market in 2020.

Beyond connecting transistor chips, startups using silicon photonics for building quantum computers, supercomputers, and chips for self-driving vehicles are also raising big funds.

PsiQuantum raised about $665 million so far, although the promise of quantum computers changing the world is still years out.

Lightmatter, which builds processors using light to speed up AI workloads in the datacenter, raised a total of $113 million and will release its chips later this year and test with customers soon after.

Luminous Computing, a startup building an AI supercomputer using silicon photonics backed by Bill Gates, raised a total of $115 million.

It is not just the startups pushing this technology forward. Semiconductor manufacturers are also gearing up to use their silicon chip-making technology for photonics.

GlobalFoundries Head of Computing and Wired Infrastructure Amir Faintuch said collaboration with PsiQuantum, Ayar, and Lightmatter has helped build up a silicon photonics manufacturing platform for others to use. The platform was launched in March.

Peter Barrett, founder of venture capital firm Playground Global, an investor in Ayar Labs and PsiQuantum, believes in the long-term prospects for silicon photonics for speeding up computing, but says it is a long road ahead.

"What the Ayar Labs guys do so well ... is they solved the data interconnect problem for traditional high-performance (computing)," he said. "But it's going to be a while before we have pure digital photonic compute for non-quantum systems."

Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Chip startups using light instead of wires gaining speed and investments - Reuters

www.theguardian.com

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Russia is redeploying some forces from Georgia, UK MoD says

Russia is redeploying elements of its forces from Georgia to reinforce its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Thursday.

Between 1,200 and 2,000 of these Russian troops are being reorganised into 3x Battalion Tactical Groups, Britains ministry of defence said.

It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion.

Updated at 23.33EDT

This blog has now closed but you can follow all the latest developments on our new Ukraine liveblog in the link below.

An oil depot is reportedly on fire in the Russian city of Belgorod as the regional governor blames Ukrainian military helicopters for the attack.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said on his Telegram channel on Friday morning that the fire was caused by air strikes from two Ukrainian helicopters.

Belgorod sits just north of the border with Ukraine.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for any of the blasts.

Heres the latest:

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier his forces are preparing for fresh Russian attacks on the Donbas region in the southeast after they repelled Russias assault on the capital Kyiv.

Zelenskiy said Russian troops continue to leave the countrys north but described the move as a tactical withdrawal.

Watch his video address from the streets of Kyiv below.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia will send armoured Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy specifically asked for them during a video appeal to Australian lawmakers.

Zelenskiy addressed the Australian Parliament on Thursday and asked for the Australian-made, four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Morrison told reporters the vehicles will be flown over on Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes. He didnt specify how many would be sent or when.

Were not just sending our prayers, we are sending our guns, were sending our munitions, were sending our humanitarian aid, were sending all of this, our body armor, all of these things and were going to be sending our armoured vehicles, our Bushmasters, as well, Morrison said.

Zelenskiy specifically asked for Bushmaster vehicles during his address to Australian Parliament.

You have very good armed personnel vehicles, Bushmasters, that could help Ukraine substantially, and other pieces of equipment, Zelenskiy said.

Updated at 22.47EDT

Russian troops have reportedly taken an unspecified number of captive Ukrainian servicemen hostage after leaving Ukraines Chernobyl nuclear power plant, according to officials.

State nuclear agency Energoatom released a statement on Telegram, citing plant workers:

As they ran away from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Russian occupiers took members of the National Guard, whom they had held hostage since Feb 24, with them.

The Guardian is unable to verify these claims and it remains unclear how many, if any, Ukrainian servicemen were taken away.

The Biden administration has approved the drawdown and sale of petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) citing a severe energy supply interruption.

In a recently published memorandum, Biden said Russias invasion on Ukraine has had a profound impact on global oil markets prompting the International Energy Agency Governing Board to agree to a collective release of petroleum reserves.

He said the United States committed to a drawdown and sale of 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The Secretary is authorised and directed to draw down and sell petroleum from the SPR at public sale to the highest qualified bidder at a rate the Secretary may determine, in accordance with section 161 of EPCA and the SPR competitive sales procedures in 10 CFR Part 625, the statement read.

Russia will respond to European Union sanctions and says the 27-nation bloc might realise that a confrontation with Moscow is not in its interests, Russian state media agency RIA Novosti cited a senior foreign ministry official as saying on Friday.

Nikolai Kobrinets said in an interview with the news agency:

The actions of the EU will not remain unanswered ... the irresponsible sanctions by Brussels are already negatively affecting the daily lives of ordinary Europeans.

Are they ready from their own pocket to pay for further killings of civilians in Ukraine, the transformation of Europe from a region of cooperation and stability into a zone of conflict? I dont think so.

Updated at 21.51EDT

Earlier, we heard remarks from US president Joe Biden who suggested Putin appears to be self isolated with indications that he has either fired some of his advisers or put them under house arrest.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has seemingly concurred with this assessment, saying Putin is not the force he used to be as he becomes increasingly more isolated.

Speaking with Sky News, Wallace said:

President Putin is not the force he used to be. He is now a man in a cage he built himself. Hes isolated.

His army is exhausted, he has suffered significant losses. The reputation of this great army of Russia has been trashed.

He has not only got to live with the consequences of what he is doing to Ukraine, but he has also got to live with the consequences of what he has done to his own army.

Wallace added that he believed Russian forces appear to be regrouping and shifting their focus towards the south and east of Ukraine.

We have seen it before. It always gets worse. It goes for more civilian attacks, more civilian areas.

Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers contracted significant doses of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraines state power company has alleged.

Ukraines state agency in charge of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Energoatom, published an update late on Thursday confirming Russian troops had left the site.

According to the staff of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are currently no outsiders at the NPP site.

It will be recalled that today the Russian occupation forces left the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the satellite city of Slavutych.

Energoatom said Russian troops had dug in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant.

It should be noted that the information about fortifications and trenches that the [Russians] built right in the Red Forest, the most polluted in the entire Exclusion Zone, was also confirmed, Energoatom said in a Telegram post.

So it is not surprising that the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness. And it manifested itself very quickly.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had not been able to confirm reports of Russian troops receiving high doses and was seeking more information in a statement on Thursday.

The IAEA has not been able to confirm reports of Russian forces receiving high doses of radiation while being in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and is seeking further information in order to provide an independent assessment of the situation.

Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Associated Press it seems unlikely a large number of troops would develop severe radiation illness, but it was impossible to know for sure without more details.

He said contaminated material was probably buried or covered with new topsoil during the cleanup of Chernobyl, and some soldiers may have been exposed to a hot spot of radiation while digging. Others may have assumed they were at risk too, he said.

Russian troops on Tuesday left Ukraines Chernobyl nuclear power plant after weeks of occupation, officials said on Thursday.

Energoatom said Russian troops began leaving the station and other exclusion zones, which they had occupied since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February.

The IAEA also released a statement, saying: Ukraine informed IAEA today that Russian forces that had been in control of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant since 24 February have, in writing, transferred control of the nuclear power plant to Ukrainian personnel and moved convoys of troops.

Updated at 21.20EDT

Hello and thank you for joining us.

Here is a quick re-cap of where thing stand:

Updated at 20.34EDT

Russia is redeploying elements of its forces from Georgia to reinforce its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Thursday.

Between 1,200 and 2,000 of these Russian troops are being reorganised into 3x Battalion Tactical Groups, Britains ministry of defence said.

It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion.

Updated at 23.33EDT

EU and Chinese leaders will meet for a first summit in two years on Friday with Brussels keen for assurances from Beijing that it will neither supply Russia with arms nor help Moscow circumvent western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine.

EU officials close to the preparations of the summit said any help given to Russia would damage Chinas international reputation and jeopardise relations with its biggest trade partners - Europe and the United States.

The presidents of the European Commission and European Council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, will hold virtual talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and later President Xi Jinping.

An EU official said Chinas stance towards Russia would be the million-dollar question on Friday, as reported by Reuters.

Another pointed out that over a quarter of Chinas global trade was with the bloc and the United States last year, against just 2.4% with Russia.

Do we prolong this war or do we work together to end this war? That is the essential question for the summit, the official said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Chinas call for peace talks this week, adding the legitimate concerns of all sides should be accommodated.

Here is a handful of some of the latest images to come from Ukraine today.

In another busy day of diplomacy Zelenskiy confirmed he addressed the parliaments of Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium.

I felt total support. I am waiting for concrete steps. I called for tougher sanctions against Russia. We have to put pressure on the aggressor until the aggression is over, he said.

In a discussion with President of the European Council, Charles Michel, Zelenskiy said the pair discussed additional sanctions on Russia, economic support for Ukraine and financing of priority projects.

The dynamics of our movement towards full membership in the EU, he added.

Zelenskiy said he was grateful for the new package of sanctions against Russia imposed by the United States.

We are grateful. It will not allow the current sanctions to be circumvented - we have already noticed such attempts. It will also limit the work of sensitive sectors of the Russian economy - its defence sector.

Finally, Zelenskiy said he also held talks with President of Turkey Erdoan.

We spoke very specifically. In particular, about the prospects of negotiations in Turkey with the Russian Federation. And also about the creation of an effective system of guarantees for our state. About the security we have always needed and to the real provision of which we have come closer.

I am grateful for Turkeys readiness to become a guarantor of security for Ukraine.

Zelenskiy also provided an update on Ukraines military defence, confirming Russian troops continue to leave the countrys north but describing the move as a tactical withdrawal.

To the north of Kyiv, in the Chernihiv direction, in the Sumy region, the expulsion of the occupiers continues. They themselves are aware that they can no longer withstand the intensity of hostilities they could have maintained in the first half of March ...

But we must also realise that for the Russian military, this is part of their tactics. All this is not occasional. We know their plans. We know what they are planning and what they are doing.

We know that they are moving away from the areas where we are beating them to focus on others that are very important. On those where it can be difficult for us.

Describing the extremely difficult situation in Ukraines south and in Donbas, Zelenskiy claimed Russian forces are accumulating in the temporarily occupied areas of region of Kherson.

They are trying to organise some of their incomprehensible structures there, they are trying to figure out how to consolidate their presence there, he said.

Also in Donbas, in Mariupol, in the Kharkiv direction, Russian troops are accumulating the potential for strikes. Powerful strikes.

Hello its Samantha Lock back with you on the blog as we continue to deliver all the latest from Ukraine.

As expected, Zelenskiy has delivered another late-night address.

They [Russia] said - three or five days. They thought that this would be enough for them to seize our entire state. And its already 36. And we are standing. And we will continue to fight. Until the end.

Kari Paul here, signing off for the evening. Below are some of the top stories of the moment.

http://www.theguardian.com

Chechnya once resisted Russia. Now, its leader is Putin’s brutal ally in Ukraine – NPR

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putinin 2019. Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putinin 2019.

In the 1990s and 2000s, people in Chechnya described Russia's two separate wars there as a nightmare that terrorized citizens and left the capital of Grozny in ruins.

"The ground was literally charred. There were very few buildings in the center of Grozny still standing," said Maura Reynolds, the then Moscow correspondent for the L.A. Times. "All the trees were burned, you know, had lost all their branches and leaves. Even though it was spring, there was no green. There was no sign of life."

The messaging Russia used to justify the invasion of the small Muslim republic was about "bandits and terrorists," Reynolds said, "just like you hear Russian officials, including Putin, now talk about Nazis [in Ukraine]."

One prominent Chechen figure during this period, Akhmad Kadyrov, initially resisted Russian forces. But as Russia took control of what is now the Chechen Republic of Russia, he flipped, and ultimately became the leader of Chechnya in the early 2000s, aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Kadyrov was assassinated in 2004 by Chechens who opposed him.

Today, his son Ramzan Kadyrov is in charge. Like his father, Ramzan Kadyrov is a key ally of Putin, and he's played a role in Russia's war in Ukraine as his fighters known as the Kadyrovtsy have taken part in the battle.

Former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov (R) and his son Ramzan standing in front of Ramzan's house in January 2004. AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov (R) and his son Ramzan standing in front of Ramzan's house in January 2004.

Even before the war in Ukraine, the younger Kadyrov was sometimes referred to as the brutal puppet or attack dog of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Kadyrov earned this reputation through his absolutely brutal and feudalistic-type tight hold grip over Chechnya, where he has been the leader basically since the assassination of his father," said Rachel Denber, the deputy director for the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

Kadyrov's rule includes public policies and attempts to control the private life of civilians through his security services that are widely feared and linked to enforced disappearances, summary executions and house burnings, Denber said. He has been sanctioned by the U.S. for human rights abuses that include the persecution and torture of LGBTQ people.

"These days, Kadyrov exercises control through his brutal sort of praetorian guard and also through extensive surveillance of online chat groups and the like," Denber said. "Also by filtering out people who are believed to express even the most mild criticism of him or government policies."

Kadyrov's involvement in Ukraine does not come as a surprise as Chechen forces have previously aided the Russian leadership. But their impact is not entirely clear, with reports they have suffered heavy casualties, including a key commander, according to The Guardian. Kadyrov has claimed to be in Ukraine, including outside Kyiv, but that has not been confirmed.

Though Kadyrov is one of Putin's top allies, the relationship is complicated. Kadyrov sees Putin as a kind of patron, Denber said. This goes back to the early 2000s, when the elder Kadyrov tied Chechnya's fate to Russia.

So when it comes time to help Russia by providing fighters, Ramzan Kadyrov is given a chance to show the Chechen power and then be owed something in return, Denber said.

During his rule, Kadyrov has also created a larger-than-life profile for himself with his use of social media. His outspoken behavior allowed him to develop "a cult around himself," Denber said.

Instagram was Ramzan's preferred platform for years, and when he was active on it, Denber said "he allowed himself to say the most outrageous, flamboyant and inflammatory things."

Today, Kadyrov has taken to using Telegram, where he shares voice memos and other messages that vary between rants about what needs to be done, to messages appealing to Putin, or posts that contradict reports about casualties his troops have sustained.

His posts have not gone unnoticed, regularly amassing more than a million views. He has also drawn attention to himself by engaging in online spats with the likes of billionaire Elon Musk, who is in the process of buying Twitter.

Kadyrov went after Musk in March following a tweet in which Musk challenged Putin to "single combat" over the invasion of Ukraine. Kadyrov responded on Telegram, saying there was no way Musk could take on Putin, and the Chechen leader invited Musk to train at some Chechen centers.

All of the messages and posts are about self-promotion, Denber said.

"I think he wants to be as visible as possible," Denber said. "You self-aggrandize so that the boss notices you, but you also self-aggrandize, you know, so the local folks also notice [and] see you in a particular way."

Wynne Davis adapted this story for Web.

Chechnya once resisted Russia. Now, its leader is Putin's brutal ally in Ukraine - NPR

Putin Must Be Stopped Once and for All – The Daily Beast

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Defending Ukraine is not enough. Defeating Russia on the battlefield is not enough. We must ensureusing every means available at our disposalthat Vladimir Putin may never again commit the kinds of atrocities that have marked his two decades in power.

Fortunately, this week, it was made absolutely clear that the Biden administration recognizes that necessity and has made it a strategic centerpiece of their foreign and national security policy efforts.

On Monday, after visiting Ukraine with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it cant do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.

Although one senior U.S. official admitted to me (somewhat uneasily) that Austin said the quiet part out loud, it soon became clear that the U.S. was publicly willing to own the new goal of turning Russias unprovoked, brutal escalation of its eight year-old war in Ukraine into a lasting and meaningful defeat for the Kremlin.

On Tuesday in Germanyat a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Consultative Group (a gathering of the countries from around the world that have pledged to support Ukraines war effort)Secretary Austin said it was the U.S. belief that Ukraine can win the war with Russia. Austins spokesperson, John Kirby, stated: We dont want a Russia thats capable of exerting that kind of malign influence in Europe or anywhere in the world.

Secretary Blinkenwho a month ago said the Ukraine war would lead to a strategic defeat for Russia, and earlier this month said Russia had already experienced such a defeatargued before Congress on Tuesday that it must fully fund the State Departments budget in order to ensure a strategic failure for Russia. Senior National Security Council (NSC) officials have echoed that this is a new, explicit goal of the U.S. and its allies.

The statements by the U.S. are not mere rhetoric. Conversations with senior U.S. officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and White House underscore that these goals are being supported by a many-layered, intensive effort by senior officials.

Providing Ukraine all the support it needs lies at the heart of the Wests efforts, and coordinating that effort will be the goal of the multi-nation consultative group, which will meet on a monthly basis going forward.

The effort is helped, of course, by the fact that Russia continues to make decisions that are not only morally reprehensible but also disastrous for its military and country.

The losses sustained by Russian forces are catastrophic. Estimates of those killed in the first two months in the war range from 15,000 to more than 20,000with tens of thousands more wounded or having deserted. The U.K.s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, estimated those figures represent a 25 percent reduction in the Russian invasion combat capability.

Russias economy has been hit hard by sanctions. Estimates suggest the crisis will wipe out more than a decade and a half of Russian growth. Russias own economy ministry predicts the economy could contract this year by between 8.8 percent and 12.4 percent.

Senior U.S. officials noted that Russia is suffering profound self-inflicted wounds in other ways. Its battlefield failures and its clear commission of war crimes have made it increasingly difficulteven for those countries with which it has close ties or which sought to remain neutral at the start of this warto win any meaningful international support.

One senior U.S. national security official said that Russias calamitous performance to date had taken a toll on Moscows relations with China, India, Turkey, and Israel. The official added that, as indicated by Russia-backed far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pens defeat, those who have been associated with Russia have not been helped politically by Russias actions.

This did not, it should be noted, stop Sen. Rand Paul from parroting Russian talking points in Tuesday Senate hearings with Secretary Blinken. Paul asserted the explanation for Russias invasion was tied to a Biden administration push to admit Ukraine into NATO (a lie) and to the fact that Ukraine was part of Russia.

Russia amplified the damage done to its international standing and its own economy this week by cutting off gas supplies to two European NATO countriesPoland and Bulgariabecause they refused to pay for the energy shipments in rubles, as demanded by Moscow.

At the same time, the Biden administration is actively working diplomatically to strengthen its ties with both its allies and with those nations that have been uncomfortable choosing sides in the Ukraine conflict. The president, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary Austin and their deputies are holding regular, frequent meetings (virtual and live) with their counterparts in the G7, NATO, the EU, the Quad (the Indo-Pacific partnership including India, Japan, Australia and the US), and via mechanisms like the consultative group mentioned above. These efforts will be continued in the next six weeks with a flurry of high level events including an ASEAN Summit in Washington, a trip to Japan and South Korea, and a NATO Summit and meetings with European leaders in Spain in June.

The U.S. has been coordinating closely with Finland and Sweden, and with NATO partners, to help ensure those two Nordic countries can join the alliance swiftlyif that is what they ultimately choose to do. The U.S. is also working to upgrade NATO capacities along the frontier with Russia.

Notably, a special initiative has been made to find areas of common interest with new non-aligned countries.

This effort has been marked, according to officials involved, not by a desire to make an issue of certain countries decision to not support Ukraines war effort, but instead to focus on ways the U.S. can provide assistance or address specific bilateral issues. This not only would strengthen U.S. ties, but help gain an edge in what is emerging as an era of strategic rivalrynot only with Russia, but with China.

These imperativesconsolidating Russias defeat in Ukraine and strengthening American alliances and friendships for a coming period of potential competition and periodic tensionare supplanting the largely counterterrorism focused-U.S. diplomatic priorities of the past two decades.

Thanks to Russias own blunders, and the efforts of the U.S. and its allies, the picture for Moscow and Putin is looking bleaker by the dayregardless of the final settlement of the war in Ukraine, and without an American or NATO soldier firing a shot.

When this war is over NATO will be larger. Russias frontier with NATO would grow by nearly a thousand miles and, should Finland and Sweden join NATO, its position vis a vis the Baltic Sea and the Arctic would be significantly weakened. NATOs investment in defense is sure to rise and NATO resources deployed closer to the Russian border are certain to grow. The U.S. alone has already committed over $4 billion in security to Ukraine since President Biden took office, and a major new funding initiative is expected very soon according to a senior State Department official.

Russias economy is in shambles and its future looks bleak, as Europe seeks to end dependency on Russian energy. Even sometime-laggard Germany is picking up its pace substantially.

Ukraine will surely emerge stronger with major pledges of assistance, and a fast-tracked EU entry is already in the offing.

Vladimir Putin started this war. He did so because, in the past, world leaders were too weak, gullible, or corrupted to stand up to himto deny him the chance to compound past aggression with further brutality. Now, finally, he has encountered opposition from Ukraine to Brussels to Washington that has resolved not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Their goal is as ambitious as it is worthy. But it deserves our support because it is the only path to lasting peace along Europes borders with Russia.

Original post:

Putin Must Be Stopped Once and for All - The Daily Beast

Putin threatens Ukraine allies as Truss urges doubling down on support for Kyiv – The Guardian

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Vladimir Putin has warned of a lightning-fast retaliation if countries intervened in Ukraine as Britain pressed for Moscow to be so weakened militarily by its war that the Russian president can never pose a threat to European security.

The Russian president told lawmakers in St Petersburg on Wednesday the west wanted to cut Russia into pieces and accused it of pushing Ukraine into conflict with Moscow. If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast, said Putin.

We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that.

His comments came as British foreign secretary Liz Truss called for a doubling down on support for Ukraine in a speech on Wednesday night, including further supplies of heavy weapons, and for allies to push for Russian forces to entirely leave Ukraines territory, with the country reverting to its pre-2014 borders.

In reference to Russian-occupied areas in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, she said: We are going to keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine. There has been speculation that Ukraine would settle for a return to the pre-invasion status quo where territory was ceded to de facto Russian-backed separatists.

She called Putin a desperate rogue operator with no interest in international norms.

Some argue we shouldnt provide heavy weapons for fear of provoking something worse. But my view, is that inaction would be the greatest provocation. This is a time for courage not for caution, she said, admitting that more should have been done to deter an invasion.

Truss warned Putin that the west would come to the defence of Moldova in the same way as it is defending Ukraine if Russia mounted an attack there, as seems possible. She said the UK was digging deep into its inventories, including heavy weapons, tanks and aeroplanes, to defend Ukraine and other countries threatened by Russia.

She also said future Russian access to the global economy will depend on playing by the rules. There can be no more free passes.

In other developments:

The United Nations secretary general, Antnio Guterres, has arrived in Ukraine after meeting Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Guterres will meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Thursday.

Russia warned other EU customers may be cut off from its natural gas supplies if they refuse to pay in roubles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskovs comments came after Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that European leaders and Zelenskiy denounced as blackmail.

The damage bill from the war has reached $600bn, Zelenskiy said in a video address on Wednesday night. More than 32m square metres of living space, more than 1,500 educational facilities and more than 350 medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged, he said. About 2,500km of roads and almost 300 bridges have been ruined or damaged.

A series of explosions were heard near a TV tower in the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Wednesday night, temporarily knocking Russian channels off the air, Ukrainian and Russian news organisations reported. RIA Novosti said the broadcast later resumed. Russian channels began broadcasting from Kherson last week, it reported.

The G7 group of industrialised nations is examining whether it could reimpose the current punitive economic sanctions if Russia tries to renege on a hypothetical future peace deal imposed by western allies.

Britain has long said the war must end with Putin being seen to fail, but the containment terms being proposed by western officials include a permanent weakening of the Russian military forces so they can no longer pose a threat to eastern Europe, as well as Russia pulling out of all territory it has occupied, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, this week in Germany hinted at the thinking by saying the US wanted the war to end with Russia so weakened it could not repeat its attack on Ukraine.

British thinking reflects a growing confidence that the political, economic and military forces ranged against Putin can, in the long term, lead to his complete defeat. London also detects a change of mood in Washington and to a lesser extent, Berlin including a greater willingness to supply weaponry to Nato standards rather than hand-downs from old Warsaw Pact armoury.

Britain envisages the security guarantees to Kyiv would largely consist of a commitment to arm Ukraine enough that Russia would not mount an attack. Britain does not favour a Nato-style commitment that Ukraines allies would intervene to protect Ukraine if it was threatened by Russia.

Critics will say very tough settlement demands run the risk of forcing Putin into a corner so that he threatens the use of tactical weapons. But the Russian leader has already threatened to use nuclear weapons if red lines were crossed.

In her speech, Truss also set out a warning to China claiming its rise will not be inevitable if it ignores the rules. Explaining that China is not impervious to western economic pressure, she said China needs to trade with the G7 since it represents around half of the global economy.

See more here:

Putin threatens Ukraine allies as Truss urges doubling down on support for Kyiv - The Guardian

Putin accuses West of ‘terror’, tells prosecutors to be tough – Reuters.com

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

LONDON, April 25 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday accused the West of trying to destroy Russia, demanding prosecutors take a tough line with what he cast as plots hatched by foreign spies to divide the country and discredit its armed forces.

Speaking to Russia's top prosecutors and watched by his defence minister, Putin accused the West of inciting Ukraine to plan attacks on Russian journalists - an allegation denied by Kyiv.

Putin said the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, the Federal Security Service (FSB), had on Monday prevented a murder attempt by a "terrorist group" on Russian TV journalist Vladimir Solovyev.

"They have moved to terror - to preparing the murder of our journalists," Putin said of the West.

Putin, a former KGB spy who has ruled Russia as paramount leader since the last day of 1999, did not immediately provide evidence to support his statements and Reuters was unable to immediately verify the accusations.

FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said a group of six neo-nationalist Russian citizens had plotted to kill Solovyev - one of Russia's most high-profile TV and radio journalists - at the behest of Ukraine's State Security Service (SBU).

The SBU denied the allegations, which it said were fantasies cooked up by Moscow. "The SBU has no plans to assassinate V. Solovyev," it said in a statement.

Solovyev, a host of talk shows whose guests often denigrate Ukraine and justify Moscow's actions there, thanked the FSB.

Putin said the West had realised that Ukraine could not beat Russia in war so had moved to a different plan - the destruction of Russia itself.

"Another task has come to the fore: to split Russian society and destroy Russia from within," Putin said. "It is not working."

Putin said foreign media organisations and social media had been used by the West's spies to confect provocations against Russia's armed forces.

Prosecutors should react swiftly to fake news and reports that undermined order, Putin said, without giving any specific examples.

"They are often mainly organised from abroad, organised in different ways - either the information comes from there or the money," Putin said. Prosecutors should fight extremism "more actively", Putin said.

Just days after ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin signed a law that imposes a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally "fake" news about the military.

Russia says the Western media have provided an excessively partial narrative of the war in Ukraine that largely ignores Moscow's concerns about the enlargement of NATO and what it says is the persecution of Russian speakers in Ukraine.

Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States - by far the world's two biggest nuclear powers.

Putin says the "special military operation" in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Ukraine was guilty of the genocide of Russian-speaking people.

Ukraine says it is fighting a land grab by Russia and that Putin's accusations of genocide are nonsense.

Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alex Richardson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Putin accuses West of 'terror', tells prosecutors to be tough - Reuters.com

Opinion | Russias Putin Now Seems to Believe Conspiracy Theories – The New York Times

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Vladimir Putins Russia is driven by conspiracy theories.

For two decades, journalists and officials, in concert with the Kremlin, have merrily spread disinformation. However far-fetched or fantastical that the C.I.A. was plotting to oust Mr. Putin from power, for example these tales served an obvious purpose: to bolster the regime and guarantee public support for its actions. Whatever the personal views of members of the political establishment, it seemed clear that the theories played no role in political calculations. They were stories designed to make sense of what the regime, for its own purposes, was doing.

Not anymore. Since the beginning of Russias invasion of Ukraine two months ago, the gap between conspiracy theory and state policy has closed to a vanishing point. Conspiratorial thinking has taken complete hold of the country, from top to bottom, and now seems to be the motivating force behind the Kremlins decisions. And Mr. Putin who previously kept his distance from conspiracy theories, leaving their circulation to state media and second-rank politicians is their chief promoter.

It is impossible to know what is inside Mr. Putins head, of course. But to judge from his bellicose and impassioned speeches before the invasion and since then, he may believe the conspiracy theories he repeats. Here are five of the most prevalent theories that the president has endorsed, with increasing fervor, over the past decade. Together, they tell a story of a regime disintegrating into a morass of misinformation, paranoia and mendacity, at a terrible cost to Ukraine and the rest of the world.

In 2007, at his annual national news conference, Mr. Putin was asked a strange question. What did he think about the former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albrights comment that Russias natural riches should be redistributed and controlled by America? Mr. Putin replied that such ideas were shared by certain politicians but he didnt know about the remark.

Thats because it was entirely made up. Journalists at Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a state-owned newspaper, had invented the quote on the grounds that Russian intelligence was able to read Ms. Albrights mind. For years, there appeared to be no mention of it. Then in 2015, the secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, repeated it. He reported serenely that she had said Russia should not control Siberia or its Far East and thats why America was involved in Ukraine, where Russia was busy fomenting a conflict in the eastern part of the country. At the time it felt as though Mr. Putins colleague had lost the plot.

But in May 2021, Mr. Putin showed that the theory hadnt been forgotten. Everyone, the president declared, wants to bite us or bite off a piece of Russia because it is unjust for Russia alone to possess the riches of a region like Siberia. An invented quote had become fact, legitimizing Mr. Putins ever more hostile approach to the West.

NATO is Mr. Putins worst nightmare: Its military operations in Serbia, Iraq and Libya have planted the fear that Russia will be the military alliances next target. Its also a convenient boogeyman that animates the anti-Western element of Mr. Putins electorate. In his rhetoric, NATO is synonymous with the United States, the military hand of the collective West that will suffocate Russia whenever it becomes weak.

So it makes sense that NATO is the subject of some of the regimes most persistent conspiracy theories, which see the organizations hand behind popular uprisings around the world. Since 2014, they have focused on Ukraine. Since Ukraines Maidan revolution that year, in which Ukrainians forced the ouster of the Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych, Mr. Putin and his subordinates propagated the notion that Ukraine was turning into a puppet state under the control of the United States. In a long essay published in July 2021, Mr. Putin gave fullest expression to this theory, claiming that Ukraine was fully controlled by the West and that NATO was militarizing the country.

His speech on Feb. 21, just days before the invasion, confirmed that NATOs activities in Ukraine dragging the country into the Wests orbit were, for Mr. Putin, the chief reason for Russias aggression. Crucially, NATO was what divided Russians and Ukrainians, who otherwise, in his view, were one people. It was Western military activity that had turned Ukraine into an anti-Russia, harboring enemies aiming at Russian humiliation.

NATO and the West menace Russia not just externally. They also cause trouble within. Since at least 2004, Mr. Putin has been suspicious of domestic opposition, fearing a Ukrainian-style revolution. Fortress Russia, forever undermined by foreign enemies, became a feature of Kremlin propaganda. But it was the Maidan revolution that brought about a confluence in the Kremlins messaging: Not only were dissidents bringing discord to Russia, but they were also doing so under orders from the West. The aim was to turn Russia into a mess like Ukraine.

In this line of thinking, opposition forces were a fifth column infiltrating the otherwise pure motherland and it led to the branding of activists, journalists and organizations as foreign agents. Though Mr. Putin could never bring himself to utter the name of his fiercest critic, Alexei Navalny, Mr. Putin stated that Mr. Navalny was a C.I.A. agent whose investigative work used materials from the U.S. special services. Even Mr. Navalnys poisoning in August 2020 was, according to the president, a plot perpetrated to blacken Mr. Putins reputation.

The clearing away of domestic opposition ruthlessly undertaken by the Kremlin in recent years can now be seen as a prerequisite for the invasion of Ukraine. Since the war began, the last vestiges of independent media have been closed down, and hundreds of thousands of people have fled Russia. Any criticism of the war can land Russians in prison for 15 years and earn them the title of traitor, working nefariously in the service of Russias Western enemies. In a sign that the association of dissent with foreign enemies is now complete, Mr. Putins supporters have taken to marking the doors of opposition activists.

This claim starkly captured by Mr. Putins statement that in the West, children can play five or six gender roles, threatening Russias core population has been brewing for a decade. A criminal case in 2012 against Pussy Riot, an anarchic punk band critical of the regime, was the tipping point. The Kremlin sought to portray the band and its followers as a set of sexually subversive provocateurs whose aim was to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church and traditional values. The complaints spread to foreign nongovernmental organizations and L.G.B.T.Q. activists, accused of corrupting Russians from infancy. Soon, anti-L.G.B.T.Q. scaremongering became a major plank of Kremlin policy.

It was remarkably effective: By 2020, one-fifth of Russians surveyed said they wanted to eliminate lesbian and gay people from Russian society. They were responding to a propaganda campaign, undertaken by state media, claiming that L.G.B.T.Q. rights were an invention of the West, with the potential to shatter Russian social stability. Mr. Putin, unveiling his partys manifesto ahead of 2021s parliamentary elections, took things a step further claiming that when people in the West werent trying to outright abolish the concept of gender, they were allowing teachers in schools to decide on a childs gender, irrespective of parental wishes. It was, he said, a crime against humanity.

The Wests progressive attitudes to sexual diversity eventually played into the Ukrainian war effort. In March, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, claimed the invasion was necessary to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine from a West that insists any entrant to its club of nations host a gay pride march. The supposed predations of L.G.B.T.Q. rights had to be met with righteous force.

The newest of the Kremlins major hoaxes, this conspiracy theory has flourished since the start of the war though it echoes Mr. Putins remarks in 2017, when he accused Western experts of collecting biological material from Russians for scientific experiments.

In the second week of the war, regime-friendly bloggers and then top-ranking politicians, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, claimed that Russian intelligence had obtained evidence that America and Ukraine were developing biological weapons in the form of disease-ridden bats and birds to spread viruses in Russia. The Ministry of Defense suggested it had unearthed documents that confirmed the collaboration.

To add ballast to the claim, state media repeated a remark made by Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host, that the White House was involved in biowarfare against Russia in Ukraine. There was, of course, no credible evidence for anything of the sort. But the story spread across Russia, and the Kremlin even convened a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss it. After all, Hunter Biden was probably financing it.

All five of these conspiracy theories, and many more, have found their place in wartime Russia. They are used to justify the war in Ukraine, both by ordinary citizens and by the Kremlin. Whats more, conspiracy theories have become a way to reject mounting evidence of Russian atrocities which are recast instead as foreign skulduggery. The crimes at Bucha, for example, were immediately blamed on the Ukrainians, who apparently either staged the photos or killed innocent people to set up the Russian Army. Hollywood, meanwhile, is believed to be working hard to produce scenes of mass poisoning to further discredit Russia. The C.I.A. is spinning its web.

From battles of words on talk shows and online, conspiracy theories have effectively turned into a weapon that kills real people. Thats scary enough. But the most frightening thing is that Mr. Putin, waging war without restraint, seems to believe them.

Ilya Yablokov (@ilya_yablokov) is a lecturer in journalism and digital media at the University of Sheffield in England, the author of Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World and a co-author of Russia Today and Conspiracy Theories: People, Power, Politics on RT.

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Opinion | Russias Putin Now Seems to Believe Conspiracy Theories - The New York Times

Beyond Putin: Russian imperialism is the No. 1 threat to global security – Atlantic Council

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Since the invasion of Ukraine began two months ago, Western leaders including US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have sought to place the blame exclusively on Vladimir Putin while absolving the Russian people. Such assertions may be politically convenient but they are also dangerously misleading. Far from dragging his reluctant compatriots into war, Putin is himself a symptom the unapologetically imperialistic outlook that shapes modern Russias relationship with the outside world and fuels the countrys insatiable appetite for external aggression.

An understanding of Russias imperial instincts is essential for anyone looking to make sense of the seemingly senseless war crimes currently taking place in Ukraine. After all, it was not Putin who committed rape, torture, and mass murder in towns and villages across Ukraine. Putin did not fly the jets or fire the artillery that reduced entire Ukrainian cities to rubble. Likewise, he did not personally produce the endless stream of Russian propaganda films, TV shows, fake news bulletins, and social media posts dehumanizing Ukrainians and demonizing the West. These crimes were only possible thanks to the millions of Russians who willingly participated in the process or offered their enthusiastic support over a period of many years.

While politicians and commentators in the West continue to promote the comforting notion that Russians are themselves victims of Putins regime, virtually all the available evidence points to strong Russian public support for the war in Ukraine. A recent survey conducted by Russias only internationally respected independent pollster, the Levada Center, found that 81% of Russians back the invasion of Ukraine with just 14% opposed. Another recent Levada Center poll identified a 12% surge in Vladimir Putins approval rating since the beginning of the war. These results have been mirrored in numerous other polls and surveys.

Meanwhile, the anti-war movement inside Russia remains underwhelming. There have been some public protests in major Russian cities, but these rallies have failed to attract significant numbers and been easily contained by the authorities. Rather than engaging in anti-war activism, most of the Russians who claim to oppose the regime have stayed silent or chosen exile and voluntarily left the country.

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Positive Russian attitudes toward the war are rooted in longstanding perceptions of Ukraine as part of Russias imperial heartlands. Despite the passage of three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russians have never fully come to terms with the idea of an independent Ukraine and continue to regard the country as an indivisible element of historic Russia that has been artificially separated from the motherland.

Putin did not invent such sentiments but he has proven highly skilled at exploiting them. In his many speeches and essays on the Ukraine issue, he has consistently appealed to Russias imperial aspirations while playing on widespread resentment at the countrys post-Soviet humiliations and loss of superpower status. When Putin laments the fall of the USSR as the demise of historical Russia, ordinary Russians understand that it is primarily Ukraine he has in mind.

The Russian leaders refusal to recognize Ukrainian statehood is not only a rejection of the post-1991 settlement. It is entirely in line with traditional Russian thinking and echoes key tenets of Czarist imperial doctrine dating back centuries. Putin routinely denies Ukraines right to exist and has frequently accused modern Ukraine of occupying historically Russian lands while dismissing Ukraines entire centuries-long statehood struggle as a Western ploy to destabilize Russia. On the eve of the invasion, he called Ukraine an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.

Putin is particularly fond of declaring that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. This insistence that Ukrainians and Russians are part of the same whole has long been a central theme of Russian imperial propaganda toward Ukraine and provides the ideological basis for the current war. By positioning Ukraine as rightfully Russian, it reframes the unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighbor as a justified response to a grave historical injustice.

In recent months, the Russian ruler has gone even further. He has branded modern Ukraine an anti-Russia that can no longer be tolerated while claiming the country has been taken over by the West. This resonates deeply with the Russian public, which has traditionally associated any manifestations of Ukrainian statehood with treachery and extremism.

We are currently witnessing the criminal consequences of these imperial delusions. Russian soldiers who have been encouraged to dismiss Ukrainians as traitors and view Ukraine itself as an anti-Russian invention are now engaging in war crimes that are entirely in keeping with the genocidal tone adopted by Putin and other Kremlin officials. As Voltaire once warned, Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

On the domestic front, the Kremlin-controlled mainstream media openly discusses the need to destroy Ukraine. For example, an article published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on April 3 made clear that Putins talk of de-nazification is actually code for the de-Ukrainianization of Ukraine. This chilling text laid out a detailed plan for the elimination of the Ukrainian nation and was branded a genocide handbook by Yale historian Timothy Snyder.

If Russian imperialism is not confronted and defeated in Ukraine, other countries will soon face similar threats. While Ukraine appears to be a particular obsession for both Putin and the wider Russian public, the list of other potential victims is long. The Baltic states and Moldova are among the most likely to become targets of Russian imperial aggression, while the nations of Central Asia are clearly at risk. It is also worth noting that Poland and Finland were once part of the Russian Empire that Putin longs to resurrect.

For almost three decades, Western leaders have approached successive acts of Russian imperial aggression as isolated incidents and have sought to downplay their significance while focusing on the economic advantages of continuing to do business with Moscow. This has only served to encourage the Kremlin. The Chechen wars of the early post-Soviet years were followed by the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 seizure of Crimea. The current war is the latest milestone in this grim sequence but it will not be the last. Resurgent Russian imperialism now clearly poses the biggest single challenge to global security. Countering this threat must be the international communitys top priority.

Volodymyr Vakhitov is a researcher at the Kyiv School of Economics. Natalia Zaika is a researcher at the Kyiv School of Economics.

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Image: People wave Russian flags during a pro-war rally in Moscow. March 18, 2022. (RIA Novosti Host Photo Agency/Evgeny Biyatov via REUTERS)

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Beyond Putin: Russian imperialism is the No. 1 threat to global security - Atlantic Council

Bill Clinton says he couldn’t have done anything to prevent Putin’s aggression in Ukraine – Fox News

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

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Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday said nothing he could have done as leader of the U.S. would have prevented Russian President Vladimir Putin's path to authoritarianism and his aggressive invasion Ukraine.

"I do not believe that there was anything we could have done to prevent this," Clinton said during a talk at Brown University.

Clinton denied that his administration did anything to isolate Russia or antagonize Putin personally during the 1990s, when his administration oversaw an expansion of NATO following the collapse of the Soviet Union. "It is not true that we did anything to isolate, humiliate or ignore Putin. That's the biggest load of bull you'll ever hear," Clinton said.

HILLARY CLINTON SAYS 'MORE' CAN BE DONE TO HURT PUTIN, HELP UKRAINE: 'DOUBLE DOWN'

U.S. President Bill Clinton shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Assara Guest House while attending the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation annual meeting in Brunei, November 15, 2000. (Reuters Photographer)

Clinton said Putin's desire to build a "clepto-state" and dismantle democracy was not evident during his first presidential term. "By the end of his second term, it was clear that he wanted to stay for life," Clinton said of Putin. "I do not believe that anything we could have done would have done it."

The Clinton administration's decision to expand NATO, which started as a Cold War-era agreement among European countries and the U.S. to counteract the expansions of the Soviet Union, has been criticized amid Russia's two-month old invasion of Ukraine. Putin has cited NATO expansion eastward, and the potential of Ukraine joining NATO, as justifications for his assault on Ukrainian cities.

RUSSIA ACCUSES NATO MEMBERS OF RUNNING PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS IN UKRAINE

Rajan Menon, author of "Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order," argued that the Clinton administration cut Russia out of the new European system following the economic collapse after the demise of the Soviet Union. But Clinton said Tuesday that Russia would have been welcomed into NATO.

"There was nothing preventing them (Russia) from joining NATO if they thought that their biggest security threats would come from non-state actors," Clinton said.

Recounting his administration's actions to cooperate with Russia, Clinton related one instance where "neo-con" rhetoric and the potential for a Republican president scared Putin from further disarmament.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori (L-R). (Reuters)

Ahead of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Clinton said he met with Putin, who assumed the Russian presidency that year, and discussed an existing agreement to withdraw NATO, EU and Russian forces from each country's borders in order to ease tensions between the west and the former Soviet Union.

"We had a great talk, but I was left completely uncertain about what [Putin] was going to do," Clinton said. At the meeting, Clinton recalled Putin said he would not withdraw troops from the borders, which Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin had agreed to do, because he was concerned that if George W. Bush won the election, the Republican administration would not abide by the agreement.

GEORGE W. BUSH AND BILL CLINTON VISIT UKRAINIAN CHURCH TO LAY FLOWERS, PAY RESPECTS

"He said, 'I've been reading everything these Neo-Cons are saying, and I don't think they're going to do it. I think they'll stick it to you,'" Clinton recalled Putin saying.

Putin asked if Bush could win the election, according to Clinton, who said Bush could win the election but then-Vice President Al Gore was likely to win in the end.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

According to Clinton, Putin said, "OK, if [Gore] wins, he'll need a victory. So we'll do this deal shortly after he's in office and he'll get a little boost, and I'll get the deal I signed up for."

BUSH CALLS RUSSIA WAR ON UKRAINE 'GRAVEST SECURITY CRISIS' IN EUROPE SINCE WORLD WAR II

Clinton said he recounted that anecdote to show that, "First, Putin was smart. And second, privately, he was honest with me."

"All these people, they can win for a while," Clinton said of authoritarian leaders like Putin and Chinese President Xi Jingping. "But they can't win in the long run because it doesn't make any sense as the people of Ukraine are teaching Putin every single day. He may win there somewhere, in whatever he thinks he can do in eastern Ukraine, but I don't think so, not if we all stay hitched."

Clinton was speaking at a memorial event for Casey Shearer the son of Clinton's longtime friend and advisor Derek Shearer a Brown University student who suddenly died of an undetected heart condition days before graduating in May 2000.

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The former president also defended his decision to welcome China into the World Trade Organization.

"Did I make a mistake giving them most favored nation status?" Clinton asked of China. "You can argue that flat around, but I don't think so given what we knew then, because I assumed that we'd be better off having them in a system where at least we could have a legal forum to challenge non-lawful actions, and where we would at least be encouraging them to work with the rest of the world."

Bill Clinton says he couldn't have done anything to prevent Putin's aggression in Ukraine - Fox News

Father of slain Ukrainian baby calls Putin ‘terrorist’ and ‘murderer’ – New York Post

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

The father of the 3-month-old Odessa girl killed along with her mother and grandmother by a Russian missile called Putin a terrorist in charge of a terrorist-state at her funeral Wednesday.

Putin is the terrorist, and Russia is a terrorist-state, a murderer, Yuri Glodan said, according to the British Russia-based news agency East2West news.

Parents should not bury their children, he said.We must instead enjoy life, raise our children, rejoice in the sun, the people, people must not die.

Glodans daughter Kira Glodan, his wife Valerie Glodan, and his mother-in-law Lyudmila were all killed Saturday, after their home was hit in a Russian airstrike.

Ukrainian authorities said Russian bombers hit a military facility and two residential buildings Saturday, killing the Glodan family and five others, according to Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda.

So far, eight deaths have been confirmed, including a 3-month-old baby, a little girl from Odessa who never got a chance to live, Odessa mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said Saturday.

To Russia, he added, You will burn in hell, you scum!

Also among the dead was a couple expecting their first child, East2West reported.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulebalikewise called the attacks terrorism.

The only aim of Russian missile strikes on Odessa is terror, Kulebaposted on Twitter. Russia must be designated a state sponsor of terrorism We need a wall between civilization and barbarians striking peaceful cities with missiles.

Russias Ministry of Defense confirmed Saturday that it conducted airstrikes in the Odessa area but claimed that a logistics base at a nearby Ukrainian military airfield was the intended target.

A historic port city on the Black Sea, Odessa has escaped most of the horrors of war since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

But the weekend airstrikes along with the explosions in the nearby region of Transnistria across the border raise concerns that the city of 1 million may get caught up further in the fight.

Putin could withdraw from Ukraine because of massive popularity in Russia, says Boris Johnson – The Independent

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

Vladimir Putin is so popular in Russia that he has the political space to withdraw his forces from Ukraine, said Boris Johnson.

The prime minister said the Russian president still has massive backing from his own people despite international outrage over the invasion.

The Russian public overwhelming back Putin, Mr Johnson told Talk TV. Therefore he has the political margin for manoeuvre from within Russia Putin has far more political space to back down, to withdraw.

The PM added: There could come a point when he could say to the Russian people, The military-technical operation that we launched in Ukraine has been accomplished. He has a lot of room for manoeuvre.

Mr Johnsonalso said he did not expect Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine if he faced more military failures in the country saying he was not worried about the scenario.

He also rejected Moscows claim that the UK was engaged in a proxy war with Russia. Its very important we dont accept the way the Russians are trying to frame whats going on in Ukraine, Mr Johnson said.

The PM dismissed SergeiLavrovs comments about the increased risk a nuclearwar, after the Russian foreign minister claimed Nato was in essence engaged in a proxywarby supplying Ukraine with weaponry.

Earlier on Tuesday the Armed Forces minister James Heappey backed Ukrainian strikes on targets behind Russian lines even if the weapons used have been supplied by the UK saying it was completely legitimate.

Mr Johnson said: We dont want the crisis to escalate beyond Ukraines border, but as James Heappey said, they have a right to defend themselves.

The prime minister said it was quite extraordinary that Sweden and Finland had said they wanted to join Nato warning Putin that western nations would provide more weapons and share intelligence with Ukraine.

He added: I have a lot sympathy with individual Russians, with Russia as country its a fantastic country. But Putins regime is engaged in a diabolical attempt to crush the life out of the Ukrainians.

The PMdid not rule out a prisoner swap to free a Briton who has been captured by Russian forces but said his government could not pre-empt what decisions may be made by Ukraines leaders.

The family of Aiden Aslin, who has been captured during the Ukrainian war, want Russia to free him after he appeared in a video asking to be part of a prisoner swap in exchange for pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, held by Ukraine.

On the chances of a prisoner swap, MrJohnsonsaid: We will do what we can. Clearly it is for the Ukrainians. They have the other individual who is part of the equation. We cant really pre-empt what they may decide.

Mr Johnson said Mr Aslin and others were entitled to rights under the Geneva Convention, adding: They should not be paraded in front of the cameras. They should not be made to give hostage videos that is a breach of their rights as prisoners of war.

The prime ministersaid Facebook was removing a video clip of Mr Alsin comes after culture secretary Nadine Dorries called Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at parent company Meta.

FIRST READING: Putin heads a ‘fascistic’ government, says former PM Stephen Harper – National Post

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Danzig

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"This is the 1930s all over again, Harper says of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

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