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WASHINGTON Russian mercenaries with combat experience in Syria and Libya are gearing up to assume an increasingly active role in a phase of the war in Ukraine that Moscow now says is its top priority: fighting in the countrys east.

The number of mercenaries deployed to Ukraine from the Wagner Group, a private military force with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, is expected to more than triple to at least 1,000 fighters from about 300 a month ago, just before the invasion, a United States official said on Friday. The official added that the mercenaries would focus on defeating Ukrainian forces in the countrys Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting a war since 2014, and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.

Dispatching trusted Russian mercenaries to help with a pivotal part of the Russian invasion underscores the Kremlins efforts to regroup and refocus its flagging, monthlong military campaign that so far has failed to achieve Mr. Putins initial goals, U.S. and other Western officials said.

The Russian military signaled on Friday that it might be lowering its war ambitions and focusing on the eastern Donbas region, though military analysts said it remained to be seen whether the move constituted a meaningful shift or was a maneuver to distract attention ahead of another offensive.

Wagner is the best-known of an array of Russian mercenary groups, which over the years have become more formalized, acting more like Western military contractors.

The Wagner Group is a private military contractor for Russia, John F. Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said this week. We know that they have interest in increasing their footprint in Ukraine.

Wagners fighters have garnered military experience in Middle East conflicts and serve as security advisers to various governments, including in the Central African Republic, Sudan and, most recently, Mali. Though they are loosely linked to the Russian military, they operate at a distance, which has allowed the Kremlin to try to deflect responsibility whenever the fighters behavior comes under scrutiny.

Underscoring how seriously Wagner considers its role in the conflict in Ukraine, senior Wagner leaders themselves are expected to deploy to the separatist enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk to coordinate efforts on behalf of Russia, the U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential operational assessments.

Wagner is relocating not only some of its mercenaries in Libya and Syria to Ukraine, but also artillery, air defenses and radar that the group was using in Libya, the official said. The Russian military is supporting these transfers by providing military cargo aircraft to relocate personnel and equipment.

While Wagners numbers are tiny compared with the more than 150,000 troops that Mr. Putin amassed on Ukraines borders and eventually sent into the country, their presence is an indication that Mr. Putin is taking a page from his playbook in 2014, when the Kremlin deployed Russian mercenaries, mostly veterans of the Russian military, to augment the forces of rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine.

March 27, 2022, 9:51 p.m. ET

Earlier this year, Western intelligence services detected the first small groups of Wagner mercenaries leaving Libya and Syria and arriving in Russian-controlled Crimea. From there, they filtered into the rebel territories.

But their initial performance on the battlefield was decidedly inauspicious, as they faced stiffer-than-expected resistance from Ukrainian soldiers. As many as 200 Russian mercenaries have been killed as of late February, the U.S. official said.

The initial purpose of the deployment of the mercenaries was the subject of debate. Some European and American officials said the mercenaries were positioned in the rebel territories to engage in sabotage and stage false flag operations intended to make it seem as if Ukrainian forces were attacking civilian targets.

But a Ukrainian military official said just before the invasion began that the mercenaries were primarily brought in to fill out the ranks of the separatist forces, to make it seem like local fighters were leading the charge.

Now the mercenaries are taking on a more direct combat and leadership role in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. official said.

In 2017, the Trump administration placed sanctions on Dmitri Utkin, the founder of the Wagner Group, for his role in recruiting soldiers to join separatist forces in Ukraine. In 2021, a United Nations report found that mercenaries from Wagner based in the Central African Republic had killed civilians, looted homes and fatally shot worshipers at a mosque.

Several years earlier, Wagner fighters in Syria worked with pro-government Syrian forces to launch a major artillery barrage against U.S. commandos at a desert redoubt, apparently in an attempt to seize oil and gas fields the Americans were protecting. In response, the Americans called in airstrikes that resulted in 200 to 300 deaths.

In both cases, the Russian government denied involvement.

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More Russian Mercenaries Deploying to Ukraine to Take On Greater Role in War - The New York Times

President Vladimir Putins bloody assault on Ukraine, nearly a month in, still seems inexplicable. Rockets raining down on apartment buildings and fleeing families are now Russias face to the world. What could induce Russia to take such a fateful step, effectively electing to become a pariah state?

Efforts to understand the invasion tend to fall into two broad schools of thought. The first focuses on Mr. Putin himself his state of mind, his understanding of history or his K.G.B. past. The second invokes developments external to Russia, chiefly NATOs eastward expansion after the Soviet Unions collapse in 1991, as the underlying source of the conflict.

But to understand the war in Ukraine, we must go beyond the political projects of Western leaders and Mr. Putins psyche. The ardor and content of Mr. Putins declarations are not new or unique to him. Since the 1990s, plans to reunite Ukraine and other post-Soviet states into a transcontinental superpower have been brewing in Russia. A revitalized theory of Eurasian empire informs Mr. Putins every move.

The end of the Soviet Union disoriented Russias elites, stripping away their special status in a huge Communist empire. What was to be done? For some, the answer was just to make money, the capitalist way. In the wild years after 1991, many were able to amass enormous fortunes in cahoots with an indulgent regime. But for others who had set their goals in Soviet conditions, wealth and a vibrant consumer economy were not enough. Post-imperial egos felt the loss of Russias status and significance keenly.

As Communism lost its lan, intellectuals searched for a different principle on which the Russian state could be organized. Their explorations took shape briefly in the formation of political parties, including rabidly nationalist, antisemitic movements, and with more lasting effect in the revival of religion as a foundation for collective life. But as the state ran roughshod over democratic politics in the 1990s, new interpretations of Russias essence took hold, offering solace and hope to people who strived to recover their countrys prestige in the world.

One of the most alluring concepts was Eurasianism. Emerging from the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, this idea posited Russia as a Eurasian polity formed by a deep history of cultural exchanges among people of Turkic, Slavic, Mongol and other Asian origins. In 1920, the linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy one of several Russian migr intellectuals who developed the concept published Europe and Humanity, a trenchant critique of Western colonialism and Eurocentrism. He called on Russian intellectuals to free themselves from their fixation on Europe and to build on the legacy of Chinggis Khan to create a great continent-spanning Russian-Eurasian state.

Trubetzkoys Eurasianism was a recipe for imperial recovery, without Communism a harmful Western import, in his view. Instead, Trubetzkoy emphasized the ability of a reinvigorated Russian Orthodoxy to provide cohesion across Eurasia, with solicitous care for believers in the many other faiths practiced in this enormous region.

Suppressed for decades in the Soviet Union, Eurasianism survived in the underground and burst into public awareness during the perestroika period of the late 1980s. Lev Gumilyov, an eccentric geographer who had spent 13 years in Soviet prisons and forced-labor camps, emerged as an acclaimed guru of the Eurasian revival in the 1980s. Mr. Gumilyov emphasized ethnic diversity as a driver of global history. According to his concept of ethnogenesis, an ethnic group could, under the influence of a charismatic leader, develop into a super-ethnos a power spread over a huge geographical area that would clash with other expanding ethnic units.

Mr. Gumilyovs theories appealed to many people making their way through the chaotic 1990s. But Eurasianism was injected directly into the bloodstream of Russian power in a variant developed by the self-styled philosopher Aleksandr Dugin. After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted with the military and policymakers. With the publication in 1997 of his 600-page textbook, loftily titled The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, Eurasianism moved to the center of strategists political imagination.

In Mr. Dugins adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent no longer just Europe, but the whole of the Atlantic world led by the United States. And his Eurasianism was not anti-imperial but the opposite: Russia had always been an empire, Russian people were imperial people, and after the crippling 1990s sellout to the eternal enemy, Russia could revive in the next phase of global combat and become a world empire. On the civilizational front, Mr. Dugin highlighted the long-term connection between Eastern Orthodoxy and Russian empire. Orthodoxys combat against Western Christianity and Western decadence could be harnessed to the geopolitical war to come.

Eurasian geopolitics, Russian Orthodoxy and traditional values these goals shaped Russias self-image under Mr. Putins leadership. The themes of imperial glory and Western victimization were propagated across the country; in 2017, they were drummed home in the monumental exhibition Russia, My History. The expos flashy displays featured Mr. Gumilyovs Eurasian philosophy, the sacrificial martyrdom of the Romanov family and the evils the West had inflicted on Russia.

Where did Ukraine figure in this imperial revival? As an obstacle, from the very beginning. Trubetzkoy argued in his 1927 article On the Ukrainian Problem that Ukrainian culture was an individualization of all-Russian culture and that Ukrainians and Belarusians should bond with Russians around the organizing principle of their shared Orthodox faith. Mr. Dugin made things more direct in his 1997 text: Ukrainian sovereignty presented a huge danger to all of Eurasia. Total military and political control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea was an absolute imperative of Russian geopolitics. Ukraine had to become a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state.

Mr. Putin has taken that message to heart. In 2013, he declared that Eurasia was a major geopolitical zone where Russias genetic code and its many peoples would be defended against extreme Western-style liberalism. In July last year he announced that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, and in his furious rant on the eve of invasion, he described Ukraine as a colony with a puppet regime, where the Orthodox Church is under assault and NATO prepares for an attack on Russia.

This brew of attitudes complaints about Western aggression, exaltation of traditional values over the decadence of individual rights, assertions of Russias duty to unite Eurasia and subordinate Ukraine developed in the cauldron of post-imperial resentment. Now they infuse Mr. Putins worldview and inspire his brutal war.

The goal, plainly, is empire. And the line will not be drawn at Ukraine.

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Opinion | Russias War, Driven by the Grand Theory of Eurasianism - The New York Times

Employees pass beneath pipes leading to oil storage tanks at the central processing plant for oil and gas at the Salym Petroleum Development oil fields near the Bazhenov shale formation in Salym, Russia.

Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Faced with stiffening sanctions from Western countries over its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is considering accepting bitcoin as payment for its oil and gas exports.

In a videotaped news conference held on Thursday, the chair of Russia's Duma committee on energy said in translated remarks that when it comes to "friendly" countries such as China or Turkey, Russia is willing to be more flexible with payment options.

Chair Pavel Zavalny said that the national fiat currency of the buyer as well as bitcoin were being considered as alternative ways to pay for Russia's energy exports.

"We have been proposing to China for a long time to switch to settlements in national currencies for rubles and yuan," Zavalny said in translated comments. "With Turkey, it will be lira and rubles."

He didn't stop with traditional currencies.

"You can also trade bitcoins," he said.

Bitcoin is up close to 4% over the last 24 hours to about $44,000. The price of the cryptocurrency spiked around the time that news reports of Zavalny's remarks first crossed.

The energy chair also doubled down on President Vladimir Putin's promise on Wednesday to require "unfriendly" countries to pay for gas in Russian rubles. Putin's announcement sent European gas prices soaring over worries the move might aggravate an energy market already under pressure.

"If they want to buy, let them pay either in hard currency, and this is gold for us, or pay as it is convenient for us, this is the national currency," Zavalny said, in comments that echoed the president's warning from the day before.

Though the U.S. has banned imports of Russian oil as part of its response to Moscow's war on Ukraine, sources have told CNBC it's unlikely that the European Union will follow suit, given its heavy dependence on Russian energy, in part to heat homes during the winter months.

"Russia is clearly looking to diversify into other currencies," said Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics. He told CNBC that Russia had been preparing for that kind of transition since 2014, when it started to divest all U.S. Treasurys.

"But the country wasn't fully prepared for foreign FX assets to be frozen," said Carter, who is also a founding partner of Castle Island Ventures, an early-stage firm focused on cryptocurrency.

Russia now appears to be serious about moving away from the dollar.

"They have something the world needs," Carter said. "Russia is the No. 1 exporter of natural gas globally."

Russia could potentially convert energy reserves into hard assets that could be used outside the dollar system.

Putin has changed his tune on bitcoin. In 2021, the Russian leader told CNBC's Hadley Gamble that while he believed bitcoin had value, he wasn't convinced it could replace the U.S. dollar in settling oil trades. Now, the Kremlin's top brass is weighing it as a form of payment for major exports. It's unclear, however, whether bitcoin's relative lack of liquidity could support international trade transactions of that magnitude.

WATCH: How blockchain networks could be used to boost energy production

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Russia is considering selling its oil and gas for bitcoin as sanctions intensify from the West - CNBC

The French carmaker Renault said on Wednesday that it was halting operations at a plant in Moscow and was reassessing its partnership with AvtoVAZ, Russias largest auto manufacturer.

Renault owns 68 percent of AvtoVAZ, the maker of Lada vehicles, and has relied on Russia for about 18 percent of its global vehicle sales.

Regarding its stake in AvtoVAZ, Renault Group is assessing the available options, taking into account the current environment, while acting responsibly towards its 45,000 employees in Russia, the company said in a statement. Renault Group reminds that it already implements the necessary measures to comply with international sanctions.

The company also revised its financial outlook for 2022, saying it now expects an operating profit margin of 3 percent, down from a previous forecast of more than 4 percent.

Several other automakers have ceased operations in Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine and international economic sanctions that have greatly curtailed trade with the country.

Volkswagen has idled two Russian plants. Ford Motor and Stellantis have stopped production at Russian plants they own with other automakers. Those and other automakers have also halted exports of cars and parts to Russia.

Renault sold more than 482,000 vehicles in Russia last year, more than any other Western automaker. Last week it halted production at two other AvtoVAZ plants, in Togliatti and Izhevsk, because of parts shortages. Those plants are several hundred miles east of Moscow.

Renault acquired a 25 percent stake in AvtoVAZ in 2008, when Russia was thought to have great potential for automakers, along with China, Brazil and India. But only Chinas market has taken off as expected, and Russia was slowed in particular by Western sanctions imposed after it annexed Ukraines Crimea region in 2014.

Since the annexation, some automakers have scaled back their operations in Russia. General Motors pulled out of a joint venture with AvtoVAZ in 2019, ending its presence in Russia.

Renault was one of the few that continued investing there. It bought Nissans stake in AvtoVAZ in 2017 and consolidated the Russian unit into its global operations.

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Renault Halts Operations in Russia - The New York Times

RUSSIA claims it is close to a peace deal that will see Ukraine become a neutral country, its foreign minister has claimed.

The apparent willingness of Vladimir Putin to find a way out of the war he started comes as his forces have been mauled by heroic Ukrainian defenders and could even buckle in ten days.

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The Russian tyrant expected a quick victory when he ordered the invasion on February 23 but Kyivs forces say they have killed more than 13,500 of the invaders.

Moscow has seengenerals killed, pilots blasted out of the sky, tanksambushedand videos ofsobbing soldiersafter surrendering to the Ukrainians.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said talks with Ukraine are now focused on a neutral status for the war-torn country.

"A neutral status is being seriously discussed in connection with security guarantees,"Lavrov told Russian television.

"There are concrete formulations that in my view are close to being agreed."

The model which is being pursued is that of Austria which has its own military but is bound to neutrality by the 1955 Austrian State Treaty.

Austrias constitution prohibits entry into military alliances and the establishment of foreign military bases on its territory.

"This is a variant that is currently being discussed and which could really be seen as a compromise," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

If a similar deal were to be struck, then Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO.

Ukraine is not a member of the alliance but has it has repeatedly said it wants to join to benefit from its protection.

Read our Russia - Ukraine live blog for the very latest updates

Russia has said it cannot allow that to happen, and cited it as part of the reason for its invasion.

But Kyiv said it now understood it does not have an open door to NATO membership and was seeking other types of security guarantees.

It comes as both a senior UK defence source and the former commander of US forces say the game could soon be up for Russia.

Ukraine has Russia on the run, the source told the Daily Mail.

It comes as...

Retired US army General Ben Hodges has predicted Russian forces will be unable to continue their assault on Ukraine 10 days from now if Ukraine can hold out that long.

The latest Russian losses saw a fourth general killed, in the fighting thats been raging in the southern city of Mariupol.

The Ministry of Defence said Russian troops have remained largely on the road and have "demonstrated a reluctance to conduct off-road manoeuvre".

The destruction of bridges by Ukrainian forces has also played a "key role in stalling Russia's advance".

Russia's continued failure to gain control of the air has drastically limited their ability to effectively use air manoeuvre, further limiting their options, said the ministry.

"The tactics of the Ukrainian armed forces have adeptly exploited Russia's lack of manoeuvre, frustrating the Russian advance and inflicting heavy losses on the invading forces."

Help those fleeing conflict with The Suns Ukraine Fund

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Many of you want to help the five million caught in the chaos and now you can, by donating to The Sun's Ukraine Fund.

Give as little as 3 or as much as you can afford and every penny will be donated to the Red Cross on the ground helping women, children, the old, the infirm and the wounded.

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Russia claims its close to a PEACE DEAL after Putins ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the U.S. Congress by video on Wednesday to plead for support as his country is besieged by Russian forces. J. Scott Applewhite/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the U.S. Congress by video on Wednesday to plead for support as his country is besieged by Russian forces.

As Wednesday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day:

A theater sheltering civilians was bombed in besieged Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say. Russia denies the airstrike. Mariupol's city council shared images of a smoldering building, saying hundreds of residents had taken refuge inside and the number of casualties was not yet known. Elsewhere in southern Ukraine, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov, captured by Russian troops last week, has been freed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed U.S. Congress, calling on it "to do more." Specifically, Zelenskyy continues to push for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which most U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration do not back. President Biden, meanwhile, approved $800 million more in security assistance to Ukraine and vowed to send more weapons. He also called Russian President Vladimir Putin "a war criminal."

A top Ukrainian negotiator says Ukraine and Russia might be moving closer to a possible cease-fire. Some Russian officials have also hinted that the two sides may be closer to a deal, but Putin has not signaled a readiness to pull back forces.

The United Nations' top court in The Hague has ordered Russia to halt its military operation in Ukraine. The International Court of Justice said evidence did not support the Kremlin's justification for the attack. Its rulings are binding, but countries have ignored them in the past.

Russia is facing a debt-payment deadline that could mean a historic sovereign default. The country needs to pay $117 million in interest payments on two bonds that are denominated in dollars, but Russia has lost access to much of its foreign reserves.

What does Ukraine war news look like from Russia? Narrative-shaping begins with words both chosen and left unsaid.

Lviv takes in displaced Ukrainians, but space and resources are strained. See photos from the city's cultural hubs.

A Russian-owned superyacht named Ragnar is stuck in Norway because no one will sell it fuel.

Ukraine scrambles to protect artifacts and monuments from Russian attack.

A college student in occupied Ukraine says buying food means it's a lucky day.

Former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch warns that Putin will move west if he wins in Ukraine.

You can read more news from Wednesday here, as well as more in-depth reporting and daily recaps here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR's State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

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Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (March 16) - NPR

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a photograph during their meeting in Beijing, on Feb. 4, 2022.

Alexei Druzhinin | AFP | Getty Images

As Russia's war on Ukraine continues, Moscow has looked to tighten control over its domestic internet, cutting off apps made by U.S. technology giants, even while other firms have pulled their own services from the country.

But a move to emulate the internet as it exists in China perhaps the most restricted online environment anywhere is a long way off, and Russian citizens are still manage to bypass controls in the system, analysts told CNBC.

Over the last few years, companies like Facebook owner Meta, Google and Twitter have operated in an uneasy environment in Russia.

They have faced pressure from the government to remove content the Kremlin deems unfavorable. The Washington Post reported this month that Russian agents threatened to jail a Google executive unless the company removed an app that had drawn the ire of the President Vladimir Putin. And companies have lived under threat of their services being throttled.

While Russia's internet became progressively more controlled, citizens could still access those global services, making them gateways to information other than state-backed media or pro-Kremlin sources.

But the war with Ukraine has thrust American technology giants into the cross-hairs once more, as Putin's desire to further control information increases.

Instagram is now blocked in Russia after its parent company Meta allowed users in some countries to call for violence against Russia's president and military in the context of the Ukraine invasion. Facebook was blocked in Russia last week after it put restrictions on government-backed news outlets. Access to Twitter is heavily restricted.

Those incidents highlight how Big Tech companies have to balance their pursuit of a large market like Russia with increasing demands for censorship.

"For Western tech companies, they made a strategic decision at the beginning of the conflict to support Ukraine. This puts them on a collision course with the Russian government," Abishur Prakash, co-founder of the Center for Innovating the Future, told CNBC. He added that companies like Meta are "picking politics over profits."

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its media and internet watchdog Roskomnadzor did not respond to a request for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Russia's tightening online grip has revived talk about a "splinternet" the idea that two or more divergent internets will operate in increasingly separate online worlds.

Nowhere is that separation clearer than in China, where services from Google, Meta, Twitter and foreign news organizations are blocked.

Instead of WhatsApp, Chinese citizens use WeChat, the popular messaging app with over 1 billion users, for example. Google search is replaced by Baidu. Weibo replaces Twitter.

The country's massive censorship system, known as the Great Firewall, has developed over two decades and is continually being refined.

Even virtual private networks, services that can mask users' locations and identities in order to help them jump the firewall, are hard to get for regular Chinese citizens.

While Russia's increasing internet controls will likely accelerate this push toward divergent internets, the country is far off from creating anything near the technical capability behind China's restrictions.

"It's taken years for the Chinese authorities to get where they are today. And their strategy has evolved and adapted during this time. Russia cannot do this overnight," said Charlie Smith, founder of GreatFire.org, an organization that monitors censorship in China.

Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China and technology policy lead at strategic advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group, said that China's system allows "internet censors and internet controllers much more granular leeway to monitoring traffic, turn off geographical areas, including down to the block level in cities, and be very precise in their targeting of offending traffic or users."

That is something Russia cannot replicate, he added.

It is difficult for Chinese citizens to get around Beijing's tight internet controls. The government has regularly clamped down on VPN apps, which are the best option for evading the Great Firewall.

But Russians have been able to evade the Kremlin's attempts to censor the internet. VPNs have seen a surge in downloads from Russia.

Meanwhile, Twitter has launched a version of its website onTor, a service that encrypts internet traffic to help mask the identity of users and prevent surveillance on them.

"Putin appears to have misjudged both the level of technical savvy of his citizens and their willingness to seek workarounds to continue to access non-official information, and the many new tools and services, plus workarounds and channels that have sprung up over the past five years that enable people who really want to maintain access to outside information channels to do so," Albright Stonebridge Group's Triolo said.

As U.S. and European firms suspend business in Russia, Chinese technology companies could look to take advantage of that. Many of them, from Alibaba to smartphone maker Realme, already have business there.

So far, Chinese companies have remained silent on the issue of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Beijing has refused to call Russia's war on Ukraine an "invasion" and has not joined the United States, European Union, Japan and others' sanctions against Moscow.

It's therefore a tricky path for Chinese corporates.

"So far there does not seem to be any guidance coming from central authorities in China on how companies should deal with the sanctions or export controls, so companies with a large footprint outside China are likely to be reluctant to buck restrictions," Triolo said.

"They will be very careful in determining both Beijing's wishes here, weighing how to handle demands from Russia customers old and new, and gauging the risks to their broader operations of continuing to cooperate with sanctioned end user organizations."

The Chinese are likely to make their moves depending on the tone from Beijing, according to Prakash.

"If Beijing continues to tacitly support Moscow, then Chinese tech firms have several opportunities. The biggest opportunity is for these companies to fill the gap that Western companies created when they exited Russia," he said. "The ability of these companies to grow their footprint and revenue in Russia is massive."

Originally posted here:

Russia may aspire to a China-style internet, but it's a long way off - CNBC

Russias offensive around Kyiv appears to have largely ground to a halt despite the regular bombing of residential areas in the capital as the invaders attempt to regroup and resupply in the north-west and east of Ukraine.

A week ago, the influential Institute of the Study of War, a US thinktank tracking the fighting, had thought that an encirclement of the capital could be achieved within 24 to 96 hours but the events of recent days have prompted it to change its mind.

On Monday and Tuesday, the Russian invaders could only muster local attacks involving a few hundred troops, leading the expert monitors to conclude that Russian forces were likely unable to complete the encirclement of Kyiv or resume mobile offensive operations in north-eastern Ukraine in the near future.

Some of this has been down to a spirited resistance from Ukrainian forces, who have managed to prevent the Russian advance on both sides of the capital to the suburbs beyond the city, around Brovary to the east and most notably around Irpin to the north-west, a once leafy district that has been the centre of fighting for over a fortnight.

Russian forces appear to have been proven unable to cross the Irpin River, which runs along the western edge of the city and the invaders remain 20km or more from the city centre, ruling out the cruel use of short-range artillery against the population that has proved so damaging in the eastern cities of Mariupol and Kharkiv.

That may offer some respite, but a critical period looms, if the war continues. The question is whether the Russian forces complete an encirclement of Kyiv and begin what could be a fearful siege of the city, which had a population of about 3 million people before the war began.

Mathieu Boulgue, a research fellow at Chatham House, said in an event organised by the thinktank on Tuesday that the danger of bombing of city centres underlined the importance of preventing a battle of Kyiv because Russia has no other way of capturing its most important strategic objective.

Three weeks into the conflict, footage from Kyiv showed the effort to defend the city centre with military reservists, volunteer soldiers who are former journalists, lawyers and prosecutors, guarding defences built out of sandbags. Steel hedgehogs lie scattered in the roads, intended to stop Russian armour from advancing at speed and generate opportunities for ambush.

But as Boulgue pointed out, Russia has sought to avoid urban warfare so far in the conflict where it is considered that an attacker needs numbers of five to one in its favour to have a chance of success. Instead, as Russian forces close in on a city, they have resorted to ground shelling and indiscriminate bombardment said Boulgue, to break the will of the residents to resist.

For both sides in the war, Kyiv is everything, and uncertainty also lingers over what would happen if Russia cannot close in on the city or if its inhabitants fight vigorously in its defence, as expected. Boulgue worried that could lead to increased frustration and risk-taking by the Kremlin.

Western leaders have repeatedly voiced concern denied by Russia that Moscow could use chemical weapons in Ukraine. Even if those fears were not realised, as Russia has showed throughout the conflict, it can launch cruise missile strikes on city centre targets, as happened in Kharkiv, or air-to-ground strikes, as against the Yavoriv military base at the weekend.

For now, Russias forces are pegged back. But an uneasy wait in the capital goes on.

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Uneasy wait in Kyiv continues as Russian advance appears to have stalled - The Guardian

Jake Sullivan looks flushed and his jaw is clenched. Across from President Joe Bidens National Security Adviser, over a row of ferns at a matching table draped in blue cloth, sits Chinas senior foreign affairs official Yang Jiechi, his mouth frozen in a sanguine smile. The official photograph released by Chinas state-run news agency of the two men sitting face to face on March 14 in Rome is a snapshot of how Beijing wants to be seen at this moment as Chinas sometime ally Russia continues its deadly invasion of Ukraine: as a confident, emerging power facing a frustrated and worried United States.

The reality is more complicated. Russias President Vladimir Putin is hoping Chinas leader Xi Jinping will see Russias invasion of Ukraine as another step forward for the two countries broader effort to push back against the worlds democracies. Russia is courting Chinas support of its assault on Ukraine and hopes China will prop up Moscows faltering economy battered by sanctions. But if China further backs Russias aggression with significant monetary help oreven more unsettlingweapons, the blowback from the U.S. and European countries could threaten Chinas long-term effort to rise as the dominant global power.

What China decides to do about Russias needs could mark a turning point in both the war in Ukraine and U.S.-China relations, and the outcome of Chinas choice will define what a new global order looks like. Will China continue to try to reshape the current global economy in its image by participating in it? Or will China join Russia behind a new Iron Curtain of sanctions, cut off from the U.S. and Europe and left to navigate a new monetary system and trading framework?

Yang Jiechi, left, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, meets with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, right in Rome on March 14

Jin MamengniXinhua/Alamy

This is really a crucial moment and potentially a turning point, says Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. They really are siding with the Russians. They are more closely aligned with the Russians than theyve ever been.

China and Russia have occasionally had a strained relationship over the past several decades. Moscow and Beijing fought a border war in 1969 along the edge of Chinas northeast territory, and the two countries have never developed strong person-to-person ties across their shared 2,500 miles of border. As China has risen in global influence, Russias leadership have resented the prospect of becoming a client state of Beijing.

But Chinas leaders are now leaning toward Moscow much more heavily than they did when trying to appear neutral following Putins seizure of Crimea in 2014. When Xi and Putin met at the opening of the Beijing Olympics on Feb. 4, the two agreed their countries relationship would have no limits and no wavering, according to a Chinese government description of the meeting. That was two weeks before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.

This has presented the Biden Administration with a delicate and growing challenge in how to talk to China about its assistance to Russia. The seven hours of talks between Sullivan and Yang inside the Rome Cavalieri hotel were intense and reflecting the gravity of the moment, a senior Administration official said, adding that the two officials had an extensive conversation about Russias war in Ukraine. Sullivan made it clear that the U.S. and European allies would consider cutting off Chinese financial institutions involved in backing Russias war financially, said a person familiar with the discussions.

Broadly, Xi Jinping has calculated that the U.S. is in decline and Western democracies have failed, Glaser says, and that Russia is one ally that can work alongside China to create a different international system thats more favorable. But with Russias violent effort to take Ukraine, that assessment comes with considerable risk for China. If Russia emerges weaker from its war in Ukraine, and China backed it, China could suffer major economic backlash. China relies heavily on its trading relationships with European countries and has worked hard to prevent Europe from restricting trade. That would be huge, if China ends up with a vast amount of countries around the world that are aligned against it because it has sided with Russia, Glaser says.

Convincing European powers to punish China could be a tall order for President Biden, whos had to work hard to convince Europe to limit its financial and energy ties to Russia. Biden is set to travel to Europe next week to meet with NATO allies, and Chinas degree of support for Russia will surely come up in those meetings. U.S. officials want to prepare allies for how to respond if China begins contributing more financially or militarily to Russia. Meanwhile, Xi showed the importance he puts on keeping lines of communication open with European powers when he joined a video call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on March 8 to talk about the war in Ukraine.

This moment has put on a collision course two competing objectives of Chinas foreign policy, says David Shullman, a former senior U.S. intelligence analyst on East Asia. China wants Russia to be its partner in building a new global order, but it also wants to be viewed as a responsible power that can someday lead the current one, or at least be at the center of a new system of global governance and connectivity, Shullman says. If China provides Russia with drones, surface to air missiles, or other weapons, It would very clearly demonstrate that we have a break in what we expected out of the world order, Shullman says. It would be clear that China had very firmly sided with Russia against the democratic world and against developed democracies.

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How China's Response to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Could Upend the World Order - TIME

How close are China and Russia?

Under the rule of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin China and Russia have become increasingly isolated from the west and closer to each other.

Russias invasion of Ukraine came just days after Xi and Putin cemented a significant partnership on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics the first in-person, bilateral meeting Xi had attended since the pandemic began.

A joint statement from the two leaders said the bonds between the two countries had no limits and there were no forbidden areas of cooperation. It called on the west to abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war, and expressed support for each others stance on Ukraine and Taiwan.

Analysts say that the leaders believe they are stronger united.

Beijings rationale for the China-Russia relationship is that both countries confront a hostile west and both will be better able to withstand western pressure by standing together than apart, says Ryan Hass, a Brookings Institute scholar on China and Asia. Without Russia, the thinking goes, China would be alone to deal with a hostile west determined to obstruct Chinas rise.

Its worth bearing in mind that China and Russia do not have perfectly aligned interests, says Hass. China has a lot more to lose than Russia. China sees itself as a country on the rise with momentum behind it. Russia is essentially fighting the tides of decline.

The timing of the partnership signed between Russia and China has raised questions about what Chinas government knew of the invasion. Some analysts and US officials have suggested it was likely Beijing knew of the Russian plans for Ukraine but not the extent of them, and was caught somewhat by surprise. Beijing denies this. In the Washington Post on Wednesday, Chinas ambassador to the US said any assertions it knew about, acquiesced to or tacitly supported this war are purely disinformation.

One of the first signs that there might be limits on the partnership came on 25 February, when China abstained from voting on a UN security council resolution which would have deplored Moscows invasion of Ukraine. Russia used its veto power to quash the resolution but Chinas decision to not actively support the veto was reportedly seen as a positive sign by western officials.

Dr Courtney J Fung, an associate professor at Macquarie University and associate fellow at Chatham House, says China wants recognition as a responsible major country, but is applying this selectively when it comes to the invasion of Ukraine. China focuses on second order issues that result from the Russian invasion like humanitarian aid, civilian protection, evacuation and while these are of course important concerns, China is sidestepping efforts for it to mediate or resolve the crisis itself.

Chinas government and state apparatus are mostly not referring to it as an invasion or a war, although official English-language readouts of bilateral phone calls by Xi and foreign minister Wang Yi included the word war. It is instead usually referring to it as a situation, a crisis, or sometimes a conflict, and has emphasised a complexhistoricalbackground and context. It has expressed support for both Ukraines sovereignty and Russias security concerns.

Speaking to media after the annual two sessions meeting last Friday, Premier Li Keqiang said China was deeply concerned and grieved over the conflict.

On Ukraine, indeed the current situation there is grave, he said. The pressing task now is preventing tensions from escalating or even getting out of control.

Beijing has sought to present itself as neutral, and signalled it could act as a mediator, but Chinese media have amplified Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Government spokespeople have also promoted an anti-western narrative, blaming the US and Nato for inflaming tensions.

China has struggled to navigate a path between its partnership with Russia and the huge global condemnation of the invasion. China continues to back Russia through its comprehensive strategic partnership and to oppose Nato expansion and sanctions on Russia, Paul Haenle, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told China File.

At the same time, it is paying lip service to its principles of non-interference and positive relations with Ukraine. Haenle said Beijings aims were incompatible, but in recent days it had started to solidify its messaging into an attempt to straddle them anyway.

According to reports in US media, citing unnamed government officials, Russia has requested military equipment and support from China, as well as economic assistance as global sanctions and private sector abandonment starts to bite.

The initial reports didnt detail the types of weapons Russia was seeking or Chinas response, but drew warnings from the US that China would face consequences if it agreed. Subsequent reports, citing US diplomatic cables to allies, said Russia had requested equipment including drones, armoured vehicles and surface-to-air missiles, and that China had signalled a willingness to agree.

Chinese officials angrily dismissed the claims as malicious disinformation. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said hed never heard of such a request.

US officials fear China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones.

The Russian relationship remains important to Xi, and he is unlikely to jettison it in favour of aligning with a declining west, the director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Bonnie Glaser, told China File. But he must decide to what extent hell help the Russian economy as sanctions which China has long opposed kick in.

China is likely to find ways to help Moscow mitigate the impact of the sanctions, without blatantly violating them. The playbook it has used to assist Iran and North Korea evade sanctions provides possible actions China can take.

China has little incentive to provide direct military aid, says Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist with the Australian National University.

Beijings preferences are: one, international stability; two, to ensure the Russian economy and polity does not collapse under the weight of the international sanctions, and three, to not be seen as an overt enabler of Russian aggression.

Hass says its more likely that China will remain rhetorically committed to showing support for Russia but will largely comply with international sanctions against it, in order to avoid attracting secondary sanctions.

I also expect China to remain cautious in providing any materiel support to Russia, given that such support likely would have limited impact on the outcome of hostilities in Ukraine, but significant impacts on Chinas relations with the west.

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How close are China and Russia and where does Beijing stand on Ukraine? - The Guardian