Holding our breath
Russia celebrates Defender of the Fatherland day as US/EU/UK announce first rounds of sanctions, Blinken cancels Lavrov, people in Donbass wait anxiously, pray for peace.
I took this shot somewhere east of Tyumen out of a train window in February 2020. Only two years ago, and yet it feels like twenty. Back then, covid was still thought to be limited to Wuhan, and there was no talk of Russia actually invading Ukraine beyond the front lines that established themselves in 2014. Two years later, covid is nearly endemic, and all signs indicate Putin has spent too long in isolation, pouring over history books, and is now about to make a move which will bring about enormous pain and suffering, and will also accelerate his own demise.
By all indications on social media, some Russian forces are already in DNR and LNR. Analysts tracking Russian troop movements over the past several months noticed military equipment is marked with various signs. A lot of people on Twitter had a laugh, like what does a “Z” painted on the side of a tank or a white triangle drawn on with paint tell you…but jokes aside, it does appear all that hardware which Putin sent to Ukraine’s borders has been marked based on which direction it will be heading when (notice I don’t say if) the order for a large scale invasion of Ukraine is given.
Recognition of DNR and LNR by Russia included an agreement to support each other militarily. Most of these videos appear on TikTok of course because someone in Russia wants us to see them. Usually they are accompanied by bad music, including patriotic songs, and often with voice commentary along the lines of “shit, look what the tanks are doing to our asphalt!”.
Last night I listened to one woman in Donestk who went live, and in the comments people were saying that Russians are already on their way to Donbass, both from the mainland and from Crimea. This morning, I saw a post from a young woman in Vladivostok, who was missing her soldier boyfriend with the hashtag Donetsk. In other words — no reason to think Putin is going to pull back at this point.
Blinken cancelled his meeting with Lavrov for Friday in Geneva, saying it doesn’t appear Russia is open to diplomacy. Frankly, after the speeches we all heard on Monday, which I wrote about here yesterday, I think it’s the right decision.
The US, EU and UK all responded to Russia’s recognition of DNR and LNR and declaration of the Minsk process as dead with sanctions. Some large, some first steps. Germany I think surprised everyone by saying Nord Stream 2 is frozen, put on hold, will not move forward. Important to note it is built, and the approval process can be restarted at any time, but still a huge move by Scholz and Baerbock, one frankly I did not expect so soon.
Worst case scenario: if Putin invades, takes control of large parts of Ukraine, all he has to do is damage the gas pipeline that sends gas to Austria, Slovakia, Italy from Ukraine, and voila — he creates a reason for NS2 to be approved before next winter.
Medvedev immediately reacted (in German!) to yesterday’s NS2 announcement with a threat of gas priced at €2,000 in Europe.
EU sanctions: this is great against all Duma reps but as I tweeted yesterday, you’ve got to sanction family members, too. None of them own property in their own names and their families love to travel around Europe in summer (and not only).
Also of note re EU sanctions, three countries tried to water things down, can you guess who? As some noted in the comments, all three have found themselves “on the wrong side of history before”.
UK sanctions: five Russian banks and three individuals, Putin’s good friends, none of whom own British football clubs. Fairly predictable first step from London, not hitting any of the real oligarchs deeply entrenched in UK establishment — yet.
The sanctioned banks are Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank, Johnson said. Promsvyazbank is a top 10 Russian bank, which services 70% of state contracts signed by the Russian ministry of defence.
The three individuals are Gennady Timchenko, Igor Rotenberg and Boris Rotenberg. All three have previously been sanctioned by the US. Treasury officials had no details of the scale of the assets the individuals or banks held in the UK.
US sanctions: light so far, sovereign debt Russia would have expected and Russia will manage, these aren’t the real banks which would cause real pain (VTB, Sberbank). Those are clearly being held back as the next lever. Observe how sanctions are now hitting the generation of sons of Putin’s closest advisors and friends, all of whom have been given important leadership roles within the current Russian state capitalism model.
Russia, by yesterday afternoon, said it would be recognising the full territorial claims of DNR and LNR, which extend beyond their current borders and include the important Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. This essentially a declaration of war on Ukraine.
Russia also called for Ukraine to put down its arms.
Ukraine in turn called up reservists. It knows why. This, from Putin’s Monday speech, sent a chill through the entire country:
Mood in Kyiv: calling for stronger sanctions faster from the west, asking for more lethal aid (I hate that term but you get the idea of what they really feel they need right now), trying to remain brave in the face of an absolutely terrifying situation.
Mood in Moscow, I would read both of these, they offer different perspectives. The first is quite calm, perhaps more representative of how the Russian establishment is viewing things for now. The second, below, implies a larger problem. I agree more with Hanna Notte (see thread below) — there is no desire for war among the Russian people, and this will only draw their attention even further to all the domestic and economic problems at home that Putin’s government is not dealing with, but instead going to war against a brotherly nation.
I also learned yesterday that not only are Serbian tabloids coming out in support of Russia (that’s no surprise, they are uniformly always against the US in whatever the conversation), but there is also some support for Russia in social media in Greece, Bulgaria, North Macedonia. Are we back to an era of drawing lines according to religion? Ukraine is filled with Orthodox churches but that is a whole other conversation (Ukraine Orthodox Church split from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2018).
Some additional background reading / viewing / listening which I found useful yesterday, in no particular order:
English subtitles on Putin’s very public dressing down of Naryshkin. I listened to this live while driving my car and it was chilling.
Navalny’s reaction to Putin’s speeches:
Fact check of Putin’s speech by the BBC:
For more background reading from a Cold War historian, this is very good:
Talia Lavin is a gorgeous writer and her emotional piece on Ukraine is no exception:
This is a great interview with Valerie Hopkins from Kyiv who found herself under fire while on a reporting trip to the front lines this weekend with a Ukrainian government delegation.
In short, this seems like a good summary of where things are at the moment:
Because there are great reporters on the ground both in Ukraine and Russia, I am trying to follow on social media what is happening in DNR and LNR, as western journalists are simply not giving access, and the only Russian journalists allowed in are Russia state propaganda. I use that word because at the moment, that is what it is. The people of Donbass have lived through years of war. They are not stupid, and they will not post or share everything. But what they do share gives us a window into what things are like on the ground right now.
I also saw yesterday a video from a dad in east-central Ukraine, in a rural area, completely scared because military planes had just flown over his house and asking his followers if he should prepare a shelter in his cellar for his family. The Ukrainian authorities warned citizens yesterday not to post any troop or military movements on social media, as that would only be used by the Russians. He and his followers agreed in unison, you don’t know what you can believe anymore, there is so much disinformation online.
I keep thinking about the wars in Yugoslavia, that thankfully there was no social media back then. I cannot imagine what we would have seen, what would have been captured on video, forever. I fear now that many of us are going to see some horrible things from the comfort of our living rooms, and I don’t like the feeling of that, at all. A lot of people sitting in countries that have never experienced war think war is a spectator sport. It is not. It is horrible; it should be avoided at all costs. No one wins, and only ordinary people lose. The people of Russia and Ukraine keep saying online “let there be peace” in one voice.
Nobody wants this fight except for one old man in the Kremlin, a few of his closest friends, equally old and delusional, and of course the US defense industry and its powerful lobbyists in DC. They need a new income stream after they were abruptly pulled off the Afghanistan money drip after twenty years.
Last, don’t forget about China. China is watching, observing, calculating.
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