Apparently they didn’t discuss it with the US before they made the offer. Probably not Germany either.
It sounds like they want the thin cover of the jets not heading to Ukraine from Polish territory. Which is just not going to mean much at this point.
I really hope that they’re wrong about this.
If true, this is a great idea:
Straight from the source:
https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downgrades-russia-to-c-08-03-2022
They haven’t really been wrong so far.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists re-posting a piece from 2014 on Russia’s idea of, well, “de-escalation”:
More nightmare fodder.
Earlier today the UK said it would stop buying Russian oil and gas.
By the end of the year.
According to this Japanese article, Chinese netizens are increasingly posting comments that are supportive of Ukraine and critical of Russia on SNS, and more importantly, these comments are not being instantly deleted.
“That which is not deleted is permitted” seems to be their motto, so…
I thought I read somewhere that you needed a couple of inches of steel to stop gamma radiation?I’m not sure my apartment is built to carry that load.
I guess it’s Hulks; all the way down.
World beating
While industry focused it does give some insight from people on the ground in Ukraine and some companies working with developers in Ukraine. I have seen lots of mention elsewhere that several international publishers are providing full paid leave for their people in Ukraine and donating profits to relief efforts for those in or fleeing Ukraine
The latest episode of the Ezra Klein Show
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm
I am seething after listening to the interview with Maria Butina (from about 7:51 in link above). I didn’t expect truth, but such blanket denial. Arrgh.
She wrote a law enforcing this denial.
Thread about sanctions & kleptocracy
I did always find it a bit odd that we had UK politicians and media massively criticising Germany for being reliant on Russian natural gas without any real acknowledgement of the fact that the UK is also reliant on Russian energy imports - just to a slightly lesser extent.
The underlying bet is that democratic governments are hamstrung by their need to satisfy impatient consumers. The will to maintain sanctions will be depleted by the appetite for oil and gas. That is an extension of the Putinist view that liberalism is a decadent creed. It turns people flabby, feeds them drugs, debilitates national virility with gay pride and other violations of traditional morality. Such societies are expected to blink first in a war of economic attrition when pitted against Russia’s manliness and its historically vaunted capacity for stoicism and self-sacrifice.
