I hope that makes a big difference but it’s tricky to enforce, and they’d better be prepared for shenanigans. There’s a whole market that’s sprung up with petroleum sellers blending Russian oil with oil from other sources to circumvent embargoes or otherwise obscure the origins. Not sure about the details of the latest EU rules they’ve come up with, but in some earlier cases some countries that had a ban on Russian oil were ok with importing oil that was a blend with something less than 50% Russian. Countries like Iran have done various work-arounds for years, for example offloading oil to countries like Venezuela that definitely didn’t need the oil for themselves.
Sheesh, Russia. Get over it. They just aren’t that into your gas!
But we are. And by proxy, so are you.
We need to get rid of fossil fuels wherever possible ASAP, and this is the fucking wake-up call.
Good morning, most of everything you will buy today is only affordable to you because of cheap gas and oil.
The US was able to link sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov to the $300 million Amadea superyacht through alleged requests for a new pizza oven, spa bed, and “the quickest” jet skis, an FBI agent said in an affidavitobtained by CBS.
China’s air regulator asked all foreign carriers last month to update ownership information and other details, RBK said, citing two unidentified sources. It said Russian airlines that couldn’t provide documents showing their aircraft were “de-registered abroad” were barred from Chinese airspace.
“The war effort is not only what you supply to the army, but also how [the] economy functions,” the Metinvest boss says, speaking via video link from a company office in Lviv in the west of Ukraine. “So the better the economy functions, the better the country can fight a war. In our view, in my personal view, the people who are now at our steel mills are just as important to the victory of Ukraine as the soldiers on the frontline.”
Putin thinks he’s fighting Nazis, but actually he’s fighting Stakhanovites.
Russia has no problem with jeopardizing food supplies for millions. Likely sees resulting turmoil as something to wield against the West.
Sanctions affecting toilet prices
Apart from the humanitarian necessity to avoid famine, Draghi regards the risks to the west of spiralling bread prices, in terms of migratory flows, terrorism and political instability, as real and imminent. As one Italian official put it: “We have two weeks left to sort this or we face something very grave.”
The resolution of the Lithuanian crowdfunding campaign that raised €5.9 million to buy a Bayraktar drone for Ukraine:
10 Russian servicemen who looted the property of Bucha residents have been identified and reported on suspicion of violating the laws and customs of war, Euromaidan reports.
“According to the investigation, from February 24 to March 31, 2022, servicemen of the military unit of the National Guard of the Russian Federation during the occupation of Bucha looted the valuables of the local population. For the sole purpose of personal gain, the Russian military confiscated private property of citizens that could not be used for military purposes: from underwear and clothing to large household appliances,” the office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said in a statement on Thursday.
“Pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings is carried out by investigators of…the National Police of Ukraine,” the statement added.
European Parliament bans Russian lobbyists from premises
The European Parliament announced on Thursday that it has banned all Russian lobbyists from its premises to prevent them spreading Moscow “propaganda” about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports.
“Effective immediately, Russian company representatives are no longer allowed to enter European Parliament premises,” the European Parliament president Roberta Metsola said on Twitter.
Metsola urged all other EU institutions, including the European Commission and the European Council, to follow suit.
A parliament spokesman said the ban was a response to “Russia creating and spreading false narratives about the war in Ukraine through multiple channels, including through state-owned companies”.
The prohibition applies to Russian companies listed as employing lobbyists to the EU as well as those on the bloc’s sanction blacklist.
The parliament in 2015 had already banned Russian diplomats from its premises, which include chambers and annexes in Brussels and the French city of Strasbourg, in response to Moscow banning several EU politicians vociferous over its annexation of Crimea.
German MEP Erik Marquardt, of the Greens, welcomed the ban saying that “especially oil and gas lobbyists” working on behalf of Russian companies had been trying to “spread propaganda and disinformation” in recent months.
President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola holds a press conference ahead of EU Leaders’ Summit in Brussels on May 30, 2022. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
AND
Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator, Energoatom, on Thursday denied it might shut down a major atomic power plant that lies in Russian-occupied territory if Kyiv loses control of operations at the site, Reuters reports.
The Zaporizhzhia facility in southeast Ukraine is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Russian troops have taken over the plant, but Ukrainian specialists are still running it.
Russian news agency Interfax cited a Ukrainian presidential aide as saying the plant could be shut down if Kyiv lost all control.
But in a statement, Energoatom said the plant “cannot be turned off from a technical, security, economic or political point of view.”
Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator last week dismissed as “physically impossible” the suggestion by a Russian official that the plant would supply Russia with electricity.
A picture taken during a visit to Mariupol organized by the Russian military shows Russian servicemen on guard in front of the main entrance of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar, southeastern Ukraine, 01 May 2022. Photograph: Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA
Um, yuck.
If they wanted to be serious about that, they’d throw Orban’s minions out as well. Because Europe’s institutions haven’t responded strongly enough to the downfall of Hungarian democracy, Putin has his little glove puppet in the heart of both the EU and NATO.
