Speaking of iron and steel…
Sergey Karpushkin, 46, of Miami and a citizen of Belarus, has been arrested and charged by a federal criminal complaint with engaging in a scheme to violate U.S. sanctions against oligarch Sergey Kurchenko and two related companies by purchasing over $150 million in steelmaking materials. Karpushkin’s alleged co-conspirator, John C. Unsalan, 41, of Orlando, was indicted by a federal grand jury for the same scheme on April 12, and was arrested on April 14 on related charges.
According to court documents, Kurchenko was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2015 for his role in misappropriating Ukrainian state assets or economically significant entities. The two sanctioned companies – Kompaniya Gaz-Alyans, OOO (Gaz-Alyans), based in the Russian Federation, and ZAO Vneshtorgservis (Vneshtorgservis), based in the unrecognized territory of South Ossetia – were designated by OFAC in 2018 for acting on behalf of and providing material support to the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in the separatist-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in Kyiv on April 20, 2023 [Alina Yarysh/Reuters]
Surely this made Putin’s day.
The video’s not very effective if you can’t get the play button to work, Guardian. 
Statements like this just incentivizes Russia to keep fighting.
It’s more of an excuse for them to do so, one they’ve always used as a pretext alongside the othes. Putin’s desire to stay in power is what really incentivises Russia to keep fighting.
If Ukraine wins the war it will either join NATO or align itself with NATO. Ukrainian public opinion won’t accept a “neutral” foreign policy, consideration for “Russia’s legitimate security interests” or anything else that smells like Russian interference. Unless Putin is overthrown and replaced by a government that repudiates everything he stood for, Ukrainians will assume that Russia will try again sooner or later.
No, Russia (Putin) cannot withdraw without huge loss of face. There is nothing the West or Ukraine can do to change that. Putin has put himself in a win-or-die situation. Don’t repeat Russian/Fascist talking points.
Only if one of his inner circle told him about it… I suspect they may have chosen to be economical with the truth here. Russians seem to be good at this.
Seems harsh.
This has been going on since early-mid-March, if one of my former students, who was in ROTC and is now a tank Lieutenant stationed in Poland and tasked with training Ukrainians, is to be believed.
Not at all. Standard Fascist propaganda is that Western support just prolongs the war. Like anything we could do would make them change their minds. Again, Russia (or at least Putin, currently tough to tease those apart) is in a win or die situation. We didn’t put them in it, and we can’t do anything about to make it better or worse. Absolutely nothing we do or do not do, or say, will make the Russians fight harder (or more competently.) They are all in at this point.
