Tag: eastern europe

Biden hopes to ease major dispute in Friday meeting with EU chief | CNN Politics

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CNN
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President Joe Biden hopes to ease a serious source of tension with Europe when he meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the White House on Friday, according to officials.

The dispute is technical but highly contentious. It comes at a moment – a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – when unity between the US and its European allies is already being tested.

The quarrel centers on a provision of Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act that offered tax credits for electric vehicles. The law specifies in order to qualify for the credit, the vehicles must source a percentage of the material for their batteries from North America or countries with a free trade agreement with the US – which the EU does not.

The law has infuriated some of the United States’ top allies, like the EU, who say their countries are being penalized. The timing is inopportune, as Biden works to maintain transatlantic unity as the war in Ukraine enters a second year.

In their talks in the Oval Office on Friday, Biden and von der Leyen plan to discuss the matter and announce a new set of negotiations that, if successful, would allow European companies to benefit from the Biden law and reduce both US and EU dependence on China.

They will also discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine, including plans to deeper cooperation on enforcing sanctions against Russia and third-party countries who are supporting Moscow’s invasion. That could soon include China, which US officials have warned is considering providing lethal aid to Russia.

Yet it is the transatlantic economic issues that will form the center of the talks, particularly the disagreement over Biden’s climate law, which European officials have slammed as protectionist.

The potential agreement the two leaders will announce would center on the critical minerals that are necessary for electric vehicle batteries, perhaps unlocking for Europe some of the Inflation Reduction Act’s benefits.

If not resolved, the issue could potentially spiral into competing subsidies that neither side wants, and add to strains caused by the war in Ukraine.

“What we want to do is maximize the amount of deployment, maximize the speed of that deployment, and do so in a way that builds each of our respective industrial bases. That isn’t going to happen if our incentives and their incentives are misaligned, and compete with one another in a zero sum way,” a senior US administration official said ahead of the meeting.

After Biden signed the law last year, European allies reacted harshly, setting off a scramble within the administration to resolve the issues while not angering members of Congress who supported the Made-in-America aspects of the law.

Among the top proponents of the measure: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat whose support is critical for the White House on a number of issues.

Biden’s meeting Friday won’t completely resolve the matter, according to officials, but instead launch a process of arriving at a type of trade agreement that would meet the law’s requirements and allow European companies to help supply battery materials – like lithium and nickel – for electric vehicles.

US officials have been in similar discussions with counterparts from the United Kingdom and Japan to assuage those nations’ similar concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act.

It’s unclear how long the process might take.

“The goal here is to ensure that as we make our investments, as Europe make its investments, that our approaches are communicated, that we’re communicating with one another on our approaches so that we maximize the deployment of clean energy technology over time, and not that those incentives compete with one another,” the official said.

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March 10, 2023
Georgia protests over foreign agents bill continue into second day | CNN

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CNN
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Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the Georgian parliament on Wednesday in the second day of protests in capital city Tbilisi over a draft “foreign agents” bill that critics fear could drive a wedge between the Caucasian nation and Europe.

Protesters could be seen waving the flag of the European Union – which Georgia applied to join last year – and those of the United States and Ukraine, as well as the Georgian flag. Social media videos also showed some protesters throwing stones at the building’s windows and attempting to break a protective barrier, with police deploying water cannon and tear gas.

The controversial bill would require organizations receiving 20 percent or more of their annual income from abroad to register as “foreign agents” or face heavy fines – a proposal that rights experts warn will pose a chilling effect to civil society in the country and damage its democracy.

The ruling Georgian Dream party has said that the bill is modeled on US legislation, Reuters reports. But critics say it evokes a controversial law in neighboring Russia that forms the basis of draconian restrictions and requirements on organizations and individuals with foreign ties.

The bill passed a first reading on Tuesday in the legislature and faces several further steps before becoming law. Its ultimate passage is considered likely, however, as the bill has strong support among lawmakers.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Georgian Interior Ministry called “on the protesters, organizers and political leaders not to go beyond the limits defined by the law on freedom of assembly and expression.”

At least 76 people have been arrested in connection to Tuesday’s protests.

Georgia has long played a delicate balancing act between citizens’ pro-European sentiment and the geopolitical aims of its powerful neighbor, Russia.

But an EU statement Tuesday warned that the law would be “incompatible with EU values and standards” and could have “serious repercussions on our relations.”

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said she believed that the bill “looks very much like Russian politics.”

“There is no need for this law, it comes from nowhere. Nobody has asked for it,” Zourabichvili told CNN’s Isa Soares Wednesday.

Zourabichvili has vowed to veto the bill. But supreme executive power lies with the government headed by Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

Georgia applied for EU membership in March 2022. Though it was not granted candidacy status, the European Council has expressed readiness to grant that status if Georgia implements certain reforms.

“For Georgia, there has been certain conditions that are very much linked to the democratic credentials for democratic reforms,” European Union Vice Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told CNN.

The bloc’s member states have since “had very intense discussions” about Georgia’s candidacy, Šefčovič said, speaking to CNN’s Richard Quest on Wednesday.

The US has said it is “deeply troubled” by the bill, with State Department spokesman Ned Price on Wednesday describing it as “Kremlin-inspired.”

“Parliament’s advancing of these Kremlin-inspired draft laws is incompatible with the people of Georgia’s clear desire for European integration and its democratic development,” Price said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile addressed Georgian protesters directly, thanking them on Wednesday for raising his country’s flag during the demonstrations and wishing them “democratic success.”

“I want to thank everyone who has been holding Ukrainian flags in the squares and streets of Georgia these days,” Zelensky said.

“We want to be in the European Union and we will be. We want Georgia to be in the European Union, and I am sure it will be,” Zelensky added later. “We want Moldova to be in the European Union, and I am sure it will be. All free peoples of Europe deserve this.”

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March 8, 2023
China’s new foreign minister warns of conflict with US, defends Russia ties | CNN

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CNN
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China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned Tuesday that “conflict and confrontation” with the United States is inevitable if Washington does not change course, delivering a stern and wide-ranging rebuke of US policies for his first press conference in the new role.

Qin, who was until recently China’s ambassador to the US, built up a reputation for being careful and accomplished diplomat while overseas.

But he struck a far more combative tone in his first appearance as foreign minister at China’s annual parliamentary meeting, warning of the “catastrophic consequences” of what he described as a “reckless gamble” by Washington in how it treats its fellow superpower.

“If the United States does not hit the brakes, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation,” Qin said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.

At the highly scripted event, Qin set the tone for China’s foreign policy for the coming year and beyond, berating the US for rising bilateral tensions and defending Beijing’s close partnership with Moscow.

Ties between the world’s two largest economies are at their worst in decades, and tensions soared further last month after a suspected Chinese spy balloon floated over North America and was then shot down by US fighter jets.

On Tuesday, Qin accused the US of overreacting in its response, which he said created “a diplomatic crisis that could have been avoided.”

The incident, Qin said, shows “the US perception and views of China are seriously distorted. It regards China as its primary rival and the biggest geopolitical challenge.”

“The US claims it seeks to compete with China but does not seek conflict. But in reality, the so-called ‘competition’ by the US is all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death,” he said.

“Containment and suppression will not make America great, and the US will not stop the rejuvenation of China,” Qin said.

The great power rivalry between the US and China has intensified in recent years.

Under leader Xi Jinping, China has become increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad, taking a more aggressive approach to exert its influence and counter the West.

And Washington has pushed back.

Under the Biden administration, the US has shored up ties with allies and partners to contain Beijing’s rising influence, including in its backyard.

It has also pushed to decouple from China in emerging technologies, recently banning the export of advanced chips to the fury of Beijing.

Qin lashed out at Washington for its Indo-Pacific strategy, accusing it of forming exclusive blocks to provoke confrontation, advocating for decoupling and plotting an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO.”

“The real purpose of the Indo-Pacific strategy is to contain China,” Qin said. “No Cold War should be repeated in Asia, and no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia.”

China’s refusal to condemn Russia for the invasion of Ukraine and its growing partnership with Moscow have further strained its relations with the West. While Beijing has sought to cast itself as a neutral peace broker, it has also defended its “rock-solid” ties with Russia.

On Tuesday Qin said the Sino-Russian relationship “does not pose a threat to any country in the world, nor will it be interfered or sowed discord in by any third party.”

“The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations,” he said.

Qin highlighted the issue of Taiwan as the “bedrock of the political foundation of Sino-US relations and the first red line that must not be crossed.”

The Chinese Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it, and refuses to rule out the use of force to “reunify” it with mainland China.

On Tuesday, Qin urged the US not to “interfere in China’s internal affairs” and questioned Washington’s different responses to the issues of Ukraine and Taiwan.

“Why does the US talk up respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Ukraine issue, but does not respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the issue of Taiwan? Why does the US ask China not to provide weapons to Russia while keeps selling arms to Taiwan?” Qin said.

Qin’s remarks come amid reports of a potential meeting between Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April – a face to face that will most certainly draw the ire of Beijing.

The Financial Times reported Monday that Tsai will meet McCarthy in California, rather than in Taiwan as the US Speaker had initially indicated.

A US State Department spokesperson said Monday he is “not aware of any confirmed travel” by the Taiwanese President.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it had no information to share regarding Tsai’s potential US visit at this point.

Defying Beijing’s threats of retaliation, McCarthy’s Democratic predecessor Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August in the first visit by a US Speaker in 25 years.

Beijing responded by staging unprecedented military exercises around Taiwan and cutting off key lines of communication with the US.

China’s Foreign Ministry has since warned McCarthy not to visit Taiwan.

Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist with the Australia National University’s Taiwan Studies Program, said Tsai’s potential meeting with McCarthy in California is not necessarily a “replacement or downgrade.”

Instead, it could be an “add-on,” he said, suggesting McCarthy could always visit Taiwan at a later date.

While Taiwan wants to normalize high-level visits by American officials to Taiwan, it also needs to be seen by its Western partners that it is being a responsible stakeholder in the process.

“Some may think that there is better timing than this current moment to be pursing another US speaker visit to Taiwan,” Sung said.

A meeting in the US, he added, could serve as “a very visual deliverable in the short term to show continued US support for Taiwan, regardless of change of party leadership in the legislature.”

Tsai has transited in the US before on her visits to Taipei’s diplomatic allies.

She last visited the US in 2019 and gave a speech in New York – a trip that angered Beijing.

To China, Tsai’s potential meeting with McCarthy will be provocative no matter where it takes place, Sung said.

“Beijing is going to be very unhappy and protest vigorously regardless. So I guess for them it will be a difference in intensity, but not a difference in kind. Beijing won’t like any such high level exchange be it taking place on Taiwan or US soil.”

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March 6, 2023
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says Ukraine invasion is a top economic concern | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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The war in Ukraine and US-China relations are two of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s largest economic concerns, he said Monday.

“The thing I worry the most about is Ukraine,” he told Bloomberg Television in an interview Monday morning. “It’s oil, gas, the leadership of the world, and our relationship with China — that is much more serious than the economic vibrations that we all have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began more than a year ago and has roiled the global economy, leading to energy and food price shocks, along with global supply chain disruptions that fueled surging inflation across the world and led to painful interest rate hikes from the world’s central banks.

“This is the most serious geopolitical thing we’ve had to deal with since World War II,” Dimon said Monday, also highlighting the war’s impact on relations with China.

Beijing enjoys a close relationship with Moscow, and the Chinese government has been purchasing Russian energy and supplying machinery, electronics, base metals, vehicles, ships and aircraft, throwing the Kremlin an economic lifeline.

In recent months, tensions between the United States and China have increased as the countries compete for dominance of the microchip industry and argue over tariffs, US support for Taiwan and potential spy balloons.

Dimon said JPMorgan Chase is taking an active role in improving the relationship between the United States and China by advising and engaging with both governments on keeping cordial relations. He’s hoping that “cooler heads prevail” but he doesn’t believe a business solution exists to ease growing disputes. While JPMorgan Chase does a fair share of business with Beijing, it’s the government, not private enterprise, that has to smooth tensions, he said.

“We probably should have started resetting this 10 years ago,” he said. The US government has to sit down and have a “very serious conversation with the Chinese government,” he said.

Dimon added that he believes the war in Ukraine could continue for years to come.

On the home front, Dimon is still holding out hope for the possibility that the Federal Reserve can execute a soft landing — lowering interest rates while avoiding recession. But overall, his outlook remains cloudy.

“A mild recession is possible, a harder recession is possible,” he said Monday. “I think there’s a good chance that inflation will come down, but not enough by the fourth quarter — the Fed may actually have to do more,” he said.

Dimon did note that the US consumer is still very healthy: Home prices and wages are high, households still have more money in their bank accounts than they did before the pandemic and they’re still spending it.

Consumers are in great shape, he said. “But that’s going to end at some point.”

Still, even if America does enter a recession, he said, consumers are much stronger and will be able to better withstand a downturn than they were in 2008.

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March 6, 2023
Fact check: Trump delivers wildly dishonest speech at CPAC | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
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As president, Donald Trump made some of his most thoroughly dishonest speeches at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

As he embarks on another campaign for the presidency, Trump delivered another CPAC doozy Saturday night.

Trump’s lengthy address to the right-wing gathering in Maryland was filled with wildly inaccurate claims about his own presidency, Joe Biden’s presidency, foreign affairs, crime, elections and other subjects.

Here is a fact check of 23 of the false claims Trump made. (And that’s far from the total.)

Crime in Manhattan

While Trump criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has been investigating Trump’s company, he claimed that “killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen, right in Manhattan.”

Facts First: It isn’t even close to true that Manhattan is experiencing a number of killings that nobody has ever seen. The region classified by the New York Police Department as Manhattan North had 43 reported murders in 2022; that region had 379 reported murders in 1990 and 306 murders in 1993. The Manhattan South region had 35 reported murders in 2022 versus 124 reported murders in 1990 and 86 murders in 1993. New York City as a whole is also nowhere near record homicide levels; the city had 438 reported murders in 2022 versus 2,262 in 1990 and 1,927 in 1993.

Manhattan North had just eight reported murders this year through February 19, while Manhattan South had one. The city as a whole had 49 reported murders.

The National Guard and Minnesota

Talking about rioting amid racial justice protests after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Trump claimed he had been ready to send in the National Guard in Seattle, then added, “We saved Minneapolis. The thing is, we’re not supposed to do that. Because it’s up to the governor, the Democrat governor. They never want any help. They don’t mind – it’s almost like they don’t mind to have their cities and states destroyed. There’s something wrong with these people.”

Facts First: This is a reversal of reality. Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, not Trump, was the one who deployed the Minnesota National Guard during the 2020 unrest; Walz first activated the Guard more than seven hours before Trump publicly threatened to deploy the Guard himself. Walz’s office told CNN in 2020 that the governor activated the Guard in response to requests from officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul – cities also run by Democrats.

Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that he was the one who sent the Guard to Minneapolis. You can read a longer fact check, from 2020, here.

Trump’s executive order on monuments

Trump boasted that he had taken effective action as president to stop the destruction of statues and memorials. He claimed: “I passed and signed an executive order. Anybody that does that gets 10 years in jail, with no negotiation – it’s not ’10’ but it turns into three months.” He added: “But we passed it. It was a very old law, and we found it – one of my very good legal people along with [adviser] Stephen Miller, they found it. They said, ‘Sir, I don’t know if you want to try and bring this back.’ I said. ‘I do.’”

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. He did not create a mandatory 10-year sentence for people who damage monuments. In fact, his 2020 executive order did not mandate any increase in sentences.

Rather, the executive order simply directed the attorney general to “prioritize” investigations and prosecutions of monument-destruction cases and declared that it is federal policy to prosecute such cases to the fullest extent permitted under existing law, including an existing law that allowed a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for willfully damaging federal property. The executive order did nothing to force judges to impose a 10-year sentence.

Vandalism in Portland

Trump claimed, “How’s Portland doing? They don’t even have storefronts anymore. Everything’s two-by-four’s because they get burned down every week.”

Facts First: This is a major exaggeration. Portland obviously still has hundreds of active storefronts, though it has struggled with downtown commercial vacancies for various reasons, and some businesses are sometimes vandalized by protesters. Trump has for years exaggerated the extent of property damage from protest vandalism in Portland.

Russian expansionism

Boasting of his foreign policy record, Trump claimed, “I was also the only president where Russia didn’t take over a country during my term.”

Facts First: While it’s true that Russia didn’t take over a country during Trump’s term, it’s not true that he was the only US president under whom Russia didn’t take over a country. “Totally false,” Michael Khodarkovsky, a Loyola University Chicago history professor who is an expert on Russian imperialism, said in an email. “If by Russia he means the current Russian Federation that existed since 1991, then the best example is Clinton, 1992-98. During this time Russia fought a war in Chechnya, but Chechnya was not a country but one of Russia’s regions.”

Khodarkovsky added, “If by Russia he means the USSR, as people often do, then from 1945, when the USSR occupied much of Eastern Europe until 1979, when USSR invaded Afghanistan, Moscow did not take over any new country. It only sent forces into countries it had taken over in 1945 (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968).”

NATO funding

Trump said while talking about NATO funding: “And I told delinquent foreign nations – they were delinquent, they weren’t paying their bills – that if they wanted our protection, they had to pay up, and they had to pay up now.”

Facts First: It’s not true that NATO countries weren’t paying “bills” until Trump came along or that they were “delinquent” in the sense of failing to pay bills – as numerous fact-checkers pointed out when Trump repeatedly used such language during his presidency. NATO members haven’t been failing to pay their share of the organization’s common budget to run the organization. And while it’s true that most NATO countries were not (and still are not) meeting NATO’s target of each country spending a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense, that 2% figure is what NATO calls a “guideline”; it is not some sort of binding contract, and it does not create liabilities. An official NATO recommitment to the 2% guideline in 2014 merely said that members not currently at that level would “aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg did credit Trump for securing increases in European NATO members’ defense spending, but it’s worth noting that those countries’ spending had also increased in the last two years of the Obama administration following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and the recommitment that year to the 2% guideline. NATO notes on its website that 2022 was “the eighth consecutive year of rising defence spending across European Allies and Canada.”

NATO’s existence

Boasting of how he had secured additional funding for NATO from countries, Trump claimed, “Actually, NATO wouldn’t even exist if I didn’t get them to pay up.”

Facts First: This is nonsense.

There was never any indication that NATO, created in 1949, would have ceased to exist in the early 2020s without additional funding from some members. The alliance was stable even with many members not meeting the alliance’s guideline of having members spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.

We don’t often fact-check claims about what might have happened in an alternative scenario, but this Trump claim has no basis in reality. “The quote doesn’t make sense, obviously,” said Erwan Lagadec, research professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and an expert on NATO.

Lagadec noted that NATO has had no trouble getting allies to cover the roughly $3 billion in annual “direct” funding for the organization, which is “peanuts” to this group of countries. And he said that the only NATO member that had given “any sign” in recent years that it was thinking about leaving the alliance “was … the US, under Trump.” Lagadec added that the US leaving the alliance is one scenario that could realistically kill it, but that clearly wasn’t what Trump was talking about in his remarks on spending levels.

James Goldgeier, an American University professor of international relations and Brookings Institution visiting fellow, said in an email: “NATO was founded in 1949, so it seems very clear that Donald Trump had nothing to do with its existence. In fact, the worry was that he would pull the US out of NATO, as his national security adviser warned he would do if he had been reelected.”

The cost of NATO’s headquarters

Trump mocked NATO’s headquarters, saying, “They spent – an office building that cost $3 billion. It’s like a skyscraper in Manhattan laid on its side. It’s one of the longest buildings I’ve ever seen. And I said, ‘You should have – instead of spending $3 billion, you should have spent $500 million building the greatest bunker you’ve ever seen. Because Russia didn’t – wouldn’t even need an airplane attack. One tank one shot through that beautiful glass building and it’s gone.’”

Facts First: NATO did spend a lot of money on its headquarters in Belgium, but Trump’s “$3 billion” figure is a major exaggeration. When Trump used the same inaccurate figure in early 2020, NATO told CNN that the headquarters was actually constructed for a sum under the approved budget of about $1.18 billion euro, which is about $1.3 billion at exchange rates as of Sunday morning.

The Pulitzer Prize

Trump made his usual argument that The Washington Post and The New York Times should not have won a prestigious journalism award, a 2018 Pulitzer Prize, for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election and its connections to Trump’s team. He then said, “And they were exactly wrong. And now they’ve even admitted that it was a hoax. It was a total hoax, and they got the prize.”

Facts First: The Times and Post have not made any sort of “hoax” admission. “The claim is completely false,” Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said in an email on Sunday.

Stadtlander continued: “When our Pulitzer Prize shared with The Washington Post was challenged by the former President, the award was upheld by the Pulitzer Prize Board after an independent review. The board stated that ‘no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.’ The Times’s reporting was also substantiated by the Mueller investigation and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the matter.”

The Post referred CNN to that same July statement from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Awareness of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline

Trump claimed of his opposition to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany: “Nord Stream 2 – Nobody ever heard of it … right? Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2 until I came along. I started talking about Nord Stream 2. I had to go call it ‘the pipeline’ because nobody knew what I was talking about.”

Facts First: This is standard Trump hyperbole; it’s just not true that “nobody” had heard of Nord Stream 2 before he began discussing it. Nord Stream 2 was a regular subject of media, government and diplomatic discussion before Trump took office. In fact, Biden publicly criticized it as vice president in 2016. Trump may well have generated increased US awareness to the controversial project, but “nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2 until I came along” isn’t true.

Trump and Nord Stream 2

Trump claimed, “I got along very well with Putin even though I’m the one that ended his pipeline. Remember they said, ‘Trump is giving a lot to Russia.’ Really? Putin actually said to me, ‘If you’re my friend, I’d hate like hell to see you as my enemy.’ Because I ended the pipeline, right? Do you remember? Nord Stream 2.” He continued, “I ended it. It was dead.”

Facts First: Trump did not kill Nord Stream 2. While he did approve sanctions on companies working on the project, that move came nearly three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already around an estimated 90% complete – and the state-owned Russian gas company behind the project said shortly after the sanctions that it would complete the pipeline itself. The company announced in December 2020 that construction was resuming. And with days left in Trump’s term in January 2021, Germany announced that it had renewed permission for construction in its waters.

The pipeline never began operations; Germany ended up halting the project as Russia was about to invade Ukraine early last year. The pipeline was damaged later in the year in what has been described as an act of sabotage.

The Obama administration and Ukraine

Trump claimed that while he provided lethal assistance to Ukraine, the Obama administration “didn’t want to get involved” and merely “supplied the bedsheets.” He said, “Do you remember? They supplied the bedsheets. And maybe even some pillows from [pillow businessman] Mike [Lindell], who’s sitting right over here. … But they supplied the bedsheets.”

Facts First: This is inaccurate. While it’s true that the Obama administration declined to provide weapons to Ukraine, it provided more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine between 2014 and 2016 that involved far more than bedsheets. The aid included counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars, armored Humvees, tactical drones, night vision devices and medical supplies.

Biden and a Ukrainian prosecutor

Trump claimed that Biden, as vice president, held back a billion dollars from Ukraine until the country fired a prosecutor who was “after Hunter” and a company that was paying him. Trump was referring to Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, who sat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Facts First: This is baseless. There has never been any evidence that Hunter Biden was under investigation by the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who had been widely faulted by Ukrainian anti-corruption activists and European countries for failing to investigate corruption. A former Ukrainian deputy prosecutor and a top anti-corruption activist have both said the Burisma-related investigation was dormant at the time Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin.

Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, told The Washington Post in 2019: “Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate Burisma. And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.” In addition, Shokin’s successor as prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, told Bloomberg in 2019: “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws – at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing.”

Biden, as vice president, was carrying out the policy of the US and its allies, not pursuing his own agenda, in threatening to withhold a billion-dollar US loan guarantee if the Ukrainian government did not sack Shokin. CNN fact-checked Trump’s claims on this subject at length in 2019.

Trump and job creation

Promising to save Americans’ jobs if he is elected again, Trump claimed, “We had the greatest job history of any president ever.”

Facts First: This is false. The US lost about 2.7 million jobs during Trump’s presidency, the worst overall jobs record for any president. The net loss was largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but even Trump’s pre-pandemic jobs record – about 6.7 million jobs added – was far from the greatest of any president ever. The economy added more than 11.5 million jobs in the first term of Democratic President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Tariffs on China

Trump repeated a trade claim he made frequently during his presidency. Speaking of China, he said he “charged them” with tariffs that had the effect of “bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our Treasury from China. Thank you very much, China.” He claimed that he did this even though “no other president had gotten even 10 cents – not one president got anything from them.”

Facts First: As we have written repeatedly, it’s not true that no president before Trump had generated any revenue through tariffs on goods from China. In reality, the US has had tariffs on China for more than two centuries, and FactCheck.org reported in 2019 that the US generated an “average of $12.3 billion in custom duties a year from 2007 to 2016, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission DataWeb.” Also, American importers, not Chinese exporters, make the actual tariff payments – and study after study during Trump’s presidency found that Americans were bearing most of the cost of the tariffs.

The trade deficit with China

Trump went on to repeat a false claim he made more than 100 times as president – that the US used to have a trade deficit with China of more than $500 billion. He claimed it was “five-, six-, seven-hundred billion dollars a year.”

Facts First: The US has never had a $500 billion, $600 billion or $700 billion trade deficit with China even if you only count trade in goods and ignore the services trade in which the US runs a surplus with China. The pre-Trump record for a goods deficit with China was about $367 billion in 2015. The goods deficit hit a new record of about $418 billion under Trump in 2018 before falling back under $400 billion in subsequent years.

Trump and the 2020 election

Trump said people claim they want to run against him even though, he claimed, he won the 2020 election. He said, “I won the second election, OK, won it by a lot. You know, when they say, when they say Biden won, the smart people know that didn’t [happen].”

Facts First: This is Trump’s regular lie. He lost the 2020 election to Biden fair and square, 306 to 232 in the Electoral College. Biden earned more than 7 million more votes than Trump did.

Democrats and elections

Trump said Democrats are only good at “disinformation” and “cheating on elections.”

Facts First: This is nonsense. There is just no basis for a broad claim that Democrats are election cheaters. Election fraud and voter fraud are exceedingly rare in US elections, though such crimes are occasionally committed by officials and supporters of both parties. (We’ll ignore Trump’s subjective claim about “disinformation.”)

The liberation of the ISIS caliphate

Trump repeated his familiar story about how he had supposedly liberated the “caliphate” of terror group ISIS in “three weeks.” This time, he said, “In fact, with the ISIS caliphate, a certain general said it could only be done in three years, ‘and probably it can’t be done at all, sir.’ And I did it in three weeks. I went over to Iraq, met a great general. ‘Sir, I can do it in three weeks.’ You’ve heard that story. ‘I can do it in three weeks, sir.’ ‘How are you going to do that?’ They explained it. I did it in three weeks. I was told it couldn’t be done at all, that it would take at least three years. Did it in three weeks. Knocked out 100% of the ISIS caliphate.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim of eliminating the ISIS caliphate in “three weeks” isn’t true; the ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully liberated more than two years into Trump’s presidency, in 2019. Even if Trump was starting the clock at the time of his visit to Iraq, in late December 2018, the liberation was proclaimed more than two and a half months later. In addition, Trump gave himself far too much credit for the defeat of the caliphate, as he has in the past, when he said “I did it”: Kurdish forces did much of the ground fighting, and there was major progress against the caliphate under President Barack Obama in 2015 and 2016.

IHS Markit, an information company that studied the changing size of the caliphate, reported two days before Trump’s 2017 inauguration that the caliphate shrunk by 23% in 2016 after shrinking by 14% in 2015. “The Islamic State suffered unprecedented territorial losses in 2016, including key areas vital for the group’s governance project,” an analyst there said in a statement at the time.

Military equipment left in Afghanistan

Trump claimed, as he has before, that the US left behind $85 billion worth of military equipment when it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. He said of the leader of the Taliban: “Now he’s got $85 billion worth of our equipment that I bought – $85 billion.” He added later: “The thing that nobody ever talks about, we lost 13 [soldiers], we lost $85 billion worth of the greatest military equipment in the world.”

Facts First: Trump’s $85 billion figure is false. While a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided by the US to Afghan government forces was indeed abandoned to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Defense Department has estimated that this equipment had been worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of about $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And some of the equipment left behind was rendered inoperable before US forces withdrew.

As other fact-checkers have previously explained, the “$85 billion” is a rounded-up figure (it’s closer to $83 billion) for the total amount of money Congress has appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. A minority of this funding was for equipment.

The Afghanistan withdrawal and the F-16

Trump claimed that the Taliban acquired F-16 fighter planes because of the US withdrawal, saying: “They feared the F-16s. And now they own them. Think of it.”

Facts First: This is false. F-16s were not among the equipment abandoned upon the US withdrawal and the collapse of the Afghan armed forces, since the Afghan armed forces did not fly F-16s.

The border wall

Trump claimed that he had kept his promise to complete a wall on the border with Mexico: “As you know, I built hundreds of miles of wall and completed that task as promised. And then I began to add even more in areas that seemed to be allowing a lot of people to come in.”

Facts First: It’s not true that Trump “completed” the border wall. According to an official “Border Wall Status” report written by US Customs and Border Protection two days after Trump left office, about 458 miles of wall had been completed under Trump – but about 280 more miles that had been identified for wall construction had not been completed.

The report, provided to CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, said that, of those 280 miles left to go, about 74 miles were “in the pre-construction phase and have not yet been awarded, in locations where no barriers currently exist,” and that 206 miles were “currently under contract, in place of dilapidated and outdated designs and in locations where no barriers previously existed.”

Latin America and deportations

Trump told his familiar story about how, until he was president, the US was unable to deport MS-13 gang members to other countries, “especially” Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because those countries “didn’t want them.”

Facts First: It’s not true that, as a rule, Guatemala and Honduras wouldn’t take back migrants being deported from the US during Obama’s administration, though there were some individual exceptions.

In 2016, just prior to Trump’s presidency, neither Guatemala nor Honduras was on the list of countries that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considered “recalcitrant,” or uncooperative, in accepting the return of their nationals.

For the 2016 fiscal year, Obama’s last full fiscal year in office, ICE reported that Guatemala and Honduras ranked second and third, behind only Mexico, in terms of the country of citizenship of people being removed from the US. You can read a longer fact check, from 2019, here.

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March 5, 2023
Fact check: Republicans at CPAC make false claims about Biden, Zelensky, the FBI and children | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

The Conservative Political Action Conference is underway in Maryland. And the members of Congress, former government officials and conservative personalities who spoke at the conference on Thursday and Friday made false claims about a variety of topics.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio uttered two false claims about President Joe Biden. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia repeated a debunked claim about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama used two inaccurate statistics as he lamented the state of the country. Former Trump White House official Steve Bannon repeated his regular lie about the 2020 election having been stolen from Trump, this time baselesly blaming Fox for Trump’s defeat.

Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida incorrectly said a former Obama administration official had encouraged people to harass Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina inaccurately claimed Biden had laughed at a grieving mother and inaccurately insinuated that the FBI tipped off the media to its search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence. Two other speakers, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, inflated the number of deaths from fentanyl.

And that’s not all. Here is a fact check of 13 false claims from the conference, which continues on Saturday.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said the Republican Party has a duty to protect children. Listing supposed threats to children, she said, “Now whether it’s like Zelensky saying he wants our sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine…” Later in her speech, she said, “I will look at a camera and directly tell Zelensky: you’d better leave your hands off of our sons and daughters, because they’re not dying over there.”

Facts First: Greene’s claim is false. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t say he wants American sons and daughters to fight or die for Ukraine. The false claim, which was debunked by CNN and others earlier in the week, is based on a viral video that clipped Zelensky’s comments out of context.

19-second video of Zelensky goes viral. See what was edited out

In reality, Zelensky predicted at a press conference in late February that if Ukraine loses the war against Russia because it does not receive sufficient support from elsewhere, Russia will proceed to enter North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries in the Baltics (a region made up of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) that the US will be obligated to send troops to defend. Under the treaty that governs NATO, an attack on one member is considered an attack on all. Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Zelensky didn’t say Americans should fight there.

Greene is one of the people who shared the out-of-context video on Twitter this week. You can read a full fact-check, with Zelensky’s complete quote, here.

Right-wing commentator and former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon criticized right-wing cable channel Fox at length for, he argued, being insufficiently supportive of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Among other things, Bannon claimed that, on the night of the election in November 2020, “Fox News illegitimately called it for the opposition and not Donald J. Trump, of which our nation has never recovered.” Later, he said Trump is running again after “having it stolen, in broad daylight, of which they [Fox] participate in.”

Facts First: This is nonsense. On election night in 2020, Fox accurately projected that Biden had won the state of Arizona. This projection did not change the outcome of the election; all of the votes are counted regardless of what media outlets have projected, and the counting showed that Biden won Arizona, and the election, fair and square. The 2020 election was not “stolen” from Trump.

Bannon has a harsh message for Fox News at CPAC

Fox, like other major media outlets, did not project that Biden had won the presidency until four days later. Fox personalities went on to repeatedly promote lies that the election was stolen from Trump – even as they privately dismissed and mocked these false claims, according to court filings from a voting technology company that is suing Fox for defamation.

Rep. Jim Jordan claimed that Biden, “on day one,” made “three key changes” to immigration policy. Jordan said one of those changes was this: “We’re not going to deport anyone who come.” He proceeded to argue that people knowing “we’re not going to get deported” was a reason they decided to migrate to the US under Biden.

Facts First: Jordan inaccurately described the 100-day deportation pause that Biden attempted to impose immediately after he took office on January 20, 2021. The policy did not say the US wouldn’t deport “anyone who comes.” It explicitly did not apply to anyone who arrived in the country after the end of October 2020, meaning people who arrived under the Biden administration or in the last months of the Trump administration could still be deported.

Biden did say during the 2020 Democratic primary that “no one, no one will be deported at all” in his first 100 days as president. But Jordan claimed that this was the policy Biden actually implemented on his first day in office; Biden’s actual first-day policy was considerably narrower.

Biden’s attempted 100-day pause also did not apply to people who engaged in or were suspected of terrorism or espionage, were seen to pose a national security risk, had waived their right to remain in the US, or whom the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined the law required to be removed.

The pause was supposed to be in effect while the Department of Homeland Security conducted a review of immigration enforcement practices, but it was blocked by a federal judge shortly after it was announced.

Rep. Ralph Norman strongly suggested the FBI had tipped off the media to its August search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and resort in Florida for government documents in the former president’s possession – while concealing its subsequent document searches of properties connected to Biden.

Norman said: “When I saw the raid at Mar-a-Lago – you know, the cameras, the FBI – and compare that to when they found Biden’s, all of the documents he had, where was the media, where was the FBI? They kept it quiet early on, didn’t let it out. The job of the next president is going to be getting rid of the insiders that are undermining this government, and you’ve gotta clean house.”

Facts First: Norman’s narrative is false. The FBI did not tip off the media to its search of Mar-a-Lago; CNN reported the next day that the search “happened so quietly, so secretly, that it wasn’t caught on camera at all.” Rather, media outlets belatedly sent cameras to Mar-a-Lago because Peter Schorsch, publisher of the website Florida Politics, learned of the search from non-FBI sources and tweeted about it either after it was over or as it was just concluding, and because Trump himself made a public statement less than 20 minutes later confirming that a search had occurred. Schorsch told CNN on Thursday: “I can, unequivocally, state that the FBI was not one of my two sources which alerted me to the raid.”

Brian Stelter, then CNN’s chief media correspondent, wrote in his article the day after the search: “By the time local TV news cameras showed up outside the club, there was almost nothing to see. Websites used file photos of the Florida resort since there were no dramatic shots of the search.”

It’s true that the public didn’t find out until late January about the FBI’s November search of Biden’s former think tank office in Washington, which was conducted with the consent of Biden’s legal team. But the belated presence of journalists at Mar-a-Lago on the day of the Trump search in August is not evidence of a double standard.

And it’s worth noting that media cameras were on the scene when Biden’s beach home in Delaware was searched by the FBI in February. News outlets had set up a media “pool” to make sure any search there was recorded.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a former college and high school football coach, said, “Going into thousands of kids’ homes and talking to parents every year recruiting, half the kids in this country – I’m not talking about race, I’m just talking about – half the kids in this country have one or no parent. And it’s because of the attack on faith. People are losing faith because, for some reason, because the attack [on] God.”

Facts First: Tuberville’s claim that half of American children don’t have two parents is incorrect. Official figures from the Census Bureau show that, in 2021, about 70% of US children under the age of 18 lived with two parents and about 65% lived with two married parents.

About 22% of children lived with only a mother, about 5% with only a father, and about 3% with no parent. But the Census Bureau has explained that even children who are listed as living with only one parent may have a second parent; children are listed as living with only one parent if, for example, one parent is deployed overseas with the military or if their divorced parents share custody of them.

It is true that the percentage of US children living in households with two parents has been declining for decades. Still, Tuberville’s statistic significantly exaggerated the current situation. His spokesperson told CNN on Thursday that the senator was speaking “anecdotally” from his personal experience meeting with families as a football coach.

Tuberville claimed that today’s children are being “indoctrinated” in schools by “woke” ideology and critical race theory. He then said, “We don’t teach reading, writing and arithmetic anymore. You know, half the kids in this country, when they graduate – think about this: half the kids in this country, when they graduate, can’t read their diploma.”

Facts First: This is false. While many Americans do struggle with reading, there is no basis for the claim that “half” of high school graduates can’t read a basic document like a diploma. “Mr. Tuberville does not know what he’s talking about at all,” said Patricia Edwards, a Michigan State University professor of language and literacy who is a past president of the International Literacy Association and the Literacy Research Association. Edwards said there is “no evidence” to support Tuberville’s claim. She also said that people who can’t read at all are highly unlikely to finish high school and that “sometimes politicians embellish information.”

Tuberville could have accurately said that a significant number of American teenagers and adults have reading trouble, though there is no apparent basis for connecting these struggles with supposed “woke” indoctrination. The organization ProLiteracy pointed CNN to 2017 data that found 23% of Americans age 16 to 65 have “low” literacy skills in English. That’s not “half,” as ProLiteracy pointed out, and it includes people who didn’t graduate from high school and people who are able to read basic text but struggle with more complex literacy tasks.

The Tuberville spokesperson said the senator was speaking informally after having been briefed on other statistics about Americans’ struggles with reading, like a report that half of adults can’t read a book written at an eighth-grade level.

Rep. Jim Jordan claimed of Biden: “The president of the United States stood in front of Independence Hall, called half the country fascists.”

Facts First: This is not true. Biden did not denounce even close to “half the country” in this 2022 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He made clear that he was speaking about a minority of Republicans.

In the speech, in which he never used the word “fascists,” Biden warned that “MAGA Republicans” like Trump are “extreme,” “do not respect the Constitution” and “do not believe in the rule of law.” But he also emphasized that “not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans.” In other words, he made clear that he was talking about far less than half of Americans.

Trump earned fewer than 75 million votes in 2020 in a country of more than 258 million adults, so even a hypothetical criticism of every single Trump voter would not amount to criticism of “half the country.”

Rep. Scott Perry claimed that “average citizens need to just at some point be willing to acknowledge and accept that every single facet of the federal government is weaponized against every single one of us.” Perry said moments later, “The government doesn’t have the right to tell you that you can’t buy a gas stove but that you must buy an electric vehicle.”

Facts First: This is nonsense. The federal government has not told people that they can’t buy a gas stove or must buy an electric vehicle.

The Biden administration has tried to encourage and incentivize the adoption of electric vehicles, but it has not tried to forbid the manufacture or purchase of traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines. Biden has set a goal of electric vehicles making up half of all new vehicles sold in the US by 2030.

There was a January controversy about a Biden appointee to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, Richard Trumka Jr., saying that gas stoves pose a “hidden hazard,” as they emit air pollutants, and that “any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” But the commission as a whole has not shown support for a ban, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a January press briefing: “The president does not support banning gas stoves. And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.”

Rep. Ralph Norman claimed that Biden had just laughed at a mother who lost two sons to fentanyl.

“I don’t know whether y’all saw, I just saw it this morning: Biden laughing at the mother who had two sons – to die, and he’s basically laughing and saying the fentanyl came from the previous administration. Who cares where it came from? The fact is it’s here,” Norman said.

Facts First: Norman’s claim is false. Biden did not laugh at the mother who lost her sons to fentanyl, the anti-abortion activist Rebecca Kiessling; in a somber tone, he called her “a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl.” Rather, he proceeded to laugh about how Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had baselessly blamed the Biden administration for the young men’s deaths even though the tragedy happened in mid-2020, during the Trump administration. You can watch the video of Biden’s remarks here.

Kiessling has demanded an apology from Biden. She is entitled to her criticism of Biden’s remarks and his chuckle – but the video clearly shows Norman was wrong when he claimed Biden was “laughing at the mother.”

Rep. Kat Cammack told a story about the first hearing of the new Republican-led House select subcommittee on the supposed “weaponization” of the federal government. Cammack claimed she had asked a Democratic witness at this February hearing about his “incredibly vitriolic” Twitter feed in which, she claimed, he not only repeatedly criticized Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh but even went “so far as to encourage people to harass this Supreme Court justice.”

Facts First: This story is false. The witness Cammack questioned in this February exchange at the subcommittee, former Obama administration deputy assistant attorney general Elliot Williams, did not encourage people to harass Kavanaugh. In fact, it’s not even true that Cammack accused him at the February hearing of having encouraged people to harass Kavanaugh. Rather, at the hearing, she merely claimed that Williams had tweeted numerous critical tweets about Kavanaugh but had been “unusually quiet” on Twitter after an alleged assassination attempt against the justice. Clearly, not tweeting about the incident is not the same thing as encouraging harassment.

Williams, now a CNN legal analyst (he appeared at the subcommittee hearing in his personal capacity), said in a Thursday email that he had “no idea” what Cammack was looking at on his innocuous Twitter feed. He said: “I used to prosecute violent crimes, and clerked for two federal judges. Any suggestion that I’ve ever encouraged harassment of anyone – and particularly any official of the United States – is insulting and not based in reality.”

Cammack’s spokesperson responded helpfully on Thursday to CNN’s initial queries about the story Cammack told at CPAC, explaining that she was referring to her February exchange with Williams. But the spokesperson stopped responding after CNN asked if Cammack was accurately describing this exchange with Williams and if they had any evidence of Williams actually having encouraged the harassment of Kavanaugh.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana boasted about the state of the country “when Republicans were in charge.” Among other claims about Trump’s tenure, he said that “in four years,” Republicans “delivered 3.5% unemployment” and “created 8 million new jobs.”

Facts First: This is inaccurate in two ways. First, the economic numbers for the full “four years” of Trump’s tenure are much worse than these numbers Kennedy cited; Kennedy was actually referring to Trump’s first three years while ignoring the fourth, which was marred by the Covid-19 pandemic. Second, there weren’t “8 million new jobs” created even in Trump’s first three years.

Kennedy could have correctly said there was a 3.5% unemployment rate after three years of the Trump administration, but not after four. The unemployment rate skyrocketed early in Trump’s fourth year, on account of the pandemic, before coming down again, and it was 6.3% when Trump left office in early 2021. (It fell to 3.4% this January under Biden, better than in any month under Trump.)

And while the economy added about 6.7 million jobs under Trump before the pandemic-related crash of March and April 2020, that’s not the “8 million jobs” Kennedy claimed – and the economy ended up shedding millions of jobs in Trump’s fourth year. Over the full four years of Trump’s tenure, the economy netted a loss of about 2.7 million jobs.

Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and an adviser to his 2020 campaign, claimed that the last time a CPAC crowd was gathered at this venue in Maryland, in February 2020, “We had the lowest unemployment in American history.” After making other boasts about Donald Trump’s presidency, she said, “But how quickly it all changed.” She added, “Under Joe Biden, America is crumbling.”

Facts First: Lara Trump’s claim about February 2020 having “the lowest unemployment in American history” is false. The unemployment rate was 3.5% at the time – tied for the lowest since 1969, but not the all-time lowest on record, which was 2.5% in 1953. And while Lara Trump didn’t make an explicit claim about unemployment under Biden, it’s not true that things are worse today on this measure; again, the most recent unemployment rate, 3.4% for January 2023, is better than the rate at the time of CPAC’s 2020 conference or at any other time during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Multiple speakers at CPAC decried the high number of fentanyl overdose deaths. But some of the speakers inflated that number while attacking Biden’s immigration policy.

Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration official, claimed that “in the last 12 months in America, deaths by fentanyl poisoning totaled 110,000 Americans.” He blamed “Biden’s open border” for these deaths.

Rep. Scott Perry claimed: “Meanwhile over on this side of the border, where there isn’t anybody, they’re running this fentanyl in; it’s killing 100,000 Americans – over 100,000 Americans – a year.”

Facts First: It’s not true that there are more than 100,000 fentanyl deaths per year. That is the total number of deaths from all drug overdoses in the US; there were 106,699 such deaths in 2021. But the number of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, primarily fentanyl, is smaller – 70,601 in 2021.

Fentanyl-related overdoses are clearly a major problem for the country and by far the biggest single contributor to the broader overdose problem. Nonetheless, claims of “110,000” and “over 100,000” fentanyl deaths per year are significant exaggerations. And while the number of overdose deaths and fentanyl-related deaths increased under Biden in 2021, it was also troubling under Trump in 2020 – 91,799 total overdose deaths and 56,516 for synthetic opioids other than methadone.

It’s also worth noting that fentanyl is largely smuggled in by US citizens through legal ports of entry rather than by migrants sneaking past other parts of the border. Contrary to frequent Republican claims, the border is not “open”; border officers have seized thousands of pounds of fentanyl under Biden.

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March 4, 2023
‘We will not stop fighting’: Daughter of imprisoned Putin critic Alexey Navalny speaks out | CNN

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Editor’s Note: The CNN film “Navalny” premiered in April 2022 and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary Feature. It is streaming on HBO Max, which is owned by CNN’s parent company.

CNN
—

Dasha Navalnaya, the daughter of jailed Russian dissident Alexey Navalny, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine and to release her father and political prisoners in the country, in an extensive interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday.

“We will not stop fighting” until both of those goals are achieved, Navalnaya said.

Her father Navalny – an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and its war in Ukraine – is currently serving a nine-year jail term at a maximum-security prison east of Moscow after being convicted of large-scale fraud by a Russian court last year.

He was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in 2020, an attack several Western officials and Navalny himself openly blamed on the Kremlin. Russia has denied any involvement.

After several months in Germany recovering from the poisoning, Navalny returned to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed from a 2014 embezzlement case that he said was politically motivated.

He was initially sentenced to two-and-a-half years, and then later given nine years over separate allegations that he stole from his anti-corruption foundation.

Navalny, who previously ran for political office in Russia, has long been a thorn in the side of the Kremlin.

Dasha said the “main goal” of her father’s work and anti-corruption foundation “is for Russia to become a free state, to have open elections, to have freedom of press, freedom of speech, and just you know, to have the opportunity to become a part of the normal Western democratized community.”

She described the experience of growing up in a family watched closely by the government, telling Burnett that she and her brother made a game out of trying to evade spies on public transport in Russia.

“We would look around the train and then start chatting with the guy who had the worst camouflage outfit and the black cap and the weird strappy bag on the side, and we would jump out – not out of the train but out of the the subway car,” she said.

But Navalnaya also voiced escalating concern about her father’s prison conditions now, saying that her family has had limited access to Navalny and that his attorneys are able to see him only “through a guarded veil.”

“So we can’t really know for sure his health circumstance and he hasn’t seen his family in over half a year,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in person in over a year and it’s quite concerning considering his health is getting worse and worse.”

Concerns about Navalny’s health have persisted for months. Footage during his sentencing last year showed Navalny as a gaunt figure standing beside his lawyers in a room filled with security officials.

Navalny himself has tweeted about difficult conditions in confinement, saying in November that he had been isolated from other prisoners in what he described as a move designed to “shut me up.” Inmates in Russian penal colonies are typically housed in barracks rather than cells, according to a report by Poland-based think tank the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW).

The “real indescribable bestiality” of his incarceration, however, was limitations on visits with family, he said at the time.

Navalny’s poisoning and subsequent legal problems drew intense interest from the Russian public and abroad. Russia witnessed large-scale anti-government protests in towns and cities across the country after his arrest, with authorities detaining around 11,000 demonstrators within a few weeks.

In June last year, Navalny was transferred from a penal colony in Pokrov to a maximum-security prison in Melekhovo in Russia’s Vladimir region.

Throughout his incarceration, Navalny has nevertheless vociferously denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine via social media, advocating anti-war protests across the country as “the backbone of the movement against war and death.”

In a tweet thread about his prison conditions last year, he vowed to continue speaking out.

“So what’s my first duty? That’s right, to not be afraid and not shut up,” he wrote, urging others to do the same. “At every opportunity, campaign against the war, Putin and United Russia. Hugs to you all.”

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March 3, 2023
2 Americans arrested for allegedly sending aviation technology to Russia | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Two US nationals were arrested in Kansas City on Thursday for allegedly sending US aviation technology to Russia, the Justice Department announced.

Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, 59, and Douglas Robertson, 55, are facing several charges, including exporting controlled goods without a license, falsifying and failing to file electronic export information, and smuggling goods contrary to US law.

Their arrest is the most recent move by the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, made up of federal prosecutors, investigators and analysts, which has worked for the past year to wage a global campaign against money laundering and sanctions evasion in support of the Russian government. Its work has resulted in over 30 indictments against sanctioned supporters of the Kremlin and Russian military, according to the Justice Department.

The two men’s US-based KanRus Trading Company sold and installed Western electronic equipment for airplanes, according to prosecutors, and allegedly sold equipment to Russian companies and provided repair services for Russian aircrafts. To get around US sanctions, prosecutors say Buyanovsky and Robertson concealed who their clients were, lied about how much products cost and were paid through foreign bank accounts.

After Russia’s war in Ukraine began last year, the US government imposed additional sanctions on shipments to Russia. Buyanovsky and Robertson discussed their options for continuing to send shipments to at least one client in Russia, prosecutors say, including by sending shipments through third-party countries.

A KanRus shipment in February 2022 was flagged by the Department of Commerce because it did not have the proper licensing, according to the indictment.

Soon after, Robertson, who is a commercial pilot, allegedly told a Russia-based client that “things are complicated in the USA” and that invoices needed to be less than $50,000 because otherwise there would be “more paperwork and visibility,” adding that “this is NOT the right time for either.” A shipment to that Russian client was later sent through Laos, prosecutors say.

Lawyers for Buyanovsky and Robertson are not yet listed.

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March 3, 2023
Grand test for Indian diplomacy as American, Chinese and Russian ministers meet in Delhi | CNN

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New Delhi
CNN
—

Foreign ministers from the world’s biggest economies convened in New Delhi Thursday in what was seen as a grand test for Indian diplomacy, which ultimately didn’t succeed in reaching a consensus because of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In the second high-level ministerial meeting under India’s Group of 20 (G20) presidency this year, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, met his American, Chinese and Russian counterparts, hoping to find enough common ground to deliver a joint statement at the end of the summit.

But amid festering divisions over Moscow’s war, New Delhi was unable to convince the leaders to put their differences aside, with Jaishankar admitting the conflict had struggled to unite the group.

India, the world’s largest democracy with a population of more than 1.3 billion, has been keen to position itself as a leader of emerging and developing nations – often referred to as the Global South – at a time when soaring food and energy prices as a result of the war are hammering consumers already grappling with rising costs and inflation.

Those sentiments were front and center during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s opening remarks earlier Thursday, when he spoke of multiples crises the world faces, with less wealthy nations hit especially hard.

“The experience of the last few years, the financial crisis, climate change, the pandemic, terrorism and wars clearly shows that global governance has failed,” Modi said.

“We must also admit that the tragic consequences of this failure are being faced most over by the developing countries,” who he says are most affected by global warming “caused by richer countries”.

Eluding to the war in Ukraine, Modi acknowledged the conflict was causing “deep global divisions.” But he encouraged the foreign ministers to put differences aside during their meeting Thursday.

“We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the summit, according to a State Department official traveling with Blinken.

Blinken and Lavrov spoke for roughly 10 minutes, the same official said.

Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed to CNN that the meeting took place but played down its significance.

“Blinken asked for contact with Lavrov. On the go, as part of the second session of the twenty, Sergey Viktorovich (Lavrov) talked. There were no negotiations, meetings, etc,” she said.

Deep disagreements over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine played out in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru last month as well, when G20 finance chiefs failed to agree on a statement after their meeting.

Both Russia and China declined to sign the joint statement, which criticized Moscow’s invasion. That left India to issue a “chair’s summary and outcome document” in which it summed up the two days of talks and acknowledged disagreements.

Analysts say that throughout the war New Delhi has deftly balanced its ties to Russia and the West, with Modi emerging as a leader who has been courted by all sides.

But as the war enters its second year, and tensions continue to rise, pressure could mount on countries, including India, to take a firmer stand against Russia – putting Modi’s statecraft to the test.

Arguably India’s most celebrated event of the year, the G20 summit has been heavily promoted domestically, with sprawling billboards featuring Modi’s face plastered across the country. Roads have been cleaned and buildings freshly painted ahead of the dignitaries’ visit.

Taking place in the “mother of democracies” under Modi’s leadership, his political allies have been keen to push his international credentials, portraying him as a key player in the global order.

Last year’s G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, Indonesia, issued a joint declaration that echoed what Modi had told Russian President Vladimir Putin weeks earlier on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan.

“Today’s era must not be of war,” it said, prompting media and officials in India to claim India had played a vital role in bridging differences between an isolated Russia and the United States and its allies.

India, analysts say, prides itself on its ability to balance relations. The country, like China, has refused to condemn Moscow’s brutal assault on Ukraine in various United Nations resolutions. Rather than cutting economic ties with the Kremlin, India has undermined Western sanctions by increasing its purchases of Russian oil, coal and fertilizer.

But unlike China, India has grown closer to the West – particularly the US – despite ties with Russia.

New Delhi’s ties with Moscow date back to the Cold War, and the country remains heavily reliant on the Kremlin for military equipment – a vital link given India’s ongoing tensions with China at its shared Himalayan border.

The US and India have taken steps in recent months to strengthen their defense partnership, as the two sides attempt to counter the rise of an increasingly assertive China.

Daniel Markey, senior adviser, South Asia, for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), said while India’s leaders “would like to facilitate an end to this conflict that preserves New Delhi’s relations with both Washington and Moscow and ends the disruption of the global economy,” India did not have “any particular leverage” with Russia or Ukraine that would make a settlement likely.

“I believe that other world leaders are equally interested in playing a peace-making diplomatic role. So when and if Putin wishes to come to the table to negotiate, he will have no shortage of diplomats hoping to help,” he said.

Still, as Putin’s aggression continues to throw the global economy into chaos, India has signaled an intention to raise the many concerns faced by the global South, including climate challenges and food and energy security, according to Modi’s opening speech earlier Thursday.

“The world looks upon the G20 to ease the challenges of growth, development, economic resilience, disaster resilience, financial stability, transnational crime, corruption, terrorism, and food and energy security,” Modi said.

While Modi’s government appears keen to prioritize domestic challenges, experts say these issues could be sidelined by the tensions between the US, Russia and China, which have increased recently over concerns from Washington that Beijing is considering sending lethal aid to the Kremlin’s struggling war effort.

Speaking to reporters last week, Ramin Toloui, the US assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, said while Secretary of State Antony Blinken would highlight its efforts to address food and energy security issues, he would also “underscore the damage that Russia’s war of aggression has caused.”

Blinken will “encourage all G20 partners to redouble their calls for a just, peaceful, and lasting end to the Kremlin’s war consistent with UN Charter principles,” Toloui said.

At the same time, Russia in a statement Wednesday accused the US and the European Union of “terrorism,” stating it was “set to clearly state Russia’s assessments” of the current food and energy crisis.

“We will draw attention to the destructive barriers that the West is multiplying exponentially to block the export of goods that are of critical importance to the global economy, including energy sources and agricultural products,” Russia said, hinting at the difficulties New Delhi might face during the meeting.

India has “worked very hard not to be boxed into one side or the other,” Markey said. The country could not “afford to alienate Russia or the US and Modi doesn’t want discussion of the war to force any difficult decisions or to distract from other issues, like green, sustainable economic development,” he added.

But with plummeting ties between Washington and Beijing after the US military shot down what it says was a Chinese spy balloon that flew over American territory, New Delhi will have to carefully drive difficult negotiations between conflicting viewpoints.

China maintains the balloon, which US forces downed in February, was a civilian research aircraft accidentally blown off course, and the fallout led Blinken to postpone a planned visit to Beijing.

As differences played out during the ministerial meeting Thursday, analysts say while India will be disappointed at the outcome, they were in a very difficult position to begin with.

“It will be a disappointment for Modi, but not one that cannot be managed,” Markey said. “Nor would it be India’s fault, as it would primarily be a reflection of the underlying differences over which Modi has very little control.”

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March 2, 2023
World’s biggest plane flies again in Microsoft Flight Simulator | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations opening and closing, inspiration for future adventures, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.

CNN
—

A year after it was destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Antonov AN-225 – the world’s biggest commercial plane – has taken flight once again in the Microsoft Flight Simulator program.

The game has already resurrected lots of historical aircraft in its virtual skies, but this one’s a little special. All proceeds from the $19.99 add-on go toward the Antonov Company’s real-life efforts to reconstruct the mighty beast known as “Mriya” (Ukrainian for “dream”).

The massive six-engine craft – some 275 feet, 7 inches in length – was built in the 1980s to carry the Soviet space shuttle and was the only one of its kind ever completed.

Mriya’s next role was as the world’s largest cargo transporter, boasting twice the hold capacity of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Its wingspan was 290 feet, the longest of any fully operational aircraft, and with a maximum payload weight of 250 tonnes, it remains the heaviest aircraft ever built.

The Antonov AN-225 was destroyed at its base in Hostomel, near Kyiv, in February 2022, but in November last year its manufacturers confirmed that the rebuilding project had begun. Antonov estimated that it would need more than €500 million ($532 million) to get it back in the air.

“The process of rebuilding ‘Mriya’ is considered as an international project, with the participation of aviation enterprises of different countries of the world,” the Antonov Company told CNN via email at the time.

“The possibility of attracting funding from various sources is being considered and proposals from many organizations that are ready to join the project are being reviewed.”

The Microsoft Flight Simulator version of the Antonov AN-225 Mriya comes in six liveries, including classic Antonov Airlines designs and an Xbox Aviators Club one.

The add-on is available now in the Microsoft Flight Simulator in-game marketplace on PC for $19.99 and will be available for Xbox Series X|S and on Xbox Cloud Gaming starting in late March.

The much-loved flight simulator game celebrated its 40th anniversary in November 2022, having gone through a major reboot in 2020 when it returned with hyper-realistic scenery, digitally distilled from satellite imagery.

In-game pilots can explore the world, flying over a range of 1.5 billion buildings, two million cities, and stopping in at more than 37,000 airports. That’s in real-world conditions too, day or night: the program features live real-time weather including wind speed and direction, temperature, lighting, humidity and rain.

Individualized instrument guidance and checklists are available for the wide variety of aircraft pilots can test their skills in, from light aircraft to commercial jets.

Mriya fans can also support the rebuild efforts by building their own models of the iconic craft. Ukrainian startup Metal Time is selling working mechanical design kits of the AN-225 for $99.

Profits go straight to Antonov to fund the reconstruction, as well as the rehousing of Antonov employees whose homes have been destroyed by the Russian invasion, and training for new Ukrainian pilots and aviation engineers.

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March 2, 2023
Opinion: The other nuclear threat you might have missed from Putin’s speech | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Marion Messmer is a senior research fellow in the International Security Programme at think tank Chatham House. Her focus is on arms control, nuclear weapons policy issues and Russia-NATO relations. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN
—

Easy to miss in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech to parliament last week was a glancing reference to the possibility of Russia resuming nuclear testing.

In a surprise move, Putin said that Russia was ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the US conducted one first.

While most of the media focus has been on Russia suspending its participation in the New START nuclear arms treaty, this announcement was just as significant, with potentially devastating consequences.

It would signify a further step towards escalation in Ukraine by demonstrating Russia’s intent to use nuclear weapons and could begin another, more devastating, nuclear arms race.

Neither Russia nor the US have conducted a nuclear weapons test since the early 1990s – soon after that, they negotiated the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva – and although both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, only North Korea has continued to test nuclear warheads since.

If Russia were to resume tests, other nuclear armed states might follow. North Korea would certainly take this as carte blanche for further tests and there would be concern in the US about potentially falling behind Russia in the development of new nuclear capabilities. All potentially leading to a new arms racing dynamic.

The US has no reason or intention to resume such tests. But by inserting this into his ‘State of the Nation’ speech, Putin appears to be creating a false narrative that the US is working towards a nuclear weapons test to justify Russia breaking the CTBT and once again conducting its own tests.

Indeed, the Russian news agency TASS reported in early February, days before Putin’s speech, that the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site is ready to resume if needed.

Firstly, as a signal of intent to ride roughshod over all nuclear agreements, demonstrating its capability and resolve – domestically and internationally – to use nuclear weapons.

And secondly, because Russia is developing new nuclear capabilities and has insufficient data without new warhead tests.

Neither reason is comforting. A Russian nuclear weapons test would shatter several decades of international agreements and any sense of certainty in non-proliferation efforts. The CTBT underpins the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by creating a credible premise that states will reduce their nuclear arsenals over time rather than continuing to expand.

It would foment concerns in other nuclear-armed states that Russia can gain valuable insights from test data which they are currently missing out on.

This could lead to more states testing as they modernize their arsenals. In the US, some political figures would be likely to call for nuclear weapons tests, not wanting to be outdone by Russia or fall behind. A new nuclear arms race would emerge with several nuclear powers competing, amid few remaining treaty constraints.

By abandoning the CTBT and expanding its nuclear arsenals, Russia and any other states joining in a new series of tests would seriously damage the NPT. It is hard to see how it could recover from such a drastic departure of its central promise – that the five Nuclear-Weapon States will reduce their reliance on nuclear weapons – resulting in complete and irreversible disarmament.

It would also increase the potential of other states pursuing nuclear weapons again. South Korea has already hinted several times this year at investing in a nuclear program if the threat from North Korea does not diminish. A return to a global nuclear arms race may push them over the edge.

Nuclear testing could also be read as a signal of further escalation, demonstrating Russia’s resolve to use nuclear weapons in war or an escalation of the conflict between Russia and NATO. It would mean a step change from Putin’s rhetorical threats, to a dangerous reality which could easily spin out of control.

A Russian nuclear weapons test would not come out of the blue. Intelligence services would be able to see preparations ahead of time. The US and the UK have been sharing regular defense intelligence updates since before the invasion of Ukraine, to signal to Russia that its motives are transparent and to help allies coordinate. They could use this same mechanism to draw attention to an upcoming test and to try to prevent it.

In such an event, the international community should work together to impress upon Russia its seriousness and coherence against a nuclear weapons test.

A Russian nuclear weapons test would not come out of the blue. Intelligence services would be able to see preparations ahead of time.

Marion Messmer

The response should be to immediately increase sanctions until Russia reverses any test preparations. The European Union should act more quickly on sanctions than it has previously. Knowing the risks, other states who so far have avoided taking a position might switch and join the transatlantic pressure on Russia.

China and India have a key role to play. So far, they have taken an ambivalent stance on Ukraine, abstaining on UN votes and refusing to condemn Russia outwardly. However, they have criticized its nuclear threats.

China has shown that it is not comfortable with such nuclear brinksmanship and equally does not want to see Russia or the US investing in expansion and development of their arsenals. Seeing such test preparations could see China threaten to withdraw its political and economic support for Russia, which would be a heavy blow to Putin’s military ambitions.

By conducting a nuclear weapons test, Putin may well want to frighten Western states into no longer supporting Ukraine. However, it is far more likely that NATO member-states, worried about escalation, would simply double down on their support.

There are no good options in this scenario: a conventional response from NATO might also be an escalation. A change in nuclear alert levels would send a strong signal to Russia but could also provoke further escalation.

A new nuclear arms race would look different from that of the Cold War. It would no longer be largely a race between Russia and the US and would certainly include China – and have other regional nuclear dynamics implications.

In case of a Russian nuclear test, all other nuclear-armed states (with the exception of North Korea which would be unlikely to join) would need to stand together against nuclear testing and work to bring Russia back into compliance.

History has several examples where the world came close to a devastating nuclear war and was saved by good fortune. Relying on good luck is not a great strategy, especially in such a complex and tense situation.

Adding an increasingly isolated Russia, with a president who makes decisions without the potentially tempering input of other senior officials, is a set up for disaster.

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March 2, 2023
Putin ally Lukashenko and Chinese leader Xi Jinping vow to deepen defense ties | CNN

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Hong Kong
CNN
—

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko – a close ally of Vladimir Putin – vowed to deepen defense and security ties and expressed shared views on the war in Ukraine during a Wednesday meeting in Beijing, as geopolitical tensions around Russia’s war continue to rise.

Lukashenko endorsed China’s recent position on a “political solution” to the conflict, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry readout of the meeting, referring to a statement released by Beijing last week which called for peace talks to end the conflict, but did not push for a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine – drawing skepticism from Western leaders.

Both Xi and Lukashenko expressed “deep concern over the prolonged armed conflict” and looked forward to an “early return to peace in Ukraine,” according to a joint statement following their sit down in the Great Hall of the People, where Xi greeted Lukashenko in a ceremony alongside a phalanx of Chinese troops.

The visit from the Belarusian leader – who allowed Russian troops to use Belarus to stage their initial incursion into Ukraine last year – comes as tensions between the US and China have intensified in recent weeks, including over concerns from Washington that Beijing is considering sending lethal aid to the Kremlin’s struggling war effort.

Beijing has denied those claims and instead sought to portray itself as an impartial agent of peace – in contrast to the United States, who it has accused of “adding fuel to the fire” in the conflict and damaging the global economy with sanctions targeting Russia.

Speaking about the war in Wednesday’s meeting, Xi called for “relevant countries” to “stop politicizing and instrumentalizing the world economy” and act in a way to help “resolve the crisis peacefully,” in an apparent reference to the US and its allies.

The joint statement underscored the alignment between Minsk and Beijing when it comes to their opposition of what they see as a Western-led global order, with their joint statement including opposition to “all forms of hegemonism and power politics, including the imposition of illegal unilateral sanctions and restrictive measures against other countries.”

China and Belarus, which was also targeted in hefty Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion, would also bolster their cooperation across a range of economic areas, the statement said.

They also pledged to “deepen cooperation” on military personnel training, fighting terrorism, and “jointly preventing ‘color revolution’” – a reference to popular pro-democracy movements autocrats allege are backed by Western governments.

The meeting, which Chinese state media described as “warm and friendly,” was the leaders’ first face-to-face since upgrading ties to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last September in Uzbekistan, which Putin also attended.

“Today we will jointly set out new visions for the development of the bilateral ties … Our long-lasting friendly exchanges will keep our friendship unbreakable,” Xi told Lukashenko during the meeting, according to Chinese state media. He also endorsed Belarus in becoming a full member of the China and Russia-led SCO, where it is currently an observer state.

Speaking the same day from Uzbekistan, which is also a SCO member, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China “can’t have it both ways,” by “putting itself out as a force for peace in public,” while it continues to “fuel the flames of this fire that Vladimir Putin started.”

Blinken said that there are “some positive elements” of China’s peace proposal but accused China of doing the opposite of supporting peace in Ukraine “in terms of its efforts to advance Russian propaganda and misinformation about the war blocking and tackling for Russia.”

He also repeated Western concerns that China is considering providing Russia with lethal aid and later said he had no plans to meet with Russian or Chinese counterparts at a G20 meeting for foreign ministers scheduled to take place in New Delhi in India on March 2.

The tightening of ties between Minsk and Beijing also comes alongside a years-long decline in Belarus’ relations with the West.

The former Soviet state was targeted by sweeping sanctions from the US and its allies in response to Moscow’s aggression after Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine through the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) Ukrainian-Belarusian border north of Kyiv.

The European Union also does not recognize the results of Lukashenko’s 2020 election win – which sparked mass pro-democracy protests in the country and were followed by a brutal government crackdown. The US has also called the election “fraudulent.”

There have been fears throughout the conflict in Ukraine that Belarus will again be used as a launching ground for another Russian offensive, or that Lukashenko’s own troops would join the war. Before visiting Moscow earlier this month, Lukashenko claimed there is “no way” his country would send troops into Ukraine unless it is attacked.

Like China, Belarus has previously implied that the US does not want to see an end to the conflict.

In comments to reporters earlier this month before heading to Moscow to meet with Putin, Lukashenko maintained he wanted to see “peaceful negotiations” and accused the United States of preventing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from negotiating.

“The US are the only ones who need this slaughter, only they want it,” he said.

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March 1, 2023
‘It’s all a lie’: Russians are trapped in Putin’s parallel universe. But some want out | CNN

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CNN
—

One year ago, when Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine and began Europe’s biggest land war since 1945, it waged another battle at home – intensifying its information blockade in an effort to control the hearts and minds of its own citizens.

Draconian new censorship laws targeted any media still operating outside the controls of the Kremlin and most independent journalists left the country. A digital Iron Curtain was reinforced, shutting Russians off from Western news and social media sites.

And as authorities rounded up thousands in a crackdown on anti-war protests, a culture of fear descended on Russian cities and towns that prevents many people from sharing their true thoughts on the war in public.

One year on, that grip on information remains tight – and support for the conflict seemingly high – but cracks have started to show.

Some Russians are tuning out the relentless jingoism on Kremlin-backed airwaves. Tech-savvy internet users skirt state restrictions to access dispatches and pictures from the frontlines. And, as Russia turns to mobilization to boost its stuttering campaign, it is struggling to contain the personal impact that one year of war is having on its citizens.

“In the beginning I was supporting it,” Natalya, a 53-year-old Moscow resident, told CNN of what the Kremlin and most Russians euphemistically call a “special military operation.” “But now I am completely against it.”

“What made me change my opinion?,” she contemplated aloud. “First, my son is of mobilization age, and I fear for him. And secondly, I have very many friends there, in Ukraine, and I talk to them. That is why I am against it.”

CNN is not using the full names of individuals who were critical of the Kremlin. Public criticism of the war in Ukraine or statements that discredit Russia’s military can potentially mean a fine or a prison sentence.

For Natalya and many of her compatriots, the endless, personal grind of war casts Russian propaganda in a different light. And for those hoping to push the tide of public opinion against Putin, that creates an opening.

“I do not trust our TV,” she said. “I cannot be certain they are not telling the truth, I just don’t know.

“But I have my doubts,” she added. “I think, probably, they’re not.”

Natalya is not the only Russian to turn against the conflict, but she appears to be in the minority.

Gauging public opinion is notoriously difficult in a country where independent pollsters are targeted by the government, and many of the 146 million citizens are reluctant to publicly condemn President Vladimir Putin. But according to the Levada Center, a non-governmental polling organization, support dipped by only 6% among Russians from March to November last year, to 74%.

In many respects, that is unsurprising. There is little room for dissenting voices on Russian airwaves; the propaganda beamed from state-controlled TV stations since the onset of war has at times attracted derision around the world, so overblown are their more fanatical presenters and pundits.

In the days leading up to Friday’s one-year anniversary of war – according to BBC Monitoring’s Francis Scarr, who analyzes Russian media daily – a Russian MP told audiences on state-owned TV channel Russia-1 that “if Kyiv needs to lie in ruins for our flag to fly above it, then so be it!”; radio presenter Sergey Mardan proclaimed: “There’s only one peace formula for Ukraine: the liquidation of Ukraine as a state.”

And, in a farfetched statement that encapsulates the alternate reality in state TV channels exist, another pro-Russian former lawmaker claimed of Moscow’s war progress: “Everything is going to plan and everything is under control.”

Such programming typically appeals to a select group of older, more conservative Russians who pine for the days of the Soviet Union – though its reach spans generations, and it has claimed some converts.

“My opinion on Ukraine has changed,” said Ekaterina, 37, who turns to popular Russian news program “60 Minutes” after getting home from work. “At first my feelings were: what is the point of this war? Why did they take the decision to start it? It makes the lives of the people here in Russia much worse!”

The conflict has taken a personal toll on her. “My life has deteriorated a lot in this year. Thankfully, no one close to me has been mobilized. But I lost my job. And I see radical changes around me everywhere,” she said.

And yet, Ekaterina’s initial opposition to the invasion has disappeared. “I arrived at the understanding that this special military operation was inevitable,” she said. “It would have come to this no matter what. And had we not acted first, war would have been unleashed against us,” she added, mirroring the false claims of victimhood at the hands of the West that state media relentlessly communicate.

Reversals like hers will be welcomed in the Kremlin as vindication of their notorious and draconian grip on media reporting.

“I trust the news there completely. Yes, they all belong to the state, (but) why should I not trust them?” Yuliya, a 40-year-old HR director at a marketing firm, told CNN. “I think (the war) is succeeding. Perhaps it is taking longer than one could wish for. But I think it is successful,” said Yuliya, who said her main source of news is the state-owned Channel One.

Around two-thirds of Russians rely primarily on television for their news, according to the Levada Center, a higher proportion than in most Western countries.

But the sentiment of Yuliya and Ekaterina is far from universal. Even among those who generally support the war, Kremlin-controlled TV remains far removed from the reality many Russians live in.

“Everything I hear on state channels I split in half. I don’t trust anyone (entirely),” 55-year-old accountant Tatyana said. “One needs to analyze everything … because certain things they are omitting, (or) not saying,” said Leonid, a 58-year-old engineer.

Several people whom CNN spoke with in Moscow this month relayed similar feelings, stressing that they engaged with state-controlled TV but treated it with skepticism. And many reach different views on Ukraine.

“I think you can trust them all only to an extent. The state channels sometimes reflect the truth, but on other occasions they say things just to calm people down,” 20-year-old Daniil said.

Vocal minorities on each side of the conflict exist in Russia, and some have cut off friendships or left the country as a result. But sociologists tracking Russian opinion say most people in the country fall between those two extremes.

“Quite often we are only talking about these high numbers of support (for the war),” Denis Volkov, the director of the Moscow-based Levada Center, said. “But it’s not that all these people are happy about it. They support their side, (but) would rather have it finished and fighting stopped.”

This group of people tends to pay less attention to the war, according to Natalia Savelyeva, a Future Russia Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) who has interviewed hundreds of Russians since the invasion to trace the levels of public support for the conflict. “We call them ‘doubters,’” she said.

“A lot of doubters don’t go very deep into the news … many of them don’t believe that Russian soldiers kill Ukrainians – they repeat this narrative they see on TV,” she said.

The center ground also includes many Russians who have developed concerns about the war. But if the Kremlin cannot expect all-out support across its populace, sociologists say it can at least rely on apathy.

“I try to avoid watching news on the special military operation because I start feeling bad about what’s going on,” Natalya added. “So I don’t watch.”

She is far from alone. “The major attitude is not to watch (the news) closely, not to discuss it with colleagues or friends. Because what can you do about it?” said Volkov. “Whatever you say, whatever you want, the government will do what they want.”

That feeling of futility means anti-war protests in Russia are rare and noteworthy, a social contract that suits the Kremlin. “People don’t want to go and protest; first, because it might be dangerous, and second, because they see it as a futile enterprise,” Volkov said.

“What are we supposed to do? Our opinion means diddly squat,” a woman told CNN in Moscow in January, anonymously discussing the conflict.

The bulk of the population typically disengages instead. “In general, those people try to distance themselves from what’s going on,” Savelyeva added. “They try to live their lives as though nothing is happening.”

And a culture of silence – re-enforced by heavy-handed authorities – keeps many from sharing skepticism about the conflict. A married couple in the southwestern Russian city of Krasnodar were reportedly arrested in January for professing anti-war sentiments during a private conversation in a restaurant, according to the independent Russian monitoring group OVD-Info.

“I do have an opinion about the special military operation … it remains the same to this day,” Anna told CNN in Moscow. “I can’t tell you which side I support. I am for truth and justice. Let’s leave it like that,” she said.

Keeping the war at arm’s length has, however, become more difficult over the course of the past year. Putin’s chaotic partial mobilization order and Russia’s increasing economic isolation has brought the conflict to the homes of Russians, and communication with friends and relatives in Ukraine often paint a different picture of the war than that reported by state media.

“I have felt anxious ever since this began. It’s affecting (the) availability of products and prices,” a woman who asked to remain anonymous told CNN last month. “There is a lack of public information. People should be explained things. Everyone is listening to Soloviev,” she said, referring to prominent propagandist Vladimir Soloviev.

“It would be good if the experts started expressing their real opinions instead of obeying orders, from the government and Putin,” the woman said.

A film student, who said she hadn’t heard from a friend for two months following his mobilization, added: “I don’t know what’s happened to him. It would be nice if he just responded and said ‘OK, I’m alive.’”

“I just wish this special military operation never started in the first place – this war – and that human life was really valued,” she said.

For those working to break through the Kremlin’s information blockade, Russia’s quiet majority is a key target.

Most Russians see on state media a “perverted picture of Russia battling the possible invasion of their own territory – they don’t see their compatriots dying,” said Kiryl Sukhotski, who oversees Russian-language content at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the US Congress-funded media outlet that broadcasts in countries where information is controlled by state authorities.

“That’s where we come in,” Sukhotski said.

The outlet is one of the most influential platforms bringing uncensored scenes from the Ukrainian frontlines into Russian-speaking homes, primarily through digital platforms still allowed by the Kremlin including YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.

And interest has surged throughout the war, the network says. “We saw traffic spikes after the mobilization, and after the Ukrainian counter-offensives, because people started to understand what (the war) means for their own communities and they couldn’t get it from local media.”

Current Time, its 24/7 TV and digital network for Russians, saw a two-and-a-half-fold increase in Facebook views, and more than a three-fold rise in YouTube views, in the 10 months following the invasion, RFE/RL told CNN. Last year, QR codes which directed smartphone users to the outlet’s website started popping up in Russian cities, which RFE/RL believed were stuck on lampposts and street signs by anti-war citizens.

But independent outlets face a challenge reaching beyond internet natives, who tend to be younger and living in cities, and penetrating the media diet of older, poorer and rural Russians, who are typically more conservative and supportive of the war.

“We need to get to the wider audience in Russia,” Sukhotski said. “We see a lot of people indoctrinated by Russian state propaganda … it will be an uphill battle but this is where we shape our strategy.”

Reaching Russians at all has not been easy. Most of RFE/RL’s Russia-based staff made a frantic exit from the country after the invasion, following the Kremlin’s crackdown on independent outlets last year, relocating to the network’s headquarters in Prague.

The same fate befell outlets like BBC Russia and Latvia-based Meduza, which were also targeted by the state.

A new law made it a crime to disseminate “fake” information about the invasion of Ukraine – a definition decided at the whim of the Kremlin – with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted. This month, a Russian court sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison for a Telegram post that the court said spread supposedly “false information” about a Russian airstrike on a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, that killed hundreds, state news agency TASS reported.

“All our staff understand they can’t go back to Russia,” Sukhotski told CNN. “They still have families there. They still have ailing parents there. We have people who were not able to go to their parents’ funerals in the past year.”

His staff are “still coming to terms with that,” Sukhotski admitted. “They are Russian patriots and they wish Russia well … they see how they can help.”

Outlets like RFE/RL have openings across the digital landscape, in spite of Russia’s move to ban Twitter, Facebook and other Western platforms last year.

About a quarter of Russians use VPN services to access blocked sites, according to a Levada Center poll carried out two months after Russia’s invasion.

Searches for such services on Google spiked to record levels in Russia following the invasion, and have remained at their highest rates in over a decade ever since, the search engine’s tracking data shows.

YouTube meanwhile remains one of the few major global sites still accessible, thanks to its huge popularity in Russia and its value in spreading Kremlin propaganda videos.

“YouTube became the television substitute for Russia … the Kremlin fear that if they don’t have YouTube, they won’t be able to control the flow of information to (younger people),” Sukhotski said.

And that allows censored organizations a way in. “I watch YouTube. I watch everything there – I mean everything,” one Moscow resident who passionately opposes the war told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “These federal channels I never watch,” she said. “I don’t trust a word they say. They lie all the time! You’ve just got to switch on your logic, compare some information and you will see that it’s all a lie.”

Telegram, meanwhile, has spiked in popularity since the war began, becoming a public square for military bloggers to analyze each day on the battlefield.

At first, that analysis tended to mirror the Kremlin’s line. But “starting around September, when Ukraine launched their successful counter-offensives, everything started falling apart,” said Olga Lautman, a US-based Senior Fellow at CEPA who studies the Kremlin’s internal affairs and propaganda tactics. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

Scores of hawkish bloggers, some of whom boast hundreds of thousands of followers, have strayed angrily from the Kremlin’s line in recent months, lambasting its military tactics and publicly losing faith in the armed forces’ high command.

This month, a debacle in Vuhledar that saw Russian tanks veer wildly into minefields became the latest episode to expose those fissures. The former Defense Minister of the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor Girkin, sometimes known by his nom de guerre Igor Strelkov – now a a strident critic of the campaign – said Russian troops “were shot like turkeys at a shooting range.” In another post, he called Russian forces “morons.” Several Russian commentators called for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Eastern Grouping of Forces.

“This public fighting is spilling over,” Lautman told CNN. “Russia has lost control of the narrative … it has normally relied on having a smooth propaganda machine and that no longer exists.”

One year into an invasion that most Russians initially thought would last days, creaks in the Kremlin’s control of information are showing.

The impact of those fractures remains unclear. For now, Putin can rely on a citizenry that is generally either supportive of the conflict or too fatigued to proclaim its opposition.

But some onlookers believe the pendulum of public opinion is slowly swinging away from the Kremlin.

“One family doesn’t know of another family who hasn’t suffered a loss in Ukraine,” Lautman said. “Russians do support the conflict because they do have an imperialistic ambition. But now it is knocking on their door, and you’re starting to see a shift.”

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February 26, 2023
US says China will face ‘real costs’ if it provides lethal aid to Russia for war in Ukraine | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday vowed there would be “real costs” for China if the country went forward with providing lethal aid to Russia in its war on Ukraine.

“From our perspective, actually, this war presents real complications for Beijing. And Beijing will have to make its own decisions about how it proceeds, whether it provides military assistance. But, if it goes down that road, it will come at real costs to China. And I think China’s leaders are weighing that as they make their decisions,” Sullivan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

In diplomatic conversations with China, he added, the US is “not just making direct threats. We’re just laying out both the stakes and the consequences, how things would unfold. And we are doing that clearly and specifically behind closed doors.”

Sullivan’s comments come at a critical juncture in the war in Ukraine. The US has intelligence that the Chinese government is considering providing Russia with drones and ammunition for use in the war, three sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN.

It does not appear that Beijing has made a final decision yet, the sources said, as negotiations between Russia and China about the price and scope of the equipment are ongoing.

Since invading Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly requested drones and ammunition from China, the sources familiar with the intelligence said, and Chinese leadership has been actively debating over the last several months whether or not to send the lethal aid, the sources added.

“I can level with the American people in saying that war is unpredictable,” Sullivan said Sunday when asked if the US could continue supporting Ukraine at current levels a year from now. “One year ago, we were all bracing for the fall of Kyiv in a matter – in a matter of days. One year later, Joe Biden was standing with President Zelensky in Kyiv declaring that Kyiv stands.”

“So, I cannot predict the future, and nor can anyone else. And anyone who is suggesting they can define for you how and when this war will end is not leveling with the American people or anyone else,” he said.

Sullivan also reiterated Biden’s Friday remarks that the administration was ruling out providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine “for now.”

“This phase of the war requires tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, artillery, tactical air defense systems, so that Ukrainian fighters can retake territory that Russia currently occupies,” Sullivan said. “F-16s are a question for a later time.”

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul said Sunday that Congress “can certainly write into our appropriations bills, prioritizing weapons systems” for Ukraine.

“We intend to do that,” the Texas Republican said on ABC when asked what Congress could do to push the Biden administration to provide longer-range missile systems, such as ATACMS, or F-16s to Ukraine.

“I know the administration says, ‘As long as it takes.’ I think with the right weapons, it shouldn’t take so long,” McCaul said. “This whole thing is taking too long. And it really didn’t have to happen this way.”

Sunday also marked the nine-year anniversary of Russia’s occupation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. The US State Department on Sunday reasserted that “Crimea is Ukraine.”

“The United States does not and never will recognize Russia’s purported annexation of the peninsula,” department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement, calling Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea “a clear violation of international law and of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Sullivan, however, would not say whether the Biden administration would support Ukraine deciding that victory would mean retaking Crimea.

“What ultimately happens with Crimea, in the context of this war and a settlement of this war, is something for the Ukrainians to determine with the support of the United States,” he said to Bash.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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February 26, 2023
Why Moldova fears it could be next for Putin | CNN

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London
CNN
—

Tensions are mounting in Moldova, a small country on Ukraine’s southwestern border, where Russia has been accused of laying the groundwork for a coup that could drag the nation into the Kremlin’s war.

Moldova’s President, Maia Sandu, has accused Russia of using “saboteurs” disguised as civilians to stoke unrest amid a period of political instability, echoing similar warnings from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has meanwhile baselessly accused Kyiv of planning its own assault on a pro-Russian territory in Moldova where Moscow has a military foothold, heightening fears that he is creating a pretext for a Crimea-style annexation.

US President Joe Biden met President Sandu on the sidelines of his trip to Warsaw last week, marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

Although there is no sign he has accepted her invite to visit, the White House did say he reaffirmed support for Moldova’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Here’s what you need to know.

Earlier this month, Zelensky warned that Ukrainian intelligence intercepted a Russian plan to destabilize an already volatile political situation in Moldova.

The recent resignation of the country’s prime minister followed an ongoing period of crises, headlined by soaring gas prices and sky-high inflation. Moldova’s new prime minister has continued the government’s pro-EU drive, but pro-Russian protests have since taken place in the capital, Chisinau, backed by a fringe, pro-Moscow political party.

Amid the tensions, Moldova’s President Sandu issued a direct accusation that Russia was seeking to take advantage of the situation.

Sandu said the government last fall had planned for “a series of actions involving saboteurs who have undergone military training and are disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and hostage-taking.”

Sandu also claimed individuals disguised as “the so-called opposition” were going to try forcing a change of power in Chisinau through “violent actions.” CNN is unable to independently verify those claims.

“It’s clear that these threats from Russia and the appetite to escalate the war towards us is very high,” Iulian Groza, Moldova’s former deputy foreign minister and now the director of the Chisinau-based Institute for European Policies and Reforms, told CNN.

“Moldova is the most affected country after Ukraine (by) the war,” he said. “We are still a small country, which has still an under-developed economy, and that creates a lot of pressure.”

Despite Moscow’s pleas of innocence, its actions regarding Moldova bear a striking resemblance to moves it made ahead of its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

On Tuesday, Putin revoked a 2012 foreign policy decree that in part recognized Moldova’s independence, according to Reuters.

Then on Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense accused Ukraine of “preparing an armed provocation” against Moldova’s pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria “in the near future,” state-media TASS reported.

No evidence or further details were offered to support the ministry’s accusation, and it has been rubbished by Moldova.

But the claim has put Western leaders on alert, coming almost exactly a year after Putin made similar, unsubstantiated claims that Russians were being targeted in the Donbas – the eastern flank of Ukraine where Moscow had supported militant separatists since 2014 – allowing him to cast his invasion of the country as an issue of self-defense.

“It was the case before – we have seen constant activities of Russia trying to explore and exploit the information space in Moldova using propaganda,” Groza said.

“With the war, all these instruments that Russia was using before have been multiplied and intensified,” he said. “What we see is a reactivation of Russian political proxies in Moldova.”

“I do see lots of fingerprints of Russian forces, Russian services in Moldova,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told CBS last Sunday. “This is a very weak country, and we all need to help them.”

Central to Russia’s interests in Moldova is Transnistria, a breakaway territory that slithers along the eastern flank of the country and has housed Russian troops for decades.

The territory – a 1,300 square mile enclave on the eastern bank of the Dniester River – was the site of a Russian military outpost during the last years of the Cold War. It declared itself a Soviet republic in 1990, opposing any attempt by Moldova to become an independent state or to merge with Romania after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

When Moldova became independent the following year, Russia quickly inserted itself as a so-called “peacekeeping force” in Transnistria, sending troops in to back pro-Moscow separatists there.

War with Moldovan forces ensued, and the conflict ended in deadlock in 1992. Transnistria was not recognized internationally, even by Russia, but Moldovan forces left it a de facto breakaway state. That deadlock has left the territory and its estimated 500,000 inhabitants trapped in limbo, with Chisinau holding virtually no control over it to this day.

Moldova is a country at a crossroads between east and west. Its government and most of its citizens want closer ties to the EU, and the country achieved candidacy status last year. But it’s also home to a breakaway faction whose sentiment Moscow has eagerly sought to rile up.

It has been a flashpoint on the periphery of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the past year, with Russian missiles crossing into Moldovan airspace on several occasions, including earlier this month.

A series of explosions in Transnistria last April spiked concerns that Putin was looking to drag the territory into his invasion.

Russia’s stuttering military progress since then had temporarily allayed those fears. But officials in Moldova have been warning the West that their country could be next on Putin’s list.

Last month, the head of Moldova’s Security Service warned there is a “very high” risk that Russia will launch a new offensive in Moldova’s east in 2023. Moldova is not a NATO member, making it more vulnerable to Putin’s agenda.

Should Russia launch a Spring offensive that centers on Ukraine’s south, it may seek again to creep towards Odesa and then link up with Transnistria, essentially creating a land bridge that sweeps through southern Ukraine and inches even closer to NATO territory.

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February 25, 2023
US defense secretary tells CNN he hasn’t spoken to Chinese counterpart for a ‘couple of months’ | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CNN that he and his Chinese counterpart have not spoken for a “couple of months,” with Chinese Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe refusing to take a call in the wake of the US shootdown of the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon.

“The last time that I talked to him was a couple of months ago,” Austin in an interview with Kaitlan Collins for “CNN This Morning” on Thursday.

“I think we’ll continue … to stress how important it is and hopefully Minister Wei will schedule that call,” Austin added. “He knows where to find me.”

The confirmation leaders of the two largest militaries in the world are not in direct contact comes as the two countries continue to build up their forces in Asia. CNN reported Thursday that the US is planning to increase the number of US troops training Taiwanese forces on the self-governing island in the coming months, something Austin declined to confirm. In recent weeks China accused the US of undermining peace and stability in the region after it strengthened its posture around Taiwan by bolstering forces in nearby Okinawa and Guam.

And tensions significantly escalated at the beginning of the month when a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was drifting tens of thousands of feet up across the continental United States. President Joe Biden eventually ordered it shot down off the coast of South Carolina after officials determined that the risk the balloon would pose to civilians and property on the ground if shot down outweighed the intelligence collection risk it presented.

Chinese officials claimed that the balloon was a “civilian airship” for research and weather purposes which had drifted off course, though the US reaffirmed it had surveillance capabilities.

Austin told CNN that it’s possible Chinese President Xi Jinping did not know about the balloon, but he would “let the Chinese speak for themselves.”

Austin did emphasize that that while he and Wei haven’t spoken during that period, it doesn’t mean the US doesn’t have other lines of communications open with different Chinese officials.

“You just saw [Secretary of State Antony Blinken] talk to his counterpart in Munich,” he said Thursday. “And so there are diplomatic lines of communication open. But I think for the military, it’s really, really important that we maintain open lines of communication.”

On top of existing tensions, US officials have begun warning partners and allies of intelligence that showed China could provide lethal military aid to Russia’s military in Ukraine. The issue was even raised at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend in a conversation between Blinken and his counterpart, Wang Yi.

“The Secretary was quite blunt in warning about the implications and consequences of China providing material support to Russia or assisting Russia with systematic sanctions evasion,” a senior State Department official previously told reporters.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been ongoing for a year now, with no signs of slowing. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels last week that Russia is “now a global pariah” since its invasion of Ukraine, and has lost “strategically, operationally, and tactically.”

Austin added last week from Brussels that they expect to see Ukraine conduct an offensive in the spring against Russia.

Thus far, China has not appeared to actually go through with sending lethal aid to Russia, Austin said in the interview, but it has not been “taken off the table.”

“[T]here’s reputational risk, and of course, I’m sure China would love to enjoy a good relationship with all the countries in Europe,” he said. “And again, if you just look at the numbers of countries around the world, that really think that what Russia has done is horrible, I mean, adding to that, I think China – it would be a very ill-advised step for China to take.”

China has a “lot of capability in terms of munitions and weapons,” Austin added, “and if they provide the substantial support to Russia, it prolongs the conflict.”

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February 24, 2023
Russia to launch replacement spacecraft for astronauts stranded by coolant leak | CNN

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CNN
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Russia is gearing up to launch a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station that will replace a capsule that sprang a coolant leak in December, leaving two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut without a ride home.

Liftoff of the capsule, called the Soyuz MS-23, is expected to occur out of Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan on Thursday at 7:24 p.m. ET, which is 5:24 a.m. Friday local time. NASA will air coverage of the event beginning at 7 p.m. ET Thursday.

The uncrewed spacecraft will spend two days in orbit, maneuvering toward the orbiting laboratory. It’s expected to dock with the Poisk module — which is on the space station’s Russian-run portion — just after 8 p.m. ET Saturday.

The Soyuz MS-23 will be the return vehicle for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, all of whom traveled to the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-22 capsule in September.

About two months into the three men’s journey, the MS-22 experienced a coolant leak, leaving the cabin at temperatures deemed unsafe for the crewmates. The Russian space agency Roscosmos and NASA quickly worked to establish plans to send a replacement vehicle. Roscosmos officials said they had determined that the leak resulted from a small hole caused by an impact with a micrometeoroid.

Plans to launch the rescue vehicle, however, were drawn into question when a Russian cargo ship, called Progress, experienced a similar coolant leak after docking with the space station on February 11. Three days later, Roscosmos had said in a post on the social media site Telegram, that it would delay the Soyuz MS-23 launch until at least March while the agency investigated the cause of the Progress vehicle’s coolant leak.

On Tuesday, however, Roscosmos said in an updated Telegram post that it had determined the cause of the Progress spacecraft leak was “external influences.”

“The Russians are continuing to take a very close look at both the Soyuz and the Progress coolant leaks,” Dana Weigel, the space station’s deputy manager for NASA, said during a Wednesday briefing.

“They formed a state commission that is assessing the anomalies,” she added, noting that the team is analyzing potential causes from the time the capsules launched through their journey in orbit.

Originally, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara were expected to launch to the space station on March 16 aboard MS-23.

Instead, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s time will be extended on the space station until they can return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-23 later this year. That return could happen in September, according to a report from Russia state-run media outlet TASS.

If that timeline holds, the three crewmates will have extended their expected six-month stay in space to about one year.

When asked about the extended stay, Joel Montalbano, the space station’s program manager for NASA, said the crew remains in good health and there is no reason to expedite their journey home.

The crew is “willing to help wherever we ask,” Montalbano said during a January 11 news conference. “They’re excited to be in space, excited to work and excited to do the research that we do on orbit. So they are ready to go with whatever decision that we give them.”

He added, “I may have to fly some more ice cream to reward them.”

The launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft comes just days before NASA and SpaceX will launch their Crew-6 mission. Expected to lift off early Monday morning, Crew-6 will carry NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg as well as Sultan Alneyadi, an astronaut with the United Arab Emirates, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

Shortly after those four arrive at the space station, NASA’s Crew-5 astronauts will return home from their five-month stay there aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. NASA officials said this week that the coolant leaks experienced on the Soyuz and Progress vehicles would not have any impact on the SpaceX missions and that no similar issues were discovered on Crew Dragon vehicles.

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February 23, 2023
Russia’s economy is hurting despite Putin’s bluster | CNN Business

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London
CNN
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When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine one year ago, Western countries hit back with unprecedented sanctions to punish Moscow and pile pressure on President Vladimir Putin. The aim: to deal an economic blow so severe that Putin would reconsider his brutal war.

Russia’s economy did weaken as a result. But it also showed surprising resilience. As demand for Russian oil fell in Europe, Moscow redirected its barrels to Asia. The country’s central bank staved off a currency crisis with aggressive capital controls and interest rate hikes. Military expenditure supported the industrial sector, while the scramble to replace Western equipment and technology lifted investment.

“The Russian economy and system of government have turned out to be much stronger than the West believed,” Putin said in a speech to Russia’s parliament Tuesday.

Yet cracks are starting to show and they will widen over the next 12 months. The European Union — which spent more than $100 billion on Russian fossil fuels in 2021 — has made huge strides in phasing out purchases. The bloc, which dramatically reduced its dependence on Russian natural gas last year, officially banned most imports of Russian crude oil by sea in December. It enacted a similar block on refined oil products this month.

Those measures are already straining Russia’s finances as it struggles to find replacement customers. The government reported a budget deficit of about 1,761 billion rubles ($23.5 billion) for January. Expenditure jumped 59% year-over-year, while revenue plunged 35%. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that Russia would cut oil production by about 5% starting in March.

“The era of windfall profits from the oil and gas market for Russia is over,” Janis Kluge, an expert on Russia’s economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told CNN.

Meanwhile, the ruble has slumped to its weakest level against the US dollar since last April. The currency’s weakness has contributed to high inflation. And most businesses say they can’t conceive of growing right now given high levels of economic uncertainty, according to a recent survey by a Russian think tank.

These dynamics place the country’s economy on a trajectory of decline. And they will force Putin to choose between ramping up military spending and investing in social goods like housing and education — a decision that could have consequences both for the war and the Russian public’s support of it.

“This year could really be the key test,” said Timothy Ash, an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, a think tank.

In a bid to bring Russia to heel for its aggression, Western countries have used their sway over the global financial system, unveiling more than 11,300 sanctions since the invasion and freezing some $300 billion of the country’s foreign reserves. At the same time, more than 1,000 companies, ranging from BP

(BP) to McDonald’s

(MCD) and Starbucks

(SBUX), have exited or curtailed operations in the country, citing opposition to the war and new logistical challenges.

Russia’s economic output duly contracted by 2.1% last year, according to a preliminary estimate from the government. But the hit was more limited than forecasters initially expected. When sanctions were first imposed, some economists predicted a contraction of 10% or 15%.

One reason for Russia’s unexpected pluck was its push toward self-sufficiency following Putin’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Through a policy known as “Fortress Russia,” the government boosted domestic food production and policymakers forced banks to build up their reserves. That created a degree of “durability,” said Ash at Chatham House.

The swift intervention of Russia’s central bank, which jacked up interest rates to 20% after the invasion and implemented currency controls to buttress the ruble, was also a stabilizing force. So was the need for factories to increase production of military goods and replace items that had been imported from the West.

But the greatest support came from high energy prices and the world’s continued thirst for oil and other commodities.

Russia, the world’s second-largest exporter of crude, was able to send barrels that would have gone to Europe to countries like China and India. The European Union, which imported an average of 3.3 million barrels of Russian crude and oil products per day in 2021, was also still buying 2.3 million barrels per day as of November, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“It’s a question of natural resources,” Sergey Aleksashenko, Russia’s former deputy minister of finance, said at an event last month hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. That meant the economy experienced a decline, but “not a collapse,” he added.

In fact, Russia’s average monthly oil export revenues rose by 24% last year to $18.1 billion, according to the IEA. Yet a repeat performance is unlikely, presaging increasingly tough decisions for Putin.

The price of a barrel of Urals crude, Russia’s main blend, fell to an average of $49.50 in January after Europe’s oil embargo — as well as a Group of Seven price cap — took effect. By comparison, the global benchmark stood around $82. That suggests that customers like India and China, seeing a smaller pool of interested buyers, are negotiating greater discounts. Russia’s 2023 budget is based on a Urals price of more than $70 per barrel.

Finding new buyers for processed oil products, which are also subject to new embargoes and price caps, won’t be easy either. China and India have their own network of refineries and prefer to buy crude, noted Ben McWilliams, an energy consultant at Bruegel.

Meanwhile, gas exports to Europe have plunged since Russia shut its Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

Russia’s government relied on the oil and gas sector for 45% of its budget in 2021. As it plans to maximize defense spending, lower revenues inevitably mean trade-offs. Spending plans for 2023 finalized in December involved a decrease in expenditure on housing and health care, as well as a category that includes public infrastructure.

“Whatever energy resources are obtained, they’ll be spent on military needs,” said Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, acting director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London.

The International Monetary Fund still expects Russia’s economy to expand by 0.3% this year and 2.1% the next. Yet any outlook is contingent on what happens in Ukraine.

“Whether the economy shrinks or expands in 2023 will be determined by developments in the war,” Tatiana Orlova, an economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. Shortages of workers tied to military conscription and emigration pose a key risk, she noted.

The impact of Western sanctions is poised to develop into a crisis over time. Bloomberg Economics estimates that Putin’s war in Ukraine will slash $190 billion off Russia’s gross domestic product by 2026 compared with the country’s prewar path.

Sectors that rely on imports have been particularly vulnerable. Domestic car makers such as Avtovaz, which manufactures the iconic Ladas, have struggled with shortages of key components and materials.

Russia’s auto industry was already weakened after companies such as Volkswagen

(VLKAF), Renault

(RNLSY), Ford

(F) and Nissan

(NSANF) halted production and began to sell their local assets last year. Chinese firms have stepped up their presence, part of a broader trend. Even so, sales of new cars dropped 63% year-over-year in January, according to the Association of European Businesses.

Across sectors, firms are struggling to plan for the future. A survey of more than 1,000 Russian businesses by the Stolypin Institute of Economic Growth in November found that almost half plan to maintain production over the next one to two years and aren’t thinking about growth. The group said this contributed to a high risk of “long-term stagnation of the Russian economy.”

Given Putin’s ideological commitment to subsuming Ukraine, he’s unlikely to back down, according to Sharafutdinova at King’s College London. But his war chest “is likely, inevitably, to diminish,” she added.

Prioritizing military spending will also come at a social cost, with a “slow and creeping” erosion of living standards, she added.

“In normal times, we might have said that the population would protest against that,” Sharafutdinova said. “But of course, these are not normal times.”

— Clare Sebastian and Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.

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February 22, 2023
WADA appeals case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva to Court of Arbitration for Sport | CNN

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CNN
—

The protracted doping saga involving Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva entered another phase on Tuesday as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Last month, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) effectively cleared Valieva of wrongdoing, saying that the 16-year-old had violated anti-doping rules but bore no “fault or negligence” for the transgression.

But WADA believes such a conclusion is “wrong” and has now exercised its right to appeal the ruling.

Valieva was suspended by RUSADA the day after she guided the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to victory in the figure skating team event at last year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, where she also became the first woman in history to land a quadruple jump at the Games.

However, it came to light during the course of the Olympics that Valieva had tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine – which can enhance endurance – in December 2021.

Valieva has not publicly explained the positive test results.

The ROC placed first in the team event in Beijing ahead of the USA in second, Japan in third and Canada in fourth, but no medal ceremony was held as a result of the doping controversy.

In a statement on Tuesday, WADA said it is seeking a four-year period of ineligibility for Valieva and disqualification of her results from the date of the sample collection on December 25, 2021.

“As it has sought to do throughout this process, WADA will continue to push for this matter to proceed without further undue delay,” the statement added.

“Given the case is now pending before CAS, WADA can make no further comment at this time.”

CNN has contacted RUSADA and the International Olympic Committee for comment.

Valieva was cleared to compete in the women’s singles event at the Winter Olympics but ultimately placed fourth after falling and stumbling several times during the competition.

Travis Tygart, the CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), said on Tuesday that the decision to appeal Valieva’s case to CAS “had to be done in order to restore some confidence in the global anti-doping system.”

He added: “Let’s hope the hearing is expedited and open to the public so that the athletes whose dreams are hanging in the balance can believe in the final outcome, whatever it may be, and that some justice can be salvaged soon.”

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February 21, 2023
Biden’s trip to Kyiv delivers the starkest rebuke possible to Putin | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

There is no more powerful symbol of Vladimir Putin’s failure.

A year ago, the Russian leader launched a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, mocking its history and sovereignty, sending his tanks churning toward Kyiv to obliterate the democratically elected government led by a former comic actor. His purpose was clear: To crush once and for all Ukraine’s dreams of joining the West and to force it to return to the orbit of greater Russia.

Back then, anyone predicting how the anniversary of the war would be marked might have mused about a Russian military parade and a visit by Putin himself to a puppet leader he installed in a nation again under Moscow’s iron fist.

The reality is far different following heroic Ukrainian resistance bolstered by weapons sent by NATO members.

The president of the United States, in overcoat and shades, strolled through Kyiv in daylight, visiting a historic church as air raid sirens wailed and standing exposed alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky in the city’s vast, open and iconic St. Michael’s Square.

His presence sent a message of defiance to Putin most directly and a cherished sign of resolve and empathy for the people of Ukraine. His audience also included European powers in a western alliance that Biden has led and invigorated like no president since the end of the Cold War. And every time a commander-in-chief makes such an audacious splash on the world stage he’s also making a point to Americans – on whose support continuing extraordinary support for Ukraine’s war effort depends – and to his own fervent domestic critics.

Biden deliberately contrasted the sense of then and now that his visit, just before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, conjured.

“That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden told Zelensky at a news conference flanked by the Stars and Stripes and Ukraine’s distinctive blue and yellow national flag. The event itself carried its own symbolism – it did not feature two leaders cowering in a bunker, but went ahead in an ornate room like any other leaders’ press conference in any other capital.

“One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” he declared. “The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you.”

Biden’s words might have lacked the poetry of “Ich bin ein Berliner,” or “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But Biden’s visit instantly went down in history alongside two defining trips to divided Berlin by Presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan that were flashpoints of the Cold War and each of which sent their own image of US resolve to the Kremlin.

Those events made clear that the United States stood with its Western allies for as long as it took to prevail over the Soviet Union. Biden’s visit was meant to give similar historic heft to his comment Washington is there for “as long as it takes” — though it’s unlikely that it will assuage fears in Kyiv and Europe that a change in president might weaken that US vow.

In photos: President Biden visits Ukraine and Poland

Biden’s secret visit, which involved the president leaving the US unannounced and heading to an active war zone, matched some of the colorful stagecraft that Zelensky – a master of public relations – has used to maintain Western support for his people and the multi-billion-dollar pipeline of weapons and aid.

During America’s Middle East wars of the last 20 years, Americans became accustomed to Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump leaving Washington in the dead of night and popping up in Baghdad or Kabul to visit US troops and US-backed leaders. And while those trips had their own measure of daring and danger, Biden’s visit went a step further – venturing into a foreign capital that is often under air attack and lacks the security offered by large garrisons of American troops and air assets. The US did inform Russia of the plans to visit for “deconfliction purposes,” according to Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Biden had always planned to visit Europe this week to mark the anniversary of the Russian invasion — though his public program mentioned only a trip to neighboring Poland. But a journey across the Atlantic that lacked a Ukrainian component would have been unsatisfactory given that fact that many European leaders have already visited Kyiv. Still, the security footprint of the US president is far greater than the one accompanying those leaders, and his position as the leader of the West leaves him far more exposed.

But by not visiting Ukraine, Biden would have been implicitly admitting that there were some things that Putin could prevent him from doing – in effect showing US weakness.

Ukrainians understood the intent better than anyone.

“The tipping point in this war will not be when we receive another set of weapons but when our alliance will stop playing reactive roles to what Putin will do,” Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told “CNN This Morning.”

“President Biden has claimed the upper hand … and tomorrow Putin will have to reply to what happened today,” Rudik said, referring to a speech in which Putin is expected to rally the Russian people on Tuesday.

Political symbolism is only effective if it gets results, drives policy and changes an entrenched situation.

So, like the Berlin visits of Kennedy and Reagan, the true historic sweep of Biden’s perilous journey to Ukraine can only be judged in the light of subsequent events. In other words, his gesture will be an empty one if Russia – which appears to be mustering for a spring offensive – wins the war.

And while the pictures of Biden in Kyiv were remarkable, they cannot disguise real questions and uncertainties surrounding the US approach to the war and differences with the Ukrainians. This plays out both in the types of weapons the US is prepared to offer and potentially in divergent scenarios about how the war could end. The phrase “as long as it takes” can mean different things to different people and there is every sign that this war, which Putin cannot afford to lose, could grind on for many bloody more years, testing Western resolve.

The personal nature of the president’s rebuke to Putin is meanwhile likely to trigger a response from a ruthless leader who has shown no mercy to civilians and a cruel indifference to the value of human life – Russian as well as Ukrainian. One potential way Biden’s visit could backfire is that it could bolster Putin’s claim that he is really fighting a war against the West rather than an independent sovereign nation – a framing that is popular among some Russians and is one Biden has tried to avoid.

The president’s visit only served to expose growing opposition to the war among conservative Republicans at home – which, if not yet near the levels that could force him to desert Ukraine, is sufficient to raise concerns about the size of future aid packages and what a new president after 2024 – Trump or a GOP leader who shares his “America First” tendencies – could mean for Ukraine.

The most glaring difference between Biden and Zelensky lies in the kind of weapons the US president is willing to provide. The government in Kyiv is ratcheting up its campaign for the West to send F-16 jets and is now getting increasing buy-in from some influential bipartisan members of Congress.

Biden has so far declined to agree to the request, which gets to the heart of a dilemma that defines his war strategy: How far to go to help Kyiv win while avoiding a direct clash between the West and Russia.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, complained on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that Washington had taken too long to send game-changing weapons to Ukraine in the past and should not make the same mistake with warplanes. Asked if the Biden administration was now considering the dispatch of F-16 fighter planes, the Texas Republican replied: “I hope so,” and added, “I think the momentum is building for this to happen.”

Sending US-made jets to Ukraine could be even more sensitive than the dispatch of the tanks to which the president just agreed.

This is because they would enhance Ukraine’s capacity to potentially strike at Russian jets and air defense systems inside Russia. The use of NATO aircraft in such operations – even with Ukrainian pilots – could prompt the Kremlin to conclude the alliance has directly intervened in the war, increasing the risk of a disastrous escalation of the conflict Biden has tried to avoid.

But retired US Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson told CNN’s Poppy Harlow Monday that Biden’s visit came at another turning point in the war.

“This is a great show of leadership by President Biden. Good leaders always go to the sound of the guns.” But, Anderson added: “The United States needs to make a decision. Are we in it to ensure the Ukrainians simply not lose? Or are we in it so they can actually win?”

Less importantly globally but still significantly, Biden’s trip to Ukraine had domestic political implications.

A grueling and dangerous journey that required energy and endurance felt like a jab at critics who question whether Biden should be contemplating a reelection race at the age of 80.

And like Biden’s State of the Union address earlier this month, his stagecraft infuriated the most extreme wing of the Republican Party, which Biden has said is a danger to US democracy and values. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, quickly slammed Biden for journeying to Ukraine and other GOP figures accused him of caring more for Kyiv’s borders than those in the US.

“This is incredibly insulting. Today on our President’s Day, Joe Biden, the President of the United States chose Ukraine over America, while forcing the American people to pay for Ukraine’s government and war. I can not express how much Americans hate Joe Biden,” Greene said in a tweet.

There are many Americans on the right who agree that Biden has not done enough to secure the southern border and the issue will be at the center of the 2024 election. But Greene’s comment did not just exemplify the deterioration in civility in US politics. It was revealing from a pro-Trump Republican who has been supportive of the insurrectionists who tried to destroy American democracy on January 6, 2021.

There may be nothing more presidential than standing for the foundational US values of freedom and democracy and the right of a people to repel tyranny enforced at the point of the gun from a more powerful foreign oppressor whose fight for independence mirrors America’s own.

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February 21, 2023