Author: Blazingcatfur

The Wagner Group’s tentacles stretch beyond Ukraine

Four days before the invasion of Ukraine, an eerily prescient documentary aired on France 5. Le monde en face:Wagner, l’armée de l’ombre de Poutine assiduously tracks the activities of the Russian President’s “shadow army”: the Wagner Group, which arranges military “solutions” for the Kremlin. Since the film was broadcast, members of the 6,000-strong mercenary organisation have been deployed to Ukraine. Their orders: to kill President Zelenskyy and dismember his government.

Or has too much reporting from Ukraine emphasised emotionalism over analysis?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an historic international crisis that demands serious reporting of what’s happening and sober analysis of why. But is the war always getting the war journalism it deserves?

British and Western journalists covering the conflict have been widely praised. There is an apparent consensus that journalism is, as the old saying goes, ‘having a good war’.

He and Xi Jinping think we’re weak and dissolving from within. Could they be right?

Last October, Vladimir Putin aired a speech to the Russian nation chiding the United States for its moral decay. He observed an America “blotting out whole pages” of its history, pursuing “reverse discrimination against the majority in the interests of minorities,” and renouncing time-honored values in an effort at “public renewal.”

“It’s their right, but we are asking them to steer clear of our home,” he warned. “We have a different viewpoint.” This iteration of family values and conservative critique went barely noticed by the American press at the time.

MOSCOW — Shock and shame.

That’s the response of many Russians to the sight of rockets and artillery shells hitting Ukrainian tower blocks that in their concrete uniformity could easily be in Moscow. The towns through which Russian armored vehicles are rolling, captured in shaky videos and accompanied by howls of horror, could be Voronezh or Krasnodar or any Russian city. The invasion of Ukraine is a waking nightmare, horrible and absurd.

And it’s being done in our name. Feb. 24, when President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion, is the day Russia became an outcast, despised nation, not just economically isolated but actively shunned by the rest of the world — in sports, science and most other kinds of international cooperation. Whatever military “victory” Mr. Putin might find acceptable in his twisted mind, Russia has already suffered a crushing moral defeat.

Russia’s liberation pic.twitter.com/7rlsAKXmr6

— Luke Coffey (@LukeDCoffey) March 3, 2022

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced Thursday the federal government has created two new pathways for Ukrainians fleeing their war-torn country to come to Canada — part of a plan to accept an “unlimited number” of people who want to leave.

To start, Fraser said his department has created a new visa category that will allow a limitless number of Ukrainians to come to Canada to live, work or study here for up to two years.

People accepted under the Canada Ukraine Authorization For Emergency Travel program will have an open work or study permit and employers will be free to hire as many Ukrainians as they want.

Day by day, Kyiv grows more tense.

Checkpoints, barricades, and roadblocks radiate from the imposing streets in the city centre to the motorways on the outskirts. Spiky metal tank traps – called hedgehogs – have mushroomed at strategic locations. Troops are more alert, checking every car. Some still smile and say “welcome”, but many look distracted, already focusing on the battle to come.

It feels like Ukrainian forces in the capital are poised and ready to fight. This ancient city – with its elegant facades and onion domed churches – is now on a war footing.

This is terra incognita for economic policy. No country has ever faced this kind of global freeze-out.

The war in Ukraine is being fought on two battlefields. The first battlefield is geographic. It is the land Russia is tearing up with tank treads and pounding with missiles.

The second battlefield is made up not of physical particles, but rather of relationships—contracts and promises between nations, banks, companies, and individuals. This is the economic arena.

OTTAWA — Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is warning Canadians against fighting for Russia in Ukraine, saying anyone who does so could face severe consequences.

Freeland issued the warning during a news conference in Ottawa today, where she announced further sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

The deputy prime minister said Canada believes Russia’s attack is illegal, implying anyone fighting for the Russian side could be breaking international law.

The country has enlisted thousands of cybersecurity professionals in the war effort against Russia.

VLADIMIR PUTIN’S ATTACK on Ukraine has been met with fierce resistance throughout the country’s towns and cities. As Russian forces have moved closer to Kyiv, lawyers, students, and actors have taken up arms to defend their country from invasion. They are not the only ones: Volunteers have also flocked to join a Ukrainian volunteer “IT Army” that’s fighting back online.

At around 9 pm local time on February 26, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced the creation of the volunteer cyber army. “We have a lot of talented Ukrainians in the digital sphere: developers, cyber specialists, designers, copywriters, marketers,” he said in a post on his official Telegram channel. “We continue to fight on the cyber front.”