Europe’s industrial powerhouse has managed to reduce itself to an instrument of Putin’s aggression
It wasn’t so long ago that Germany was able to present itself as the sensible man of Europe – the wise country which retained control of its public finances while other governments were losing their heads, and whose taxpayers were a little resentful about having to bail out less-responsible southern European nations. Now it is Europe’s fool.
It has been in business since 793AD, survived the English Civil War, 17 recessions, two World Wars and five pandemics including the Black Death.
Now Ye Olde Fighting Cocks is battling to stay open as the cost of living crisis threats to cripple thousands of businesses across the UK.
The watering hole in St Albans, Hertfordshire, was driven to enter administration in February due to the financial impact of Covid-19 and bought by new owners.
The panic is palpable as Europe is effectively placed on a war footing
Russia’s disinformation machine has repeatedly struggled to put an alternative spin on the realities of its devastating war in Ukraine. But it was almost like the Kremlin couldn’t be bothered to come up with a credible explanation for a permanent halt to the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Europe on Friday night.
Even German industrial giant Siemens, which oversees maintenance of the pipeline, was quick to rubbish Russia’s claims that repair work couldn’t be carried out.
The whole world understands what’s happening – in closing one of the most important gas supply routes to Europe just hours after the G7 group of countries unveiled plans to impose a price cap on Moscow’s oil exports, Vladimir Putin has pre-empted the West and declared an all-out energy war.
Germany’s political parties on the extreme left and extreme right of the political spectrum have announced a “hot autumn” with regular Monday demonstrations, starting on September 5. The socialist Left Party, the smallest opposition party in the Bundestag, called for the campaign, choosing Leipzig as the main location.
Leipzig, an internationally-renowned trade fair and university city in the east of the country, has a powerful symbolic resonance: This is where East Germans played a decisive role in toppling the dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with their Monday demonstrations in 1989.
Gas prices have soared on concerns over energy supplies after Russia announced it would not reopen its main gas pipeline to Europe.
The Dutch month ahead wholesale gas price, a benchmark for Europe, was up as much as 30% in early trading on Monday.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline had been due to reopen on Saturday after being shut for three days.
But Russia’s state-owned energy firm Gazprom said it had found a leak.
In the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a parody image began doing the rounds on the internet featuring ‘Saint Javelin’.
Depicted in the style of an orthodox Christian saint, a stern-faced female figure clad in the blue and gold of the Ukraine flag cradles an FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile launcher, nestling it against her cheek.
The image, it turned out, was devised by a Canadian marketer. But it nonetheless captures the essence of Ukraine’s dependence on the West for the influx of weapons, military vehicles and ammunition that has kept its military able to confront the Russian invaders.
#Ukraine: A compilation of recent Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 strikes in Kherson and Donetsk Oblasts – at least three Russian tanks were destroyed by high-precision munitions. pic.twitter.com/Jg4ndgoAnx
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 4, 2022
Russia will not resume in full its gas supplies to Europe until the west lifts its sanctions against Moscow, the Kremlin said, as concerns over Russian gas supplies continued to drive up energy prices.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, blamed sanctions “introduced against our country by western countries including Germany and the UK” for Russia’s failure to deliver gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
“Other reasons that would cause problems with the pumping don’t exist,” Peskov was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying.
KYIV, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told Europeans to expect a difficult winter as the Russian assault on his country leads to cuts in oil and gas exports by Moscow, as the continent’s leaders worked on Sunday to ease the impact of high energy prices.
Zelenskiy spoke on Saturday night after Moscow shut down a main pipeline that supplies Russian gas to the continent.
“Russia is preparing a decisive energy blow on all Europeans for this winter,” he said in his daily video address.
The death of a top Russian oil executive this week is the latest in a string of oil executives in the country who have reportedly died from suicide or in accidents this year.
Russian media outlets reported that Ravil Maganov, the chairman of the board of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, died on Thursday after falling out of a window at a hospital where he was being treated. TASS, the state-run news agency, reported that an unnamed law enforcement source said Maganov died by suicide.
The United States secretly manufactured biological weapons in Ukraine. It trained birds to carry pathogens into Russia. It created Covid-19. It operated laboratories in Nigeria that engineered this year’s outbreak of monkeypox.
Of the many falsehoods that the Kremlin has spread since the war in Ukraine began more than six months ago, some of the most outlandish and yet enduring have been those accusing the United States of operating clandestine biological research programs to wreak havoc around the globe.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry praised its use of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) against Russian forces in a quirky clip shared Friday on the ministry’s official Twitter account.
HIMARS has proven itself in Ukraine, but now it's taking on the biggest stage in American television.
HIMARS Got Talent pic.twitter.com/J8CgoPgKIZ
— Saint Javelin (@saintjavelin) September 2, 2022
Francis has refused to side with the West since the invasion
Among some conservative Catholics, the current pontiff is known as “the Pope of confusion”. This not entirely unfair nickname gains a good deal of its rhetorical force from Francis’ spontaneous, colourful and discursive manner of speaking, which stands in sharp contrast to the more measured, precise and academic approach of his immediate predecessor, Benedict.
A steep bill comes due for decades of democracy promotion.
On March 24, a month after Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders, the Biden White House summoned America’s partners (as its allies are now called) to a civilizational crusade. The administration proclaimed its commitment to those affected by Russia’s recent invasion—“especially vulnerable populations such as women, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTQI+) persons, and persons with disabilities.” At noon that same day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted about the “massive, unprecedented consequences” American sanctions were wreaking on Russia, and claimed Russia’s economic “collapse” was imminent.
The Ukrainian leader praises Boris Johnson, criticises Macron and Scholz and says western cost of living fears are ‘incomparable’ with the threat from Russia
Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to talk about Boris Johnson in the past tense.
Breaking into a broad grin as he recounts one of the last conversations he had with the British prime minister during his third and final visit to Kyiv last month, the Ukrainian president says: “He is an energetic person. I told him, ‘You can’t disappear’, and he said, ‘I will not’.”
A deep bond has been forged between Zelensky and Johnson, who allies claim has not ruled out a return to No 10 after he leaves this week.
“One doesn’t become a patriot by just proclaiming slogans,” runs the text of an upcoming mandatory lesson for upper-level children in Russian schools. “Genuinely patriotic people are prepared to defend their motherland with a weapon in their hands.”
“Patriotic education” has been a catchphrase in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia since at least 2005. But now, with Moscow’s unprovoked war against Ukraine grinding on and Russia caught up in a tense standoff with the West, the country is redoubling its emphasis on “patriotism” in the schools. With the new school year that opened on September 1, the Education Ministry is launching mandatory weekly lessons first thing every Monday with the title Important Conversations.
#Ukraine: Ukrainian artillery fire forced Russian troops to abandon their BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle in the vicinity of Izium, #Kharkiv Oblast.
Some close hits can be observed and given the thin armor of BMP-2, it is highly likely that the vehicle received serious damage. pic.twitter.com/KKms9s9ggp— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 1, 2022
