“Ukraine – Russia”

The Russian Air Force (VKS) has procured 350 modern combat aircraft in the last ten years and the question that must be on every Russian’s mind in the second week of the Ukraine War is: What did we get for our money?

Because by all accounts, the Russian Air Force is nearly AWOL from Russia’s biggest battles since 1945.

A major state actor could now legalise internet piracy and hacking

Today gas prices in Europe rose to 800p per therm — an eighteen-fold increase in just one year. Meanwhile, fertiliser prices are set to rise and with them food prices, with wheat prices basically doubling since last year. Financial markets are now openly fretting about stagflation (the combination of soaring inflation and stagnation in the economy). We have not seen it since the 1970s and it is unclear how our now overly financialised economy will respond to it, but my bet is that economies today are far more prone to stagflationary chaos than they were in the 70s.

The number of Ukrainian refugees in Poland, mostly women and children, is on course to top the number of migrants taken by Germany during the 2015 migrant crisis.

Germany, with a population more than double Poland’s, said it had taken in 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, when then-Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country’s borders to migrants to distant Syria — although only around 40 per cent of the influx actually claimed to be Syrians.

Non-citizens of Ukraine don’t qualify for temporary refuge from war in Canada

… The Canadian government is allowing Ukrainians who have fled Russian aggression to come to Canada temporarily for a period of two years “for those who need a safe haven while the war ravages their homeland,” Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced last week.

It’s the kind of program Tajik said she hopes to see from Canada and other countries in response to the crisis in Ukraine.

“I just need legal status, I just need a pass so that I could get somewhere stable,” said the now 23-year-old data scientist in an interview.

But Canada’s program would not apply to her. The immigration minister’s office says for now, the program is only available to Ukraine citizens.

I am all for allowing refugees from the Ukraine to come to Canada. Everyone knows that the stated 2 year stay limit will not be enforced anyway.

But as always the real goal is to open the floodgates to all comers like our political and corporate class wants.

Angry Russian mothers have accused Vladimir Putin of deploying their sons as “cannon fodder” in his invasion of Ukraine, according to video footage of a confrontation with a regional governor that emerged on a day when police in Russia detained 4,500 anti-war protesters.

In the video, Sergey Tsivilev, governor of the Kuzbass region in Siberia, stood forlornly on a stage in a school gym as angry soldiers’ mothers accused the Kremlin of lying.

“We were all deceived, all deceived. They were sent there as cannon fodder, “one woman shouted. “They are young. They were unprepared.”

#Ukraine: The complete destruction of a Russian tank by a Stugna-P anti-tank guided missile. pic.twitter.com/Kjd5V1khqZ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 7, 2022

#Ukraine: This time Ukrainian farmers helped the army to collect a captured Russian BTR-82A. pic.twitter.com/GWoOFJk1kZ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 7, 2022

Ukraine has criticised a proposal by Moscow to open refugee corridors as “immoral” and “unacceptable” after the Russian defence ministry announced that civilians fleeing some cities would only be allowed to leave for Belarus or Russia.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, dismissed Russia’s six proposed corridors after it emerged that only two of them – from Sumy and Mariupol – involved evacuation routes that led to other parts of Ukraine, with all other routes leading directly to Russia or pro-Russian Belarus.

As Russian forces continued to pound Ukrainian cities, including residential areas, with missile strikes and artillery fire, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian presidency also said civilians must be allowed to flee their homes through Ukrainian territory.

#Ukraine: After a day without aircraft shootdowns, it appears likely that a RuAF jet was downed over #Kharkiv after being hit by 2 Ukrainian missiles.

Unfortunately details are lacking, but the UA side has officially claimed the shootdown, with the plane crashing near Kulinichi. pic.twitter.com/pMX3Rjbi0q

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 6, 2022

Here are the BMPs; seems it was very intense urban fighting. pic.twitter.com/4wdNHB37iG

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 7, 2022

Just what is at stake in Ukraine?  Oh, maybe everything.  Besides the horrendous loss of life, the conscription of young Ukrainian boys to repel Russian soldiers’ advance, the streaming of hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees across Europe, and widespread property destruction, the war has become an immediate referendum on the West’s cherished “rules-based international order.”

The latest measures are far more effective than Western powers’ past efforts to target Russia’s elite.

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union had barely announced sanctions on overseas Russian wealth when the oligarchs began to whine and protest. That meant the policy—enacted after Russia invaded Ukraine—was working as intended, to punish Russia’s elites for supporting President Vladimir Putin. By last weekend in Moscow, the Russian-state-television host Vladimir Solovyev raged on camera over what the sanctions would mean for him personally: loss of access to his two luxury homes in Lake Como, Italy, near the villa of George Clooney.

The cries of disbelief from many in the Western foreign policy intelligentsia which met the Russian armored columns pouring into Ukraine were intense if unsurprising. While the latest act in the tragedy of great power politics is certainly devastating, the wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington and the capitals of Europe would be comical if they were not so pathetic. Some lamented that history appeared to be returning after its hiatus, but in fact, it never left. Those who profess to analyze international affairs, and certainly those who lead nation-states, would do well to dwell in reality vice an aspirational world. Western leaders sleepwalked into this crisis. Their strategy was premised on flawed theoretical assumptions, and its failure carries important implications for U.S. policy going forward.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that if NATO will not establish a no-fly zone over his country, then NATO should supply Ukraine with military aircraft to defend itself. He said in a news conference on Thursday, “If you don’t have the strength to provide a no-fly zone, then give me planes. Would that not be fair?”

Poles are doing everything possible to help their Ukrainian neighbours.

Solidarity is one of those words that no one seems to be able to define. Decades of vague posturing – disconnected from any real action – has hollowed out whatever meaning it once had. In today’s climate, solidarity seems to mean little more than a change of profile picture, sharing a graphic on social media, or adding pronouns to your email signature. But in Poland this past week, I have seen solidarity come alive.

There are, of course, symbols galore here in Warsaw. Ukrainian flags are everywhere – shops have blue and yellow displays, lapels bear two-colour pins, and every bus in Warsaw sports the wheat-and-sky mark of Ukrainian national identity.