Putin likens Western sanctions to war as Russian assault traps Ukrainian civilians
Uganda in the spotlight as country’s startups captivate YC, Google
'Back In Action': Comedian Iliza Shlesinger brings standup show to Rockford
BJP to sweep UP, big win for AAP in Punjab: India Today-Axis My India exit polls India Today-Axis My India exit poll results have predicted a BJP sweep in Uttar Pradesh, while a big win for AAP in Punjab. The exit polls have also given the BJP majority in Manipur, a lead in Uttarakhand while predicting a tight finish in Goa with the Congress. ........ The polls said that the Yogi Adityanath-led party would win 288-326 seats in the 403-seat Assembly..... This time, the BJP was expected to win across all regions of the state.
Where will Prashant Kishor go from here? Political strategist Prashant Kishor has been under pressure from his supporters and well-wishers to don political colours fully in public life after March 10. ........ Throughout 2020-21, Kishor was in talks with the Congress, where Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka had viewed him with great interest. However, the talks ran into difficulties and many party leaders, fancying themselves as close to Rahul, closed ranks to oppose Kishor’s induction. Priyanka had recently spoken about Kishor, admitting that Kishor - aka "PK" was once on the verge of joining the Congress. ...... Kishor’s side of the Congress story is similar with a slight addition. While Priyanka stops short of saying that the ‘pause button’ between the Congress and Kishor has a possibility of ‘forward’ or ‘fast forward’ movement, sources close to Kishor do not rule out any possibility. ....... the BJP’s victory in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Goa and Manipur would further divide and demoralise the opposition, including the Congress, setting a stage for new realignment.
UP election results won't reflect outcome of 2024 Lok Sabha polls: Prashant Kishor In an exclusive interview, Prashant Kishor claimed that the results of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election will not have a bearing on the 2024 general elections. ......
Prashant Kishor - rated as India's top political strategist
- claimed that the results of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election will not reflect the nation's mood for the 2024 general elections....... "A lot of people are getting into this trap, that whatever happens in UP will set the tone for 2024. I would counter that with data. In 2012, the BJP was the No.3 or No.4 party in UP. The Samajwadi Party swept the state, but that had no implications in the 2014 general election," he explained. .....he said, "If that was true, why are you saying that whatever happens in 2022 will happen in 2024? It suits the BJP that if UP is done in 2022, the others should give up in 2024. But the 2022 UP state election is not a semi-final. There are many other state elections to be held before 2024."Prashant Kishor's blueprint for the Opposition In an exclusive interview, the election strategist analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and lays out a gameplan to challenge the BJP in 2024 ......... For an accidental political strategist, Prashant Kishor has an impressive track record. He has advised leaders across the political spectrum, from Narendra Modi to Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, Rahul Gandhi, M.K. Stalin, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Arvind Kejriwal and Captain Amarinder Singh. Of the nine election campaigns that he has helped strategise, eight resulted in victory. The latest being the May 2021 assembly election in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee won a landslide to be re-elected chief minister for a third stint despite the BJP throwing everything it had in the game. As well as M.K. Stalin’s win in Tamil Nadu. The only campaign Kishor lost was an effort to get the Congress to win the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election.
Prashant Kishor’s blueprint for the Opposition
Prashant Kishor's Blueprint For The Opposition The 44-year-old former UN public health specialist stumbled into the hazardous profession of poll advocacy when he met Narendra Modi in 2010 while the latter was the chief minister of Gujarat. What began as advice to the forwardlook ing chief minister on health issues turned into campaigns for nutrition for the Gujarat government to writing Modi’s speeches. “One thing led to another,” says Kishor, “and I got involved in his political campaign.” He helped Modi in his highly successful reelection campaign in 2012 and then got formal ly involved in his 2014 campaign to become prime minister. ........ Kishor says he is busy these days helping build a political formation that can effectively challenge the BJP in the 2024 general election. ....... the party has lost more than 90 per cent of the elections in the last 10 years. Let the Opposition leadership be declared democratically ........ Under the present leadership, the Congress has not done very well. In the past 10 years, in the more than 50 elections, both state and general, it has lost almost 90 per cent, except the 2012 Karnataka state polls, the 2017 election in Punjab and the 2018 elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It tells us that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Congress has organised itself in the present context, the way it approaches elections, the way it engages with people. ........ The Congress party alone is not the full Opposition, you have other parties as well. So, let them decide together who should lead rather than someone just saying that XYZ should be the president. What is wrong with my tweet? ........ The Congress, at its peak, used to be No.1 or a close No.2 in about 3,500 assembly constituencies (there are 4,121 cur rently). Today, that number is down to 1,5001,600. Their graph has been on the dec line, especially after 1984. My point is: the decline in the Congress is not a temporary phenomenon. It is not linked to any individual or episode; it is far deeper. It is structural ....... I have been in talks with the Congress leadership for the past two years but, post the Bengal election, it was a much more structured, intensive engagement. I almost joined the party ....... Apart from the leadership issue, it needs to have faster decision-making, empower local leaders, and not centralise all the decision-making and keep it in the hands of a few individuals in Delhi. ....... If you look at the glory days of the Congress, it was not necessarily run by a set of general secretaries who sat in Delhi. The party was strong because it had very strong regional leaders. I am not saying it does not have strong leaders now, but given the way the Congress works currently, the real power is centralised in the hands of general secretaries and what people call the party high command. That is the biggest stumbling block to any real revival of the Congress from the grassroots. ......... you have to get four levers right: a unifying face, a narrative, then the arithmetic, along with the machinery ....... This Left-of-Centre ideological space is very large in a country where over 60% of the population earns less than Rs 100 a day ........ Could any one of us have forecast in 1972 that JP (Jayaprakash Narayan) would unite the opposition and become its face? Or imagined in 1986 that V.P. Singh would be PM? Or Narendra Modi become the BJP mascot, in 2010? If you have the right issues, and build a narrative around them, a face will emerge .........
Beyond Russia-Ukraine talks, here’s what Putin really wants from the West What Russian President Vladimir Putin really wants can be understood more clearly from his highly contentious wish-list that he laid out in detail for the first time and handed to the West in December 2021. ...... Nato’s expansion has actually meant a security concern for Russia and jeopardises Putin’s larger dream to annex the Soviet constituents (that became independent after the Empire's collapse in 1991) in the name of culture, history, language and nostalgia. ........ Ukraine had itself said it has an exclusive sovereign right to run its foreign policy, and only it and Nato can determine the relationship between them.
Meet Putin's Bihari legislator who has justified war against Ukraine Russia's Indian-origin legislator and member of Russian President Vladimir Putin's party, Dr. Abhay Kumar Singh supported military action against Ukraine. ...... Singh, who is a deputat -- parallel to an MLA in India, from the Western Russian city of Kursk, justified Russia attacking Ukraine, maintaining that the neighbouring country was given enough opportunity for talks, failing which the decision for war was taken. ......... "If China sets up its military base in Bangladesh, how will India react? It is obvious that India will not like this. NATO was formed against Russia and it did not disintegrate despite the Soviet Union breaking up and it gradually came closer to us. If Ukraine joins NATO, it will bring NATO forces closer to us as Ukraine is our neighbouring country and it would be a violation of the agreement. Our President and Parliament had no option but to act and a decision was taken (to attack Ukraine)," Dr. Abhay Kumar Singh told India Today in an exclusive conversation. ........ "There is nothing to worry about nuclear weapons. President Putin has announced that nuclear exercise was being conducted only to respond if another country attacks Russia. If another country attacks us, Russia will respond in all forms", said the Russian legislator. ........ Abhay Kumar Singh is a native of Patna, Bihar. He went to Russia almost 30 years ago in 1991 to study medicine. ... He joined Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party in 2015 and won a provincial election from Kursk in 2018.
Comedian Vs. Spy Before becoming Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, a martial arts black belt holder, had spent decades with country’s spy agencies. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had a television series to showcase his administrative experience; he played the role of an accidental president in reel life. But the Ukrainian people elected him as president in 2019 reposing faith in his social media video posts during election campaign. ....... The different political backgrounds of the two reflected in the way they prepared over the past few months for the situation that has led to the Russia-Ukraine war. While Putin planned diligently to give legal sanctity to Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky’s government made light of the situation on social media and shared memes from official handles. ........ Even in January, when Russian invasion looked imminent, Ukraine’s official handle shared a meme playing down the threat and asking the media to not call it “Ukraine crisis”. ........ Putin was born in a family which had worked in Joseph Stalin’s kitchen. ....... Both Putin and Zelensky studied law at university. But while Putin became a spy as Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence officer and later on submitted a doctoral thesis in economics, Zelensky veered towards theatre after securing licence to practice law. ....... By 1990s, Zelensky started making a mark with his performance group getting attention of television viewers. His comic shows, particularly Club of the Funny and Inventive People became popular throughout former Soviet Union countries by late 1990s. ....... Putin by then had served as a deputy mayor of his hometown St Petersburg before moving to Moscow in 1996 to join President Boris Yeltsin’s team. Yeltsin made Putin the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB, KGB’s domestic successor) in 1998. The next year, Yeltsin appointed Putin his prime minister and declared him presidential successor. .......... In 2019, Zelensky ran for presidential election launching a party with the same name as his TV series, Servant of the People. Ukrainian people elected a political novice with about three-fourth vote. ........ In the final act of the play, while Zelensky’s government played down the Russian threat and mocked Putin, the former spy from across the border amassed troops from north, east and south Ukrainian borders before launching the final assault on Thursday.
Russia-Ukraine War LIVE Updates: No breakthrough after third round of negotiations; violence halts evacuations The two sides met for a third round of talks at the Belarus-Poland border as the war entered its 12th day and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought stricter international sanctions and trade embargo against Russia. Meanwhile, the European Council has said Ukraine's application for EU membership will be discussed in the coming days........ More than 1.7 million Ukrainians fled to Central Europe since invasion: UN ...... Poland - which has the largest Ukrainian community in Central Europe - has received more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees since the conflict began on Feb. 24
Russia lays down 4 conditions before Kyiv to stop military action in Ukraine Cease military action, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory among the conditions set by Moscow ........ "We really are finishing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will finish it. ...... Ukraine changes its constitution to enshrine neutrality ...... Acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory ...... Recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states ....... Russia has attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south, pounding cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv and the port of Mariupol. The invasion launched on February 24 has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, provoked outrage across the world, and led to heavy sanctions on Moscow.
Why BJP is set to cross 300+ seats in UP | OPINION I am sticking my neck out and predicting the BJP to win 300+ seats. This is purely based on my interactions and small titbits of feedback that I get from people from various backgrounds. ....... there is no visible anti-incumbency against UP CM Yogi Adityanath even after five years of his rule, and it is rare. ..... There is a visible improvement in the law and order of UP ...... Better roads, better power supply, better infrastructure, better policing are the talk of the town amongst voters.
BharatPe: The coming of age story for Indian startups | OPINION The recent events at BharatPe signal the coming of age of Indian startup ecosystem, where all the checks and balances mirroring those of large established corporate houses are coming into play, to keep the ecosystem in good stead...... Startups are essentially high-value, scalable businesses that create significant value addition and jobs in the economy, and some of them disrupt the way we live, work and entertain ourselves. ....... Over 80 of these startups in India have become unicorns at an accelerated rate. ........ BharatPe, a phenomenal financial technology or fintech startup, that pushed the creation of unified QR codes for UPI based payment acceptance, and forced the QR code-based payment framework to make payment acceptance free for merchants. ....... startup ecosystem that has blossomed to be one of the largest in the world, with active support and promotion by the government. ........ In case of BharatPe, that indeed seems to be the case, with the chairperson of the board being none other than Rajnish Kumar, the former CMD (chairman and managing director) of the venerable State Bank of India. .......... In all fast-growing companies, growth brings in significant challenges of culture, processes, systems and people. If the board does not keep a hawk eye on these issues, it is quite easily possible for a company to drift into oblivion, rather than maintain the high speed of growth. ........ Clearly, what brings a company to a certain stage, will not take them to the next milestones. Changes are required. Change does bring in friction. And great companies require great culture to continue on the growth path. ....... Companies are built on strong values and great culture. An absence of values and positive culture, destroy companies eventually. It is indeed imperative to make sure that employees, vendors, customers and all other stakeholders in a company feel that they have conducive atmosphere to work in, without which, a company will eventually fall. ........ when required, the investors and board need to act decisively in the interest of the large number of stakeholders of the company, be it a startup or a well-established company.
The futility of trying to get inside Putin’s head | OPINION How do you get inside Putin’s head? Can you really understand a man like Putin? A powerful president suffering from the grand delusion of cementing his place in history? ..... There is a war. Between a former spymaster who has invaded another country and a former comedian who is not cracking jokes anymore. The rest of the world is also not laughing. It is staring with shock at images on TV screens of buildings crumbling, cities falling, citizens trying to take cover from falling bombs. It is also trying to get inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head. In a futile attempt to figure out the whys and the hows of what he is doing with Ukraine today and what he might do tomorrow. .....
And therein lies the problem.
West’s racist side amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, and what’s behind it | OPINION In times of war, when protecting human lives and dignity should be a top priority, the West’s racist response amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the last thing we wanted, particularly when the Covid-19 pandemic has shattered the myth of race-based distinction. ......... Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, part of the global spotlight has focused on the torture and discrimination of Indians, Africans, Arabs and other people of colour trying to cross the Ukrainian border. Race is often deciding whether people fleeing the war will be welcome or face hostility when they reach European nations for refuge. ........ The prime ministers of Bulgaria and Poland have declared their countries would accept as many Ukrainian refugees as possible because “these are not the refugees we are used to. These are intelligent and educated people.” These countries have often denied entry to Iraqi, Afghan and Syrian refugees in the past. ........ The way sections of the western media are covering the war betrays deep racist exceptionalism. Journalists have implied war is meant perhaps only for “impoverished and remote” countries and not a “civilised” nation with “blue eyes and blonde hair people who have “Instagram and Netflix accounts”. Some western commentators have also inferred that only countries like Iraq and Afghanistan perhaps deserve war. ....... There is also shock about “well-dressed, prosperous middle class, next-door, white Christian people” being victims of war, with the inference that refugees can stream only from the Middle East or North Africa. The maximum surprise is over the fact that war has visited a European country, “instead of a Third-World nation”. .......
The way sections of the western media are covering Ukraine war betrays deep racist exceptionalism
........... Journalists have implied war is meant perhaps only for “impoverished and remote” countries and not a “civilised” nation with “blue eyes and blonde hair people who have “Instagram and Netflix accounts”. Some western commentators have also inferred that only countries like Iraq and Afghanistan perhaps deserve war........ There is also shock about “well-dressed, prosperous middle class, next-door, white Christian people” being victims of war, with the inference that refugees can stream only from the Middle East or North Africa. The maximum surprise is over the fact that war has visited a European country, “instead of a Third-World nation”. .......... The African Union and the Arab and Middle East Journalists’ Association have condemned such treatments and remarks that have tarnished the West’s “high moral ground” of standing up to the Russian aggression in Ukraine. ........ But when everyone is trying to escape the same risks, why discriminate based on their race? And how did “Third-World” nations become so synonymous with war? Who fought their battles there? ........ Let’s go back to the Cold War (1945-1990). The Cold War, which often didn't stay cold, was fought between the Western Bloc led by the US and other “First-World” nations (capitalist, developed and generally democratic) and the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union that influenced the “Second-World” (communist, authoritarian and militarily powerful). ......... As most of their colonies achieved independence by 1960, they were the “Third-World (developing and least developed countries) and the Cold War battlefields. ........ When one listens to western commentators, some questions crop up. Who invaded Iraq or Afghanistan? Who fought wars in Syria? Who is fighting in Yemen? And why? ........ The answer to the Yemen question, for example, can answer many of these questions. Caught in the US-Iran proxy war, the country has been ravaged, with schools, colleges, hospitals and other public utilities being bombed since 2015. ........ Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 4 million others displaced. About 8 million people may lose all humanitarian aid now. Signs of a typical “Third-World” country? .......... In Syria, Russia launched a bloody intervention to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime about six years ago. The US also intervened, but to back anti-Assad forces. And both Russia and the US fought terror outfit ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in Syria. All this triggered a wave of people seeking refuge in the West. ........ Russia and the US have both invaded Afghanistan for whatever causes they wanted to champion that led to similar destruction and a large number of people living in exile. Western powers invaded Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction. None was found. We again had similar destruction and a large number of people living in exile. It’s a long list. ....... If war can visit only poor countries, what makes them poor? Many would agree with Indian parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor’s famous Oxford speech that later led to multiple TV interviews and also a full-blown book. The Congress MP essentially said the British destroyed the Indian economy and pushed the country back by several decades. ......... The same could be true for many other British colonies in the “Third-World”. Without decades of colonisation, they could have had their own versions of “Netflix and Instagram” much earlier, and that would have perhaps made them look more “civilised" if not white. ......... But beyond such passionate arguments, let’s look at racism in its historical context. Racism was more pronounced when Caucasian people from industrialising Europe tried to dominate brown (Indian sub-continent) and yellow-skin (Mongolian) Asians........ Racial superiority or inferiority did not feature in narratives in this manner in earlier phases when Caucasian Europeans’ interactions with Armenian or Mediterranean people were greater, compared to Asian people of colour. ........ In the Age of Exploration, the Caucasian European powers needed new markets to colonise. Indian sub-continent, East Asia, South-East Asia and Africa became their targets. The industrialised people needed a narrative to make their imposed superiority accepted by the people of colour. ........ Many believe that the West often needs to refer to the “Third-World” countries to calm its anxieties triggered by its own moral deformities or civilisational fault-lines. Anything shameful, blame it on the non-white world. White exceptionalism affirmed; the feeling of shame handled....... That’s how defensive projection works: attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another. When you bully or ridicule someone or a community, you essentially project your own struggle with self-esteem onto that person. ....... For example, when America faces chaos or shame, sections of the media there often headline their pieces that question if the US is becoming a third-world country. ......... The Human Rights Watch has reported that racism and xenophobia remain entrenched problems in most western countries. In fact, across the globe. It’s a fact that ethnic discrimination has become more and more prominent due to ultra-nationalist parties gaining attention in recent years. ........ But in times of war, when protecting human lives and dignity should be a top priority, the West’s racist response amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the last thing we wanted, particularly when the Covid-19 pandemic has shattered the myth of race-based distinction.Kyiv accuses Moscow of resorting to 'medieval siege tactics' Russian forces continued to pummel some Ukrainian cities with rockets even after the announcement of corridors, and fierce fighting raged in places, indicating there would be no wider cessation of hostilities......... But the evacuation routes led mostly to Russia and its ally Belarus, drawing withering criticism ........ the Russian Defense Ministry announced a new push Monday, saying civilians would be allowed to leave the capital of Kyiv, Mariupol and the cities of Kharkiv and Sumy. .......... The countries' foreign ministers are also scheduled to meet in Turkey on Thursday ......... Ukrainians, whose ferocious resistance has slowed the invasion and thwarted any hopes Moscow had for a lightning victory, have been reinforcing cities across the country. ......... In Kyiv, soldiers and volunteers have built hundreds of checkpoints, often using sandbags, stacked tires and spiked cables. ..........
"Every house, every street, every checkpoint, we will fight to the death if necessary," said Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
.......... In Mariupol, where an estimated 200,000 people hoping to flee were becoming increasingly desperate, Red Cross officials waited to hear when a safe corridor would be established. The city is short on water, food and power, and cellphone networks are down. Stores have been looted as residents search for essential goods. ......... At the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands, Ukraine pleaded for an order to halt Russia's invasion, saying Moscow is committing widespread war crimes and "resorting to tactics reminiscent of medieval siege warfare." Russia snubbed the proceedings, leaving its seats in the Great Hall of Justice empty. .......... The invasion has also sent 1.7 million people fleeing Ukraine.........He was born for this, I was endlessly impressed: Actor Sean Penn on meeting Ukraine Pres Zelenskyy amid war Actor Sean Penn, in his first televised interview since he returned from war-torn Ukraine, said he was "endlessly impressed" by the courage of Ukraine President Zelenskyy, who he met both on the eve of the Russian invasion and the day war broke out....... It was clear I was in the presence of and this is reflective of so many Ukrainians something that was new to the modern world in terms of courage, dignity, love and the way he has unified the country. I was endlessly impressed and moved by him and terrified for him and Ukraine ......... Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk blasted the latest cease-fire proposal, which had most evacuation routes heading toward Russia or its ally Belarus, calling it "unacceptable." Belarus served as a launching ground for the invasion. French President Emmanuel Macron also dismissed the plan as a cynical move by Moscow. ......... The Academy Award-winning actor and activist was in Ukraine as war broke out to continue working on a documentary on Russian aggression in Ukraine. Later, he fled the war-hit country via Poland.
Russian roulette: The fallout of the war in Ukraine As Russia’s Vladimir Putin sets out to subjugate Ukraine, what is the cost India, his own country and the world will have to pay? ....... Aeons later, Russian president Vladimir Putin believed he was confronting a Ulyssean dilemma. A creeping effort by countries allied to the North Atlantic Tre aty Organisation (NATO) to encircle Russia— a containment strategy unfolding over a span of three decades—posed an existential threat to his once-great nation. His choices? Either wage war on Ukraine, Russia’s immediate neighbour, which was keen to join the western alliance, or swallow the affront and watch Russia being treated as a pygmy in the emerging new world order.
All Putin’s men: Russia’s crack team behind Ukraine invasion Putin’s top advisory team is a 30-member Security Council of Russia. It is to this council, Putin speaks mostly. Even in these meetings, Putin seems to be distancing himself from his advisors, as the photographs released by the Kremlin show. ...... He is now bringing a law to punish those reporting “unofficial” information through any media. ........ Reports of his increasing isolation are being debated. Putin is said to have isolated himself through the Covid-19 pandemic. ...... Even in January, the Kremlin issued a photograph of Putin ‘celebrating’ Orthodox Christmas (January 7) with a priest. A Time magazine report published in February quoted an unnamed Kremlin source from Putin’s inner circle to say, “Very few people can speak to him now. The world inside his head is only his own.” ........ But media reports point to five-six persons in Putin’s inner circle who are said to have his ears. Putin’s inner circle is loosely called ‘siloviky’, the Russian word for enforcers or strongmen. This group includes a trio from St Petersburg, Putin’s hometown. ......... NIKOLAI PATRUSHEV ....... Nikolai Patrushev, 70, has been one of the three aides of Putin from St Petersburg since the 1970s. He is the secretary of the Russian Security Council. He is considered to be the most hawkish of all advisors to Putin. ...... He worked with Putin closely for years in the KGB and succeeded him as the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the principal successor of Soviet spy agency KGB. Patrushev headed the FSB from 1999-2008. .......... Ahead of Putin’s order to his military to invade Ukraine, Patrushev reportedly told Russia’s president that the US was working on an agenda with a “concrete goal” to break Russia up in parts......... In this meeting, Putin decided that Russia would recognise the independence of the rebel-controlled regions of Ukraine. Patrushev is considered the man who guided Putin to take the extreme position on Ukraine despite antagonist world opinion. ........ ALEXANDER BORTNIKOV ....... Alexander Bortnikov,70, is another Putin’s man from his KGB days. He is the FSB head, having taken over from Patrushev. Putin is said to trust the most information coming from Bortnikov. ........ With Putin’s backing, Bortnikov has turned FSB into Russia's most powerful law enforcement agency. Bortnikov and Patrushev are the closest aides of Putin, pushing Kremlin observers to confusion as to who advises and who takes the decision.......... SERGEI NARYSHKIN ........ Sergei Naryshkin, 67, completes the Leningrad (old name of St Petersburg) trio but he might just have fallen out of favour of Putin. Naryshkni is the head of the Russian foreign intelligence agency, SVR, and has remained with 69-year-old Putin for several decades. ........ However, in a recent security council meeting, Putin gave him a dressing down a video of which was released when Naryshkin suggested that Russia’s “western partners should be given a last chance”. ...... Putin tersely asked him to “speak plainly” eliciting a “yes” to giving recognition to rebel-controlled regions of Ukraine. Immediately after that Putin asked him to take his seat on the security council bench. ....... Sergei Naryshkin has long been a shadow figure of Putin, first in St Petersburg during the turbulent years of the 1990s and then in different offices after Putin became Russia’s president. Many a time, Naryshkin has faced allegations of eliminating Putin’s critics and rivals taking refuge outside Russia by poisoning and other methods. ......... SERGEI SHOIGU ...... Sergei Shoigu, 66, is Putin’s defence minister and a close friend, who has been photographed holidaying with Russia’s president in Siberia. Shoigu is considered the principal enforcer of Putin’s diktats. ........ He gets the credit for the annexation of Crimea in 2014 when Russia invaded the southern peninsula of Ukraine. He is currently enforcing Putin’s Ukraine invasion plan that entails capturing the capital Kyiv. ....... Shoigu also heads Russia’s military intelligence agency. His name cropped up in the alleged poisoning of Putin’s bitter critic and Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Siberia in 2020. This strengthened Putin’s grip on Russian politics. ....... VALERY GERASIMOV ...... Vallery Gerasimov, 66, is Russia’s military chief and the most crucial cog in Putin’s juggernaut to re-establish his country’s national pride by bringing together the Rus nation........ He earned Putin’s trust during the Russian government military campaign in Chechnya in 1999. Before Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Gerasimov prepped for it by conducting heavy military drills in Belarus near the Ukraine border. The drill site became the launchpad for the Russian military to target Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. ....... SERGEY LAVROV ....... Sergey Lavrov is the oldest member of the Putin cabinet serving as the foreign minister since 2004. To many, Lavrov is Putin’s ‘HMV’ (His Master’s Voice), who parrots the line taken by Russia’s president to the West. ....... There are other members in Putin’s inner circle, including a woman face -- Valentina Matviyenko, but only about half a dozen of them have ears of Russia’s president. Matviyenko, 72, is the chairperson of the federal council since 2011 and another loyalist from Putin’s hometown of St Petersburg.
Why China Can’t Bail Out Putin’s Economy . In deciding to invade Ukraine, Vladimir Putin clearly misjudged everything. He had an exaggerated view of his own nation’s military might ........ He vastly underrated Ukrainian morale and military prowess, and failed to anticipate the resolve of democratic governments — especially, although not only, the Biden administration, which, in case you haven’t noticed, has done a remarkable job on everything from arming Ukraine to rallying the West around financial sanctions. ........ much of the commentary I’ve been reading says that Russian forces are regrouping and will resume large-scale advances in a day or two — and has been saying that, day after day, for more than a week. ......... The West has, however, largely cut off Russia’s access to the world banking system, which is a very big deal. Russian exporters may be able to get their stuff out of the country, but it’s now hard for them to get paid. Probably even more important, it’s hard for Russia to pay for imports ........ even Russian trade that remains legally permitted seems to be drying up as Western companies that fear further restrictions and a political backlash engage in “self-sanctioning.” ........ The Russian elite can live without Prada handbags, but Western pharmaceuticals are another matter. In any case, consumer goods are only about a third of Russia’s imports. The rest are capital goods, intermediate goods — that is, components used in the production of other goods — and raw materials. These are things Russia needs to keep its economy running, and their absence may cause important sectors to grind to a halt. ......... the cutoff of spare parts and servicing may quickly cripple Russia’s domestic aviation, a big problem in such a huge country. ......... China and Russia are very far apart geographically. Yes, they share a border. But most of Russia’s economy is west of the Urals, while most of China’s is near its east coast. ............. Putin may dream of restoring Soviet-era greatness, but
China’s economy, which was roughly the same size as Russia’s 30 years ago, is now 10 times as large
. .............. Russia is going to pay a very high price, in money as well as blood, for Putin’s megalomania. .Russia Is a Potemkin Superpower . Putin has delusions of grandeur. ...... Russia is even weaker than most people, myself included, seem to have realized. ....... Putin desperately wants to restore Russia’s status as a Great Power ....... his aims go beyond recreating the Soviet Union — he apparently wants to recreate the czarist empire ........ he apparently thought that he could take a big step toward that goal with a short, victorious war. ........ So far, it hasn’t worked out as planned. Ukrainian resistance has been fierce; Russia’s military has been less effective than advertised. ........ reports that the early days of the invasion were hampered by severe logistical problems — that is, the invaders had a hard time providing their forces with the essentials of modern war, above all fuel ...... logistics is one thing advanced nations are supposed to be really good at. .........
Russia is looking less and less like an advanced nation.
....... I was being generous in describing Russia as even a medium-size power. Britain and France are medium-size powers; Russia’s gross domestic product is only a bit more than half as large as either’s. It seemed remarkable that such an economically underweight state could support a world-class, highly sophisticated military — and maybe it couldn’t. ......... I wouldn’t be surprised if post-mortems on the Ukraine war eventually show that there was a lot more rot at the heart of Putin’s military than anyone realized ........ Putin isn’t the first brutal dictator to make himself an international pariah. As far as I can tell, however, he’s the first to do so while presiding over an economy deeply dependent on international commerce — and with a political elite accustomed, more or less literally, to treating Western democracies as their playground. ......... Putin’s Russia isn’t a hermetic tyranny like North Korea or, for that matter, the old Soviet Union. Its standard of living is sustained by large imports of manufactured goods, mostly paid for via exports of oil and natural gas. .......... sanctions that might disrupt this trade, a reality reflected in Monday’s sharp plunge in the value of the ruble despite a huge increase in domestic interest rates and draconian attempts to limit capital flight. ....... Russia’s oligarchs have stashed most of their assets overseas, making them subject to freezing or seizure if democratic governments can muster the will. ...... everything Putin has done in office suggests that he considers it necessary to buy oligarchs’ support, so their vulnerability is his vulnerability. .......... one puzzle about Russia’s pre-Ukraine image of strength was how a kleptocratic regime managed to have an efficient, effective military. Maybe it didn’t? ......... the European Union has time to prepare for another winter without Russian gas .China’s Ukraine Crisis What Xi Gains—and Loses—From Backing Putin ...... The Ukraine crisis is primarily a standoff between Russia and the West, but off to the side, another player stands awkwardly: China. Beijing has tried to walk a fine line on Ukraine. ....... If Beijing had its way, it would maintain strong ties with Moscow, safeguard its trade relationship with Ukraine, keep the EU in its economic orbit, and avoid the spillover from U.S. and EU sanctions on Moscow—all while preventing relations with the United States from significantly deteriorating. Securing any one of these objectives may well be possible. Achieving all of them is not. ........ The crisis in Ukraine is exposing the limits of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy. Beijing’s global aspirations are now clashing with its desire to remain selectively ambiguous and aloof. ........ In European capitals, where the allure of China’s massive market has traditionally blunted efforts to push back against the country, Beijing is already facing stronger political headwinds. And in the United States, the mood on China has grown even darker. ......... Beijing would no doubt prefer that the current crisis didn’t exist. For starters, Ukraine is an important trade partner for China in its own right, with more than $15 billion in bilateral trade flows in 2020. The country is also a vital gateway to Europe and a formal partner of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s flagship geopolitical endeavor. ........... To this day, it has not recognized the 2014 annexation of Crimea. ........ They have long seen Europe’s dreams of a multipolar world as aligned with their own. ......... Making matters worse, China would be aligned with the weakest of the three other powers. ........ Beijing’s purchase of more Russian energy and the increased use of the Chinese renminbi (instead of the U.S. dollar) for bilateral transactions could insulate Russia from U.S. sanctions. .......... “The sides stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region and remain highly vigilant about the negative impact of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy on peace and stability in the region.” ......... its increasingly cozy relationship with Moscow cannot but remind observers of the Sino-Soviet relationship of the early 1950s. ..... It is possible that Xi genuinely believes that Putin won’t invade Ukraine, which means that lending him rhetorical support won’t incur any costs. ........ Preoccupied with Ukraine and Russia, the United States and Europe would shift their gaze away from Asia, giving China a freer hand in its neighborhood. In short, although a conflict in Ukraine would be bad for everyone, China might emerge better than the rest. ......... there is little reason to suspect that Washington will be battered by a war in Ukraine. Even though the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq may have opened a window of strategic opportunity for China over a decade ago, the Chinese should recognize that the Biden administration’s approach to Ukraine is designed precisely to avoid getting bogged down in a conflict. ............ For all of Beijing’s talk of Western decline, China still considers the United States and its allies powerful enough that frictions with them will define the next decade. It sees Europe as leaning ever further in the direction of the U.S. position, and it feels growing tensions with countries in its immediate neighborhood, including Australia and India. .......... A close relationship between Xi and Putin, a shared hostility towards the United States, and an overlapping (though not identical) illiberal vision of the world order are likely sufficient to power the relationship for at least the next decade. .......... With no leading powers other than Russia available, Xi may have made a calculated bet that a strong relationship with Moscow could amount to a net asset for Beijing. ........ Xi’s growing alignment with Moscow presents something of a catch-22 for China. As it competes with the West over global order, Russia becomes a more attractive security partner. But by elevating the relationship with Russia—and choosing to do so in the middle of a Putin-provoked crisis—Beijing is inviting pushback it can ill afford. .
Will Putin Lose Russia? His Grip on Power Rests on Fantasy and Fear .......... On February 25, barely a day after Russian tanks, troops, and planes began a full-scale assault on Ukraine, the Kremlin restricted access to Facebook. The following morning, Twitter was disabled for most Russian users. At the same time, in the Russian media itself, barely a mention of “invasion,” “attack,” or “war” can be found: all of these words have been forbidden, in what amounts to a sweeping attempt to create an alternate reality for the Russian public. The Prosecutor General’s Office has also enforced a ban on the websites of the most popular independent media outlets, Echo Moskvy radio and TV Rain, for distributing “untrue information about the shelling of Ukrainian cities and the killing of Ukrainian civilians.” On March 2, Echo Moskvy was taken off the air. ........... All state media and press secretaries repeat the same mantra, literally repeating Putin: “drug addicts and neo-Nazis” are in power in Ukraine; the battle is not with Ukrainians but with those who “seized power.” ........ As Putin’s military becomes increasingly bogged down in a long, violent war that has turned the world overwhelmingly against him, many Russians have yet to understand the full consequences of what has happened. A kind of martial law has been imposed on the Russian elite. And the broader public is being fed a story that looks increasingly like a fable from the dark days of the Soviet Union. After all, liberating people from their legitimately elected governments is an old Stalinist technique that was rolled out in 1939, when the Soviets entered Finland to liberate Finnish people from their bad leaders and install a puppet government. ........ But it is much harder to keep reality at bay in the twenty-first century—and with a collapsed currency, growing international isolation, and now, as the Kremlin has admitted, hundreds of actual Russian casualties, it will be difficult for the government to keep telling its story. ........
The question now facing the Russian government is how will the Russian population at large perceive the war if it is long and bloody and the army needs even more cannon fodder.
........... The elites have to go all the way with him in Ukraine—or go to jail, since the government has a dossier on them. They are doomed to stay on this submarine until the end. ...... In Putin’s Russia, even amid a disastrous war, the elites are overwhelmingly dependent on the government. In Russian, there is a proverb for this situation:“Where do we go from the submarine?”
For anyone with wealth and power—in a Russia in which it is often impossible to distinguish a high official from an oligarch—the country is now surrounded by deep water and no one can leave the boat. The problem is that the elites, too, are now under sanctions, and there is nowhere for them to go, especially now that travel and banking in the West have been cut off. On March 1, Putin issued a decree forbidding anyone from taking foreign currency worth more than $10,000 out of the country, effectively preventing Russians from trying to get their assets out. ......... In the meeting, Putin presented to the public his Politburo, which now sat at a great distance from him on the other side of the huge room; it looked like a physical demonstration of Putin’s growing isolation. They sat and listened and mechanically approved every word. Now they will be accountable for events, and they, too, will share the responsibility for the blood of ordinary Ukrainians and Russian military men. ........ For the moment, unprecedented financial pressure from the West and the feeling that there is no place to go from the submarine have turned the Politburo and the rest of the oligarchy and political class into hard-line Putin supporters. ......... He needs to isolate Russians from the world, the way he is isolated, so that they, too, cannot escape from his submarine. It will also be more difficult for Putin’s domestic enemies to escape persecution if they are trapped in Russia. Even pro-Western Russians can sense that they now belong to a rogue nation, although the vast majority of them are not responsible for Putin starting this war. .......... Though it has been little noted in the West, from the beginning of Putin’s anti-Ukrainian and anti-NATO campaign last fall up until his invasion last week, his approval rating among the Russian public slowly but steadily increased, from 63 percent in November to 71 percent in February—one of his highest ratings in recent years. The latest poll was conducted by the independent Levada Center just days before the invasion began. ........... if, as now seems increasingly likely, the war turns out to be long, bloody, and destructive, even Russians who are cut off from reliable information may begin to wonder about the effectiveness of the special military operation in the Donbas. Not to mention the possibly devastating consequences of the ruble having slid to less than one cent on the dollar. And without international inputs and money flows, the country is unlikely to be able to use import substitution—ramping up its domestic production—to compensate for lost trade. Of course, the West will again be blamed, and many will continue to support the government in doing so. .............. But this is not yet an antiwar movement. So far, there are few signs that ordinary Russians are taking part. They may not like the war but they are keeping their heads down. ......... Ukrainians will resist the Russian occupation with everything they have, and they will never accept staged elections to put in power a pro-Moscow president. ........ If Putin takes Ukraine, he will lose Ukraine. More accurately, he has already lost it. Meanwhile, he has made Russia and the Russian public nearly as isolated as he is. Will he now lose Russia, too, as a result of this war, or will he bring it down with him? ........ For now, public opinion remains sanguine and few cracks in the façade have emerged. But that may change as the isolated Russian economy begins to fall apart before our eyes, along with wages, jobs, and access to essential goods and medicines. A month or two into the war, things may look quite different. .Taiwan, Ukraine issues 'not comparable': Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi China views Taiwan, a self-ruled island, as a rebel province that must be reunified with the mainland, even by force. .......... "The biggest difference lies in the fact that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory and the Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair while the Ukraine issue arose from contention between two countries, namely Russia and Ukraine," Wang said in his annual press conference on the side-lines of the Parliament session. .
How Uncle Sam may benefit the most from Russia-Ukraine war Ukraine needs more arms to save itself from the Russian invasion. The supply of weapons to Ukraine is coming from other channels as well, but the US has to be the principal export source within the Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bloc. ......... In 2017-end, when US President Donald Trump approved a licence for Ukraine to buy arms and approved the export of weapons worth $47 million, observers watching Russia-Europe warned that the move could put Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on the warpath in the region. A Reuters commentary said the decision to arm Ukraine “is bound to make a conflict that is mostly frozen into a more deadly one and it complicates any reasonable chance of a diplomatic resolution”. Yet, the US continued with the arms sale to Ukraine even after Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden. The military aid policy continued. The warnings came true as Putin ordered invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Now, Ukraine needs more arms to save itself from the Russian invasion. The supply of weapons to Ukraine is coming from other channels as well, but the US has to be the principal export source within the Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bloc. .
How Pinarayi Vijayan is setting a new development agenda for Kerala The ruling CPI(M) is piloting a plan to transform Kerala into India’s ‘happiest state’ by boosting education, attracting investment and creating jobs .
