Saturday, March 26, 2022

March 26: Ukraine

What Is Driving Vladimir Putin? Understanding Putin is crucial to deciphering his goals in attacking Ukraine. The Russian American journalist Masha Gessen recommends books on the Russian president and the forces that shaped him. ....... In an interview more than two decades ago, Vladimir V. Putin described his younger self, with a hint of self-congratulation, as “a hooligan.” ....... “I was a real thug.” ...... Putin’s unabashed description of himself as “a thug” was key to his self-image: someone who could not be bullied, who would lash out unpredictably if he felt slighted and who relished violence. ...... destruction in the very Ukrainian cities Putin claims he wants to “liberate.” ....... the way he vilified the West to solidify his grip on power. ...... his evolution from “a bureaucrat who had accidentally been entrusted with a huge country into a megalomaniacal dictator who believed he was on a civilizational mission.” ....... We’re going to look at this period between 2012 and 2022 as a period when there’s a lot of that happening, when the war was slowly ramping up in plain view and most of the world was in denial about it.” ........ he recounts three different fights that he had. One was when he was a kid and he felt mistreated by a teacher, if I remember correctly. One was when he was a student and one was when he was a young officer. And in all three cases, he lashes out. He basically loses his temper and then he goes quiet for a bit, and then he strikes again. ........ This is what it communicates: that this is somebody who has no desire to control his temper. He thinks of himself as somebody who will lash out, somebody who’s vengeful. Somebody who likes to strike out of the blue, but also — and this is the thing that I’m most worried about now — he will go quiet for a bit and then he will strike again. .......... I think my favorite book of his is called “The Post-Communist Mafia State,” which pretends to be about Hungary, but is the best book for understanding post-Communist Russia and how the regime works.” .



Biden calls for ‘lockstep’ NATO response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion
Biden calls for regime change in Russia: Putin 'cannot remain in power' Biden opened his speech saying that Ukraine is now a front line battle in the fight between autocracy and democracy, casting Russia's invasion of its neighbor as part of the decadeslong fight that has played out between the West and the Kremlin.......... Just before Biden was set to speak in Poland, an airstrike struck a fuel depot just outside Lviv, Ukraine -- about 200 miles away from where the President would speak. The strike caused billowing smoke and flames to rise above the western Ukrainian city, which had largely been seen as a safe haven during the war given its distance from the Russia-Ukraine border. ....... It was a surprising attack, coming just a day after the Russian military said the first phase of the conflict had ended and they were shifting their attention to the disputed eastern parts of Ukraine. ....... Biden, standing along NATO's eastern edge, in Poland, issued a stern warning during his speech, telling Putin: "Don't even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory." He said the US was committed to the collective protection obligations laid out in NATO's charter "with the full force of our collective power." ......... "Nothing about that battle for freedom was simple or easy. It was a long, painful slog fought over not days and months but years and decades," Biden told the crowd. "We emerged anew in a great battle for freedom, a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression." ...... Biden told Duda that he was sure Putin "was counting on being able to divide NATO and separate the eastern flank from the west, and separate nations based on past histories. But he wasn't able to do it." ........ the talks with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov were the first time Biden was able to meet face-to-face with officials from Ukraine during his tour. ...... Kuleba described an arduous journey from Kyiv to Warsaw that included a train and three hours in a car. ....... The group meeting at a hotel in Warsaw, which also included Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, delved into more substantive issues later. A White House readout said the men discussed "further efforts to help Ukraine defend its territory." .......... Biden met with chef José Andrés and other volunteers in Warsaw Saturday at a food distribution site for Andrés' World Center Kitchen, the nonprofit devoted to providing meals in the wake of disasters.

What the Silicon Valley Prophet Sees on the Horizon Stewart Brand coined the term “personal computer” and was one of the first to envision what digital technology would become. He knows it got messy. He thinks tech can clean itself up. ....... But the clock itself is possible because of the largess of the foundation’s largest benefactor, Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest people. ...... His writing, ideas and the community he created in Menlo Park, Calif., in the late 1960s were an integral part of the forces that coalesced in the region that would be named Silicon Valley in 1971. .......... it touched a nerve and became a manual for reinvention for an entire generation — including Apple’s Steve Jobs. ..... In 2005, Mr. Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford, cited Mr. Brand as a major influence in his life and explained what “Whole Earth” was to a younger generation: “It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along,” he said. “It was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.” ........ Mr. Brand coined the term “personal computer” in 1974, several years after writing an article for Rolling Stone that drew a picture of the future of the digital world. Computers, he predicted, would be the next important trend after psychedelic drugs ......... Mr. Brand has long had an eerie knack for being able to spot trends early on or show up in the midst of them like some high-I.Q. Forrest Gump, only to leave for the next big thing just when everyone else catches up......... have all pointed to Mr. Brand as the original technological utopian. His words and ideas, they argue, seduced and inspired the engineers who created the modern digital world. .......... Mr. Brand, who considers himself a relentless pragmatist, winces at the label. “All utopias are dystopias,” he said during a conversation this month in the ramshackle office he has inhabited on the Sausalito, Calif., waterfront since the early 1970s. ....... he has not backed away from his certainty that humanity’s future lies in our ability to develop technology: New tools to address the challenges of everything from climate change to repairing the threat that social media has posed to democracies. ........ He has recently begun advocating the idea of “intended consequences” ......... He saw the dark side of online anonymity in the early 1980s ...... a convivial community that would avoid the pitfalls presented by the new world of virtual gathering places. ....... Mr. Brand opened the original “Whole Earth Catalog” by writing, “We are as Gods and we might as well get good at it.” In his 2007 book, “Whole Earth Discipline,” he modified his call to arms: “We are as Gods and HAVE to get good at it.” His book endorsed nuclear power, genetically modified crops, dense cities and geoengineering. ........ Solar got better faster than he ever expected, he said, as did battery capacity. .

Mikhail Khodorkovsky on how to deal with the “bandit” in the Kremlin A former oil mogul and political prisoner warns the West it must face down Vladimir Putin now or prepare for something worse ........ my being jailed in Russia for ten years and then expelled, with a warning that life imprisonment awaited me if I ever returned......... I look with despair at the defeatist approach of Western leaders, such as Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Naftali Bennett. ........ They fly to Moscow, call him, ask him to stop, but assure him that they will not interfere and do not want him to perceive certain movements as a provocation. The president sees all of this as weakness, and that is extremely dangerous. ......... the current leaders of Western countries have never dealt with thugs. Their experience and education relate to interactions between statesmen. The principle of these people’s behaviour is that both sides concede to each other in the interests of their electorate or subjects. War is evil to them, and the use of force is a last resort. .......... He was raised in the KGB, an organisation that relied on force and disregard for the law. While working at St Petersburg City Hall in the early 1990s, he was responsible for the informal interaction of the law-enforcement agencies with gangsters. St Petersburg at that time was perceived in Russia just as Chicago was seen during prohibition. Instead of smuggled whisky, the gangsters were selling drugs and oil. .......... a bandit will always remain a bandit in terms of his perception among those around him. It is a drastic mistake when he is seen as a normal statesman. Russia’s foreign partners fail to understand who he really is. ......... I have plenty of experience of dealing with bandits. After spending ten years in Russian prisons, I can say that the most dangerous thing is to show them any weakness or uncertainty. ........ Any step towards their demands, without a clear demonstration of strength, will be perceived as weakness. Following their logic, if Western countries say they will not give up Ukraine and yet they do exactly that, it means that they are weak. And that makes it likely that Mr Putin will look towards other neighbours, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, who were also previously part of the Russian Empire. ............. Other bandits are also watching and waiting their turn, as America’s humiliation echoes around the world.

Transnistria is stirring, the Balkans are restless again, Iran is attacking American bases.

............ The habit of impunity among thugs does not subside so quickly. And that means a worse war, an even bigger one, is likely........ Putin managed to increase his ratings when he came to office, in 1999, with the war in Chechnya. He solved the problem of controlling his “interim president”, Dmitry Medvedev, by going to war with Georgia in 2008. Having gone to war on Mr Putin’s orders, Mr Medvedev was forced to abandon his own agenda of modernisation. Mr Putin solved the problem of his ratings plunge in 2013-14 by seizing Crimea. ............ Unless Mr Putin is stopped in the air over Ukraine, NATO will have to fight him on the ground. ........ As for nuclear weapons, the Russian president has a manic psychosis. He is obsessed with being a historical figure like Stalin. He has placed a huge statue of Prince Vladimir, the creator of Russia, at his Kremlin gate. But he is not suicidal or he would not be sitting at the other end of a 20-foot table from his cronies. He will only use nuclear weapons if he believes there will be no response..... I do not want my country to face NATO in a global conflict, but trying to talk to a thug without showing him your strength leads exactly to that point. .



NATO has activated a task force to respond if Russia uses weapons of mass destruction. Here’s what that means. . NATO has activated a special defense task force to deal with the fallout from a chemical, biological or nuclear attack ......... the alliance would provide Ukraine with specialized equipment and training to deal with such an attack ....... “has activated NATO’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense elements.” He added that “allies are deploying additional chemical and biological and nuclear defenses.” ........ The activation of the NATO defense task force means that experts and advanced technological equipment on standby in allied nations are now at NATO’s disposal, ready to be deployed should an attack take place. ........ it is very unusual that the task force is actually being activated.” ........

the use of such weapons inside Ukraine could contaminate neighboring NATO members.

......... There are concerns that Russia might try to use weapons of mass destruction and blame Ukraine for an attack ....... Its activation is intended to send a strong signal to Russia .

Ukraine’s troops have begun a counteroffensive that is reshaping the conflict. . A month into a war that began with widespread expectations of a quick Russian rout, Ukraine’s military is undertaking a counteroffensive that has altered the central dynamic of the fighting: The question is no longer how far Russian forces have advanced, but whether the Ukrainians are now pushing them back. ......... Ukraine has blown up parked Russian helicopters in the south, and on Thursday claimed to have destroyed a naval ship in the Sea of Azov. Its forces struck a Russian resupply convoy in the Northeast. ......... It has been one month since Russian invaded Ukraine, and people continue to flee Ukraine for Poland and elsewhere; the United Nations estimates that more than three million people have fled the country. .

The U.N. General Assembly adopts a strong resolution blaming Russia for Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis.
As the U.S. plans to accept Ukrainian refugees, Afghans feel left behind.
Most Americans say Biden is ‘not tough enough’ on Russia, a new poll finds.
‘We are on the edge of survival’: A Mariupol neighborhood through the eyes of one of its residents.

Putin Only Cares About One Thing, and It’s Not Oligarchs . I asked Anatoly Chubais, who was then the deputy prime minister, the question that seemed at the heart of the fight: What is more important to Russians, power or money? He replied, “If you have to ask, you don’t understand Russia.” The answer was power. ........ Many in the West are hoping for Mr. Putin’s overthrow. They do not understand Russia or the attitudes that people there have toward power. Russian scholars have long noted that the absence of private property rights and impartial legal authority lead to state actors holding the power that determines the lives of Russians in every way. Beyond its borders, Russia has since the 15th century exerted its power through military aggression. In a country where power is nearly everything, sanctions and lost fortunes alone will not change that fundamental dynamic. .......... To him, the West has ignored Russia for too long, and denied it superpower status. ......... In Western capitalist democracies, wealth often equates to access and influence. So it’s not surprising that many believe that sanctioning oligarchs can move them to pressure Mr. Putin to change course. That is a miscalculation. These oligarchs may hold wealth that connects them to power and can be used by Mr. Putin, but in Russia, that does not mean that they wield any power over him or those in the Kremlin. ........ back to the 1990s, when I witnessed mostly former Communist Party officials amassing wealth through a privatization of state assets overseen by Mr. Chubais. Those who then vowed fealty and lent money to Mr. Yeltsin’s political campaign became even wealthier, granted ownership of the largest state-owned enterprises in oil, gas and raw materials like nickel and aluminum. Today they remain the richest men in Russia. ......... Court decisions for or against oligarchs could easily be reversed depending on the favor of the Kremlin. ....... He has made clear the dangers of challenging his hold on power. Take the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was once the wealthiest man in Russia. Rising from the ranks of the Communist Youth, Khodorkovsky obtained several formerly state-owned oil fields in Siberia and formed the corporation Yukos. In a televised meeting at the Kremlin in 2003, he dared to criticize the government as corrupt. Mr. Putin responded by stripping Mr. Khodorkovsky of his assets and putting him in prison for 10 years, until he was allowed to leave to live in exile. ......... He vowed to spit them out “like a midge that flew into our mouths.” ........ The only people who can truly sway Mr. Putin are ideologues who share his views, the so-called

siloviki

. The word literally means people with force — the power that comes from being in the security forces or military. These insiders have been with Mr. Putin since his days in the K.G.B. or in the St. Petersburg municipal government, and they see themselves as protectors of Russia’s power and prestige. They have kept their money mostly inside Russia and out of reach of sanctions. And like Mr. Putin, they see the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, and believe this fight is for Russia’s “sovereignty and the future of our children.” ........

To influence them, the West must prioritize the things that they believe give Russia its superpower status: its oil and its military.

....... Russia’s oil and gas sector provides as much as 40 percent of the country’s federal budget revenues and accounts for 60 percent of the country’s exports. ....... the best way to undermine Russia’s military is by limiting access to technology ....... the Russian military lacks the vital hardware and software used by other modern forces to gather real-time field intelligence, along with the communication systems necessary to use that intelligence effectively. And the days-long stalling of a tank convoy indicates that the Russians lack a sophisticated supply-chain system to bring food and gas to troops. ......... if the European Union thought he could tell Mr. Putin “to stop the war and it will work, then I’m afraid were all in big trouble,” because that means Western leaders “understand nothing about how Russia works.” .

She Was a Candidate to Lead Levi’s. Then She Started Tweeting. Jennifer Sey left Levi’s after her advocacy against school closures and mask mandates for children gained attention. She says it’s a matter of free speech. The company disagrees. ......... (“So when is Fauci going to stop doing the morning shows on Sunday, terrorizing the already fearful?” she tweeted in April 2021.) ...... She also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of masking, mostly for young children. ....... The tweets came when Levi’s was using public health guidance to manage protocols across hundreds of stores and in distribution centers. ....... She also noted that Levi’s — which has been vocal about hot-button issues like gun control — had not previously complained when she posted on social media in support of Democratic politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren or more liberal causes. ........ her claims that she was punished because her views veered from “left-leaning orthodoxy” and that she walked away from a $1 million severance package in order to be able speak freely about the company ......... an increasingly common phenomenon in the digital age known as “context collapse.” ...... Ms. Sey, a former national champion gymnast, was the chief marketing officer at Levi’s before being promoted to brand president in October 2020. She was regularly offered up to journalists for interviews ....... Ms. Sey was well liked internally and was an executive sponsor of the company’s resource group for Black employees. ....... She grew worried about how young children like hers might be harmed by public school closures. That was when she turned to Twitter, where in a time of isolation she found other like-minded parents. ....... It could feel in San Francisco that nobody shared this view.” ......... She regularly posted about school closures, an especially contentious issue in the city, and was involved with rallies about reopening them. ...... she had been “encouraged to tone it down” by a board member and other leaders at the company ...... Ms. Sey also did a YouTube interview with Naomi Wolf, who has been barred from Twitter for spreading vaccine misinformation. ...... “Covid masks are obedience training and Covid vaccines are loyalty oaths.” ....... Sey has argued that she was subject to “viewpoint discrimination” by Levi’s. ....... She remains active on Twitter and is working on a memoir “that’s focused on using your voice and speaking up with integrity and doing it as a woman in corporate America.” .



Yesterday I Was Levi’s Brand President. I Quit So I Could Be Free. I turned down $1 million severance in exchange for my voice. ....... When I traveled to Moscow in 1986, I brought 10 pairs of Levi’s 501s in my bag. I was a 17-year-old gymnast, the reigning national champion, and I was going to the Soviet Union to compete in the Goodwill Games, a rogue Olympics-level competition orchestrated by CNN founder Ted Turner while the Soviet Union and the United States were boycotting each other. .

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