What just happened
- Olaf Scholz suspended certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine.
- Campaigners celebrated after Colombia’s constitutional court decriminalised abortion up to 24 weeks of gestation.
- The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said it will try to trap and euthanise Hank the Tank, a 230-kilo black bear that has broken into more than 24 homes in Tahoe Keys in search of food.
There are two ways of looking at Putin’s decision to recognise two eastern Ukrainian provinces as independent. Both may be valid.
- Vlad the mad. A delusional tyrant is stalking Europe. The tyranny is evident in the ten-year jail sentence faced by his only influential domestic critic and the dread on the faces of the functionaries required to stand up in the Kremlin yesterday and read out reasons to invade Ukraine. The delusion is that doing so can bring anything but harm to Russia in the long term.
- Putin as geostrategic genius. Knowing he will not face a Nato military response, he has exposed the alliance’s weakness, driven a wedge through the EU’s member states, raised a spectre of Russian territorial revanchism from the Baltic to the Black Sea and retained control of the gas reserves on which Europe still depends.
Tanks marked with white Zs to discourage friendly fire were ordered into Donetsk and Luhansk last night on a “peacekeeping” mission that leaves Ukraine on the brink of full-scale war.
The US announced immediate sanctions against the breakaway provinces and companies doing business with them. More sanctions targeting Russian banks and Putin’s inner circle are expected from the US, EU and UK today.
To note:
- So far Ukraine’s President Zelensky has ordered his forces not to resist incoming Russian armour, to avoid giving Putin a pretext to escalate.
- Biden’s predictions that Putin was intent on invasion have proved accurate, with the paradoxical result that his long-shot strategy of informational deterrence has failed.
- As a result, western democracies face the sternest test of their willingness and ability to act together against military aggression since the cold war.
To ask:
- Will Putin order his troops to advance beyond the “line of contact” that runs through Donetsk and Luhansk, into the rest of Ukraine?
- If so, will his chain of command hold or will Ukrainian optimists who believe this adventure increases the risk of a coup in Moscow or insubordination by the military be proved right?
- What next for Xi Jinping’s policy of non-interference in his ally’s flagrant interference? Is this a crisis in which the Chinese leader will ultimately stay Putin’s hand, or one that emboldens him to take Taiwan?
The view from…
Kyiv. President Zelensky told the nation in a 2 am address: “We are on our own land. We don’t fear anything or anyone.” But further east, fear is setting in and trains were loading up this morning with civilians heading west for their own safety.
Beijing. So far China’s public pronouncements on the crisis have been cautionary. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, told the Munich Security Conference last week that “the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of any country should be respected and safeguarded”, and that Ukraine was no exception. But he told the US Secretary of State last night that legitimate security concerns of all countries should be respected – coded support for Moscow’s baseless contention that Ukraine and Nato pose a threat to Russia.
UN plaza. The US ambassador to the UN told its security council it was nonsense to call Russian troops in eastern Ukraine peacekeepers. It is, and there was a time when condemnation in this forum carried weight. It was in the security council that Adlai Stevenson faced down Valerian Zorin during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it was in the same place that Colin Powell said Saddam had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.
Putin has a veto in the security council and China at his back. He has redrawn the map in Georgia and Crimea without incurring the sort of punishment that troubles him. He perceives the America that has tried five leaders on his watch, including Trump, as weak, and he is undeterred by the threat of more sanctions, which so far have only bound his ministers and oligarchs closer to him.
But last night he crossed a line. If he orders Russian troops to kill Ukrainians who he insists are their kin, his adventure could fail fast. The analogy would be with August 1991, when the army sided with Yeltsin against the old regime. All that’s missing is another Yeltsin.
Flaming Felicity Ace
Insurance experts at Russell Group estimated that goods worth $438 million were on the Felicity Ace, the specialist cargo ship that caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic last week. The estimate includes $401 million worth of cars, including Porsches, Audis, Bentleys and Lamborghinis. It remains unclear what sparked the fire, but lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles onboard kept the flames burning. Two firefighting tugs are spraying water at the vessel, which is somewhere south of the Azores. Another salvage craft with firefighting equipment is due to arrive on Saturday. Russell Group’s managing director, Suki Basi, said with notable understatement the incident shows “the precariousness of global supply chains”.
Ahmed Arbery jury
A jury in Glynn County, Georgia, began deliberations in the federal hate crimes trial of the killers of Ahmed Arbery, a Black man fatally shot while jogging past his home in February 2020. A federal prosecutor told jurors the three white men, who have already been convicted of murder, acted out of “pent-up racial anger” and should be convicted of hate crimes. Defence lawyers argued that Arbery had been acting suspiciously during prior trips to the neighbourhood and that the two shotgun blasts at him were in self-defence. The prosecution pointed to the defendants’ record of “racial hatred” and added that if the defendants thought Arbery was acting suspiciously, they should have called the police rather than grab a gun. The jury is composed of eight white people, three Black people, and one Hispanic person.
Truth Social
Donald Trump’s social network, Truth Social, launched in a limited form on the US Apple App Store. It marks the former US president’s return to social media after being permanently banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube following the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol by his supporters. The entity behind Truth Social is the Trump Media & Technology Group, led by former Republican Representative Devin Nunes, who said the platform will be fully operational by the end of March. It is part of a growing number of technology companies positioning themselves as free speech champions, and attempting to appeal to users of mainstream platforms who feel censored.
England Covid end
Boris Johnson announced that all Covid restrictions will end in England on Thursday, including self-isolation for those who test positive. As part of his “living with Covid” plan, the prime minister said he would also end the provision of free testing from 1 April except for the most vulnerable. The £500 isolation payment for people on low incomes will end this week. Johnson cited falling infections and hospital admissions to justify the changes. The latest daily data show around 850 hospital admissions, some 21,000 infections, and fewer than 10 deaths, although the seven-day rolling average is higher. Johnson’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, were less sanguine. Whitty cautioned that the number of Omicron infections was still very high and Vallance warned that a more severe variant may emerge in the future.
