The Full Belmonte, 3/1/2022
Destruction in central Kharkiv, Ukraine, which city officials say was hit by a missile attack.
“A 40-mile-long Russian military convoy made up of armored vehicles and tanks is closing in on the capital of Ukraine, with US officials warning the sheer number of Russian troops could overcome the Ukrainian resistance. Satellite images show the massive convoy passing through the outskirts of Kyiv, as smoke rises from what appear to be burning homes left behind in the convoy's path. Ukraine is appealing to the international community to come to its aid as US officials warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin could imminently increase the intensity of the attack. Negotiations for a potential ceasefire ended yesterday with a Ukrainian official saying only that both sides would return to their capitals for consultations over whether to implement a number of ‘decisions.’ More than 400 civilians have already been killed or injured since Russia's unprovoked assault on its neighbor began last week, according to the United Nations.” Read more at USA Today
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a military convoy near Invankiv, Ukraine, yesterday.
Source Maxar Technologies
“The International Criminal Court will open an investigation into potential war crimes in Ukraine, where eight years of conflict preceded Russia's invasion. A preliminary report in 2020 found a ‘reasonable basis to believe’ that crimes including murder, rape, torture and unlawful confinement were taking place.” Read more at NPR
“Twelve Russian diplomats have been expelled from the U.S. for allegedly ‘engaging in espionage.’ The operation to remove the diplomats has been in the works for months.” Read more at NPR
“Companies flee | After governments around the world ratcheted up sanctions against Moscow prompting yesterday’s 30% plunge in the ruble, the list of companies leaving Russia is growing by the hour. From oil giants Shell and BP — whose exit may trigger a $25 billion writeoff of assets — to law and accounting firms, the exodus is reversing three decades of foreign investment that transformed Russia’s economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Turkey will restrict Russian warships from using the straits it controls to transit into the Black Sea from the Mediterranean, according to Turkish officials familiar with the matter.” Read more at Bloomberg
After growing increasingly reliant on cheap and abundant wheat supplies from Russia and Ukraine, the world’s grain buyers are being forced to huntelsewhere as trade from both countries dries up. The two countries account for more than a quarter of global wheat trade and nearly a fifth of corn. Prices for both crops extended gains today.
“Law enforcement personnel in Washington, DC, are bracing for potential protests ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address later today. A fence has been erected to prevent disruptions from protests as well as a possible trucker convoy. In addition to physical threats, officials say they’re paying close attention to the possibility of Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. As Biden prepares to deliver his yearly address to Congress and the nation, the White House and Democratic allies are acknowledging that the President's domestic agenda and any accomplishments he will outline during the address have effectively ‘been eclipsed by Ukraine.’” Read more at CNN
Abortion rights advocates in Washington last year.Tom Brenner for The New York Times
“The effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for young children waned quickly during the Omicron surge, according to new data from the New York State Department of Health. Within one month of being fully vaccinated, the effectiveness of the Pfizer shots against infection caused by the Omicron variant fell from 68% to just 12% in children ages 5 to 11 years old. While the vaccine was still protective against severe disease, the shot’s effectiveness against hospitalization in that age group also dropped substantially, falling from 100% in early December to just 48% by the end of January. Meanwhile, more governors across the US are ditching mask mandates -- including in states that have long held on to school mask mandates.” Read more at CNN
“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will hold meetings with top Democratic and Republican senators tomorrow, a White House official tells CNN, as the confirmation process for Biden's nominee to the Supreme Court gets underway. Democrats are hoping for a swift, bipartisan confirmation process for the US District Court judge, who would make history as the first Black woman to sit on the highest court in the nation. Biden officially nominated Jackson to the Supreme Court on Friday, praising her as a ‘nominee of extraordinary qualifications’ whose opinions are ‘carefully reasoned, tethered to precedent and demonstrate respect for how the law impacts everyday people.’ The White House is also getting a major endorsement of Jackson from a prominent conservative judge who advised former Vice President Mike Pence in the fight over the 2020 election.” Read more at CNN
“Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a House-passed bill aimed at preserving access to abortion nationwide. The House had passed the legislation, dubbed the Women’s Health Protection Act, in late September -- even though the bill was not expected to have the necessary votes to pass the 50-50 Senate. As anticipated, the Senate blocked the measure on a nearly party-line vote, with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voting with Republicans in opposition. The vote was 46-48. The bill's failure to advance in the Senate comes as Republican-led states have introduced and advanced bills across the nation that make it harder for women to access abortions and threaten health-care providers who perform the procedure.” Read more at CNN
“Donald Trump has appealed a judge’s decision requiring he answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices – a widely expected move that’s likely to prolong the fight over his testimony by months.
Lawyers for the former president and his two eldest children filed papers on Monday with the appellate division of the state’s trial court, seeking to overturn Manhattan judge Arthur Engoron’s 17 February ruling.
They argue ordering the Trumps to testify violates their constitutional rights because their answers could be used in a parallel criminal investigation.
In an eight-page ruling, Engoron set a 10 March deadline for Trump and his children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr, to sit for depositions. Lawyers for the Trumps asked the appellate court for a stay to spare them from questioning while it considers the matter.” Read more at The Guardian
“WASHINGTON — Republican congressional leaders on Monday broke their silence about the participation of two House Republicans at a far-right conference with ties to white supremacy, denouncing the actions of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona.
Three days after Ms. Greene appeared in person and Mr. Gosar by video at the America First Political Action Conference, organized by a prominent white supremacist, Nick Fuentes, the responses reflected mounting pressure on top Republicans to denounce extremists in their ranks.
They followed a sharp condemnation by the Republican Jewish Coalition and a more oblique one by the Republican National Committee, and marked a rare public rebuke by G.O.P. congressional leaders, who have more often stayed mum in response to outrageous language and conduct by their hard-right members.
By Monday afternoon, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader who aspires to be speaker, told reporters at the Capitol that he found the pair’s behavior ‘appalling and wrong.’” Read more at The Guardian
“Five people are dead after a man opened fire Monday night at a Sacramento church and killed his three children, then fatally shot himself, authorities said.” Read more at USA Today
Ukrainian volunteers in a bunker in Kyiv.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
A Surprising Start
“The initial days of the Ukrainian invasion have not gone well for Russia.
The Russian military has taken no major cities, and video from Ukraine has shown scorched Russian vehicles and dead soldiers. Contrary to what President Vladimir Putin and his aides apparently expected — and what many Westerners feared — Ukraine’s government did not fall within a matter of days.
But military experts caution against confusing a war’s initial days with its likely result. Russia has now begun to use even more brutal tactics, including a bombardment of a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, home to universities and long considered a center of national culture. This morning, a large explosion hit the center of the city.
‘We’re only in the opening days of this, and Putin has a lot of cards to play,’ Douglas Lute, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told The Times. ‘It’s too early to be triumphalist, and there are a lot of Russian capabilities not employed yet.’
The Russian military has an established strategy for taking over hostile cities, one it has used in both Syria and Chechnya. The strategy revolves around firing missiles and bombs into residential neighborhoods, both to destroy infrastructure and to terrify civilians into fleeing, before advancing into the city on the ground, as my colleague Steven Erlanger explains.
Many analysts predict that Putin will take a similar approach in Ukraine, killing thousands of civilians to avoid a humiliating quagmire. ‘A big fear among U.S. military officials is that Russia, having suffered initial setbacks, will unleash a huge bombardment of missiles and airstrikes on not only Kyiv, but other cities where there’s serious resistance,’ my colleague Eric Schmitt said.
Still, there is a high degree of uncertainty about what will happen in the coming days.
Ukrainian troops and civilians continue to resist the invasion. ‘It’s amazing how citizens have fought back,’ said Valerie Hopkins, a Times correspondent now in Kyiv. They have thrown Molotov cocktails, engaged Russian troops in street fights and even tried to repel Russian tanks with their bodies. ‘The spirit is very strong,’ Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, told Michelle Goldberg of Times Opinion.
Ukrainians’ efforts to defend their country are having an effect. Russia has not yet won control of the airspace over Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military has been surprisingly successful at downing Russian planes and helicopters. ‘But American analysts have always said air defenses were one of Ukraine’s main vulnerabilities,’ Eric added, ‘so we’ll see how long they can keep it up.’
The U.S. and its allies are also trying to help Ukraine — albeit without sending troops. Western European countries are sending ammunition, missiles and other equipment, while Turkey has sent drones that seem to have played a role in destroying Russian convoys. The U.S., E.U. and Britain — after initially imposing relatively cautious sanctions against Russia, as I explained last week— have also become more aggressive in the last few days.
In line for an A.T.M. in Moscow on Sunday.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
The ruble’s rout
At the heart of those sanctions are measures to isolate Russian banks, including the country’s central bank, effectively strangling the Russian economy by denying it cash.
Switzerland yesterday said it was departing from its usual policy of neutrality and freezing Russian assets in its banks, which many oligarchs use. The Biden administration, similarly, said that it was freezing the Russian central bank’s assets in the U.S. ‘The move on the central bank is absolutely shocking in its sweeping wording,’ Adam Tooze, the director of the European Institute at Columbia University, told The Times.
There are early signs that the sanctions are having some of their intended effects. The ruble has lost about 20 percent of its value versus the euro since Sunday. Russian stocks have plummeted, too.
A declining currency reduces the buying power of Russian consumers and businesses, by making all foreign goods more expensive. The falling currency and stock prices also seem to be causing anxiety among many Russians. In some cities, customers have lined up at A.T.M.s, fearful that cash will run out. ‘Such economic instability could stoke popular unhappiness and even unrest,’ my colleagues Patricia Cohen and Jeanna Smialek note.
Russia ‘got a bloody nose in the early days of the war,’ said Michael Kofman, a military expert at CNA, a think tank near Washington. ‘However, we are only at the beginning of this war, and much of the euphoric optimism about the way the first 96 hours have gone belies the situation on the ground and the reality that the worst may yet be to come.’” Read more at New York Times
“It’s a globalized world — a planet stitched together by intricate supply chains, banking, sports and countless other threads of deep connection. Until it isn’t.
Exhibit A: Russia this week, abruptly cut off from the larger world on multiple fronts. Its ability to bank internationally has been curtailed. Its participation in major international sports is crumbling. Its planes are restricted over Europe. Its vodka may no longer be welcome in multiple U.S. states. Even Switzerland, whose very name is shorthand for neutrality, is carefully turning its back on Vladimir Putin.
In barely three days, Russia has become an international outcast because of its invasion of Ukraine, and its leader is finding himself with fewer and fewer foreign friends. What’s more, the actions against Moscow are happening in diverse, far-reaching ways that are remarkable for — and in some cases helped along by — the extremely connected world in which we live.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russia’s war in Ukraine plays out for the world on social media, big tech platforms are moving to restrict Russian state media from using their platforms to spread propaganda and misinformation.
Google announced Tuesday that it’s blocking the YouTube channels of those outlets in Europe ‘effective immediately’ but acknowledged ‘it’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up.’
Other U.S.-owned tech companies have offered more modest changes so far: limiting the Kremlin’s reach, labeling more of this content so that people know it originated with the Russian government, and cutting Russian state organs off from whatever ad revenue they were previously making.
The changes are a careful balancing act intended to slow the Kremlin from pumping propaganda into social media feeds without angering Russian officials to the point that they yank their citizens’ access to platforms during a crucial time of war, said Katie Harbath, a former public policy director for Facebook.” Read more at AP News
“Refugee movements. On Monday, the United Nations refugee agency reported that almost half a million people had already fled Ukraine to Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova in what the UNHCR called a ‘fast-growing refugee emergency.’ The United Nations will today launch an appeal for donors to fund humanitarian work in Ukraine as well as to support those refugees.
The relative speed and ease with which Ukrainians have been able to enter EU countries has not been lost on critics, who have highlighted the hypocrisy of European nations who just recently had been shutting their doors to Afghan refugees. The African Union has led criticism of the treatment of Africans trying to flee Ukraine and called on nations to ‘show the same empathy and support to all people fleeing war notwithstanding their racial identity.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Major social media companies including YouTube, Facebook and TikTok moved to ban Russian state media outlets in Europe, blocking Moscow’s biggest megaphone for influencing public opinion about the war in Ukraine in a critical region on its borders.
The moves by the social media giants came after mounting pressure from the European Commission, the Ukrainian government, some U.S. politicians, and their own employees.
The moves are likely to provoke retaliation from Russia, which has already restricted social media services in response to previous measures the companies have taken to curtail the Kremlin’s ability to spread misinformation and propaganda about its invasion of Ukraine.
‘Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we’re blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately,’ Google Europe said in a tweet. ‘It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action.’
State media outlets RT and Sputnik have relied on American social networks, as well as Chinese-owned TikTok, to gain massive followings and reach audiences outside Russia’s borders. RT’s Facebook channel has more than 7 million followers, though it’s not clear how many were located in the European Union. RT’s YouTube account has 4.65 million followers in English and 5.94 million in Spanish. RT and Sputnik also run prominent television channels and radio stations in several countries.” Read more at AP News
“NEW YORK (AP) — Warner Bros. is halting the release of ‘The Batman’ in Russia, just days before it was to open in theaters there, as Hollywood moved to cease distribution plans in the country following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Warner Bros., the Walt Disney Co. and Sony Pictures said Monday that they would ‘pause’ the release of their films in Russia. Each studio has significant upcoming releases that had been set to debut internationally in the coming weeks. ‘The Batman,’ one of the year’s more anticipated films, launches Friday in North America and many overseas territories, including Russia.” Read more at AP News
“Gen Z is cleaning up in the wages department. The workforce’s youngest cohort has seen the fastest wage increases of any age group and the only one whose gains have outpaced inflation—a trend that’s decidedly not cheugy. Median hourly wages for workers ages 16 to 24 were 10.6% higher in January than a year earlier, versus a 4% gain for all workers, according to Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank data. While young workers typically log faster wage growth because they start from a lower base, the 12-month rate is at its highest in the past quarter-century.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Andrew Cuomo is running TV ads in New York recasting himself as the victim of his sexual harassment scandal.” Read more at New York Times
“NEW ORLEANS (AP) — People are out to party as New Orleans’ first full-dress Mardi Gras since 2020 dawns Tuesday, with a day of back-to-back parades through the city and masks against COVID-19 required only in indoor public spaces.
Parade routes are shorter than usual, because there aren’t enough police for the standard ones, even with officers working 12-hour shifts as they always do on Mardi Gras and the end of the Carnival season leading up to it.
But with COVID-19 hospitalizations and case numbers falling worldwide and 92% of the city’s adults at least partly vaccinated, parades are back on after a season without them.” Read more at AP News
“Neil Diamond, 81, sold Universal Music Group his entire song catalog, including ‘Sweet Caroline,’ ‘Cracklin’ Rosie,’ ‘Red Red Wine’ and ‘Song Sung Blue.’
The deal includes 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival long-form videos, UMG said in the announcement.
Why it matters: Diamond has sold more than 130 million albums over the past half-century, with 70+ songs on the Billboard charts.
The backstory: In 2018, Diamond said he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and would retire from touring, Reuters notes. He gave a surprise benefit performance in Vegas in 2020.
‘The Neil Diamond Musical: A Beautiful Noise’ opens in Boston in June. Tickets go on sale Friday.
Other artists with rights deals in the past 14 months: Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Sting, Mick Fleetwood, Bob Dylan and Neil Young.” Read more at Axios