Talks in Turkey Fail
Talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov & his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Turkey failed. No agreement was reached on a ceasefire or anything else. The talks, which only lasted about 90 minutes, were described as “difficult.” Lavrov said that a future meeting between Putin and Zelensky was possible but must be substantive.
Russia Requests Emergency Meeting at UN Security Council
It was reported today that Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council for tomorrow regarding “biological programmes.” According to CBS News:
The Friday meeting was announced by Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky in a tweet linking to the Russian Ministry of Defense, claiming analysis of documents about U.S. “military biological activities” in Ukraine, with a half-dozen documents attached with graphs and charts.
The U.S. is ridiculing the move, referring to it as a “false flag” action:
In a comment sent to CBS News, Olivia Dalton, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said, “We’re not going to let Russia gaslight the world or use the UN Security Council as a venue for promoting their disinformation.”
…. “This is exactly the kind of false flag effort we have warned Russia might initiate to justify a biological or chemical weapons attack,” she said.
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki referred to the accusations implicit in Russia’s request as “preposterous” and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said they were “absurd.”
Russia Says it Will Nationalize Assets of Western Businesses That Left Russia, Domestic Substitution for McDonalds
RT reported that Russia is considering nationalizing the assets of 59 western businesses who’ve pulled out of the country. The list includes Toyota, VW, Shell, IKEA, Apple, and Microsoft. The list will likely grow according to Oleg Pavlov of the Public Consumer Initiative (OPI):
The list isn’t final, Oleg Pavlov, the group’s head, told the outlet, adding that the police, the Trade Ministry and consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor will also be involved in work to expand it.
“As soon as companies emerge that announce their withdrawal [from the Russian market] without providing guarantees to the Russian consumers, they’re being added on to it. This means that administrative, criminal and court proceedings will be used against them,” the OPI chief said.
The blacklisted foreign firms could be subject to seizure of accounts and assets, may be placed under external management, or face nationalization, Pavlov pointed out. Nationalization refers to the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public ones under the control of a government.
OPI has also warned the administrations of the listed firms about possible criminal liability over intentional bankruptcy and large-scale fraud.
Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin, head of Norilsk Nickel, expressed his disapproval of the policy according to Interfax News:
A cautious approach needs to be taken towards confiscating the enterprises of companies that have said they are pulling out of Russia, Vladimir Potanin, the head of Norilsk Nickel, said in comments distributed by the mining giant’s press office.
“This would throw us back a hundred years, to 1917, and we would feel the consequences of such a move – global mistrust of Russia on the part of investors – for many decades to come,” he said.
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, has declared that domestic restaurant chains could replace around 250 closed McDonald’s restaurants in Moscow within a year, utilizing domestic supply chains and seeking to employ most of the Russians who previously worked at the American burger chain.
Meanwhile, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell admitted today in an interview with a French outlet that economic sanctions that the EU could impose on Russia had been exhausted: “Of course, one can always go further, but we have already reached the limits of what we can do. We have done everything we could.”
Interfax News reported that Putin commented on sanctions the same day:
The sanctions against Russia were inevitable, & the country will cope with them & rise to the challenge, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. “I have no doubt that these sanctions would have been imposed one way or another anyway, just as they have been over many past years.”
Xenophobia Toward Russia Still Hasn’t Hit Bottom Yet
Reuters is reporting that Facebook/Meta has changed its policy on hate speech to allow calls for violence against Russian soldiers and other Russians in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as to call for the assassination of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko:
Meta Platforms (FB.O) will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.
The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators.
“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
The calls for the leaders’ deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company’s rules on violence and incitement.
In other censorship news, Twitter suspended the popular account ASBMilitary, which had around 200,000 followers and reported information on the Ukraine war, including claims by Russian government sources. They are still posting on Telegram and have reportedly said they are appealing the suspension which was done with a “vague” explanation.
A Ray of Hope on Clamor for No-Fly Zone
78 people have signed on to an open letter opposing a no-fly zone in Ukraine, according to an article published at Politico. This is three times as many signatories as the letter I mentioned days ago asking the Biden administration to employ a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Signatories include Andrew Bacevich, Jack Matlock, Thomas Pickering, and Anatol Lieven.