By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 4/7/22

From the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Israel has refused to join the West’s economic war against Moscow, maintaining a neutral stance that as positioned it as a possible broker to end the conflict. 

But all that appears to have changed with remarks by Israel’s foreign minister in a Twitter post on Sunday, the day the massacre at Bucha was revealed and before any investigation could be conducted.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid wrote: “It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of the horrific images from the city of Bucha near Kyiv, from after the Russian army left. Intentionally harming a civilian population is a war crime and I strongly condemn it.” 

Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine also implied that Russia had committed a war crime. “Deeply shocked by the photos from #Bucha. Killing of civilians is a war crime and cannot be justified,” Ambassador Michael Brodsky tweeted on Sunday.

Earlier, on March 13, during a visit to Romania, Lapid had tweeted: “… like Romania, Israel condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s without justification, and we call on Russia to stop its firing and attacks, and to resolve this conflict around the negotiating table.”

Balancing Act

The Israeli foreign ministry tried to distance itself from the ambassador’s remarks.  Haaretz reported: “Asked if the Foreign Ministry’s official position was that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, a spokesman replied: ‘No. It’s a tweet by the ambassador regarding the photos. He didn’t blame Russia.’” 

Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, who flew to Moscow on March 5 to meet with President Vladimir Putin (and was condemned for it), has made no comment about the Bucha incident. Israel is trying to maintain a balancing act between Moscow and Washington, which cannot be pleased with Israel not joining the economic war. Russia and Israel have long maintained good relations, with Moscow even allowing Israel to conduct bombing raids on Syria.   

But years of goodwill have now been put on the line with Foreign Minister Lapid’s remarks. And now Russia has struck back. Sergey Ivanov, head of the department of diplomacy and consular service at the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, wrote a scathing critique of Israel on Wednesday, posted on the ministry’s Telegram page.  It holds nothing back, openly condemning Israel for a variety of sins, including its treatment of the Palestinians.

Ivanov wrote that many Western journalists and political analysts have opportunistically become overnight “Ukraine experts” just as Western politicians, such as Lapid, are making rash statements to boost their popularity. 

“Serious politicians, especially at such a high level as Minister Lapid, have no right to talk idly,” Ivanov warned. “They should be aware of the possible consequences of what they say, including with regard to relations with Russia.”  He wrote:

“It is especially regrettable that these ill-considered statements have not been made by a Western official (Russians have long become immune to what they say) but by the Foreign Minister of Israel, a major regional partner with which Russia has a decades-long history of multifaceted relations. Moreover, these statements could undermine trust in Israel as a country that wanted to mediate the settlement of the crisis around Ukraine, which is evident from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s actions, such as calls to President Vladimir Putin, a visit to Moscow and contacts on this issue with the main players.”

Moscow’s Real View on Palestine

Ivanov then unloaded on Israel’s unjustified behavior towards the Palestinians, signaling that Israel has forfeited any right to criticize Russia. With its “settlements” and continued occupation, Israel has continually undermined any peace settlement leading to a “two state solution,” Ivanov wrote.  “It is all the more strange to hear anti-Russia statements from the Foreign Minister of Israel – the country that has been largely responsible, over many decades, for the failure to achieve a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is one of the lingering regional problems that continues to affect the lives of millions of people and their futures, as well as international security,” he said.

Ivanov then unloaded on Israel’s policy towards Lebanon:

“Neither does Israel have peace with Lebanon. With that country, it has failed to settle matters such as their land and maritime border, division of water resources, and the repatriation of several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, who have found refuge in Lebanon. Following Israel’s large-scale blood-letting offensive war against Lebanon in 2006, Israeli aircraft continue their regular incursions into that Arab country’s airspace, incursions that flagrantly violate its sovereignty and UN Security Council Resolution 1701.”

The Russian attack on Israel’s Gaza policy is fiercer still:

“Even according to Western human rights groups, which take an overtly biased stance on most problems, promoting the Anglo-Saxon agenda, Israel’s actions are reminiscent of the apartheid regime, which ruled South Africa until 1994. Over 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank are crammed into scattered areas and are effectively isolated from each other by a system of motorways. The Israeli authorities are pursuing a deliberate policy of confiscating Palestinian lands, as well as demolishing Palestinian buildings on a regular basis.

The situation regarding the Gaza Strip deserves special attention. It is a rather unique example from the historical, political, and demographic perspectives. In fact, 80 percent of the people living in one of the world’s most densely populated areas, where some 2 million people share an area of 362 square kilometres, found themselves there against their will. They are refugees chased from their ancestral lands. In fact, most of the people living there were forced into a reservation. They are like prisoners in a huge prison under an open sky, fenced off for many years by Israel’s impenetrable sea, air and almost complete overland blockade.”

Most directly challenging Israel-Russia relations, the piece goes on to unmask what appears to be Moscow’s true feelings about allowing Israel to bomb Syria:

“Under the pretext of ensuring its national security, Israel has for several years delivered air strikes at targets in the SAR, this on top of the existing differences with Damascus.  These actions grossly violate international law, trample upon Syria’s sovereignty, and run the risk of further escalating confrontation in the region. They have repeatedly led to Syrian civilian casualties, including among children, not to mention the damage done to the combat potential of the Syrian armed forces and accordingly to the efficacy of their efforts to eliminate the terrorist presence on Syrian soil.  

Attacks by the Israeli Air Force are directly threatening the Russian military personnel who are providing assistance to the legitimate Syrian authorities in their fight against terrorism. Fifteen Russian officers were killed in an air strike on a Syrian facility in Latakia on September 17, 2018. Israel wrongfully believes that the incident has been forgotten. However, even after that tragedy, on multiple occasions, Israeli pilots on combat missions in Syrian and Lebanese airspace used civilian aircraft as shields, thus putting them in great danger. And once again, we are hearing the same claims that the air raids are to eliminate threats to Israel’s national security.”

The piece calls for Israel to consider its own conduct before it blames others.

“Back to Yair Lapid’s statement in the context of the recent events around Ukraine, specifically that “war is not the way to resolve conflicts.” Perhaps, in this case, the Israeli leadership will consider immediately starting talks with Palestine, in order to implement the UN’s two-state solution? Or maybe the foreign minister of Israel, who said that “the Russian attack on Ukraine is a grave violation of the international order,” could review the foundations of this order, for educational purposes?

He may remember that this order stands on the UN Charter and the decisions of the UN and primarily its Security Council. Perhaps it would be helpful for Israel to take a look at its own conduct with a bit of healthy self-criticism before it allows itself to comment on how Russia defends its legitimate security interests.”

The Holocaust

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, used to adoring crowds in the West, was met with harsh criticism when he addressed the Knesset on March 20. He dared to compare Russia’s invasion to the Holocaust, whitewashing Ukrainian fascists’ role in the real Holocaust. Zelensky was accused by a Knesset member of trying “to rewrite history and erase the involvement of the Ukrainian people in the extermination of Jews.” Ivanov wrote:

“In our opinion, it is blasphemous for Israel to voice support for the Kiev regime, which has openly started Nazifying all aspects of state and public life, and it is impossible to interpret Mr Lapid’s words in any other way. This betrays the memory of numerous Jews who were tortured to death by Bandera’s henchmen in Babiy Yar and in other locations in Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. We hope that Tel Aviv will modify its rhetoric in this connection, and that it will objectively assess the Kiev regime’s persistent neo-Nazi practices.” 

The gloves have clearly come off in Moscow — against the U.S. and its European junior partners, and now against Israel. It’s not clear what will happen to Israel-Russia relations and how it might impact the war. But it seems clear the Russian Foreign Ministry is speaking its mind and doesn’t care anymore.

By Sergiy Kudelia, PONARS Eurasia, 4/4/22

(PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo) In his speech declaring the launch of the so-called “limited military operation,” President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia had no plans to occupy Ukraine: “We are not planning to impose anything on anyone through the use of force.” In the following three weeks, however, Russian troops did exactly the opposite. They seized Ukrainian towns, bombed civilian infrastructure, captured nuclear power stations, engaged in indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, sieged cities, and abducted local elected officials. On March 15, the Russian military declared that it had the entire Kherson oblast under its control – the largest administrative unit occupied by Russian forces since the capture of Crimea in 2014.

The popular response that Russian invaders face in Ukraine now, however, is starkly different from what they encountered in Donbas eight years ago. There has been a mounting non-violent resistance in most towns captured by the Russian forces, while local officials refuse to recognize the authority of the Russian military and pledge their loyalty to Ukraine. This widespread defiance of the Russian presence across Ukraine indicates

that the Crimean or Donbas scenarios of long-term occupation will be untenable for Russia. Instead, as this memo argues, Russia is now more likely to use newly seized territories as collateral to press Ukrainian leaders to recognize their earlier territorial losses and add a neutrality pledge to Ukraine’s Constitution.

2022 is No 2014

The swift takeover of cities in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by local separatists and undercover Russian agents in spring 2014 occurred mostly without significant local resistance. In those rare instances where separatists received pushback from within, they either decided to withdraw, like in Svatove and Dobropillia, or engaged in violent retaliation, like in Mariupol. The success of quick separatist takeovers of most towns in Donbas was possible for three main reasons: 1) the receptivity of a sizeable share of local residents to separatist demands; 2) the defection or passivity of law-enforcement; 3) the cooperative response of the local authorities. Separatists and Russian agents also relied on pre-existing civil society and political structures, such as Afghan war veteran

organizations and the Communist Party of Ukraine, which provided organizational resources and technical expertise to stage separatist referendums and mobilize the public behind their goals.

From the first days of the Russian multi-front assault on Ukraine in 2022, the response of local authorities and the public to the Russian military presence was markedly different. In Henichesk, a sea port town on the Azov Sea and one of the first towns captured by Russian troops, local authorities continued operating under Ukrainian state symbols. On March 6, thousands of Henichesk residents marched under Ukrainian flags in defiance of

the Russian occupation. Similar repeated mass protests happened in almost all occupied towns in different regions, including oblast center Kherson. They were accompanied by the singing of the Ukrainian anthem and defiant chants in the face of the Russian military: “Go home!” City administrators often encouraged these protest rallies through their public expressions of loyalty to Ukraine and calls on local residents to defy the Russian presence. Importantly, there have been no counter-rallies in support of the Russian troops or of a union with Russia, which were widely held across Donbas in spring of 2014.

The local city governments recognized the need to co-exist with the Russian military but insisted that by remaining in their positions they helped to preserve Ukraine’s claim on the territory. As Kherson mayor Ihor Kolyhaev explained ten days after Russian troops seized the city, “Kherson is de jure part of Ukraine, but de facto it is occupied.” He stressed that the municipal authorities were still working in the city council under the Ukrainian flag and called on all local businesses to continue their operations and pay taxes into the Ukrainian budget to sustain the national economy. He even initiated the formation of the “municipal guard,” which was aimed at maintaining public order in the absence of a fully functioning Ukrainian police force. In response to the rumors of plans to create the Kherson People’s Republic, city and oblast council deputies issued joint appeals affirming

their commitment to Ukraine.

Similarly, when Halyna Danylchenko, a city council deputy of Melitopol, proclaimed herself an acting mayor willing to work under the Russian command, city council deputies voted to condemn her actions and open a criminal case against her. Even members of traditionally pro-Russian parties sided with their former political rivals in rejecting the Russian role. The mayor of Kryvyi Rih Oleksandr Vilkul, once a prominent leader of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc, called his former colleague Oleg Tsariov a traitor for his appeal to start collaborating with the Russian army. The faction of another pro-Russian party Opposition Bloc – For Life! in the Kherson city council voted for its dissolution, while its leader declared that “the time for such parties has passed.” The

experience of 2014, when many city council deputies across Donbas voted to hold separatist referenda in their towns, can no longer be replicated in the rest of Ukraine.

The dual governance of occupied territories, however, is likely to be temporary. The first abductions of city mayors known for their pro-Ukrainian stance, such as the mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov and the mayor of Skadovs’k Oleksandr Yakovlev, already indicate that the Russian military recognizes their vital role in mobilizing anti-Russian dissent. After his release, Fedorov confirmed that the Russians asked him to ban anti-Russian rallies in the town and pledge loyalty to them. The use of threats and coercion, however, may only force some municipal leaders to resign or flee and is unlikely to trigger widespread collaboration. The examples of voluntary collaboration by local officials, like Danylchenko, so far remain rare. Unless there is more defection within the local administrative structures, Russian forces would have to choose between imposing order on restive local communities and ensuring the relatively smooth functioning of the basic city services. The prolonged occupation of these regions without internal acquiescence, however, is not a feasible strategy.

Obstacles for Sustained Occupation

Various studies of foreign occupation suggest that it regularly imposes significant costs on the occupying force due to the rise in terrorist attacks and the outbreak of insurgencies and nonviolent resistance campaigns. One study of successful occupations differentiated between security occupations, meant to prevent the occupied territory from becoming a threat, and comprehensive occupations, that add attempts to shape the political and

economic system of the occupied area. While the extent of Russia’s occupation goals in Ukraine remains unclear, President Putin’s stated intention to “demilitarize” Ukraine suggests that he will, at minimum, seek to impose his security preferences on the occupied territories. Hence, a successful occupation should ultimately allow Russia to advance its security interests in the region over the longer term.

Based on a review of the historical record of foreign occupations, the study points to three conditions that could allow an occupying power to achieve its goals: 1) a recognition that occupation is necessary and potentially beneficial (to rebuild the political or economic system of the country); 2) a perception that an occupier can provide protection from a third-party threat; 3) a credible deadline for ending the occupation set by an occupying power. All of these conditions presume a degree of acceptance of the foreign occupation by the local communities and a belief in its beneficial effects. By contrast, as Edelstein observes, the greatest impediment to successful occupation is “the nationalism of the occupied population.”

Surveys conducted in the weeks preceding the Russian invasion already indicated a rising willingness to repel Russian “military intervention” across almost all regions of Ukraine. Between December 2021 and February 2022, the share of Ukrainians willing to participate in armed resistance to Russia grew from 33.3% to 37.3%. [1] Strikingly, in all regions more people expressed a commitment to an armed response than to participation in a non-violent resistance. Overall, in early February 2022 more than half of respondents across Ukraine (57%) suggested that they would be contributing to some type of resistance against Russia. This resolve strengthened even further after the first week of the Russian invasion. In a March 1 survey, 59% of Ukrainians said they were certain to take up arms to defend Ukraine and another 21% said they were likely to do so. In southern Ukraine, which came under direct Russian attack early on, a majority (53%) said they were fully ready to fight back militarily.

This readiness for armed resistance among Ukrainians in the southern and eastern regions now is far greater than it was in spring of 2014. In an April 2014 survey, the highest share of respondents ready to fight a Russian military invasion was in Khersons’ka oblast (36.9%). In two oblasts in Donbas, which had already witnessed its first violent clashes, only 11.9% (Donets’ka) and 10.7% (Luhans’ka) indicated a willingness to fight Russian aggression through the use of force, while slightly more respondents in each said they would welcome the appearance of Russian troops.

One of the reasons for a starkly different reaction to the possibility of a Russian invasion in 2014 and 2022 may be a different view of the motives attributed to Russian leadership. In 2014 almost half of respondents in Donets’ka (47%) and Luhans’ka (44%) oblasts and a third of respondents (32.6%) in all southeastern regions said that Russia was justly protecting the interests of Russian-speakers in Ukraine. By contrast, in a March 2022 poll, only 6% of respondents in the east and 1% in all other regions interpreted the military invasion as an attempt to protect the Russian-speaking population. The majority of respondents in all regions of Ukraine view the goal of the Russian invasion in starkly existential terms as a “full destruction of the Ukrainian people.” [2]

The brutality of the Russian military campaign, the siege tactics of major cities that increase human suffering, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians in different parts of the country using cluster munitions and other powerful explosives are only likely to reinforce this view. Any attempts to occupy new areas of the country, then, will produce not only broader non-violent resistance and sabotage Russia-backed authorities, but also give rise to an insurgency campaign likely to be sustained through external backing. The failure to coopt local groups into governance structures and the need to administer towns using Russian personnel could further strengthen resistance activity. This will impose additional costs on the Russian state and undermine its capacity to effectively govern the territories it captured. It will also create a permanent instability on Russia’s western borders and raise the risks of violence spilling over into Russia and of a direct clash with NATO member-states. Hence, any initial plans to divide Ukraine along the German model or to replicate the DNR/LNR in other oblasts need to be adjusted to the new reality of widespread Ukrainian defiance of Russia’s rule.

Collateral Occupation as an Alternative

The only feasible alternative for Russia is now to use the newly seized territories as collateral in ongoing talks with Ukrainian leadership. Moscow could then offer to cede them back to Ukraine in return for Ukraine’s fulfillment of key terms. This approach allows Russia to avoid the costs of establishing its own governance structures and,

instead, rely on local elected officials to ensure the continued provision of basic services. Without necessarily coopting local authorities, Russia could still dampen internal backlash by allowing municipal officials to continue working for their communities.

Russia could expect collateral occupation to incentivize Ukrainian leaders to make costly concessions once they realize that Ukraine lacks capacity in the short-term to reclaim these territories militarily. In some ways, however, collateral occupation may also complicate the bargaining process. First, Putin already articulated his claim that the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts should be part of the LNR/DNR. This would mean that the parties could not simply agree to return to pre-war borders as part of the settlement. Secondly, Russia’s capture of the southern parts of Ukraine fueled discussion of establishing a “land bridge” between Crimea and the rest of the Russian state. In the absence of other tangible territorial gains, this may strengthen those within the ruling elite who advocate against any settlement with Ukraine that would require Russia to give up its land connection to the peninsula. Thirdly, ongoing occupation has already been accompanied by coercion of local officials, journalists, and civic activists. The only oblast that Russia managed to occupy fully, Khersons’ka, also displayed the strongest will to fight Russian occupation and the greatest skepticism about the Novorossiya narrative as the basis for Russia’s territorial claims compared to the rest of southeast Ukraine.

This suggests that a prolonged collateral occupation would require increasingly greater repressiveness on the Russian side. If such repressions would particularly entail widespread civilian abuse, as documented in Bucha, the prospects for a diplomatic settlement would dim further. Russia can then use collateral occupation for bargaining purposes only if the talks with Ukraine are finalized rapidly. If negotiations are stalled, Russia would have to shift its occupation strategy and face the uncertainty of rising costs from civil resistance and administrative hurdles to keep the territories it seized.

[1] In all regions except three Eastern Ukrainian oblasts (Kharkivs’ka, Donets’ka, Luhans’ka) the share of

respondents willing to join armed resistance was above 30 percent based on the KIIS poll conducted in

February 5 – 22, 2022.

[2] According to Rating survey conducted in March 12 – 13, 2022 this view is shared by 65% of respondents

in the West, 54% in the Center, 51% in the South and 54% in the East.

By Mark Tubridy, Intellinews, 4/4/22

Walking through the mall in St Petersburg, Russia’s northern capital, these days is a bit like walking through a ghost town. Once greeted with bright lights and ambient music, shoppers now stroll past darkened display windows and signs reading “temporarily closed.” Only a fraction of the shops have remained open following the recent exodus of foreign brands following the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Popular brands like Adidas, Calvin Klein and Uniqlo that all had branches in the former Tsarist capital have all shuttered their operations in the country.

The malls in St Petersburg are reporting that foot traffic is down by nearly 14% compared to the same period last year, while several newly constructed shopping centres in Moscow have postponed their grand openings due to a sudden lack of tenants.

As popular western clothing brands vanish, some Russians maintain a sense of irony, joking that now they’ll need to style their summer wardrobe with Belarusian threads. Others anticipate a return of Soviet-era fartsovka, or the illegal sale of hard-to-find or inaccessible goods from abroad.

But it’s not just Nike and Tommy Hilfiger. Even basic goods have gone missing from some store shelves. Videos posted on social media showing shoppers battling over packages of sugar and buckwheat have gone viral in recent weeks. In the Volga River city of Saratov, hundreds of residents gather in the central square at weekends, sometimes queuing for several hours to buy sugar that they can no longer find at the store.

“I asked a worker at my local supermarket why there isn’t any sugar. She said there is sugar, but a group of elderly women loitering in the store, waiting for the delivery, buy the stuff up like crazy when it appears,” says Sasha Petrov, a business consultant in Saratov. “I honestly don’t know why they need that much sugar. Maybe they’re witches making gingerbread houses or moonshine.”

“The disappearance of sugar is mostly a logistical problem,” explains a Moscow-based economist and entrepreneur, Dmitry Potapenko, in a recent interview. Producers cannot keep up with panic buying. So far, this kind of frenzied consumer behaviour is mostly affecting staple goods that Russia produces domestically, and therefore supplies are anticipated to normalise soon. As Potapenko notes: “there are other more worrying signs, namely printing paper and feminine hygiene products. All of these things are made from imported materials.”

Sanctions-induced disruptions to logistical chains are causing shortages of everything from receipt paper to aluminium beer cans. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a chaotic ripple effect across the entire economy, leaving few industries and sectors untouched. Even schools have been forced to reschedule the spring examination period to autumn, ostensibly because of coronavirus (COVID-19); however, many suspect the real culprit is a lack of paper.

There are some who believe doomsday reporting of barren shelves at the supermarket to be exaggerated. “I guess people outside of Russia are hearing that there are long lines at ATMs here, that we’ve run out of food,” says Natasha Obolova, a university researcher in Saint Petersburg. “My ex-boyfriend’s mother from Australia called me in a panic and said that I should grow sprouts, since they have all the nutrients a person needs! But I can still find everything I want at the store.”

In a survey published in Novaya Gazeta, sugar is the scarcest product, according to 84.5% of respondents. People from Western Siberia, the Volga region and even Moscow have reported its absence. It is being sold under the counter, on the internet, at inflated prices, one respondent said.

After sugar, respondents (22.2%) cited grain products and pasta as the second most difficult items to find. After these came coffee and tea (7.1%), cooking oil (5.2%) and alcoholic beverages (4.2%). Even when these products are still on the shelves, our study shows that the volume of product in a package is also decreasing. Grains – once sold in kilogram packages – are now sold in 800 gram amounts; certain brands of pasta are being sold in 400 gram, rather than 500 gram packages.

At the same time, soaring inflation is beginning to hit consumers’ wallets. Earlier this week Russia’s statistical agency RosStat reported that annual inflation for 2022 had already reached more than 15%, which is lower than earlier estimates. Inflation could reach a multi-year high of 20% in 2022. Some of the most impacted goods include sugar, salt, rice and black tea, all of which have seen prices increase in double digits in the last month alone. Onions, meanwhile, have increased in price by more than 18%, and carrots by over 11%.

Buckwheat – a Russian staple – is rapidly increasing in price, rising from an average of RUB70 to RUB80-RUB90, and in some places, even to RUB110-RUB130, one respondent to the Novaya Gazeta survey said. 680 respondents also reported that the prices of cereal and pasta have risen by more than 30%. Pet food has also been affected, with one respondent commenting that Grandorf dog food has risen in price by 100%, and in some stores the price has soared by 200-400%. Purina cat food has climbed by 50%. RosStat also noted significant price increases for laundry detergent and personal hygiene products.

“I’m definitely preparing for the worst,” says Oleg Kozlov, who operates a small advertising firm. “I stocked up on some items like cleaning products beforehand, when the prices were still low.”

For his own business, Kozlov faces challenges selling a range of products, like leaflets and flyers, after a number of foreign manufacturers temporarily suspended operations in the country. “I would say that 80-90% of my clients stopped buying products that they used to buy all the time. I’ve received almost no orders for printing materials this past month. Nobody can afford it.” 

Anastasia Kazmina, a medical worker in Saint Petersburg, can still buy the same kind of groceries as before, albeit at a higher price. However, she hasn’t had the same luck with the imported contact lenses she normally uses. “I found out that there are Russian alternatives, but I’ve never seen them in the stores, and I haven’t yet figured out where to buy them.”

Perhaps the most concerning reports are those of the absence of vital medicines in pharmacies. Those for thyroid diseases, epilepsy, diabetes – and other diseases – are missing from the shelves. The medicines that are available have become more expensive. One respondent in the Novaya Gazeta survey reported: “The price of Maxidex (a Finnish drug that treats eye infections) has increased significantly. It was about RUB350, and is now RUB530. Sulfasalazine (an American drug that treats rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, among other conditions) has increased from RUB400 rubles to RUB520. The price of Movalis (another American drug that treats arthritis) also increased a lot: it was RUB800 rubles, now it RUB1,300.”

The state has put pressure on retailers to hold prices down but most have abandoned the 5% limit on sugar trade margins introduced at the start of March as unworkable. The Auchan and Atak supermarket chains are now pricing sugar based on market forces, as they argue the price caps were only making shortages worse.

The Federal Antimonopoly Services (FAS) explained that retailers made such a decision “to expand the supply of goods and eliminate local shortages.” And the Ministry of Industry and Trade noted that the refusal of voluntary obligations, “may have signs of a violation of antitrust laws,” Kommersant reports.

Together with these networks, other leading supermarket chains, including X5 Group (Pyaterochka, Perekrestok), as well as Dixy and Magnit agreed to voluntarily limit the margin to 5% for socially significant products in March. The latter stated that it would continue to fulfil its previously assumed obligations, but the position of the others is unclear – they did not respond to Kommersant’s request for information. 

Despite growing economic hardship, many in Russia appear determined to weather the storm. As Svetlana Dubinina, a homemaker from Saratov, puts it plainly: “Everything’s fine. We won’t starve to death. I always have enough to last half the year.”

Older generations familiar with past economic crises may express an almost business-as-usual attitude about a worsening economy, especially those that have a dacha vegetable garden, but younger urban Russians who take an abundance of goods and services for granted face a steep learning curve.

Katya Ostrovskaya, a nursing student who runs a small side business out of her apartment baking cakes, says that she’s had to rethink future plans. “I’m starting to earn less. That’s really not good because my growth depends on profits. Now I can’t open my own bakeshop like I was planning.”

The rising costs of goods has also forced Ostrovskaya to adjust her business model. “A lot of bakers are switching to smaller-sized cakes because you can make them quicker and in larger quantities, which makes up for the higher costs. It’s a kind of anti-crisis option, since people still want cake.”

Asked how he’s preparing for more austere economic conditions, Andrei Guriev, a delivery driver, responds dryly “I’m not.” Guriev recalls hours of waiting for basic goods during the late 1980s and early 1990s. “We’re used to this. We lived with constant shortages in the Soviet Union, so we’ll get by somehow. It might be like the 90s, but we’re not going back to the Soviet Union.”

Three U.S. officials tell NBC News that U.S. claims based on “intelligence” on Russia were made up simply to “preempt the Russians”

One U.S. official: “It doesn’t have to be solid intelligence when we talk about it..” pic.twitter.com/Yv9udq05ex

— Camila (@camilapress) April 6, 2022

US Publicizing Bad Intelligence in Information War Against Russia

By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 4/6/22

In recent weeks, US officials, including President Biden, claimed that Russia was considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine. But three US officials told NBC News this week that there is no evidence Russia had moved any chemical weapons near Ukraine and that the claims were part of an information war against Moscow.

The US officials said that the Biden administration has been sharing declassified intelligence that wasn’t “rock solid.” The NBC report said that multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon against Russia “even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high.”

The report said the US has used “low confidence” information, like the chemical weapons claims, as a “deterrent effect.” One official told NBC that by sharing the information, the US is just “trying to get inside Putin’s head.”

Another example of the US sharing bad intelligence is the claim that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about the war in Ukraine, which first surfaced in media reports last week. Two US officials told NBC that the intelligence about Putin’s inner circle lying to him “wasn’t conclusive” and was “based more on analysis than hard evidence.”

In another deceptive intelligence release, the US said Russia would view providing MiG fighter jets to Ukraine as escalatory, which bolstered the Pentagon’s position not to transfer the planes to Kyiv. But two US officials said that was also true for Stinger missiles, which the US and its allies have given to the Ukrainians.

A European official and two US officials said that the claim that Russia asked China for military help “lacked hard evidence.” Both Beijing and Moscow strongly denied the claim after it spread through Western media.

The NBC report said that by declassifying so much intelligence, the Biden administration was able to publicly predict Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But during the lead-up to the invasion and since, Western media reports have been full of other unsubstantiated claims about Russia and Ukraine.

by Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone, 4/3/22

A key witness to the widely publicized incident at the Mariupol maternity hospital has punctured the official narrative of a Russian airstrike on the facility, and raised serious questions about Western media ethics. Meanwhile, news of a massacre in the city of Bucha contains suspicious elements.

On March 9th, shocking news of a deliberate Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, began spreading widely via social media and news outlets.

Fiery condemnation from Western officials, pundits, and journalists was immediate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, claimed the act was proof of the “genocide” Russia was perpetrating against the civilian population, and urged European leaders to condemn the “war crime” and “strengthen sanctions” to stop the Kremlin’s “evil” deeds in the country. NPR suggested the attack was part of Russia’s “terrible wartime tradition” of purposefully targeting health facilities and medics during conflicts, dating back to Chechnya.

But newly released testimony from one of the incident’s main witnesses punctures the official narrative about a targeted Russian airstrike on the hospital. The witness account indicates the hospital had been turned into a base of operations by Ukrainian military forces and was not targeted in an airstrike, as Western media claimed. Her testimony also raised serious questions about whether at least some elements of the event were staged for propaganda purposes – and with the cooperation of the Associated Press.

The new testimony (watch below) comes on the heels of evidence strongly suggesting that the destruction of a dramatic theater in Mariupol on March 16 was staged by the Azov Battalion, and that nearly all civilians had evacuated a day before. And as we will see below, new reports of a Russian massacre of scores of civilians in the town of Bucha also contain suspicious details suggesting a pattern of information manipulation aimed at triggering Western military intervention.

“They said it was no airstrike. So our opinion got confirmed. We didn’t hear the airplane, they didn’t hear it either.”

At that moment we heard an explosion. Instinctively I personally put a duvet on myself. That’s when we heard the second explosion. I got covered by glass partially. I had small cuts on my nose, under my lips and at the top of my forehead but it was nothing serious…

Mariana Vishegirskaya, a pregnant resident of Donetsk who was present at the maternity hospital during the widely reported incident, has evacuated from Mariupol and is now speaking out. Photos showing a bloodied Vishnevskaya fleeing the building with her personal belongings became a centerpiece of coverage of the attack, along with a photo of another woman being carried away pale and unconscious on a stretcher.

In the wake of the incident, Russian officials falsely claimed the pair were the same person, citing Vishegirskaya’s background as a blogger and Instagram personality as evidence she was a crisis actor and the incident a false flag. Though that assertion was not true, as we shall see, the hospital had been almost completely taken over by the Ukrainian military.

In a video (above) reviewed by The Grayzone which began circulating via Telegram April 1st, Vishegirskaya offers a clear and detailed account of what took place on and in the days leading up to March 9th. The witness begins by noting how many residents of Mariupol attempted to evacuate following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, but says authorities ensured it was “impossible to leave.”…

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