Russia
German leader seeks Indian support for Russia's isolation
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Saturday that Germany wants to get India to support, or at least not block, Western efforts to isolate Russia for waging a devastating war against Ukraine.
Following his talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Scholz stressed that developing countries were being negatively impacted by energy and food shortages resulting from the war and hopes that India will help secure critical supplies to Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Modi maintained his cautious approach and said India wanted the conflict to be ended through dialogue and diplomacy. "India is ready to make its contribution to any peace initiative," he added.
He has refrained from any overt criticism of Russia as Moscow is a major supplier of arms, oil and India’s other economic needs.
Scholz said that Russia's war against Ukraine "violated the fundamental principle to what we all agree of not changing borders through the use of violence."
Also Read: German leader Scholz arrives in India to boost economic ties
Scholz, who arrived in the Indian capital on Saturday, also discussed with Modi ways to boost bilateral economic cooperation.
He said he supported a free trade agreement between the European Union and India and he “personally will make sure that this does not drag on.”
The trip is Scholz's first official visit to India, though it is his fourth meeting with Modi since taking office in 2021, underlining Germany’s interest in reaching out to Delhi.
“There is huge potential for intensified cooperation in sectors such as renewables, hydrogen, mobility, pharma and digital economy” with India, Scholz said in an interview published by The Times of India newspaper on Saturday.
After a videoconference with fellow leaders from the Group of Seven industrial powers on Friday, Scholz said before leaving Berlin that “internationally, we are endeavoring to make clear that Russia stands alone in the world with its aggression against Ukraine.”
Philipp Ackermann, the German ambassador to India, said he understands why India is buying large quantities of oil from Russia.
"That’s something that the Indian government decides and as you get it at a very, very low price, you know I cannot blame the Indian government for buying it,” New Delhi Television cited Ackermann as saying.
Germany has been pushing to diversify its economic relations as European countries try to decouple from China, a German official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Modi said the business delegation accompanying Scholz was firming up agreements with India in digital technology, the telecommunication sector and diversification of supply chains.
Scholz reiterated that Germany welcomes skilled workers from India, especially in information technology and software industries.
"We want to benefit from the Indian talent employed in Germany in the industrial sector," he said.
India is set to receive $10.5 billion in aid by 2030 to boost the use of clean energy under agreements the two sides signed in May last year.
The two-day visit will also take Scholz to India’s information technology hub Bengaluru on Sunday.
Russians mark Ukraine war anniversary with flowers, arrests
Russians in Moscow and other cities brought flowers to Ukrainian poets and held one-person pickets with antiwar slogans Friday to mark the first anniversary of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Russian media and civil rights groups reported at least a dozen detentions, part of the Kremlin's sweeping crackdown on dissent that has spiked to unprecedented levels since the start of the war.
At least eight people were detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, according to OVD-Info, a legal aid group that tracks political arrests. They all had brought flowers to the city’s monument to victims of political repression, the group said.
Online news outlet Sota filmed at least seven people getting detained in St. Petersburg after they brought flowers to a monument for the renowned Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Footage posted by the outlet showed a police officer explaining to a couple that they had violated coronavirus restrictions.
Sota also reported a person detained in Moscow, where people flocked to the monument of Lesya Ukrainka, another renowned Ukrainian poet, to lay flowers. A contingent of police officers monitored the group but left mostly didn't interrupt.
Also Read: Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina seeking new passports
Five people were detained in the Siberian city of Barnaul, according to the Sibir.Realii news outlet, including a man who picketed a central square with a placard reading “Stop being silent.” In another Siberian city, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a woman was detained for protesting with a banner that read, “We’re mourning. Forgive us, we screwed up our country,” the outlet reported.
Russians all across the country actively protested against the war in Ukraine during the first week of the invasion. Large rallies quickly fizzled after thousands were detained, but solo pickets -- and detentions -- have persisted throughout the year.
Russian authorities have enforced a law enacted soon after the invasion that effectively criminalizes any public expression against what the Kremlin refers to as a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Russian parliament rubber-stamped a bill that outlawed discrediting the Russian military or spreading false information a week after Moscow's troops rolled into Ukraine.
OVD-Info said in a statement Friday that “for 305 out of 365 days of the war, security forces detained people for their anti-war position in various cities of Russia and the annexed Crimea.”
As of mid-December, the group had counted 378 people facing criminal prosecution for their antiwar positions in 69 Russian regions and the Crimean Peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. The group also counted more than 5,500 administrative cases on the charge of discrediting the Russian army.
Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina seeking new passports
Shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Alla Prigolovkina and her husband, Andrei Ushakov, decided they had to flee their Sochi, Russia, home.
Ushakov had been detained for holding up a sign that read “Peace,” and Prigolovkina, a pregnant ski instructor, feared he would soon be drafted and potentially killed, leaving their baby fatherless.
The original plan was to stay in Europe, but anti-Russian sentiment discouraged them.
“We chose Argentina because it has everything we needed: Fantastic nature, a large country, beautiful mountains,” Prigolovkina, 34, told The Associated Press inside the home her family is renting in Argentina’s western Mendoza province. “We felt it would be ideal for us.”
They were hardly alone.
Over the past year, Argentine immigration authorities have noticed flights packed with dozens of pregnant Russians. But whereas Prigolovkina said her family intends to build a life here at the foot of the Andes mountains, local officials believe many of the other recent Russian visitors are singularly focused on receiving one of Argentina’s passports.
Also Read: Europe bans Russian diesel, other oil products over Ukraine
All children born in Argentina automatically receive citizenship and having an Argentine child speeds up the process for the parents to obtain residency permits and, after a couple of years, their own passports.
Crucially, the navy blue booklets allow entry to 171 countries without a visa, a backup plan that Russians believe could come in handy in the ever-uncertain future. Due to sanctions, Russians have also had trouble opening bank accounts in foreign countries, something an Argentine passport could solve.
According to official figures, some 22,200 Russians entered Argentina over the last year, including 10,777 women — many of whom were in the advanced stages of pregnancy. In January, 4,523 Russians entered Argentina, more than four times the 1,037 that arrived in the same month last year.
After an investigation, Argentine officials concluded that Russian women, generally from affluent backgrounds, were entering the country as tourists with the plan to give birth, obtain their documentation and leave. More than half of the Russians who entered the country in the last year, 13,134, already left, including 6,400 women.
“We detected that they don’t come to do tourism, they come to have children,” Florencia Carignano, the national director for migration, said during a meeting with international media.
Although Argentina generally has a relatively permissive immigration process, the recent arrest of two alleged Russian spies who had Argentine passports in Slovenia raised alarms in the South American country, where officials reinforced immigration controls.
“We canceled residencies of Russians who spent more time outside than in,” Carignano said, expressing concern the Argentine “passport will cease to have the trust it enjoys in all countries.”
Immigration authorities have also called on the justice system to investigate agencies that allegedly offer assistance to Russian women who want to give birth in Argentina.
It’s unclear how many women have left Russia to give birth in the last year, but the issue is big enough that lawmakers in Moscow this month raised the question of whether those who choose to give birth abroad should be stripped of the so-called maternity fund that all Russian mothers receive — a financial benefit of almost $8,000 for the first child and about $10,500 for the second.
There is no discussion on whether to cut off access to the maternity fund for Russian mothers who give birth abroad, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
The phenomenon also is not entirely new. Prior to the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian women were part of a wave of “birth tourists” in the U.S. and many paid brokers tens of thousands of dollars to arrange their travel documents, accommodations and hospital stays, often in Florida.
Embarking on a long journey during an advanced pregnancy can be particularly perilous, and Russians in Argentina insist that their decision to leave their homes goes beyond a new passport. Despite the government’s claims, some at least seem eager to make Argentina their new home.
In spite of the language barrier and the unfamiliar, stifling summer heat, Prigolovkina and Ushakov have quickly adopted Argentine customs since their July move. Prigolovkina said they especially enjoy spending time in the park with their dogs. And while the family may not have been interested in soccer in Russia, they happily cheered when their newly adopted country won the World Cup late last year.
Still, she also concedes that obtaining a passport for their newborn son, Lev Andrés, was a motivating factor for the move: “We wanted our baby to have the chance to not just be Russian and have a single passport.”
Some experts say a country in which migrants once made up as much as 30% of the population should be particularly sensitive to the plight of Russians trying to start a new life. The South American country was transformed in the late 19th and early 20th century by the influx of millions of European migrants, including many from Italy and Spain.
“Given our history of migration, a country like ours should empathize more with the humanitarian dimension” of these recent immigrants, Natalia Debandi, a social scientist and migrations expert who is a researcher at the publicly funded CONICET institute, said. “They are not terrorists, they are people.”
A study by immigration agents based on interviews with 350 newly arrived Russians concluded that most are married and largely well-off professionals who have remote jobs in finance and digital design or live off savings.
Days before giving birth to a boy named Leo, 30-year-old Russian psychologist Ekaterina Gordienko lauded her experience in Argentina, saying “the health care system is very good, and people are very kind. My only problem is Spanish. If the doctor doesn’t speak English, I use the (Google) translator.”
Gordienko arrived in the nation's capital of Buenos Aires in December with her 38-year-old husband, Maxim Levoshin. “The first thing we want is for Leo to live in a safe country, without a war in his future,” Levoshin said.
In Mendoza, Prigolovkina is excited for her family’s new life in Argentina and optimistic they will be able to give back to the country that has welcomed them.
“We have left everything behind to live in peace. I hope that Argentines understand that Russians can be very useful in different areas of life, in business, the economy, in science,” she said. “They can help make Argentina better.”
Japan, other G-7 leaders step up Russia sanctions
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other Group of Seven leaders adopted a set of additional sanctions against Russia over its war on Ukraine at an online G-7 summit Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the invasion.
The leaders renewed their commitment to “intensifying our diplomatic, financial and military support for Ukraine, to increasing the costs to Russia and those supporting its war effort,” and countering the negative impact on the rest of the world, especially the most vulnerable people, they said in a statement, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
The G-7 countries also affirmed their coordinated action to “further counter Russia's capacity to wage its illegal aggression" and pledged to prevent Russia from obtaining military equipment and technology. They also called on other countries to stop providing military support to Russia.
Kishida, as this year’s G-7 president, also announced Japan will impose additional sanctions on Russia, including freezing the assets of some 120 individuals and organizations and banning the export of drones and other materials that can be used for military purposes.
“In order to absolutely not allow one-sided changes to the status quo, we must firmly carry out support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia to regain peace and international order based on the rule of law," Kishida told a news conference before hosting a teleconference with other G-7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“G-7 serves the core of the international commitment to do so," he said.
At the summit, Kishida planned to discuss the latest developments in the Russian war on Ukraine and how to support Ukraine's recovery and affirm G-7 solidarity for the war-torn country.
Kishida noted growing concern about China's potential transfer of lethal weapons to Russia, and said that Japan will cooperate with G-7 and other countries to send a “clear message” to third countries to stop supplying weapons to Russia.
Read more: Russia intensifies attack on Ukraine, UN and G7 condemn
Kishida also expressed “strong concern” about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement Tuesday that he was suspending Moscow's participation in an arms control treaty between Russia and the United States.
“Russia's nuclear threat is unacceptable, and use of nuclear weapons should never happen,” Kishida, whose electoral constituency is Hiroshima, said at the news conference. “As the world's only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, the 77-year history of non-nuclear weapons use should not be tarnished by Russia.”
As the world observed the one-year anniversary of Russia's war on Ukraine, about 1,000 people protested Friday night in Tokyo's Hibiya Park, holding banners saying: “Russia, stop invading Ukraine." Outside of the United Nations' University in Tokyo, demonstrators held a candlelight vigil. And at Zenkoji temple in Nagano in central Japan, about 30 monks prayed for the lives lost in the war.
Top diplomats from Ukraine, the United States, Britain, Sweden, the EU, Lithuania and Sweden at a joint news conference in Tokyo called for solidarity for Ukraine and condemned Russia. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said Putin is wrong to accuse NATO of expanding eastward. He said the newest NATO members expanded west by their free will because the West has “a pull” of freedom, liberty and respect for individuals.
Also Friday, nuclear and security experts on a panel at the non-profit Sasakawa Peace Foundation released recommendations for the Kishida government to initiate discussions at the G-7 Hiroshima summit toward establishing a framework to protect nuclear facilities in conflict areas, in response to Russia's repeated attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
Due to its pacifist principles, Japan's support for Ukraine has been limited to non-combative military equipment such as helmets, bulletproof vests and drones, and humanitarian supplies including generators.
Kishida is the only G-7 leader who has not visited Ukraine. Pressure is mounting at home for Kishida to visit Kyiv before he hosts the G-7 summit in Hiroshima. Asked about a possible visit, Kishida said he is “considering” a visit, taking into consideration ways to ensure safety and secrecy, but nothing official has been decided.
Japan has joined the United States and European nations in sanctioning Russia over its invasion and providing humanitarian and economic support for Ukraine. Japan was quick to react because it fears the possible impact of a war in East Asia, where China’s military has grown increasingly assertive and has escalated tensions around self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
Kishida at the online G-7 also explained Japan’s support for Ukraine. That includes a new $5.5 billion in financial aid, which Kishida unveiled Monday, bringing total Japanese support for Ukraine to more than $7 billion.
Read more: Home World USA Biden unveils new Ukraine weapons package, Russia sanctions
Japan has also accepted more than 2,000 displaced Ukrainians and helped them with housing assistance and support for jobs and education — a rare move for a country that is known for its strict immigration policy.
Biden unveils new Ukraine weapons package, Russia sanctions
The Biden administration declared its Ukraine solidarity with fresh action as well as strong words on Friday, piling sweeping new sanctions on Moscow and approving a new $2 billion weapons package to re-arm Kyiv a year after Russia’s invasion.
Despite the U.S. and allies’ continued ambitious efforts to bolster the Ukrainians, there are no signs of an endgame in the war, which seems destined to enter an even more complicated phase in the months ahead.
On the somber anniversary, Biden and fellow leaders from the Group of Seven allies that have been at the forefront of backing Ukraine stayed focused on a unified front.
“Our solidarity will never waver in standing with Ukraine, in supporting countries and people in need, and in upholding the international order based on the rule of law," the G-7 leaders said in a joint statement after a virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
As Ukraine mourned its war dead and vowed it would ultimately emerge victorious, the Pentagon unveiled its latest weapons package. It includes more ammunition, electronic warfare detection equipment and other weapons to counter Russia’s unmanned systems, and several types of drones, including the upgraded Switchblade 600 Kamikaze attack drone.
The latest aid package uses the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to provide funding for longer-term contracts to buy weapons and equipment. Unlike the presidential drawdown authority that the Pentagon has used repeatedly over the past year to pull weapons from its own stocks and quickly ship them to Ukraine, the USAI-funded equipment could take a year or two to get to the battlefront. As a result, it will do little to help Ukraine prepare for an expected new offensive in the spring.
“Difficult times may lie ahead, but let us remain clear-eyed about what is at stake in Ukraine,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “to ensure that a world of rules and rights is not replaced by one of tyranny and turmoil.”
Biden said in an ABC News interview on Friday that he's not ready to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Zelenskyy has been pressing the U.S. and allies for jets, but White House officials have pushed back that they are not the weaponry that Ukrainians need in the near term.
“There is no basis on which there is a rationale, according to our military now to provide F-16s,” Biden said. “I am ruling it out for now.”
Meanwhile, the White House said that new sanctions hitting over 200 people and entities will “further degrade Russia’s economy and diminish its ability to wage war against Ukraine.” The Biden administration will also further restrict exports to Russia and raise tariffs on some Russian products imported to the U.S.
Read more: White House announces $270M military package for Ukraine
"Now, not only does Ukraine stand, but the global coalition in support of Ukraine is stronger than ever, with the G7 as its anchor," Biden said on Twitter following Friday's virtual meeting with Zelenskyy.
Still, as the conflict enters a second year, there are no indications that President Vladimir Putin will retreat from the conflict. And the avalanche of international sanctions that have been steadily hoisted on Moscow over the past year have yet to deliver the sort of knockout blow to the Russian economy that the White House — and independent economists — predicted at the outset of the war.
The Russian economy has weathered sanctions better than expected in 2022, in part due to “the slow introduction of commodities sanctions," according to a Moody’s Investors Service report on Friday.
The Russian economy is expected to weaken in 2023, with GDP shrinking by 3% this year, according to the Moody's projection. The economy shrank 2.2% in 2022, far short of predictions of 15% or more that Biden administration officials had showcased at the start of the war. Export controls and financial sanctions are gradually eroding Russia’s industrial capacity, but oil and other energy exports last year enabled Putin to keep funding the war.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that Russia's economy was “showing some resilience” but he also said it's not clear that it “can be sustained for the long haul.”
Of Putin, he said, “He has had to take some drastic measures to prop up his economy, to prop up his currency, including playing pretty aggressively with interest rates for instance."
The new sanctions introduced by U.S. Treasury on Friday hit Russian firms, banks, manufacturers and individuals, taking aim at entities that helped Russia evade earlier rounds. Russia’s metals and mining sector are among those targeted in what Treasury called one of the “most significant sanctions actions to date.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, attending meetings in India on Friday with fellow financial chiefs of the Group of 20 leading economies, called out Russian officials in attendance and insisted the world's biggest economies must do more to support Ukraine.
Read more: Biden says US sending medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine
“I urge the Russian officials here at the G-20 to understand that their continued work for the Kremlin makes them complicit in Putin’s atrocities,” Yellen said. “They bear responsibility for the lives and livelihoods being taken in Ukraine and the harm caused globally.”
The U.S. State and Commerce departments as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative also issued plans Friday to increase pressure on Russia. These steps impose visa restrictions on 1,219 members of the Russian military, increase tariffs on Russian products such as metal, worth roughly $2.8 billion, and add nearly 90 Russian and third-country companies, including from China, to a list of identified sanctions evaders.
More than 30 countries representing more than half the world’s economy have already imposed sanctions on Russia, making it the most sanctioned nation in the world.
The sanctions have imposed price caps on Russian oil and diesel, frozen Russian Central Bank funds and restricted access to SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
The U.S. and allies have directly sanctioned roughly 2,500 Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families. The sanctions are depriving them of access to their American bank accounts and financial markets, preventing them from doing business with Americans, traveling to the U.S. and more.
By Friday afternoon, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, an international standard-setting body on illicit finance, suspended Russia from its membership. The removal occurred for the first time in the body's 34-year history.
Britain also announced new sanctions Friday on firms that supply Russia’s battlefield equipment and says it will bar export to Russia of all items it has used in the war, such as aircraft parts, radio equipment and electronic components of weapons.
“We don’t think the job is by any means done," Britain’s Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt said.
Russia launches rescue ship to space station after leaks
Russia launched a rescue ship on Friday for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut whose original ride home sprang a dangerous leak while parked at the International Space Station.
The new, empty Soyuz capsule should arrive at the orbiting lab on Sunday.
The capsule leak in December was blamed on a micrometeorite that punctured an external radiator, draining it of coolant. The same thing appeared to happen again earlier this month, this time on a docked Russian cargo ship. Camera views showed a small hole in each spacecraft.
The Russian Space Agency delayed the launch of the replacement Soyuz, looking for any manufacturing defects. No issues were found, and the agency proceeded with Friday's predawn launch from Kazakhstan of the capsule with bundles of supplies strapped into the three seats.
Given the urgent need for this capsule, two top NASA officials traveled from the U.S. to observe the launch in person. To everyone's relief, the capsule safely reached orbit nine minutes after liftoff — “a perfect ride to orbit,” NASA Mission Control's Rob Navias reported from Houston.
Read more: North Korea says it test-fired long-range cruise missiles
Officials had determined it was too risky to bring NASA’s Frank Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin back in their damaged Soyuz next month as originally planned. With no coolant, the cabin temperature would spike during the trip back to Earth, potentially damaging computers and other equipment, and exposing the suited-up crew to excessive heat.
Until the new Soyuz pulls up, emergency plans call for Rubio to switch to a SpaceX crew capsule that’s docked at the space station. Prokopyev and Petelin remain assigned to their damaged Soyuz in the unlikely need for a fast getaway. Having one less person on board would keep the temperature down to a hopefully manageable level, Russian engineers concluded.
The damaged Soyuz will return to Earth with no one aboard by the end of March, so engineers can examine it.
Read more: China calls for Russia-Ukraine cease-fire, peace talks
The three men launched in this Soyuz last September on what should have been a six-month mission. They'll now stay in space for a full year, until a new capsule is ready for their crew replacements for liftoff in September. It was their Soyuz that just launched with no one on board.
The damaged supply ship was filled with trash and cut loose over the weekend, burning up in the atmosphere as originally planned.
“The Russians are continuing to take a really close look” at both spacecraft leaks, NASA's deputy space station program manager Dana Weigel told reporters earlier this week. “They're looking at everything ... to try to understand that."
Read more: UN approves resolution calling for Russia to leave Ukraine
NASA has a fresh crew of four launching atop a SpaceX rocket early Monday morning from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX's William Gerstenmaier said the four astronauts returning to Earth in a few weeks already have inspected the Dragon capsule that will carry them home and “it all checked out fine."
China calls for Russia-Ukraine cease-fire, peace talks
China, a firm Russian ally, has called for a cease-fire between Ukraine and Moscow and the opening of peace talks as part of a 12-point proposal to end the conflict.
The plan issued Friday morning by the Foreign Ministry also urges the end of Western sanctions imposed on Russia, measures to ensure the safety of nuclear facilities, the establishment of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians, and steps to ensure the export of grain after disruptions caused global food prices to spike.
China has claimed to be neutral in the conflict, but it has a “no limits” relationship with Russia and has refused to criticize its invasion of Ukraine over even refer to it as such, while accusing the West of provoking the conflict and “fanning the flames" by providing Ukraine with defensive arms.
Read more: UN approves resolution calling for Russia to leave Ukraine
China and Russia have increasingly aligned their foreign policies to oppose the U.S.-led liberal international order. Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed the strength of those ties when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow this week.
China has also been accused by the U.S. of possibly preparing to provide Russia with military aid, something Beijing says lacks evidence.
Given China's positions, that throws doubt on whether its 12-point proposal has any hope of going ahead — or whether China is seen as an honest broker.
Before the proposal was released, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it an important first step.
“I think that, in general, the fact that China started talking about peace in Ukraine, I think that it is not bad. It is important for us that all states are on our side, on the side of justice,” he said at a news conference Friday with Spain's prime minister.
Read more: Russia, China show off ties amid maneuvering over Ukraine
State Department spokesman Ned Price said earlier Thursday that the U.S. would reserve judgment but that China’s allegiance with Russia meant it was not a neutral mediator. “We would like to see nothing more than a just and durable peace ... but we are skeptical that reports of a proposal like this will be a constructive path forward,” he said.
Price added that the U.S. hopes “all countries that have a relationship with Russia unlike the one that we have will use that leverage, will use that influence to push Russia meaningfully and usefully to end this brutal war of aggression. (China) is in a position to do that in ways that we just aren’t.”
The peace proposal mainly elaborated on long-held Chinese positions, including referring to the need that all countries' “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity be effectively guaranteed."
Read more: Philippines eyes South China Sea patrols with US, Australia
It also called an end to the “Cold War mentality" — it's standard term for what it regards as U.S. hegemony and interference in other countries.
“A country’s security cannot be at the expense of other countries’ security, and regional security cannot be guaranteed by strengthening or even expanding military blocs,” the proposal said. “The legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries should be taken seriously and properly addressed.”
China abstained Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution that calls for Russia to end hostilities in Ukraine and withdraw its forces. It is one of 16 countries that either voted against or abstained on almost all of five previous resolutions on Ukraine.
The resolution, drafted by Ukraine in consultation with its allies, passed 141-7 with 32 abstentions, sending a strong message on the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion that appears to leave Russia more isolated than ever.
While China has not been openly critical of Moscow, it has said that the present conflict is “not something it wishes to see,” and has repeatedly said any use of nuclear weapons would be completely unacceptable, in an implied repudiation of Putin’s statement that Russia would use “all available means” to protect its territory.
Read more: China blasts Pentagon official’s Taiwan visit, military ties
“There are no winners in conflict wars," the proposal said.
“All parties should maintain rationality and restraint ... support Russia and Ukraine to meet each other, resume direct dialogue as soon as possible, gradually promote the de-escalation and relaxation of the situation, and finally reach a comprehensive ceasefire," it said.
UN approves resolution calling for Russia to leave Ukraine
The U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution Thursday that calls for Russia to end hostilities in Ukraine and withdraw its forces, sending a strong message on the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion that Moscow's aggression must stop.
The resolution, drafted by Ukraine in consultation with its allies, passed 141-7, with 32 abstentions.
Read more: China calls for Russia-Ukraine cease-fire, peace talks
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the vote was more evidence that not only the West backs his country.
“This vote defies the argument that the global south does not stand on Ukraine’s side," Kuleba said. "Many countries representing Latin America, Africa, Asia voted in favor.”
The General Assembly has become the most important U.N. body dealing with Ukraine because the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, is paralyzed by Russia’s veto power. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, unlike Security Council resolutions, but serve as a barometer of world opinion.
The seven countries voting against Thursday's resolution were Belarus, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea and Mali, which has developed close military ties with Russia. Amendments proposed by Belarus would have weakened or stripped much of the language but were resoundingly defeated.
Read more: No economic ‘knockout’ yet from West’s sanctions on Russia
The vote was slightly below the highest total for the five previous resolutions approved by the 193-member world body since Russia sent troops and tanks across the border into its smaller neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022. That tally, in an October resolution against Russia’s illegal annexations, won approval by 143 countries.
Foreign ministers and diplomats from more than 75 countries addressed the assembly during two days of debate, with many urging support for the resolution that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity, a basic principle of the U.N. Charter that all countries must subscribe to when they join the world organization.
The war has killed tens of thousands on both sides and has reduced entire Ukrainian cities to ruins and its impact has been felt worldwide in higher food and fuel costs and rising inflation.
Venezuela’s deputy ambassador addressed the council on behalf of 16 countries that either voted against or abstained on almost all of five previous resolutions on Ukraine: Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Laos, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea, St. Vincent, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Read more: Putin raises tension on Ukraine, suspends START nuclear pact
While other countries focused on Russia’s actions, Venezuelan Deputy Ambassador Joaquín Pérez Ayestarán said Wednesday that all countries without exception “must stringently comply with the United Nations Charter,” a barely veiled dig at an international order long dominated by the U.S. and Europe, and at what some call violations of the charter.
Ayestarán said the countries in his group were against what he called divisive action in the General Assembly, and for “a spirit of compromise.”
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters that the aggressor and the victim can’t be put on equal footing.
“Russia has not sent any positive signal of any minimum willingness to work for a peace,” Borrell said. Instead, Russia is intensifying attacks, firing 50,000 rounds every day, and has put 300,000 soldiers on the front lines, double the 150,000 it massed before the invasion, he said.
Facing this reality, Borrell said, the EU and the West have to support Ukraine militarily, impose sanctions on Russia, and try to isolate Moscow diplomatically which is what Kyiv’s supporters are trying to do at the United Nations this week.
Read more: Global impact: 5 ways war in Ukraine has changed the world
China’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dai Bing, told the assembly Thursday: “We support Russia and Ukraine in moving towards each other. ... The international community should make joint efforts to facilitate peace talks.”
China says it is neutral in the conflict and an advocate of peace talks, but has not criticized the invasion or described it as such. Beijing has condemned the U.S. and its allies over sanctions on Moscow and military assistance to Ukraine. China and Russia have increasingly aligned their foreign policies to oppose the U.S.-led international order.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed the strength of those ties when he met Russian leader Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow this week.
More broadly, Russia and Ukraine have been trying to win support from around the world.
The head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, spoke Tuesday about the U.N. resolution with India's national security adviser because “Ukraine is interested in the broadest possible support for the resolution, in particular from the countries of the global south,” a statement from Zelenskyy’s office said.
India had a Cold War dependence on the Soviet Union and has abstained several times from voting on U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that Russia cease its invasion.
Less-powerful countries, including many in Africa, also have been caught up in the diplomatic wrangling.
“We were colonized, and we forgive those who colonized us. Now the colonizers are asking us to be enemies with Russia, who never colonized us; is that fair?” Uganda’s foreign minister, Abubaker Jeje Odongo, told the Sputnik news agency this month.
Russia is Africa’s top arms supplier and Odongo also noted that most of his country’s military equipment is Russian-made.
“Countries in Africa have traditionally been attached in the Cold War division to the Soviet Union, having the old nostalgia, but also Russia has good tools, how to motivate them to be on their side,” Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav Káčer told reporters in New York on Thursday. “And then there are others, like China, who are big powers, and are very carefully following what’s going on, and calculating what’s good for them.”
No economic ‘knockout’ yet from West’s sanctions on Russia
One month into the invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden stood in the courtyard of a grand Polish castle and laid out the punishing economic costs that the U.S. and its allies were inflicting on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, declaring that the ruble is almost immediately “reduced to rubble.”
Russia is now the world’s most heavily sanctioned country, according to U.S. officials. The ruble did in fact take a temporary dive and has been slipping again in recent months. But as the war nears its one-year mark, it’s clear the sanctions didn’t pack the instantaneous punch that many had hoped.
The ruble trades around the same 75-per-dollar rate seen in the weeks before the war, though Russia is using capital controls to prop up the currency. And while Russia’s economy did shrink 2.2% in 2022, that was far short of predictions of 15% or more that Biden administration officials had showcased. This year, its economy is projected to outperform the U.K.’s, growing 0.3% while the U.K. faces a 0.6% contraction, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The West’s export controls and financial sanctions appear, instead, to be gradually eroding Russia’s industrial capacity, even as its oil and other energy exports last year enabled it to keep funding a catastrophic war.
Also Read: EU prepares more Russia sanctions; Kremlin readies offensive
Large American multinationals like McDonald’s, Citibank and General Electric fled the country, and some of the country’s richest citizens are forbidden from traveling to the U.S. But if Muscovites can’t get a latte at Starbucks, there’s an imitation waiting for them at the knockoff Stars Coffee as Russia has adapted.
U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo stressed in an interview that the Western sanctions are only one “tool as part of a larger strategy” and that the U.S. continues to adjust its sanctions to outmaneuver Russia’s own shifts in strategy.
“You look at the exodus, the brain drain from Russia,” Adeyemo said. “The Russian economy is far smaller, far more closed and will look more like Venezuela, North Korea and Iran than like a major G-7 economy.”
Still, a December Congressional Research Service report drew an underwhelming conclusion from all the economic parrying, stating that “the sanctions have created challenges for Russia but to date, have not delivered the economic ‘knockout’ that many predicted.”
A closer look at what’s been done so far and what lies ahead:
WHAT’S BEEN SANCTIONED, BY WHOM AND WHY?
Biden last year called the West’s sanctions “a new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that rivals military might.”
The sanctions, imposed largely through executive orders, are meant to punish Russia and block its access to the international financial systems and bank accounts that it needs to finance its war effort. Export controls also limit its access to computer chips and other products needed to equip a modern military.
Simultaneously, the U.S. and its allies devoted billions to provide Ukraine with weapons, munitions and other military aid and direct financial assistance.
More than 30 countries, including the U.S., EU nations, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan and others — representing more than half the world’s economy — are part of the unprecedented effort. They’ve imposed price caps on Russian oil and diesel, frozen Russian Central Bank funds and restricted access to SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
Beyond targeting key institutions and economic sectors, the West has directly sanctioned roughly 2,000 Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families. The sanctions are depriving them of access to their American bank accounts and financial markets, preventing them from doing business with Americans and traveling to the U.S, and more.
Unlike the countrywide sanctions on Iran and North Korea, the restrictions placed on Russia target specific industry sectors, firms and individuals. This approach was designed to keep Russian oil and natural gas flowing, in order to limit disruptions to the wider global economy. But energy exports also enabled Russia to replenish its finances and stave off a sharp decline.
An industrialized country of its size — the 11th largest economy in the world in 2021 — has never faced such financial pressure. Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said that “policy making of this kind is always a shot in dark.”
“You’re looking for hits on the Russian economy, it doesn’t happen overnight,” Fried said, noting that military aid was far more important as Ukrainian troops have performed better in repelling Russian attacks than U.S. and European officials expected.
DIFFERENCES EMERGE
While there has largely been unity among Western governments on the necessity to punish Russia, there have been differences in the lengths to which countries are willing to go.
European and Asian countries are more dependent on Russian oil and natural gas than was the U.S. That made a ban on Russian exports hard for the alliance and forced compromises that took months to forge.
Ultimately, the countries in December settled on a $60 price cap, which some critics said came too late and was too high to significantly hurt Russia.
Experts and administration officials have said putting greater downward pressure on the sale of oil and other energy products from Russia would make sanctions more effective.
To Marshall Billingslea, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing in the Trump administration, the sanctions were far from bulletproof and easy for the Kremlin to elude.
“Russia has shot holes through the administration’s sanctions,” Billingslea said.
Tom Firestone, a sanctions attorney, said more time is needed for the sanctions to take their course.
“Anyone who expects massive sanctions on Monday, and on Tuesday the Russian regime would fall is not reasonable,” Firestone said. “It’s a large economy that has large reserves. It has a large variety of trading partners. What we’re seeing and what the government is saying is they’re on track and it’s seriously curtailed Russia’s ability to operate.”
Russia is also seeking deeper ties with countries that have refused to join the sanctions effort. Its exports to Brazil, China, India and Turkey have increased by at least 50% since the war started compared with the previous year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
HOW RUSSIA HAS BEEN IMPACTED
“Russia is a different country today than it was just a year ago,” says Adeyemo, “and they’ve given up almost 30 years of progress in terms of their economic policy in the course of one year.”
But on a day-to-day consumer level, it’s a mixed picture.
Shopping centers have a lot of shuttered shops, but Russian entrepreneurs are helping fill the gaps. One Russian startup has created a reasonably convincing analogue of McDonald’s.
Some sectors have suffered greatly from sanctions and the departure of foreign companies.
Russia’s automobile sector, for example, has taken a particular hit. A market analysis from the Association of European Businesses, representing European companies in Russia, said sales of new cars in January were 63% lower than a year earlier.
Still, Russia continues to export some lumber, aluminum and other goods to the U.S., based on the need for the products in America.
Russian goods imported to the U.S. totaled $14.5 billion in 2022. That’s less than 1% of all U.S. imports and about half the $30 billion imported from Russia in 2021.
The Justice Department last year formed a task force to target the ill-gotten proceeds of Russian oligarchs, whom the U.S. sees as enabling Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
As part of that effort, the department has seized two luxury yachts — in Fiji and Spain — alleged to belong to oligarchs. Prosecutors have also brought criminal charges against oligarchs accused of sanctions violations, including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close Putin associate. Deripaska remains at large.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The U.S. government is not finished by any means.
Expect the Treasury Department to impose another large round of sanctions on Russia around the invasion’s anniversary on Friday, with a likely focus in 2023 on logistics and manufacturing firms.
Daniel Pickard, a sanctions attorney, said it’s a safe bet that sanctions “will continue to be used with greater frequency with this administration and other administrations. It allows the president to take action without having to consult Congress and can be adjusted with regard to changing events on the ground.”
Global impact: 5 ways war in Ukraine has changed the world
War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. The world is a more unstable and fearful place since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022.
One year on, thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Tens of thousands of troops have been killed or seriously wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy.
Here are five ways the war has changed the world:
THE RETURN OF EUROPEAN WAR
Three months before the invasion, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scoffed at suggestions that the British army needed more heavy weapons. “The old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European landmass,” he said, “are over.”
Johnson is now urging the U.K. to send more battle tanks to help Ukraine repel Russian forces.
Despite the role played by new technology such as satellites and drones, this 21st-century conflict in many ways resembles one from the 20th. Fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region is a brutal slog, with mud, trenches and bloody infantry assaults reminiscent of World War I.
Read more: Biden to meet eastern flank NATO leaders amid Russia worries
The conflict has sparked a new arms race that reminds some analysts of the 1930s buildup to World War II. Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of conscripts and aims to expand its military from 1 million to 1.5 million troops. The U.S. has ramped up weapons production to replace the stockpiles shipped to Ukraine. France plans to boost military spending by a third by 2030, while Germany has abandoned its longstanding ban on sending weapons to conflict zones and shipped missiles and tanks to Ukraine.
Before the war, many observers assumed that military forces would move toward more advanced technology and cyber warfare and become less reliant on tanks or artillery, said Patrick Bury, senior lecturer in security at the University of Bath.
But in Ukraine, guns and ammunition are the most important weapons.
“It is, for the moment at least, being shown that in Ukraine, conventional warfare — state-on-state — is back,” Bury said.
ALLIANCES TESTED AND TOUGHENED
Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped the invasion would split the West and weaken NATO. Instead, the military alliance has been reinvigorated. A group set up to counter the Soviet Union has a renewed sense of purpose and two new aspiring members in Finland and Sweden, which ditched decades of nonalignment and asked to join NATO as protection against Russia.
The 27-nation European Union has hit Russia with tough sanctions and sent Ukraine billions in support. The war put Brexit squabbles into perspective, thawing diplomatic relations between the bloc and awkward former member Britain.
“The EU is taking sanctions, quite serious sanctions, in the way that it should. The U.S. is back in Europe with a vengeance in a way we never thought it would be again,” said defense analyst Michael Clarke, former head of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
NATO member states have poured weapons and equipment worth billions of dollars into Ukraine. The alliance has buttressed its eastern flank, and the countries nearest to Ukraine and Russia, including Poland and the Baltic states, have persuaded more hesitant NATO and European Union allies, potentially shifting Europe’s center of power eastwards.
There are some cracks in the unity. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has lobbied against sanctions on Moscow, refused to send weapons to Ukraine and held up an aid package from the bloc for Kyiv.
Western unity will come under more and more pressure the longer the conflict grinds on.
“Russia is planning for a long war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of 2022, but the alliance was also ready for the “long haul.”
A NEW IRON CURTAIN
The war has made Russia a pariah in the West. Its oligarchs have been sanctioned and its businesses blacklisted, and international brands including McDonald’s and Ikea have disappeared from the country’s streets.
Yet Moscow is not entirely friendless. Russia has strengthened economic ties with China, though Beijing is keeping its distance from the fighting and so far has not sent weapons. The U.S. has recently expressed concern that may change.
China is closely watching a conflict that may serve as either encouragement or warning to Beijing about any attempt to reclaim self-governing Taiwan by force.
Putin has reinforced military links with international outcasts North Korea and Iran, which supplies armed drones that Russia unleashes on Ukrainian infrastructure. Moscow continues to build influence in Africa and the Middle East with its economic and military clout. Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has grown more powerful in conflicts from the Donbas to the Sahel.
In an echo of the Cold War, the world is divided into two camps, with many countries, including densely populated India, hedging their bets to see who emerges on top.
Tracey German, professor of conflict and security at King’s College London, said the conflict has widened a rift between the “U.S.-led liberal international order” on one side, and angry Russia and emboldened rising superpower China on the other.
A BATTERED AND RESHAPED ECONOMY
The war’s economic impact has been felt from chilly homes in Europe to food markets in Africa.
Before the war, European Union nations imported almost half their natural gas and third of their oil from Russia. The invasion, and sanctions slapped on Russia in response, delivered an energy price shock on a scale not seen since the 1970s.
The war disrupted global trade that was still recovering from the pandemic. Food prices have soared, since Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers of wheat and sunflower oil, and Russia is the world’s top fertilizer producer.
Grain-carrying ships have continued to sail from Ukraine under a fragile U.N.-brokered deal, and prices have come down from record levels. But food remains a geopolitical football. Russia has sought to blame the West for high prices, while Ukraine and its allies accuse Russia of cynically using hunger as a weapon.
The war “has really highlighted the fragility” of an interconnected world, just as the pandemic did, German said, and the full economic impact has yet to be felt.
The war also roiled attempts to fight climate change, driving an upsurge in Europe’s use of heavily polluting coal. Yet Europe’s rush away from Russian oil and gas may speed the transition to renewable energy sources faster than countless warnings about the dangers of global warming. The International Energy Agency says the world will add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the last 20.
A NEW AGE OF UNCERTAINTY
The conflict is a stark reminder that individuals have little control over the course of history. No one knows that better than the 8 million Ukrainians who have been forced to flee homes and country for new lives in communities across Europe and beyond.
For millions of people less directly affected, the sudden shattering of Europe’s peace has brought uncertainty and anxiety.
Putin’s veiled threats to use atomic weapons if the conflict escalates revived fears of nuclear war that had lain dormant since the Cold War. Fighting has raged around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising the specter of a new Chernobyl.
But the conflict has also brought reminders that, sometimes, individual human actions make all the difference. Defense analyst Clarke said one such moment occurred a day after the invasion, when Zelenskyy filmed himself outside in Kyiv and vowed not to leave the city.
“That was critical in showing that Kyiv would fight,” Clarke said. “And with that, of course, the United States, Joe Biden fell in behind it. If those two things hadn’t happened — Zelenskyy and then Biden’s decision — the Russians would have won.
“That Zelenskyy moment will go down in history as very, very important.”