Is Russia the REAL target of Western sanctions?
Soaring oil prices, energy and food crises on the horizon… is it possible the REAL target of this economic war is us?
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | March 30, 2022
The first tweet I saw when I checked my timeline this morning was from foreign policy analyst Clint Ehlirch, pointing out that the Russian ruble has already started recovering from the dip created by Western sanctions, and is almost at pre-war levels.
Ehrlich states, “sanctions were designed to collapse the value of the Ruble, they have failed”.
… to which I can only respond, well “were they?”
… and perhaps more importantly, “have they?”
Because it doesn’t really look like it, does it?
If anything, the sanctions seem to be at best rather impotent, and at worst amazingly counterproductive.
It’s not like the US/EU/NATO don’t know how to cripple economies. They have had years of practice starving the people of Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela and too many others to list.
Now, you could argue that Russia is a larger, more developed economy than those countries, and that’s true, but the US and its allies have previously managed to hurt the Russian economy quite drastically.
As recently as 2014, following the “annexation” of Crimea, Western sanctions were tame compared to the recent unprecedented measures, but crucially the US massively increased its own oil production, then later that year (following a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry) Saudi Arabia did the same.
Despite objections from other members of OPEC – Venezuela and Iran chiefly – the Saudis flooded the market with oil.
The result of these moves was the biggest fall in oil prices for decades – collapsing from $109 a barrel, in June 2014, to $44 by January 2015.
This kicked Russia into a full recession and saw Russia’s GDP shrink for the first time under Putin’s leadership.
Again, just two years ago, allegedly as part of competing with Russia for a share of the oil market, Saudi Arabia once more flooded the market with cheap oil.
So, the West does know how to hurt Russia if it really wants to – by increasing oil production, flooding the market and tanking the price.
But has the US increased its oil production this time round? Have they leant on their Gulf allies to do the same?
Not at all.
In fact, in a point of beautiful narrative synchronicity, the US claims it’s “unable” to increase its oil production due to “staff shortages” caused by that gift that keeps on giving – Covid.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia is not tanking the oil market, but deliberately increasing prices.
Yes, right now, with the Western allies locked in an alleged economic war with Russia the price of oil is soaring, and may continue to do so.
This is good news for the Russian economy, to the point it may even make up for the damage done by the brutal sanctions.
The high price of oil and need “not to rely on Putin’s gas” or “de-Russify” our energy supply will doubtless result in millions being poured into “green” technology.
Those Western sanctions are targeting other Russian exports too, including grains and food in general.
Russia is a net exporter of food, meaning they export more food than they import. Conversely, many countries in Western Europe rely on imported food, including the UK which imports over 48% of its food supply.
If Europe refuses to buy Russian food, the net effect is that Russia has food… and the West doesn’t.
And, just as with oil, increasing food prices will help rather than hinder the Russian economy.
Take wheat for example, of which Russia is the biggest exporter in the world. The vast majority of this wheat is not even sold to Western countries – but instead to China, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan – and so is not even subject to sanctions.
Nevertheless, the sanctions, and the war, have actually driven the price of wheat up almost 30%.
This is good for the Russian economy.
Meanwhile, according to CNN, the US is likely to enter a full-blown recession by 2023, France is considering food vouchers and countries all over the world are expected to begin rationing fuel.
So, the sweeping sanctions imposed against Russia by the West, allegedly in response to the invasion of Ukraine, are not having their stated aim – tanking the Russian economy – but they are driving up the price of oil, creating potential energy and food shortages in the West and exacerbating the “cost of living” crisis created by the “pandemic”.
You should always be wary of anybody – individual or institution – whose actions accidentally achieve the exact opposite of their stated aim. That’s a simple rule to live by.
Remember how Orwell described the evolution of the concept of war in 1984:
War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.
Recall that “the worst food shortages for fifty years” were predicted as a result of Covid. But they never materialised.
Likewise, we were due to experience Covid-related energy disruptions and power cuts. Short of the UK’s damp squib of a “petrol crisis”, they never really arrived.
But now they are heading our way after all – because war and sanctions
Increased food prices, decreased use of fossil fuels, lowering standards of living, public money poured into “renewables”. This is all part of a very familiar agenda, isn’t it?
Regardless of what you feel about Putin, Zelensky, the war in general or Ukrainian Nazis, it’s time to confront the elephant in room.
We need to be asking: What exactly is the real aim of these sanctions? And how come they align so perfectly with the great reset?
UK refuses to pay for gas in rubles
Samizdat | March 30, 2022
The UK prime minister’s spokesman said on Wednesday the nation would not pay for Russian gas in rubles as Moscow demands. London is liaising with British companies who might be concerned about the issue or its impact on industries and manufacturers across Europe, he added.
The statement comes as the Kremlin indicated on Wednesday that all of Russia’s energy and commodity exports could soon be priced in rubles.
“[Business minister] Kwasi Kwarteng, working with his counterparts, have made clear that they won’t be paying in rubles,” Johnson’s spokesman told reporters, adding, “[The business ministry] is obviously in contact with any UK businesses that may have concerns.”
Unlike other countries in Europe, the UK is less dependent on Russian gas supply. Russia only provides around 5% of Britain’s gas imports. However, surging energy prices have been affecting the economy.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 51% of Britons currently spend less on non-essential goods due to rising energy costs, 34% are saving gas and electricity at home, while 31% spend less on food and essential goods. Overall, some 83% of those surveyed pointed to the growth of everyday expenses amid rising gas and electricity prices.
Rowlatt Facing Two Complaints Over Panorama
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | March 30, 2022
You will recall the Panorama edition last November, “Wild Weather- Our World Under Threat”. Presented by Justin Rowlatt, it attempted to show that the world’s weather was getting worse because of global warming:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00117h1/panorama-wild-weather-our-world-under-threat
The programme highlighted four weather disasters, yet failed to offer even the slightest evidence that they were either unusual or becoming worse.
One of the four concerned a drought in Madagascar, which Rowlatt described as “the world’s first climate change-induced famine.”
Shortly after the programme was aired, a scientific study proved that his claim was nonsense, and that equally severe droughts had occurred there in the past.
I filed a complaint about this, only to be fobbed off with the response that they had been told this by the World Meteorological Organisation,WMO. I have now escalated my complaint to the Executive Complaints Unit, ECU, pointing out that since this was a major segment of the programme, the failure to check the actual data, which is readily available, was extremely shoddy journalism. Regardless of their excuses, a full correction needed to be broadcast.
The Panorama edition also included this opening statement by Rowlatt:
“The world is getting warmer and our weather is getting ever more unpredictable and dangerous. The death toll is rising around the world”
This is another lie. According to the same WMO:
Deaths decreased almost threefold from 1970 to 2019. Death tolls fell from over 50 000 deaths in the 1970s to less than 20 000 in the 2010s. The 1970s and 1980s reported an average of 170 related deaths per day. In the 1990s, that average fell by one third to 90 related deaths per day, then continued to fall in the 2010s to 40 related deaths per day.
Another reader complained about this, and received this astonishing reply:
In other words, the BBC justify their claim because the cumulative number of deaths is rising!
Needless to say, he too has escalated to the ECU.
It is clear that Rowlatt is facing big problems here. He has already been rebuked by BBC News bosses about his lies regarding offshore wind costs last year. He is now facing two complaints over this flagship Panorama edition.
Regardless of the ECU decision, it is crystal clear that Rowlatt is far too emotionally attached to climate issues on a personal level to be able to report accurately and objectively.
He should be removed from the climate brief.
For pro-lockdown campaigners, all roads lead to the Kochs
By Martin Kulldoff and Jay Bhattacharya | Unherd | March 29, 2022
During the Covid-19 pandemic, tribal politics have pushed scientific discourse into the back seat. Scientists who provide their honest assessment of medical and public health data have often been subject to ad hominem attacks and slander.
When Left-leaning journalists defend the government’s pandemic strategies by falsely classifying opponents as Right-wing, it hurts the Left while boosting the Right. The latest example is an article in the New Republic with one of the most far-fetched personal attacks we have seen since March 2020 — a true accomplishment during a pandemic filled with logical somersaults.
The target is Urgency of Normal, a group of physicians and medical scientists arguing against the masking of toddlers and children. The group includes Dr Vinay Prasad, a physician, epidemiologist, and associate professor at the University of California in San Francisco. With colleagues at Harvard and the University of Colorado, he wrote the most thorough scientific review of the efficacy of masks against Covid. They concluded that “data to support masking kids was absolutely absent.”
The New Republic article is called ‘Why Is This Group of Doctors So Intent on Unmasking Kids?’ The straightforward answer is that the doctors concluded that there is no reliable scientific evidence that masks on children reduce disease spread alongside a strong presumption that they may harm some children. The New Republic dismisses this possibility, claiming that “the science is strong” that masks help to “quell the pandemic”, and that there is “‘little scientific disagreement”. The last point is self-evidently untrue given the participation by many eminent scientists in the Urgency of Normal itself.
The essay then goes full ad hominem, attempting to link Dr. Prasad to “libertarian” efforts by the Koch family to unmask children via a convoluted chain of supposed associations, each of which is weak and the combined effect of which is simply conspiracy (see below). It appears that the New Republic, once a fierce critic of Sen. Joe McCarthy, has now embraced McCarthy’s guilt-by-association techniques.
Dr. Prasad is an excellent epidemiologist, but to paraphrase the New Republic, it seems “that the days of listening to the epidemiologists are over”. They are not alone. The Daily Poster/Lever and Jacobin magazine have used similar ad hominem arguments to falsely “connect” lockdown opponents with the Koch network, falsely claiming that the two of us are “connected to Right-wing dark money”. Our closest and only financial “connection” to the Koch Network is to have worked for universities, Stanford and Harvard, which have received millions of dollars from Koch foundations, although unrelated to any of our own work.
In the summer of 2020, Jacobin magazine interviewed one of us about lockdowns and their devastating effects on children and the working class. Their reader’s reactions were illuminating. The public criticism from high-profile individuals was harsh, calling us Trumpian, among other things. But, we also received many private letters from Jacobin readers, thanking us for saying what they were thinking but did not dare to say in public.
Views on pandemic strategies do not map onto a simple Left/Right binary. In the United States, Dr Anthony Fauci’s lockdowns were implemented by both Republicans and Democrats, generating enormous collateral damage to education, cancer, cardiovascular disease, vaccination rates, mental health, and hunger, to name a few malign outcomes. More often than not, members of the working class were the hardest hit. In Europe, the social democrats in Sweden chose not to copy Fauci’s response to the pandemic. One contributing factor may have been that its prime minister came from the working class, having started his career as a welder.
Classifying those like Dr Prasad as “Right-wing” for taking different views on pandemic restrictions is only damaging to the Left. Instead of permitting the Right to claim full credit for opposing misguided Covid policies, the Left should rightly claim some of that credit — Dr Prasad is, after all, on the Left himself. Instead, publications like the New Republic seem intent, not merely on smearing scientists instead of learning from them, but on driving reasonable men and women to the Right.
The New Republic’s convoluted attempt to associate Dr Prasad with the Koch family, in full:
- Prasad ‘writes for the Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research.’ (The Brownstone Institute, with no Koch connections, has republished Dr. Prasad’s Substack articles without payments.)
- The Brownstone Institute’ advocates for a more libertarian approach to the pandemic’. (Brownstone is not a libertarian organisation. It advocates for a more scientific approach to the pandemic based on basic principles of public health. It has attracted writers from across the political spectrum.)
- The Brownstone founder ‘consults for the American Institute for Economic Research’ (AIER). (He is a former employee without current ties.)
- AIER ‘receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.’ (One grant only, which paid <1% of AIER expenses in 2018.) AIER ‘receives funding’ from the ‘Koch-funded public relations firm Emergent Order and Emergent Order which also aided the Great Barrington Declaration.’ (Neither is true.)
- ‘One Koch-backed group has been linked to school unmasking efforts.’ (A mother’s anti-mask letter was circulated by a women’s group with some Koch funding. In contrast, a Koch-backed group have funded the pro-lockdown Covid work of Prof. Neil Ferguson at Imperial College.)
Martin Kulldoff, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist, biostatistician, and a former professor of medicine at Harvard University. Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., is an epidemiologist, health economist, and professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Both are senior scholars at the Brownstone Institute and founding fellows at the Academy for Science and Freedom.
Surgeon General, HHS Violated First Amendment by Directing Twitter to Censor COVID ‘Misinformation’: Lawsuit
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 29, 2022
A civil rights group is suing the U.S. surgeon general and the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on behalf of three men who allege the government violated the First Amendment by directing Twitter to censor them for spreading COVID “misinformation.”
The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on March 24 filed a complaint against Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Columbus Division.
NCLA describes itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State.”
According to the complaint, between May 2021 and December 2021, Twitter temporarily or permanently suspended the accounts of the three plaintiffs — Mark Changizi, Daniel Kotzin and Michael P. Senger.
The lawsuit states:
“Mark Changizi, Daniel Kotzin, and Michael Senger each had or have Twitter accounts with tens of thousands of followers or more.
“Their Twitter platforms provided them with a social network, and an outlet to express their views, to hear the views of others, and to engage with detractors and fans alike.”
Twitter permanently suspended Senger’s account. Senger is a San Francisco-based attorney who was openly critical of COVID-related policies and of what he called “pro-lockdown propaganda” from China.
Twitter only temporarily suspended the accounts of Changizi and Kotzin. Visitors to the Twitter account belonging to Changizi, a well-known theoretical cognitive scientist, now see a warning stating “Caution: This profile may include potentially sensitive content.”
Kotzin’s Twitter account is active as of this writing, despite prior suspensions. A stay-at-home father, Kotzin is married to Jennifer Sey, the former president of Levi’s who recently stepped down from her position, alleging Levi’s executives bullied her after she spoke out against some COVID-related policies.
The lawsuit alleges the suspensions of the three men’s accounts are a result of the policies against “misinformation” announced by the surgeon general and HHS.
The lawsuit states:
“Outrageously, the U.S. surgeon general and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have directed social media platforms including Twitter to censor alleged ‘misinformation’ about Covid-19.
“The speech ban has included information the Government later conceded was true but that conflicted with the Government’s messaging on Covid-19 at the time.”
As reported earlier this month by The Defender, the Biden administration and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently made statements contradicting earlier official statements and public pronouncements regarding COVID policies.
The lawsuit provides a timeline of federal government “intimidation tactics” aimed at stifling so-called “misinformation” about COVID on social media:
“On March 3, the surgeon general demanded that the tech companies turn over information about individuals who spread such ‘misinformation,’ a clear intimidation tactic that HHS has labeled a ‘Request for Information’ (RFI).
“Adding insult to injury, on March 3, the surgeon general issued his RFI, demanding that technology platforms turn over ‘information about sources of Covid-19 misinformation’ to the Government by May 2, 2022.
“In response to Government pressure, Twitter has permanently banned Mr. Senger, and temporarily suspended Mr. Changizi and Mr. Kotzin.”
According to the RFI, social media companies must submit such information posted on their platforms dating back to January 2020.
The complaint alleges Murthy and Becerra lack the statutory authority to issue such a request to private social media platforms.
The Defender previously reported on attempts by the federal government to combat alleged “misinformation.”
As stated in the RFI:
“Health misinformation — health information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time — has been a challenge during public health emergencies before, including persistent rumors about HIV/AIDS that have undermined efforts to reduce infection rates in the U.S. and during the Ebola epidemic.
“But the speed, scale, and sophistication with which misinformation has been spread during the COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented.
“Recent research shows that most Americans believe or are unsure of at least one COVID-19 vaccine falsehood.”
The RFI outlines social media’s purported contribution to the spread of such “misinformation,” and the role such platforms can play in future pandemics:
“The digital information environment is a phenomenon that requires further research and study to better prepare for future public health emergencies. This RFI seeks to understand both the impact of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique role that technology and social media platforms play in the dissemination of critical health information during a public health emergency.
“The inputs from stakeholders will help inform future pandemic response in the context of an evolving digital information environment.”
According to the lawsuit, this RFI comes as part of a broader White House effort to stop the spread of “health misinformation” dating back to spring 2021, threatening Big Tech with antitrust proceedings over their enormous market share if companies did not provide the requested information to the government:
“In May 2021, the White House began a coordinated and escalating public campaign to stop the flow of purported “health misinformation” related to Covid-19.
“In a May 5, 2021 press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated that the President believed social media platforms have a responsibility to censor health ‘misinformation’ related to Covid-19 vaccinations, that by not doing so they were responsible for American deaths, and that the President believed ‘antitrust’ programs were in order to effectuate this end.
“In other words, if tech companies refused to censor, they would face antitrust investigations—or worse.”
The surgeon general and HHS later joined these efforts, according to the lawsuit:
“By July, the surgeon general and HHS ratcheted up the pressure by issuing an advisory on the subject, commanding technology platforms to collect data on the ‘spread and impact of misinformation’ and ‘prioritize early detection of misinformation ‘super-spreaders’ and repeat offenders” by ‘impos[ing] clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies’.”
It was during this period that Twitter banned or suspended the three plaintiffs.
Commenting on the lawsuit, Senger said:
“It’s difficult to overstate the federal government’s cynicism in pretending to respect the First Amendment rights of American citizens while explicitly working with a company whose CEO says it ‘is not to be bound by the First Amendment’ in silencing American citizens on the most widely-used platform for political discourse.”
According to the NCLA, the censorship advocated by Murthy and HHS strikes at the heart of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect — free speech, especially political speech, much of which has since been vindicated and proven accurate.
“[B]y instrumentalizing tech companies, including Twitter — through pressure, coercion, and threats — to censor viewpoints that the federal executive has deemed ‘misinformation,’ the surgeon general has turned Twitter’s censorship into state action,” the NCLA said.
The nonprofit said the government’s policy of “pressuring Twitter and other tech companies to censor the Plaintiffs” should be halted immediately, adding:
“The surgeon general does not have the authority to issue this demand. The statute only gives him the authority to implement measures to stem spread of communicable disease. The statute cannot reasonably be interpreted to allow him to order tech companies to censor individuals with whom he disagrees on COVID policy, or to demand that Twitter hand over information about such account holders without a warrant based on probable cause.
“Demanding social media platforms, including Twitter, to turn over information about users that the Government deems problematic constitutes a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Civil rights attorney, writer and activist Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for this case, said, “The surgeon general apparently believes he can do whatever he wishes, even going so far as to commandeer technology companies to stifle the perspectives of those who differ from the government on COVID policies.”
Younes said Congress did not give Murthy the authority to “coerce social media platforms into censoring the voices of those with whom he disagrees,” and in fact, it could not have given him this power.
“The surgeon general’s demand has turned Twitter’s censorship into government action,” Younes said. “Thus, this viewpoint-based suppression of speech violates our clients’ First Amendment rights to free speech.”
Mark Chenoweth, NCLA executive director and general counsel, said:
“Surgeon General Murthy’s RFI is really a Request for Intimidation. HHS is a serial violator when it comes to abusing its statutory power.
“Incredibly, HHS is relying on the exact same statute to issue the RFI here that it relied on the past two years to justify its unlawful nationwide eviction moratorium.
“The Supreme Court finally shot down the illegal moratorium. NCLA hopes lower courts are quicker to act on this latest unconstitutional outrage.”
Incidents of social media censorship stemming from purported COVID-related “misinformation” have been plentiful over the past two years.
For instance, last year, Twitter banned former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson for publishing “COVID misinformation,” leading him to file a federal lawsuit against the platform.
The NCLA lawsuit does not directly target Twitter, instead, it goes after HHS and the surgeon general for strongly encouraging — or indirectly mandating — censorship policies on the part of social media platforms.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
University of Waterloo fires 49 staff for refusing to show a vaccine passport
By Ben Squires | Reclaim The Net | March 30, 2022
While other universities are scrapping vaccine passport requirements, the Ontario-based University of Waterloo has fired 49 members of staff for not showing a vaccine passport.
As reported by CTV, this came as the province of Ontario announced it would be dropping all COVID-19 measures.
“We have an obligation under the Health and Safety Act to protect our employees, and the employees have the obligation to comply,” said Nick Manning, vice president of university relations.
“All of those who weren’t able to be compliant after progressive measures faced the ultimate result of termination.”
The university terminated the staff members, yet it had announced it would be dropping its vaccine mandate on May 1.
Other schools in the province, including the University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ryerson University, and the University of Guelph, have announced that those who had been suspended over their vaccine status will resume work.
Russia warns about Ukrainian use of UN vehicle
Samizdat | March 30, 2022
Russia has raised concerns over the apparent use of an official UN vehicle in combat by Ukrainian forces. It’s the latest of numerous incidents of civilian transport being seized for the war effort by Kiev, Moscow’s envoy to the UN Security Council complained on Tuesday.
Vassily Nebenzia warned that it created a situation where, for example, medical vehicles could be used to deliver Western weapons into the country.
“We are expecting a response to our latest inquiry about the UN vehicle with the diplomatic number DP210015, which was also taking part in Kharkov in combat operations of the Ukrainian nationalists, according to witness accounts,” he said.
The vehicle he mentioned was apparently spotted in a video released by Ukrainian fighters to show off the shooting down of an aircraft. It was reportedly used to transport anti-aircraft missiles.
The diplomat said there were credible reports that official vehicles of the UN and the OSCE were used by Ukrainian forces. He called on both organizations to “give fair assessments of such facts.”
Nebenzia also mentioned evidence of DHL delivery vans being used for combat in Ukraine. A video showing a Ukrainian mortar team apparently using such a vehicle to move around was published on Reddit last weekend.
One of the fighters shown in the video claimed the van was one of six voluntarily donated to the war effort by the Ukrainian branch of the German company. DHL shut down all operations in the country in early March. It told Russian media that the Ukrainian authorities had confiscated corporate transport.
The Russian diplomat said cases such as these have disturbing ramifications in terms of telling apart civilian and military targets in Ukraine.
“We cannot rule out that vehicles of these organizations or vehicles marked as medical transport could be used to deliver to Ukraine from neighboring states the very same weapons that the West has generously promised to Kiev,” he said.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it will consider any arms shipments to Ukraine as legitimate military targets.
Germany Scrambles To Ration Gas After Refusing To Make Payments In Rubles
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | March 30, 2022
Now that Moscow has doubled down on its demands that its European “partners” pay for its oil and gas in rubles instead of euros (which, as the bloc already demonstrated, can be easily confiscated in the name of “sanctions”), the German government is digging in its heels as the payment dispute threatens to precipitate problematic energy shortages in Europe’s largest economy.
The FT reported Wednesday that German Energy Minister Robert Habeck has activated the “early warning phase” of Germany’s gas emergency law, which was adopted to help ration supplies in the face of a severe shortage. The decision will alert German consumers and businesses to do what they can to conserve energy.
Too bad President Biden and the US will take years to reroute their promised LNG exports (and even so, they will likely never be able to fully compensate for Russian supplies).
Habeck issued the warning for fear that Moscow would swiftly move to cut off energy exports to one of its biggest customers in Europe over its refusal to make payment in rubles, which Habeck has insisted would be a violation of the two sides’ contract.
The move was triggered by German concern that Russia might cut supplies to the country and its neighbors because they are rebuffing Moscow’s efforts to force payment for gas imports in rubles.
After demanding last week that “hostile states” pay for its gas and oil in rubles (although it hinted that gold and cryptocurrency might also be considered), Moscow said it wouldn’t share its resources “for free” after the G-7 aggressively repudiated the Russians’ request.
“We will definitely not supply oil and gas for free, that’s for sure. It’s hardly possible and reasonable to engage in charity in our situation,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week.
As Germany scrambles to address a looming shortfall in energy supplies, analysts are warning that the government’s refusal to meet Moscow’s request for payment in rubles could create a “substantial” risk.
During the early warning phase – the first of three stages in Germany’s emergency response – a crisis team from the economics ministry, the regulator and the private sector will monitor imports and storage.
If supplies fall short, and less draconian attempts to lower consumption do not work, the government would cut off certain parts of German industry from the grid and give preferential treatment to households.
Volker Wieland, a professor of economics at Frankfurt University and a member of the German council of economic advisers, on Wednesday warned that a halt in Russian energy supplies would create a “substantial” risk of a recession and bring Europe’s largest economy “close to double-digit rates of inflation.”
Already, the German economy is facing its most brutal inflation in decades, with an annual headline inflation rate that could top 6% by the end of the year. The dire situation has already prompted the government to subsidize citizens’ energy costs with a round of energy stimmies.
Further restrictions on Russian supply could have even more dire consequences.
Of course, if Berlin doesn’t play ball, gas won’t be the only commodity in short supply. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that demanding ruble payments for exports of oil, grain, fertilizers, coal, metals and other key commodities in addition to natural gas was a good idea, Russia’s top lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Wednesday, per Reuters.
“If you want gas, find rubles,” Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, said in a post on Telegram.
Peskov, meanwhile, said the dollar’s global reserve currency was already diminishing, and that pricing Russia’s biggest exports in rubles would be “in our interests and the interests of our partners.”
Now, if the leaders of Europe don’t play ball, then President Biden’s prediction of devastating food shortages could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
US Top Commander In Europe Attempts To Rebut Latest Biden Remarks
Samizdat | March 30, 2022
The head of US forces in Europe has said he is not aware of a program to train Ukrainian soldiers in Poland, after President Joe Biden appeared to suggest such a mission was underway while clarifying a previous gaffe made last week.
Speaking to lawmakers during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, General Tod Wolters – the commander of the US European Command (EUCOM) and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe – insisted there is no training mission in Poland “at this time.”
“I do not believe we are in the process of currently training military forces from Ukraine in Poland,” Wolters told Republican Senator Tom Cotton (Arkansas).
However, the general added that there have been “liaisons” with Ukrainian troops in Poland and that they are “being given advice,” but argued “that’s different than I think [what] you’re referring to with respect to training.” He did not offer details on what those ‘liaisons’ include.
Wolter’s comments come after President Biden attempted to walk back prior remarks about the conflict in Ukraine, having told American soldiers stationed in Poland last week that they would soon “see” the country, appearing to suggest they would be deployed there. On Monday, Biden insisted he was “talking about helping train … the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland,” again landing himself in hot water as White House officials raced to clarify that US forces are not, in fact, training foreign troops on Polish soil.
During a press briefing later on Monday, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters “there is regular interaction between Ukrainian soldiers in Poland and the US troops that the president saw on the trip,” insisting that Biden did not accidentally reveal “compromised information.”
“The troops that he met with in Poland routinely interact with Ukrainians. That is something that’s known,” she continued, though also declined to get into specifics about what interactions the troops have had.
Asked about US forces currently stationed in Europe, Wolters said American troop levels have swelled from 60,000 to 100,000 since Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in late February. Nearly half of those soldiers are deployed to Germany, and of those, the general noted that 70% would have a direct combat role should they be activated, calling them the “teeth” of the US presence. Some of the troops may be stationed on the continent permanently, Wolters added, stating that European defense contributions in the coming months would determine EUCOM’s next steps.
While Washington and other NATO states have worked to bolster Kiev’s defenses with arms shipments, the allies have repeatedly stated they will not get directly involved in the war in Ukraine, instead committing to defend the territory of member states only. Though prior US administrations have declared that Ukraine would someday be admitted into the bloc, it remains outside of NATO, and the Biden administration has warned that American intervention could kick off an armed confrontation with Moscow, or even World War III.
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From the Archives
Ukraine babies in stem cell probe
By Matthew Hill | BBC | December 12, 2006
Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.
Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them.
Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.
There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.
But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies. … continue
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