March 18 2022 - 13:45
Russia says post-1991 'illusions' about the West are over
Russia has lost any illusions about ever relying on the West and Moscow will never accept a world order dominated by the United States, which is acting like a sheriff seeking to call all the shots in a saloon bar, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Western nations have imposed sweeping sanctions across Russia's financial and corporate sectors in response to Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, plunging Russia's economy into its gravest crisis since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister since 2004, said the West's reaction to what Moscow has called a "special military operation" had illustrated that the West was completely dominated by the United States and that the European Union was largely powerless.
"If there was any illusion that we could one day rely on our Western partners, this illusion is no longer there," Lavrov told Russian state-funded RT in English.Russia would look eastwards, he said.
"What the Americans want is a unipolar world which would not be like a global village but like an American village - or maybe like a saloon where you know the strongest calls the shots," Lavrov said.
He added that many countries such as China, India and Brazil did not want to be ordered around by "Uncle Sam" acting like a sheriff.
Russia's invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced more than 3 million and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States, the world's two biggest nuclear powers.
Lavrov's defiant response to the West's effort to isolate his country echoed that of Putin, who has indicated in recent days that the post-1991 era of Russian history has drawn to a close and that from now on Moscow will look to China, India and, increasingly, inwards.
"We will now have to rely only on ourselves and on our allies who stay with us," Lavrov said. "We are not closing the door on the West - they are doing so.
"As the Soviet Union crumbled and the Cold War ended, many in both Russia and the West hoped that the confrontations which had divided the post-World War Two world would recede or even be bridged.
Putin says Moscow's actions in Ukraine were necessary because NATO's enlargement threatened Russia, and that Moscow needed to save Russian-speaking people in Ukraine from oppression.
Ukraine casts the invasion as a Russian imperial-style land grab.
Reuters
UKRAINE WRAP | Ukraine says 9,145 people were evacuated from cities on Friday
Image: ICRC/Handout via REUTERS
March 18 2022 - 22:00
Ukraine says 9,145 people were evacuated from cities on Friday
A total of 9,145 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Friday, a senior official said, a number that is considerably more than managed to escape on Thursday.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president's office, said in an online post that 4,972 people had left the besieged city of Mariupol. A total of only 3,810 people were able to leave cities across the country on Thursday.
-Reuters
March 18 2022 - 14:18
Ukraine will not give up EU bid as compromise to Russia, says Ukrainian official
Ukraine will not abandon its bid to join the European Union to reach a compromise with Russia as part of an agreement to end the war, the deputy chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday.
"I will be categorical, this is absolutely unacceptable. It is our choice, the application for EU membership has been submitted and now it is being put into practice," deputy chief of staff Andrii Sybiha said.
Speaking on national television, Sybiha said negotiations with Russia were ongoing but difficult.
Reuters
March 18 2022 - 14:13
China turns to US corn as war puts Ukraine supplies at risk
China is ramping up corn purchases from the US as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine snarls grain exports and puts spring plantings in doubt, pushing prices higher in Chicago.
The world’s top importer scooped up 200,000 tonnes of corn last week for shipment in the season beginning September 1, US Department of Agriculture data showed Thursday, the most since December. While China was only the fourth-largest buyer for the week, the sale was notable since the Asian country had been purchasing supplies from Ukraine. China was also the leading buyer of US soybeans, picking up more than 800,000 tonnes.
March 18 2022 - 14:00
War handcuffs Russian central bankers watching demise of economy
Russia’s central bank has been relegated to the role of bit-part player as war and international sanctions devastate the country’s economy.
A meeting in Moscow on Friday will be little more than a cameo for the Bank of Russia in an economic drama playing out across the world’s biggest country, as the wipeout of household wealth, food shortages and a dash for the exits by foreign companies and Russians shatter three decades of policymaking after the Soviet collapse.
Governor Elvira Nabiullina is headed into her first regular review of interest rates since the invasion of Ukraine led to sweeping sanctions and handcuffed the central bank after the seizure of an estimated two-thirds of its $643 billion in foreign reserves.
March 18 2022 - 13:45
Russia says post-1991 'illusions' about the West are over
Russia has lost any illusions about ever relying on the West and Moscow will never accept a world order dominated by the United States, which is acting like a sheriff seeking to call all the shots in a saloon bar, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Western nations have imposed sweeping sanctions across Russia's financial and corporate sectors in response to Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, plunging Russia's economy into its gravest crisis since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister since 2004, said the West's reaction to what Moscow has called a "special military operation" had illustrated that the West was completely dominated by the United States and that the European Union was largely powerless.
"If there was any illusion that we could one day rely on our Western partners, this illusion is no longer there," Lavrov told Russian state-funded RT in English.Russia would look eastwards, he said.
"What the Americans want is a unipolar world which would not be like a global village but like an American village - or maybe like a saloon where you know the strongest calls the shots," Lavrov said.
He added that many countries such as China, India and Brazil did not want to be ordered around by "Uncle Sam" acting like a sheriff.
Russia's invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced more than 3 million and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States, the world's two biggest nuclear powers.
Lavrov's defiant response to the West's effort to isolate his country echoed that of Putin, who has indicated in recent days that the post-1991 era of Russian history has drawn to a close and that from now on Moscow will look to China, India and, increasingly, inwards.
"We will now have to rely only on ourselves and on our allies who stay with us," Lavrov said. "We are not closing the door on the West - they are doing so.
"As the Soviet Union crumbled and the Cold War ended, many in both Russia and the West hoped that the confrontations which had divided the post-World War Two world would recede or even be bridged.
Putin says Moscow's actions in Ukraine were necessary because NATO's enlargement threatened Russia, and that Moscow needed to save Russian-speaking people in Ukraine from oppression.
Ukraine casts the invasion as a Russian imperial-style land grab.
Reuters
March 18 2022 - 13:30
Kyiv says 222 killed in capital since start of war, including 60 civilians
Kyiv city authorities on Friday said 222 people had been killed in the capital since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, including 60 civilians and four children.
A further 889 people have been wounded, including 241 civilians, the Kyiv city administration said in a statement.
Reuters
March 18 2022 - 11:38
Norway hosts NATO military drills
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted a rush by European governments to bolster their defences.
Pre-planned NATO exercises in Norway have acquired new significance, with the military alliance aiming to send a clear message to Moscow that it is ready for any assault on NATO territory.
March 18 2022 - 07:00
South Africa's Ramaphosa blames NATO for Ukraine war
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed NATO for the war in Ukraine and said he would resist calls to condemn Russia, in comments that cast doubt over whether he would be accepted by Ukraine or the West as a mediator.
March 18 2022 - 06:45
Ukraine's cities blasted as Russian forces stall
Russian forces in Ukraine are blasting cities and killing civilians but no longer making progress on the ground, Western countries said, as a war Moscow was thought to have hoped to win within days entered its fourth week.
March 18 2022 - 06:30
Volunteer taxis drive Ukrainian refugees to Spain
Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion arrived in Madrid with the help of a group of Spanish taxi drivers who volunteered for a 40-hour trip to Poland and back to support the mass evacuation.
March 18 2022 - 06:15
PATRICK BULGER | Putin’s war: when lies are not just another version of the truth
Who said: “There is no truth, only approximations of the truth by as many different voices as possible”? If you answered 1984’s Big Brother, Friedrich Nietzsche or the ANC, you’d be wrong, but only in the detail, not the spirit. The purveyor of this declaration of ideological convenience is none other than the editor of the Russian propaganda TV channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, elevated to head President Vladimir Putin’s very own Truman Show at the age of 25, in 2005.
When Simonyan says “as many different voices as possible’’, the emphasis is on the number and not what they actually say. In the shadowy make-you-believe world of propaganda and hollow political forms, quantity obscures quality. To give a local perspective, this numbers approach is to freedom of speech what the ANC government’s “public consultations’’ are to participatory democracy – a sham, allowing for the conspicuous ignoring not of a single informed voice, but of a choir of intelligent dissent.
March 18 2022 - 06:10
US citizen among several killed in Russian attack in Chernihiv
Jimmy Hill was among dozens of civilians killed by the Russian onslaught in Chernihiv. Ukrainian police said he died during artillery fire.
March 18 2022 - 06:00
The SpaceX factor: How Musk’s Starlink brings internet to Ukraine
As the US and its allies provide Ukraine with aid, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government is also getting assistance from a less likely source: Elon Musk. Soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war and Ukraine publicly pleaded for help, Musk’s SpaceX enabled its Starlink satellite broadband service in Ukraine and began shipping additional dishes. Those dishes are especially valuable now that Russia’s military is targeting Ukrainian infrastructure. “Received the second shipment of Starlink stations!” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, tweeted on March 9. “@elonmusk keeps his word!”
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