A grim start to the week and an even grimmer night for the world. Lord, have mercy.
Category : Russia
(Economist) Andrei Zorin, a professor of Russian at the University of Oxford, explains how national mythologies foment conflict
Today, when Russia and Ukraine are on the brink of a major war, that idea of kinship may seem preposterous. Yet few conflicts are as deep and irreconcilable as family feuds. The omens are especially bad when one of the “brothers” believes in his natural right to be in charge of the whole family and the other is independent-minded and rebellious. Remember the Bible, where human history begins with a fratricide.
The family tensions between Russia and Ukraine are aggravated by a dispute over their heritage. Russia’s understanding of history idealises Kyiv as “the mother of all Russian cities”, and the source of Russia’s religion, culture, alphabet and a network of dynastic and military connections. The huge statue of the Kievan prince Vladimir, who baptised Old Rus, was erected in 2016 near the entrance to the Kremlin. If this claim on Kyiv’s past were to be renounced, not only would Russian history be shorter by at least a quarter of a millennium, but Russia would also, more importantly, be deprived of its European identity.
Russia’s historical narrative is to a large extent defined by miraculous transformations that turn even the most humiliating defeats into apocalyptic triumphs. The traditional stories of major Russian wars–be it against the Poles in the 17th century, the Swedes in the 18th, the French in the 19th or the Germans in the 20th–all follow the same pattern. After initial defeats that put the country on the brink of utter ruin, a strong leader mobilises the nation and imposes a devastating defeat on the enemy.
Mr Putin appears to be exploiting this tradition.
When Russia and Ukraine are on the brink of war, the idea of kinship may seem preposterous, writes Andrei Zorin, a professor of Russian at @UniofOxford. “Yet few conflicts are as deep and irreconcilable as family feuds.” https://t.co/GP2rZc200E
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 23, 2022
Analyst Greg Valliere on Where the Ukraine Crisis May go from here
MUCH MORE AGGRESSIVE SANCTIONS are likely; the initial reaction from the White House — that this may not be a full-fledged “invasion” — will encounter withering criticism from anti-Russia hawks in Congress. Biden has to announce fresh sanctions, probably today. (The Nord Stream pipeline will stall.)
TWO WAYS TO READ THIS WEEKEND’S DEVELOPMENTS: The really negative theme is that Putin, increasingly unstable and isolated, is determined to reverse NATO’s move eastward. He wants to restore, at least partly, the old Soviet Union map and he wants a Russia-China alliance to check the West. From the Baltics to Taiwan, this is ominous.
SECOND, THERE’S A LESS NEGATIVE SPIN that Putin may stop at the two breakaway regions, just as he stopped at Crimea nearly a decade ago. If Putin can convince the West that he simply wants to protect Russians in eastern Ukraine, that could avoid massive sanctions and a bloody war — both of which would damage Putin’s political support within Russia.
PUTIN’S OFF-RAMP would be to claim victory in the east, while agreeing to a deal brokered by Emmanuel Macron that would lessen the NATO presence in countries near Ukraine.
.@AGF's Greg Valliere: Tougher sanctions are likely this week as Russian troops move westward. Read: https://t.co/MR08FVu7Ix #CapitolInsights pic.twitter.com/z48regehNL
— AGF (@agf) February 22, 2022
Pray for Ukraine and Peace in the World
A sad and alarming day for the world #prayforpeace #ukrainecrisis pic.twitter.com/PUV1vsbXCj
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 22, 2022
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT PUTIN HAS ORDERED RUSSIAN TROOPS INTO UKRAINE
Putin has ordered Russian troops into Ukraine.
The decrees on recognizing the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics order the Russian armed forces to go into separatist territory on peacekeeping missions. pic.twitter.com/cjKMidlD4Q
— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 21, 2022
(WSJ) Beijing Weighs How Far to Go in Backing Putin on Ukraine
China’s top leaders have spent days weighing how far Beijing should go to back Russian President Vladimir Putin and how to manage a partnership many call a marriage of convenience as opposed to one of conviction.
With the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looming, China’s final arbiter of power—the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee led by President Xi Jinping —has largely disappeared from public view.
Behind closed doors, according to people with knowledge of the matter, one topic of intense discussion is how to respond to the Russian-Ukraine crisis and back Moscow without hurting China’s own interests.
The brooding has gone on for more than a week, practically since Mr. Putin got on a plane back to Moscow after meeting with Mr. Xi and attending the Feb. 4 opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The unusually extended discussion underlines how urgent and delicate the situation is for Beijing despite Mr. Xi’s public stance of support for Russia.
China's top leaders have spent days weighing how far to back Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine without hurting Beijing's own interests, people familiar with the issues say https://t.co/9XjjsQhLOm
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 16, 2022
(Telegraph) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard–Putin is close to winning in Ukraine
The other reason why Mr Putin may desist is if Germany and France have promised behind closed doors to give him what he wants without a war: Ukraine on a platter, stripped of sovereignty and locked into Moscow’s strategic orbit. To call it Finlandisation is a euphemism. It is closer to Russification.
We will find out soon enough what has been going on in these private sessions but it was revealing to see the ashen face and involuntary wince of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as the German Chancellor spoke in Kyiv.
Mr Scholz did indeed seem to be pulling the rug from underneath his feet, deflating Ukraine’s hope of genuine independence with the soft-spoken words and careful precision of an employment lawyer, the Chancellor’s former job.
Markets are implicitly betting that a Western sell-out on Mr Putin’s terms is the likely outcome, and that Ukraine will be pressured into “voluntary” realignment – like the Czechs in 1938 – allowing business to continue as usual.
Utter cynicism is usually the safest bet.
Read it all (registration and or subscription).
"The Kremlin could sever all gas flows to Europe – 41% of the EU’s supply – for two years or more without running into serious financial buffers" | Writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/ASx3MLhwsP
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 15, 2022
(Washington Post) David Ignatius–Putin’s impending ‘march of folly’ in Ukraine
The world will be watching in horror if Russia invades Ukraine this week — but just watching. Ukraine will fight alone, as Russian tanks roll across the flat, frozen terrain; precision bombs destroy key targets near Kyiv and other cities; and the country becomes a killing field unlike anything Europe has seen since 1945.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will quickly win the initial, tactical phase of this war, if it comes. The vast army that Russia has arrayed along Ukraine’s borders could probably seize the capital of Kyiv in several days and control the country in little more than a week, U.S. officials believe.
But then Putin’s real battle would begin — as Russia and its Ukrainian proxies try to stabilize a country whose people largely detest them. If just 10 percent of Ukraine’s 40 million people decided to actively resist occupation, they would mount a powerful insurgency. Small bands of motivated fighters subverted America’s overwhelming military power in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Ukraine might seem a triumphal victory for Putin at first, but it’s unlikely to have a happy ending. When leaders fight unnecessary “wars of choice” without a clear endgame, they often confront catastrophic unintended consequences.” https://t.co/uwf5q3HrmV
— John Sipher (@john_sipher) February 14, 2022
(NYT) White House warns of ‘immediate’ threat of Russian invasion in Ukraine
The Biden administration warned on Friday that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could mount a major assault on Ukraine at any time, having built up formidable land, sea and air forces on three sides of its smaller neighbor.
U.S. intelligence officials had initially thought Mr. Putin was prepared to wait until the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing before possibly ordering an offensive, to avoid antagonizing President Xi Jinping of China, a critical ally. In recent days, they say, the timeline began moving up, an acceleration that Biden administration officials began publicly acknowledging on Friday.
“We continue to see signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters on Friday, adding that an invasion could begin “during the Olympics,” which are scheduled to end on Feb. 20, and warned that all Americans should leave Ukraine in the next 24 to 48 hours.
U.S. officials still do not know whether Mr. Putin has decided to invade, Mr. Sullivan insisted. “We are ready either way,” he said. “Whatever happens next, the West is more united than it has been in years.”
"U.S. intelligence officials had initially thought Mr. Putin was prepared to wait until the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing to avoid antagonizing President Xi Jinping of China, a critical ally. In recent days, they say, the timeline began moving up" https://t.co/RimygMIB6A
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) February 11, 2022
(WSJ) Dismal Russian Record in Occupied Eastern Ukraine Serves as Warning
The Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions were once the engines of the country’s economy and dominated its politics.
They produced its richest man, billionaire industrialist Rinat Akhmetov, as well as former President Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by the street protests that triggered the Russian invasion in 2014.
Since then, however, the two areas—now nominally independent “people’s republics” inside the larger regions of Luhansk and Donetsk—have turned into impoverished, depopulated enclaves that increasingly rely on Russian subsidies to survive. As much as half the prewar population of 3.8 million has left, for the rest of Ukraine, more prosperous Russia or Europe. Those who remain are disproportionately retirees, members of the security services and people simply too poor to move. Current economic output has shrunk to roughly 30% of the level before the Russian invasion, economists estimate.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin is massing more than 100,000 troops for a possible broader invasion of Ukraine, the developments in Donetsk and Luhansk show what many fear could happen to the rest of the country if he were to carry that out. The dismal record of Russian rule is one reason so many Ukrainian citizens, including Russian-speakers, are ready to take up arms so that their hometowns won’t meet the same fate.
“We don’t want to live in such a zombie zone, in some kind of Somalia.” My @WSJ report from Donbas on life in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine — and on why Ukrainians (including Russian-speakers) in the rest of the country don’t want the same fate. https://t.co/1Go1tVKIPx
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) February 4, 2022
A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Andrei Rublev
Holy God, we bless thee for the gift of thy monk and icon writer Andrei Rublev, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provided a window into heaven for generations to come, revealing the majesty and mystery of the holy and blessed Trinity; who livest and reignest through ages of ages. Amen.
Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Andrei Rublev, Monk and Iconographer, 1430 https://t.co/4o5bX0raPX pic.twitter.com/OKiRf3mR0J
— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 29, 2022
(Telegraph) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard–Putin will never have another chance like this to overthrow the European strategic order
The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington has laid out the likely options for the Kremlin in an essay by CIA veteran Philip Wasielewski and CSIS security chief Seth Jones.
Mr Putin could peel off the Black Sea coast and link up to the Crimea, perhaps pushing beyond Odessa to deprive Ukraine of its entire coast. However, the British warning on Saturday suggests that he aims for total decapitation of the Ukrainian state.
He could seize the whole of Orthodox Eastern Ukraine as far as the Dnieper River. But this would leave a large enough rump to survive as a viable state and permanent headache.
The conquest would have to include Kiev, the great prize for Mr Putin, who harks back to Kievan Rus as the ancient cradle of the Russian nation in his mythologised ethno-nationalist version of history. His 7,000 word manifesto published last year dismisses the Ukrainian state as the invention of Soviet cartographers.
Read it all (registration).
🇺🇦 "It is a fair bet that Europe will roll over as it did over Crimea, and despairing Washington might accept a fait accompli and cut its losses" | writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
https://t.co/TurAdSniMQ— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 24, 2022
(Economist leader) Momentum is building for war in Ukraine
The first world war became inevitable once mobilisation orders had been issued in Berlin, argued A.J.P. Taylor, a British historian. The complexities of early-20th-century railway timetables, upon which troop movements then depended, made any alteration virtually impossible. Modern armies do not suffer the same constraints. But as Russia sends more and more units to Ukraine’s borders, a grim momentum is building.
Last week’s diplomacy yielded nothing. Some of Vladimir Putin’s demands are impossible for nato to accept, as he well knew. (Essentially, he wants nato never to admit new members, and to remove its forces from any country Russia threatens.) On January 19th President Joe Biden said that he expects Russia to “move in” on Ukraine.
On January 14th hackers sabotaged Ukrainian government websites, getting them to display a poster of the Ukrainian flag and map crossed out, and warning Ukrainians to “be afraid and expect worse”. Over 100,000 Russian troops are massed on Ukraine’s eastern border, with field hospitals and fuel dumps. “Battalion tactical groups” have arrived in Belarus, a Kremlin client state north of Ukraine, in apparent preparation for a two-front attack that would divide Ukrainian forces and menace the capital, Kyiv. Only a trigger is lacking, and America says it has evidence that a “false flag” operation is planned to allow Russia to claim its men had been attacked by Ukraine. The odds of war seem perilously high.
Read it all (registration).
War can yet be avoided, but time is running out https://t.co/PcHWVSmP1X
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 21, 2022
(Eurointelligence) Wolfgang Münchau–When Russia invades… … Europe will appease
When Russia invades, Germany and other European countries might at one point run out of gas. That would depend on how energy enters into this conflict. Germany has left itself in this position because successive governments failed to develop a coherent energy policy. Three nuclear plants went offline at the beginning of 2022, as will the last three at the end of this year. With the Greens in government, I see no chance of a policy reversal. The new coalition has ambitious plans for investment in renewables, but the maths does not add up. The energy transition requires unprecedented investment in modern gas-fired power stations as an interim solution. That means Russian gas for the most part. The Greens might kick up a fuss over Nord Stream 2, but I don’t think they will have the gumption to leave the government over a pipeline, and sacrifice their investment programme for renewable energy sources. The deal is done.
When Russia invades, it will be a matter of smoke and mirrors. Russia has no interest in occupying all of Ukraine. It will never invade a Nato country, and try to occupy it. My fear is that Putin may at one point choose to close the Suwalki gap, the stretch of land along the Polish-Lithuanian border that separates the Russian province of Kalingrad from Belarus. That would give Russia direct land access to the southern Baltic Sea, and drive a wedge through the EU. The Baltic States would at this point be geographically isolated from the EU, surrounded by Russia from all sides. This is the scenario depicted in our hypothetical map above. It might also seek to extend its military control of the Black Sea, cutting through the Ukrainian lands that separate it from Transnistria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province in eastern Moldova.
When Russia invades, Germany will appease. Germany will push for minimal sanctions, and only those that don’t damage German exports. They will veto any proposal to cut Russia off from the Swift payment system, if such a proposal were ever made. Nord Stream 2 is safe because neither the EU nor the Biden administration want to upset the Germans. A Republican majority after the mid-term election this November might change the Americans’ policy, but by then the gas will have started to flow.
When Russia invades, Europe will appease. (Wolfgang Munchau @EuroBriefing on Reaction via Euro Intelligence) https://t.co/C7kpulry5E
— Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) January 17, 2022
(Telegraph) Is the world is at the most dangerous strategic juncture since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962? Ambrose Evans-Pritchard thinks so
While Britain’s political class is distracted by a Downing Street party, the world is at the most dangerous strategic juncture since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
The West faces escalating threats of conflict on three fronts, each separate but linked by unknown levels of collusion: Russia’s mobilisation of a strike force on Ukraine’s border, China’s “dress rehearsal” for an attack on Taiwan, and Iran’s nuclear brinkmanship.
Each country is emboldening the other two to press their advantage, and together they risk a fundamental convulsion of the global order.
You have to go back yet further to find a moment when Western democracies were so vulnerable to a sudden change in fortunes. Today’s events have echoes of the interlude between the Chamberlain-Daladier capitulation at Munich in 1938 and consequences that followed in rapid crescendo, from Anschluss to the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
Posted in China, Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Globalization, Iran, Politics in General, Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine
(WSJ) Walter Russell Mead–China and Russia form an entente to hobble America, with a little help from Iran.
Asia First does not mean Asia Alone. That is the hard lesson the world is busy teaching the Biden administration and the U.S. In Europe, American diplomats last week scrambled to respond to Belarus’s weaponization of migration on its border with Poland, warned that Russia is positioning itself to invade Ukraine, and worked to defuse a crisis in the western Balkans. In the Middle East, as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to reassure key allies about America’s continuing commitment to their security, U.S. naval forces participated with Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in the unprecedented joint Arab-Israeli military exercises in the Red Sea.
This shift from an Asia First policy to Global Engagement isn’t something the Biden administration is voluntarily choosing. It is a change forced on the U.S. by the actions of adversaries who believe that by keeping America off-balance and overcommitted, they can hasten the process of American decline.
President Biden’s original plan to focus on Asia made good political sense. Progressive Democrats are dead-set against the military spending and political engagement that a truly global American foreign policy would require. And it isn’t only progressive Democrats who are weary of endless wars, freeloading allies, and American diplomatic and sometimes military engagement in faraway hot spots like the western Balkans and Sudan. If we could get Iran back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal and reach at least a temporary understanding with Russia on some issues, Team Biden hoped, reduced engagement in Europe and the Middle East would help make a tougher China policy easier to sell back home—and to pay for.
Team Biden is right about that. Unfortunately, China, Russia and Iran understand the situation as clearly as the White House does, and these powers want Mr. Biden and the nation he leads to fail.
The “pivot to Asia” is failing as an American grand strategy because our adversaries are willing and able to disrupt it, writes @wrmead https://t.co/0VmKPSpV3G
— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) November 23, 2021
(FT) Ukraine warned of ‘high probability’ of Russian military escalation this winter
Western intelligence suggests a “high probability of destabilisation” of Ukraine by Russia as soon as this winter after Moscow massed more than 90,000 troops at its border, according to Kyiv’s deputy defence minister.
Hanna Maliar told the Financial Times at the weekend that while interpretations of western intelligence “need further discussion”, they underlined “the high probability of escalation of the situation”.
When asked if the risk of Russian military aggression was higher than during the past years, she said: “Information of our [military intelligence services] coincides with the information of partner countries about the high probability of destabilisation of the situation in Ukraine this winter.”
Maliar added that allies’ conclusions were “based not only on information about the number of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border”, suggesting Washington had additional intelligence about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions.
Maliar added that allies’ conclusions were “based not only on information about the number of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border”, suggesting Washington had additional intelligence about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions.
https://t.co/zKLkjN40rU— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) November 15, 2021
([London] Times) Nord Stream 2: Vladimir Putin accused of ‘choking’ gas supply to push up price
Britain has accused President Putin of “choking off” the supply of gas to Europe to increase energy prices and win approval for a new gas pipeline.
Ministers believe that Russia is deliberately restricting gas exports as part of a strategy to force European Union nations into approving Nord Stream 2, a pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
The shortage of gas in Europe has pushed up international prices, leading to a significant rise in household energy bills in the UK and pushing a string of suppliers into administration.
The average dual fuel bill could rise by as much as 30 per cent next year to £1,660 if gas and electricity prices continue to soar and more suppliers go bust, according to Cornwall Insight, an energy advisory group.
Read it all (subscription required).
Britain has accused President Putin of “choking off” the supply of gas to Europe to increase energy prices and win approval for a new gas pipeline. https://t.co/3uP5rhjaUP
— The Times (@thetimes) October 8, 2021
A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Sergius
O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us, we pray thee, from an inordinate love of this world, that inspired by the devotion of thy servant Sergius of Moscow, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Today the #Orthodox #Church celebrates: Repose of Venerable Sergius the Wonderworker, Abbot of Radonezh
Saints and Feasts information courtesy of @ocaorg.
For more info, visit https://t.co/hyXaLi2wfe pic.twitter.com/p3PdvZ4QRc— ⊕ʀᴛʜᴏʙᴏᴛ☦️🤖 (@BosphorusBot) September 25, 2021
Congratulation to Daniel Medvedev, 2021 US Open Men’s Tennis Champion
🇷🇺 @DaniilMedwed has broken through the Big 3. pic.twitter.com/Hl5LnssKSS
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 12, 2021
A Prayer for the Feast Day of Isabel Hapgood
Loving God, we offer thanks for the work and witness of Isabel Florence Hapgood, who introduced the Divine Liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church to English-speaking Christians, and encouraged dialogue between Anglicans and Orthodox. Guide us as we build on the foundation that she gave us, that all may be one in Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, unto ages of ages. Amen.
Woods offers fascinating account of translator, linguist & journalist Isabel Hapgood through her papers #translatorcorporeal pic.twitter.com/i18igVnzqB
— Dr Carol O’Sullivan (@carol_osullivan) May 8, 2017
(NBC) Lester Holt interviews the woman featured on the 2021 Toyota Super Bowl Ad, Jessica Long
WATCH: After sharing her story in a powerful Super Bowl ad, Jessica Long speaks with @LesterHoltNBC about her journey to becoming the second-most decorated Paralympian in U.S. history. https://t.co/Kng2IfvoJ1
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) February 9, 2021
Tuesday Morning Mental Health Break–My Favourite Super Bowl ad this year–Jessica’s Story
Do take the time to watch it.
A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Andrei Rublev
Holy God, we bless thee for the gift of thy monk and icon writer Andrei Rublev, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provided a window into heaven for generations to come, revealing the majesty and mystery of the holy and blessed Trinity; who livest and reignest through ages of ages. Amen.
Baptism of Christ, Andrei Rublev, 1405 pic.twitter.com/TRGt3BwCS6
— Elena (@omnialnchristo) January 13, 2021
Gary Saul Morson–Fyodor Dostoevsky: philosopher of freedom
On December 22, 1849, a group of political radicals were taken from their prison cells in Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress, where they had been interrogated for eight months. Led to the Semenovsky Square, they heard a sentence of death by firing squad. They were given long white peasant blouses and nightcaps—their funeral shrouds—and offered last rites. The first three prisoners were seized by the arms and tied to the stake. One prisoner refused a blindfold and stared defiantly into the guns trained on them. At the last possible moment, the guns were lowered as a courier galloped up with an imperial decree reducing death sentences to imprisonment in a Siberian prison camp followed by service as a private in the army. The last-minute rescue was in fact planned in advance as part of the punishment, an aspect of social life that Russians understand especially well.
Accounts affirm: of the young men who endured this terrible ordeal, one had his hair turn white; a second went mad and never recovered his sanity; a third, whose two-hundredth birthday we celebrate in 2021, went on to write Crime and Punishment.
The mock-execution and the years in Siberian prison—thinly fictionalized in his novel Notes from the House of the Dead (1860)—changed Dostoevsky forever. His naive, hopeful romanticism disappeared. His religious faith deepened. The sadism of both prisoners and guards taught him that the sunny view of human nature presumed by utilitarianism, liberalism, and socialism were preposterous. Real human beings differed fundamentally from what these philosophies presumed.
People do not live by bread—or, what philosophers called the maximalization of “advantage”—alone. All utopian ideologies presuppose that human nature is fundamentally good and simple: evil and apparent complexity result from a corrupt social order. Eliminate want and you eliminate crime. For many intellectuals, science itself had proven these contentions and indicated the way to the best of all possible worlds. Dostoevsky rejected all these ideas as pernicious nonsense. “It is clear and intelligible to the point of obviousness,” he wrote in a review of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, “that evil lies deeper in human beings than our social-physicians suppose; that no social structure will eliminate evil; that the human soul will remain as it always has been . . . and, finally, that the laws of the human soul are still so little known, so obscure to science, so undefined, and so mysterious, that there are not and cannot be either physicians or final judges” except God Himself.
Read it all (emphasis mine).
His naive, hopeful romanticism disappeared. His religious faith deepened. https://t.co/6ka4j3frZO
— The New Criterion (@newcriterion) January 14, 2021
(Bloomberg) Russia-Linked SolarWinds Hack Ensnares Widening List of Victims
It was clear from the start that a cyber attack by suspected Russian hackers aimed at several U.S. government agencies was going to be bad. One clue: National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien cut short a trip overseas early this week to rush back to Washington to help manage the crisis.
But on Thursday, the reality of just how sprawling — and potentially damaging — the breach might be came into sharper focus. It started with a bulletin from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, warning that the hackers were sophisticated, patient and well-resourced, representing a “grave risk” to federal, state and local governments as well as critical infrastructure and the private sector. It didn’t take long to see how accurate the agency’s assessment was.
Bloomberg News reported that at least three state governments were hacked. That was followed by reports of other breaches: the city network in Austin, Texas, and the U.S. nuclear weapons agency. Late in the day software giant Microsoft Corp. said its systems were exposed.
Excerpt:
… effect of Thursday’s revelations was confirmation that no single person or agency — including the highest reaches of the U.S. government — is certain of exactly what the hackers had infiltrated, let alone the full extent of what was taken.https://t.co/vm8C7Ay8i2— Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman (@RhiFionn) December 18, 2020
(Wash Post) The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it.
When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring, they sat dormant for days, doing nothing but hiding. Then the malicious code sprang into action and began communicating with the outside world.
At that moment — when the Russian malware began sending transmissions from federal servers to command-and-control computers operated by the hackers — an opportunity for detection arose, much as human spies behind enemy lines are particularly vulnerable when they radio home to report what they’ve found.
Why then, when computer networks at the State Department and other federal agencies started signaling to Russian servers, did nobody in the U.S. government notice that something odd was afoot?
The answer is part Russian skill, part federal government blind spot.
The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it. https://t.co/wIwZzTuowZ
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 16, 2020
(Wired) The Russian Hackers Playing ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ With US Infrastructure
Over the last half a decade, Russian state-sponsored hackers have triggered blackouts in Ukraine, released history’s most destructive computer worm, and stolen and leaked emails from Democratic targets in an effort to help elect Donald Trump. In that same stretch, one particular group of Kremlin-controlled hackers has gained a reputation for a very different habit: walking right up to the edge of cybersabotage—sometimes with hands-on-the-switches access to US critical infrastructure—and stopping just short.
Last week the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published an advisory warning that a group known as Berserk Bear—or alternately Energetic Bear, TEMP.Isotope, and Dragonfly—had carried out a broad hacking campaign against US state, local, territorial, and tribal government agencies, as well aviation sector targets. The hackers breached the networks of at least two of those victims. The news of those intrusions, which was reported earlier last week by the news outlet Cyberscoop, presents the troubling but unconfirmed possibility that Russia may be laying the groundwork to disrupt the 2020 election with its access to election-adjacent local government IT systems.
In the context of Berserk Bear’s long history of US intrusions, though, it’s much harder to gauge the actual threat it poses. Since as early as 2012, cybersecurity researchers have been shocked to repeatedly find the group’s fingerprints deep inside infrastructure around the globe, from electric distribution utilities to nuclear power plants. Yet those researchers also say they’ve never seen Berserk Bear use that access to cause disruption. The group is a bit like Chekhov’s gun, hanging on the wall without being fired through all of Act I—and foreshadowing an ominous endgame at a critical moment for US democracy.
“What makes them unique is the fact that they have been so focused on infrastructure throughout their existence, whether it’s mining, oil, and natural gas in different countries or the grid,” says Vikram Thakur, a researcher at security firm Symantec who has tracked the group over several distinct hacking campaigns since 2013.
The US gov called out a lot of Russian hackers' cyberattacks in the past week. But most puzzling are the warnings about those who *haven't* attacked. What are we to make of a group that's dug into US infrastructure for years but never pulled the trigger? https://t.co/q0hGqDWzl8
— Andy Greenberg (@a_greenberg) October 27, 2020
A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Sergius
O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us, we pray thee, from an inordinate love of this world, that inspired by the devotion of thy servant Sergius of Moscow, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
September 25th is the feast of Saint Sergius of Radonezh (born Bartholomew Kirillovich): Rus′ boyar, mystic, forest hermit, Basilian hieromonk, founder and first Hegumen of the Holy Trinity Lavra on Makovets Hill, and wonderworker—who died on this day in 1392, aged 82. pic.twitter.com/4CYS5vGvGs
— Tradical (@NoTrueScotist) September 25, 2020
(Moscow Times) Russia is now the fifth most-affected country in terms of Covid19 infections, surpassing Germany and France on Thursday
- Russia confirmed 10,699 new coronavirus infections Friday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 187,859. Russia is now the fifth most-affected country in terms of infections, surpassing Germany and France on Thursday.
- Moscow’s coronavirus lockdown has been extended until May 31, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Starting May 12, Moscow residents will be required to wear face masks and gloves in all public places and transport, Sobyanin said.
- Hundreds of thousands of Moscow’s rapid antibody tests labeled as Dutch-made are unreliable at detecting the coronavirus in its early stages, meaning patients who receive false negatives could potentially infect others, a new investigation has said.
#BREAKING Russia confirmed 10,699 new coronavirus infections Friday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 187,859https://t.co/mJhaqBFUI5
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) May 8, 2020
Posted in Health & Medicine, Russia