RUSSIA NEWS & INFORMATION – Johnson’s Russia List contents & links :: JRL 2022-#31 :: Wednesday, 9 February 2022

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2021-#31 :: Wednesday, 9 February 2022
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1. Kremlin.ru: News conference following Russian-French talks – en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67735
2. rt.com: ‘Bear with me, my beauty,’ Putin tells Ukraine. Did the Russian president make a vulgar sexual threat to Kiev? – rt.com/russia/548669-putin-vulgar-sexual-threat-zelensky/
3. AP: Macron: Putin told him Russia won’t escalate Ukraine crisis
4. rt.com: Key takeaways from Putin-Macron meeting on Ukraine. Presidents of France and Russia spoke for nearly six hours seeking to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis. – rt.com/russia/548603-key-takeaways-from-putin-macron/
5. Meduza: Western reporting on the Ukraine crisis is dangerously close to clickbait and alarmism. [references republic.ru/posts/103065]
6. Wall Street Journal: Putin Says the West Is Goading Russia Into War With Ukraine—and Many Russians Agree.
7. gilbertdoctorow.com: Gilbert Doctorow, The fatigue factor: the ongoing marathon of European diplomacy is a useless distraction. – gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/02/08/the-fatigue-factor-the-ongoing-marathon-of-european-diplomacy-is-a-useless-distraction/
8. Politico: Spy world wary as Biden team keeps leaking Russia intel. U.S. national security figures get that information war is the new battleground. But “how many freaking times do they need to warn that anything may be imminent?” one asked.
9. Responsible Statecraft: Gregory Foster, Why is a regional security collective with Russia so hard to imagine? Getting out of the Cold War rut takes time but it’s imperative, else all parties are doomed to repeat history.
9a. samf.substack.com: Lawrence Freedman, How will the Russia-Ukraine Crisis end?
10. Wall Street Journal: Russia Thrived as It Integrated With the West — a New Cold War Is Unraveling That. A Ukraine invasion would trigger sweeping sanctions that cripple Russia’s few knowledge industries and push it closer to China.
11. Valdai Discussion Club: Lawrence McDonnell, Russia/Ukraine Brinkmanship, a Downward Spiral. With military troop buildup, lethal brinkmanship and the inevitable threats of extreme sanctions some targeted personally at Russian President Vladimir Putin himself – the crisis in Ukraine seems to be irrevocably spiraling towards deadly confrontation and real, battlefield hot war. 
12. Project Syndicate: Jeffrey Sachs, How to Protect Ukraine’s Sovereignty. Rather than trying to pretend that one side is a saint and the other a sinner, everyone involved in the latest NATO-Russia conflict should recognize that they have a mutual interest in long-term security. That implies a diplomatic settlement in which Ukraine secures its sovereignty through neutrality.
13. Responsible Statecraft: Robert Hunter, The West must accept that Russia is a key player in Europe. Putin has been sending warning signals for over a decade; once the Ukraine crisis is over, nothing will be the same.
14. Responsible Statecraft: James Carden, Let’s talk about those provocative military exercises in Eastern Europe. Both sides are guilty of transporting thousands of troops and gear for massive drills to show strength. So compromise can actually start here.
15. Foreign Policy in Focus: John Feffer, HELSINKI 2.0. The European security order has broken down. The conflict around Ukraine is a symptom of this larger problem.
16. Antiwar.com: Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Memo to Congress: Diplomacy for Ukraine Is Spelled M-i-n-s-k. – original.antiwar.com/mbenjamin/2022/02/08/memo-to-congress-diplomacy-for-ukraine-is-spelled-m-i-n-s-k/
17. Carnegie Moscow Center: Konstantin Skorkin, Ukraine’s President Beset on All Sides Amid Fears of Russian Attack. Yet again, Zelensky is faced with a crisis even worse than all the previous ones. Every report of another Russian plan to invade Ukraine is a blow to its economy, weakening the hryvnia, pushing up interest rates, and sowing panic among the public.
18. AP: Ukraine projects calm over Russia fears despite U.S. rhetoric.
19. Moon of Alabama: Europe Should Leave NATO Behind And Integrate With Russia. – moonofalabama.org/2022/02/europe-should-leave-nato-behind-and-integrate-with-russia/comments/page/2/#comments
20. Antiwar.com: Ted Galen Carpenter, Hawks Smear War Opponents Again. – original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2022/02/07/hawks-smear-war-opponents-again/
21. Consortium News: Patrick Lawrence, Propaganda and Evidence The wall of propaganda that towers over us, resting on an insidious culture of irrationality that has come to suffuse the American polity, is weakening. – consortiumnews.com/2022/02/07/patrick-lawrence-propaganda-and-evidence/
22. rt.com: Scott Ritter, Why Biden needs new policy advisers on Russia. – rt.com/op-ed/548591-us-policy-advisers-russia/
23. New York Times: Putin Is Operating on His Own Timetable, and It May Be a Long One The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine could turn into a drawn-out and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement.
24. rt.com: West ‘deceived & crucified’ Ukraine: Key takeaways from interview with Russian FM spokesperson. RT has caught up with Maria Zakharova to discuss the deep causes of Russia’s confrontation with the West. – rt.com/russia/548792-rt-zakharova-interview-recap/