U.S. Senator Marco Rubio says he is working on legislation to sanction China if it uses its payments system to help Russia circumvent sanctions.

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❗️US President Joe Biden announces ban on all imports of Russian oil and gas.

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❗️U.S. assesses between 2,000 and 4,000 Russian troops have been killed in the Ukraine conflict so far. (Pentagon)

This estimate is far lower than the 12,000 figure being propagated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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The Russian Ministry of Defense has launched an English Telegram channel to share information about the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, including photos, videos, official statements and briefings.

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❗️ McDonald’s is temporarily closing 850 restaurants in Russia

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Russian restaurants in New York City are being hit by cancellations, social media campaigns and bad reviews online after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite most owners being openly antiwar and many coming from Ukraine.

— New York Times

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Zelensky’s foreign minister says 20,000 “volunteers” from 52 countries have already signed up to join the Ukrainian forces in the fight against Russia.

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Russophobia on steroids: UK’s Cardiff Philharmonic replaces the program of its upcoming all-Tchaikovsky concert, citing it as 'inappropriate at this time.’

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❗️U.S. rescinds support for Polish plan to supply fighter jets to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that Washington had green lighted a plan for Poland to provide its MiG-29s to Kiev.

Now the Pentagon says the planes wouldn't actually help Ukraine's defenses much, but would risk a “significant” Russian reaction.

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Russia releases UAV footage showing Ukrainian ATGM teams on rooftops of apartment buildings and armored vehicles parked in residential neighborhoods of Mariupol.

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A rare, must-see panel discussion has been sponsored by Consortium News bringing together geopolitical heavyweights to offer their 'outside-the-establishment norm' perspectives on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the state of play in Europe and among NATO powers.

Presented by the Committee for the Republic in Washington, the discussion features University of Chicago professor and international relations analyst John Mearsheimer, as well as ex-CIA Russia specialist Ray McGovern.

Also part of the discussion is Jack Matlock, last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, as well as Ted Postol, MIT professor of technology and international security. Additionally, Susan Eisenhower, grand-daughter of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was part of the panel. 

https://youtu.be/OeeqooNWO48

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❗️Foreign companies that cease operations in Russia can expect their properties to be placed under “external management” with subsequent transfer of ownership to those “who want to work.”

Putin says this process will be carried out using “legal market instruments.”

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❗️Facebook is suspending enforcement of its hate-speech policy for anti-Russian posts. (Reuters)

Calls for violence will now be permitted "against Russians and Russian soldiers."

Posting about assassinating Putin is also allowed as long as the "location or method" are missing.

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Tucker Carlson: Why is the U.S. funding secret biolabs in Ukraine?

In jaw-dropping testimony during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, the Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted that there were “biological research facilities" in Ukraine. Nuland also failed to deny that Kiev possesses biological or chemical weapons.

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❗️Putin green lights use of pro-Russian foreign fighters in Ukraine, orders MoD to organize their transport.

According to Defense Minister Shoigu, 16,000 pro-Russian fighters from the Middle East (presumably Syria) are ready to be sent to the combat zone.

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❗️Russia is moving to ban Instagram and declare Meta an "extremist organization" after the company adjusted its policy to allow calls for violence against Russians and for death to President Putin.

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❗️YouTube decided to take down all Russian state-sponsored media accounts and censor content relating to the military operation in Ukraine.

This will undoubtedly result in YouTube joining the ranks of banned social media platforms in Russia, alongside Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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Messages from Russian-Americans

The Struggle of Listening to the Mal-Informed

By George Sokol

The other day I was at a cafe, and a few tables across was a typical upper-middle class American dad from Long Island, with his family. He started talking about some friends of his who were from Ukraine, and instantly became "the expert" on the subject. The rest of the table was listening in awe to his analysis of the situation, which was a direct repetition of the pro-Euroatlantic narrative that is repeated ad infinitum in the center-left US media. I'm not one to butt into foreign conversations, but it certainly put a dent in my appetite (fortunately the cafe served good food and wine which took care of that problem).

Earlier I was visiting my grandfather in rehab, and the news on Ukraine was blaring on TV from all around. The receptionists were commenting "Oh how terrible! I don't know what (Putin) is going to do next, I think he's going to kill their president (Zelensky)!" At that point I tried to interject a few words, but I avoided taking a firm position. My main relationship with them is getting me in and out of the facility without extra headaches, so I'm not interested in sparring with them on politics.

This, sadly, is the lot that many of us Russians are bound to bear over the next few weeks as this conflict remains center stage in the mainstream media. Seeing Ukrainian flags everywhere, reading about various solidarity actions (my county executive is doing a "gun drive" for Ukraine), and overhearing people repeat the same misinformation on TV is pretty psychologically taxing.

Unfortunately there are two problems: first of all, nobody really cares enough about this subject to be interested in researching it past the headlines. If you were told about some war in a country you knew nothing about and had no connection to, chances are you're going to trust whomever the talking head on TV is and not give it much thought. The news media, in turn, paints it as a humanitarian catastrophe, and this appeals to people's emotional need for sympathy.

The second problem is that the window of public debate on this subject is artificially constrained. You are not allowed to question that Russia is clearly the guilty party in this war, and that Putin is the moral equivalent of Stalin and Hitler. You are simply given the choice of: do we send troops, or no? Period. End of conversation. Any step outside of those boundaries would be like suggesting Hitler was right for attacking Poland.

Both of these factors were at play during the Yugoslavia wars of the 1990s. The public at large in the states was presented with the same constrained debate (in this case: ground troops or air only?), and most of the public knew absolutely nothing about the Balkans at any depth. Hence the public emotions were effectively manipulated. Only after the war was way over, and Kosovo was torn away from Serbia alongside an intensified ethnic cleansing campaign by the Kosovo Albanian mobs, did a few slithers of the Serbian side of things get some press. Most likely as a small perk of possible EU membership. Even so, to this day the truth of those events remains vastly distorted in the western public eye.
None of this is easy on the psyche. It's as if everyone is drinking the kool-aid. And trying to stamp out the lies and misinformation at times feels like attacking a major ant infestation with a fork.

In my experience, what may happen over time is that as the events cool off and other news items take center stage (which, inevitably, they must), this situation will fade into the background. Many people will drop their Ukraine avatars and go back to their normal lives. Let's not forget that this is an issue many know little about and to them it was just a welcome divergence from other issues they will have to face sooner than later. And perhaps at this point some of them may gradually become open to alternative narratives, especially as the facts on the ground may reveal that this is a way more complicated problem than they previously imagined.