After a perfunctory debate, the presidents and prime ministers quickly approved sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and some of Russia’s biggest banks. Talk of barring Russia from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT, however, stalled amid skepticism on the part of Scholz and the leaders of Austria, Italy and Cyprus, according to officials familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.
Then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dialed into the meeting via teleconference with a bracing appeal that left some of the world-weary politicians with watery eyes. In just five minutes, Zelensky — speaking from the battlefield of Kyiv — pleaded with European leaders for an honest assessment of his country’s ambition to join the E.U. and for genuine help in its fight with the Russian invaders. Food, ammunition, fuel, sanctions — Ukraine needed its European neighbors to step up with all of it.
“It was extremely, extremely emotional,” said a European official briefed on the call. “He was essentially saying: ‘Look, we are here dying for European ideals.”
Before disconnecting the video call, Zelensky told the gathering matter-of-factly that it might be the last time they saw him alive, according to a senior E.U. official who was present.
Just that quickly, the Ukrainian president’s personal appeal overwhelmed European leaders’ resistance to imposing measures that could drive the Russian economy into a state of near collapse.
Is it possible for Russian nuclear commanders and/or personnel to defy a strike order from Putin? I don’t think that’s possible for the US military. Although, I was shocked at the precautions taken by our top personnel under Trump
Score a point for the great man view of history.
Zelensky for prez.
Zelensky goat
https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/1498079305728995333?s=20&t=SooyEUA9yAtn7AEoalh6ng
https://twitter.com/VickerySec/status/1498082977086988294?s=20&t=SooyEUA9yAtn7AEoalh6ng
Stonks
Yea, even if the higher ups didn’t tell them anything even the dumbest Russian conscript could figure it out. Like did they keep the conscripts from reading street signs? But what are they going to say to their captors? Hell yea I’m here to murder Ukrainians and I’m supposed to be on Main Street Kiev by 9:00?
In other news, Ukraine’s Finnish Embassy website has been offline for a few days, maybe .ua domains are down due to shenanigans. I sent them an e-mail though, might as well volunteer to do some good. Beats drinking yourself to death at least.
I made a thread, not sure if the split will work but there’s at least a place to move posts to if the mods choose to do so.
apparently russia needs to join nato
I wonder how that national security Vlad was just had to defend by occupying neighbouring countries is going.
We got him!
I’m spending them rooting for the NY Rangers, so …
I read somewhere that those Russian reserve locations was a few months ago.
I would assume he moved that over to Russia before the war?
That’s the humanity-level question. I don’t think anyone knows.
Churchill we will fight them on the beaches stuff.
How do you just “move”, say $10bn? You can’t exactly withdraw it in cash. Sure, you can move it to a different account, but it’s just a number on a screen unless you can actually use it in some way.
Not being sarcastic, I genuinely have no idea how money works when it gets to those amounts.