₦airaland Forum

Ukraine’s disappeared

A local official and a journalist’s father were abducted. Their families’ stories are part of a pattern of disappearances in Russia-occupied Ukraine.

On March 21, Natali called her father to wish him a happy birthday. It was Viktor Maruniak’s 60th, but, on the phone, he sounded sad and nervous. Maruniak is the starosta, or elected head, of Stara Zbur’ivka, a village more than an hour outside of Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine. Russian forces now occupied it, Maruniak told Natali. He would call her back later. “And I told him, ‘Okay, I will wait for you, please call me back,’” she said.

Natali’s father never did.

She learned later, through relatives, that Russian soldiers took Maruniak from the home he shared with his wife. On the morning of March 23, Russian forces returned, with Maruniak in handcuffs.

The Russian soldiers searched the house, relatives told Natali, though what the soldiers were looking for remains unclear. They ripped the flowers out of their pots. They found the money, even the bills they’d hidden carefully, and they took that along with other valuables, and the candy and the nuts. They destroyed the furniture. The soldiers examined a hole in the yard dug by the dog, suspicious of the loose soil.

“Woman, calm down,” soldiers told Maruniak’s wife, according to Natali. “Maybe it’s the last time you see your husband.”

She saw her husband one more time, on March 24. He returned again with soldiers, though this time, they covered their faces. “Feed him, change his socks, and give him his medicine,” they ordered Maruniak’s wife. As she did, she noticed his legs were bruised blue. There was another bruise on his right temple, another on his arm. Maruniak said nothing, only that it was cold where he was being held.

That was the last Maruniak’s family saw or heard anything about him.

Maruniak is among dozens of local officials or community leaders who have been abducted or arbitrarily arrested by Russian forces as they seized territory in Ukraine, especially in the east and the south. These disappearances are both an attempt to coerce cooperation and a targeted effort to silence and intimidate Ukrainians who may oppose or organize against a Russian occupation.

The disappearances, said Tetiana Pechonchyk, the head of Human Rights Centre ZMINA, a Ukraine-based organization, are intended to “stop the resilience of local population and to incline the local mayors, active members of local communities, who have authority in this community, to press them to collaborate with the occupiers.”

The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented about 64 cases of suspected detention or enforced disappearances among civilians since February 24, including 34 local officials, about 13 of whom have been released. The UN and other human rights groups have confirmed disappearances among other members of civil society: volunteers, activists, journalists, religious leaders, protesters, and former military veterans. (Vox reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment, but did not receive a response.)

Anastasiia Moskvychova, who has been tracking disappearances for ZMINA, says they have confirmed more than 100 arbitrary detentions since February 24; about 50 people are still missing.

But Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based activist and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, said these numbers are only the “top of the iceberg.” Her group is tracking dozens more suspected cases of enforced disappearances, but they are still trying to corroborate evidence, a task that’s all the more difficult in Russian-occupied areas. Other times, family and friends of the suspected victims fear making that information public.

Amidst the falling shells in Ukraine, another chilling phenomenon is occurring. People are disappearing off the street—abducted by Russian forces in a campaign of intimidation. Over the next few days I'll be shining a spotlight on these faces—to call for the release of #TheTaken. pic.twitter.com/EcI006vyqg

— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) April 1, 2022

Fear is why disappearances happen. It is a particularly insidious human rights violation and a technique utilized by US-backed dictators in Latin America in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, and other regimes around the world. Individuals are arbitrarily arrested or detained by a government — or affiliated groups like security services, local militias, and criminal gangs — and because disappearances happen outside the bounds of the law, there’s often little recourse. “State denial is an essential part of a disappearance,” said Freek van der Vet, a researcher at the University of Helsinki’s institute of international law and human rights. “Somebody would disappear, and now authorities, or occupying forces, would deny they are responsible for the disappearance.”

These tactics did not begin with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24; they are a continuation of a strategy used before, including during Russia’s military campaigns in Chechnya and in Ukraine. After Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and invaded the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine in support of a separatist movement, activists and journalists and officials were abducted and detained in these regions.

“It’s the repetition of the Russian playbook,” said Mattia Nelles, a political analyst specializing in Russia and Ukraine. “It’s definitely a concerted effort of intimidation that we see in the now-occupied areas in the south and east, but also in the north.”

All of this foreshadows how Russia might try to consolidate control in Ukrainian areas it captures by force. The Russian occupation is still being met with defiance; people are protesting, those who have been kidnapped and released are speaking out. But human rights advocates and experts worry that, as the war continues, Russian forces may ratchet up this repression, and carry out more enforced disappearances, along with other possible war crimes. The United States raised this possibility to the United Nations ahead of Russia’s invasion.

“What we see now,” Nelles said, “foreshadows how the Russians will govern.”

What’s happening in Ukraine has happened before
In late March, Svetlana Zalizetskaya, a journalist who ran a news outlet in Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine currently under Russian control, got a call from the men who detained her father. She asked what they wanted. “We want you to be here,” came the reply.

Zalizetskaya, who had already left Melitopol, told them she would not return. Instead, referencing a viral clip of Ukrainians on Snake Island talking to a Russian warship, she told the men they could go where that warship went — that is, to “go Bleep yourself.”

On March 25, she got another call from a man who she referred to as Sergei. She demanded he let her father go. “When you stop writing bad stuff,” he told her. In another call, Sergei accused Zalizetskaya of causing the deaths of Russian soldiers with her writing. “Why me? You came to our land and you’re killing us,” Zalizetskaya shot back. “I’m not guilty in the death of your soldiers.”

Zalizetskaya, though, understood this back-and-forth would not go anywhere. Her 75-year-old father had recently had a stroke, and he needed his blood pressure medication. So she made a deal: on her Facebook page, she would post that she no longer owned the Melitopol news outlet, in exchange for her father’s “evacuation” — the words his captors used, she emphasized.

In Melitopol aged father of journalist Svetlana Zalizetska was taken hostage by probably FSB people. They say they will release him only if Svetlana gives herself up. She is not in Melitopol anymore. pic.twitter.com/9MDLdKTial

— Andrei Kurkov (@AKurkov) March 23, 2022

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN in March that he was not aware of any disappearances among journalists or civil society activists, despite well-documented reports from human rights groups. And these organizations have seen what happened to Zalizetskaya’s family happen before in Russian-occupied territories.

“We can clearly state that it is a deliberate policy,” Matviichuk said. “This is like a method of conducting warfare.”

Extrajudicial arrests happen within Russia, but they are documented more frequently in Russia’s other territories, including Dagestan and Chechnya, where enforced disappearances became what Human Rights Watch described as an “enduring feature” of the conflict.

In Crimea, ethnic Tatars, who tended to oppose Russia’s annexation in 2014, were targeted, including one local activist and leader who was allegedly kidnapped by men in Russian traffic police uniforms in 2016. In the Donbas, militias kidnapped, tortured, and killed a local city council member who tried to take down a flag of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. “They hunted after the activists, after the persons who supported the Ukrainian army, Ukrainian volunteers,” said Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

“Now we see the same scheme,” Pavlichenko added, “and it’s only the beginning of this scheme.”

Disappearances are one element of the scheme; the other is what happens after that. Advocates say they have credible evidence — including from those who have been released since 2014 — that those being held are interrogated, and sometimes tortured, physically and mentally, and sometimes killed. Zalizetskaya said that her father was never beaten, but interrogated nightly: “They just repeated the same question: ‘Why are you arrested?’ And he was answering, ‘because of my last name.’”

Natali noted that what little information her relatives had about her father’s disappearance, they knew he was cold. “They hold people in conditions which can be torture itself,” Matviichuk said. The longer people stay disappeared, the more likely they are to be killed, though confirmation of that is often difficult to obtain.

Human rights watchers and experts say it is often difficult to say who is carrying out disappearances, or subsequent mistreatment — including in Ukraine right now. “The state actors are not interested in accountability for those kinds of abuses, so it creates this environment of impunity,” said Saskia Brechenmacher, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has researched Russian civil society.

That can make it hard to know exactly how organized these actions are, or whether they are directed top-down from Moscow, the work of local units or security services, or militias affiliated with Moscow.

Eugenia Andreyuk, a human rights adviser at the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), said that some of those detained in Ukraine are arrested just days after Russia takes a city, and Russian forces often come directly to activists’ houses. That speed has led researchers to suspect Russia knew who they were targeting. Russian authorities, Andreyuk said, were “equipped for this.” Her colleague, Maryia Kvitsinskaya, regional consultant for the OMCT, said they are seeing military veterans being targeted in the smallest of villages. “For me, it’s a question of how they got the list of these people,” she said.

Ahead of the invasion, the United States told the United Nations it had credible information that Moscow was compiling lists of Ukrainians to be “killed or sent to camps.” Advocates do not have confirmation of such lists, or who may have compiled them if they do exist, but emphasized that this campaign of disappearances is not random.

“It’s not happening as some chaotic or spontaneous thing,” Andreyuk said. “This is very targeted detentions — and it’s a very targeted policy to get more control over society.”

A foreshadowing of how Russia will occupy these zones
Natali said there still is no information about her father. Her family has heard some rumors, including that a woman was taken to a pretrial detention center in Kherson, and might have seen Maruniak. If it was her father, he was skin and bones. Natali and her relatives still do not know what the Russian soldiers were looking at his hime. She heard they might have been looking for weapons or guns, but her dad was not connected to military servicemen.

Again, this not knowing is the point. “[People] never know if somebody has died, or is still alive, or if they would ever return, and I think that creates the fear in society in general. Could this happen to me?” Van der Vet, of the University of Helsinki, said.

Disappearances terrorize the local population, but Russia’s ultimate goal is to consolidate power, either through direct control or pro-Russian proxies. This is why civil society activists — those who can organize a peaceful resistance to occupation — are often the first targeted.

The detention of local authorities is also an effort to win legitimacy. “If you can get mayors, or elected officials, to say that ‘okay, they support the new order,’ I think that’s very important,” said Oxana Shevel, associate professor of political science at Tufts University.

If they cannot win that cooperation, the abduction of a local leader gives the Russian military the opportunity to install a more pliant figure, as Russian personnel attempted to do in Melitopol. (In that case, surveillance video showed the capture of the elected mayor, Ivan Fedorov, with a bag over his head; he has since been freed, and has continued to speak about his capture.)

Added together, these disappearances help create a “Stalin-like” police state, a rule through terror and mistrust, and where nobody knows what — or who — might make them a target of disappearance. “If you just keep silent, it is also suspicious,” Pavlichenko said.

Those who have tracked disappearances in Ukraine since 2014 point out that, as brutal as that campaign was, this latest chapter is different. The Ukrainian population in places like Kherson and Melitopol have continued to protest and resist the invasion — even after evidence of kidnappings. “We’re really afraid that we will have more and more cases [of enforced disappearances],” Kvitsinskaya said. “Because what we see — it’s really the way how Russia’s military responds when civilians don’t want to cooperate with them.”

After her father’s kidnapping, Natali says that few people will come to her father’s house anymore. “Everyone is afraid to talk in the village,” she said. Her father’s wife is afraid too, but of leaving the house. “What if they will bring her husband home when she wouldn’t be there?” she said. “So she’s just waiting for him.”

https://www.vox.com/23012456/ukraine-russia-war-disappearances-kidnappings

Putin is a war criminal.


U must answer Hague.

My pipo too like suffer

MangekyoAlt:
The moment the west started donating high tech defensive weapons en Masse to Ukraine, what did you expect? That said, Sure losing more than 2k troops is a tragedy for Russia. But it is what happens in a conventional warfare between two countries. When Germany attacked Poland with 2 million troops in WW2, despite their overwhelming superiority, they lost more than 59k troops within a month, and only managed to defeat Poland after 1 month and a half which even happened because the Soviet union attacked from the other side too nearly halfway into the invasion, overwhelming Poland in the process.
USA also in Vietnam faced their biggest humiliation when the Soviet union and China started donating high tech weapons to Vietnam to defend themselves with. After losing more than 60k troops, the almighty USA fled away from Vietnam with full speed with their tails in between their legs
BTW This war has just given everyone a glimpse of what actual modern warfare is. I'm having this feeling that the Era of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) are over. The Era where tanks can overrun a stronghold is over, seeing as there are now TOW missiles that can take out a tank and its entire crew in just one hit unlike before that you use anti tank shells that would bounce off in the face of heavy armors.
All in all, Russia will NOT end up like USA in Vietnam. They will take over the entire eastern Ukraine and cut off zelensky from the black sea. Ukraine will become landlocked. The sooner the USA realizes this, stop sending weapons to Ukraine and push for diplomacy, the better. lord Putin might actually forgive them

Ur so called Putin don make a super power pariah state.

God1000:
the west will certainly rebuild Ukraine

Ukrainians will build Ukraine.

Make Dem use catapult fire am

I hate debtors.

Make e resign him na racist.

Russia has effectively admitted defeat In Ukraine

On March 25, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced that the “first phase” of the invasion of Ukraine was over. A mere month earlier, President Vladimir Putin had vowed to completely destroy Ukraine’s military capabilities and to replace the Ukrainian government, which he claimed without any evidence was a neo-Nazi junta planning to commit “genocide” in Donbas.

To that end, on February 24 the Russian army and airborne forces attempted a lightning assault on Kyiv, and simultaneously launched offensives against Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol and on the line of contact in the Donbas region. The subsequent month of unexpectedly vicious high-intensity combat has seen Russian forces fail to take all the cities, with the exception of the smaller southern cities of Kherson and Melitopol, which fell in the first days. In return, the Russian army has taken extremely heavy losses; between 7,000 and 15,000 personnel killed and more than 2,000 vehicles visually confirmed as destroyed or captured.

The new announcement by the Russian government is a direct response to these failures. It is an admission that, at least for now, Russia cannot return Ukraine to its control by force. Instead of regime change (“denazification” according to Russia), the new claim is that Russia’s goal is a more limited focus on taking territory and destroying Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.

This is a serious crisis for President Putin’s regime. To justify the “special military operation” against Ukraine, he has used extreme rhetoric and baseless claims of neo-Nazism and genocide in Ukraine for months. Since the invasion began, ordinary Russians have been presented with a barrage of “Z”-themed pro-war propaganda, patriotic speeches and rallies designed to stir patriotic fervour.

During the first few days, when Russian leaders still assumed they would quickly defeat Ukraine, Russian state media carried pronouncements that President Putin’s invasion had reshaped the world order and put an end to both the “Ukraine question” and a unipolar United States-led, NATO dominated world. Perhaps even more importantly, Russia’s military power and history – both conventional and nuclear – are a cornerstone of national identity and national pride, and Russians have long looked down culturally and politically on Ukraine and Ukrainians. All of this makes the current situation extremely difficult for the Russian government to explain to its people.

In the information climate carefully created by the Russian government for its people, how could the mighty Russian military have failed to destroy the much weaker Ukrainian army? How can a supposedly high-tech “special military operation” that would be conducted in a short time by elite forces have led to tens of thousands of dead, wounded and captured Russian troops and more than 2,000 destroyed Russian vehicles? How is it that the Ukrainian people – supposedly being oppressed by an unpopular neo-Nazi junta imposed by shadowy hostile Western forces – are now fighting with fierce anger and almost total national unity against their Russian “liberators”? Most of all, how can the Russian government – supposedly a nuclear superpower, and the self-proclaimed heir of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 – make a ceasefire deal that leaves the supposedly “genocidal”, “neo-Nazi” Ukrainian government in power? By creating a narrative justification for the invasion that was completely divorced from reality, the Russian government has created a situation where almost any possible outcome to the war now will be extremely hard to justify to its own people.

Russia needs a ceasefire soon, however, because the current rate of equipment and personnel losses is not sustainable, and in any case, they are making little meaningful progress except in the east. In fact, in the past week, Ukraine has retaken significant territory around Mykolaiv and Kherson in the southwest, around Irpin and Makariv to the west of Kyiv and Trostyanets to the east of Kyiv. With each passing day, the Ukrainian hand in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations becomes stronger rather than weaker.

In this context, the Russian announcement of a new phase of the war that will focus on the Donbas has two purposes. Firstly, it represents a pragmatic military strategy. The Donbas is the part of Ukraine where Russian forces stand the best chance of achieving major military successes – they are attempting to concentrate sufficient forces to break the Ukrainian defence line along the Donets River and have gained important ground around Izyum in the past week. It makes sense to prioritise overstretched forces where they have the best chance of achieving tangible results, which will improve their bargaining position in ceasefire talks. Secondly, this is the start of an effort to moderate the expectations created by the completely unrealistic view of the war that the Russian government has fed its people.

Despite this, some in the Russian government seem to find it hard to accept these reduced ambitions and the reality that they imply. On March 27, the propagandist known as “Putin’s mouthpiece”, Dmitry Kiselyov, stated on Russian television that “Russia will never cede Ukraine to anyone … it has to be part of Russia, even against Ukraine’s own will.” Furthermore, Russia continues to conduct missile strikes throughout Ukraine including in Lviv in the west, and is finding it difficult to disengage its forces around Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Kherson due to strong Ukrainian counterattacks. Therefore, while a new phase of the invasion has been announced, it remains to be seen if Russia can successfully focus on the Donbas as stated.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/30/russia-has-effectively-admitted-defeat-in-ukraine

Politicians are evil

tungamaje:
I didn't waste my data watching the video, only pictures because I know no city in Nigeria would ever look like Dubai

No city in Nigeria is better than windhoek.

Op no vez show me ghetto for Dubai and the so called gra.

This same gra wey deadbody go dey dey for ground reach three to four days.

We can’t see the future’: Russians fleeing war seek solace in Istanbul

It was not long after Artur posted a picture of his birth certificate showing his Ukrainian heritage to Instagram that he and his partner decided to flee Russia. “We took a precaution to leave,” said Vsevolod, his partner. Artur felt more strongly: “We read the signals,” he said, recalling the abuse he received.

The couple fled Moscow for Istanbul in early March, their lives turned upside down overnight by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising concern among young men about how authorities could demand they show support for the war, including military conscription. Both of their names have been changed at their request.

“The atmosphere of fear in Russia is unprecedented,” said Vsevolod. “There’s no draft right now, but there’s activity. The military networks are active. Whether this is intimidation or preparation for a draft I don’t know.” One friend signed an online petition against the war, and then the police showed up at her family home. Another friend who had already fled to Istanbul received a phone call on WhatsApp from the police, requesting to see him.

Thousands of Russians have fled the country since the invasion of Ukraine, many for Turkey as well as Finland, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, where the government claims that up to 25,000 people have crossed the border in recent weeks. Istanbul has proved a popular choice, either for transit or a new home, as the closure of European airspace to Russian flights makes Turkey one of the few remaining hubs left that can serve as an escape route.

“In the airport, the authorities were prying, inquiring about return tickets. I deleted Meduza and some of the other opposition news apps because there were rumours that they check people’s phones,” said Artur. Like many, he had heard stories of border guards searching travellers’ electronic devices, looking for suspicious content like support for opposition politician Alexei Navalny, or reading websites that are banned in Russia after new censorship laws.

“The airport was eerie; it was so empty. But the aircraft was unusually huge, and fully packed. You could see all the young, well-dressed people with sad eyes and you understood instantly that this is the self-exiled creative class,” he said.

Many of those arriving in Istanbul are millennials who grew up in a post-cold war Russia, part of a middle class that was used to international travel and working in industries deeply socially and economically intertwined with the outside world. The sudden criminalisation of the word “war” to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine coupled with the country’s political and economic isolation turned this reality on its head overnight. Journalists, dissidents and artists fled, worried about what would happen if they cited the war in their work. Others feared being jailed for protesting, or realised that their former lives and means of survival had simply ceased to exist.

“For the first time in my life in Russia, I’m bereft of any vision of the future,” said Artur, who previously worked in the art world. The couple have no idea whether they will be living in Istanbul for three weeks, or three years.

Vsevolod shared his dismay: “Things are so unpredictable right now, we can’t see the future. Anything is possible right now – mentally, we just couldn’t stay.”

In a recent speech, Vladimir Putin attacked Russia’s liberals and upper class, describing them as “national traitors” with “villas in Miami or the French Riviera, who cannot make do without foie gras, oysters or gender freedom, as they call it”. The Russian president sneered at what he called their “servile mentality”, accusing them of being too western “in their minds, and not here with our people and with Russia”.

Yet life in exile is quickly acquiring its own potent anti-government politics. Russian rapper Oxxxymiron organised a charity concert in Istanbul entitled Russians Against War. Tickets sold out as soon as they went on sale.

“At least here or anywhere else in the world we can do more to protest than inside,” said Arsen, a former high-fashion photographer who fled the country with his partner shortly after they avoided arrest at a demonstration in Moscow. He requested that his family name be withheld to protect relatives still in Russia.

Arsen felt he had no choice but to leave, and is trying to make peace with his newfound existence in Istanbul. “If we continue to participate in life in Russia things will never change, not in Russia nor here, not for people who have left. It’s important to try and set up a new life somewhere else,” he said. “We might be able to make money in Moscow, but I don’t want my children to grow up in a society like that.”

The influx of Russians is already causing tensions in nearby Georgia, once part of the Soviet Union, where citizens started a petition demanding that the government end visa-free entry to Russians. “By the time I got to Istanbul, my friends in Tbilisi sent me messages telling me not to come,” said Arsen. “Already people are scared by the number of Russians who’ve moved there. They remember how the regime moves people somewhere, generations stay in a foreign country and then Putin goes there and starts a war to say he’s protecting Russians.”

“We left for good,” he added. “At least until while this regime is in power nothing will change.”

While political repression propelled some Russians to Istanbul, international sanctions have made properties on Turkey’s southern coastline attractive to Russian wealth. “We have no intention of joining in these sanctions,” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told local channel Haberturk at the beginning of March. “We can’t afford to take sides,” the foreign minister added.

Ukrainians and Russians have long been Turkey’s primary source of tourists. About 4.7 million Russian citizens visited Turkey last year, almost 20% of all arrivals and it has also operated a “golden visa” scheme since early 2017, where foreign nationals can acquire citizenship in just a few months after a real estate investment of $250,000 (£190,000). Aran Hawker, owner of CIP Turkey, a company that claims to be the leader in what he called “investment migration, meaning residencies and passports for ultra-high net worth individuals” said he had seen a “massive increase” in applications from Russian citizens since the invasion of Ukraine began.

“As soon as the war started and sanctions started kicking in, they were quick to shut off bank accounts and credit cards,” said Hawker, describing the moment when applications for golden visas sharply rose. Property in the southern Turkish city of Antalya was already popular with Russians, Iraqis and Iranians looking to invest money abroad, while local outlets suggested that rents and sales prices were rising after an increase in Russian buyers.

Turkish property sales could also face scrutiny from the US Department of Justice, which recently launched Task Force KleptoCapture intended to hunt down Russian oligarchs’ efforts to avoid sanctions or launder corrupt finances, including through property purchases. Officials from the department did not respond when contacted for comment on the issue.

“We don’t want to get politically involved in anything, we just want to help people out. If someone’s even a little borderline, we don’t go near them. We’re careful about what we do,” said Hawker.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/russians-fleeing-war-seek-solace-in-istanbul

Zelensky I know Abramovich is Jewish like you, but that MF is too corrupt.

Drenimarcus:
Protest in Spain already. �� ❗️The Polish economy has fallen on hard times after the imposition of anti-Russian sanctions, the prime minister said:

"Prices are rising very strongly. This means that the wallets of Poles and other European citizens are losing weight". Keep sanctioning

If there's protest in Spain and the economy of Poland hav fallen then, what about Russia loosing their bright minds to these countries that their economy have fallen?

Russia is going brain dead just as Nigeria is and just as Iran is.

Average footballer.

Me: var

ubest1:
Funny part some of those sanctions will remain in years to come

Not only that investors will be sceptical doing business with Russia if the regime is still in power or if, there's a coup.

Russians are fucckedd.

Oddfinder:
Ypu guys really underestimate Russia...this was how Ukraine was pushed..japan wey no get Army again

Na dis kind comment make me no dey argue anyhow for this forum.

The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency has said over 70 per cent of medical drugs being dispensed in Nigeria are substandard.

The agency added that the majority of Nigerians did not have access to health services.

It made this known on its website ahead of the Primary Healthcare Summit tagged: ‘Re-imaging Primary Health Care in Nigeria’.

According to the agency, the country is faced with a number of healthcare challenges.

It stated, “The majority of Nigerians do not have access to health services; 20 per cent of all maternal deaths globally occur in Nigeria; infant mortality occurs at a rate of 19 deaths per 1,000 births; children under five are dying at a rate of 128 per 1,000; over 70 per cent of medical drugs dispensed in Nigeria are substandard.

“The weaknesses of the PHC system led to the under-utilisation of the PHC, resulting in significant burden within the health sector, with patients over-lying on tertiary and secondary health care services.

“Exorbitant health expenditures to access care place huge financial burdens on households and drive poverty.”

https://punchng.com/over-70-of-drugs-dispensed-in-nigeria-substandard-nphcda/

Zendaya

Tech talent flees Russia as Western sanctions bite

Russia's current talent outflow might well be the last wave of its chronic brain drain stretching back decades.

Russia is seeing an exodus of entrepreneurs, computer programmers, as well as other educated middle-class citizens as Western sanctions and political instability make it impossible to run an international business in the country.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced millions to flee their homes fearing for their lives. But the war is also leading to Russians moving from their home country. I spoke to a number of Russian entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who shared why they have left or are in the process of leaving their homeland. But as they try to start anew abroad, anti-Russia sentiment and economic sanctions are set to haunt them.

The triggers
As Russia continued to amass troops at the Ukrainian border in mid-February, Eugene Konash, who had staff in Russia working remotely for his London-based gaming studio Dc1ab, became increasingly worried. But like many others, he didn’t expect a full-scale invasion.

His hopes of tensions fading soon evaporated. When it became clear Russia was waging a full-on war on Ukraine, Western countries began slapping sanctions on Russia. Businesses felt the impact right away.

One of Konash’s employees found their bank hit by sanctions, blocking international transfers to his account. As the rouble collapsed, long queues formed outside banks in Russia as citizens scrambled to convert their savings into dollars — only to find hefty fees and the government restricting access to foreign currency.

The tipping point for Konash came when investors told him in no uncertain terms that his startup would be uninvestable if it continued to have such a heavy presence in Russia. His Russia-based team agreed it was time to leave.

“The guys that even a month ago said they wouldn’t leave Russia under any circumstances were talking about grabbing their things and literally driving to Kazakhstan to cross the land border because the tickets to get out were either sold out or were super expensive,” said Konash.

Like many tech firms with an international footprint, Konash’s gaming startup hires developers across Eastern Europe for the region’s affordable and quality programmers. Originally from Belarus, Konash knows well that the former Soviet bloc nations’ emphasis on science and math education has helped a world-class engineering and scientific workforce to flourish.

Financial sanctions aside, it became impractical to operate an information technology company from Russia as foreign tech services are either banned or begin to retreat.

Google and Microsoft have suspended all sales in the country, while Russia has attempted to block Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, albeit with mixed results. Some users could still access these American platforms following the bans, suggesting that Russia may be some way away from having a robust censorship machine like that of China. Facebook and Twitter said they were working to restore services in Russia.

“Who knows when development tools like Unity may be blocked?” said a Siberia-born gaming investor who left the country following the 2015 Crimea annexation and subsequent economic sanctions by the West. “No one wants to end up in a country with no access to the outside world.”

The investor declined to be named fearing the Russian government’s crackdown on dissenters.

Half foot out
After the invasion of Crimea seven years ago, many Russian-built companies began to incorporate elsewhere in a bid to placate investors with qualms over the political risks and optics associated with backing Russian companies. Before, many of these firms were operating outside the country merely on paper, with their teams often entirely still based in Russia. But the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has turned a trickle into a flow.

“After 2015, companies were drifting out of Russia legally,” observed an investor at a venture capital firm that recently moved its Moscow team out of the country. Even before the Ukraine crisis, the firm would only back a Russia-based startup if it was incorporated outside the country and had an international focus.

“Physically, these startups would still be based in Russia. They’d conduct R& there because the cost of living was low,” said the investor, who asked for anonymity because the topic is “highly sensitive” for the firm, which has been trying to distance itself from Russia.

Life as a startup incorporated overseas but operating for all intents and purposes in Moscow itself sounded pretty breezy up until recently, said Nikita Blanc, who four years ago changed his last name from Akimov. His company Heyeveryone, which is building a tool to automate investor relations management, is in the process of incorporating in Delaware.

The startup never intended to serve the Russian market alone, but Blanc and his wife picked Moscow as a base for the obvious perks: their parents could help take care of their three-year-old daughter; the country’s internet was speedy, cheap, and free at the time; and Moscow was teeming with tech meetups where Blanc found like-minded founders.

The escape
The Blancs’ entrepreneurial life enjoying the best of both worlds ended abruptly with Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Three days into the invasion, Nikita’s wife Valentina was lying in bed, devastated from seeing her country fall apart. She decided it was time to leave.

“I couldn’t do anything at work. Part of my family is from Ukraine,” she said. “It would be hard to leave with a child, but I didn’t think the situation would change. So we each packed 23 kilos of luggage and bought a one-way ticket.”

The couple moved with their young daughter to Georgia, one of the top destinations for Russia’s current talent outflow. It is a popular choice of country, along with Turkey, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Thailand, which are relatively affordable and easy to enter for Russians.

The venture fund that recently left Moscow has been extracting hundreds of Russian citizens, mostly its own staff and portfolio companies, out of the country in the past few weeks. Across the internet, Telegram groups with tens of thousands of Russians discussing exit plans and helping each other out have mushroomed.

‘We Russians are bleeped’
The would-be émigrés have to make escape plans on the fly as sanctions against Russia intensify on a daily basis: Which countries are still taking Russian flights, and how will they move money around?

Sanctions continue to impact Russians after they have fled abroad and even those who left long ago. Notable financial infrastructure providers like PayPal, Mastercard and Visa have already suspended operations in Russia, which means expatriates using Russian banks are not able to use their cards overseas. Estonia recently suspended e-residency applications from Russian and Belarusian citizens to “prevent sanctions evasion and possible illegal activities.” European Union regulators have reportedly told some banks to scrutinize transactions by all Russian clients, including EU residents.

The breadth of this wave of sanctions is prompting some to let go of their Russian passports. The Siberia-born gaming investor is seeking Singaporean citizenship, fearing that their Russian nationality might cut them off from the US dollar-based financial system.

“Ukrainians are accepted as refugees around the world, but we Russians are bleeped,” the investor lamented.

Others are betting that cryptocurrency can help them circumvent sanctions, such as the Blancs, who put a large chunk of their assets into crypto five years ago. Konash, the gaming entrepreneur, expected Bitcoin and Ethereum to be the last resort for cross-border payments if his staff get stuck in Russia for any longer.

While major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase have stopped short at imposing blanket bans on all Russians, they have abided by sanctions to block target individuals. Binance’s CEO maintained that crypto is not a likely escape route because transactions are recorded on publicly available ledgers, and hence easy for governments to trace.

But EU regulators continue to argue that sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus extend to all crypto assets, and US lawmakers have urged the Treasury to ensure Russia cannot use crypto to evade sanctions.

‘Calm is the new currency’
Those who leave Russia face the obvious difficulty of being away from family and friends staying behind, but even greater anguish comes from the difference in their perception of recent events.

“Our parents and older relatives keep telling us to go back, saying ‘everything is okay here. Russia is great,'” Blanc said with an incredulous but sad note.

These educated, freedom-seeking Russian tech workers won’t likely look back. The Russians I spoke to, who are either leaving the country or helping others escape, were surprisingly calm as they recounted the woes of their country, in part because they have been mentally prepared for the inevitable farewell.

“Our investor SOSV taught us to be like cockroaches, be flexible and adapt to new environments as entrepreneurs. This philosophy is now helping us go through these uncertain times,” said Valentina Blanc. “Calm is the new currency.”

Émigrés like the Blancs might well be the last wave of Russia’s chronic brain drain, stretching back decades.

“The thing that gets me is that if you look at all the fantastic engineering and scientific talent that was produced in the Soviet Union and Russia — most of it has been leaving the USSR world at every opportunity,” said Konash.

“Who does that leave in the post-USSR world? For me, this last wave of the brain-drain is the death knell of the education and cultural scientific tradition that is probably one the few positive things to come out of the Soviet Union.”

https://techcrunch.com

Germany seals gas deal with Qatar to reduce dependence on Russia

Germany has sought to reduce its energy dependence on Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine.


Germany and Qatar have reached a long-term energy partnership, a German official has said, as Europe’s biggest economy seeks to become less dependent on Russian energy sources.

Russia is the largest supplier of gas to Germany and German economy minister Robert Habeck has launched several initiatives to lessen Germany’s energy dependence on Russia since it invaded its neighbour Ukraine.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met Habeck on Sunday and the two discussed ways to enhance bilateral relations, particularly in the energy sector, the Emiri court said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the German economics ministry in Berlin confirmed on Sunday that a deal had been clinched.

“The companies that have come to Qatar with (Habeck) will now enter into contract negotiations with the Qatari side,” the spokesperson said.

In a statement, Qatar said that for years it had sought to supply Germany but discussions never led to concrete agreements.

Qatar said it agreed with Germany that “their respective commercial entities would re-engage and progress discussions on long term LNG supplies”.

Habeck also met Qatari Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida al-Kaabi in Doha, where they discussed energy relations and cooperation between Qatar, one of the world’s top natural gas exporters, and Germany, and ways to enhance them, according to a statement from al-Kaabi.

In late February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the construction of two new terminals for liquefied natural gas in response to what some critics said was Germany’s over-reliance on Russian gas. The terminals are to be located in Brunsbuttel and Wilhelmshaven in northern Germany.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany put on hold the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project designed to bring Russian natural gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea.

Germany intends to phase out its nuclear power production by the end of this year, leaving observers questioning how Europe’s biggest economy will fulfill all of its energy needs.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/20/germany-seals-gas-deal-with-qatar-to-reduce-dependence-on-russia

Kingpin1000:
Una never see something.
Na only mumu dey throw stone for market.
Joe Biden is already seen as a Dullard in America, He should pray this doesn't get to the U.S.
That pit your enemy dig for you, may they fall into it.

Covid was the major cause of the hike. Stop this your anti west.

Putin is calling democracy, Nazism.

I bet you many in that stadium don't even know the main reason for the event.

clockwisereport:
Unemployment rate

In every 100 Namibians, 33.5 are unemployed

In every 100 Nigerians, 33.5 are unemployed

For a population of 2.5m people is it big compare to our country.

DEEBOZZ:
Putin

Nah, Putin ain't brave.

clockwisereport:
Namibia is 2.5 million

Nigeria is 210 million

Then how is Namibia higher than Nigeria in terms of unemployment?

Jackson667:
Nice one, the rise of china and other developing countries will be the end of the west

Mention the others developing countries?

GlobalWay:
China is bankrolling Russia. Like if you know you know. Share if not.

Anti-semite.