Guerra de agressão da Rússia contra a Ucrânia: relatório sobre cinco semanas da carnificina - Stephen Collinson and Shelby Rose (CNN)

 

April 1, 2022     Stephen Collinson and Shelby Rose

The war in Ukraine — a status report  It's been five weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, unleashing a shocking and brutal war that has already fundamentally changed European security, US politics, the global economy and made Russia and its leader, President Vladimir Putin, an international pariah.    The Kremlin has targeted civilians in atrocities that are already being labeled war crimes, and a staggering 4 million people have fled across Ukraine's borders into Eastern Europe.    Now, there are signs that the war is reaching a turning point — but not one that will bring peace any time soon. US officials believe that after encountering heroic Ukrainian resistance and failing in his objective to capture Kyiv and topple the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Putin is now pivoting to concentrate military power in eastern Ukrainian regions.    The Russian leader says it's not time for a ceasefire, a position that means the conflict could drag into a war of attrition.    Here is a look back at where the world has come in the war, the state of battle now, and what is likely to happen next.

Putin speaks with other Russian government officials about Western sanctions on Thursday.

Russia insisted for weeks as it massed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders that it had no plans to invade. But then it did. In a speech dripping with historical fantasies and conspiracy theories, Putin ominously announced that he was unleashing the war to "demilitarize and de-Nazify" the country. He argued that Ukraine had no right to exist as an independent entity.    And he warned outside nations who might be tempted to intervene that they would "face consequences that you never have had before in your history." His words were interpreted in the West as a threat to use nuclear weapons. More than 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the specter of Armageddon was again stalking the world.

A massive accumulation of Russian tanks and howitzers in the Novooskolsky district in Belgorod oblast on February 23. (Twitter/@marqs_)

Soon, Russian tanks were rolling into Ukraine — some from Belarus, another nation that is now back in Putin's greater Russia orbit. Most outside military analysts expected that the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian armed forces would soon be steamrollered by the larger Russian army. Zelensky told foreign leaders that he fully expected to be killed.   But something unexpected happened. Ukrainians, fighting for independence, freedom and their hopes of one day moving toward the West, put up massive resistance. Regular people took up arms to defend their cities. It soon became clear that the Russian army was not as mighty as had been assumed. Supply and logistical issues emerged, which, along with fierce battles against Ukrainian forces, slowed the advance of the invading army.

Kyiv is bombed at night on February 27.

But the slowed Russian advance, while it might have saved Ukraine, prompted Putin's forces to change tactics. Russian rockets, artillery and missiles slammed into civilian areas. It was a kind of brutalist warfare that Putin had employed in the fight against separatists in Chechnya and in Syria. The bombardments — targeting hospitals, apartment blocks, and a theater where people were sheltering from air raids — prompted President Joe Biden to declare that the Russian leader was a "war criminal" and a "butcher."

Drone footage shot on March 13 captures fighting in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.(Reuters/AZOV)

Some Ukrainian cities, like the southern port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, have endured days of Russian onslaughts that have destroyed street after street.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses MPs in the British House of Commons via videolink on March 2.

Before the war, many outsiders viewed Zelensky, a former comic actor, as out of his depth. But cometh the hour, cometh the man. The President emerged as a national hero, channeling the courage of his compatriots and shaming the rest of the world to come to Ukraine's aid. He launched a series of speeches from under-fire Kyiv to global legislatures. To British MPs, he made comparisons to their island nation's lonely stand against Nazism in 1940, invoking one of then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill's most famous speeches. "We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost," Zelensky said. "We will fight in the forests, on the shores, in the streets." When he spoke to the US Congress, Zelensky argued that Ukraine was experiencing its own version of Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

People wait in ATM lines in St. Petersburg on February 27, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Going into the war, Putin cannot have expected the kind of united Western front that emerged. Soon the most punishing regime of sanctions ever devised was sealing Russia's economy off from the rest of the world. The country lost the ability to raise funds on foreign markets. Oligarchs who have profited from Putin's rule saw their huge yachts and executive jets seized and their foreign properties confiscated.    One big gap remains, however, in the sanctions — much of Europe remains dependent on foreign oil and gas and so far has been reluctant to close the spigot on the most important part of the Russian economy.

Ukrainian officials claimed their military defeated a Russian tank regiment outside the capital of Kyiv. Videos released by Ukraine Defense Intelligence on March 10 appeared to show a number of tanks on fire or destroyed. (Ukrainian Defense Intelligence)

As well as the sanctions regime, the West resolved to send a stream of defensive weapons into Ukraine. Powerful anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles enabled Ukrainian forces to halt the Russian advance outside Kyiv and recalled the proxy war fought by the US in the 1980s, which helped force the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (left), US President Joe Biden (second from left) and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right) speak next to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (center), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (third from right) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (second from right) before a G7 leaders' photograph during a NATO summit at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on March 24.

And the international front against Putin held — although the US is leaning on China, which made a "no limits" friendship pact with Russia just before the invasion, not to offer Moscow a way around the sanctions. In one of the most staggering moves, Germany, which, because of its militaristic past had long resisted building up its armed forces, announced a huge increase in defense spending under new Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Five weeks into the war, it is now clear that for as long as Putin is in power, the West and the Kremlin will be locked in a coda to the Cold War.

A view of damage after shelling in the pro-Russian separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine on March 30.

After failing to capture Kyiv, Russian forces now appear to be regrouping in order to concentrate the mission on eastern regions of Ukraine. The move could presage an attempt to split the county in two and to give Russia a route to Crimea, which it seized in 2014, and a path through Ukraine to the Black Sea. More civilian misery is certain. Ukraine and Russia could be locked in fighting for months if not years. And the relationship between Putin and the rest of the world is sure to remain deeply estranged.

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Forças Armadas dizem que golpe de 1964 foi 'marco histórico' da política brasileira - Marianna Holanda (FSP)

 Sim, claro que foi um "marco histórico", o marco de mais uma violação da ordem democrática, do respeito pela Constituição e ao Estado de Direito, que as FFAA, em especial o Exército, vêm violando desde 1889, quando deram o golpe da República.

Os militares se arvoram o "direito" – espúrio, ilegítimo – de intervirem no sistema político, em total desrespeito à ordem constitucional. São uma força perturbadora da política, muitas vezes com violência e arbítrio.

Merecem receber o repúdio da sociedade. Concluo: o ministro da Defesa deve ser um CIVIL, jamais um militar.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Forças Armadas dizem que golpe de 64 foi 'marco histórico' da política brasileira

Ordem do dia alusiva ao 31 de março é assinada por comandantes e Braga Netto, que deve ser vice de Bolsonaro

Marianna Holanda

Brasília

Folha de S. Paulo, 31/03/2022

No mesmo dia em que o presidente Jair Bolsonaro (PL) voltou a ameaçar o Judiciário quanto ao resultado das eleições de 2022, o Ministério da Defesa e as Forças Armadas divulgaram nota nesta quarta-feira (30) chamando o golpe de 1964 de "marco histórico da evolução política brasileira".

A ordem do dia alusiva ao 31 de março, última do mandato de Bolsonaro, é assinada pelos comandantes das três Forças e pelo ministro da Defesa, Walter Braga Netto, que deixará o comando da pasta nesta quinta (31) com a expectativa de ser vice na chapa do presidente à reeleição.

Da esquerda para direita o almirante Almir Garnier, o ministro da Defesa Braga Netto, o general Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira e o brigadeiro Almeida Baptista Jr. - Pedro Ladeira - 31.mar.2021/Folhapress

"O Movimento de 31 de março de 1964 é um marco histórico da evolução política brasileira, pois refletiu os anseios e as aspirações da população da época", diz texto divulgado pela Defesa.

O termo "movimento" para se referir ao golpe já havia surgido nos anos anteriores. A nota também diz que "a história não pode ser reescrita, em mero ato de revisionismo, sem a devida contextualização".

A Defesa diz que os anos seguintes a 1964 foram de "estabilidade, segurança, crescimento econômico e amadurecimento político", que levou à paz no país.

O texto também afirma que as instituições se fortaleceram após o golpe e as Forças Armadas seguiram "observando, estritamente, o regramento constitucional, na defesa da nação e no serviço ao seu verdadeiro soberano – o povo brasileiro".

A expressão que diz que o povo é soberano é amplamente utilizada pelo presidente. Seus apoiadores também costumam dizer que "supremo é o povo", em referência ao STF (Supremo Tribunal Federal), alvo do bolsonarismo.

Em evento no Rio Grande do Norte nesta quarta, o presidente voltou a fazer críticas indiretas a ministros do TSE (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral). Ele disse que os votos das eleições serão contados, sem explicar como, já que o voto impresso foi derrubado pelo Congresso em meio a discursos golpistas do presidente da República.

"O povo armado jamais será escravizado. E podem ter certeza que, por ocasião das eleições de 2022, os votos serão contados no Brasil. Não serão dois ou três que decidirão como serão contados esses votos", disse, em referência a Luís Roberto Barroso, ex-presidente do TSE; Edson Fachin, o atual; e Alexandre de Moraes, que será presidente nas eleições.

O regime enaltecido por Bolsonaro e pelos militares teve uma estrutura dedicada a tortura, mortes e desaparecimento.

Os números da repressão são pouco precisos, uma vez que a ditadura nunca reconheceu esses episódios. Auditorias da Justiça Militar receberam 6.016 denúncias de tortura. Estimativas feitas depois apontam para 20 mil casos.

Presos relataram terem sido pendurados em paus de arara, submetidos a choques elétricos, estrangulamento, tentativas de afogamento, golpes com palmatória, socos, pontapés e outras agressões. Em alguns casos, a sessão de tortura levava à morte.

Em 2014, a Comissão Nacional da Verdade (CNV) listou 191 mortos e o desaparecimento de 210 pessoas. Outros 33 desaparecidos tiveram seus corpos localizados posteriormente, num total de 434 pessoas.

Assim como nos anos anteriores, o texto do Ministério da Defesa defende que o golpe atendeu aos anseios da sociedade e impediu que um "regime totalitário", em referência ao comunismo, fosse instalado no Brasil.

"Grupos que propagavam promessas falaciosas, que, depois, fracassou em várias partes do mundo", diz o texto.

Em seus últimos discursos, Bolsonaro também vem revivendo críticas ao comunismo e equiparando-o ao petismo. O chefe do Executivo está em segundo lugar nas pesquisas de intenção de voto, atrás do ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Como mostrou a Folha, Bolsonaro quer aproveitar a reforma ministerial em abril para tentar ampliar sua influência no comando do Exército em ano eleitoral, quando disputará a reeleição.

Integrantes do governo dizem que uma promoção do general Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, atual comandante do Exército, para o cargo de ministro da Defesa serve a dois propósitos: colocar à frente das três Forças um nome que agrade o Exército, que reúne o maior número das tropas, e, principalmente, acomodar à frente da Força terrestre alguém alinhado ao Palácio do Planalto.

É dado como certo que o general Marco Antônio Freire Gomes assumirá o comando do Exército. Hoje, ele é comandante de Operações Terrestres.

Estamos assistindo neste momento ao fim de uma era de um século de paz armada? - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Estamos assistindo neste momento ao fim de uma era de um século de paz armada?

 

 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Diplomata, professor

(www.pralmeida.org; diplomatizzando.blogspot.com) 

 

Estamos assistindo ao fim de uma era, a do Estado de Direito em sua dimensão internacional? A de um mundo baseado numa ordem consensual em torno de noções de paz e segurança e respeito pela soberania dos Estados nacionais como base das relações internacionais?

Esse mundo começou em 1918, com os 14 pontos de Woodrow Wilson para as negociações de paz de Paris em 1919, que resultaram no surgimento da Liga das Nações e, com seu fracasso, na criação da ONU, com base na paz dos mais fortes.

Vladimir Putin representa a versão atual de Adolf Hitler, o tirano nazista que tentou exterminar a Polônia como nação independente em 1939. Putin tenta fazer o mesmo com a Ucrânia neste momento. Depende da Europa, deixá-lo fazer ou não, com o apoio dos EUA.

Quando uma das potências mais fortes viola o princípio basilar dessa paz armada, o mundo entra num cenário de incertezas. Em 1941, se teve a aliança de contrários para resistir ao tirano expansionista, Hitler. Agora parece que se necessita uma nova aliança, contra o novo Hitler. 

A questão básica aqui é: o que fará a China? Apoiará o novo Hitler em favor de uma mudança na ordem global, ou tentará sustentar a ordem da ONU que lhe serviu muito bem nas últimas décadas? Disso depende a paz no mundo do século XXI. É o fim de um século de paz armada?

 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Ribeirão Preto, 4123: 31 março 2022, 1 p.

O fim da globalização, tal como a conhecemos nas últimas décadas? - CharterBook with Unhedged (FT), by Adam Tooze

 Uma das mais importantes notas do Chartbook que li nos últimos tempos.

Chartbook - Unhedged Exchange #2: The End Of Globalization As We Know It ?

Adam Tooze Mar 31

The end of globalization as we know it?

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock’s annual letter to shareholders stirred a flurry of debate last week about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the future of globalization, supply-chains, inflation and its implications for investors.

Even in our moment of general pessimism about the world’s economic prospects, the boss of the largest asset manager in the world declaring that we are witnessing the end of globalization, is worthy of a headline.

In truth, like most people, the FT’s summary of Fink’s letter was all I read until I agreed with my friends Robert Armstrong and Ethan Wu to make the future of globalization the topic of our second exchange of newsletters between Chartbook and Unhedged, the top financial markets newsletter at the FT.

Partnering with Unhedged is a real privilege. 

Unhedged is the FT’s indispensable newsletter on the stories and ideas moving the markets. There is no better place to read the mind of the market.

Number 2 in our series offers readers of Chartbook a flavor of Robert and Ethan’s view of the headwinds facing globalization and the inflationary pressures ahead. See below:

To read my take on the same topic, readers of Chartbook can use this exclusive link to access Unhedged and all its excellent content. 

It is, as I said last week, quite a thrill to be offering readers of Chartbook access to such premium content. 

****

FROM HERE YOU ENTER THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF UNHEDGED

Last August, in the context of the “is inflation transitory” debate, Rob wrotethat, “determining whether we are entering a new regime or returning to the old one is above my pay grade (it may be above everyone’s).” That remains Unhedged’s attitude. In September 1981, it was recently pointed out to us, few people would have recognized that we were at the high water mark for interest rates or appreciated how transformational figures such as Reagan, Thatcher, and Volcker would turn out to be. Grand theses about the direction of history sell books but age badly. Understanding the present is hard enough. 

That said, there are a number of big changes taking place simultaneously, and the pace of many of those changes appears to have been accelerated by the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. To an extent, this is obvious. Brexit, the election of Trump, the collapse of the TPP, rising tensions between China and the US, the 40-year high in inflation -- all this is in front of our noses. Yet it is not obvious how much any of this will actually affect the way trade is done, markets operate, or capital is priced. 

Unhedged’s guess is that there will be meaningful impacts. The world of the past several decades has gained from low rates, low inflation and growing global ties under liberal-democratic hegemony. We think that world is on its way out, and put the key changes into four categories: geopolitical shifts, the rise of populism, the energy transition, and demographics. 

In geopolitics, borders are hardening. The US and China are pulling apart in fits and starts, especially where technology is concerned -- with US restrictions on Huawei, and threats to revoke US listings of other Chinese tech firms matching China’s long standing limits on US tech giants operations in China. 

The US business lobby that once pushed for cordial relations with China has almost entirely switched its stance toward confrontation, notes former IMF China head Eswar Prasad. First drawn in by the country’s vast and increasingly rich population, firms began to realise that access to Chinese markets came with strings attached. As accusations of intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer flew, corporate America soured on China.

US foreign direct investment in China peaked in 2008 at $21bn and has since fallen to $9bn as of 2020. Chinese FDI flows to the US have also stalled. American businesses in China report lost sales, consumer boycotts and suffocating uncertainty — some of which is Washington’s doing. From the US-China Business Council’s 2021 member survey:

The Ukraine war and the sanctions regime that have followed will bring this balkanization into the financial realm, as the sanctioning of Russia’s central bank puts other regimes, including China’s, on notice. Martin Wolf recently wrote in the FT about what might result from the “weaponisation” of reserve currencies:

The overwhelming dominance of the US and its allies in global finance, a product of their aggregate economic size and open financial markets, gives their currencies a dominant position. Today, there is no credible alternative for most global monetary functions … In the long run, however, China might be able to create a walled garden for use of its currency by those closest to it … What might emerge are two monetary systems — a western and a Chinese one — operating in different ways and overlapping uncomfortably.

Even before the war, trade as a portion of global GDP had been flatlining. Recent flare-ups will reinforce a pattern that was already in place:

A more balkanized word, potentially split along a democratic/authoritarian axis, will not enjoy the deflationary benefits of a more unified one. Michael Hartnett of Bank of America -- perhaps Wall Street’s leading adherent to regime change view -- thinks that it also heralds a shift in stock market leadership:

With the balkanization of the global financial system and internet, you don’t get the benefits of scale [tech thrives on]. Then liquidity dries up [as policy tightens and rates rise]. What kills a bull market in tech is saturation and regulation … for national security reasons regulation tightens, at the same time as rates go up, so valuations should go down, and the stuff that is most egregiously overvalued is damaged the most. That happened already for unprofitable tech, and we have not seen it yet for profitable tech … tech is going to be the worst performing sector in the 2020s. 

What will work? It comes back to selling hubris and buying humiliation, and we know where the humiliation is … banks, Europe, to an extent Japan

The post-pandemic manifestation of populism in politics is the addition of fiscal profligacy to the easy monetary policies that have characterised the decade since the financial crisis. Debt has spiked, and the policial temptation to deploy fiscal alongside monetary stimulus, after combination proved its power in the pandemic, will not prove easy to resist:

Historic public debt loads are not in themselves catastrophic. But combined with rising interest rates, debt-servicing burdens around the world will grow. Some governments will face a nasty choice — fiscal austerity or fully monetising the debt. The former will probably hurt growth; the latter could stoke inflation. Both are likely to be unpopular, and could further embolden populists playing to real anxieties. A financial crisis can’t be ruled out. IMF research finds that a swift uptick in household debt — precisely what Covid has brought — raises the probability of a future banking crisis by nearly 30 per cent (though the base risk is low). 

The energy transition is proving to be inflationary in two respects: investment in it is driving the price of hard commodities, while oil prices rise due to weak supply, driven by environmental policies, investor demands for high returns, and possibly the simple exhaustion of easily accessible reserves in the ground.

Isobel Schnabel of the ECB provided a good summary of the first inflationary effect in a speech about policy responses to greenflation:

Most green technologies require significant amounts of metals and minerals, such as copper, lithium and cobalt, especially during the transition period. Electric vehicles, for example, use over six times more minerals than their conventional counterparts. An offshore wind plant requires over seven times the amount of copper compared with a gas-fired plant. No matter which path to decarbonisation we will ultimately follow, green technologies are set to account for the lion’s share of the growth in demand for most metals and minerals in the foreseeable future. Yet, as demand rises, supply is constrained in the short and medium term. It typically takes five to 10 years to develop new mines… Export restrictions on Russian commodities may add to pressure on prices over the near term… the faster and more urgent the shift to a greener economy becomes, the more expensive it may get in the short run…

the significant need for private and public investment associated with the green transition itself is a reason to believe that real interest rates may rise from their subdued pre-pandemic levels.

She provides this eye-popping chart of percent changes of key “green” metal prices:

The likelihood of lasting upward pressure on oil prices is neatly described in this graph from Morgan Stanley, showing historically low inventories above ground, diminishing spare capacity among Opec countries, and low investment:

Many of these emerging trends point towards either higher interest rates or higher inflation, or both. Demographic changes, specifically the ageing of the global population, could well exacerbate those effects. This argument’s most well-known proponents are the economists Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan. 

Unhedged has written about their views several times before. To sum up, for several decades moving production to low-wage countries has kept inflation low, but as the populations of those countries (particularly China) crest and begin to fall, wages there will rise at the same time as working age populations in rich countries fall. The increasing number of ageing dependents over workers is inflationary, and at the same time, as those dependents spend their savings, the global balance of savings and investment shifts back towards investment, driving the neutral interest rate up. A declining savings glut could also reduce inequality. 

The Goodhart/Pradhan view is controversial, but there is no doubting the scale of the demographic shift that is taking place, with China at the forefront of it. It will matter, even if we are not sure how.

However wise or dumb our view of the future is, markets don’t share it, as Larry Summers pointed out to us. Current prices strongly imply the current spike in inflation and rates will subside before very long, and the old world of “secular stagnation” will re-assert itself. This is most easily visible in the Fed funds futures curve, which suggests rate increases will stop below 3 per cent some time next year, and that policy will weaken thereafter. 

“The yield curve is telling us we will end this expansion with negative real rates … the market is telling us there still is secular stagnation on steroids” Summers says. “The demographic arguments, the green investment arguments, the new fiscal era arguments are all of the form ‘we will leave the world of secular stagnation and move to a world of permanent excess demand.’ The markets think they are wrong -- if you look at multiples of real estate and PE multiples on stocks, the market does not foresee higher real rates.”

To repeat: Unhedged is acutely aware of the limits of big-trend prognostication. What we are arguing is that geopolitical tension, populist fiscal policy, the energy transition, and an ageing world are all important, all coming to a head simultaneously, and are all discontinuous with the low rate, low inflation, high integration, hegemonically liberal-democratic world we have enjoyed since 1980s. That era does seem to be dying, even if we can’t be sure yet what era is being born.