“ A film is a weapon on time delay” — an interview with “Navalny” director Daniel Roher” - Signal, GZero newsletter

 “A film is a weapon on time delay” — an interview with “Navalny” director Daniel Roher

   

Vladimir Putin may be busy waging war on Ukraine and threatening NATO with nuclear strikes, but at home in Russia, what scares him most is a man currently languishing in a tiny jail cell.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is Russia’s most prominent dissident. In August 2020, someone tried to poison him to death. He was flown abroad to Germany for treatment and then, unfathomably, returned to Russia, where he was promptly arrested and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. 

The Oscar-nominated documentary “Navalny” follows him and his team during those crucial months in Germany, as they uncover details of the assassination plot, pulling strings that reach into the highest levels of the Kremlin. It plays, remarkably, as a thriller, a black comedy, and an intimate family portrait. 

Ahead of the Oscars next Sunday, I sat down with director Daniel Roher to learn more about how “Navalny” got made, the geopolitical power of cinema, and what he hopes Vladimir Putin will do if he ever sees the film. 

You can read the whole interview or watch a video of it here, but just a few highlights: 

On how he convinced a social media master like Navalny that a conventional documentary was worthwhile:

“A YouTube video is made and released and it exists and is gone and forgotten in two or three weeks. But a film can be a weapon that's on a time delay. People will watch this film and think about Navalny and his family not for the next day or week, but for the rest of their lives.”

On whether he felt he might be getting spun by Navalny and his team:

“It wasn't that I was worried about it. I was awareof it every single moment. Here I am making a film about a politician whose great gift is his mastery of the media. And it's actually an element that's woven into the fabric of the film. Who's directing whom?” 

On Navany’s past ties to hardcore nationalists and neo-Nazis:

“I asked him about this and he said, basically, ‘I'm trying to build a broad-based coalition. I'm trying to take the liberals in Moscow and whoever else opposes the regime. If these nationalist guys oppose Putin, then we're on the same team right now. When it comes to figuring out the public policy of how to govern a free Russia, that's a different discussion. And I would never associate with these guys.’ It's basically “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That's the political calculus he's making. And I can simultaneously understand it and be deeply uncomfortable with it.

On what he hopes Putin would do if he sees the film:

[This one is too good to give away. Just click through to the whole interview here!]

https://gzeromedia.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7404e6dcdc8018f49c82e941d&id=893cc973db&e=96ffb72608

– Alex Kliment

Solidariedade com as mulheres, e todos os homens do Irã, dominado por uma teocracia impiedosa (Signal, GZERO Media)

 Centenas de mulheres e homens já morreram, pela repressão do regime teocrático do Irã, inclusive um primeiro condenado à morte "por ofender Deus".

Is the West doing enough to help Iranians?Signal, GZERO Media, November 15, 2022

   

The actions of Iranian protesters over the past two months – particularly women – have been awe-inspiring. Despite the prospect of incarceration, and worse, they’ve refused to kowtow to the bushy-eyebrowed mullahs calling the shots in the Islamic Republic. Fear of execution looms large, but Iranian women continue to abandon their headscarves and chant in the streets for regime change.

Things are only getting more dangerous after Iran’s parliament recently voted in favor of the death penalty for protesters. The first such sentences were handed down in recent days. Indeed, the stakes could not be higher, and yet hopeful Iranians continue to risk their lives.

As the government crackdown intensifies – there have been 300 deaths and 15,000 arrests to date – is the West doing enough to support the protesters in their bid for freedom?

Defying the despots. Iranians took to the streets in September in the aftermath of the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was arrested and reportedly beaten by Iran’s “morality police” for improperly donning her hijab. 

Many young Iranians have died in custody over the past decade, but Amini’s story has galvanized a generation of millennial and Gen-Z women who have no recollection of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought down a corrupt Shah and have zero affinity for the mullahs who rule their lives.

As the human rights situation in Iran deteriorates, what’s the West doing about it?

Suit-clad politicians in Brussels and Washington have imparted all the right platitudes expressing support for Iran’s women-led movement. 

More substantially, the US and EU, the UK, and Canada have expanded on Western sanctions in recent weeks – in place for the better part of a decade – aimed at stopping Iran from further developing its nuclear program. The Western alliance has sanctioned a host of officials from the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, a key unit of Iran's armed forces, as well as high-ranking government officials and regime loyalists.

These new measures come on top of long-term sanctions that have sought to cut Tehran off from the global financial system in hopes of strangling Iran’s most lucrative export – oil – and bringing the regime to its knees. 

Still, while these established measures remain in place, the Biden administration has so far been unwilling to up the ante by implementing a cohesive strategy for further inflicting pain on the Iranian energy sector. Consider that in the fiscal year leading up to March 2023, Iran is expected to export 1.4 billion barrels per day, compared to around 500,000 bpd or less when former President Donald Trump was in the White House and enforced a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran. 

This suggests, analysts say, that the West, long trying to keep the dialogue open with Tehran in hopes of reviving the now-defunct nuclear deal, has overseen a lax enforcement system. 

Many observers point to the latest developments in Ukraine as a case in point. Despite Western sanctions intended to stop Iran from developing its military-industrial complex, Iran has succeeded in building one of the world’s biggest drone fleets – and is supplying the Russians with thousands of sophisticated “killer drones” that the Kremlin is using to pummel Ukraine. 

What’s more, debris from the battlefield suggests that Iranians have been able to rely on Chinese copies of Western parts to build their drone stockpile, while they’ve also acquired Western-made parts to power their drones. Clearly, Western sanctions haven’t had the intended effect of cutting Iran off and making it squirm. (To be sure, the EU has recently imposed sanctions on Iran drone makers, while the US sanctioned Iranian flight companies for helping transfer drones to Russia. Still, it comes after Iran had already developed one of the best arms games in the business.)

Moreover, that countries including China and the United Arab Emirates have had no qualms about flouting Western sanctions on Iranian energy exports suggests that the perceived cost of buying and selling Iranian oil has waned. 

What more could be done? The US could sanction Iran’s drone program and increase the pace of its ad-hoc sanctions regime. What’s more, while hundreds of Russian diplomats have been expelled from Europe and the US, many Iranian dignitaries continue to get the royal treatment in global forums.

Looking ahead. The UN Human Rights Council says it will hold a special session to discuss Iran on Nov. 24. Meanwhile, the world's largest and most influential economies are currently gathering at the G-20 summit to talk about all things geopolitics. Will their response to Iran be united and stern? Don’t hold your breath.

Putin usará uma arma nuclear tática: consequências devastadoras para a Ucrânia - Signal Newsletter (GZero)

 Will Putin drop a nuke on Ukraine?

October 4, 2022

   

Vladimir Putin isn't exactly losing the war in Ukraine, but he's definitely not winning it either. 

Although Russia has more territory now than before the invasion, things aren't going well. Putin has had to call up reservists, his annexation of four Ukrainian regions was immediately challenged, and he's on the hook now for selling to the Russian people the idea that they are at war with NATO and the West. 

Putin's push to win at all costs might soon force him to make one very serious and potentially scary choice. He needs to land a big blow, so what bigger blow than the biggest of them all: nuclear weapons. Russia's president has already hinted at the possibility, while Washington and NATO are sorting through what they might do in response.

Let's look at why he might, or might not, pull the trigger to launch what is known as a tactical nuke, a low-yield atomic warhead designed to take out military targets, not entire cities.

The sheer destructive capacity of a nuclear weapon could turn the tide of the war in Russia’s favor. Even a small nuclear strike could wipe out entire units of Ukraine's army in minutes. It would also give the Russians time to regroup their forces to push back against the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive and appease hardliners gripingabout Russia not doing enough to win in Ukraine.

Putin still has some other options. He could order cyberattacks, the sabotage of European energy links, or more intense conventional strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. But none of those have the shock value of a single nuke, which might just scare Kyiv into accepting Russia’s terms for “peace” — such as the recent land grab of 15% of Ukraine.

Also, Putin perhaps thinks he can get away with it (relatively) unscathed. In other words, the US and NATO will respond, but probably not in kind. 

Aside from warning of somewhat vague "catastrophic consequences," the West hasn't been very clear on what it would do if Putin pushed the nuclear button. Doing nothing at all is a non-starter, yet the US and its NATO allies, wary of a dangerous escalation with nuclear-armed Russia, might only toughen sanctions and send more advanced weapons to Ukraine — a best-case scenario for Putin.

Putin might even test a tactical nuke just to bait NATO into attacking Russia, which he's been daring the alliance to do since his invasion began. It would give him an excuse to say he was right all along about the West trying to encroach on Russia’s sphere of influence.

Still, for Russia, a non-nuclear Western response might be almost as bad as a nuclear one. US airstrikes could wipe out most of Russia's forces inside Ukraine and sink its entire Black Sea fleet in one fell swoop. Putin might back down if he thinks the price would be too high — even if it went against his own grievance-fueled narrative.

Dangerous escalation? Perhaps. But it hasn’t been ruled out by retired senior US officials.

Putin might lose his two most powerful friends if he pushes the button. Although we know both China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi are unhappy about how the war is going, we don't know what they recently told Putin about how they’d react to a Russian nuclear strike. But Putin does, and his decision-making will surely factor in how it'll go down in Beijing and New Delhi.

The Chinese or Indian response could be anything from a reprimand at the UN to cutting economic ties with Moscow right when the Russian economy is reeling from sanctions despite a strong ruble. Just the threat of turning down Russian oil and natural gas — which Putin needs to sell to keep his war machine going — should give the Russian leader pause.

There's no turning back. If Putin crosses that line, all other options cease to exist. He loses control of the narrative because he's done the unthinkable. Then again, perhaps the Russian leader has already backed himself into a corner, and it's all just a question of not if but when he orders the first nuclear strike since World War II.

What do you think Putin will do? Let us know here.