U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday condemned “the assault on democracy” in Brazil after supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court.

Biden said he looked forward to continuing to work with leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in the most fraught election in a generation last year.

“I condemn the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined,” Biden said on Twitter.

Earlier on Sunday, Biden said the situation in Brazil was “outrageous.”

The violence echoed the U.S. Capitol invasion two years ago by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

The sight of thousands of yellow-and-green clad protesters running riot in the capital capped months of tension following Brazil’s Oct. 30 vote. Bolsonaro, an acolyte of Trump’s who has yet to concede defeat, peddled the false claim that Brazil’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, spawning a violent movement of election deniers.

“I condemn this outrageous assault on #Brazil’s govt buildings incited by demagogue Bolsonaro’s reckless disregard for democratic principles,” U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter.

“2 yrs since Jan. 6, Trump’s legacy continues to poison our hemisphere. Protecting democracy & holding malign actors to account is essential.”

Bolsonaro flew to Florida 48 hours before the end of his mandate and was absent from Lula’s inauguration.

Representative Joaquin Castro, a Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN that Bolsonaro “basically used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists to try to take over the government” and “is a dangerous man.”

“The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrrorism in Brazil,” Castro said. “He should be sent back to Brazil.”

Early Saturday morning, Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House after 15 rounds of voting, a craziness the likes of which have not been seen since the middle of James Buchanan’s presidency. In a statement, President Joe Biden congratulated McCarthy while framing the next two years by calling for leaders to govern in a way that puts the American people’s needs “above all else.”

Biden reiterated his willingness to work with Republicans “when I can” and pointed out that voters expect the same of the GOP. Cautioning against destroying the economic progress of the past two years, which have been “the best years for job growth on record,” while protecting Social Security and Medicare and defending our national security, Biden explained that bipartisanship is needed.

For cynics who accuse Biden of now embracing bipartisanship simply because the House of Representatives is now under Republican control, they should remember how Biden urged in his inaugural address that “unity is the path forward,” and that “[w]e have never, ever, ever failed when we have acted together.” Biden can now say with accuracy that “[a]s the last two years show, we can do profound things for the country when we do them together.”

On Thursday, while Republicans slogged through their messy speakership ballots, revealing the extent of their internal divisions, the White House issued a press release announcing that Biden signed a whopping 34 bills into law that very day. This large sampling of legislation, products of the 117th Congress, reveals the great extent of bipartisan efforts under the Biden administration.

Biden thanked Republican Senators John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham and Republican Representatives Tony Gonzales and Brian Fitzpatrick for working with Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Chris Coons and Representatives Jim Costa and Dina Titus, respectively, to pass the Respect for Child Survivors Act, which empowers the FBI to apply greater resources toward child sexual exploitation cases. As another of several examples, Biden thanked Republican Senator Richard Burr and Representative Don Bacon along with Democratic Senator Cory Booker and Representative Bobby Rush for posthumously awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley.

In November, as the midterm results were tallied, Biden wasted no time announcing his renewed commitment to work with everyone, while also noting that “[t]he American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.” It is hard to imagine this new iteration of House Republicans cooperating with Democrats, let alone themselves. However, America is watching—and in next year’s election, America will once again be voting.

The post President Biden is wasting no time as House Republicans flounder appeared first on Palmer Report.

The DOJ has already gotten Steve Bannon convicted and sentenced to prison on contempt charges, which he’s currently appealing. New York has charged Bannon with more serious crimes, and he’s awaiting trial. This comes even as we prepare to find out whether Special Counsel Jack Smith will indict Bannon as part of his January 6th related probe.

In the meantime, Bannon has most recently been trying to meddle in the Presidential election in Brazil. After his far right candidate Jair Bolsonaro lost reelection, Bannon publicly encouraged him to claim it was rigged and simply remain in office (sound familiar?). That didn’t work, as Bolsonaro has since left office, and he’s believed to be hanging out in Florida (sound familiar?). Now Bolsonaro’s supporters have stormed the Capitol in Brazil today, in a weak and aimless but nonetheless disturbing effort at violently overthrowing the newly elected President (sound familiar?).

Here’s the thing. Bannon talks of raising armies and revolutions, but it’s always just disorganized idiots running at a building for no gain. He stirs up just enough of this cosplay stuff to be able to raise money off it. He’s not a revolutionary, he’s a financial fraudster. This is all a game for him, to line his pockets.

Even as we wait for more details about the failed coup attempt in Brazil, keep in mind that Bannon has already been criminally convicted once, and he’s trying to fight off federal prison. The more recent criminal charges against him feel like nearly a lock to put him in state prison. There appear to be more federal charges coming. And given that he’s (at the least) helped incite today’s violence in Brazil, there’s now likely going to be an increased urgency to finish taking him down. It’s starting to feel like we’re going to end up looking back on today as the end of Steve Bannon.

The post This feels like the end of Steve Bannon appeared first on Palmer Report.

Hours after George Santos was sworn in to serve in the 118th Congress, some 100 protesters gathered Saturday morning outside Santos’ district office in Queens, N.Y. demanding his resignation. Santos, a Republican freshman from New York, is under investigation for fabricating critical details of his biography and has come under scrutiny for lying about his Jewish background.

The protest was led by Rob Zimmerman, the Democrat who lost to Santos by almost eight points in November. 

Since Santos has shown no sign that he is willing to resign, there are few paths to him vacating his post. Congress could, in theory, launch an ethics probe into his actions. Such a move would require House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who relied on Santos’ vote in his narrow win for the speakership, to isolate him or have him expelled by two-thirds of his colleagues. Both scenarios are highly unlikely.

Federal prosecutors are investigating Santos’ finances, and the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office is looking into his fabrications about his past. Brazilian authorities said they intend to revive fraud charges against Santos, related to a 2008 incident regarding a stolen checkbook.

Santos has already indicated he won’t run for reelection in 2024, although he is not bound by that decision. 

Rob Zimmerman speaks to the media on Dec. 29. 2022. Photo by Jacob Kornbluh

In an interview, Zimmerman said he views himself as playing a meaningful role in keeping up the pressure against Santos – by rallying activists and constituents and pressuring local Republican leaders to speak out. Zimmerman is quick to point out that he is not making the case that he should be the candidate to replace Santos in the case of a special election. He is aided by some 150 local Democratic activists who call themselves “Zimmerterns” out of pride for volunteering for the Zimmerman campaign. 

“This is not about me,” he stressed. “This is a fraud perpetrated on the people of my congressional district. He has mocked them in the most hateful, cynical way.” 

A toss-up

The race between Santos and Zimmerman was viewed through a historical and personal lens. It was the first such contest between two openly gay candidates who were Jewish. Both candidates ran for the seat before – Zimmerman in 1982 and Santos in 2020 when he challenged then-incumbent Rep. Tom Suozzi – and each raised $3 million during the election cycle. 

The 3rd Congressional District leans Democratic. President Biden won it by 10 points in 2020, although the Cook Political Report ranked it a toss-up.

Zimmerman expressed no regrets about how he handled his opponent during the campaign. “I am holding my head high,” he said, “and proud about the race we ran.”  

He called the recent investigative reports into Santos’ lies about his education, upbringing and his finances “validating,” but criticized the media for overlooking many of the issues that he raised during the campaign. He pointed to an 87-page opposition research document the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released that could have led to the exposure of Santos as a person unworthy of the office before voters went to the ballot booth. 

“I think it would have a very dramatic difference on the race,” Zimmerman suggested. He acknowledged that Santos “was never a long shot” and the revelations would “have been a game changer” should he have faced the media’s scrutiny. 

Zimmerman said that in the two debates with his Republican opponent, Santos “would literally lie with almost joy.”

But there’s no indication that Zimmerman would have won the race had Santos been exposed early enough or would have been replaced by another Republican candidate. Santos underperformed Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor by 5 points, and received 16,000 fewer votes than in 2020. Yet, he still managed to win the race.

The rise in crime  – an issue that made the gubernatorial race competitive – was the driving factor in the Republican House victories on Long Island and upstate New York. First Lady Jill Biden stumped for Zimmerman in the final weeks of the campaign, which underscored Democratic concerns about the party’s prospects. 

A very Jewish candidate

Jews make up 11% of the population in the district, according to David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Zimmerman was one of three Jewish candidates who competed in the Democratic primaries for the open seat. He has lived in the district since he was nine years old and worked for multiple congressmen who previously held that seat. 

Unlike Santos, Zimmerman’s Jewish background is not an issue of debate. “There is nothing about my public life or my biography that I’ve ever lied about,” Zimmerman said. 

He is the past president of Great Neck B’nai Brith and served as head of the American Jewish  Congress Long Island Division. In the 1980s, Zimmerman teamed up with Steve Israel, who later became a member of Congress in 2001, and together they visited the Soviet Union to help families of Jewish refuseniks emigrate to the U.S. He had his bar mitzvah at Temple Emanuel of Great Neck, where his father served as president and his mother served as president of the Sisterhood in the mid-1980s.

Zimmerman, 68, said that he had a poster of Moshe Dayan, the late Israeli defense minister, hanging in his bedroom. Zimmerman recalled that during the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he walked around with a transistor radio listening to debates at the United Nations and for other news updates.

Santos falsely claimed to have Jewish grandparents who fled anti-Jewish persecution during World War II and called himself a “proud American Jew” in a position paper he shared with Jewish and pro-Israel groups. But the Republican Jewish Coalition did not believe Santos was viable enough to earn their endorsement, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations. (The group did invite Santos to speak at its November conference weeks after he won the election and after he told them he was Jewish.) 

In an October interview with the Forward, Zimmerman highlighted Santos’ close relationship with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who was removed from her committee assignments last year due to her embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes. “We in the Jewish community cannot rely upon individuals who run for Congress to affiliate themselves with hate mongers who at the end of the day hate us as a Jewish community,” Zimmerman said. 

The post What do you do when you lose to George Santos? Ask Robert Zimmerman appeared first on The Forward.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists collaborates with hundreds of members across the world. Each of these journalists is among the best in his or her country and many have won national and global awards. Our monthly series, Meet the Investigators, highlights the work of these tireless journalists.

On the heels of Brazil’s election last year, ICIJ member Guilherme Amado joined us to discuss how outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro’s government put democracy in the balance, the struggles that incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will face in January and how he’s coping with news overload. Amado is a news columnist for the website Metropoles and a director of Abraji, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. Earlier in 2022, he published a book on the ways Bolsonaro’s government dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic.

This episode was recorded and shared with ICIJ’s Insiders community of recurring monthly donors in November 2022.

TRANSCRIPT:

Nicole Sadek: Welcome back to Meet the Investigators from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. I’m your host, Nicole Sadek, ICIJ’s editorial fellow.

On Oct. 30, my phone blew up with notifications about the result of Brazil’s presidential election. And, perhaps, like some of you, I wondered why this election had such major international coverage. Well, today my guest is going to break it all down. Guilherme Amado is an investigative reporter who was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro. He’s a news columnist for Metropoles and director of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. Plus, Guilherme’s spent years covering the two men who were battling it out for the presidency: Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula.

Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, was the incumbent. He’s been serving since 2019. Lula, on the other hand, a left-wing progressive, already served two terms and was vying for his third. Barack Obama once called him the most popular politician on Earth until he was caught up in the middle of a massive corruption scandal.

Although the election is technically over, the fallout continues. Even while Guilherme and I were speaking, he heard some surprising news from his colleague.

Guilherme Amado: Sorry, I think it’s one of my reporters. Bolsonaro’s party has just said that they don’t recognize the result of the election.

Nicole: We’ll get into that part of our conversation in a bit. Guilherme, thanks for joining us. Bring us up to speed. What were the major issues in this election?

Guilherme: Democracy and the social challenge would be the most crucial issues. I don’t know for how many years we would have to wait to return back to democracy if Bolsonaro had won. We have a country that is back to the Hunger Map of the United Nations, and I think that, probaby, it wouldn’t be a priority in another government of Bolsonaro. He denies that there are people hungry. He says that it’s fake news.

Nicole: Guilherme got to know Bolsonaro’s government intimately, when he wrote a book on how it dealt with the coronavirus pandemic. The book is called, in English, “No Mask: The Bolsonaro Government and the Bet for Chaos.”

Guilherme Amado’s No Mask: The Bolsonaro Government and the Bet for Chaos.

Guilherme: I’m sure that he saw in the pandemic an opportunity, trying to present himself as a solution of an autocrat. Many, many moments during these two years, he was very close to authoritarian decisions, but for sure, his dream is a system that he wouldn’t have the Supreme Court, he wouldn’t have the Congress and other obstacles that democracy brings.

Nicole: Bolsonaro’s presidency has also been a point of concern for journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Brazil ninth on its Global Impunity Index, which measures how dangerous it is to be a reporter in countries all across the globe. Earlier this year, British reporter Dom Phillips was killed in the Amazon while covering the harms to Indigenous communities and the environment under Bolsonaro’s government.

Guilherme: We cannot ignore that when the president says that it’s OK to attack journalists and that journalists are enemy of the people — because Bolsonaro, he said the same that Trump did — so of course, Bolsonaro didn’t fire the gun, but the environment he created, this environment is the same in which Dom Phillips was killed. But, for the kind of journalism I make now, I think that the most dangerous situations are those in which we are investigating extremists, or supporters of the president that are fanatic people.

Nicole: This isn’t just a hypothetical. Before the first round of the election in September, a minister’s lawyer contacted Guilherme.

Guilherme: He sent a WhatsApp message, mentioning the name of all my family: my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law, my stepdaughter. It was with the goal of saying, “Hey, I know who they are,” and trying to make me stop. These kinds of people, I feel that they are as dangerous as those that are in the middle of the forest. I went to the police, I registered a complaint. In the first moment, the police officer didn’t want to register because he said it wasn’t a threat. He said it was normal. The curious [thing] is I have already investigated drug traffickers, militia groups, and I have never had this kind of problem.

Bolsonaro is still very strong. And that atmosphere that brought him to power, it still exists. So in four years, if Lula fails, I think that maybe the far right wing powers in Brazil, they can return to the palace.

Nicole: Given the critical issues of Bolsonaro’s presidency, election night was tense.

Guilherme: I was in the newsroom. We were reporting not only the results but also the behind the scenes of that day, so calling many sources that were close to Lula, close to Bolsonaro. So, we were afraid, we were anxious. When the results start being released, Bolsonaro started winning. It was expected because in Brazil the states of the South, the results start being released before from these states and then from the North states, in which we have many supporters of Lula. But everybody was very afraid in the newsroom, and when the official result was released, it was relieving.

Nicole: Lula’s win was a great victory for the left. But, oddly enough, as much as Lula is loved, he was involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Brazil’s history.

[Al Jazeera English]:  Provoking one of the largest corruption investigations in South American history, the Car Wash scandal has left its mark on countries from Brazil to Peru. Business leaders, multinational corporations and politicians have been caught up in allegations ranging from bribery and money laundering to distorting the democratic process.

Nicole: Operation Car Wash was a federal investigation which alleged that leaders of the state-owned oil company Petrobras accepted bribes to award contracts. The scandal completely tainted the image of Lula’s party.

Guilherme: Many people voted not for Lula. They voted against Bolsonaro, you know? What was at stake in this election wasn’t only corruption. Both have problems in this area: Bolsonaro in his personal level, Lula in the level of his party. But the problem in this election, as I said, was about the possibility of having a system of combating corruption. It was about the possibility of having an environment of improvement of social life conditions, of women’s rights, of Black people rights, so it was much more than corruption.

Nicole: What do you think Lula needs to do now that he’s back in the presidential palace?

Guilherme: He has a lot of challenges as well. He cannot accept again any big scandal of corruption. But, more than that, I think that he, himself, he has to be the example. Probably, you know, it’s almost impossible to have a government without any possibility of corruption. When it happens, I think that he has to be very serious and maybe fire the person while the person is being investigated, and things like that to show that things changed, because we had a chance now, with the defeat of Bolsonaro, but Bolsonaro is still very strong. And that atmosphere that brought him to power, it still exists. So in four years, if Lula fails, I think that maybe the far right wing powers in Brazil, they can return to the palace.

Nicole: How has Bolsonaro reacted to Lula’s victory?

Guilherme: He didn’t say till now, we have eight days of being defeated, he didn’t say yet, “I was defeated.” He didn’t say, “Lula won.” He said that he had incredible support, and actually he’s right, because he had more than 50 million of votes and this is incredible especially considering what was his government. But this is very dangerous. For example, now while we are talking, the president of the party of Bolsonaro has just said that they don’t recognize the defeat of Bolsonaro. What will happen, I cannot say.

Nicole: Bolsonaro’s supporters argued that his defeat was a result of voter fraud. At the time of recording this episode, Brazil’s senior election official stated that an election review did not “point to any fraud or inconsistency.”

We’re lucky to have Guilherme here to explain the fallout of the election. But as a journalist, he’s covered far more than presidential politics. In 2014, for example, he developed a WhatsApp-based network connecting Latin American reporters writing about organized crime and drug dealing. So how did he get here?

Guilherme: When I was a child, one of the things that I liked to play was to create a newspaper. I know that’s a kind of, something that you expect to hear from a journalist. And I think that, until I was 14 or 15 years old, I was pretty sure I would be a journalist. And then, when I was a teenager, I got the idea that journalists would have terrible salaries, you know, and terrible income, and I didn’t like the idea of being poor, and not having a job. At that time, it was the beginning of many layoffs in Brazil, because of the digital transformation, and I think that somehow, because I had other journalists in my family, I was affected at that, so I thought about working in advertisement. And after two years working in an ad agency, I was totally unhappy. And that environment didn’t fulfill me, didn’t fulfill my dreams and my expectations for society and for the improvement of life conditions of everybody, especially in a country like Brazil that has many, many poor people. And then I decided, oh, I will be a journalist. I will try to do my best, not have a terrible salary and work hard. And here I am.

Nicole: You mentioned there was another journalist in your family. How did they influence you?

Guilherme: I’m talking about my aunt. She was like a second mother. And I grew up in an environment of many great journalists, many scoops. She has also worked in the kind of column that I do today. But I feel that especially this relationship with journalism as a mission, I think that’s something that I learned with her a lot. And this is not 100% good, she didn’t have a division of personal life and professional life. I don’t think that this is good. I try to do it better than she did.

Nicole: Guilherme even shared one way he’s trying to unplug.

Guilherme: Because I need to relax, so I’m reading José Saramago. That’s a brilliant Portuguese novelist that won the Nobel Prize, and he’s fantastic because he creates stories that are very, that of course, they don’t exist, they are a little bit fantastic, but he uses these creations to talk about our current problems. And this one that I’m reading is, probably in English, is [“The Double.”] It’s a professor of history that finds that there is a man in movies, an actor, in very, very side roles, that is identical of him. And he starts trying to find who is this man. But he tells it in a way that’s very funny and relaxing. For being a Brazilian in 2022, I think it’s important to relax as well.

Nicole: That note wraps up this month’s episode of Meet the Investigators. Big thanks to Guilherme Amado for giving me the rundown on the presidential election and giving us all some more insights into the country’s political landscape.

Meet the Investigators is a production of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. This episode was produced and edited by me, Nicole Sadek, with help from Hamish Boland-Rudder. Don’t forget to share the episode on social media using the #MeetTheInvestigators. See you next month for our last episode of 2022.

Why did Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine? Most international commentators still insist on viewing the war through the parallel prisms of resurgent Russian imperialism and NATO’s post-Cold War expansion. However, neither of these factors gets to the true heart of the subject. In reality, the devastating invasion launched on February 24, 2022, was primarily a desperate Russian reaction to Ukraine’s historic nation-building progress.

The widespread habit of underestimating Ukrainian agency has led to misleading perceptions of today’s conflict and an over-emphasis on Great Power politics. Such thinking discounts the fact that the Ukrainian people are directly responsible for their country’s recent emergence from centuries of Russian domination and have consciously chosen a democratic, European future. This is the ultimate reason why Putin launched Europe’s largest armed conflict since World War II, and it will continue to reshape the geopolitical landscape long after Russia’s criminal invasion is over.

All countries are defined by common experiences that guide them as nations and determine their future destiny. In Ukraine’s case, it is possible to identify a number of key moments and prominent trends over the past three decades of independence that have placed the country firmly on a path toward democratic development and Euro-Atlantic integration.

This has brought post-Soviet Ukraine into ever more intense confrontation with Putin’s Russia, which views the current Ukrainian trajectory as an existential threat to its own brand of authoritarian imperialism. If the former imperial heartlands of Ukraine succeed in freeing themselves from the Kremlin, this would drastically undermine Russia’s influence over other neighbors such as Moldova and Belarus along with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. In a worst-case scenario, Ukraine’s integration into the Western world could serve as a catalyst for the collapse of the Russian Federation itself. 

Subscribe to UkraineAlert

Modern Ukraine’s civilizational split from authoritarian Russia began with the country’s December 1991 referendum, which produced a landslide vote in favor of Ukrainian independence. This momentous issue was decided not by violence but at the ballot box, following extensive public dialogue. The 1991 referendum set the political tone for independent Ukraine and established peaceful transfers of power via democratic means as a core principle for the newly independent country. 

Ukraine’s political climate has not always been so orderly, of course. This is especially true of the numerous occasions when Russia has sought to interfere directly. Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and 2014 Revolution of Dignity stand out as particularly important turning points in the unraveling relationship between post-Soviet Kyiv and Moscow. These revolutions highlighted the Ukrainian public’s determination to prevent Russia from derailing the country’s democratic development.

Crucially, both revolutions were grassroots movements sparked by Russian interventions seeking to prevent Ukraine’s European integration and steer the country back toward a more authoritarian form of government. On both occasions, ever-widening groups within Ukrainian civil society engaged with each other and learned to cooperate, often forging ties with other regions of the country.

These people power uprisings marked the consolidation of Ukrainian civil society and highlighted the country’s capacity for collective action. As a consequence, civil society now has a high sense of self-efficacy and social capital. Independent Ukraine’s two revolutions established the democratic principle of rule by the people not only in theory but also in practice, while highlighting the diverging political paths of post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine.

Another crucial turning point in Ukraine’s nation-building journey was the annexation by Russia of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow’s subsequent armed intervention in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. This did much to undermine pro-Russian sentiment and strengthen Ukrainian identity throughout the country.

Putin’s use of force in 2014 discredited Russia as a potential partner while serving to remove much of his traditional support base in Ukraine. With economic opportunities sharply reduced and the political climate turning decisively against Moscow, many Kremlin sympathizers in the occupied parts of the Donbas and elsewhere in Ukraine chose to relocate to Russia. Others soon became disillusioned with the realities of the Russian occupation.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event
Wed, January 11, 2023 • 8:00 am ET

The case for Ukraine retaking Crimea

Europe & Eurasia
Politics & Diplomacy
Rule of Law
Security & Defense

As relations with Russia have deteriorated, ties with the global Ukrainian diaspora have flourished. For decades, the Kremlin sought to portray the diaspora in dismissive terms as a reactionary force that was out of touch with contemporary Ukrainian realities. In recent years, diaspora Ukrainians have debunked these stereotypes and served as a vital bridge between the country and its international partners.

Deepening ties with Ukraine’s Western partners have played an important role in consolidating the country’s historic turn toward the democratic world. Much of the support Ukraine has received since 2014 has been conditional on social and economic reforms that have re-affirmed the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration. Civil society actors and government officials have come to recognize that these conditions lead to higher standards of living and a better quality of life in general. This is in stark contrast to relations with Russia, which even before the outbreak of hostilities in 2014 had long been associated with stagnation and inertia.

Since February 2022, Ukraine’s historic turn toward the West has been dramatically reinforced by the previously unimaginable horrors of Russia’s full-scale invasion. While Russian troops have killed thousands of civilians and destroyed entire Ukrainian cities, Ukraine’s Western partners have offered a wide range of essential aid and welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees. For many Ukrainians, the experience of the past ten months has fundamentally altered perceptions of both Russia and the West. While they will long remember the Western response with immense gratitude, they will never forgive Russia.

The war has also fostered national integration within Ukraine by fueling unprecedented interaction among people from different regions of the country.  This integration has been happening as Russian missiles and bombs fall equally on Ukrainian citizens regardless of their region, ethnicity, or worldview. With the ferocity of the Russian invasion forcing millions of citizens to flee their homes in the Donbas, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Kherson, and numerous other provinces, a massive cultural exchange is taking place as different segments of the population are brought together and united by a common cause. 

This cultural exchange extends beyond Ukraine’s borders to the country’s European neighbors. Millions of Ukrainians have sought sanctuary in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltic States, and a host of other European countries. The support extended by these countries shows that they, in turn, all appreciate the sacrifices currently being made by Ukrainians in defense of European security.

The huge refugee wave since February 2022 has resulted in entirely new levels of interaction between Ukrainians and other Europeans. As a result, earlier misconceptions are being replaced by a more nuanced understanding of each other and an appreciation of how much Ukrainians have in common with the wider European community. The growing solidarity and engagement of the past ten months is laying the foundations for what promises to be decades of intensifying partnership and cooperation.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is still far from over, but it is already difficult to see how Putin can achieve his goal of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and forcing a Russified Ukraine back into the Kremlin’s exclusive sphere of influence. Instead, the war has dramatically accelerated long-term trends and widened the civilizational divide separating Moscow and Kyiv. A reduced Russia now looks destined to spend an extended period in international isolation, while Ukraine is firmly on track to cement its position as a valued member of the democratic world.

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the US Congress during his historic December 2022 address, “Your money is not charity. It is an investment in global security and democracy.” Indeed, at present it would appear that US support for Ukraine has been one of the most successful foreign policy investments in American history.

Dennis Soltys is a retired Canadian professor of comparative politics living in Almaty.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Dec 26, 2022

Eight reasons for Ukrainian optimism in 2023

By
Brian Mefford

Ukrainians have experienced an incredibly traumatic year but the country enters 2023 with reason for cautious optimism that Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion can be decisively defeated, writes Brian Mefford.

European Union
NATO

UkraineAlert
Dec 25, 2022

Bakhmut: Fortress of freedom

By
Andriy Yermak

Western support for Ukraine must remain strong in 2023 to prevent a Russian victory that would fuel a global authoritarian revival, warns the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President, Andriy Yermak.

Conflict
European Union

UkraineAlert
Dec 22, 2022

Russia’s defeat is the top global priority for 2023

By
Oleksii Reznikov

Ensuring that the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends in defeat is vital for the international security system and must be the strategic priority for 2023, writes Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Conflict
European Union

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s nation-building progress spells doom for Putin’s Russian Empire appeared first on Atlantic Council.

(NewsNation) — Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had to make a series of concessions to the far right flank of his party in order to win their votes to become speaker.

What concessions did he make? What price did he pay for their votes?

It boils down to this: Mccarthy gave up a lot of the power that typically comes with being the speaker and handed it back to his rank and file members.

Most notably, he agreed to a rule that allows just one member to force a vote to remove the speaker of the House at any time. It makes McCarthy vulnerable and puts a serious check on his own authority.

Another new rule says if Congress raises the debt limit, which will be necessary to avoid a government shutdown, it must be accompanied by a mandatory spending cut to entitlement programs, like Medicare or Medicaid.

In addition, some of these hardline Republicans demanded certain committee chairmanships in exchange for their votes.

It’s also being reported Mccarthy agreed to support capping government spending in 2024, at 2022 levels, which would mean a roughly $75 billion cut to military and defense spending.

Now, the house will have to vote to approve this rules package, and it’s not entirely clear whether it will pass. Plenty of republicans will have a hard time swallowing major cuts to defense/military spending, or the rule remove a speaker.

“How am I going to look at our allies in the eye and say, I need you to increase your defense budget,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, “But yet America is going to decrease ours.”

Gonzales speaks for others as well.

There were other rules Mccarthy agreed to which were less controversial. Most republicans support posting a bill 72 hours before voting on it and allowing any member to propose amendments to any bill on the house floor.

Renault (RENA.PA) is considering building a mass-market electric vehicle in India, two people with knowledge of the ongoing review told Reuters, as part of a renewed push into a market where EV adoption is expected to grow quickly from a small base.

The study by Renault underscores how the French automaker is pushing ahead with electrification plans even as it extends unresolved negotiations with its partner Nissan Motor (7201.T) about investing in an EV unit it plans to carve out from its other operations.

It also points to the shifting perception of the auto market in India, which posted the fastest growth of any major market in 2022. EVs were on track to be less than 1% of car sales last year but the government has set a target of 30% by 2030 and has had recent success in attracting suppliers for international automakers, with a range of subsidies.

Renault is studying launching a made-in-India electric version of its Kwid hatchback, the people told Reuters.

The review will assess potential demand, pricing and the ability to build the EV with local components, said one of the people, adding that any launch would be late in 2024.

The move is part of a broader plan by Renault to rekindle sales in a country where the carmaker remains profitable despite selling fewer cars in 2022 than a year earlier, the person said.

Renault India declined to comment on product plans but said the company has a “strong focus on electrification globally” as part of the strategy outlined by CEO Luca de Meo and that “India is one of the key markets” for the group.

India is set to become the world’s third-largest market for passenger and other light vehicles, displacing Japan, according to a forecast by S&P Global Mobility. Industry-wide sales grew an estimated 23% to 4.4 million vehicles in 2022.

That is a contrast to the outlook for the United States, where the market is expected to remain below 2019 levels next year, and China, where demand is weakening.

Renault had been hoping to reach with Nissan in December on the terms of a carve-out for its EV unit, but discussions have been slowed over concerns by the Japanese carmaker on a range of issues, including protection for its intellectual property.

“India will play an important role in future projects of Renault-Nissan but local plans will not be finalised before a global deal on a restructuring of the alliance is reached,” said one of the sources.

In India, domestic carmaker Tata Motors (TAMO.NS), which dominates electric car sales, as well as foreign players like Stellantis (STLA.MI), Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) and SAIC’s (600104.SS) MG Motor are lining up EV launches.

Renault already produces a version of the Kwid EV in China which is sold in that market as the City K-ZE and exported to France as the Dacia Spring. The Spring, the second most sold EV in France in 2022, has a range of 230 kilometres and a starting price of 20,800 euros ($21,869) before government incentives.

To qualify for incentives in India, Renault would have to build the car at its alliance plant in southern India and source components locally, the first person said. The India plant is majority owned by Nissan.

Nissan declined to comment.

Renault currently produces the Kwid hatchback, Kiger SUV and seven-seater Triber in India. Its sales fell 9% to around 87,000 units in 2022 and its market share dipped to just over 2%.

As a part of the India reboot, Renault also plans to invest in refurbishing and upgrading some of its major dealerships in big cities, the person said. The company said it has 500 sales outlets in India.

Related Galleries: