CHATTING WITH RUSSIA Is it a conversation or a hostage negotiation? That's David Herszenhorn's question given Moscow's guns are pointed at Ukraine along its border. Ukraine on the sidelines again: The U.S. continues to insist it wants to decide nothing about Europe without Europe — National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan calls that perspective "our North Star" — and yet we're asked to believe that about talks where Ukraine and the EU aren't present? Kazakhstan by the numbers: 164 killed and more than 5,800 detained, according to senior officials and state media. PUTIN'S BIGGER PICTURE — RUSSIA-CONTROLLED EURASIA BY ANY NAME: Moscow has always wanted buffer zones from foreign powers — for hundreds of years that has been the strategy: witness Russia's Siberian expansion to Soviet takeovers and the Warsaw Pact, illustrated here by Tomas Pueyo. That explains why Sanna Marin , Prime Minister of Finland — which shares a border with Russia and has several times been occupied by it — felt the need to tell local TV Sunday that "Finland decides on its own foreign and security policy, no two words about it. We cannot be extorted." The desire for buffer zones also explains Russia's flood of troops into Kazakhstan: Think of it as another chapter in a 15-year intervention into Georgia (uninvited), Belarus (invited), Ukraine (uninvited) and also Estonia (uninvited), if you count Moscow's 2009 digital invasion of the country. Read Frida Ghitis on the collapse of the agreements Moscow signed in the 1990s. Moscow's problem is that it isn't able to exert soft power: Vladimir Putin 's Eurasian Economic Union has mostly flopped, and no member is rated better than a "semi-consolidated authoritarian regime," according to Freedom House. It seems Moscow is only able to exert control through authoritarianism. But Russia's buffer zones aren't having the easiest time of it, even now that they're in the Motherland's warm embrace. Crimea, for example, has water supply problems after Ukraine cut off the main canal in response to Russia's annexation. Fresh water supplies for the peninsula (beyond being able to more easily roll in tanks) is another reason Putin wants a land bridge from core Russia to Crimea, NATO's former supreme allied commander, retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, told Brussels Playbook. Lessons: "The lesson [Kazakhstan's] Tokayev and others have learned from Yanukovich's example in Ukraine is that brutal violence and repression with Russia's help is the only way to stay in power," said Alina Polyakova, who leads the Center for European Policy Analysis. SANCTION TARGETS Russian super sanctions: U.S. officials are preparing to cut Russia off from global finance and American defense and tech assets if Ukraine is invaded. What the Kazakhstan elite own: This collection of foreign assets is presenting as the next target of officials in charge of Magnitsky laws — which can be levied against human rights abusers — in the U.S., EU, U.K. and Canada. TAIWAN — LITHUANIA INCHES CLOSER TO MICROCHIP WINDFALL: Local microchip production is the stuff of German and French dreams. Now, thanks to Beijing punishing Vilnius because of its warming diplomatic ties with Taipei, it's on the cards in Lithuania. Taiwan has announced a $200 million investment plan in the Baltic nation and, in an interview with POLITICO, the top Taiwanese diplomat in Vilnius said nothing is off the table. "This is the first time for the Taiwanese government to set up such an investment fund," said Eric Huang, head of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Vilnius. ETHIOPIA — AIRSTRIKES KILL AID WORKERS: Dozens are dead, including children, say nonprofits, regarding attacks from government forces in the country's northwest Tigray region: "scores of civilians, including children, killed and many more injured" was how UNICEF described it. Expect government condemnations to follow once facts are verified. ISRAEL — A CONTRACTING TRAINWRECK: The Israeli government is facing a lawsuit over bypassing a China Railway Construction Corporation bid to build light-rail lines in Tel Aviv. CRCC, which is behind much of China's Belt and Road Initiative, supplied the lowest bid . U.S. officials have warned the Israeli government not to touch the company. Those American concerns don't mean there's a legal basis for blocking the bid, however, hence the space for the lawsuit. h/t Josh Lipsky COVID CORNER The rise of the Covid two-timers: "Prior infection used to offer 85 per cent protection against catching Covid again, according to a study of healthcare workers by Public Health England, now the UK Health Security Agency. For Omicron, however, scientists suggest that protection could fall to just 19 per cent." School systems around the world debate new closures — and the U.N. urges schools remain open . Omicron community transmission hits China … and possibly the Winter Olympics: Tianjin, population 14 million, is just 30 minutes from Beijing and now subject to travel controls and local lockdown, part of an effort to stick to "zero Covid." American military confined to bases in Japan to limit Covid spread: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Sunday that Japan and the U.S. have reached "a basic agreement" that American soldiers will stay on base "except when absolutely necessary," as new Covid case numbers spike, blamed on the U.S. military because case increases are most pronounced in areas near the bases, particularly in Okinawa. The EU and U.S. now have eerily similar pandemics: After see-sawing across two years, the rich world's two centers are now in the same place. London and New York, the leading urban indicators of trouble in both regions, both appear to have hit their Omicron peaks. Dutch learning to stick with restrictions: In 2020 and 2021, the previous coalition government led by Mark Rutte's took flak for repeatedly loosening social restrictions prematurely. Rutte even apologized in November for failing to convince the public to commit to collective efforts to keep the virus in check. Now, with a new coalition in place and Omicron numbers even higher than the U.S. (per capita), they're taking longer to leave the restrictions behind. INFLATION — AMERICAN INTEREST RATE MOVES BRING RISKS TO EMERGING MARKETS: Looming U.S. interest rate rises impact more than U.S. homeowners and investors. They will affect credit supplies and "pose difficult choices for emerging markets as they trade off supporting a weak domestic economy with safeguarding price and external stability," per a new note from the International Monetary Fund . With ongoing Covid pandemic disruptions, the choices will be even trickier than usual in 2022, risking the path toward economic recovery. PUBLISHING'S NEXT PIVOT — INFLUENCER JOURNALISTS: Jessica Lessin, founder of The Information, a subscription tech publication read widely in Silicon Valley, spots a trend among new media ventures: making a business model out of star journalists as influencers. Troy Young, former president of Hearst Magazines, sees the trend as a pivot from publications to individuals, where the middle slice of journalists gets crunched. Lessin is skeptical, and wrote to her subscribers over the weekend. Her key insights: — A "close cousin" of star Substack writers is "newsrooms that first and foremost see themselves as collections of individual star writers" from Axios to Puck to the Hollywood-focused The Ankler to the light-on-details new venture of Ben Smith and Justin Smith. — "The influencer-journalist concept is investor-friendly" but newsrooms should not orient themselves around what tech and tech investors find shiny: What is good for a few new companies selling at a high price will be bad for journalism overall, diverting resources for investigating problems to meeting newsletter deadlines and flattering readers. | 
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