Putin is invading our heads, and maybe Ukraine

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Feb 16, 2022 View in browser   By Nahal Toosi Happening Today Vladimir Putin is messing with us. One day, the Russian leader sits at a very long table with his foreign minister and suggests he'd like a diplomatic path out of a crisis the United States says he invented. The next, there are reports of cyberattacks, conflicting accounts about Russian troop movements and all manner of signals coming out of different capitals. Which brings us to today, the day some U.S. officials thought Putin would launch his latest invasion of Ukraine. Will Putin invade? Will he walk away? Has he already started the invasion? Seriously, Vladimir Vladimirovich. There's been plenty of talk in Washington about whether to sanction Russia immediately to scare it away from an invasion, or whether to impose sanctions once Moscow actually launches some sort of an attack. There probably should be more talk about how to punish Putin even if he does walk away without invading. Because, in the eyes of some close observers, he has to be taught a lesson. "We need to understand that Russia is behaving like a rogue state at the highest level," says Evelyn Farkas, who served at the Pentagon during the Barack Obama presidency. "It's not acceptable to point a gun at your neighbor even if you lower your gun and go back in your house. There have to be some repercussions." Farkas has been one of the most hawkish voices on Russia, and she raises an important point. It's just not the type of thing U.S. and European officials care to talk about right now. (Attempts to get comment from the White House and the State Department yielded nothing usable.) Besides, the United States and its European allies are still not fully in sync on when and how to sanction Russia if it attacks Ukraine. Efforts to pass new laws imposing sanctions have fizzled, though Republicans are giving it another try, this time with the Never Yielding Europe's Territory Act: Da, you read that right. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence officials allege that a conservative financial news website has been publishing Kremlin propaganda, claims the site denies. Are we all at the start of a "long grind" scenario? Or can everyone soon walk away acting like they got what they wanted? And when the initial dust settles, are we going to be surprised about what China's been up to while we've looked away, like saying it … invented skiing? Hi again, all! It's Nahal Toosi, POLITICO's senior foreign affairs correspondent, steering the ship while our usual unassailable captain, Ryan Heath , takes a break. I traveled to Kyiv several years ago, and, honestly, one of my many takeaways was that all Ukrainian women are supermodels.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS Here's what else is happening: EXCLUSIVE: Senior officials from 16 companies, including UPS, Google and Siemens, have written to U.S. congressional leaders asking them to devote more resources to helping the rest of the world deal with Covid-19 pandemic. The letter was organized by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. "With vaccine rates still in the single digits in dozens of low- and middle-income countries, we believe that if the U.S. does not get this right and fully step up the global response at this critical moment, the economic costs for our own nation will only increase in the coming days and months," the corporate leaders write. SIX MONTHS OF HELL: Expect a slew of news stories, government appeals and other coverage over the next two weeks as people reminisce about the fall of Kabul and the chaotic, U.S.-led evacuation that kicked off six months ago. But spare a thought for what lies ahead in Afghanistan. According to the International Rescue Committee, "97 per cent of the population is expected to be living well below the poverty line by the second half of this year." Children are starving when they're not being sold for food. Analysts are practically screaming about how it's not just a humanitarian crisis, it's an economic one. And the Biden administration's recent decision to seize Afghan sovereign dollars for humanitarian aid "may hurt more than help." A CALMING WAR? Just a few months ago, rebel forces appeared on the verge of laying siege to Ethiopia's capital. The war is not yet over, but amid intense mediation efforts, there are many hopeful signs. Ethiopian lawmakers on Tuesday voted to end the country's state of emergency early. It was a move hailed by the U.S. State Department, which urged that it "be immediately followed by the release of all individuals arrested or detained without charge under the state of emergency." According to The Associated Press, "the war has subsided in several places, notably within the Tigray and Amhara regions, [but] concerns remain in the northeastern Afar region." ONE TYPE OF JUSTICE: Relatives of several children and adults killed in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., reached a $73 million settlement with gun manufacturer Remington in part by employing a novel legal technique. ANOTHER INJUSTICE? The brother of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch, who was convicted of killing her in a bid to protect his family's "honor," is being set free. FUTURE JUSTICE? The United States is formally seeking the extradition of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández on drug trafficking charges, the latest in a long, twisted saga. Listen to Global Insider Podcast TECH & STUFF Chump Change: Meta, Facebook's parent company, "has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a decade-old class action lawsuit over a practice that allowed the social network to track users' activity across the internet, even if they had logged out of the platform." But wait, there's more! Texas is suing Meta "over allegations the social media giant illegally harvested the facial recognition data of tens of millions of state residents for a decade." (Not only do we really have to start calling it Meta now, but its employees are to be called 'metamates'.) Stove Wars: Climate change activists want to phase out the use of natural gas in people's kitchens and homes. But the effort "has lit new tensions between moderates concerned about energy costs and progressives frustrated by the nation's patchwork approach to global warming." BRAIN FOOD Read: Joanna Chiu's essay about the lack of nuance in the American discourse on China and how "systemic racism within China-focused institutions keeps people with relevant lived experience and nuanced perspectives out of the organizations that should be shaping the discourse." Read some more: Defense Priorities, a restraint-oriented think tank, lays out a proposal for a "new security order" in Europe that relies less on Washington. Watch (but be warned — this is disturbing): What on earth made dozens of birds suddenly fall dead from the sky over the Mexican city of Chihuahua? Pollution? Electrocution? The movements of a predator?   DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     ONE FUN THING Of course, I LOVED this year's Super Bowl halftime show — the soundtrack to my youth! But I was really waiting for someone to put the best memes in one place so we could all enjoy them. With thanks to editors John Yearwood and Ben Pauker.   Follow us on Twitter Ryan Heath @PoliticoRyan   Follow us

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