| | | | |  | | By Ryan Heath | Send tips and thoughts to: rheath@politico.com Check out the weekly Global Insider podcast | Follow Ryan on Twitter.
| | | Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are on the phone, a call that started at 9 a.m. ET. The topics: Managing competitive tensions and Russia's war in Ukraine, in particular Beijing's possible provision of military equipment to Russia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China will bear responsibility for the outcome if it does supply Russia. Conundrum: How to negotiate with a war criminal? Once a president uses that label — as Biden did Wednesday for President Vladimir Putin — it can't be walked back. Further peace negotiations now probably involves Turkey, Finland or Israel mediating. BATTLEFRONTS Follow POLITICO's Ukraine live blog here. LYIV TARGETED: Ukraine's border city near Poland was hit with missiles overnight as Russian forces targeted "the only enterprise in Ukraine that refurbishes MiG-29s for the Ukrainian Air Force," per the New York Times. JAPAN SPOTS FOUR RUSSIAN AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORTS: These vessels are used to land forces, and they were spotted sailing near Japanese islands toward Europe. DEVASTATING HEALTH SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES: WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the U.N. Security Council of the devastating impacts of war for those in need of care in Ukraine, but didn't mention Russia once. RUSSIAN IMPACTS OF WAR PUTIN — PARANOID AND PURGING: The Russian president is in full Stalin mode: His fellow Russians are no longer human if they disagree with him in any way. He is purging top military staff — "general officers and intelligence personnel," the Institute for the Study of War said in a March 11 update. And now there's reports Putin is replacing his entire personal staff of 1,000 people — according to Daily Beast contributing editor Craig Copetas: " Laundresses, secretaries, cooks" replaced with "a whole new group of people." How to encourage desertion from the Russian army, which is made up mostly of ethnic minorities and Russian rural poor: Offer them safe passage and free accommodation in traditional Russian tourist spots in the West and Turkey, explains Wilson Center's Kamil Galeev — that's more attractive than ending up in a Ukrainian prison or a ditch. Ways to reach Russian hearts and minds directly, by Gregory Sims. RUSSIA SITTING PRETTY WITH GERMAN INCOME: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues his global virtual speech tour. On Thursday, he appealed for help in a scathing 20-minute televised speech to the German Bundestag about the human price of buying Russian oil and gas. Robert Habeck, the Green vice chancellor and economy and climate minister, warned: "If we flip the switch immediately, there will be supply shortages, even supply stops, mass unemployment, poverty." Reality check: Habeck is partially correct and it's partially because Germany turned off three nuclear power plants this winter. Here's 10 suggestions from the International Energy Agency on how to immediately cut oil use. ETHICAL MINEFIELD FOR SOME BUSINESSES: Phil Bloomer, head of the NGO Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, told my colleague Leonie Kijewski "every company has to be alert to how it may contribute to the conflict dynamics and how it might raise the risks of human rights abuses." See his guidance for companies on due diligence during conflicts. Practical examples: If you have a company "producing high-protein biscuits that are likely to be going into the Russian troops' rations in Ukraine, they are violating international humanitarian law" by continuing operations, Bloomer said. But pulling out of Russia could also breach international law: You can't starve ordinary Russians in order to harm the military. Dmytro Los from the Ukrainian Business and Trade Association, told POLITICO: "They also have kids. We don't want Russia to starve, we simply don't want them to spend their money on war."
| | | | 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 IMPACTS OF WAR COULD NATO COUNTRIES BECOME RUSSIAN TARGETS? The literal answer is yes, though Russia's military supply issues mean sustained attack is implausible. NATO's Jens Stoltenberg told CNN: "We now have hundreds of thousands of NATO troops on heightened alert across the alliance … to make sure there's no attack on any NATO allied countries … the destruction we see now in Ukraine can become even worse if this conflict in Ukraine escalates to full fledged war between NATO and Russia in Europe." SRI LANKA — ECONOMY CRUSHED BY WAR IN UKRAINE: It may be 4,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean, but thanks to soaring oil import costs and the end of Russian tourism, on top of 15 percent inflation, a default on the cards. Sri Lankans are now waiting several hours in line to buy fuel, which many can now barely afford. Sri Lanka has "$2 billion in foreign exchange reserves and $7 billion in debt payments due this year," per Anusha Ondaatjie. AFRICA AND EURASIA — MORE SIGNS OF INSTABILITY: Gilbert F. Houngbo, president of the U.N.'s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), told Global Insider by email that he's most worried about the rural poor, and predicts "dire implications for global stability." IFAD analysis shows Somali farming suffering — small-scale farmers can't afford rising diesel prices to run the diesel engines that irrigate their crops. Lebanon: Will be among the first hit by choked-off Russian and Ukraine wheat, source of 80 percent of its supply: The country "can only store about one month's worth of the crop at a time due to the blast in Beirut's port in 2020 that destroyed the country's major grain silos." The one month mark is today. Kyrgyzstan: Remittances from Russia make up around a quarter of GDP. With the ruble's value plummeting, families of migrants will go without food and other necessities. Mozambique: "Cutting fees levied on fuel to try and keep a lid on prices." South Africa: Mulling rationing gasoline and diesel sales. African Development Bank: Accelerating a $1 billion plan to boost wheat production on the continent. CANCEL CULTURE: Air Serbia has canceled flights to Russia — the last European airline that operated in Russia. UKRAINE PERSPECTIVES Why Ukraine needs air defense, not a no-fly zone Inside the diary of a Chechen warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, aka "Putin's attack dog," who has posted a series of voice messages, videos and written texts online since Russian troops launched their all-out assault on Ukraine last month. How to punish Putin for both past and present crimes: Gissou Nia and Jomana Qaddour argue that "justice will remain incomplete if these inquiries don't connect the dots with Putin's crimes in Chechnya, Syria, and elsewhere." Marie Yovanovitch speaks about not doing enough to stop Putin, and what more should be done now. Yovanovitch has a memoir out this week: Lessons From the Edge. NEW PODCAST EPISODE WITH STEVE KILLELEA
| | | | Is global peace worth $15 trillion a year? That's the claim of Steve Killelea , the philanthropist behind the Institute for Economics and Peace and author of the Global Peace Index. He says $15 trillion is a conservative number "because we can only count what we can count." In this week's episode, he takes us beyond the deadly conflict in Ukraine to the regions we should worry about next, and explores ways of thinking to help us avoid the complacencies that blinded so much of the world to Russia's intentions toward its neighbors.
| | | WORLD ECONOMY SPLITTING INTO BLOCS — WHAT SHOULD DEMOCRACIES DO? Russia's war is not the end of globalization, but democracies do need to develop a deep common market, says Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The invasion and resulting sanctions "will speed up the corrosion of globalization already underway," and "the world economy really will split into blocs — one oriented around China and one around the United States, with the European Union mostly but not wholly in the latter camp — each attempting to insulate itself from and then diminish the influence of the other." The job of Western policymakers now is to limit the economic damage. The developing world will be the collateral damage, Posen said.
| | | | 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. | | | | | COVID CORNER CHINA ISN'T LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THE PANDEMIC: President Xi said Thursday China will stick with its "zero-Covid" strategy. China isn't special, so we all know how this is going to turn out: With an eventual back down. But Xi does need to pretend this strategy will work until he is confirmed as leader for life in October. What's unusual in the case of China's strategy — compared to, say, Australia or New Zealand — is the lengths Beijing will go to cover up the costs of the policy. China's underperforming vaccines and chauvinism around using them instead of foreign competitors may cause significant loss of life. PROGRESS ON SHARING VACCINE IP: An agreement between the European Union, India, South Africa and the United States brings the world one step closer to universal access to Covid vaccines, but the WTO is cautious. "We are not there yet. We have more work to do to ensure that we have the support of the entire WTO Membership," WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said via email. The 164 WTO members take decisions by consensus. COVID — E-COMMERCE RECEDES ALONG WITH THE PANDEMIC: The IMF conducted research on aggregated and anonymized Mastercard transactions in 47 countries from 2018 to late 2021. "We found that the share of online spending rose more in economies where e-commerce already played a large role — and that the increase is reversing as the pandemic recedes." On average, e-commerce jumped from 10.3 percent in 2019 to 14.9 percent of spending at the peak of the pandemic, and fell back to 12.2 percent in 2021. VIRTUAL ST. PATRICK'S DAY — IRISH PM COVID POSITIVE IN WASHINGTON: Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin tested positive for Covid while in Washington to meet President Biden. After receiving the news, Martin had to leave an event where he was photographed sitting maskless beside U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Biden was also at the event, but not in close contact. More details here. FRIDAY IS THE NEW SATURDAY: After two years of pandemic-induced working-from-home, the notion of a four-day work week has been gaining momentum. Just last month, the Belgian government agreed to give employees the possibility of compressing the country's statutory 38 working hours into four days, provided their bosses agree. Paola Tamma has more on why Friday could become the new Saturday for more people. U.K. — OFFSHORING ASYLUM SEEKERS: This policy field was pioneered and refined by Australia, which shipped asylum seekers to remote islands — sometimes for years at a time — and contracted third countries to take those it didn't want. British Home Secretary Priti Patel wants a similar system: Flying asylum seekers to Ascension Island, 4,000 miles from Britain, at eye-watering costs. It would be cheaper to house the asylum seekers at The Ritz in London's Mayfair, according to a group of Conservative MPs rebelling against the plan. Not only that: A former minister from the ruling Conservatives, Andrew Mitchell, wrote to his colleagues "we would effectively have to build a British Guantanamo Bay and use Royal Air Force planes" to run it. The rebels are led by former government minister Timothy Kirkhope who successfully amended the Nationality and Borders bill in the House of Lords to drop the idea of "offshoring" asylum seekers. Next: The government will attempt to reinsert the language in House of Commons debate. FRANCE — ELECTION ROUND-UP: First round presidential voting is April 10 with a runoff scheduled for April 24. President Emmanuel Macron is pitching himself as the safe bet during uncertainty . He stormed to victory in 2017 and followed up with a crushing parliamentary majority a month later. This year, he has opened up a 12-point lead over Marine Le Pen from the far-right National Rally, according to POLITICO's Poll of Polls, compared to a 3 percent buffer five years ago. Macron is using that buffer to push for a mandate to raise France's retirement age to 65 and reform France's pension system — changes that have eluded previous presidents and prime ministers — and leaning on fairly standard French approach to the role of the state. "I'm not afraid to say I want to plan the production of energy and the deployment of new industrial sectors," he said in his election pitch Thursday. Le Pen's well-documented links with Russia don't seem to be hurting her. POLITICO's Clea Caulcutt explains that Le Pen's early focus on energy prices and other cost-of-living issues may have paid off.
| | | BIG TECH SALARIES REVEALED: From engineering to marketing. AIRBNB'S PLEDGE TO HOUSE UKRAINIAN REFUGEES GETS REALITY CHECK, reports POLITICO's Pieter Haeck. BLOOMBERG NEW ECONOMY SETS UP PANAMA "GATEWAY": That starts with a conference May 18-19. "Panama has long been a critical link between continents," explained Michael Bloomberg. BUENOS AIRES WILL HOST WORLD MAYORS SUMMIT. The event will take place Oct 19-21, in the lead-up to the COP27 climate summit. WTO — NEW PRESIDENTIAL LECTURE SERIES: The first speaker will be Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley on Tuesday. THE 15 BEST TRAIN TRIPS IN THE WORLD, according to Condé Nast KLEPTOWATCH CHASING PUTIN'S ASSETS: Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that the U.K. National Crime Agency and intelligence services believe Vladimir Putin has millions in assets stashed in Britain and will attempt to identify and freeze those assets. It will be an uphill battle, says Hudson Institute's Nate Sibley: "There's literally no paper trail." Abramovich's post-invasion asset transfers: Ownership of a company linked to Roman Abramovich in the British Virgin Islands was transferred to a close business associate hours after Russia invaded Ukraine. OLIGARCHS GOT RICHER DESPITE SANCTIONS: Eight years of sanctions didn't have a big effect on the wealth trajectories of the people the sanctions were supposed to punish. YACHT WATCH: Royal Romance, the yacht of Viktor Medvedchuk, co-leader of the pro-Kremlin Opposition Platform, was seized in Croatia. Meanwhile, a yacht owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky is stuck in Norway because oil suppliers are refusing to refuel it, The New York Times reports. Keeping tabs on Russian-owned superyachts: VesselsValue, a maritime data firm, told POLITICO's Joseph Gedeon that they estimate there are 65 superyachts with Russian "beneficial owners." But there's a caveat to that claim: Because such yachts may be registered to shell companies or flying flags of countries far from Russia, "we do not have a 100 percent confidence — we probably have a 90 percent confidence interval, and we are probably missing a lot of connections," the company said via email. Upshot: There may be upwards of 50 superyachts owned by oligarchs or their associates that are still on the high seas or safely unsanctioned in port.
| | | SHORT READ: What Will It Take for Architects to Stop Working With Autocrats? By Justin Davidson LONG READ: The trans swimmer who won too much, by Louisa Thomas LONG READ — THE GOVERNOR ENGAGING CHINA ON CLIMATE: Four-term Californian governor Jerry Brown has spent a lifetime warning us of our folly. A champion of sustainable development since the 1970s, Brown now leads the California-China Climate Institute, a Berkeley-affiliated think tank that this week made the case for the early retirement of about 1,000 coal-fired power plant units across China. "I don't believe in not meeting. I believe that China and the U.S. must collaborate very closely," he said. Read the interview by Debra Kahn — conducted at Brown's off-the-grid ranch. Thanks to editor John Yearwood, producer Kaitlyn Olvera, Joseph Gedeon and all the POLITICO reporters working across eight countries who are reporting on the Russian war in Ukraine. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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