crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35703805

Archived

[Op-ed by Benedict Rogers, Senior Director of Fortify Rights and a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch.]

Dictatorships use solitary confinement as a form of torture, designed to break the prisoner’s spirit. Under international law, “prolonged solitary confinement” is defined as exceeding 15 days.

British citizen and 77 year-old media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, in jail in Hong Kong, has now exceeded 1,600 days in solitary confinement, yet has committed no crime.

He has already served several prison sentences on multiple trumped-up charges, including 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

[...]

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35707933

Archived

Question: [In 2025, U.S. President] Donald Trump ... jump started major changes in the global security order, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and populism is rising across Europe. How would you evaluate these first steps of the new era?

Timothy Garton Ash: The triple shock: the Putin shock, what I call the Xi Jinping shock, and now the Trump shock means that we are in the deepest crisis Europe has been in for a very long time, in some respects, since 1945.

But it also means that we all know that in Europe.

[...]

There's a long-term trend of the United States becoming less committed to and less engaged in Europe, which started already after the end of the Cold War. It was happening under the Democrats and under the Republicans. It's turning either to what (Barack) Obama called nation-building at home, or the pivot to Asia.

[...]

First of all, we never really had a unipolar world. Even the U.S.-led liberal international order was only a large part of the world. It worked because the United States was what the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry calls a "Liberal Leviathan."

[...]

So I believe that if we are to preserve what's left of the liberal international order, which is not a great deal, it's up to us as Europeans, but also other liberal democratic partners.

Canada becomes much more important to us. Australia becomes important to us. Japan becomes important to us. In other words, there's a whole new constellation of liberal international order — if you like, a new West.

[...]

Our role is to defend ourselves and to look after what we've achieved in Europe over the last 80 years. That means defending ourselves against external enemies or challenges. Obviously, Vladimir Putin's Russia in the first place, but also China in a different way, and other powers.

[...]

[We Europeans need to] preserve at least some elements of what we call the liberal international order — for example, a free trading world, an international economic order. The EU is a regulatory superpower. Can we preserve some of those shared regulations around the world?

[...]

I would say the forces of integration and disintegration [Ash mentions right-wing populism in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic] in Europe are quite finely balanced at the moment.

We have to be tough on populism and tough on the causes of populism. We have to fight the nationalist populist and make a convincing case to our public for a different approach.

But we also have to understand why they continue to get large numbers of votes. For example, the sense that large parts of our societies have been both economically and culturally neglected in the name of liberalism.

And we need to show that we care, we're actually doing something for them economically, that culturally we don't just care about specific minorities in the name of multiculturalism, but we actually care about everyone in our societies.

[...]

There's always been an anti-liberal Europe, as well as a liberal Europe throughout European history. And it's always been a great mistake to believe that the liberal Europe has prevailed once and for all. By the way, there are also liberal and anti-liberal forces in Ukraine, let's make no mistake about that.

The two things are intimately connected. It's very difficult to imagine Ukraine making a successful transition to a prosperous, sovereign, democratic European future if Europe is disintegrating next door. It's quite difficult to imagine a successful, liberal, democratic, integrated Europe if Ukraine is disintegrating next door.

[...]

[History is] going to give us both hope and warnings.

The warning is that just when everybody takes things for granted, they start going wrong. [...] The hope is that we already have examples of successful liberal fightback [against anti-democratic tendencies]. The Polish (2023 parliamentary) election is a classic example of a (country) which had nearly gone in the direction of Hungary and an electoral-authoritarian, non-liberal regime, and then it came back.

The larger lesson is that you have these wave movements in history. We had what I would call a liberal democratic revolution across Europe and much of the world from the early 1970s to the 2000s. Now we have an anti-liberal counter-revolution. But with time, people start discovering that that doesn't deliver either.

In fact, it delivers even less. And if you look at the enormous demonstrations in Serbia, large demonstrations in Hungary in support of an opposition candidate, and in Turkey after the imprisonment of Mr. (Ekrem) Imamoglu, you see that the fightback also comes from the countries that have gone authoritarian.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35707986

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35707933

Archived

Question: [In 2025, U.S. President] Donald Trump ... jump started major changes in the global security order, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and populism is rising across Europe. How would you evaluate these first steps of the new era?

Timothy Garton Ash: The triple shock: the Putin shock, what I call the Xi Jinping shock, and now the Trump shock means that we are in the deepest crisis Europe has been in for a very long time, in some respects, since 1945.

But it also means that we all know that in Europe.

[...]

There's a long-term trend of the United States becoming less committed to and less engaged in Europe, which started already after the end of the Cold War. It was happening under the Democrats and under the Republicans. It's turning either to what (Barack) Obama called nation-building at home, or the pivot to Asia.

[...]

First of all, we never really had a unipolar world. Even the U.S.-led liberal international order was only a large part of the world. It worked because the United States was what the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry calls a "Liberal Leviathan."

[...]

So I believe that if we are to preserve what's left of the liberal international order, which is not a great deal, it's up to us as Europeans, but also other liberal democratic partners.

Canada becomes much more important to us. Australia becomes important to us. Japan becomes important to us. In other words, there's a whole new constellation of liberal international order — if you like, a new West.

[...]

Our role is to defend ourselves and to look after what we've achieved in Europe over the last 80 years. That means defending ourselves against external enemies or challenges. Obviously, Vladimir Putin's Russia in the first place, but also China in a different way, and other powers.

[...]

[We Europeans need to] preserve at least some elements of what we call the liberal international order — for example, a free trading world, an international economic order. The EU is a regulatory superpower. Can we preserve some of those shared regulations around the world?

[...]

I would say the forces of integration and disintegration [Ash mentions right-wing populism in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic] in Europe are quite finely balanced at the moment.

We have to be tough on populism and tough on the causes of populism. We have to fight the nationalist populist and make a convincing case to our public for a different approach.

But we also have to understand why they continue to get large numbers of votes. For example, the sense that large parts of our societies have been both economically and culturally neglected in the name of liberalism.

And we need to show that we care, we're actually doing something for them economically, that culturally we don't just care about specific minorities in the name of multiculturalism, but we actually care about everyone in our societies.

[...]

There's always been an anti-liberal Europe, as well as a liberal Europe throughout European history. And it's always been a great mistake to believe that the liberal Europe has prevailed once and for all. By the way, there are also liberal and anti-liberal forces in Ukraine, let's make no mistake about that.

The two things are intimately connected. It's very difficult to imagine Ukraine making a successful transition to a prosperous, sovereign, democratic European future if Europe is disintegrating next door. It's quite difficult to imagine a successful, liberal, democratic, integrated Europe if Ukraine is disintegrating next door.

[...]

[History is] going to give us both hope and warnings.

The warning is that just when everybody takes things for granted, they start going wrong. [...] The hope is that we already have examples of successful liberal fightback [against anti-democratic tendencies]. The Polish (2023 parliamentary) election is a classic example of a (country) which had nearly gone in the direction of Hungary and an electoral-authoritarian, non-liberal regime, and then it came back.

The larger lesson is that you have these wave movements in history. We had what I would call a liberal democratic revolution across Europe and much of the world from the early 1970s to the 2000s. Now we have an anti-liberal counter-revolution. But with time, people start discovering that that doesn't deliver either.

In fact, it delivers even less. And if you look at the enormous demonstrations in Serbia, large demonstrations in Hungary in support of an opposition candidate, and in Turkey after the imprisonment of Mr. (Ekrem) Imamoglu, you see that the fightback also comes from the countries that have gone authoritarian.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35707933

Archived

Question: [In 2025, U.S. President] Donald Trump ... jump started major changes in the global security order, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and populism is rising across Europe. How would you evaluate these first steps of the new era?

Timothy Garton Ash: The triple shock: the Putin shock, what I call the Xi Jinping shock, and now the Trump shock means that we are in the deepest crisis Europe has been in for a very long time, in some respects, since 1945.

But it also means that we all know that in Europe.

[...]

There's a long-term trend of the United States becoming less committed to and less engaged in Europe, which started already after the end of the Cold War. It was happening under the Democrats and under the Republicans. It's turning either to what (Barack) Obama called nation-building at home, or the pivot to Asia.

[...]

First of all, we never really had a unipolar world. Even the U.S.-led liberal international order was only a large part of the world. It worked because the United States was what the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry calls a "Liberal Leviathan."

[...]

So I believe that if we are to preserve what's left of the liberal international order, which is not a great deal, it's up to us as Europeans, but also other liberal democratic partners.

Canada becomes much more important to us. Australia becomes important to us. Japan becomes important to us. In other words, there's a whole new constellation of liberal international order — if you like, a new West.

[...]

Our role is to defend ourselves and to look after what we've achieved in Europe over the last 80 years. That means defending ourselves against external enemies or challenges. Obviously, Vladimir Putin's Russia in the first place, but also China in a different way, and other powers.

[...]

[We Europeans need to] preserve at least some elements of what we call the liberal international order — for example, a free trading world, an international economic order. The EU is a regulatory superpower. Can we preserve some of those shared regulations around the world?

[...]

I would say the forces of integration and disintegration [Ash mentions right-wing populism in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic] in Europe are quite finely balanced at the moment.

We have to be tough on populism and tough on the causes of populism. We have to fight the nationalist populist and make a convincing case to our public for a different approach.

But we also have to understand why they continue to get large numbers of votes. For example, the sense that large parts of our societies have been both economically and culturally neglected in the name of liberalism.

And we need to show that we care, we're actually doing something for them economically, that culturally we don't just care about specific minorities in the name of multiculturalism, but we actually care about everyone in our societies.

[...]

There's always been an anti-liberal Europe, as well as a liberal Europe throughout European history. And it's always been a great mistake to believe that the liberal Europe has prevailed once and for all. By the way, there are also liberal and anti-liberal forces in Ukraine, let's make no mistake about that.

The two things are intimately connected. It's very difficult to imagine Ukraine making a successful transition to a prosperous, sovereign, democratic European future if Europe is disintegrating next door. It's quite difficult to imagine a successful, liberal, democratic, integrated Europe if Ukraine is disintegrating next door.

[...]

[History is] going to give us both hope and warnings.

The warning is that just when everybody takes things for granted, they start going wrong. [...] The hope is that we already have examples of successful liberal fightback [against anti-democratic tendencies]. The Polish (2023 parliamentary) election is a classic example of a (country) which had nearly gone in the direction of Hungary and an electoral-authoritarian, non-liberal regime, and then it came back.

The larger lesson is that you have these wave movements in history. We had what I would call a liberal democratic revolution across Europe and much of the world from the early 1970s to the 2000s. Now we have an anti-liberal counter-revolution. But with time, people start discovering that that doesn't deliver either.

In fact, it delivers even less. And if you look at the enormous demonstrations in Serbia, large demonstrations in Hungary in support of an opposition candidate, and in Turkey after the imprisonment of Mr. (Ekrem) Imamoglu, you see that the fightback also comes from the countries that have gone authoritarian.

Archived

Question: [In 2025, U.S. President] Donald Trump ... jump started major changes in the global security order, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and populism is rising across Europe. How would you evaluate these first steps of the new era?

Timothy Garton Ash: The triple shock: the Putin shock, what I call the Xi Jinping shock, and now the Trump shock means that we are in the deepest crisis Europe has been in for a very long time, in some respects, since 1945.

But it also means that we all know that in Europe.

[...]

There's a long-term trend of the United States becoming less committed to and less engaged in Europe, which started already after the end of the Cold War. It was happening under the Democrats and under the Republicans. It's turning either to what (Barack) Obama called nation-building at home, or the pivot to Asia.

[...]

First of all, we never really had a unipolar world. Even the U.S.-led liberal international order was only a large part of the world. It worked because the United States was what the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry calls a "Liberal Leviathan."

[...]

So I believe that if we are to preserve what's left of the liberal international order, which is not a great deal, it's up to us as Europeans, but also other liberal democratic partners.

Canada becomes much more important to us. Australia becomes important to us. Japan becomes important to us. In other words, there's a whole new constellation of liberal international order — if you like, a new West.

[...]

Our role is to defend ourselves and to look after what we've achieved in Europe over the last 80 years. That means defending ourselves against external enemies or challenges. Obviously, Vladimir Putin's Russia in the first place, but also China in a different way, and other powers.

[...]

[We Europeans need to] preserve at least some elements of what we call the liberal international order — for example, a free trading world, an international economic order. The EU is a regulatory superpower. Can we preserve some of those shared regulations around the world?

[...]

I would say the forces of integration and disintegration [Ash mentions right-wing populism in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic] in Europe are quite finely balanced at the moment.

We have to be tough on populism and tough on the causes of populism. We have to fight the nationalist populist and make a convincing case to our public for a different approach.

But we also have to understand why they continue to get large numbers of votes. For example, the sense that large parts of our societies have been both economically and culturally neglected in the name of liberalism.

And we need to show that we care, we're actually doing something for them economically, that culturally we don't just care about specific minorities in the name of multiculturalism, but we actually care about everyone in our societies.

[...]

There's always been an anti-liberal Europe, as well as a liberal Europe throughout European history. And it's always been a great mistake to believe that the liberal Europe has prevailed once and for all. By the way, there are also liberal and anti-liberal forces in Ukraine, let's make no mistake about that.

The two things are intimately connected. It's very difficult to imagine Ukraine making a successful transition to a prosperous, sovereign, democratic European future if Europe is disintegrating next door. It's quite difficult to imagine a successful, liberal, democratic, integrated Europe if Ukraine is disintegrating next door.

[...]

[History is] going to give us both hope and warnings.

The warning is that just when everybody takes things for granted, they start going wrong. [...] The hope is that we already have examples of successful liberal fightback [against anti-democratic tendencies]. The Polish (2023 parliamentary) election is a classic example of a (country) which had nearly gone in the direction of Hungary and an electoral-authoritarian, non-liberal regime, and then it came back.

The larger lesson is that you have these wave movements in history. We had what I would call a liberal democratic revolution across Europe and much of the world from the early 1970s to the 2000s. Now we have an anti-liberal counter-revolution. But with time, people start discovering that that doesn't deliver either.

In fact, it delivers even less. And if you look at the enormous demonstrations in Serbia, large demonstrations in Hungary in support of an opposition candidate, and in Turkey after the imprisonment of Mr. (Ekrem) Imamoglu, you see that the fightback also comes from the countries that have gone authoritarian.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35703805

Archived

[Op-ed by Benedict Rogers, Senior Director of Fortify Rights and a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch.]

Dictatorships use solitary confinement as a form of torture, designed to break the prisoner’s spirit. Under international law, “prolonged solitary confinement” is defined as exceeding 15 days.

British citizen and 77 year-old media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, in jail in Hong Kong, has now exceeded 1,600 days in solitary confinement, yet has committed no crime.

He has already served several prison sentences on multiple trumped-up charges, including 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

[...]

Archived

[Op-ed by Benedict Rogers, Senior Director of Fortify Rights and a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch.]

Dictatorships use solitary confinement as a form of torture, designed to break the prisoner’s spirit. Under international law, “prolonged solitary confinement” is defined as exceeding 15 days.

British citizen and 77 year-old media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, in jail in Hong Kong, has now exceeded 1,600 days in solitary confinement, yet has committed no crime.

He has already served several prison sentences on multiple trumped-up charges, including 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

[...]

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35696967

Archived

European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.

“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.

[...]

Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.

[...]

"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.

Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.

Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.

"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.

“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”

[...]

Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.

[...]

In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.

“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.

[...]

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35696967

Archived

European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.

“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.

[...]

Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.

[...]

"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.

Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.

Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.

"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.

“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”

[...]

Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.

[...]

In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.

“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.

[...]

Archived

European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.

“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.

[...]

Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.

[...]

"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.

Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.

Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.

"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.

“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”

[...]

Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.

[...]

In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.

“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.

[...]

Archived

The probability of a systemic banking crisis in Russia is on the rise, according to a new report from a state-affiliated economic think tank.

Experts at the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) warn that while a full-blown crisis has not yet materialized, several warning signs point to a high likelihood of one happening.

In its latest analysis, CMASF describes the current situation as a "resonance" of negative economic signals: rising bad debts, early indications of depositor flight and mounting pressure on both businesses and consumers from high interest rates.

[...]

A systemic banking crisis, as defined by CMASF, would involve at least one of three conditions: non-performing loans exceeding 10% of total banking assets, a significant withdrawal of funds by depositors, or large-scale bank recapitalizations exceeding 2% of the country’s GDP.

None of those conditions have been met so far, but the underlying risks are steadily growing, the report says.

[...]

The Russian Central Bank, which has maintained a tight monetary policy to combat inflation, acknowledges that high interest rates are putting strain on the financial system.

Corporate borrowers are increasingly struggling to service their debt, while households are accumulating bad loans at a growing pace.

[...]

In a recent financial stability report, the Central Bank identified corporate credit risk and consumer over-indebtedness as two of the six primary vulnerabilities in the financial system. It noted a marked increase in the cost of credit risk and a deterioration in repayment rates, particularly among retail borrowers.

[...]

Some of Russia’s largest corporations are already feeling the pressure. The Central Bank reports that 13 of the country’s 78 largest firms now earn less in profits than they owe in interest — an unsustainable dynamic if high rates persist.

[...]

Russia has weathered banking crises before, most recently in 2014-2015, when a crash in oil prices and Western sanctions over the annexation of Crimea sparked a deep financial shock.

That episode was successfully predicted by CMASF’s early-warning indicators, similar to those now raising concern.

Archived

[...]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said China has stopped selling drones to Kyiv and other European nations while continuing shipments to Russia.

“Chinese Mavic is open for Russians but is closed for Ukrainians,” Zelenskiy told a group of reporters on Tuesday. “There are production lines on Russian territory where there are Chinese representatives,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy added.

The Mavic is a popular civilian quadcopter, normally used for aerial photography, which can be adapted to carry explosives. On the battlefield, Mavics can be used both for surveillance and to attack enemy targets.

Drones have become central to the war in Ukraine, dramatically reshaping the tactics both sides employ on the frontline because of their ability to limit offensive maneuvers. They’ve also been increasingly used for long-range strikes far behind the frontlines.

A European official said that Zelenskiy’s remarks match their own assessments. The official said that China also appears to have curtailed deliveries to western buyers of some drone components, such as magnets used in motors, at the same time as ramping up deliveries to Russia.

“When someone is asking whether China is helping Russia, how shall we assess these steps?” Zelenskiy said.

Manufacturers in China began limiting sales to the US and Europe of key components Bloomberg reported late last year, in a move that western officials believed was a prelude to broader export restrictions.

[...]

Bloomberg reported last summer that Chinese and Russian companies were working together on developing attack drones. The US and European Union have since sanctioned several Chinese firms for aiding Moscow’s drone manufacturing operations and providing critical components, including as part of a recent package of measures adopted by Brussels earlier this month.

[...]

In March, Ukraine launched a so-called the Drone Line project that envisions the creation of a “kill zone” up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) along the front line to limit maneuvers by the Kremlin’s troops and provide air support for its own infantry.

Kyiv has asked allies to help finance its drone production as it seeks the ability to make between 300 to 500 units every 24 hours, Zelenskiy said.

“There is no issue in production capacity,” the Ukrainian president said. “The issue is in financing.”