Merkel's 'vacillations' aiding Putin in breaking Minsk2 'ceasefire'

At the Munich Security Conference held on the 7th February, 2015, Angela Merkel (left) stated that,

"I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily."(CBCNews : Feb 26, 2015)

And to-day, despite Angela Merkel's belief that 'diplomacy' is the only route to ensuring that the Minsk2 'ceasefire' is fully implemented, we learn that,

"There has been a surge in violence between government troops and pro-Russian rebels in east Ukraine, despite diplomatic efforts to enforce a truce....

A BBC team witnessed exchanges of fire during a ceasefire monitoring mission.

We were told by the pro-Russian rebels, who guided us, and other journalists, that things were quiet in the village of Shyrokyne, near the strategic port city of Mariupol.

But within minutes of arriving, there are loud explosions. A man lies seriously wounded on the ground. He's bleeding badly from the head. We learn he's called Andrei and is a journalist working for Russia's military TV channel." (BBC News : 14 April 2015) (my emphasis)

As Inna Varenytsia (right) reported 5 hours ago (current GMT : 9.45),

"The U.S. State Department supports the steps taken in Berlin, spokeswoman Marie Harf said Tuesday, but she also voiced concern about the ongoing fighting.

...

"The Russian-backed separatists continue to take aggressive action in Ukraine," she said. "And the Russian-backed separatists continue to stall Minsk implementation." (Associated Press (Yahoo News): 15 April, 2015) (my emphasis)

Putin's 'dyed-in-the-wool' Soviet foreign ministser, Sergei Lavrov (left), simply went through the motions of attending Monday's meeting in Berlin since,

"Heavy shelling was heard in Donetsk late Monday evening and in the early hours on Tuesday. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told a televised briefing that six troops were killed and 12 wounded in a 24-hour period, while rebels reported one fighter dead and five wounded in the overnight clashes." (ibid Inna Varenytsia) (my emphasis)

 Meanwhile Canada is sending 200 military trainers,

"...to help Ukraine's military in its struggle against Russian-backed rebels, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday, following months of requests for assistance from Ukraine's government.(right, with Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Tom Lawson) " (CBC News : April 14, 2015) (my emphasis)

We need to ask the question,

"Whilst the Minsk2 'ceasefire' is continually broken by Putin's proxies and Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine, and the body-count continues to rise inexorably, what is the real motive behind Merkel and her 'Putinversteher' foreign minister, Walter Steinmeier, continually pushing Minsk2, whilst at the same time practically denouncing those who wish to aid Poroshenko's with defensive lethal weaponry with which to protect Ukraine from Putin's military onslaught?"

Merkel's excuse that the Ukrainian military simply cannot defend itself against Putin's military might, and that arming Ukraine with defensive lethal weaponry will simply 'anger' Putin into acting even more irrationally than he is at present, simply does not hold water.

Like Putin's mindset, Merkel's mindset is also trapped in the past. Putin has his mind set on resuscitating 'Russia's Imperial Past', whilst Merkel cannot tear her mind away from the fact that the Soviet Union gave the 'green light' to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of eastern and western Germany.

As Thomas Burrows and Sam Webb reported last year,

"Angela Merket was joined by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as more than a million people took to the streets to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall." (MailOnline : 9 November 2014)
 

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago should be regarded as a sign of hope for people suffering in Ukraine ....." (The Telegraph : Wednesday 15 April 2015)
(my emphasis)

whilst Gorbachev,

"cast a shadow over the celebrations when he used the anniversary of a moment that heralded the end of the stand-off between the Soviet Union and the West to warn that: “The world is on the brink of a new Cold War”, because of the crisis in Ukraine."(ibid The Telegraph) (my emphasis)

Gorbachev has been proved to be correct.

Angela Merkel has been proved to be wrong.

How many more body-bags holding Ukrainian and Russian soldiers will it take for Angela Merkel to tear her mind away from regarding the Fall of the Berlin Wall as a 'sign of hope' for the Ukrainian people?

This is not a perversity on the part of Angela Merkel. It is simply immoral.

(to be continued)

Putin, Lebedev, and Inozemtsev

Vladislav Inozemtsev and Alexander Lebedev have penned an article in the Guardian newspaper (Monday 13 April 2015) entitled, "The west is wrong to write off Ukraine's debts".

Before we examine the nature of this article, let us take a peek at these two men.

Alexander Lebedev, (pic: Lebedev and Putin in 2002) Russian oligarch now resident in London, worked at the  First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the KGB from 1982.

This organization was responsible for,

"...foreign operations and intelligence collection activities by the training and management of the covert agents, intelligence collection management, and the collection of political, scientific and technical intelligence." (Wikipedia) (my emphasis)

Alexander Lebedev worked there, and at its successor, the Foreign Intelligence Service, until 1992. (Wikipedia)

Vladislav Inozemtsev (below),

"...worked as a junior editor in the Kommunist from April 1991 till September 1993. From 1993 till 1996 Mr. Inozemtsev was acting as an entrepreneur and business manager in various banks, became a founder and a principal shareholder of the Moscow-Paris com­mercial Bank, incorporated in Moscow in 1994." (Open Innovations : October 14–16, 2014)

A prolific author, he is also a regular contributor to the Valdai Club. The club’s goal is to promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elite. Essentially it is a club that gives Putin a platform to the world.

Their article in the Guardian newspaper explains that,

"The new government has been left in charge of a country crippled by both war and corruption, with external debts of $72.9bn at the beginning of this year. The finance ministry in Kiev – and the IMF – believe at least $20bn of this should be written off – because, after all, those responsible are no longer in power.....

 According to western analysts, the overall scale of corruption reached 14% of GDP during the early 2010s, or roughly $30bn a year. (left: The corrupt former president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, who stole billions from the Ukrainian people)

[and, as a consequence],

"Rather than absolving those responsible, as the present government appears to be doing, we believe the private sector should take the lead in holding [those who corruptly stole this money] to account.

Why not hire private detectives to analyse foreign currency transactions to get a rough idea of how much was syphoned off?..... When those responsible are identified, creditors could force Kiev to prosecute hundreds of former officials." (ibid Guardian newspaper) (my emphasis)

Are either Lebedev or Vladislav Inozemtsev aware that Yanukovich and his clan, who stole billions from the Ukrainian people, now resides in Putin's Russia, under the protection of Putin himself?

Why have neither of them mentioned this fact? Instead they focus on the hundreds of minor 'footsoldiers' when the cabal at the apex of corruption and theft from the Ukrainian people are in full view for the whole world to see?

Instead they talk about hiring "Kojak", or "Magnum" or even "Sherlock Holmes", to track down the corrupt footsoldiers of the former Yanukovich regime.

    
I leave it for the reader to decide exactly whose side Vladislav Inozemtsev and Alexander Lebedev are actually on. There is a faint whiff of 'maskirovka' in the article that they have written.

Meanwhile the 'Putinversteher' Walter Steinmeier emerged from yesterday's meeting in Berlin between Klimkin, Fabius, Lavrov, and himself, and announced that,

             Klimkin                             Fabius                                 Lavrov                      Steinmeiser

"It was again a very long, very intensive discussion which in parts was very controversial..."

"During these talks today the differences of opinion between Kiev and Moscow also became clear once again."
 
Both sides are largely thought to have adhered to the deal - until a recent escalation of fighting in the flashpoints near Donetsk and the village of Shyrokyne, on the outskirts of the strategic port of Mariupol. (BBC News : 14th April, 2015) (my emphasis)

The next few weeks will, indeed, determine exactly of what value this meeting in Berlin of Steinmeier actually has on putting the brakes on Putin's 'imperial ambitions' in Ukraine.

We may also ask if the Russian oligarch, Alexander Lebedev, will use all his connections to the former KGB (now the FSB) to employ them as "private detectives" to get Yanukovich and his clan, now residing in Russia, spill the beans on where they have hidden all the billions that they stole from the Ukrainian people.

(to be continued)

Has Putin stepped into the abyss of a "Black Swan" event?

"Is Putin's tangled web of deceit now enmeshing him?"

That was the title to my last blog entry.

As if to bring it alive, 14 minutes ago (BST: 17:55) it is learnt that Putin has lifted the ban on Russia supplying Tehran with a sophisticated S300 missile system. (BBC News : 13th April, 2015)

"Delivery of the S-300s was cancelled in 2010 after the UN imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

But the Russian president gave the go-ahead after Tehran struck an interim deal with world powers to curb nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
 ...........
The Russian defence ministry said it was ready to supply the S-300 equipment "promptly", an official there said, quoted by Interfax." (ibid BBC News) (my emphasis)

Yeganeh Torbati informs us, however, that,

".... many U.S. states are likely to stick with their own sanctions on Iran that could complicate any warming of relations between the long-time foes." (Reuters : Mon Apr 13, 2015) (my emphasis)


The question we now have to ask ourselves is,

"Has Putin finally stepped over the edge of the abyss into an unsuspecting Black Swan event into which he is now tumbling?"

Will this singular decision of Putin really bring it home to Germany's foreign minister, Walter Steinmeiser that Putin, with his KGB mind-set, will simply not adhere to the proposals of the Minsk2 agreement?

What now will be the decisions of the Berlin meeting between the foreign ministers of Ukraine, France, Germany, and Russia? Can "the preparation of local elections in the areas occupied by the separatists" in eastern Ukraine now still be considered as a viable option in fulfilling the decisions of the Minsk2 agreement? 

What now will the upcoming G7 meeting of foreign ministers have to discuss? What will Steinmeiser have to offer them? 

Or will the 'Putinversteher' Walter Steinmeier, like an ostrich with its head in the sand, stubbornly cling to his belief that Putin is prepared to give up on his designs for Ukraine?

 49 minutes ago (GMT: 18:35) it was reported by Claire Rosemberg that,

"Surging fighting around hotspots in separatist-held east Ukraine put fresh pressure on a shaky ceasefire under review at talks on Monday between the French, German, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers." (AFP (Yahoo News): 13 April, 2015) (my emphasis)
And it now emerges that,

""[Gazprom head Alexey] Miller (right) has just given a speech, in which he said that the transit contract with Ukraine would not be renewed after 2019,” (UNIAN : 13.04.2015) (my emphasis)

Furthermore that,

"...all efforts are aimed at implementing the construction of transportation infrastructure in Turkey, on the border of Turkey and Greece, and delivering [gas] to consumers in southeastern and central Europe via this route." (ibid UNIAN) (my emphasis)

We now await, with some trepidation, the outcome of today's Berlin meeting, whilst events that can have a direct impact on its outcome could simply not have been foreseen.

(to be continued)

Is Putin's tangled web of deceit now enmeshing him?

As the Minsk2 'ceasefire' continues to unravel, it was to be expected that, once again, Merkel's Foreign Minister, the 'Putinversteher' Walter Steinmeier,

"... has urged Russia and Ukraine to move forward with the terms of the Minsk ceasefire, ahead of a key meeting in Berlin." (DW : 13.04.2015)

"We expect both Moscow and Kyiv to seize the central issue of the implementation of the next phase of Minsk," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Monday's edition of German daily Die Welt.
This phase foresees "the preparation of local elections in the areas occupied by the separatists, but also humanitarian aid access and reconstruction in eastern Ukraine," Steinmeier said." (ibid DW) (my emphasis)

Steinmeier lauded the progress that had been made, citing the "well-advanced withdrawal of heavy weapons" (ibid DW)  in the face of,

(1) "Ukrainian forces [who] faced 20 attacks by Kremlin-led militants in the past 48 hours and spotted 30 enemy drones probing their positions, an unnamed NATO official said that Russia has sent additional military manpower and arms to Donbas (right: April 10, 2015.), according to a news report by the FrankruterAllgemeine Zeitung that interviewed the person." (KyivPost : April 12, 2015) (my emphasis)

AND

(2) "The OSCE this week demand[ing] that both the pro-Russian separatists and the regular Ukrainian army stop intimidating or restricting the movements of its 400 monitors." (AFP (Yahoo News) : 13 April, 2015)

Is Steinmeier giving Putin an 'exit strategy' from his war with Ukraine; an 'exit strategy' to be presented at to-day's meeting in Berlin that will be attended by himself, Russia's Lavrov, France's Fabius and Ukraine's Klimkin?

             Klimkin                              Fabius                                Lavrov                      Steinmeier

The results of to-day's meeting in Berlin will then be discussed at "a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Luebeck, Germany, on Tuesday and Wednesday." (ibid AFP (Yahoo News)) (my emphasis)

The current G7 group consists of Canada's Robert Nicholson, France's Laurent Fabius, Germany's Walter Steinmeier, the UK's Philip Hammond, Italy's Paolo Gentiloni, Japan's Fumio Kishida, and the US's John Kerry.

   Canada: Nicholson         France: Fabius        Germany: Steinmeier           UK : Hammond

           Italy: Gentiloni                Japan: Kishida               US: Kerry

We can reasonably expect that France, Germany, and Italy will be fully supportive of Steinmeier's suggestion about pushing the Minsk2 agreements to the next stage.

Canada, the UK, and the US, will be very reluctant to endorse Steinmeier due to the fact that EACH of these countries have sent military trainers to Ukraine in response to Putin's continous build-up of his forces in eastern Ukraine.

The position of Japan will be dictated by the longstanding dispute between Russia and Japan over the Kuril Islands issue. Kishida is thus also unlikely to endorse Steinmeier's proposal about moving Minsk2 to the next phase of preparing for 'elections' in eastern Ukraine.

Putin must be apoplectically angry about this G7 meeting since Russia was,

"....suspended from the elite G8 group of leading economies, who said they could not accept its breach of international law [in annexing Ukrainian Crimea].

David Cameron, Barack Obama and other world leaders said it was up to Vladimir Putin to 'change course' over Ukraine or his country will remain excluded indefinitely. " (Tamara Cohen : Daily Mail: 25 March 2014) (my emphasis)

The feverish diplomatic activity over the war between Ukraine and Putin's Russia that is taking place in this and the coming weeks signifies, more than anything else, that Putin is, indeed, teetering on the brink of falling into the abyss of a Black Swan event over which he will have no control.

The web of deceit that he has tried to spin since his invasion and annexing of Ukrainian Crimea has now become for him a tangled mess. 
 
This tangled mess is now also beginning to embrace Putin's puppet in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov (left).

"Adam Osmayev (right), the commander of a battalion of Chechens fighting against Russia-backed rebels, is in the town of Lysychansk, Ukraine......
......


[Meanwhile Ramzan Kadyrov's] men have steadily expanded their sway beyond Chechnya to control lucrative businesses in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

Leaders of [Chechnya's] federal law enforcement agencies have watched Kadyrov's growing power with dismay and have made no secret of their desire to curb him." (US News : April 12, 2015) (my emphasis)

And how is Putin responding to the growing dis-satisfaction of Chechnya's law enforcement agencies with Kadyrov's growing power?

"Putin quickly sent a signal that he intended to stand by Kadyrov by awarding him the Order of Honor for distinguished public service, a day after Kadyrov spoke out in defense of the arrested Chechens [accused of the murder of Boris Nemtsov (right)]. (ibid US News) (my emphasis)

"And while leaders are divided over the conflict in Ukraine, they have been united in observing sacred ceremonies marking Christians’ belief in the resurrection of Christ." (EuroNews : 12 April, 2015)

(to be continued)

Putin's anger in 'overdrive'

Claire Rosemberg (left)  and Oleksandr Savochenko report that,

" Controversial laws designed to leave Ukraine's Soviet past behind stoked tension in the war-divided country Friday and prompted an angry reaction from Russia which called the ban on communist-era symbols "totalitarian".......Ukraine's parliament voted on Thursday to ban communist-era and Nazi symbols in what supporters said was a bid to break with the country's tragic World War II past and Moscow's domination through most of the 20th century.(AFP (Yahoo News): April 10,2015) (my emphasis)

And in Kharkiv, 48 Hours after these laws were passed,

"Activists toppled three statues of Communist leaders overnight Friday in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, days after parliament passed a controversial bill designed to purge the country of Soviet-era symbols." (FRANCE 24 with AFP : 11 April, 2015)

And whilst Putin is lashing out at this law to erase the symbols of Ukraine's Soviet past, Sarah Rainsford informs us that,

"A central Russian gallery has cancelled the opening of an exhibition of World War Two images by US and British photographers, sparking claims that the event was pulled for political reasons.....

A staff member at the state-run gallery told the BBC that the decision to cancel the exhibition was "political", and said they did not believe it would ever open. They said they had been "ordered" not to comment further." (BBC News :11 April 2015) (my emphasis) (picture: 1945: US and Soviet troops finally met at Torgau, deep inside Germany)

Meanwhile, the OSCE Monitoring Mission to Ukraine is reporting multiple instances where the Minsk2 'ceasefire' has recently been broken. 

Olena Gordiienko (left) also informs us that,

"Russian forces and their proxies fired 20 times at Ukraine-controlled positions in the past 24 hours, while employing an alarming number of 30 surveillance drones over Kyiv-controlled territory in war-torn eastern Ukraine." (KyivPost : April 11, 2015) (my emphasis)
 
This continuous breakdown of the Minsk2 'ceasefire' since its adoption in February has prompted Angela Merkel to announce that,

"Berlin has ... plans to bring dozens of mothballed tanks back into service. There is speculation the move is in response to increased demands from the Ukraine crisis." (DW : 11 April,2015) (my emphasis)

At the same time as Merkel is 'reviving' her mothballed tanks, Mercedes Stephenson of CTV News reports that,

"Canada will be sending troops to Ukraine to participate in a non-combat role in the region in the coming months." (CTV News : Friday, April 10, 2015)

But perhaps most alarming for Putin, Pavel Polityuk reports that,

"Ukraine, locked in conflict with Russian-backed separatists in its east, on Thursday drew up a new security doctrine denouncing Russia's "aggression" and setting its sights on joining the U.S.-led NATO military alliance." (Reuters : Thu Apr 9, 2015)

All these developments yet again indicates that Putin is preparing for an invasion of Mariupol, as well as preparing the Russian people 'emotionally' for this imminent invasion.

To this end, Putin's propaganda machine is in overdrive.  

On the 8th of April, Natalia Antelava (left) and Abdujalil Abdurasulov reported that,

"Russian television stations recently report claims that a 10-year-old girl had been killed by shelling." (BBC News : 8 April,2015)

What is frightening about this story is that while this event never happened, the Russian people actually believe that is has simply because Putin's propaganda machine solemnly reported it on Russian TV.

This type of cruel and cynical false reporting on Russian TV occurred as early as in July of 2014 when it was reported that a young child had been crucified in Slovyansk for simply speaking Russian, and that his unconscious mother was then bound to a tank and driven 3 times around the square where her child had been crucified. (English subtitled version)

Is Putin now so furious at the toppling of Lenin statues in Kharkiv, and with Ukraine setting its sights on joining NATO, that his anger will get the better of him and he WILL step into the abyss and fall headlong into an unsuspecting Black Swan event, the consequences of which is simply too ghastly to contemplate?

(to be continued)

Putin's "no-exit strategy" gamble

There is a rather fundamental question that needs to be asked about Putin's 'maskirovka' strategy in giving the 'green light' to the releasing of a spate of bombings in Kharkov.

As Simon Shuster reports from Kharkov,

"Soon after midnight on April 1, a separatist group calling itself the Kharkov Partisans issued another one of its video warnings to the Ukrainian government. It claimed that within the next 48 hours a bomb would explode far behind the front lines of the war in eastern Ukraine. “As of now, the earth will begin to burn beneath your feet,” said the group’s spokesman, Filipp Ekozyants, in the message to Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and his top security officials.

Sure enough, the bomb arrived. Though reports have been conflicting as to the damage it caused, a large explosion rang out in the southwestern part of Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, within 24 hours of the Partisans’ threat." (Time : 10 April, 2015) (my emphasis)

As these bombings are taking place, Melik Kaylan (left) informs us that,

"Russian forces busily resupply for Ukraine ahead of a Spring offensive, according to numerous sources including a former head of Nato.  According to my own sources in Ukraine, where I was two weeks ago, Russian military assets have spread broadly all along Ukraine’s eastern border formed up in three waves in order to stretch and overwhelm Ukrainian defences across an entire front." (Forbes : 10/04/2015)
 
For more than a month it has become more and more apparent that Putin is determined to create a landbridge between Russia and Ukrainian Crimea by invading the strategic city of Mariupol.

Clashes between Putin's rebel proxies and his Russian soldiers have recently increased in both intensity and confrontations with the Ukrainian armed forces.

As Natalia Zinets reports,

"The enemy has significantly intensified firing on our positions from weapons that according to the Minsk agreement are meant to have been withdrawn," Kiev's military spokesman Andriy Lysenko (left) said in a televised briefing, adding that the majority of attacks had taken place around the airport of rebel-held Donetsk." (Reuters : Fri Apr 10, 2015) (my emphasis)

"Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors have come under fire by Kremlin-backed separatist forces in Donetsk Oblast's Shyrokyne, casting more doubt about the durability of a cease-fire reached in February.
A statement issued by the organization's Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine on April 8, said the incident occurred at an improvised roadblock about 20 kilometers east of Mariupol on April 7.", as reported by Allison Quinn. (right) (KyivPost : April 8, 2015) (my emphasis)

Allison Quinn further reports that,

"The Security Service of Ukraine has detained 29 people in Odessa accused of plotting political assassinations as part of a wider scheme to destabilize the region, the head of the agency announced.
"As of today there are 29 people (in custody), most of them are Ukrainian citizens," Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said at a briefing on April 9.
"They were preparing for ordered political killings ... to begin seizing the territory and splitting Odessa off from Ukraine," Nalyvaichenko said, adding that the suspects had planned to kill a local lawmaker and several activists." (KyivPost : April 9, 2015) (my emphasis)

All of these current events point to the fact that Putin has no exit-strategy from his war with Ukraine.

Neither Putin, nor his kleptocratic 'siloviki' clan that surrounds him, can be seen to retreat from his  grandiose 'imperial' aims that his propaganda machine has subjected the minds of the Russians to.

Putin's 'siloviki' clan that now surrounds him

          Fradkov                     Shoigu                    Patruschev                   Kolokoltsev                   Bortnikov

Putin is now throwing everything, short of his 'nuclear' kitchen sink, at ensuring that his imminent invasion of Mariupol is not met with defeat.


A defeat for Putin will spell the end of him. The Russian public will not forgive him. His 'aura' of invincibility, that has been force-fed into the minds of the Russian people by his propaganda machine, will simply dissipate into thin air.

He may try to regain his 'invincibility aura' by continuing to demonise the west, but 'the die will be cast'.

The imminent invasion of Mariupol is the biggest gamble that Putin will be taking in his life. No longer can he view the Ukrainian forces with the contempt with which he viewed them when invading, and ultimately annexing, Ukrainian Crimea.

The Ukrainian forces are now battle-hardened. They have proved themselves to be more than a match for his rebel proxies and Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

His imminent invasion of Mariupol will also be the tipping point at which Obama will have concede to the demands of both the House of Representatives and the Senate that the US supply Ukraine with defensive lethal weaponry.

Added to which, NATO members in Europe, especially the Baltic States and Poland, will be placed on 'high alert' should he invade Mariupol.

Such an invasion by Putin will neither be lost on Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, nor on Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan.

We are therefore left with two questions.

(1) Is all this military preparation by Putin for an invasion of Mariupol simply an elaborate
      'masquerade' to directly influence the upcoming meeting of EU leaders on 27 April
      that will address Poroshenko's request for European peacekeepers to help
      monitor the truce between Kiev and pro-Russian rebels, aimed at ending nearly a
      year of fighting?

OR

(2) Is Putin so infused with his KGB training never to double down, fight his way out,
     turn up the pressure, never admit, never retreat, that he will simply step into
     the abyss into an unsuspecting Black Swan event that will be precipitated by his
     invasion of Mariupol?

(to be continued)