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For years, Oksana Baulina did her best to stand up to Vladimir Putins system in Russia, and was eventually forced to flee the country. Last week, she was killed by a Russian missile, soon after arriving in Kyiv to report on Vladimir Putins invasion.

The death of Baulina, a former associate of opposition politician Alexei Navalny who was working for the Russian news outlet The Insider, has put the spotlight on the tiny group of independent Russian journalists now inside Ukraine.

In their work, they are attempting to break through the Kremlins stranglehold on information about events in the country, which official Russian media insists on calling a special operation to liberate Ukraine from Nazis.

Colleagues paid tribute to Baulina as a passionate and fierce reporter, who had given up a life working in glossy magazines to stand up for what she believed in.

I met her a few days before her death, I was probably the only person from her previous life that she met here, and she was explaining in great detail her plans, she was just so enthusiastic and really wanting to do the reporting, said Peter Verzilov, an activist and journalist who is the publisher of news site Mediazona, in an interview in Lviv.

Mediazona, like many Russian-language news outlets, was blocked by the Russian internet watchdog in the early days of the war for not adhering to wartime censorship rules that ban any information that could discredit Russias army.

Despite the block, during the last month our readership numbers went up almost twice, to about 3.5 million unique visitors this month, said Verzilov.

Nevertheless, Verzilov said it was clear that Russian state messaging was working on a large number of Russians, pointing to the numerous stories of Ukrainians contacting friends or relatives in Russia and being told they were imagining the things they could see with their own eyes.

When your own son is telling you, Dad, do not believe the fucking television, its not true, and you say No, no, Nazis are just brainwashing you, it does show that Russian propaganda is amazingly effective for certain portions of the population. It really does work, when youre switching between channels and all of them have the same content, said Verzilov.

Other journalists agreed that cutting through the state-sponsored noise was getting ever harder. Last weekend, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave an interview to several independent Russian outlets, and Russian authorities immediately announced any site that published it could face criminal responsibility.

The people who say, theres plenty of information on the internet, they just dont understand what theyre talking about. My twin sister asked me how to watch Zelenskiy, she just had no idea how to find it, said Yevgenia Albats, a veteran Russian journalist who edits the New Times website.

Albats said 741 websites have been shut down in Russia since the beginning of the war, and said the effect was hard to overstate. The New Times was blocked on the second day of the war. Albats is still updating the website using a VPN, though four of her employees have left the country.

Basically, its a total evaporation of any alternative news or opinions in the Russian language media sphere. Total destruction. Annihilation of any alternative views and opinions.

A singular exception has been the reporting filed from Ukraine by Elena Kostyuchenko, a resourceful and fearless reporter for Russias Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel prize last year.

Kostyuchenko was initially turned away from the border when she tried to cross from Poland on the first day of the war, but was let in after the editorial board made some phone calls. Since then, she has been in southern Ukraine. She has filed moving reports from Mykolaiv, which has been under intense Russian attack, and Kherson, currently occupied by Russian troops.

Every day, I see the crimes my country is committing. Every day I see injured people, dead people, destroyed houses, I spoke in Kherson with people who lived through kidnappings, she said, in a telephone interview from Mykolaiv.

Its morally difficult, but I think it would have been morally more difficult to sit in Moscow and follow it on internet, she said.

Once inside Ukraine, Kostyuchenko said she did not have problems working with a Russian passport, once she had explained she was from Novaya Gazeta.

The majority of people understand why Im here, support what Im doing and support me hugely, she said.

Novaya Gazeta took the decision to follow Russian censorship laws, not using the word war or occupation but instead leaving blank spaces where the forbidden sections would go.

Kostyuchenko said she wrote her texts without censorship and they were then redacted by editors in consultations with lawyers.

If the law was formulated to only put journalists in prison, inside the office we would publish everything, but the law is formulated so all the people associated with the text: proofreaders, internet managers and the accountants, could be responsible, said Kostyuchenko.

We had a meeting inside the editorial board. We had two options: close or to continue working in the regime of military censorship. More than 90% of readers voted for us to keep on working, she said.

This did not save the publication, however, and earlier this week Muratov announced that Novaya would be closing until the end of the special operation in Ukraine.

Many independent journalists have left Russia altogether, in fear of being jailed under the new laws. Albats said she had no plans to leave Moscow, but was crying every day over what had become of Russia, and the fact her country was waging a war of conquest.

We are destroying another country and killing people. And this is unbearable. I understand that what Im doing is basically almost useless. I do this because otherwise Im going to hang myself, she said.

See the rest here:
Russian reporters in Ukraine: Every day I see dead and injured - The Guardian

Ukraine could face England, the United States of America and Iran at the 2022 World Cup, should they progress beyond their postponed European play-off tie.

Ukraines UEFA play-off semi-final match against Scotland was originally scheduled for March 24 but was postponed last month after Russia launched an invasion of its neighbouring country.

The postponement also prevented Wales from playing their next play-off match, as they had been due to take on the winners of Ukraines game against Scotland after their defeat of Austria.

It is hoped the matches can eventually take place in the summer. But the situation remains uncertain as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues.

The tournaments opening match will see hosts Qatar, whose staging of the World Cup finals has proven controversial for the reasons examined in this article, face Ecuador in Al Khor on November 21.

Kick-off times and venues for the remaining group-stage matches are yet to be decided.

The Ukraine football authorities made a request to FIFA to postpone the game scheduled for March 24 at Hampden Park, which was granted.

The request was made after Russia launched its invasion of the country.

Both of Scotlands national team captains, Andy Robertson and Rachel Corsie, expressed solidarity with Ukraines footballers ahead of the decision.

Thats uncertain.

Provisional UEFA and FIFA plans involve Scotland facing Ukraine on a June date originally intended for Nations League fixtures.

It is then hoped the winners could face Wales days later for a World Cup place.

But Scotlands national team coach, Steve Clarke, said he was doubtful the match could take place in the summer.

The very short answer is no, he said when asked last month whether there had been an update on the play-off. I would imagine everyone is waiting until this round of matches is out of the way and then see how the situation develops. But, obviously, its not looking great at this moment.

If youre asking me now will the game go ahead in June then its going to be difficult.

Ukraines coach, Oleksandr Petrakov, has expressed similar doubts.

As long as people in my country continue to die, I cannot think about playing the game in Scotland, Petrakov said in an interview with Ukrainian TV station Football 1.

We still have April and May to come, and we will see what happens then, but we are supposed to playing Scotland in June as well as Nations League games.

But we can't think about them at the moment given the current situation.

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked at NATO headquarters in Brussels if Ukraine should get an automatic place at the World Cup and said it sounds like a good idea.

Former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish added: It is time for FIFA to step up and say to Ukraine the pressure is off you will be at the World Cup and we will be adding an extra team to the draw to make sure nobody else has to be ejected.

It is not clear how such plans would work, however.

(Photo: Isabella Bonotto/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The rest is here:
England and United States could face Ukraine at World Cup 2022 - The Athletic

When the war broke out in the early hours of 24 February, Oleksandr Petrakov, the manager of Ukraines mens national football team, chose not to leave his home in the capital, Kyiv, as the Russians advanced and shells dropped, but to try to join the fight.

My family told me to go to western Ukraine but I refused. I said: I am from Kyiv, I cant leave, says Petrakov. I didnt think it would be correct as people have to defend and I cant run. I thought, if they come to Kyiv I will pick up a weapon and defend my city.

He adds: I am 64 but I felt it was normal to do this. I think I could take two or three enemies out.

A Russian speaker from childhood, Petrakov now sticks to Ukrainian in public and while some are sad about Vladimir Putins war and others are angry, he admits to a more visceral emotion. Its just hate. It is not anger, but people hate those who invaded their land. We need time to calm down but for now it is just hate. They have broken our countries for years.

Petrakov tried to sign up to Ukraines territorial defence, the reservists being deployed across the country to fight the Russians. He spoke to a member of Ukraines government but was advised that his lack of military experience was an issue and that he might be better employed elsewhere.

I was told: You have to sign a contract and someone will command you. He said: I know you, that would be very hard. You dont need this, you are another kind of person. And Im 64, you understand?

Petrakov, who took over from the former Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko as manager last August, is instead trying to get Ukraines mens team, for all the horrors of the last five weeks, to this Novembers World Cup. The team were due to play Scotland in a play-off qualifier in Hampden Park in Glasgow on 24 March but it was postponed.

A new fixture is pencilled in for sometime in June. Petrakov says he believes it will be honoured although there are serious obstacles that he hopes the likes of Uefa and major European clubs such as Manchester United might help him overcome.

Competitive football is banned among those between 18 and 60 who can fight, under an order from Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Those who play their football in the domestic league are scattered across the country, unable to train properly. Petrakov initially proposed a training camp for those in the domestic league in the relative safety of western Ukraine.

But there is also shelling in western Ukraine. And if someone says that the national team training camp has started, the enemies could start shelling us. These people are without morals, or principles, and we couldnt risk our players. The Russians are not our brothers, they are the horde.

The Ukrainian football association is instead on Petrakovs advice trying to arrange with Uefa both a camp outside of Ukraine, possibly in the UK, and friendly fixtures with the likes of Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, with the proceeds of the games going to support the Ukrainian armed forces.

Petrakov says he has 11 players in his squad playing outside Ukraine, including the Premier League, but 26 inside who need match practice. We could play at Wembley, for example, against a London club. It could be a good exhibition game, a response for the Ukrainian army, as well as preparatory work for the Scotland game.

Petrakov says he needs five or six games to return his team to fitness. We have to play because without the [practice] games, it would be very hard to get to play with Scotland, he says.

He has weekly phone calls with players including the West Ham winger Andriy Yarmolenko and Manchester Citys midfielder Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Theyre calling to me, saying please be safe, we couldnt bear it if you were killed. Youre staying in dangerous zone. But it is easier here. If I were there, it would be harder. Mostly, all the parents of these players are staying in Ukraine. The players worry.

Other players and ex-internationals have joined in the fighting, including Andriy Bogdanov, 32, and Oleksandr Aliyev, 37.

The idea of Ukraine playing Russia on the football field again is anathema to Petrakov. I wouldnt want this to happen while I am still alive. I dont [want] to shake hands with these guys We have to build a great wall and do what we can do to separate from them.

Petrakov, who won the under-20 World Cup for Ukraine in 2019, is full of admiration for Zelenskiys leadership. When we won the cup, he had become president and he called up and I didnt even know his name and surname. I just called him my president, says Petrakov, laughing.

But the war rages on. Petrakovs daughter, Viktoria, 32, and son Yevhen, 41, and his four-year-old grandson are in relative safety in the west of the country. But in their flat in Kyiv, his wife, Irina, 66, struggles with the sounds of war.

She cant bear the shelling and explosions and at 8pm she goes down to the shelter with the dog. I stay in the flat. It would be better for me to fight somebody if I could.

The rest is here:
We could play at Wembley: Ukraine manager on war, the World Cup and his hatred of Russia - The Guardian

Taipei, Taiwan Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Taiwans security has been on the lips of policymakers and analysts the world over, amid predictions China could one day follow Moscows lead and attempt to take over the island nation.

Both Taiwan and Ukraine are young democracies, whose national identity and political independence face the threat of aggression from a neighbouring superpower.

Taiwan, however, has a little-discussed secret weapon that Ukraine did not have a dominance in manufacturing semiconductors that some analysts say could prove crucial in deterring an invasion by Beijing.

An invasion of Taiwan could trigger unprecedented global economic fallout due to the islands position as arguably the most vulnerable single point of failure in the technology value chain.

Taipeis silicon shield makes the stakes especially high for China. While Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to reclaim the self-ruled island by force if necessary, Beijing relies heavily on Taiwanese technology to power key industries that it is banking on to double its gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035.

Taiwans integrated deterrence strategy must keep this stark choice between national objectives for Beijing clear, Jared McKinney, a scholar at Air University, told Al Jazeera. Either conquer Taiwan or maintain economic prosperity.

A question delayed is an invasion denied, McKinney said.

Taiwan accounts for 92 percent of global production for semiconductor process nodes below 10 nanometres (1 nanometre is one-billionth of a metre), making it the main supplier of the vast majority of chips that power the worlds most advanced machines, from Apple iPhones to F-35 fighter jets.

A one-year disruption to the Taiwanese chip supply alone would cost global tech companies roughly $600bn, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group. In the event its manufacturing base was destroyed in a war, rebuilding production capacity elsewhere would take at least three years and $350bn, the study found.

China is good at algorithms, software, and market solutions, Ray Yang, a consulting director at Taiwans Industrial Technology Research Institute, told Al Jazeera. But their industry needs many high-performance computer (HPC) chips that they do not have.

If a conflict interrupted their supply, it would dramatically slow down Chinas AI and 6G ambitions, Yang said. They would have to reorder their entire industrial strategy.

That dependence could be further exploited by Taipei to buttress its national security, according to some military analysts.

McKinney, who stressed his views do not necessarily represent those of Air University or the US Air Force, said Taiwans silicon shield should be less a commitment device for American defence than a deterrent against Chinese aggression.

Last year McKinney and Peter Harris, an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University, published a paper on a broken nest strategy for deterring China. They proposed Taiwan could credibly threaten to destroy industry leader TSMCs infrastructure at the onset of an invasion, which would deny Beijing access to its chips and inflict serious damage to its economy.

McKinney said deterrence could be boosted further by instituting a multilateral semiconductor sanctions regime whereby the United States, South Korea, and Japan joined with Taiwan to halt semiconductor exports to China if it started a war.

If the ask is to sanction the whole Chinese economy, you might not get enough buy-in, he said, expressing doubt that conglomerates with deep exposure to Chinas market would pull out.

The comparatively modest scope of semiconductor sanctions makes them more credible as a deterrent, making it a warning signal Chinese policymakers cant ignore.

Though China remains dependent on Taiwanese tech for now, it is working hard to turn the tables amid allegations of talent poaching and intellectual property theft. Taiwan bans Chinese-funded companies from investing in high-end technology and those who violate incoming economic espionage laws could spend up to 12 years behind bars. Last month, Taiwan raided eight Chinese tech companies and interrogated 60 Chinese scouts who were allegedly trying to poach Taiwans top engineers.

The biggest threat to Taiwans continued technological dominance is talent poaching from mainland China, James Lee, an expert on US-Taiwan relations who will take up an academic post with Taiwans Academia Sinica later this year, told Al Jazeera.

So far, it [China] hasnt succeeded for high-end chips but it is plausible that they may succeed at some point, and given the sheer amount of resources that Beijing has at its disposal, Taiwans going to be under constant pressure.

Ross Feingold, a Taipei-based lawyer, told Al Jazeera IP theft is a particular concern.

Due to drawn-out court proceedings and slight penalties, the law does not inspire enough fear to deter individuals from routinely stealing trade secrets or insider information from firms, Feingold said.

However, Yang does not see this as a big worry for leading firms like TSMC.

They are very smart and have a very sophisticated system to protect their most sensitive information, he said.

Taiwans tech dominance affects Washingtons risk calculus, too. The US has no defence treaty with Taiwan, while the debate is heating up in Washington over whether it should maintain its long-held policy of strategic ambiguity or switch to strategic clarity.

I see US technological dependency on Taiwan as an effective and even preferable substitute to a policy of strategic clarity, Lee said.

It locks the United States into defending Taiwan to protect the islands semiconductor industry, but it doesnt mean that the United States is treating Taiwan as an ally or supporting Taiwans independence.

Yet, with Washington investing $52bn into reshoring chip manufacturing and homegrown hero Intel edging to become the worlds most advanced chipmaker again, the US may not be technologically dependent on Taiwan for long.

If the United States started manufacturing the worlds most advanced chips, that would make Taiwan less important to the United States and would consequently make the US less likely to defend Taiwan, but that is still very much a theoretical scenario, Lee said.

Intel might be able to reach this tier of elite manufacturers if there is substantial public and private investment in the United States over the course of the next 10-20 years, but even if that happens, its not likely to displace TSMC altogether.

Even if Intel catches up technologically, there is no guarantee industry players will not still prefer TSMC.

This is what Intel needs to deal with, Yang said. TSMC is fully trusted by its international partners since [unlike Intel] it does not have its own product and does not compete with them.

Global semiconductor making concentrated on the island thanks to three decades of globalisation that prioritised low costs and economies of scale. But now de-globalisation is very much under way as industrial and national leaders worldwide wake up to the reality of black swan events.

Adjusting to the new reality of supply chain vulnerability, leading firms are moving process capacity outside of Taiwan. TSMC will kick-start the construction of semiconductor fabrication plants in Arizona and Japans Kumamoto in 2024. Taiwans UMC, the worlds third-largest chipmaker, is due to open a plant in Singapore the same year.

Yang believes international firms that previously saved by offshoring manufacturing will seek to offset the costs of reshoring through technical breakthroughs that will be achieved with the assistance of Taiwan.

More and more players from up and down the supply chain are coming and setting up here to get closer to Taiwans ecosystem, be it Dutch lithographic equipment makers, Japanese chemical suppliers, and others, he said.

Taiwan will still lead the whole ecosystem because international players need to join with us to innovate the next generation of chips.

Read more from the original source:
Taiwans silicon shield: Why island may not be the next Ukraine - Al Jazeera English

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