Ukraine

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Retweeted by Barack Obama.

The New York Times.

Ukraine’s Refugee Crisis Is Unprecedented. The Response Must Be, Too.
By Sara Chodosh, Zach Levitt and Gus WezerekMarch 15, 2022

In the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, almost three million of the country’s 44 million residents have left the country.

The rate of the Ukrainian exodus is unprecedented in recent history. Europe’s response to the crisis has been similarly remarkable — both in its immediate generosity as well as in contrast to how poorly many European countries have treated refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

But the coming months are likely to be the real test of the West’s commitment to Ukraine. As Russian attacks increase in western Ukraine, experts estimate that the number of refugees could double. Leaders in Europe and the United States will need to start thinking about long-term resettlement efforts for the war’s victims.

Early refugees from Ukraine often had relatives outside the country and the means to reach them. That’s less likely to be true for people who decide to leave in the coming weeks, said Steve Gordon, a security adviser for the aid group Mercy Corps. “The next wave of refugees will need much more assistance,” he added.

The sudden arrival of millions of people who need housing, education and health care will challenge public services in European countries. So far, that challenge has fallen largely upon Ukraine’s neighbors to the west — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova — which are some of the poorest countries in Europe.

Moldova, for example, has one of Europe’s lowest gross domestic products per capita and a population of just over three million. The influx of tens of thousands of Ukrainians has put the country in “a very, very tight spot,” according to the country’s foreign minister.

If countries struggle to integrate Ukrainian refugees, goodwill could turn into apathy or even hostility. “We know that hospitality can wear out,” said Kathryn Mahoney, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency.

The Syrian refugee crisis shows how quickly public sympathy can wane. In 2015, newspapers published a photo of Alan Kurdi, a 2-year-old Syrian boy who drowned while his family was trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to escape the country’s civil war. Widespread outrage led to a hundredfold increase the following week in the number of donations to a Red Cross fund for Syria.

Within two months, however, donations had dropped back down to a trickle. Even when people are confronted with powerful, graphic images, their attention dissipates after a few weeks, said Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who has studied the “psychic numbing” that can occur after tragedies.

As sympathy for refugees fades, spite can fill the void.

Around 2015, Denmark took in more than 30,000 refugees from Syria. Recently, however, Danish authorities have revoked some of those people’s residency permits, despite reports that refugees who return to Syria have faced torture and sexual violence. Stripped of their right to live in Denmark, some of the country’s Syrian refugees have been detained for months in deportation centers, with no indication of when they will be permitted to leave.

Before psychic numbing sets in and the days of Russia’s invasion begin to blur together, world leaders must put comprehensive, durable protections in place for Ukrainian refugees.

The European Union is off to a good start. In a unanimous vote, the E.U. agreed to let most Ukrainians live, work and study across the bloc for up to three years.

Work should now begin on a plan to equitably resettle refugees across E.U. member states. Poland has already absorbed an incredible number of people; countries like Germany, France and Spain should be prepared to help millions more find homes, schools and health care. Every country must open its arms to Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians who were living in the country — some of whom have faced discrimination at the border.

“Hosting refugees is a global public good,” said David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee. “We need to share the responsibility.”

In the United States, President Biden has already granted Ukrainians the ability to remain and work in the country for 18 months. Those protections, however, apply only to Ukrainians who were already in the United States.

If the Biden administration is willing to arm Ukrainian fighters — whose victories benefit the United States by diminishing Russia’s real and perceived power — then it must also share responsibility for the Ukrainians whose homes are being shelled.

That will be difficult, but not impossible. Year after year, the Trump administration slashed the number of refugees that were allowed into the United States, forcing resettlement agencies to lay off employees and close offices.

To restaff those programs, Congress should pass the GRACE Act, which sets a minimum for the number of refugees that the United States takes in each year. That would help reassure potential hires that their jobs won’t disappear after the next presidential election.

In addition to bolstering the country’s refugee programs, President Biden should allow people fleeing Ukraine to live in the United States without a visa. So should Britain, which has issued a paltry 4,000 visas to Ukrainians as of Monday.

Ukrainians will likely need assistance for many years to come. History has shown that refugee situations almost inevitably last longer than they’re expected to.

If Russia’s war turns into a yearslong occupation, millions of Ukrainians could end up like Syria’s refugees, stranded in a legal, economic and emotional limbo. People who have already lost their homes and livelihoods will be robbed of their futures as well.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Almost every country has expressed solidarity with Ukraine. The outpouring of compassion is an opportunity to reset the way that refugees are treated, in Ukraine and around the world.

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Retweeted by Barack Obama. Part II

Why even a “limited” no-fly zone is a bad idea
There’s a new idea for a Ukraine no-fly zone. It doesn’t work any better than the old one.

By Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchampzack@vox.com Mar 10, 2022, 10:10am EST

#

Since the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine, calls for a NATO-imposed no-fly zone over Ukraine have been hampered by one big problem: Enforcing a no-fly zone would necessarily entail shooting at Russian planes and carry a significant risk of leading to a nuclear exchange. This argument has carried the day in the White House, which has repeatedly ruled out a no-fly zone or any other direct intervention in the war.

But as the war grinds on and casualties pile up, calls for a no-fly zone have grown, including in some influential circles.

Over the weekend, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) signaled openness to the idea, as have other members of Congress. On Tuesday, Politico published an open letter calling for a “limited” no-fly zone over parts of Ukraine signed by 27 leading experts, including a former supreme allied commander of NATO and two former US ambassadors to the alliance. The basic idea would be to deploy NATO assets to prevent Russian jets and helicopters from flying over certain parts of Ukraine to allow for refugee evacuation and the provision of humanitarian aid.

Calls for a limited no-fly zone suffer from the same basic problem as a broader campaign: You can’t implement one without greatly heightening the risk of nuclear escalation.

“I can only see two reasons [for proposing this]: They have no idea what they’re talking about or they’re posturing,” says Robert Farley, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky who studies airpower.

Moreover, there is no kind of no-fly zone — limited or otherwise — that would address the humanitarian crisis motivating such calls. Russia’s primary method of bombarding civilian-populated areas in this war has been artillery, not aircraft — which means that a Western intervention focused on shooting down planes would either prove ineffective or else escalate to something even more dangerous.

But the calls for a no-fly zone keep coming anyway: relics from prior wars waged under unquestioned American supremacy, unburdened by the prospect of great-power war and nuclear escalation.
Limited no-fly zones, explained
Before I explain what a limited no-fly zone is, let me explain what it is not. This:

Separately, some members of congress are beginning to advocate for a non-kinetic no-fly zone – something to the effect of using electromagnetic pulse, sonar, and cyber to keep Russian jets on the ground so they can never take off. Unclear how much support this will end up getting

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) March 7, 2022
Contra Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich’s sources, this technology doesn’t exist. Or as Dartmouth professor Jason Lyall tweeted, “This is magic. You’re talking about magic.” (Former Air Force officer and Virginia Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman put it even more colorfully: “chucklehead madness.”)

So what exactly is a no-fly zone? No-fly zones are a commitment to patrol and, if necessary, shoot down military aircraft that fly in the declared area, generally for the purpose of protecting civilians.

In Ukraine, that would mean the US and its NATO allies sending in jets to patrol Ukraine’s skies — and being willing to shoot down any Russian planes that enter protected airspace. Since Russian planes are flying combat missions in Ukraine and show no signs of stopping, any no-fly zone puts us on a direct path to a shooting war between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

Limited no-fly zones are supposed to be a way around this problem. By only operating in certain areas of Ukraine, they in theory limit the risk that NATO would need to fire on Russian aircraft to enforce their mandate.

To this end, the authors of the open letter argue that the US and its allies should only commit to protecting “humanitarian corridors” — slices of Ukrainian territory that Moscow and Kyiv have designated as routes for civilian evacuation and aid provision. Such corridors were employed in the Syrian civil war but were frequently violated by Syria and its Russian allies; Ukraine has already accused Russian forces of attacking designated areas in the current conflict.

The letter’s authors argue that a NATO commitment to protect those corridors would not lead to direct fighting with Russia, but would effectively deter the Russians from attacking them again: “What we seek is the deployment of American and NATO aircraft not in search of confrontation with Russia but to avert and deter Russian bombardment that would result in massive loss of Ukrainian lives.”

There are some dire problems with this logic.

First, it inflates the deterrent power of a no-fly zone. The assumption that Russia would be deterred from attacking these areas by a NATO presence flies in the face of past experience. After NATO imposed a no-fly zone over Bosnia in 1993, its jets had to shoot down Bosnian Serb aircraft that flew into the protected airspace. It is hard to imagine that President Putin’s Russia is significantly more afraid of confronting NATO than the vastly inferior Bosnian Serb forces.

Second, setting aside shootdowns of Russian planes, securing even a “limited” no-fly zone would likely require NATO to go on offense. As the Atlantic Council’s Damir Marusic points out, anti-aircraft batteries in Belarus and Russia have enough range to cover the entirety of Ukrainian airspace. Unless NATO pilots wanted to fly with the constant fear of being shot down, they would need to take those out. Attacking Russian territory, like shooting down their planes, is, of course, an act of war on Russia.

Third, a no-fly zone would in fact do relatively little to protect Ukrainian civilians. One of the more striking features of the Ukraine conflict to date has been the surprisingly limited role of Russia’s air force, which has flown only questionably effective missions in Ukrainian airspace. Russia has still bombarded civilian-populated areas, but has primarily done so using artillery rather than airstrikes. A no-fly zone might not even solve the crisis of Ukrainian civilians being pummeled by the Russian military.

All of these factors cast doubt on the desirability of any no-fly zone, limited or not.

If the mission stays restricted to simply denying Russia’s ability to fly in Ukrainian air space, it would almost certainly guarantee clashes with Russian aircraft and air defenses without even stopping the killing of civilians. Moreover, what could follow from that would be risky “mission creep”: The continued mass death could create significant pressure on the US and NATO to target Russian artillery, similar to the way that a 2011 no-fly zone in Libya swiftly escalated to a regime-change operation that ultimately toppled Muammar Qaddafi’s government.

There is, in short, no such thing as a “limited” no-fly zone in Ukraine. Either NATO is using its forces to deny airspace to Russian jets, or it is not. And if the US and its allies engage in such a mission, the logic of the mission inevitably militates toward war with Russia — with all of the risks of nuclear escalation that entails.

Ukraine and the “unipolarity hangover”
So if even a limited no-fly zone is obviously dangerous, why are some leading experts and members of Congress entertaining it?

For one thing, there’s no denying that the situation in Ukraine is horrible. The suffering on the ground and the appeals for intervention from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who just desperately wants NATO to help protect his country from a Russian invasion — have struck a chord.

But part of a no-fly zone’s appeal in Washington is grounded in a particular post-Cold War instinct. One helpful way of thinking about this comes from Nick Miller, a professor at Dartmouth who studies nuclear weapons. Miller warns that some American foreign policy thinkers suffer from what he terms a “unipolarity hangover,” defined as “a condition where the afflicted advocate policies feasible against weak adversaries but possibly suicidal against major power rivals.”

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Part II, 2.

Americans, to extend the metaphor, became drunk on power after the fall of the Cold War, becoming convinced that it could and should intervene in faraway conflicts to protect civilians and enforce its vision of global order. This led to campaigns shaped by liberal interventionism and the war on terror, such as the missions to stop mass killings in Kosovo and topple Saddam Hussein.

In the kind of wars that have preoccupied America for most of the post-Cold War period, policies like a no-fly zone made a certain kind of sense. Given the relatively rudimentary air forces and defense of America’s opponents, it was not difficult for the world’s leading airpower to seize control over the skies with few major risks. The question was not whether the United States could accomplish this goal, but whether it should.

When faced with a nuclear-armed major power, be it a rising China or even a militarily inferior Russia, the low-cost logic behind a no-fly zone doesn’t apply. American planes would have to contend with serious air defenses; regime change operations run a major risk of triggering nuclear annihilation.

With the “could” question largely foreclosed for these reasons, the “should” question no longer even comes into play. Yet Americans afflicted with a unipolarity hangover do not recognize this reality. They are still operating in a world of shoulds rather than coulds, one where the United States really can “do something” in the major conflicts of the day without risking unacceptable consequences.

This is not a question of morality versus interests, as foreign policy choices are so frequently framed. There is no coherent moral view in which it would be better to stop Russian planes from bombing Kyiv while significantly raising the risk of a nuclear war. Kyiv is, notably, located on planet Earth.

The poverty of the arguments for a no-fly zone in Ukraine, together with their continued prominence in public discourse, points to how many Americans still have unipolarity hangovers. Things would be better if they could sleep it off.

[IDF2]

And third, a reminder that in the face of brutal repression, there are ordinary Russians that are showing tremendous courage in standing up to a senseless, destructive war.



A protester stormed the set of a Russian evening live broadcast with a sign in English reading: "No War."

The woman, Marina Ovsyannikova, was an employee of the state-owned Channel One network in Moscow and was later detained and taken into custody, according to human rights group OVD-Info.

Her sign also included other messages in Russian reading, "Don't believe the propaganda" and "you are being lied to."

OVD-Info posted a pre-recorded video from Ovsyannikova after her protest where she said what's happening in Ukraine is a crime.

"Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of only one person and this person is Vladimir Putin," she said. "My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian, and they were never enemies."

What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day

'Minimal level of details': Fox News correspondent injured while covering Russia's invasion of Ukraine

❗️Девушка, которая вышла в кадр во время прямого эфира программы «Время» на Первом канале с антивоенным плакатом — сотрудница канала Марина Овсянникова.

После появления в эфире ее задержали. Сейчас она, предположительно, находится в ОВД «Останкино» pic.twitter.com/Z4AesCs80j

— ОВД-Инфо (@OvdInfo) March 14, 2022
She said she worked for Channel One over the last few years doing Kremlin propaganda and was now ashamed of it.

"I am ashamed that I allowed (Channel One) to tell lies from the TV screen. I am ashamed of letting Russian people get zombied," Ovsyannikova said. "We just quietly watched this antihuman regime."

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked her during a video address Monday night, according to the Guardian.

“I’m thankful to those Russians who don’t stop trying to deliver the truth, who are fighting against disinformation and tell real facts to their friends and families, and personally to that woman who went in the studio of Channel One with an antiwar poster,” he said.

OVD-Info presumed Ovsyannikova was taken to the Ostankino police department but did not know her whereabouts beyond that.

From Opinion: She's a hero who challenged Putin on live TV. Now she's in a Russian jail cell.

But CNN reported that a photo showing Ovsyannikova, whom they identified as a Channel One TV editor, in a Moscow court with one of her lawyers, Anton Gashinsky, was published on Telegram Tuesday afternoon.

Ovsyannikova was ordered to pay 30,000 rubles, or approximately $270, by Moscow's Ostankino District Court over charges of organizing unsanctioned actions. CNN reported that she was questioned for 14 hours before she appeared in court.

A new law passed by Russian lawmakers and Putin earlier this month could land her in prison for up to 15 years.

The law criminalized the intentional spread of information that goes against the government's narrative and words like "war" and "invasion" are not to be used. The country prefers for “special military operation” to describe what is happening in Ukraine.

"We are smart Russian people and it's only within our power to stop this madness," Ovsyannikova said at the end of the video. "Go out to protest, don't be afraid of anything. They can't arrest all of us."

Contributing: Celina Tebor and Christal Hayes

Follow reporter Asha Gilbert @Coastalasha. Email: agilbert@usatoday.com.

[Rockerman]

And third, a reminder that in the face of brutal repression, there are ordinary Russians that are showing tremendous courage in standing up to a senseless, destructive war.



A protester stormed the set of a Russian evening live broadcast with a sign in English reading: "No War."

The woman, Marina Ovsyannikova, was an employee of the state-owned Channel One network in Moscow and was later detained and taken into custody, according to human rights group OVD-Info.

Her sign also included other messages in Russian reading, "Don't believe the propaganda" and "you are being lied to."

OVD-Info posted a pre-recorded video from Ovsyannikova after her protest where she said what's happening in Ukraine is a crime.

"Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of only one person and this person is Vladimir Putin," she said. "My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian, and they were never enemies."

What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day

'Minimal level of details': Fox News correspondent injured while covering Russia's invasion of Ukraine

❗️Девушка, которая вышла в кадр во время прямого эфира программы «Время» на Первом канале с антивоенным плакатом — сотрудница канала Марина Овсянникова.

После появления в эфире ее задержали. Сейчас она, предположительно, находится в ОВД «Останкино» pic.twitter.com/Z4AesCs80j

— ОВД-Инфо (@OvdInfo) March 14, 2022
She said she worked for Channel One over the last few years doing Kremlin propaganda and was now ashamed of it.

"I am ashamed that I allowed (Channel One) to tell lies from the TV screen. I am ashamed of letting Russian people get zombied," Ovsyannikova said. "We just quietly watched this antihuman regime."

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked her during a video address Monday night, according to the Guardian.

“I’m thankful to those Russians who don’t stop trying to deliver the truth, who are fighting against disinformation and tell real facts to their friends and families, and personally to that woman who went in the studio of Channel One with an antiwar poster,” he said.

OVD-Info presumed Ovsyannikova was taken to the Ostankino police department but did not know her whereabouts beyond that.

From Opinion: She's a hero who challenged Putin on live TV. Now she's in a Russian jail cell.

But CNN reported that a photo showing Ovsyannikova, whom they identified as a Channel One TV editor, in a Moscow court with one of her lawyers, Anton Gashinsky, was published on Telegram Tuesday afternoon.

Ovsyannikova was ordered to pay 30,000 rubles, or approximately $270, by Moscow's Ostankino District Court over charges of organizing unsanctioned actions. CNN reported that she was questioned for 14 hours before she appeared in court.

A new law passed by Russian lawmakers and Putin earlier this month could land her in prison for up to 15 years.

The law criminalized the intentional spread of information that goes against the government's narrative and words like "war" and "invasion" are not to be used. The country prefers for “special military operation” to describe what is happening in Ukraine.

"We are smart Russian people and it's only within our power to stop this madness," Ovsyannikova said at the end of the video. "Go out to protest, don't be afraid of anything. They can't arrest all of us."

Contributing: Celina Tebor and Christal Hayes

Follow reporter Asha Gilbert @Coastalasha. Email: agilbert@usatoday.com.

To be fair I only read the first part. I think Europe has done enough for refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Europe is destined to become majority Islamic in lets say 50 years... maybe less. What more can Europe do? I don't believe Europe has favoured Ukraine because they are white...we are so obsessed with political correctness we wouldn't go that way.

[IDF2]

I have to say the above is very reasonable and worthy of a read. Maybe the hotheads (whom I am one) have read and taken note. I find president Obama not only very charismatic but also very reasonable.

[IDF2]

To be fair I only read the first part. I think Europe has done enough for refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Europe is destined to become majority Islamic in lets say 50 years... maybe less. What more can Europe do? I don't believe Europe has favoured Ukraine because they are white...we are so obsessed with political correctness we wouldn't go that way.

So do I except, for the moral obligation to take in pollical refugees. What annoyed me about Syria was the majority (it seemed that way if you saw the ports) was fighting age males fleeing their country. I would die defending mine. So fuck right off. That is one of the reasons I'm 100% behind the Ukraine (behind a long list) because they are defending their country from the Russian hordes.

[philipkntz]

So do I except, for the moral obligation to take in pollical refugees. What annoyed me about Syria was the majority (it seemed that way if you saw the ports) was fighting age males fleeing their country. I would die defending mine. So fuck right off. That is one of the reasons I'm 100% behind the Ukraine (behind a long list) because they are defending their country from the Russian hordes.

I couldn't have said it better myself except that I'll always be of fighting age, well as long as I can remember who the enemy is anyway.

[Father]

So do I except, for the moral obligation to take in pollical refugees. What annoyed me about Syria was the majority (it seemed that way if you saw the ports) was fighting age males fleeing their country. I would die defending mine. So fuck right off. That is one of the reasons I'm 100% behind the Ukraine (behind a long list) because they are defending their country from the Russian hordes.

"So fuck right off", A cead mile failte!
Everybody says "I'd die for my country" in peace time. Read some diaries or accounts of war and youl see most of us cower, cry and try to run. Don't be so quick to judge those fleeing terror as experienced in Syria and other parts of the global south..

[IDF2]

"So fuck right off", A cead mile failte!
Everybody says "I'd die for my country" in peace time. Read some diaries or accounts of war and youl see most of us cower, cry and try to run. Don't be so quick to judge those fleeing terror as experienced in Syria and other parts of the global south..

I'm not but the amount a young men coming from Syria was disturbing. Where were their families? No such ambiguity with the Ukrainian people.

I did not mean to flippant.